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Meaning
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I hope this name makes a comeback soon! It's such a beautiful name, and it's like a softer version of Charlotte.
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Charlene Choi Tsoek-jin (Chinese: 蔡卓妍) is a Hong Kong Canadian actress and singer. She is a member of Cantopop group Twins, along with Gillian Chung.
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Charlene Mitchell was the first Black woman to run for president of the United States.
Shirley Chisholm is often given credit for that superlative; Mitchell in fact preceded Chisholm by four years. (I have spent a decent amount of energy attempting to correct this factual inaccuracy, which is fairly widespread, especially during Black History Month. I usually don’t get any kind of response; my most recent emails, to Katie Couric and a congressman, have been left unreturned.)
In the Communist Party of the United States, before Angela Davis, there was Charlene Mitchell.
Charlene Mitchell, née Charlene Alexander, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1930, and moved with her family to Chicago as a young girl.
Mitchell spent time as a civil rights organizer, beginning as a teenager. At 13, she joined American Youth for Democracy, the youth wing of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
Mitchell initially pursued coursework at the Moody Bible Institute in the 1950s. While there, she was distressed by the racism she experienced from the school and its surrounding community.
This experience at Moody only solidified her affiliation with the CPUSA. Mitchell became on the CPUSA’s most influential leaders of the 1950s and 1960s, developing party connections with Black labor activists and pushing for greater international involvement between Black communities and Communist communities around the world. She traveled widely, developing connections with activists like Claudia Jones, of the UK’s Communist Party, and Yusuf Dadoo, of the South African Communist Party.
By the 1960s, Mitchell’s significance transcended her role in the CPUSA. The CPUSA was in declining influence in the period, but Mitchell was respected among radical and leftist organizations as a party figurehead and a community organizer.
On 4 July 1968, at the Diplomat Hotel in New York, Mitchell was nominated for president by the CPUSA. Her vice-presidential choice was Michael Zagarell, the CPUSA’s 23-year-old national youth director. In her acceptance speech, she declared she would “put an ‘open-occupancy’ sign on the White House lawn.” In her nomination, Charlene Mitchell became the first Black woman to run for president in United States history.
Mitchell’s nomination was covered by major outlets, but to most observers, the fact that the CPUSA had nominated a Black woman and a man too young for his office constitutionally, indicated the party’s lack of seriousness. The Chicago Tribune considered the nomination to be purely symbolic, “to dramatize what the Communists perceive to be the nation’s major discontents.” Black newspapers were comparably tepid in their reception, instead focusing on Dick Gregory and Eldridge Cleaver, two Black men running flamboyant campaigns on third party tickets.
Mitchell was fully aware that she had no chance of winning. In a press conference held after her nomination, she argued that the campaign’s success depended not on victory, but on whether it could “present to the American people the [party’s] views and platforms in a way that the American people can begin to understand what Communists see as some of the solutions to some of the problems in our country.”
Mitchell’s presidential campaign was headquartered at the Frederick Douglass Book Store in Boston, Massachusetts. One of the most notable interviews Mitchell gave was to a student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. The article the Crimson journalist wrote was rather bleak. The campaign apparatus was out of date, and Mitchell reportedly spent “almost as much time helping friends by watching the store and answering the telephone as she does campaigning.” Yet the article granted Mitchell the respect of emphasizing her genuine sincerity.
Speeches and articles from Mitchell’s campaign often sound hardly out-of-place in the realm of the Black Lives Matter movement. In the Harvard Crimson, Mitchell was quoted saying, ““what we need is a revolutionary transformation … replacing white capitalism with black capitalism isn’t going to solve the problems of poverty: the problems of poverty are rooted in the nature of capitalism itself.” In a campaign speech during 1968, she declared, “Black people must get together if we are to withstand this attack. There must be unity among our people, be they socialists, liberals, conservatives, communists, or independents. We must demand that all discrimination bars that keep us from taking advantage of everything that exists for other people be destroyed at once.”
Ultimately, Mitchell only appeared on ballots in two states. She received just 1,075 votes.
After the 1968 election, Mitchell maintained an active role in the CPUSA. She served as a mentor figure to Angela Davis, a rising figure in the party and eventually natonally, and became a public face for the CPUSA during the battle to free Davis in 1971. The two have maintained a relationship, appearing at panels and conferences together about Black radical politics. In 2009, Davis offered a passionate tribute to Mitchell in a speech at Brooklyn College.
