People named Elvis

Factual Questions
1

It seems like people named Elvis fall into three categories:

  1. Elvis Presley
  2. People named after Elvis Presley
  3. People who use Elvis Costello as a professional pseudoynm but who were born Declan MacManus

Who in the world is or was named Elvis before The King became famous? Is the name that unique? Of what ethnicity does it come? Is it just the most likely name that would be thought of by a couple named Vernon and Gladys?

2

The Mighty & Sensuous Power & Maximum Mojo of the King of Rock 'N Roll decends upon feeble Mankind as a generous gift from Heaven.

Unca Cecil gots a lot of it.

Do not question the glory of Elvis-ness. :cool:
PS-- Somebody else we know also has Elvis-ness in him. But, modesty prohibits me from saying who.

Also :cool: .

3

Of course! <bows down to Elvis Stojko>

:smiley:

4

In the late 1950s, my alma mater (West Virginia University) had a president named Elvis Stahr.

5

Well, there’s an Elvis Grbac,

“Grbac” is a Croatian name,

And when you plug “Elvis” + “Croatia” into google, you get an amazing 7,530 results:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=elvis+croatia

6

Many of those results are to Croatian people named “Elvis”, so I’m going to conclude that either:

  1. Elvis began (ethnically) as a Croatian name, that the (non-slavic) Presleys chose to name their child; or,

  2. Croatians and Croatian-Americans are largely Elvis fans, and rabidly so to the point that many were named Elvis in anticipation of the Rock-n-Roll Sensation Himself.

7

What about merengue superstar Elvis Crespo? How did he get named that?

8

In my mother’s family there are a couple occurences of “Alvis”/“Alvus” which is pretty close. All very pre-The King. On my wife’s side there’s an “Elva” which is one of the female forms of the name. But we’re talking pre-1930s. Nothing similar in recent decades. A lot of common names from a couple generations ago are frowned upon. My wife has “Sophronia” and “Euphramia” (twice and in different branches!) in her genealogy.

9

I seem to recall that Mr. MacManus styled his monicker after that of the King, and so there may be only two categories.

Searching for cite… aha, found it on allmusic:

–CH

10

Our friend the Social Security Death Index shows that in 1935, the year Elvis Presley saw the light of day in Tupelo, Mississippi, there were at least 12 other men named Elvis born that year. (The SSDI includes only deceased persons.)

In 1955, the last year of Elvis Presley’s relative anonymity, there were at least 3 men born with the name Elvis.

Going back to 1900, where we can get a better estimate of the actual number of Elvises born that year, the SSDI has 55 men by that name. The states in which their Social Security numbers were issued (in 1936 or later):

New York: 1
Ohio: 2
Indiana: 4
Illinois: 6
Michigan: 5
Kentucky: 3
Tennessee: 6
Alabama: 1
Mississippi: 2
Arkansas: 1
Oklahoma: 5
Texas: 9
Missouri: 6
Kansas: 2
California: 1
District of Columbia: 1

11

I once known a girl called Elvisa
Poor thing.

12

From a dictionary of first names:

ELVIS male English
Pronounced: EL-vis
Meaning unknown. Possibly a form of ALVIS or ELWIN or it might be derived from the surname Elwes.