Was the baby name Madalynne influenced by a murder trial in 1921?

Accused murderer Madalynne Obenchain (née Conner)
Madalynne Obenchain (née Conner)

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Madalynne saw a curious spike in usage in 1921:

  • 1923: 8 baby girls named Madalynne
  • 1922: 25 baby girls named Madalynne
  • 1921: 39 baby girls named Madalynne
  • 1920: 10 baby girls named Madalynne [debut]
  • 1919: unlisted

Why?

Because of 28-year-old society beauty and femme fatale Madalynne Obenchain, who was accused of murder that year.

Born Madeline Connor in Wisconsin in 1893, she changed the spelling of her first name to “Madalynne” sometime before heading off to college at Northwestern University. There, at least two classmates fell in love with her. After college, while living in Los Angeles with her mother, she gained yet another admirer. The three men were:

  • Arthur C. Burch
  • J. Belton Kennedy
  • Ralph R. Obenchain

All three wanted to marry her. Finally, in 1919, she made her decision: it would be Obenchain (who was, by then, working as an attorney in Chicago).

But the marriage didn’t stop her from seeing Kennedy on the side. After a few months, Madalynne decided she preferred Kennedy, and her “extremely understanding husband allowed her to divorce him, gave her $80 a month in alimony and blank checks as needed.”

Madalynne and Kennedy had a tumultuous relationship, though, and Madalynne became frustrated by Kennedy’s refusal to commit. At some point in the summer of 1921, she wired Burch, who, himself recently divorced, “hopped on the next train [from Illinois] to Los Angeles to aid the woman he called his “goddess.””

On August 5, 1921, Kennedy “was found shot to death on the stairs of his cabin on Beverly Glen Boulevard, in a then-rustic neighborhood near the Los Angeles Country Club.”

A few days later, both Madalynne and Burch were charged with first-degree murder.

Obenchain, the generous ex-husband, left his job in Chicago to come to Madalynne’s defense.

Over the course of 16 months, five trials were held — two for Madalynne, three for Burch. The public — fascinated by the idea of these “cultivated, college-bred folk in the grip of overwhelming passions” — followed along via the newspapers.

Here’s one paper’s summary of the goings-on during Madalynne’s second trial (in July of 1922):

“Dream Girl” Accused of Perjury Plot! — Madalynne Obenchain, whose love brought death to one man, divorce to another and prison to a third, is now, during her own trial for murder, embroiled in charges of conspiracy by which it is said she tried to lure a fourth man to commit perjury that she might be free.

(This fourth guy to come under Madalynne’s spell was Paul Roman.)

All five of the trials ended in hung juries. “Legal experts interviewed at the time theorized that the male jurors who voted for acquittal in Madalynne’s trial were all in love with her.”

What are your thoughts on the baby name Madalynne? (Do you like this spelling?)

P.S. The debut of the name one year earlier may be due to unnamed baby girls born in 1920 finally being named “Madalynne” after Madalynne Obenchain became a fixture in the news in mid-1921. Delayed baby-naming wasn’t uncommon in the early 20th century.

Sources:

Image: Clipping from the Washington Times (23 Jul. 1922)

What popularized the baby name Tristan in the 1990s?

The character Tristran Ludlow (played by actor Brad Pitt) in the movie "Legends of the Fall" (1994)
Tristan Ludlow from “Legends of the Fall“

The baby name Tristan saw an impressive jump in usage in the mid-1990s:

  • 1997: 4,196 baby boys named Tristan [rank: 92nd]
  • 1996: 5,458 baby boys named Tristan [rank: 68th]
  • 1995: 3,088 baby boys named Tristan [rank: 121st]
  • 1994: 492 baby boys named Tristan [rank: 452nd]
  • 1993: 567 baby boys named Tristan [rank: 409th]

The name’s rise in 1995 was the second-largest of the year (after Austin), and it reached the U.S. top 100 for the first time ever in 1996.

Here’s a visual:

Graph of the usage of the baby name Tristan in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Tristan

Many variant forms of the name saw higher usage during those years as well…

1994199519961997
Tristen736181,1881,078
Triston48372726666
Tristin34288630549
Tristian36157304287
Trystan1899182178
Treston31585860
Tryston.426975
Tristyn.286048
Trysten28†4862
Trystin6133742
Tristain.112521
Trestan.1176
Trestin511610
Trystyn.7*125
Tresten..810
Tristion..5*6
Tristine..5†.
Thristan..5*.
*Debut, †Gender-specific debut

Tristen, Triston, Tristin and Tristian all entered top 1,000 in 1995, and Trystan followed a year later.

The name that saw the largest relative increase in usage in 1995 was Tristin. In second place? Tristen.

(And this doesn’t even account for all the Tristan-related girl names that got a mid-’90s boost.)

So, what was the influence?

The character Tristan Ludlow (played by Brad Pitt) from the movie Legends of the Fall — a saga set in rural Montana during the early decades of the 1900s.

Tristan was the rebellious middle son of rancher Col. William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins). He and his brothers — the older, ambitious Alfred (Aidan Quinn), and the younger, naïve Samuel (Henry Thomas) — all fell in love with the same beautiful woman, Susannah (Julia Ormond).

Released at the very end of 1994, the “big, robust Western love story” ranked #1 at the box office for four weeks straight in the early months of 1995.

Regarding Tristan Ludlow’s first name, one incredibly prescient reviewer noted that we should “look for [it] to be given to more than a few babies over the next few years.”

