The baby name Enola started out as a literary invention, and fiction continues to keep this name in the spotlight.
Thanks to Dotmyiis for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.
E-N-O-L-A SPELLS ALONE … BACKWARDS
Back in 1886, author Mary Young Ridenbaugh used the name for her novel Enola; or, Her fatal mistake.
Ridenbaugh’s character, Enola Dale, spoke of her loneliness, musing that her parents “must have known of her future isolation” when they chose her name. The author clearly loved dramatic, one-of-one names. She called Enola’s children Alcia and Baring.
Enola wasn’t a stretch – and Ridenbaugh wasn’t the first to use it. Girl names ending with -ola were enjoying a burst of popularity in the 1880s. Viola, Lola, Leola, Nola, and just Ola were the Mia, Leah, and Thea of their day.
Sometime around 1883, Enola Miller was born in Pennsylvania. The surrounding town bears her name, and her historic home still stands. During her childhood, her father sold land to the railroad, which led to a rail yard named Enola, too.
So it’s not clear if the novel gets credit for the name’s rise – or if Ridenbaugh merely borrowed a rare, but on-trend name.
ENOLA GAY HAGGARD
In 1890, Enola Gay Haggard was born in Iowa. She married Paul Tibbets in 1912, and a few years later, they welcomed a son. Paul Jr. grew up to be a pilot.
If you know your World War II history, this should all be falling into place by now.
Tibbets joined the US Air Force, and named his B-29 bomber after his mom. The Enola Gay would eventually drop the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
It’s a heavy legacy for the name to carry.
In the immediate aftermath of World War II, the baby name Enola remained in sparing use, given to between a dozen and two dozen girls most years.
But in 1953, it rocketed up to an all-time high – 99 births, and the very last time the name would appear in the US Top 1000.
One possible reason? In 1953, the Enola Gay took its last flight, arriving at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
The aircraft is now on display at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.
WATERWORLD
That might’ve been the end of the baby name Enola. It fell in use, and by the 1980s was given to fewer than five girls a year.
But in 1995, the big screen extravaganza Waterworld starred Kevin Costner as the Mariner, and a young Tina Majorino as Enola. It’s a post-apocalyptic vision of the future, where nearly everything is submerged – but Enola’s back is tattooed with a map leading to the last bit of actual above-water land on Earth.
In some ways, the movie was a spectacular failure – expensive, and nominated for half-a-dozen Golden Raspberry Awards. But it debuted at #1 in the US, and clearly was seen by plenty of people.
After all, in 1996, eight girls were named Enola.
CRIMSON PEAK
The name remained in sparing use, just a handful of girls every year. While -ola names remained mostly in style limbo, a few were heard, including Lola.
And fiction helped keep the name alive, too.
In 2015, horror flick Crimson Peak took us to turn-of-the-century America, where wealthy heiress Edith Cushing – played by Mia Wasikowska – falls for an Englishman with a title, a crumbling manor, and absolutely no money. She marries him – after all, he’s played by Tom Hiddleston – but you know it’s not going to end well. The creepy family mansion turns out to hold secrets, including the belongings of one of the Englishman’s former wives, Italian heiress Enola Sciotti.
So could it be Italian?
Names like Fabiola and Paola suggest that the -ola ending isn’t unknown. And there’s a town called Lenola in central Italy. But if it’s used as an Italian given name, it’s beyond rare.
NATIVE AMERICAN ROOTS
As several commenters have noted, Enola has Native American roots, too. If this matches up with your family’s heritage, it might make the name even more appealing. However, there’s reason to be cautious when considering Native American names.
While the baby name Enola might mean solitary, thanks to popular use, it has a different origin and meaning in Native American languages.
The famous Cherokee Chief Black Fox, born in the 1740s, was also known as Enola, Enoli, or Inali. Inola, Oklahoma, outside of Tulsa, is named for him, and several places are called Black Fox in his memory.
SHERLOCK’S LITTLE SISTER
But there’s only one reason we’re talking about this name now.
In 2006, author Nancy Springer gave the world Enola Eudoria Heddassa Holmes, (much) younger sister to Sherlock and Mycroft. The story sets her birth in 1874, making the name implausible but not impossible – certainly not for a family who named their boys Mycroft and Sherlock.
Enola’s mother disappears in the first book, and the girl detective is the one to crack the case.
The series is now up to six books, and Netflix has adapted two into movies, starring Millie Bobby Brown as the teenage sleuth.
Incidentally, the first Sherlock Holmes novel was published in 1887, the right time period for the appearance of the baby name Enola. The character tells us, though, that her mother chose Enola because it signals a solitary self-reliance that she hoped her daughter would possess.
BY the NUMBERS
Millie Bobby Brown, of course, became famous as Jane/Eleven/Elle on Netflix’s Stranger Things. While we haven’t seen rafts of girls named Eleven, it’s become a sometimes-heard name.
In 2019, a mere eight girls were named Enola.
The success of the first Netflix movie shifted the name’s image. Instead of the airplane and the pilot’s mom, or a broad sense of sadness, the baby name Enola now suggests a Han Solo-like independence.
The first movie was released late in 2020. By 2021, 90 girls received the baby name Enola. That’s not quite a record – there were 99 births in 1953. But with a second movie coming out in late 2022, it’s possible that Enola will continue to catch on.
What do you think of the baby name Enola?
