Starlene
Feminine · “Star”
For about thirty years in the middle of the last century, an ending was available in American English that could turn any word at all into a woman's name. Attach it and you were done: no grammar, no source language, no permission needed. Starlene is that machinery applied to the plainest noun in the sky.
How old is the name Starlene?
Starlene first appears in US birth records in 1937 — 88 years ago. The typical Starlene alive today was born around 1964, making them about 61 years old. About 1,100 people named Starlene are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Starlene most popular?
Starlene peaked in 1950, reaching #1285 nationally. See the whole 1950 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From star to Starlene
The story of Starlene
The word star is one of the oldest that can be reconstructed. It is recognizably the same word in Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Persian, Welsh and German, which means it was already in the language the ancestors of all those spoke, thousands of years before any of them were written down; comparative linguists reconstruct something like hster, and it is one of the small set of words used to demonstrate that the whole family is related at all. Meanwhile the ending had a much shorter and much better documented career. It came out of one German actress's stage name in the nineteen-thirties, was heard as a suffix rather than as part of a name, and within a decade was being fastened to Char-, Dar-, Mar-, Ar- and, here, to a common noun.
Meaning
Star, with a name ending
The front is the ordinary English word and means exactly what it says. The ending is a piece of American naming material, cut loose from the German Marlene and then attached to anything within reach, and it means nothing in itself. So the name is half plain English and half pure shape, and that is an honest description rather than a criticism.
How the name formed
- star
- Starlene
Pronouncing Starlene
STAR-leen
Two syllables. American families put the stress on the first, keeping the word audible; the ending takes a secondary stress and a full long vowel, so nothing in the name is reduced.
Nicknames for Starlene
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1937
- Most girls named
- 195051 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1285reached in 1950
- Change vs 2012
- −28.6%5 in 2020, from 7
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Starlenes among us
people named Starlene are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Starlene sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The meaning is immediate and needs no explaining to anybody in any English-speaking country.
- Star is waiting inside it as a short, current name of its own.
- Every letter says what it looks like, which makes it easy to write from dictation.
- The ending is tightly dated to one generation, so the name reads as mid-century however new the front half sounds.
- Starleen and Starline exist for the same sound and will be written by mistake.
- A common noun as the front of a name invites comment, and the comment is usually the same one.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Starlene
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Starlenes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Starlene are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Starlene in 2025?
- Starlene is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Starlene with classmates?
- Starlene will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More S names
The most-given names starting with S, all years combined.
Susan#1085 · Sarah#90 · Sandra#1207 · Stephanie#557 · Sharon#1250 · Shirley#1581 · Samantha#151 · Sophia#5
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Starlene? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Starlene and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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