Why Being a Linda is Far from Extinct at 71
At 71 years old, I can handle being considered old, even if I don’t often feel my age. It’s quite another thing to be deemed extinct. I apologize to all my fellow Lindas out there, but in sharing the most commonplace of forenames, we are officially as dead as the dodo.
Consistently one of the most popular girls’ names from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s in the UK, today Linda is now one of the least popular names. Nobody, it turns out, would consider naming their daughter Linda now (except in Latvia for some inexplicable reason).
A similar story can be seen in the US, where Linda held the title of the nation’s favorite girl’s name for a decade from the late 1940s. Research even suggests that Linda is the most popular name the US has ever seen. However, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that the national L.I.N.D.A. Club may have to shut down due to difficulties in finding new members.
When it comes to age, there’s no hiding place for a woman named Linda. No matter how much tweaking a Linda has done to look younger, her name will mark her out as being of a certain age. If I were to apply for a job, “Linda” would be what the recruiter’s mom, or just as likely their grandmother, is called, and who the recruiter will think of when reviewing the application.
Recently, I attended an evening class where older ladies often outnumber any other demographic. During introductions, out of the 12 people present, four were Lindas. We exchanged knowing looks and raised eyebrows. Four were men, and the rest were far too young to be Lindas.
I confess, I’ve always disliked being a Linda. I spent much of my childhood being furious with my parents for their lack of imagination in naming my older sister Susan and then me Linda. We didn’t even have middle names to use if we preferred. Linda was just so ordinary. As a shy child, I wanted a name that would get me noticed, as if a different name could give me confidence. I had friends called Annette and Vivian. How I envied them. I longed to be an Isabella or Jo, like the heroine in Little Women. Best of all would have been George, after my favorite Famous Five character. Plucky George, not limp Linda like the other Lindas I knew (and preferred not to befriend).
But since discovering my own extinction, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a Linda and realizing that we’re not ready to be written off. Because Linda, in its heyday, represented far more than a dull choice. In fact, Linda represents a generation of women who reaped the benefits of post-war prosperity, better education, greater freedoms, and optimism. We Lindas achieved a lot, and many of us, despite rumors to the contrary, are still here.
The more I’ve thought about not being here, so to speak, the more I’ve felt the nostalgia – and pleasure – of growing up as a Linda. It has got me thinking about the lucky Linda, aged seven, who was allowed to walk to school on her own, feeling the freedom of the open road. Stranger danger wasn’t even a phrase my parents or I had ever heard of. Our parents made sure we had proper suppers together as a family, unlike today where grab-and-go meals and takeaways are the norm. Fussiness over food wasn’t a luxury we had. Meals were fun, with my dad teasing us or teaching us stuff.
When my parents went on their annual two-week holiday without the kids, they didn’t once try to contact us. Unlike today, where it would be a non-stop stream of annoying WhatsApp messages. The assumption was that all would be well, and it mostly was. Helicopter parenting hadn’t been invented yet.
Being a Linda meant passing my 11-plus exam, attending a good grammar school, and getting into university – the first member of my family to do so. It meant being a part of the generation that took work seriously and becoming Linda the career girl, opting for the role of editor at Cosmopolitan rather than becoming Linda the housewife. Lindas of the day had the option of marrying for love, and if it didn’t work out, divorce was easier and less shameful than it would have been for our mothers.
The Linda generation benefited from access to the Pill, legalized abortion, and sexual freedoms that our mothers never knew. Relationships were complicated for Lindas, but we were lucky not to have to navigate judgmental social media during our vulnerable teens or deal with dodgy dating app hook-ups.
Now, as Lindas enter their 60s and 70s, they can look back on lives well-led and look forward to many more years of engagement. When I think of celebrated Lindas, I can only think of one Nobel prize winner, Linda Buck. However, there are countless achieving women named Linda. Lindas like Loose Women’s Lynda Bellingham, Linda Robson, and Linda Nolan. I also think of singer Linda Ronstadt, once the most highly paid woman in rock ‘n’ roll, and Linda Evans, who played Krystle Carrington in Dynasty.
The rise of Linda Evangelista gave me hope that a new generation of Lindas named after the supermodel would make the name stylish again, but it was not to be. According to Pamela Redmond, founder of the Nameberry baby names site, it takes a whole century for a name that’s gone out of fashion to come back in style.
But I believe that names, like people, have a way of surprising us. Linda McCartney (nee Eastman) deserves a special nod, not just for marrying a Beatle and launching a veggie range, but because a song called Linda, named for her, was a smash hit in 1946. This song is said to be responsible for the popularity of the name Linda in the English-speaking world.
There is one Linda who tops my list, and that’s Lynda Susan Weinman. She is a former web design teacher and educational video pioneer who sold her online learning platform to LinkedIn for $1.5 billion in 2015. How modern is that?
So you see, Linda isn’t extinct. Not on my watch.
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