How popular is the baby name Valentino 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 Valentino.
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Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguolla was born in Italy in 1895 and emigrated to America in 1913.
He began getting bit parts in silent films in the mid-1910s. As he progressed to larger parts in the later 1910s, he started being credited as “Rudolph Valentino” or some variant thereof.
He finally achieved fame in 1921 with his breakthrough role as Julio in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the top-grossing film of the year.
He went on to make more than a dozen other films — including The Sheik (1921), which turned Valentino into America’s first sex symbol.
But his superstardom was cut short when, at the age of 31, he died suddenly (of peritonitis, after suffering from a perforated peptic ulcer) soon after the premiere of his final film, The Son of the Sheik (1926).
The death of Valentino not only “caused worldwide hysteria, several suicides, and riots at his lying in state, which attracted a crowd that stretched for 11 blocks,” but also influenced U.S. baby names.
The name Rudolph, which had been on the rise during the early 1920s, saw peak usage in 1927. (So did the spelling Rudolf.)
1929: 1,220 baby boys named Rudolph [rank: 140th]
1928: 1,308 baby boys named Rudolph [rank: 134th]
1927: 1,687 baby boys named Rudolph [rank: 110th]
1926: 1,636 baby boys named Rudolph [rank: 111th]
1925: 1,243 baby boys named Rudolph [rank: 136th]
Similarly, the name Valentino saw a spike in usage in 1927, reaching a level that wasn’t surpassed until the late 1990s.
1929: 30 baby boys named Valentino
1928: 49 baby boys named Valentino [rank: 991st]
1927: 90 baby boys named Valentino [rank: 682nd]
1926: 49 baby boys named Valentino [rank: 990th]
1925: 43 baby boys named Valentino
What are your thoughts on the names Rudolph and Valentino? Would you use either one? (If so, which?)
P.S. One factor — beyond style — that could have contributed to the decreasing usage of the name Rudolph from the mid-20th century onward is the song “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” It was the top song in the nation at the end of 1949 — a year before “Frosty the Snowman” hit big — and went on to become a holiday classic, cementing the association between the name Rudolph and not just reindeer, but Christmastime in general.
If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 4, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 4-names.
Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “fours” in numerology?
Turning names into numbers
Here’s how to calculate the numerological value of a name.
First, for each letter, come up with a number to represent that letter’s position in the alphabet. (Letter A would be number 1, letter B would be number 2, and so forth.) Then, add all the numbers together. If the sum has two or more digits, add the digits together recursively until the result is a single digit. That single digit is the name’s numerological value.
For instance, the letters in the name Willow correspond to the numbers 23, 9, 12, 12, 15, and 23. The sum of these numbers is 94. The digits of 94 added together equal 13, and the digits of 13 added together equal 4 — the numerological value of Willow.
Baby names with a value of 4
Below you’ll find the most popular 4-names per gender, according to the latest U.S. baby name data. I’ve further sub-categorized them by total sums — just in case any of those larger numbers are significant to anyone.
4 via 13
The letters in the following baby names add up to 13, which reduces to four (1+3=4).
Girl names (4 via 13)
Boy names (4 via 13)
Cai, Eh, Cia, Gea, Aabha
Cade, Cai, Cj, Eh, Jc
4 via 22
The letters in the following baby names add up to 22, which reduces to four (2+2=4).
Girl names (4 via 22)
Boy names (4 via 22)
Kaia, Lia, Ila, Giada, Ali, Aicha
Ali, Lee, Dale, Akai, Hadi, Mace, Dael, Bane
4 via 31
The letters in the following baby names add up to 31, which reduces to four (3+1=4).
Morrison, Courtney, Kristofer, Christofer, Quintus
Number 4: Significance and associations
What does the number four mean in numerology?
There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number four. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 4 being described as “hardworking,” “practical,” “stable,” “trustworthy,” and “detail-oriented.”
We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 4:
Seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter)
Cardinal directions (north, south, east, west)
States of matter (solid, liquid, gas, plasma)
Original Greek classical elements (water, earth, air, fire)
Yesterday I mentioned that Korla Pandit leaving Snader Telescriptions circa 1951 opened the door for a Vegas pianist named Wladziu Valentino Liberace to have a shot at television.
And the rest is history: Liberace’s energetic live TV performances quickly made him famous. He went on to become one of highest-paid entertainers ever.
