How popular is the baby name Invicta 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 Invicta.

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Popularity of the baby name Invicta


Posts that mention the name Invicta

What popularized the baby name Venetia in the late 1950s?

Actress Venetia Stevenson (1938-2022)
Venetia Stevenson

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Venetia — which was the fastest-rising baby name of 1956 — saw its highest usage in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

  • 1963: 28 baby girls named Venetia
  • 1962: 45 baby girls named Venetia
  • 1961: 56 baby girls named Venetia
  • 1960: 89 baby girls named Venetia
  • 1959: 84 baby girls named Venetia
  • 1958: 99 baby girls named Venetia
  • 1957: 84 baby girls named Venetia
  • 1956: 45 baby girls named Venetia
  • 1955: 7 baby girls named Venetia
  • 1954: 11 baby girls named Venetia

What was drawing attention to the name during those years?

Pin-up model and actress Venetia (pronounced ven-EE-sha) Stevenson.

In August of 1955, several memorable photos of 17-year-old Venetia and her boyfriend, actor Russ Tamblyn, were published in Life magazine. (In all four photos, acrobatic Russ was upside-down, usually in mid-air.)

Russ Tamblyn and Venetia Stevenson (in 1955)
Russ & Venetia

Several months later, on Valentine’s Day of 1956, the couple got married at the Wayfarers Chapel in Palos Verdes, California.

They were in the news again when they divorced in April of the following year.

In mid-1957, television host Ed Sullivan teamed up with Popular Photography magazine to find the “Most Photogenic Girl in the World.” The winner? Venetia Stevenson, who beat out 1,691 other contenders. She was presented with an award on an episode of The Ed Sullivan Show in early August, then featured on the cover of Popular Photography in September.

Venetia Stevenson in "Popular Photography magazine (Sept. 1957)
Venetia in “Popular Photography“

From 1958 to 1961, Venetia appeared on about a dozen TV shows (including Cheyenne, Colt .45, and 77 Sunset Strip) and in around 10 films (including one in which she co-starred with Audie Murphy).

She quit acting upon marrying Don Everly of The Everly Brothers in 1962. (She’d met Don and Phil on Ed Sullivan.)

Venetia Stevenson was born Joanna Venetia Invicta Stevenson in London in 1938 to film director Robert Stevenson and actress Anna Lee. (Her birth was reported in the papers, and there was a corresponding spike in the number of baby girls named Venetia in England and Wales that year.) The Stevenson family relocated to Hollywood in 1939.

The Latin word “Venetia” originally referred to an ancient region in northeastern Italy (roughly equivalent to the modern region of Veneto). The region was named after its inhabitants, the Veneti.

What are your thoughts on name Venetia?

P.S. During the 1960s, Venetia Stevenson and Don Everly welcomed three children: Stacy Dawn, Erin Invicta, and Edan Donald. Erin, who was in a tumultuous relationship with Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose for several years, inspired Rose to write the hit song “Sweet Child o’ Mine” (1988).

P.P.S. Here’s a suspicious fact: In the spring of 1959, Don Everly and his first wife, Mary Sue, welcomed a baby named Venetia Ember. Where did her first name come from? “Venetia Stevenson, whom Don had met in New York when the brothers were there for an Ed Sullivan gig in 1957.”

Sources:

Images: Clippings from Silver Screen magazine (Oct. 1956), Life magazine (1 Aug. 1955), and Popular Photography magazine (Sept. 1957)

How did “How Green Was My Valley” influence baby names in the early 1940s?

Movie poster for "How Green Was My Valley" (1941)
“How Green Was My Valley” poster

Richard Llewellyn’s 1939 novel How Green Was My Valley told the story of a Welsh coal-mining family during the late 19th century.

The story’s narrator was schoolboy Huw Morgan, eighth of nine* siblings, and the symbolic greenness of the valley referred to the fact that, over the course of the Huw’s life, the valley where he lived changed color from green to black due to the mining.

In 1940, How Green Was My Valley was the best-selling book of the year, and it won the National Book Award for fiction.

In late 1941, a Hollywood film based on the book was released. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards and ended up winning in five categories, including Best Picture.

Thanks to the book and the movie, two Welsh names (and one sort-of Welsh name) ended up appearing in the U.S. baby name data.

The character Angharad (played by Maureen O'Hara) in the movie "How Green Was My Valley" (1941)
Angharad

Let’s go alphabetically, starting with Angharad (pronounced ahn-HAHR-ahd). In the story, Angharad (played by Maureen O’Hara in the film) was Huw’s older sister.

