Would Smell as Sweet?

[akirlu]

Oddball thing just occurred to me: given the raft of Berties and Robbies and Bobbies and such, does there seem to be anyone whose parents had them baptized "Roberta" who actually likes her own name enough to use it? I mean, yes, you get lots of Lizzies, and Lizes, and Beths, and you used to get Elizas and Bettys and Libbys, too, but for each of them you also have a plain, forthright Elizabeth. That does not seem to be the case with Robertas, that I've noticed. But at least parents seem to have picked up on that. The Social Security Administration's popular names widget suggests that the name peaked in popularity in the thirties and forties and has been losing ground ever since, and, in recent years, has been dropping like a stone. From well into the top 100 to barely in the top 1000.

Comments

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

I know two Robertas, fwiw.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Well, that is a lot. Don reminds me that I do know one Roberta, but she's balanced by a Robbie, a Bertie, and two Bobbies.

My suspicion...

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

is that a great deal of the popularity of the name came from musical "Roberta", which hit Broadway in 1933, and the movie of the same name, which came out in 1935. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were in the movie, and there were a lot of great songs in the show. Both shows were preceded by a popular novel, Alice Duer Miller's Gowns By Roberta.

I think I've seen the show put on by local theatre companies or by our wonderful Muny Opera maybe three or four times in my life, and that's a whole lot of years. I don't think most people have seen it. I THINK I've seen the movie, and MAYBE I saw it on stage once.

Re: My suspicion...

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Huh. I'd never heard of it. But you're right, the dates would potentially account for the name's popularity in the 30s and 40s.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I think I've seen Roberta Pournelle only once or twice, and have never actually met her, but she seems to use that first name, and strikes me as being the kind of person who's perfectly comfortable with the idea that "I don't really care what anyone calls me, I'm _me_, and I call myself 'Roberta'".

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Oh, right, Roberta Pournelle. Yes, she is quite decidedly herself, isn't she? That puts the Roberta-to-other ratio of my personal acquaintance at 20%.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The brain tingle that I had on trying to think of anyone I know actually known as Roberta proved to be caused by a Rebecca, another name relatively rare in use-form as compared to formal-form.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do not have this experience of Rebeccas at all. I know some Beccas and a few Beckies and one Reb, but most Rebeccas I know are Rebeccas.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

The only Roberta I know has gone by R.A., Bertie, Berta, and Robin during the years she's been my acquantance, so that goes with your observation, unless it just means she really, really likes change a lot.

Although the film "Roberta" is not one of my favorite Astaire-Rogers movies, it's still a pretty and entertaining frothy thirties film. Randolph Scott and Irene Dunn got top billing, and they were always fun to look at, but all the energy in the movie came from the dancers and the clothes. It's the only movie I can think of where Astaire plays a musician who doesn't look as though he's actually playing the instrument he holds.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there's a component of the American love of nicknaming, yes. But unlike Roberts, the bulk of the Robertas I know also actively hate their names. They never introduce themselves as Roberta, which I think is one of the clues, and often work hard to cover the fact that this is their actual, given name. At least one will threaten your life if you use "Roberta" instead of her preferred moniker. There seems to me to be much more of a chance of personal dislike of the name, IME.

[madwriter.livejournal.com]

And then there as my Aunt Bette (born 1923), whose name was actually Bette rather than Elizabeth--though many kept trying to change it to Elizabeth on official paperwork.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

My geometry teacher was named "Terry" rather than "Terence" because his parents had an abhorrence of nicknaming. So his friends called him "T."

mOm is Roberta

[u-must-b-joking.livejournal.com]

She gets "Bert" from her intimate friends including pOp, and Roberta from everyone else except small relatives, to whom she is Aunty Berta.