Tristan Ludlow didn’t end up with Susannah, but he did get married — to a Native American woman named Isabel (Karina Lombard). The name Karina saw it’s highest-ever usage in 1995, and the usage of Isabel also increased — though it was already on the rise, so there’s no telling how much of the increase was due specifically to the film.

Speaking of Isabel’s rise…

The fact that Legends of the Fall featured both a character named Isabel and an actor named Aidan, and that forms of these names (Isabella and Aiden) went on to reach the U.S. top 10 — peaking almost simultaneously a decade and a half later — is very interesting to me. It makes me wonder whether the movie’s impact on U.S. baby names wasn’t substantially greater (but also more complex?) than what the mid-’90s data would have us believe.

Isabella ranking, U.S.Aiden ranking, U.S.
20123rd10th
20112nd9th*
20101st*9th*
20091st*12th
20082nd16th
*Peak usage

(I began wondering about this after a friend of mine, who has a son named Aiden, mentioned that she’d had the name in the back of her mind ever since seeing Legends of the Fall as a teenager.)

What are your thoughts on this theory?

And, do you know anyone with a name that was inspired by Legends of the Fall?

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of Legends of the Fall

What turned Notorious into a baby name in 1995?

Rapper Notorious B.I.G. (1972-1997) in the music video for the song "One More Chance."
Notorious B.I.G.

The unlikely name Notorious debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1995, dropped off in 1996, then returned in 1997:

  • 1998: unlisted
  • 1997: 9 baby boys named Notorious
  • 1996: unlisted
  • 1995: 9 baby boys named Notorious [debut]
  • 1994: unlisted
  • 1993: unlisted

Notorious has re-appeared in the data several times since, but, so far, 9 babies in a single year represents peak usage.

So, what turned this vocabulary word — a synonym of “infamous” — into a personal name?

New York City rapper The Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls), born Christopher Wallace in 1972.

His 1994 debut album, Ready to Die, featured the singles “One More Chance” (which peaked at #2 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart), “Big Poppa” (#6), and “Juicy” (#27).

“Big Poppa” was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance of 1995. Here’s the music video:

In March of 1997 — two weeks before the release of his second album, Life After Death — Biggie was murdered in a drive-by shooting while visiting Los Angeles.

[M]any rap fans suspect the shooting is connected to the East Coast-West Coast feud that has become prevalent in the hip-hop community over the last several years. Smalls and the label he’s on, Bad Boy Entertainment, had been in a fierce rivalry with Tupac Shakur and the Los Angeles-based gangsta rap label Death Row Records, and Shakur had accused Smalls of involvement in a 1994 robbery in which Shakur was shot.

Shakur had been murdered less than a year earlier (also in a drive-by shooting).

Biggie’s second album included the singles “Hypnotize” (which peaked at #1 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart), “Mo Money Mo Problems” (#1), and “Sky’s the Limit” (#26).

What are your thoughts on the name Notorious?

P.S. The word may have a negative connotation nowadays, but the original meaning of notorious was simply “publicly known and spoken of” (via the Medieval Latin word notorius, meaning “well-known”).

Sources:

How did Tupac Shakur influence baby names in the 1990s?

Tupac's last studio album, "All Eyez on Me" (1996).
Tupac album

Though we remember him today as a West Coast rapper — one of his biggest hits was “California Love,” after all — Tupac Shakur was actually raised on the East Coast.

Tupac Shakur (pronounced TOO-pahk shah-KOOR) was born into a politically active family in New York City in 1971.

At birth, his given names were “Lesane Parish.” But his mother, Afeni, decided to change them to “Tupac Amaru” when he was one year old. The new names honored Túpac Amaru II, an indigenous man who led a rebellion against Spanish rule in Peru in the 1780s. (The names Tupac and Amaru are based on the Quechua words thupa, meaning “royal” or “resplendent,” and amaru, meaning “snake.”)

Tupac moved to California until the late 1980s. His first studio album, 2Pacalypse Now (1991), was a commercial success. It was followed by several more successful albums, including All Eyez on Me, which was rap’s first double album. Tupac also had a career as an actor, starring in films like Juice (1992), Poetic Justice (1993), and Above the Rim (1994).

Sadly, his life was cut short by a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas on September 7, 1996.

His years of fame, and his sudden death, resulted in all three of his names — Tupac, Amaru, and Shakur — seeing higher usage (as boy names) during the 1990s. Tupac debuted in the U.S. baby name data in 1993, and Amaru debuted in 1996. Shakur (which comes from the Arabic word for “thankful”) saw a 5-fold increase in usage from 1992 to 1993, followed by peak usage in 1997.

TupacAmaruShakur
199953149
1998102481
19971031119†
199697*87
1995..46
1994..79
19937*.66
1992..11
1991...
*Debut, †Peak usage

But it doesn’t end there.

Tupac Shakur spent most of 1995 in prison. One of the books he read while there was the infamous 1513 political treatise The Prince (“…it is much safer to be feared than loved…”) by Florentine statesman and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli (pronounced mah-kee-ah-VEH-lee).

The Prince inspired Tupac to create a new stage name: Makaveli. He only had a chance to use the alias once, though — for his fifth studio album, released two months after his murder. The following year, the unlikely name Makaveli popped up in the baby name data:

  • 1999: unlisted
  • 1998: unlisted
  • 1997: 11 baby boys named Makaveli [debut]
  • 1996: unlisted
  • 1995: unlisted

(Interestingly, the original spelling of the name, Machiavelli, started appearing in the data in 2013 — exactly 500 years after The Prince was written.)

Sources: