The baby name Gilda achieved its highest ranking in 1927, thanks to shimmying Gilda Gray. But it didn’t reach peak numerical usage until two decades later:
- 1948: 281 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 479th]
- 1947: 346 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 441st]
- 1946: 305 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 442nd]
- 1945: 68 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 920th]
- 1944: 61 baby girls named Gilda [rank: 994th]
Why did the usage of Gilda more than quadruple in 1946 (which, admittedly, was the first year of the baby boom)?
Because of the hit movie Gilda, which was released in April of that year.
The movie was a “dark and twisted love story” set in Buenos Aires. It involved gambler Johnny Farrell (played by Glenn Ford), who worked for casino owner Ballin Mundson (played by George Macready), whose new wife just so happened to be Johnny’s ex-lover Gilda (played by Rita Hayworth).
A classic of film noir, Gilda featured Hayworth as the quintessential “noir woman,” a duplicitous temptress and an abused victim in equal measure.
Hayworth’s portrayal of the the seductive Gilda turned the actress “into one of the cinema’s most unforgettable and enduring sex goddesses.”
Several months after the release of Gilda, the world’s fourth atomic bomb detonation (the first during peacetime) occurred above Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Servicemen had nicknamed the bomb Gilda — a nod to Hayworth’s status as a bombshell — and stenciled “Gilda” on the side of the explosive. They even affixed an image of Rita Hayworth (cut out of Esquire magazine) below the stenciled name.
This spontaneous tribute earned Miss Hayworth nearly as much international publicity as the fearsome “Gilda” got for itself by exploding on schedule. To Miss Hayworth’s studio it amounted to the most literally earth-shaking free plug in the history of the world.
Which name do you like more, Gilda or Rita?
Sources:
- Gilda – Wikipedia
- Rita Hayworth – Britannica
- Gilda (1946) – Turner Classic Movies
- Atomic Goddess Revisited: Rita Hayworth’s Bomb Image Found! – CONELRAD Adjacent
- “Carmen Hayworth.” Newsweek 23 Aug. 1948: 78.
- SSA
Image: Screenshot of Gilda
