My NameVoyager is designed to give you a sense of names as history. In certain cases you can see the stamp of a single individual -- type in Shirley to see the huge impact of Shirley Temple in the '30s. At the opposite extreme, you expect fo find names sunk by a negative personal association. So one of the most examined names in the Voyager is Adolph.
A few representative user posts:
"It's also funny to note the fortunes of names with political implications. Adolph appears to have been a somewhat popular name during the early part of the century, then plummets off the list in the 40's."
"Check out Adolph. It had a fairly precipitous drop in about 1940.. wonder why."
The odd part is, Adolph does not show a precipitous drop in the 1940s. Our intuition tells us it should, but in fact the name was already disappearing before then. The use of Adolph in America dropped 80% from 1900 to 1930, then slowly trickled off into oblivion by the late '60s. This is not to say that war with Germany played no part in the name's demise...but rather that we're looking at the wrong war.
In the 1890s and 1900s, German names were wildly popular with American parents. (Irish names play the same role today, so think of Gertrude as the Caitlin of her day.) With the dawn of the First World War, that generation of German hit names melted away. Try loading up the NameVoyager and typing Adolph. Then try Gertrude and Otto, and see how remarkably similar the patterns look. By and large, the more distinctly German the name, the faster it plummeted. The spelling Adolf disappeared completely during WWI along with names like Ernst and Ludwig.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that Adolph took so long to vanish from our shores. It's hard to imagine an American family circa 1950 naming a son Adolph, yet a good number did. The name was still close enough to its popularity peak that many parents still had Grandpa Adolphs, or other positive personal associations with the name. Half a century later, Adolph is virtually taboo and will doubtless remain that way...even as Otto prepares for a comeback.
Comments
Can you tell me more aobut the history of the name of Peregrin. I know it has been used sporadically throughout recent history (last 500 years) and I could swear I have heard at least one character in a movie with Peregrin as a name...albeit a MIDDLE name, but a name nonetheless. It was used in the movie "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" for Lucy's daughter's fiance. He let out this whole string of family inherited names, one of them being Peregrin.Just curious because if God won't give me a son to name Peregrin, Im going to go on a quest to propogate that name amongst the masses. In my humble opinion, its just too cool a name to forget.(and yes, I am heavily influenced by Tolkien, although I am quite well aware that Peregrin is an OLD Roman name as well.)Best regards,
St. Peregrine is the patron saint for those who have cancer. It was also the name of the first British child born on the Mayflower. It is a wonderful old name with a very British, upper-class ring to it. It would also make a fine name for parents looking for a nature name since a peregrine is a hunting falcon.
wow, it's quite interesting to know that my name was the 545th place in 2003. I felt estranged when I found out there are girls named Rolanda.I had heard of a woman's name 'Rolande' in Dead or Alive 3 (a video game for the Xbox).Thanks for providing this great service. I was referred to the site while watching G4TechTV.
My baby name book tells me that Peregrine is Latin in its roots and means "Traveler, pilgrim." I suppose this is why Tolkien used it? It's interesting in its Christian connotations. Thanks for pointing this name out; I wasn't familiar with it before (I have only seen the movies and I didn't know Pippen was short for Peregrine till my husband just told me).~Lindsey
Interesting that Karl doesn't show the same drop off as other distinctly German flavored names. Wonder why that is.
A big part of the reason german names dropped off really is because of WWI/II - but its not just German names, bug German culture. A large part of middle-america around the turn of the century was of German descent and even spoke German at home.. but with the actions of Germany in WWI and WWII these German Americans tried to assimilate themselves into the American culture and abandoned their own language and culture... and name their children with less German sounding names.
Rudolph also drops.
Speaking of Rolando and Rolanda and Rolande, I thought I'd like to remind you of the classic old French story "Song of Roland," (Chancon de Roland). Roland is a military hero who dies in battle fighting the Moors, probably in Spain or something. Parenthood.com's website says Roland, Rolanda, and Rolande are German, and Rolando is Italian. They mean "Famed throughout the land." This site also says Peregrine and Peregrina are Latin and mean "wanderer," (as someone already mentioned above that it means "traveler, pilgrim").
If you want to see an dramatic drop in naming, check out the name "Smith". Also, "Franz". Both typically German names. [Schmidt/Smith]
Speaking of Roland, that is another name with great anagram potential -- Roland, Ronald and Arnold all contain the same letters. Add an "O" and you can make Orlando. (Yeah, I know -- I have too much time on my hands.)Susan
hi
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