The name Angharad was a one-hit wonder in the data in 1943:

  • 1945: unlisted
  • 1944: unlisted
  • 1943: 5 baby girls named Angharad [debut]
  • 1942: unlisted
  • 1941: unlisted
  • 1940: unlisted

While the name didn’t catch on in the U.S., one name-book notes that it “has been strongly revived in Wales since the 1940s.”

The middle element of Angharad has the same root as the Welsh word caru, meaning “love.”

The character Bronwyn (played by Anna Lee) in the movie "How Green Was My Valley" (1941)
Bronwyn

Next we have the names Bronwen and Bronwyn. The first appeared in 1941:

  • 1945: 10 baby girls named Bronwen
  • 1944: 8 baby girls named Bronwen
  • 1943: 9 baby girls named Bronwen
  • 1942: 8 baby girls named Bronwen
  • 1941: 7 baby girls named Bronwen [debut]
  • 1940: unlisted

And the second followed in 1942:

  • 1945: 20 baby girls named Bronwyn
  • 1944: 9 baby girls named Bronwyn
  • 1943: 10 baby girls named Bronwyn
  • 1942: 9 baby girls named Bronwyn [debut]
  • 1941: unlisted
  • 1940: unlisted

In the story, Bronwen/Bronwyn was Huw’s sister-in-law (the wife of his brother Ivor).

For the book, the name was spelled Bronwen, which is the traditional form of the name. It can be traced back to Welsh elements meaning “breast” (bron) and “white, fair; blessed, holy” (gwen).

But for the movie, the name was respelled Bronwyn, inexplicably. The film character Bronwyn (played by Anna Lee†) was typically called “Bron.”

Notably, one of the babies named after the character was Maureen O’Hara’s only child, Bronwyn, born in 1944. Her birth is likely what boosted the -wyn spelling ahead of the -wen spelling in 1945.

Which Welsh name do you like more, Angharad or Bronwen?

*The nine Morgan siblings, in order, were Ivor, Ianto, Davy, Owen, Gwilym Jr., Angharad, Ceridwen, Huw, and Olwen.

†Anna Lee’s five children were named Joanna Venetia Invicta, Caroline, John, Stephen, and Timothy.

Sources:

Images: Movie poster for How Green Was My Valley; screenshots of How Green Was My Valley

Celebrity baby name story: Caroline

English actress Anna Lee and her first husband, director Robert Stevenson, welcomed their second* baby girl in 1942. The baby was named Caroline after the character Anna Lee portrayed in her first Hollywood film, My Life With Caroline (1941).

Source: “Anna Lee’s Daughter Named for Film Role at Christening.” Los Angeles Times 27 Apr. 1942: A3.

*The first baby girl was given the curious middle name Invicta.

Baby name story: Invicta

Rearing horse and the word "Invicta"

I recently discovered that Axl Rose (the vocalist for the rock band Guns N’ Roses) was briefly married to a woman with the interesting name Erin Invicta Everly. Invicta is a form of the Latin word invictus, which means “unconquered.”

What’s the story behind her middle name?

Well, Erin was born in 1965 to musician Don Everly (of The Everly Brothers) and actress Venetia Stevenson — full name Joanna Venetia Invicta Stevenson.

Venetia, in turn, was born in 1938 to director Robert Stevenson and actress Anna Lee (best known for portraying Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital).

Anna Lee is the one who came up with Invicta. Here’s what she said in her memoir:

Venetia’s middle name, Invicta, meaning “invincible,” came from a childhood memory. I used to watch the street being repaired, and I loved the smell of the thick, black tar as it was poured over the gravel and then flattened and smoothed by a giant steamroller. It was the huge, formidable steamroller that fascinated me. On the front of this piece of machinery was a brass plaque of a horse, rearing up, with the word “Invicta” beneath it.

Interesting, isn’t it? Certainly one of the most vivid baby name stories I’ve seen in a while.

The steamroller would have been an Aveling-Barford steamroller.

The company, established as Aveling and Porter in the 1860s, was based in Kent (which is where Anna Lee was born). It used Kent’s motto, “Invicta,” and the rearing horse from Kent’s coat of arms on its steamrollers and other equipment.

Flag of Kent
Flag of Kent

Anna Lee’s memoir also mentions that Venetia’s first name was inspired by a portrait of Venetia Stanley (1600-1633) that Anna had seen at Sherborne Castle in Dorset.

P.S. The “White Horse of Kent” dates back to the early medieval Kingdom of Kent. Some say it was originally the emblem of Horsa (of the legendary brothers Hengist and Horsa).

Sources:

Image: Adapted from 1871 Aveling and Porter traction engine 04 by Oxyman under CC BY 2.5.