Darin was raised by his maternal grandmother Vivian Fern Walden aka Polly who he thought was his mother. Darin's birth mother Vanina Juliette 'Nina' Cassotto became pregnant with him in the summer of 1935 when she was 17. Presumably because of the scandalous nature of out-of-wedlock pregnancies in that era Nina and her mother hatched a plan to pass the baby off as her parents' child and for Nina to be passed off as his older sister. He allegedly chose the name Darin because he had seen a malfunctioning electrical sign at a Chinese restaurant reading "DARIN DUCK" rather than "MANDARIN DUCK".