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ArchivesLurlyn, etc
In the 1950s in South Africa there's a reference to a girl from an English-speaking family whose name was Lurlyn. (There were lots of Lyn, Lynn, Lynne little girls around at the time.) And I seem to recall that some or other US politician had/has a wife named Lurleen.
Does anyone know, or even suspect, what the origin could be? It seems unlikely that these names could have been invented independently.
Thanks!
Does anyone know, or even suspect, what the origin could be? It seems unlikely that these names could have been invented independently.
Thanks!
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Replies
The original form of the name seems to have been Lurline, which as far as I can determine was invented for the opera Lurline, music by William Vincent Wallace and words by Edward FitzBall, first produced in London in 1860. I can't find any reference to Wallace & FitzBall having based the opera on an earlier work which used the name Lurline. Their story, however, is obviously based on the Lorelei legend, and the most logical explanation is that they were "modernizing" the name Lorelei to "Lurline" to fit in with the names of characters in other popular English operas of their day, such as Balfe's The Bohemian Girl, for which Arline was invented.
http://www.oldandsold.com/opera/opera-17.shtml
http://www.oldandsold.com/opera/opera-17.shtml
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Lurlyn and Arline
How interesting - thank you! Must say, I'm surprised it caught on ... though not in a big way, seemingly. There've been some suggestions lately on Babycenter.com that Lorelei is being used now and then as a girl name in the States, mostly among people who don't know the legend.
Arline interests me greatly, too! In, especially rural, Afrikaans communities here in South Africa there is a strong tradition of naming children after the grandparents, often in sequence. So you will get cousins growing up on adjacent farms, all with the same names. Nicknames come in handy, also the name of the farm as a kind of additional human name. So it was that I was at school with three girls, cousins, all named Alice Marsephine. The Marsephine is a lasting mystery to me ... perhaps a long-ago Josephine had a fondness for marzipan! One of them was known as Marzie, one as Alice, and the remaining one had been Alice too until, as a very small child, she discovered that there were two of her and announced to the world that she was Arline. And so it was. She seems to have invented it independently ... I've more often seen it with an -e- spelling, like Marlene with the M missing.
All the best
How interesting - thank you! Must say, I'm surprised it caught on ... though not in a big way, seemingly. There've been some suggestions lately on Babycenter.com that Lorelei is being used now and then as a girl name in the States, mostly among people who don't know the legend.
Arline interests me greatly, too! In, especially rural, Afrikaans communities here in South Africa there is a strong tradition of naming children after the grandparents, often in sequence. So you will get cousins growing up on adjacent farms, all with the same names. Nicknames come in handy, also the name of the farm as a kind of additional human name. So it was that I was at school with three girls, cousins, all named Alice Marsephine. The Marsephine is a lasting mystery to me ... perhaps a long-ago Josephine had a fondness for marzipan! One of them was known as Marzie, one as Alice, and the remaining one had been Alice too until, as a very small child, she discovered that there were two of her and announced to the world that she was Arline. And so it was. She seems to have invented it independently ... I've more often seen it with an -e- spelling, like Marlene with the M missing.
All the best
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