While we’re mulling over the case of Laquita, I’ll throw out another mystery baby name: Nerine.
Nerine was in the U.S. baby name data for four years in a row:
- 1921: unlisted
- 1920: 6 baby girls named Nerine
- 1919: 13 baby girls named Nerine
- 1918: 17 baby girls named Nerine
- 1917: 43 baby girls named Nerine (the #1 debut name for girls)
- 1916: unlisted
A variant, Nerene, also popped up in the data in 1917 and 1918:
- 1919: unlisted
- 1918: 7 baby girls named Nerene
- 1917: 11 baby girls named Nerene [debut]
- 1916: unlisted
What else can I tell you about Nerine? Well, it’s a flower name based on the word Nereid, a form of Nereus. It’s also the name of a consort of Mars, Nerine/Nerio (different etymology).
But I have no idea what made it fashionable in 1917. I can’t find a pop culture explanation, and usage of Norene/Noreen/Norine didn’t spike that year, so there wasn’t any piggybacking involved.
Thoughts?
Update, Mar. 2025: I think Anonymous has figured it out!
A story called Nerine’s Second Choice, by Adelaide Stirling, was serialized in Comfort magazine during 1917. (Here are direct links to the nine installments: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September.)
Comfort, though not well-known today, had a circulation of well over 1 million at the time.
And the story, curiously, wasn’t new — it was first published in the late 1890s. (Comfort reprinted several of Adelaide Stirling’s previously published stories during the 1910s, in fact.)
Thank you so much to Anonymous for piecing this together, and to everyone else who offered theories about the debut of Nerine in 1917!
Sources: Comfort (magazine) – Wikipedia, SSA
Second image: Clipping from Comfort magazine (Jan. 1917)