names from my family (all persons under 60 but over 30)
Constance Louise
Virginia Gaye
Hugh Randall
Lorraine Celeste
Heather Rose
I had a Viola, an Alma, a Harvey, Amanda, Reva, Marilyn in my extended family (some have passed)
when i have to write out the name evangeline , i will ask the woman “like the poem?” (some will have an “a” between the g and l). evangeline has been and is somewhat popular in louisiana and nova scotia (also new england where the poet was from) where the main character in the poem ended up and started out.
looks like the cultural reference has shifted a bit.
The names I gave were the names of extinct female hominans – “extinct woman names.”
While browsing the local obits in the paper today, I ran across a few more:
Geraldine (makes me recall Flip Wilson)
Thelma
Helen
Marge (wonder if she had big blue hair)
Rita
Marilyn (I have an aunt by marriage with a twin sister Carolyn)
middle name of Mai X 3 (this is the south, you know!)
Nanny (for the life of me, I just can’t wrap my head around the 4 year old she once was with this name)
My uncle was named Alanson Trask Lastname. I always thought it had a nice sound to it. Never heard of anyone else having either name.
What, no loathe for “Griselda”?
I had an aunt Marion (b. 1922)
I don’t think I’ve ever met a Lucifer, but I like the sound of the name.:eek:
My four-year-old is named Dorothy.
If I’d had another girl, Hazel was pretty high on my list (although I hadn’t talked my husband into it yet by the time we found out we were having a boy).
I know a Mildred in her twenties - one of the aforementioned Asians who got a name picked off a list.
Now that I’m back int he Southwest, I’ve met many Hispanic women, all American born but of Mexican descent, that have Anglo “old lady” given names. I know something like “Millicent Sanchez” or “Hortense Gutierrez” seems as much of a mismatch as “Rocco Goldberg”, but it’s surprisingly quite common.
Male names: as someone else noted (I can’t find their post now!), there doesn’t seem to be the same huge number of “old man” names as there are for elderly women. It seems like the last big batch of nearly-extinct male names dates from the early 1800s, commonly seen in the generic histories of small towns around the Great Lakes region. The histories for these places are all the same; the first “white settler” is always a Jebediah, Hezekiah, Obadiah or Ezekiel, who opens a grist mill or tavern.
I worked with a lady who veritably rejoiced in the name of “Beulah Plunkett”.
My 84 yo mother is Dorothy. Her middle name was Myrtle but she hated it and changed it.
Her mother was Hazel Adel (I think she spelled it that way…not Adelle).
Right, back in El Paso there were many Hispanics that had old-fashioned Anglo names.
Maybe, thanks to Hagar the Horrible, Hernia will become a popular name for girls?
My 3-week-old daughter is Josephine Violet.
Some names fall out of favor because of events or characters in fiction.
In WW II, a huge long-range cannon from the Krupp Works was called Big Bertha, after Krupp’s daughter. That was nearly forgotten when an oversize golf club about 10 years ago grabbed Big Bertha again.
Has it been long enough that people can meet a girl named Stella without thinking of Brando’s anguished bellow?
Even folks my age have nearly forgotten that Beulah was the chimp who honked the time-is-up horn on Truth Or Consequences. Is the show now on TVLand?
My great-great-grandmother was a Talitha. I’ve never met a Talitha, but Jeff Beck’s brilliant bass player, Tal Wilkenfield is probably one. Maybe Talitha will come back.
Do parents name their daughters after great singers? If so, there’s hope for Etta, Lucinda, Bonnie, and maybe even KoKo.
I wouldn’t hold out much hope for KoKo. I think one of the more famous holders of that name was an ape. 
Or with a C instead of a K, Coco Chanel. Better than being named after an ape, I guess.
Courtney Cox and David Arquette’s daughter is named Coco. That might help propel the name into the public eye.
Snipping a daughter’s name out of pieces of Mama’s name seems like vanity. I guess it beats CoQuette, though.
Heh. My paternal grandma was Dorothy. On my mom’s side, one of my great-grandmas was named Myrtle and hated it; she called herself Myrle instead. So to me, she was Nana Myrle.
I do know of a new baby named Vera and I’m not sure what they were thinking.
My nana and great nana’s name of Lillian seems to be seeing a minor comeback on the heels of Lily.
Coco’s an ok, if precious, nickname. I have no problem with Courtney Cox Arquette naming her daughter Courtney Cox Arquette II and calling her Coco. But as a given name, it’s celebrity-trashy.
My grandmother and her siblings had a number of names that went out of fashion.
The two ones that are still fashionable were Elizabeth and Sam.
The other four are Beatrice (my grandmother, b. 1912), Pat (real name Sylvia, no idea how that happened), Murray and Lou(is?).
Great-grandparents names Clara and Alexander are doing pretty well. Russell and Evelyn, not so much.
My other grandmother was Betty (just Betty). Not too common these days.
My grandpa’s siblings’ names have also suffered a mixed fate. Aaron (my grandpa) has never been wildly popular but is still going strong; Benjamin’s solid, and Lucy seems to be making a comeback.
Avram, Hananiah and Elisha are more likely popular in Israel, though I suspect there they sound pretty old-fashioned.
Minor? In my daughter’s class of approximately 100 there are six Lily/Lilly/Lillians. What Jennifer was to 1973, Lillian and variations are to 2000.