What gave the baby name Valentina a boost in 1963?

Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Tereshkova

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Valentina saw an uptick in usage in 1963:

  • 1965: 87 baby girls named Valentina
  • 1964: 86 baby girls named Valentina
  • 1963: 95 baby girls named Valentina
  • 1962: 63 baby girls named Valentina
  • 1961: 62 baby girls named Valentina

That was the year 26-year-old Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space.

In 1963, from June 16 to 19, Tereshkova spent more than 70 hours in space. She orbited the Earth 48 times in her Vostok 6 capsule before returning.

Her successful flight made headlines worldwide. U.S. newspapers described Valentina Tereshkova as “a tomboyish blonde with a winning smile,” and dubbed her a “cosmonette.”

The Vostok program (1960-1963) was the USSR’s answer to the Mercury program (1958-1963) in that both programs were created to put humans in space. Russia’s first cosmonaut was Yuri Gagarin; America’s first astronaut was Alan Shepard.

The U.S. didn’t send a woman into space until June of 1983, when Sally Ride flew aboard the space shuttle Challenger. (This event may have given a slight boost to the baby name Sally, though it’s hard to tell.)

What are your thoughts on the baby name Valentina?

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Babies named for Robert La Follette

Politician Robert La Follette (1855-1925)
Robert La Follette

Politician Robert Marion La Follette (1855-1925) served as Governor of Wisconsin (from 1901 to 1906) and as U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (from 1906 to 1925).

In 1924, he unsuccessfully ran for U.S. President as a third-party candidate. He wasn’t able to overcome Coolidge, but he did win 16.6% of the popular vote (and he carried the state of Wisconsin, of course).

Dozens of baby boys — most born in the state of Wisconsin, unsurprisingly — were named in La Follette’s honor during the early decades of the 1900s. Some examples…

The fourth namesake on this list went on to be appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1966. (He was the second Native American to hold the position.) He was sworn in by Lyndon B. Johnson, who said:

This morning Mr. Robert La Follette Bennett — who bears this great name of an American who fought all of his life for the rights of his fellow citizens, named for a man who is revered from one end of the country to the other, and now his namesake — comes here to assume a position in which he will be able to carry on that proud tradition.

Dozens of other babies were given the first name La Follette. For instance, La Follette Marion Allen was born in Wisconsin in 1902. (His father was named DeWitt Clinton Allen, interestingly.)

Several months after Robert M. La Follette passed away in 1925, his son Robert M. La Follette, Jr., was elected to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy. La Follette, Jr., served in the Senate for more than 21 years before he was finally ousted in the mid-1940s by none other than Joseph McCarthy.

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Where did the baby name Fola come from in 1911?

Actress and activist Fola La Follette (1882-1970)
Fola La Follette

The simple name Fola has only appeared in the U.S. baby name data twice:

  • 1913: unlisted
  • 1912: 7 baby girls named Fola
  • 1911: 6 baby girls named Fola [debut]
  • 1910: unlisted
  • 1909: unlisted

What put it there?

My guess is Flora “Fola” La Follette (1882-1970), the daughter of well-known Wisconsin politician Robert La Follette and his wife, women’s suffrage leader Isabelle “Belle” Case La Follette.

Fola La Follette, who had embarked upon a career as a stage actress in 1903, was getting extra attention around 1911 for a couple of reasons:

  • First, the news of her engagement and marriage to playwright George Middleton in October of 1911.
  • Second, her efforts as a suffragist. (She started performing the one-woman play How the Vote was Won in 1910, for instance.)
Fola La Follette pictured in a newspaper
Fola in the papers

It looks like baby girls were being named after Fola La Follette earlier than 1911, though. Here’s some data from the Social Security Death Index:

  • 1913: 4 people named Fola (1 died in Wisconsin)
  • 1912: 7 people named Fola
  • 1911: 12 people named Fola (1 died in WI)
  • 1910: 4 people named Fola (1 died in WI)
  • 1909: 3 people named Fola (1 died in WI)
  • 1908: 5 people named Fola (1 died in WI)
  • 1907: 2 people named Fola (1 died in WI)
  • 1906: 3 people named Fola (1 died in WI)
  • 1905: 4 people named Fola
  • 1904: 6 people named Fola (2 died in WI)
  • 1903: 2 people named Fola
  • 1902: 0 people named Fola
  • 1901: 0 people named Fola
  • 1900: 0 people named Fola

Not only does it show a similar spike in usage, but it suggests that interest in “Fola” picked up around the time Fola La Follette began performing, and also reveals that a disproportionate number of these Folas died in Wisconsin — suggesting that many of them were also born in Wisconsin. (Fola Norton, for example, was born in Wisconsin in 1910 and died there in 1999.)

I even found three females with “Fola La Follette” as their first and middle names, including Fola La Follette Kessler (née Sheaffer), born in Iowa in 1905.

What are your thoughts on the baby name Fola? (Do you like it more or less than Flora?)

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Where did the baby name Celynn come from in 1964?

Contestant Celynn McDonald on the TV game show "The Celebrity Game" (Jun. 1964)
Celynn McDonald on “The Celebrity Game“

The name Celynn has only ever appeared in the U.S. baby name data a single time, in 1964:

  • 1966: unlisted
  • 1965: unlisted
  • 1964: 7 baby girls named Celynn [debut]
  • 1963: unlisted
  • 1962: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Television!

A short-lived game show called The Celebrity Game was on TV in the mid-1960s. Here’s how host Carl Reiner explained the show:

We ask our celebrity panel a question on some popular topic that can be answered yes or no. Then our three players each get a chance to pick a star and tell us how they think the star voted.

An episode that aired in June of 1964 featured a contestant named Celynn McDonald (first name pronounced seh-LYN). She was described as “a law student and a perpetual movie fan.”

In Celynn’s episode, the three questions posed to the 9-person celebrity panel (which included Mickey Rooney, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Lee Marvin) were:

  • Do romantic screen heroes tend to make wives satisfied at home?
  • Should a woman marry a man ten years younger than she?
  • Should the United States government subsidize children as they do in France?

Alas, Celynn did not win the game. But her fifteen minutes of fame did shine a spotlight on her unusual name, and this, in turn, increased the usage of the name just enough to boost it into the SSA’s baby name data (which, due to privacy concerns, only includes names given to at least five babies per year).

What are your thoughts on the name Celynn? Would you use it?

Sources: The Celebrity Game – IMDb, SSA