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Help[Facts] Re: Alternate origin for Darlene
in reply to a message by Shaymin
Even if Darlene appears in much older records, I think it would be a stretch for the 16th-c. Hungarian Darlene to be related to modern American Darlene.
US Social Security records begin in 1880, and the first instances of any similar-sounding names are Arlene and Charlene in 1888, followed by Carlene (1895), Darlene (1896), and Marlene (1904). Arlene was by far the most common of these until the 1930s, when it was surpassed by Marlene. Darlene reached its peak in the 1950s.
This being so, it seems likely to me that American Darlene was in fact an invention based on sounds that were already becoming popular. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it wasn't usual for people to look hundreds of years back into their family trees to find obscure baby names. There is a chance it could have happened, of course, but that could only account for a tiny handful of instances of a name like Darlene. I'd also expect that if this were the case, Darlene would have appeared earlier and more often (as the "original" -arlene name) than it did.
US Social Security records begin in 1880, and the first instances of any similar-sounding names are Arlene and Charlene in 1888, followed by Carlene (1895), Darlene (1896), and Marlene (1904). Arlene was by far the most common of these until the 1930s, when it was surpassed by Marlene. Darlene reached its peak in the 1950s.
This being so, it seems likely to me that American Darlene was in fact an invention based on sounds that were already becoming popular. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it wasn't usual for people to look hundreds of years back into their family trees to find obscure baby names. There is a chance it could have happened, of course, but that could only account for a tiny handful of instances of a name like Darlene. I'd also expect that if this were the case, Darlene would have appeared earlier and more often (as the "original" -arlene name) than it did.
This message was edited 3/4/2019, 6:55 AM
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