Name of the Day: India

With design legacy India Hicks hosting Bravo’s second season of reality interior decorating competition Top Design, many of us can’t help but think about this exotic place name.

Thanks to Nicole (aka Dirty Hippy) for suggesting our Name of the Day.

Here’s an interesting fact: while you’d be hard pressed to find a girl called China or Paris living in the nineteenth century, plenty of place names do boast a long history of use. India is among them, and so she manages to combine an undeniably exotic flavor with a sense of history and a certain aristocratic vibe.

English families with ties to India were the first to adopt the appellation. ’The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies’ was established in 1600; it later became known as the Honourable East India Company. By the 1850s, the British had established formal rule in the region. While some modern parents might hesitate to use a name associated with colonization, by the Victorian era, India had caught on as a fashionable name.

This is reflected in the US, too. India ranked in the Top 1000 from 1880 through 1911. While she was never a chart topper, she was about as common as some other place names, including Missouri, Florida and Savannah – a few hundred girls received each name in the same period.

If the name seems vaguely familiar, you may have first stumbled across India in fiction. India Wilkes was sister to Ashley Wilkes – and one of Scarlett O’Hara’s biggest critics – in Gone With the Wind. Written in the 1930s about the American Civil War, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the Wilkes family – well-established Southern landowners, presumably with ties to England – would’ve chosen the name.

Despite the runaway popularity of the novel and the film, the characters’ monikers did not become sensations. (Though Scarlett first appears in the US Top 1000 for a few years in the early 1940s following the movie’s 1939 release.) Even if other names from Margaret Mitchell’s tale had taken off, India was not a sympathetic character likely to inspire parents.

On the other side of the Atlantic, India remained in steady, quiet use among the English. The best known is India Amanda Caroline Hicks, daughter of famed 1960s interior designer David Nightingale Hicks and Lady Pamela Mountbatten. She’s followed in her father’s footsteps with a career in design, and also as a creative baby namer – she’s mom to Felix, Amory, Conrad and Domino.

In the US, musician India.Arie has given the name a different kind of cutting edge style. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why we’ve met a number of African American Indias in our neck of the woods.

While most names clearly rise or fall over time, India bucks the trends. She ranked #760 in 1970, leapt up to #317 in 1985 and today stands at #690. It sounds like she’s on her way out, but instead of a straight trend, India’s use varies year to year. She could fall out of use entirely, or rise quickly.

Overall, our money is on India to rise in the rankings. She’s exotic but familiar, and the nickname Indie has an appealing sporty vibe that balances India’s dramatic femininity. We think it would wear well on a girl or a grown woman. And while some place names do feel a bit nouveau and forced, India’s long history of use insulates her from a sense of faddishness.

We think she’s quite the pleasing place name.

9 thoughts on “Name of the Day: India”

You know, I found out Josephine was a county in Oregon, after I named her! (taught me to Google first!) But India gives me pause. The original reasons for using India malke me want to curl up in a closet somewhere. But then, Jemima is close to my own heart for her meaning as well as her Biblical character, but while I’d love to use her up front, he unsavory slavery link makes me put her in the middle (Cecily Jemima Llanfaire at the moment) I’d do the same with India. (I adore the Indian culture, their food and *sigh* their men) I find her origins a bit unsavory and while I’d never hold it against anyone else, I could never use it in first myself (I did have part of a combo for Josephine… ___ India Amandine. Edible feeling and lushly amber colored.) In the end, it’s all how you view it. Me? Middle name territory only.

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Love India! Thanks so much for the info, AM. I think she appeals to me so much because she’s kind of historical and funky at the same time. The combo I’m kicking around now is India Caroline . . . I think it kind of highlights the old world british feel for me.

Oh, and I totally agree with you Lola about the yummy culture, food and men

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I like the thought of India – she begins with an ‘I’ (winner), ends in ‘a’ (winner) and is at once familiar and unusual (again winner!) but for some reason I would never choose her. I think what I can’t get my head around is that for me, the thought of naming a child after a nation I have never visited and have no links to – would seem pointed and unnatural.

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I’m with Katharine! That’s why it kills me when people name their daughters Brooklyn. I mean, have they been there? It’s not the best place in the world. The only people who even like Brooklyn are the people who are from Brooklyn – and plenty of us have found reasons to leave and not go back. That’s why I named my dog after the place (both my dogs have place names) and wouldn’t consider naming either of my dogs after a place I haven’t been , anyway. How do you know if it’s any good?

Sorry about my little rant.

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Another, you’re SO right about Brooklyn. They all live in Wisconsin. (As does my cousin Sarah. Nothing wrong with the state, but you have to be that far removed from the place to think it’s an appropriate choice for a child’s name.)

I can’t decide if India’s long history of use makes her a viable choice for a child’s name or not. Katharine, you summed it up perfectly – “naming a child after a nation I have never visited and have no links to – would seem pointed and unnatural.”

But in the middle spot, I love her without reservation.

There’s an India in Alexei’s childcare center – she’s African American. I suspect the name is bigger among families of color – my ‘hood is pretty diverse, and I hear India with some frequency. I’m going to have to ask around.

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