He was known as “Lee” to family and friends, but as a showman he preferred to go by his Italian surname, pronounced lib-er-AH-chee. It can probably be traced back to the Latin word liber, meaning “free.”
And while the baby name Liberace has never been popular enough to appear in the SSA’s baby name data — I would have told you a long time ago if it had! — it has been used as a given name before. As you’d expect, most Liberaces were born in the early-to-mid ’50s. Here are some examples:
Behind today’s name is a fascinating story involving early television, exotic music, racial identity, and clever deception.
The name is Korla, which, along with variant Corla, first appeared in the SSA’s baby name data in 1951:
Girls named Korla
Girls named Corla
1953
.
.
1952
6 (5 born in CA)
.
1951
6*
8*
1950
.
.
1949
.
.
*Debut
A bit of research reveals that most of these early ’50s Korlas and Corlas — mainly females, but also a few males — were born in California specifically. This location is already pretty telling, but the smoking gun is this middle name:
Karlo Pandit Lindsay, male, born in November, 1950, in Los Angeles
Korla Ponda Williams, female, born in March, 1951, in Los Angeles
Korla Pandit Lord, male, born in September, 1953, in San Francisco
So what’s the influence here?
Korla Pandit, the mystical musician whose Los Angeles-based TV show Adventures in Music made him famous, particularly on the West Coast, in the early ’50s.
Pandit first appeared on TV in the spring of 1949. In each episode of Adventures in Music, Pandit wore a jeweled turban and gazed hypnotically at the camera, never speaking — just playing otherworldly music on a Hammond organ. His show, which aired on KTLA, was soon picked up by other California stations.
Some early recordings of Korla prominently feature his name, but I’m not sure if the live show Adventures in Music did. (If not, this could account for why “Corla” debuted higher than “Korla” in the data.)
Korla Pandit was an immediate hit, particularly among suburban housewives. He received an impressive amount of fan mail.
He also started putting out albums, eventually releasing well over a dozen on various labels.
In 1951, after shooting hundreds of shows for KTLA, he left to film a series of short musical performances for Snader Telescriptions. These Snader clips introduced Pandit to a national audience.
But Pandit didn’t stay with Snader long, instead leaving to do other things (including start a new live TV show).
According to the 1952 ad below, his songs were “bringing dollars to the cash register and wild acclaim from feminine hearts.”
His music helped set the stage for the late ’50s Exotica craze. In fact, some people have since dubbed Korla the “Godfather of Exotica,” though the title has also been given to other musicians (including Les Baxter).
As the decade wore on, Pandit’s fame began to wane. But he did spend the rest of his life recording and performing — and always wearing that bejeweled turban.
He passed away in 1998, leaving behind his American wife Beryl and their two sons, Shari and Koram.
…But the story doesn’t end there.
Because, a few years after that, a Los Angeles journalist discovered that Korla Pandit was not the half-Indian, half-French man from New Delhi that he had claimed to be. Instead, he was an African-American man named John Roland Redd from Columbia, Missouri.
Adopting a non-black identity had allowed Redd to have advantages that he couldn’t have had otherwise in 1950s America. He was one of the first African-Americans with a television show, but, ironically, if the public had known he was black, it’s highly unlikely that audiences (especially those entranced housewives) would have responded as enthusiastically as they did.
Redd took his adopted identity to the grave. Not even his sons were aware of their father’s true origin. (His wife must have known the secret, but she never openly admitted it.)
Notably, “Korla Pandit” was Redd’s second adopted persona. In the ’40s he had assumed the name “Juan Rolando,” which helped him get gigs during the Latin music craze of the time and, more importantly, allowed him to join the white L.A. musicians union as opposed to the black one, which afforded him more career opportunities.
It’s not hard to see how he got Juan from John, but I do wonder how he came up with Korla.
What are your thoughts on the name Korla? And on the story of Korla Pandit?
Sources:
Desai, Manan. “Korla Pandit Plays America: Exotica, Racial Performance, And Fantasies of Containment In Cold War Culture.” The Journal of Popular Culture Aug. 2015, pp. 714–730.
P.S. After Pandit left Snader Telescriptions, the company found a replacement: a young Las Vegas pianist, originally from Wisconsin, by the name of Wladziu Valentino Liberace…
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