How popular is the baby name Pauline 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 Pauline.

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Popularity of the baby name Pauline


Posts that mention the name Pauline

26 Girl names from 1916

In early 1916, Photoplay Magazine came up with a list of potential titles for serial films using the formula established by The Perils of Pauline (1914), The Exploits of Elaine (1914), and The Hazards of Helen (1914).

(Just a few months after the above was published, The Mysteries of Myra came out.)

Which of those 26 names — Abigail, Bertha, Calpurnia, Delilah, Evangeline, Florence, Garnet, Hazel, Imogene, Jezebel, Kitty, Lizzie, Margaret, Nancy, Orillia, Priscilla, Queenie, Roberta, Sibyl, Theodosia, Ursula, Victoria, Winifred, Xanthippe, Yetta or Zira — do you like best?

And, which of those serials would you be most likely to watch? :)

Source: “Not-Yet Serials.” Photoplay Magazine Jan. 1916: 72.

The Dionne quintuplets…and their 9 other siblings

dionne family
Most of the Dionne family

The Dionne quintuplets — the first set of quints known to survive infancy — were born in Ontario, Canada, on May 28, 1934. But identical sisters Yvonne, Annette, Cecile, Emilie and Marie weren’t the only children in the Dionne family. Over the course of 20 years, parents Oliva-Edouard and Elzire Dionne had a total of 14 children — 6 before the quints, 3 after.

Here are the names and birth years of all 14:

  1. Ernest (1926)
  2. Rose (1928)
  3. Therese (1929)
  4. Leo (1930)
  5. Daniel (1932)
  6. Pauline (1933)
  7. * Yvonne (1934)
  8. * Annette (1934)
  9. * Cecile (1934)
  10. * Emilie (1934)
  11. * Marie (1934)
  12. Oliva Jr. (1936)
  13. Victor (1938)
  14. Claude (1946)

Which of these names do you like most?

Sources: Dionne Quintuplets – Wikipedia, The Story of the Dionne Quintuplets

Vermont family with 23 children

kinderfest

In 1872, The Burlington Free Press printed a story about a 98-year-old widow in Vermont who’d given birth to 23 children.

Marie Abert was born in Quebec in 1773 and married her late husband, Francois Peppin, at the age of 17. They left Canada for Vermont in 1838.

It was noticeable, in conversation with the old lady, that while her memory of the names and ages of her elder children was quite distinct, her recollection of the latter ones who have died grew indistinct, after the fifteenth or sixteenth, and the names of four she was unable to give us.

Here are the names of most of her children:

1. Francois
2. Antoine
3. Marie
4. Jean Baptise
5. Pierre
6. Joseph
7. Oliver
8. Pauline (twin)
9. Clemence (twin)
10. Julia
11. Andrew
12. Timothy
13. Hortense
14. Clemence
15. Zoe
16. “After Zoe came four children, two boys and two girls, all of whom died young.”
17. ?
18. ?
19. ?
20. Bruno
21. Paul
22. Seth
23. ? (boy)

Marie and Francois also had at least 99 grandchildren and 98 great-grandchildren.

Which of the 23 names — the ones that are known, anyway — is your favorite?

Source: “A Large Family.” New York Times 6 Jun. 1872.

Image: Ein Kinderfest (1868) by Ludwig Knaus

Starlet names from the early 1900s

WAMPAS baby stars 1928

Ever heard of the WAMPAS Baby Stars?

They were young actresses on the cusp of movie stardom back in the 1920s and 1930s.

About 13 Baby Stars were selected by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers every year from 1922 to 1934 (minus 1930 and 1933).

Some of those young women did indeed achieve stardom. Among the Baby Stars were Clara Bow (’24), Mary Astor (’26), Joan Crawford (’26), Fay Wray (’26) and Ginger Rogers (’32).

I thought the names of the Baby Stars — the oldest of whom were born in the final years of the 1800s, the youngest of whom were born in the mid-1910s — would make an interesting set. But I wanted birth names, not stage names, so I tracked down as many birth names as I could. Here’s the result, sorted by frequency (i.e., seven women were named Dorothy).

  • 7: Dorothy
  • 6: Helen
  • 4: Elizabeth
  • 3: Frances, Ruth, Virginia
  • 2: Anita, Ann, Barbara, Betty, Clara, Doris, Dorothea, Eleanor, Evelyn, Gladys, Gwendolyn, Hazel, Jacqueline, Katherine, Laura, Louise, Lucille, Margaret, Maria, Marian, Marie, Marion, Mary, Patricia, Violet
  • 1: Adamae, Alberta, Alma, Anne, Audrey, Augusta, Blanche, Carmelita, Caryl, Constance, Derelys, Dolores, Duane, Edna, Eleanor, Ena, Enriqueta, Ethel, Ethlyne, Evalyn, Flora, Gisela, Gloria, Gretchen, Hattie, Helene, Ina, Ingeborg, Jacquiline, Jean, Joan, Jobyna, Josephine, Juanita, Julanne, Kathleen, Kathryn, Kitty, Launa, Laurette, Lena, Lenore, Lilian, Lola, Lu Ann, Lucile, Madeline, Marceline, Martha, Mildred, Myrna, Natalia, Natalie, Nellie, Neoma, Olive, Olivia, Patsy, Rita, Rochelle, Rose, Sally, Suzanne, Sidney, Toshia, Vera, Vina

And here are the leftover stage names:

  • 5: Sally
  • 4: Mary
  • 3: Joan, June
  • 2: Betty, Jean, Judith, Pauline
  • 1: Alice, Bessie, Boots, Claire, Colleen, Dolores, Dorothy, Elinor, Evelyn, Fay, Frances, Gigi, Ginger, Gladys, Gloria, Gwen, Iris, Janet, Joyce, Julie, Karen, Kathleen, Lila, Lina, Lois, Lona, Loretta, Lucille, Lupe, Marian, Molly, Mona, Natalie, Patricia, Sue

(Often stage names were the real-life middle names of these women.)

Finally, a few interesting details:

  • “Derelys” was Derelys Perdue, whose first name at birth was actually Geraldine. I’m not sure how she came up with her stage name, but, in March of 1923, her film studio (FBO) tried to re-rename her “Ann.” (They’d sponsored a name contest in a magazine called Film Fun. The winner got $50.) Derelys brought an injunction against the studio in April to prevent the name change from happening, and the story ended up in the newspapers. This extra visibility is likely what boosted the name Derelys into the U.S. baby name data for the first and only time in 1924.
  • “Jobyna” was Jobyna Ralston, who was named for actress Jobyna Howland, daughter of a man named Joby Howland. The name Jobyna debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1927.
  • “Sidney” was Sidney Fox, a female who was given the name Sidney long before the name (in particular, the spelling Sydney) became trendy for baby girls.

Which of all the names listed above do you like best? Why?

Sources: