Pink Labels

In gathering material for The American Language, H.L. Mencken collected unusual girls’ names from printed sources in the 1930s and 1940s, mainly in the Southwest. “The following, though some of them may seem almost impossible, are all typical”:

  • Apple
  • Armadilla
  • Arthurene
  • Australia
  • Beatfred
  • Begonia
  • Birdeen
  • Cementa
  • Chlorine
  • Covadonga
  • Coweene
  • Elicious
  • Faucette
  • Garguerite
  • Gazelle
  • Glary Ann
  • Glenoulia
  • Halloween
  • Hygiene
  • Hughzetta
  • Kiwanis
  • Larceny
  • Leafy Ella
  • Locust
  • O’Dwaine
  • Pencilla
  • Pleasantina
  • Scharlott
  • Townzella
  • Ukdene
  • Vasoline
  • Wroberta
  • Wyneese
  • Zelvateen

Of the stranger specimens, Mencken says, “It is as if the ambitious mother of a newly-hatched darling wrote all the elements of all the ancient girls’ names upon slips of paper, added slips bearing syllables filched from the terminology of all the arts and sciences, heaved the whole into an electric salad-tosser, and then arranged the seethed contents two by two or three by three.”