Mitchell ran for elected office again in 1988, as an independent progressive for the Senate from New York.
In 1991, Mitchell, alongside Angela Davis and other notable Black members of the CPUSA, were purged from the CPUSA over their written criticism of Gus Hall. Hall, 81 at the time, served as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1959 until 2000. Mitchell, Davis, and their co-signatories pushed for greater openness and democratization of the party. Hall was unwilling. He would continue to hold power until his death age 90 in 2000.
Mitchell and Davis would both join an independent Communist offshoot called the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. As of 2006, Mitchell was still active; as of 2022, Davis is still reportedly active.
As of this writing, Mitchell is still alive and in her early 90s.
2
Shirley Chisholm is often given credit for that superlative; Mitchell in fact preceded Chisholm by four years. (I have spent a decent amount of energy attempting to correct this factual inaccuracy, which is fairly widespread, especially during Black History Month. I usually don’t get any kind of response; my most recent emails, to Katie Couric and a congressman, have been left unreturned.)
In the Communist Party of the United States, before Angela Davis, there was Charlene Mitchell.
Charlene Mitchell, née Charlene Alexander, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1930, and moved with her family to Chicago as a young girl.
Mitchell spent time as a civil rights organizer, beginning as a teenager. At 13, she joined American Youth for Democracy, the youth wing of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
Mitchell initially pursued coursework at the Moody Bible Institute in the 1950s. While there, she was distressed by the racism she experienced from the school and its surrounding community.
This experience at Moody only solidified her affiliation with the CPUSA. Mitchell became on the CPUSA’s most influential leaders of the 1950s and 1960s, developing party connections with Black labor activists and pushing for greater international involvement between Black communities and Communist communities around the world. She traveled widely, developing connections with activists like Claudia Jones, of the UK’s Communist Party, and Yusuf Dadoo, of the South African Communist Party.
By the 1960s, Mitchell’s significance transcended her role in the CPUSA. The CPUSA was in declining influence in the period, but Mitchell was respected among radical and leftist organizations as a party figurehead and a community organizer.
On 4 July 1968, at the Diplomat Hotel in New York, Mitchell was nominated for president by the CPUSA. Her vice-presidential choice was Michael Zagarell, the CPUSA’s 23-year-old national youth director. In her acceptance speech, she declared she would “put an ‘open-occupancy’ sign on the White House lawn.” In her nomination, Charlene Mitchell became the first Black woman to run for president in United States history.
Mitchell’s nomination was covered by major outlets, but to most observers, the fact that the CPUSA had nominated a Black woman and a man too young for his office constitutionally, indicated the party’s lack of seriousness. The Chicago Tribune considered the nomination to be purely symbolic, “to dramatize what the Communists perceive to be the nation’s major discontents.” Black newspapers were comparably tepid in their reception, instead focusing on Dick Gregory and Eldridge Cleaver, two Black men running flamboyant campaigns on third party tickets.
Mitchell was fully aware that she had no chance of winning. In a press conference held after her nomination, she argued that the campaign’s success depended not on victory, but on whether it could “present to the American people the [party’s] views and platforms in a way that the American people can begin to understand what Communists see as some of the solutions to some of the problems in our country.”
Mitchell’s presidential campaign was headquartered at the Frederick Douglass Book Store in Boston, Massachusetts. One of the most notable interviews Mitchell gave was to a student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson. The article the Crimson journalist wrote was rather bleak. The campaign apparatus was out of date, and Mitchell reportedly spent “almost as much time helping friends by watching the store and answering the telephone as she does campaigning.” Yet the article granted Mitchell the respect of emphasizing her genuine sincerity.
Speeches and articles from Mitchell’s campaign often sound hardly out-of-place in the realm of the Black Lives Matter movement. In the Harvard Crimson, Mitchell was quoted saying, ““what we need is a revolutionary transformation … replacing white capitalism with black capitalism isn’t going to solve the problems of poverty: the problems of poverty are rooted in the nature of capitalism itself.” In a campaign speech during 1968, she declared, “Black people must get together if we are to withstand this attack. There must be unity among our people, be they socialists, liberals, conservatives, communists, or independents. We must demand that all discrimination bars that keep us from taking advantage of everything that exists for other people be destroyed at once.”
