Katiuska y rebeca: la historia de dos antropónimos convertidos en nombres de prendas de vestir

The article analyses how the names Katiuska and Rebeca, associated with characters from theatre and film, became common terms in Spanish fashion vocabulary to describe specific garments. The first term comes from the Spanish operetta Katiuska, la mujer rusa (1931) and refers to high waterproof boots, inspired by the protagonist’s attire. The popularity of the work led to the adoption of this name for a practical type of footwear for both adults and children. The name rebeca is derived from Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rebecca, adapted from the novel by Daphne du Maurier and released in Spain in 1942. The knit cardigan worn by the protagonist became popular in Spain under this name. Despite their foreign origins, both terms were fully integrated into Spanish and have endured in the language to this day. The lexical history of these terms is studied based on a corpus of 20th-century press, the databases of the Rae and Asale, and a dictionary corpus with the goal of reconstructing their early stages, diffusion, and consolidation in the Spanish language, as well as identifying various factors that contributed to their success.