How popular is the baby name Seena 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 Seena.

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Popularity of the baby name Seena


Posts that mention the name Seena

What brought the baby name Aloma back in the early 1940s?

Movie poster for "Aloma of the South Seas" (1941)
“Aloma of the South Seas” poster

In 1941, the name Aloma re-emerged in the U.S. baby name data after a brief absence. It went on to achieve peak usage the very next year:

  • 1944: 40 baby girls named Aloma
  • 1943: 103 baby girls named Aloma [rank: 762nd]
  • 1942: 147 baby girls named Aloma [rank: 616th]
  • 1941: 47 baby girls named Aloma
  • 1940: unlisted
  • 1939: unlisted

It also managed to reach the girls’ top 1,000 twice.

What was drawing attention to the name Aloma around that time?

The movie Aloma of the South Seas, which was released in August of 1941.

The main character was Tanoa (played by Jon Hall), a young man from a tropical island in the Pacific Ocean. After spending many years abroad, Tanoa returned home upon the death of his father, the chief. Soon after, Tanoa fell in love with a fellow islander named Aloma (Dorothy Lamour). But Tanoa also had a villainous cousin named Revo (Philip Reed), who coveted both the lady and the throne…

Plot-wise, the movie didn’t have much in common with the 1926 silent film of the same name, which featured dancer Gilda Gray as Aloma. The original film was based on the Broadway play Aloma of the South Seas (1925) by LeRoy Clemens and John B. Hymer.

The 1941 version did, however, end with a spectacular volcanic eruption. It also earned a pair of Academy Award nominations (for cinematography and special effects). Oh, and one of the screenwriters happened to be former actress Seena Owen.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Aloma?

Sources: Aloma of the South Seas (1941 film) – Wikipedia, Aloma of the South Seas (1941) – TCM, SSA

Image: Movie poster for Aloma of the South Seas

Vision-inspired baby names for 2020

eyeglasses

Most of the babies conceived during 2019 will be born during 2020 — a year that happens to mirror 20/20 (twenty-twenty), the term we use for perfect vision. It’s such a strong association that, just for fun, I put together a list of vision-related baby names for all those parents anticipating the arrival of 2020 babies…

  • Aisling, Irish, “vision” or “dream.”
  • Basar, Arabic, “sight.”
  • Butta-kuz, Mongolian, “camel eyes.” Implies “wide, beautiful eyes” like Maha and Najla, below.
  • Charopus, ancient Greek, “glad-eyed” or “bright-eyed.” Also spelled Charops.
  • Daisy, from Old English dægeseage, “day’s eye.” Daisies open during the day and close at night.
  • Drishti, Hindi, “gaze.”
  • Hawkeye, originally a character in The Last of the Mohicans (1826).
  • Hitomi, Japanese, “pupil [of the eye].” Can mean other things as well, though, depending on the kanji.
  • Lochan/Lochana, Hindi, “eye.”
  • Maha, Arabic, “wide, beautiful eyes.” Refers to either wild cow eyes or oryx eyes specifically.
  • Maka, Hawaiian, “eyes.” Also: Namaka, “the eyes,” and Makanui, “big eyes.”
  • Mantius/Manto (masc./fem.), from ancient Greek mantis, “seer, prophet.”
  • Najla, Arabic, “wide, beautiful eyes.” Refers to either wild cow eyes or oryx eyes specifically. Also spelled Nagla.
  • Nayan, Hindi, “eye.”
  • Nayra, Aymara, “eye,” “sight,” or “past.”
  • Nazir, Arabic, “observant” or “spectator.” Can mean other things as well, though.
  • Panope/Panopea, ancient Greek, “all-seeing.”
  • Rana, Arabic, “eye-catching.”
  • Ruya, Arabic, “vision” or “dream.”
  • Sibyl, ancient Greek, “prophetess.” Also spelled Sybil.
  • Sullivan, anglicized Irish surname, “descendant of the little dark-eyed one.”
  • Tarisai, Shona, “look at, behold.”
  • Vision, which began appearing in the U.S. baby name data nearly 20 years ago.

And here are some names that simply begin with the word see:

  • Seeley/Seely
  • Seerat/Seerit
  • Seela
  • Seema
  • Seena
  • Seeta
  • Seeya

Finally, a few Esperanto words that could potentially be used as baby names:

  • Vidi, “see.”
  • Vidinda, “worth seeing.”
  • Vido, “sight, view.”
  • Vizio, “vision.”

Which of the names above do you like best?

If you’re expecting a baby in 2020, will you consider using a vision-themed baby name?

Image: Adapted from Arterio Rough by Faoflex under CC BY-SA 4.0.

“Ziegfeld Follies” baby names: Allyn & Avonne

Ziegfeld Follies, which appeared on Broadway almost every year from 1907 until 1931, was an extravagant production that included music, dance and comedy.

The biggest draw, though, was the bevy of beautiful showgirls.

It became a popular sport to guess which one would break out and become the next big star, like onetime showgirls Barbara Stanwyck, Paulette Goddard, Gypsy Rose Lee, Josephine Baker, and of course, Marilyn Miller.

Several Follies girls went on to enjoy successful careers in entertainment, but only two — Allyn King and Avonne Taylor — inspired debuts in the U.S. baby name data.

In fact, Allyn and Avonne are the 4th- and 5th-earliest actor-inspired baby name debuts that I know of (after Francelia, Ormi and Seena).