Ultimately, Mitchell only appeared on ballots in two states. She received just 1,075 votes.
After the 1968 election, Mitchell maintained an active role in the CPUSA. She served as a mentor figure to Angela Davis, a rising figure in the party and eventually natonally, and became a public face for the CPUSA during the battle to free Davis in 1971. The two have maintained a relationship, appearing at panels and conferences together about Black radical politics. In 2009, Davis offered a passionate tribute to Mitchell in a speech at Brooklyn College.
Mitchell ran for elected office again in 1988, as an independent progressive for the Senate from New York.
In 1991, Mitchell, alongside Angela Davis and other notable Black members of the CPUSA, were purged from the CPUSA over their written criticism of Gus Hall. Hall, 81 at the time, served as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1959 until 2000. Mitchell, Davis, and their co-signatories pushed for greater openness and democratization of the party. Hall was unwilling. He would continue to hold power until his death age 90 in 2000.
Mitchell and Davis would both join an independent Communist offshoot called the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. As of 2006, Mitchell was still active; as of 2022, Davis is still reportedly active.
As of this writing, Mitchell is still alive and in her early 90s.
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Charlene is a character in Phineas and Ferb.
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Charlotte is nothing short of a great name, but Charlene is a pleasant, delicate alternative (in case of a daughter born on the feast of a saint named Charles). I just dislike the nickname Charlie.
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My favorite pronunciation of this name is Shar-len.
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I think I prefer it spelled Charleine but that’s probably because I really like Madeleine. It’s still a nice name. Doesn’t stop Charlotte being another one of my favourites though.
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I like Charlene and I personally think it's prettier and not as overused as Charlotte.
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In my opinion, this is an innocent and girly name. I love it!
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Beautiful name! I totally love it! :)
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Quite nice!
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I like this name, how it looks, how it sounds, just beautiful! Charlene has quality! Good name.
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Very nice.
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I don’t think the name is bad. It’s sounds kinda pretty actually.
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I live in America, and I have an adult family member with this name, and she definitely is not white trash.
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I adore this name, my mother is called Charlene as is my sister. I haven't met another Charlene to be honest, my grandmother named my mother after her American friend and to all those who say Charlene is for 'white trash' I'd like to say that you would have to be some sort of 'trash' to even use the term 'white trash' and if by this you mean of a lower class British person, well I haven't met one in my years and I live in a lower class populated area in London.
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Okay so my name is Charlene Louise and although I don't love my name it is my name and I am highly offended by people saying my name is white trash or a low-Class British name because it's not. I don't understand why anyone would nickname their daughter Chuck but I guess that's their choice. I mostly go by Charlene but my mum and her family sometimes call me Charlie or Charlie bear, my dad calls me Shally, and my BFF calls my Chaz or Chaza. My biggest gripe with my name is that you can never find it anywhere in things like Facebook lists or on bracelets and stuff. It is an English name and is the feminine name of Charles and my mum named me Charlene because of Kylie Monogue's character Charlene and in all I have only ever met two Charlenes in my life.
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Charlene went from classy to trashy real quick, similar to Chantal or Clarice.
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This name sounds like it should be fancy, but I’ve only encountered it on white trash women.
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It's okay. Sounds a bit uppity though.
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I really like this name and this spelling. It sounds very pretty and would work well for either a first or middle name.
A timeless classic.
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A timeless classic.
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Awful name, mostly used by lower classed British people.
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When Curious Me said “lower classed British people“ I took it as an insult as I’m British. Why are the British people lower classed? Why is your America country not lower classed? Just because the British live on a tiny island doesn’t mean they're lower class, there are very successful people in Britain.
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(Information from the website WolframAlpha in 2018)
Expected total number alive today -- 117, 729 in the U.S.
Expected population fraction -- 1 in 2234 people (.045%) in the U.S.
Expected rank -- 443rd most common name in the U.S. [of all population, not baby names]
The most common age of a woman named Charlene (in 2018) is 58 years old.
0
Expected total number alive today -- 117, 729 in the U.S.
Expected population fraction -- 1 in 2234 people (.045%) in the U.S.
Expected rank -- 443rd most common name in the U.S. [of all population, not baby names]
The most common age of a woman named Charlene (in 2018) is 58 years old.