First published on November 1, 2011, this post was revised and re-published on September 20, 2020 and again on October 12, 2022.
I don’t think the WWII connection is all that strong for the newer generations of Americans and it will continue to fade. Unless you have Japanese heritage I doubt many of the next generation will even remember its ties to the A bomb.
The fact that people aren’t learning about Hiroshima makes me sad. My Grandmother’s name is Cecilia but everyone calls her Jeanne. When we discovered that Saint Cecilia was the patron saint of the blind, it was a spooky feeling. She has asked us not to name any grandchildren after her. Blindness is nothing compared to an atom bomb. That’s just my two cents. Everyone is entitled to their options. Many people don’t care about name meaning/associations.
You’re right, Saillie – some people do completely discount meanings, and others place tremendous importance on them. I’m less bothered by the idea that Enola was the name of the plane that dropped the bomb, and more put off by the whole alone-backwards idea. But then, if Enola were my beloved grandmother, neither of those associations would necessarily be enough to strike the name from my list.
Sallie, I was intending more along Abby’s lines; people are still learning about Hiroshima, but I think the name of the plane will just fall out of the learners brain unless they are particularly interested/involved in WWII history. I probably would have had to think about it for a bit if you had asked me “What was the name of the plane that dropped the bomb” and I’m a name geek, but clearly not a history geek. 🙂
That’s an interesting observation, KO. It isn’t so much that Hiroshima won’t be discussed, or the decision to drop the bomb debated. But there are finer points of history that fade with time, and it may be that the name of the plane is the kind of thing that we won’t remember in another generation or three. It’s hard to say – the photos are so present, or at least they seem that way now, and the name is so prominent in the photos. But if I’d majored in biology or accounting, maybe that wouldn’t have registered …
Alone? Not something we should want for our children. This trumps heaven backwards in my book.
Also, ww 2 association isn’t that great either.
It means they’re the opposite of alone. If you name a kid Neveah doesn’t it mean its the opposite of heaven?
To my mind, Enola has not 1 but 3 strikes against it. First and worst is the WWII Hiroshima connection; it doesn’t matter about your politics, it’s just an all-around negative association. Second, Enola sounds way too close to another harbinger of death and destruction: Ebola. I know that many names are only 1 letter off from a bad association (such as the wonderful Angus) but I really hear/see Ebola virus in Enola. Lastly, it’s alone spelled backwards, not cool! I could buy that you want your daughter to be independent, but that’s a stretch.
While I don’t think the sound is bad (really-is one syllable that much “uglier” than Nola and Lola?), I’d be pretty appalled to see Enola on a child. It’s quite a horrific connection, really, and even if it’s a family name I think the plane trumps that. We all learn about the Enola Gay in school, and I can’t imagine that knowing that a plane bearing your name caused that kind of devastation would be a good feeling. I would seriously question the judgement of any parent of an Enola post-WWII.
There is this really great young adult book series about Enola Holmes, Sherlock Holmes’ younger but just as brilliant sister. They’re really well written and historically accurate to boot.
Nancy Springer’s series are very clever (and would make an excellent television series.) They’ve won a couple of Edgar awards… so children will definitely be exposed to the stories and maybe Enola Holmes will become their first exposure to the name. “If” that happened I could see Enola coming back… but not for the time being.
Now that is a great addition, Bree – and Julie is right, almost the only way I can imagine the name making a comeback in the short term!
I’m a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, so I think a few of the Enola books are in my future …
I had a hairdresser named Enola once. She hated the name because of the associations. Born in the seventies. I never asked her at the time, but now I wonder if it was a family name or if her father was a big WWII nut or something.
Wow, what an association! I didn’t know any of the WWII connections, which may be a sign that Enola could be used without stirring up dark feelings (or maybe after one more generation). It might be comforting to bestow the two names: Enola Ton, so that you get “not alone”. In that sense it wouldn’t be much different that Neveah.
Enola Ton is nice in theory, but I think it wouldn’t be fun as a girl, no matter how skinny you are, to have to go through school with the middle name Ton.
And I’m sorry, but the only way to make Nevaeh worse is Nevaeh Tnes. Enola Ton gives me the same feeling 😉
Not only the awful history, but it sounds really clunky to me. Other -olas though: Viola, Lola (my cat’s name), Leola/na, Iola/na and Finola, are nice.
If someone liked the sound but wanted to avoid the tragic overtones, there’s Anola. It’s a small town in Manitoba. I always thought it was named after a real woman, but I don’t know for sure.
Personally, I don’t think Enola is usable given the history.
The obvious association is pretty horrific (for some reason the Gay part always bothered me, as if the bomb was “gaily” or merrily causing destruction; it almost seemed like a cruel joke). And a name meaning “alone” backwards seems gloomy, even if words spelled backwards as names doesn’t grate on you.
But more than anything, I find the name flat out ugly. It sounds quite whiny to me. I can’t stand the name Nola, and putting an E in front of it doesn’t help me warm to it.
This is just dumb. The plane was named after an actual woman.
No – this isn’t dumb at all. This is the question. If you have a beloved grandmother named Enola – because yes, it was and remains a name worn by actual human beings – would you still use the name for a future daughter, despite the cultural association with a horrific event. I suspect that most parents would not. You’re welcome to say that you don’t like a particular name for any reason under the sun, but please don’t be dismissive of others’ opinions here.