"Doris"s in early 1900s?

[annaS]

My mum was Doris born in 1913.  There were no more before that.  Both my grandparents had many siblings, grandad 14 and granny 12.  Then nothing more until my daughter named her daughter Chloe Doris in 2001, because she adored my mum - her granny. Chloe of course was number one about that time, so perhaps the same goes for Doris!  Anna

[LizzieL]

Another popular novel - reviewed in a newspaper in 1878.
Doris Barugh : A Yorkshire story by Katharine S Macquoid (author of "Patty" and "Diane").

[shellyesq]

http://www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2013/04/top-200-most-popular-names-in-england-and-wales-in-1880.html

The most marked difference between 1880 and 1890 can be found in the name Doris which we can clearly see was an "it" name in the 1890s. It was #3 in 1904, #10 in 1900 (11,354 births), #76 in 1890 (863 births) but wasn't even in the Top 300 in 1880 with only 12 births.

[Andrew Tarr]

It's fun transcribing baptisms for the 1800s, watching the Horatios, or even Horatio Nelsons, coming up.

[stanmapstone]

Maybe there was a popular novel or penny-dreadful with a Doris heroine, similar to Wendy in Peter Pan, which had a burst of popularity - from essentially nothing, about that time?

J M Barrie was said to have invented the name Wendy at least as a girl's name. The first one I have found registered was in 1907, 3 or 4 few years after Peter Pan. There was a Wendy Oxford who died in the 1850s but looking at censuses he was male!

Wendy was invented by J.M. Barrie for the 'little mother' in his play Peter Pan, 1904. It is said he took it from the nick name Fwendy-Wendy used for him by another child.
There is a birth registration in Sep ¼ 1884 for a Wendy Magan in Bootle. Her name is actually Weney Magan and has been mistranscribed by FreeBmd. On FreeBmd the first registration in Births is the Mar ¼ 1907 Wendy Margaret H Smith    Stockport  8a 103 

Stan

[stanmapstone]

There was a Wendy Oxford who died in the 1850s but looking at censuses he was male!

Family Search have the Christenings of three Wendy Oxfords,
29 November 1752 ALPHINGTON, DEVON, ENGLAND  father Wendy Oxford
24 February 1709 ROYSTON, HERTFORD, ENGLAND
24 September 1615 HARSTON, CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND

Stan

[LizzieL]

The one I found was the Devon one. The other two might be related, Harston is not far from Royston, up the A10. There is a village called Wendy just north of Royston up the road to Arrington, west of Harston. 

[Erato]

"Names classified as 'endangered' include Horace, Leslie and Norman for boys and Doris, Hilda and Edna for girls."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2596522/Why-Norman-Doris-Hilda-threat-Names-placed-endangered-list.html

Maybe Doris started to fade when people came to realize that it is the generic name of a group of sea slugs.

[a-l]

lol Erato that would do it !