Are fifties names having a revival?

[Jusfloatingby]

In the last couple of months I've heard of a baby Jill, a baby Hilary and a baby Judy. I think of these as very fifties Enid Blytoney type names and am just wondering if the fashion for early twentieth century names like Edith, Iris and Ethel is now moving on to another stage?
I love the names Jill and Judy by the way.

There's something very reassuring about fifities names. They make me think of nurseries and high tea and children in mufflers playing out in the fields. Probably wasn't like that at all but that's the image those names conjure up for me.

Sylvia.

I love the name Sylvia. She's a bit more glam than Carol or Joan. She has a long line of gentleman callers and wears her scarves in a very dashing way when Terence brings her for a spin in the country in his open top MG.

She's a little bit fast but who cares, it's the 50's and she's a modern woman!

Yes, and she smokes Sobranie cocktail cigarettes on special occasions!

I used to love the name Sylvia until I had a really annoying boss with that name. Up until then I had always associated it with 'Garnie' in Ballet Shoes. Very feminine, ladylike, middle class English.

I like Alicia, too! Sylvia and Alicia and Lydia, all so pretty.

Though they somehow seem more 1930s, really.

Alicia and Lydia are lovely names. Wasn't there an Alicia in Malory Towers?

Yes. She was a bit lively and clever-clever, and Blyton (through the headmistress) found this kind of behaviour inappropriate in a gel. Alicia probably had an exciting career in advertising and lived in lots of different countries with different men though while Darrell obediently became a secretary.

Oh no. Darrell became a teacher and ended up as headmistress of Malory Towers. She just could not get enough of that place.

There was! She was hard. Well hard.

I never knew how to pronounce Alicia so used to skim over it going Alicka in my head.

I know an Alicia in her 30s. Other Malory Towers/ St Clares ones - Doris, Belinda, Felicity, Anne-Marie, Gwendoline, Mary-Lou, Wilhelmina (!)

Darrell became a writer, because she was really Enid Blyton

She was a right little twonk really. The O'Sullivan twins were much cooler and had vastly better names. Isobel of course is very common now but Patricia (Patsy, Tricia) must be due a revival soon.

I hope she was less complex than Enid Blyton, who was a seriously disturbed woman in real life and pretty horrible to her children.

Wasn't there an Alison in St Clare's? Funny, because I think of that as a very 70s name.

I identified with dippy Alison. She got a bad press from Blyton, but she was kind hearted and her main crime was not to like games.

But yes, I am a 70s child and there were two Alisons in my class. Having said that the teacher was also an Alison.

Can I just defend Colin as a name, in Scotland it is more common and is more of a suits all ages traditional manly name, especially in the Highlands where it is popular with members of clan Campbell.

Mind you my brother Colin reckoned it affected his dating success in England as women didn't like the thouhght of introducing " my boyfriend Colin" to their friends.

Friends called their baby Jason which I think is a bit of a Colin name. Too soon for a comeback on that one, I feel...

I have met babies called Colin, Winifred (Winnie) and Edith, and 2 little Susannah's and an Audrey.

I think we are halfway there already!

Cross-post! :-)

Wow the parents of baby Jason are waaaay ahead of the curve.

I agree with the advice from the 80 year old neighbour further up the thread, Winifred is awful!

daily fail

interesting name they have gone for this time

5th child???? How is he old enough to have f-i-v-e children?

Wilhelmina though. Ouch. Poor kiddo.

There was also an Erica who was mean and horrible and had to be reformed by the other gels, but I can't remember which books.

Alison was the stuck up one at St Clares. I dunno why, I think she occasionally brushed her hair or something.

Blyton also didn't approve of gels who had silly pashs on the fellows.

It would cause Darrell and co to shake their heads in pity for the little airheads. Then they'd retreat to the games pavilion for a quick grope with the games mistress

If I was named Wilhelmina I would call myself "Mina" (pronounced Minna not Meana or Miner."