How popular is the baby name Elspeth in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Elspeth.

The graph will take a few moments to load. (Don't worry, it shouldn't take 9 months!) If it's taking too long, try reloading the page.


Popularity of the baby name Elspeth


Posts that mention the name Elspeth

What gave the baby name Thomasina a boost in 1964?

Title of the movie "The Three Lives of Thomasina" (1963)
“The Three Lives of Thomasina“

According to the U.S. baby name data, usage of the name Thomasina (pronounced tom-ah-SEE-nah) increased in 1964 and peaked two years later:

  • 1967: 59 baby girls named Thomasina
  • 1966: 85 baby girls named Thomasina (peak usage)
  • 1965: 75 baby girls named Thomasina
  • 1964: 76 baby girls named Thomasina
  • 1963: 46 baby girls named Thomasina
  • 1962: 51 baby girls named Thomasina

What was influencing this name in the mid-1960s?

The live-action Disney movie The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963), which went into wide release in June of 1964.

The Three Lives of Thomasina was set in early 20th century Scotland and featured an orange tabby cat named Thomasina (whose voice-overs were performed by English actress Elspeth March).

At the start of the film, Thomasina lived with 7-year-old Mary MacDhui and Mary’s widowed father. After going through a traumatic experience, though, Thomasina not only became separated from Mary, but also lost her memory. Would she ever find her way back home?

In November of 1965, over the course of three weeks, The Three Lives of Thomasina was broadcast on television as part of Disney’s popular anthology series (known as Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color during most of the ’60s).

What are your thoughts on the name Thomasina?

P.S. The name Perri was also influenced by an animal in a live-action Disney movie…

Sources: The Three Lives of Thomasina – Wikipedia, List of Walt Disney anthology television series episodes (seasons 1–29) – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Screenshot of The Three Lives of Thomasina

Baby name story: Handa

Puffins on Handa Island (Scotland)

English ornithologist Reynold Bray, “an Arctic explorer of considerable achievement and much promise,” was traveling through northern Canada with Scottish glaciologist Patrick Baird when he was lost at sea in 1938.

On 14 September, their engine broke down about 65 kilometres south of Igloolik and Baird waded ashore to get some water to make tea. But when he returned to shore after an hour’s hike inland, the tide was too high for his hip waders, so he called to Bray [to] use their collapsible dinghy to bring a line ashore. Bray tried, but took only a single oar with him and was swept away in heavy seas, never to be seen again.

A month earlier, on August 10, a baby girl had been born to Reynold’s wife Gillian back in England.

Notice was cabled to Bray at Churchill [in Manitoba] where he was waiting to embark upon what proved to be his last expedition. At his request the child was named Handa, after a bird island off the northwest coast of Scotland that he and Mrs. Bray had visited the previous May.

Handa Island’s Scottish Gaelic name, Eilean Shannda, is of mixed Gaelic/Norse etymology and means “island at the sandy river.” These days, Handa Island is a wildlife reserve.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Handa?

P.S. Pat Baird married Bray’s widow in early 1940, and they went on to have four more children: Neil (1941), Kirsty (1943), Elspeth (1947), and Anna (1948).

P.P.S. Handa Bray inherited Shere Manor Estate in Surrey in 1964. Currently, she is the fifteenth — and first female — Lord of the Manor.

Sources:

  • Birds of Nunavut, Vol. 1. Ed. by James M. Richards, Anthony J. Gaston. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2018.
  • “Explorer’s Baby Named After Island.” Geraldton Guardian and Express [Australia] 17 Jan 1939: 4.
  • “Mr. Reynold Bray.” Nature 4 Mar. 1939.
  • Roberts, Thomas S., T. S. Palmer and W. L. McAtee. “Obituaries.” The Auk Vol. 57, No. 1 (Jan., 1940), pp. 137-140.
  • Handa Island – Wikipedia

Image: Puffins by Donald Macauley under CC BY-SA 2.0.