I was combing through the Top 1000 Names of 1880 the other day for another project (ah, the glamorous life of the baby name expert) and I was blown away by how many names on the list had been totally forgotten.  I don’t mean just marginalized, like Ethel or Beulah, but no longer even in our naming lexicon.

We tend to think of strange, invented, unique names as being a recent phenomenon, as if in the past everybody was named John and Mary, and it’s only since 1968 that we’ve had names like Hallie and Freedom.

But in fact, naming innovations have always been a part of American culture, and examining the list for 1880 – the first year for which we have records – makes that crystal clear.  The roster contains literally hundreds of names virtually unknown today.

Here, a two-part look at the lost names of 1880, starting with girls’ names.

The biggest name trend story of 1880 was nickname names – yes, dozens of the expected Minnie and Annies and Elsies (the name of the little girl in the Mary Cassatt painting that illustrates this post), but also dozen of names ending in –ie that have rarely been heard in the past hundred years.  There was a notable collection of boyish nickname names such as Donnie and Vinnie and Gussie, but here are the most outrageous overall:

ALCIE

ARRIE

AVIE

CORDIE

DESSIE

DILLIE

DOVIE

(more…)

A sizeable number of people come to nameberry every day searching for Old Lady Names – and they’re not looking for a new moniker for Grandma.  Rather, they’re looking for Old Lady Names that sound new again for babies.

As a genre, Old Lady Names are approaching their third wave of stylishness.  The initial wave was identified in our first baby name book, Beyond Jennifer & Jason, published in 1988, as the hot Grandma names and the edgier Baby Women names.

Hot Grandmas included such folksy choices as:

ANNA

ANNIE

EMMA

HANNAH

JESSIE

LILY

MOLLY

NELL

NORA

SADIE

SOPHIE

The more buttoned-up Baby Women names we called “the names of the rich great-aunts who, ten years ago, you might have prayed would not ask you to name your child after them.  These included such now-stylish (but then-outrageous) choices as:

BEATRICE

CLARA

CORA

(more…)

If you’re looking for some eye-opening  name moments, try browsing  through some vintage name books and you might be surprised to discover just how dramatically perceptions of some  names have changed over time.  In some cases what we think of as perfectly valid current choices have actually been written off as dead and gone.  Today’s popular Ava, for instance, was rarely thought worthy of inclusion  in most name books, even fairly recent ones.  But one generation’s dusty skeleton can be reborn as another’s darling baby boy or girl, so it’s a risky business to write off a name (at least post-Etheldred period),  as can be seen from the comments below about some names we love today:

 ABIGAIL – turned into a cant term for a lady’s maid, and thenceforth has been seldom heard even in a cottage  (1884)

DEBORAH – has acquired a certain amount of absurdity from various literary associations which prevent ‘Deb’ from being used except by the peasantry (1884)

CHLOE –  its main use has been by pastoral poets   (1945)

ESME – is now sometimes given to girls   (1945)

MATILDA —   among the most disliked names for girls   (1967)

SOPHIA – went out of fashion in the 19^th century   (1945)

VICTORIA – is now almost obsolete  (1945)

COLIN — by the 16^th century was regarded as a rustic nickname and it gradually died out altogether  (1945)

CONNOR –  now survives mainly as a surname  (1945)

ELIJAH—it died out in the general 19^th century deline of biblical names, but not before it had established its shortening to be Lige (1979)

Masculine names like HARRY, JACK and SAMUEL are rarely used for babies today   (1950)

ISAAC, ABRAHAM — names from the Old Testament are disappearing  (1967)

JONAH – most everywhere regarded as sissy  (1967) (more…)

In the most recent list of Most Popular Boys ‘ Names, all five of the top five names came from the Good Book, accounting for well over 100,000 of the boy babies born in the US.  Obviously, many parents–whether for religious reasons or not–continue to be attracted to names with this strong traditional base.  But why, we ask, be limited to the same relatively small group of biblical choices, when there are loads of other more unusual options out there?  Why not Joab or Joah instead of Noah?  Beniah rather than Benjamin?  Jemuel in place of Samuel?

Many of these now obscure names were quite commonly used by the Puritan Colonists, especially in New England, until the middle of the 19th century when Old Testament names fell out of favor.  Most of the names listed below are hardly heard today, with only one of them–Asa–even appearing in the current Top 1000, but they are all possible alternatives to those standards that are given to thousands of babies each year.

ABIJAH — The name of Samuel’s second son would make a perfect substitute for the Top 25 Elijah.

ABSALOM — A literary as well as biblical name, used by Chaucer (for the jolly clerk in The Miller’s Tale, Dryden, Faulkner–and currently as a comic book character.

ADLAI –  Associated with with several generations of the Stevenson family, which produced a Vice-President and a UN representative named Adlai, it can be pronounced either ad-LAY or as-LYE. (more…)

It doesn’t seem fair.  Why have some perfectly good names become permanently tainted by their links to a particular fictional character while others haven’t?  How come Olivia is OK despite her porcine persona, all Oscars aren’t considered grouches, and even Dexter’s popularity seems to be rising in spite of his avocation on TV as a serial killer, while Jemima and Jethro, Elmo and Eloise remain somewhat stigmatized?  I say let’s take another look at some of these names and see if we can’t get them out of quarantine.

The first place to look is on Sesame Street.  Seems that once a name is tagged to a  fuzzy multi-colored Muppets, it becomes his exclusively.  Here are some reasons why they shouldn’t have to be:

 ELMO–A lively O-ending saint’s name, Elmo is the patron saint of sailors, and the legendary St. Elmo’s fire is a bright glow that sometimes appears on ships during thunderstorms, as well as being the name of a seminal 1980’s Brat Pack film.

GROVER–A fine upstanding Presidential and nature-ish (originally given to someone living near a grove) surname crying out to be considered for its own spunky self.

KERMIT–Enough with the ‘It isn’t easy being green’  froggy references.  Instead think of its relation to the well-liked Dermot, Kermit evolving from the Irish surname MacDermot, or son of Dermot.   And Teddy Roosevelt used it for his son

And a couple of others with kiddie references:

ELOISE– Long associated with the imperious little 6-year-old who ruled the Plaza Hotel, Eloise is the most likely on this list to redeem herself, what with the growing popularity of similar names like Eloisa and Elodie.

LINUS–No, using this name does not condemn your baby boy to clinging to his security blanket for life a la the Peanuts character.  Linus has considerable grown-up charm and some interesting associations: in Greek mythology he was the inventor of rhythm and melody who taught music to Hercules, and a distinguished modern namesake is Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel prizes.  And, believe it or not, cinema characters named Linus have been  played by Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Matt Damon and Harrison Ford. (more…)