Geraldine

The name is a feminine derivative of Gerald, formed from Germanic elements meaning spear and ruler. Sixteenth-century English poet Henry Howard popularized the form when he addressed a sequence of sonnets to Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald as Geraldine. American parents adopted it in modest numbers throughout the late nineteenth century before registration expanded rapidly in the nineteen-twenties.

The name carries the tone of someone who remembers when long-distance telephone calls were treated as serious household events. It summons municipal hearings, three-by-five index cards, and winter coats with substantial horn buttons. With the average bearer now seventy-three years old, it belongs almost entirely to generations that ran civic boards and kept hard-copy address books. It sounds complete only when preceded by a formal title or followed by a motion to adjourn.