Allyn

Allyn King in Picture-Play Magazine, July 1923
Allyn King in Picture-Play, Jul. 1923

Allyn King was born in North Carolina in February of 1899. It looks as though she was named after her father, Allen. (Her sister, Phoebe, was named after their mother.)

Allyn was a Follies girl from 1916 until 1920, and the name Allyn — which was already showing up regularly on the SSA’s list as a boy name — debuted as a girl name in 1918:

  • 1926: 5 baby girls named Allyn
  • 1925: 11 baby girls named Allyn
  • 1924: 5 baby girls named Allyn
  • 1923: 7 baby girls named Allyn
  • 1922: unlisted
  • 1921: 5 baby girls named Allyn
  • 1920: unlisted
  • 1919: unlisted
  • 1918: 7 baby girls named Allyn [debut]
  • 1917: unlisted

(I can’t include Social Security Death Index data for unisex names like this one because the SSDI doesn’t code for gender, making it impossible to know for sure which people are male and which are female.)

Allyn King continued to appear in Broadway shows during the 1920s, and she was in one silent film in 1923.

But the pressure to achieve the skinny, boyish figure that was fashionable during the ’20s proved too much for her. Extreme dieting nearly killed her in 1927, and, after spending almost two years recovering in a sanatorium, she was still so depressed in early 1930 that she jumped out of a 5th story window in New York City. She died two days later.

Avonne

Avonne Taylor in Photoplay, July 1927
Avonne Taylor in Photoplay,
Jul. 1927

Avonne Taylor was born in Ohio, also in February of 1899, to parents Clifford and Diana. Her birth name was Evangeline, but she joined the Follies under the name Avonne. (I’m not sure how she came up with it.)

Avonne was a Follies girl from 1920 to 1922, and the name Avonne debuted on the SSA’s list in 1923:

  • 1928: 9 baby girls named Avonne
  • 1927: 12 baby girls named Avonne
  • 1926: 6 baby girls named Avonne
  • 1925: 12 baby girls named Avonne
  • 1924: 17 baby girls named Avonne
  • 1923: 11 baby girls named Avonne [debut]
  • 1922: unlisted

Though the name was in use before 1923, it was too rare to appear in the publicly available SSA data. Here’s SSDI data from the same time period, for comparison:

  • 1928: 3 people named Avonne
  • 1927: 6 people named Avonne
  • 1926: 2 people named Avonne
  • 1925: 9 people named Avonne
  • 1924: 11 people named Avonne
  • 1923: 13 people named Avonne
  • 1922: 4 people named Avonne
  • 1921: unlisted
  • 1920: 1 person named Avonne
  • 1919: 2 people named Avonne

(For the SSDI numbers, I only counted people who had Avonne as a first name, not as a middle.)

Avonne Taylor went on to appear in a couple of films — one in 1927, the other in 1931 — and then left the entertainment industry altogether after marrying asbestos heir Tommy Manville. (The marriage lasted about a month.) She died in 1992.

*

Which name do you like more, Allyn or Avonne?

Sources:

Where did the baby name Seena come from in 1917?

Movie actress Seena Owen (1894-1966)
Seena Owen

First there was Francelia. Then there was Ormi. And today we have Seena — the third name (I know of) to debut on the U.S. baby name charts thanks to the influence of a silent film actress.

That actress was Seena Owen, and she’s a special case, as she’s the first actress on my list to become popular under a stage name.

Signe Auen was born in Washington state in 1894. Her parents were immigrants from Denmark, and she had older siblings named Lillie (who became a screenwriter) and Audun.

The Scandinavian name Signe can be traced back to the Old Norse name Signý, which is made up on the elements sigr, meaning “victory,” and ný, meaning “new.”

Signe Auen began appearing in films in late 1914.

Photograph of actress Signe Auen in Photoplay magazine (Oct. 1915)
Signe Auen (Oct. 1915)

In 1915, there was an uptick in the number of babies named Signe according to the U.S. baby name data:

Girls named SignePeople named Signe (SSDI)
19185155
19175250
19164255
191567†73
19144570
19134676
19124392
†Peak usage

(I added data from the Social Security Death Index as well. For the SSDI numbers — which were declining during the 1910s, after peaking in the 1890s and 1900s — I only counted people who had Signe as a first name, not as a middle.)

Sometime during the last half of 1915 Signe Auen changed her name to “Seena Owen” — the phonetic spelling of her Danish name.

Photograph of actress Seena Owen in Photoplay magazine (Mar. 1916)
As “Seena Owen” (Mar. 1916)

And in 1917, the baby name Seena debuted in the U.S. baby name data:

Girls named SeenaPeople named Seena (SSDI)
1920.2
191964
1918.4
19175*4
1916.1
1915.2
1914.4
*Debut

Numbers from both the SSA and the SSDI show that usage of the name Seena, which has always been relatively low, was at its highest during the 1920s.

This matches up pretty well with Seena Owen’s film career, which lasted from the late 1910s until the early 1930s, when Owen retired from acting due to the advent of talkies.

Which name do you like more, Signe or Seena?

P.S. Did you know that Seena Owen was the first person to wear false eyelashes? Director David Llewelyn “D. W.” Griffith had a wig maker invent the first set of eyelash extensions for Owen to wear in his 1916 epic film Intolerance.

Sources: Seena Owen – Wikipedia, Signý – Behind the Name, SSA