Mamie

Originally an affectionate pet form of Mary or Margaret, Mamie broke onto American birth certificates as an independent name in the late nineteenth century. It settled into the national consciousness through small-town social columns and early blues recordings before First Lady Mamie Eisenhower gave it a midcentury encore.

Hearing Mamie today calls up embroidered pillowcases, screen doors on strong springs, and someone who keeps peppermint patties in a cut-glass bowl. The name carries almost no contemporary nursery footprint, existing almost entirely in the memory of women over seventy. It sounds less like a modern preschooler and more like the person who ran the county fair ticket booth for thirty consecutive summers.