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I think Charlotte and Charlene would be good matching twin names against Margaret and Marlene, lol. The second ones are less common and newer, anyway.
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Good point! :D.
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This is a beautiful, classy name. I really like the pronunciation Sharlene. It is a soft, feminine name and not overly used. I don't get the boyish nicknames like chuck. Yuck! If this were my name I would stick with the full name and make it clear to others to do the same.
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Charlene, Princess of Monaco, is a former Olympic swimmer for South Africa and wife of Prince Albert II. Princess Charlene was born in Rhodesia, the daughter of Michael and Lynette Wittstock, and the family relocated to South Africa in 1989. Princess Charlene represented South Africa at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, with her team finishing fifth in the 4 × 100 metre medley relay. Princess Charlene retired from competitive swimming in 2007.
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My name is Sharleen. I have seen it starting with an "S" but rarely with -een.
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The name Charlene was given to 145 girls born in the US in 2015.
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Charlene "Charlie" Bradbury is a character on the television series "Supernatural."
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This is my name also. I pronounce it Shar LEEN. I also have the nicknames Char (shar), Charlie and Chuck. When I was little my mother called me chuck a luck and charlie chicken. In the '60's there weren't any other girls with my name and I was disappointed because I couldn't find any of the cute little trinkets with "my name" on them, such as keyrings, necklaces, etc. It's still not a popular name and those items are still devoid of the name.
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The name Charlene was given to 133 baby girls born in the US in 2012.
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Variation: CHARLENA. It's pronounced Shar-leena. My cousin loves her name, Charlena. It suited her as a kid and still suits her (she's 33 now).
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Charlene, Princess of Monaco. Née Charlene Lynette Wittstock. Formerly an olympic swimmer for South Africa.
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Charlene Darling is a character on The Andy Griffith Show.
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Amy Adams played the character Charlene in the 2010 movie The Fighter, and was nominated for an Academy Award for it! The Fighter had Mark Walberg and Christian Bale in it as well.
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Charlene "Charlie" McGee was the eight-year-old pyrokinetic in "Firestarter" by Stephen King.
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Charlene Sinclair was the daughter from Disney's 1992 series 'Dinosaurs'.
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I really like this name. It has a very nice ring to it, and it reminds me of a strong, intelligent, beautiful girl. Besides, Charlie makes a great nickname for a girl.
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In my opinion, this name is Irish, but that's just me. I like this name, and it makes me think of somebody with dark brown hair and green eyes, for whatever reason.
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This is also my name and I spell it Charlene and pronounce it Shar-leen. I love my name because there's not too many of us about. I hardly ever get called my full name however, only normally by my mum who was a huge Dallas fan and named me after Charlene Tilton, most of my friends and family call me Char or Charls.
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I'm used to pronouncing this name SHAR-lene. I think that way is prettier.
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My name is Sharlene but I would rather classify CHAR-leen as being too weird. If I was to name my child it'll be Charlene (SHAR-leen). It will probably (hopefully) be my child's middle name.
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I like the French pronunciation, it sounds more elegant.
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Charlene is the twin sister of Charlotte.
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My name is Charlene. I think that the pronunciation is SHAR LEEN. I am NOT American but I know that it is pronounced that way.
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A famous, or somewhat famous, bearer of this name is Charlene Tilton, who is mostly known for her role in the 1980s soap opera, 'Dallas'.
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Kylie Minogue's chararacter in the Australian soap opera, "Neighbours" (possibly more famous in the UK than Australia), was Charlene Robinson. The pronunciation in Australia is "shar-LEEN".
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I have it on good authority that the name "Charlene" ought to be pronounced char-LEEN with the stress on the LAST part of the name. Not SHAR-leen, which must be an American pronunciation. In France it's pronounced shar-LEHN... (if you can role the R that would be appropriate). [noted -ed]
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Char-LEEN may be the correct way to pronounce it, but SHAR-leen (which is the American pronunciation, by the way) sounds prettier.
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This is my name and in all my searching I have found no famous person, no historical figure with this name. This is rather annoying but in a sense gratifying. Also, a note on pronunciation: I pronounce it char-LEEN with the hard 'ch' as in Charles, also my friends call me 'Char'.
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I believe the name is also pronounced Charl (same as charles). This is my name and I pronounce it with CH as in chuck, chair, charles.
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