Geraldine

Where Geraldine comes from

From Gerald + -ine. c. 1540 by the Earl of Surrey as a poetic name for Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, "one of the Fitzgeralds". Taken up as a given name in the 19th century, and used as a feminine form of Gerald.
— Wiktionary's entry for Geraldine
  • Germanic
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #679 among girls — 7 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1924
    Geraldine Page born
    American actress
  3. 1931
    Peak, #38
    5,413 babies named Geraldine — more than any year before or since.
  4. 1944
    Geraldine Chaplin born
    British-American actress
  5. 1953
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #135.
In the dictionary
  • A female given name from the Germanic languages.
Namesakes
  • Geraldine Page · American actress, 1924–1987
  • Geraldine Chaplin · British-American actress, born 1944
  • Geraldine Ferraro · American politician, 1935–2011
  • Geraldine Fitzgerald · Irish-American actress, 1913–2005
  • Geraldine Brooks · Australian-American journalist and author, born 1955

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.