Baby born aboard Pullman car “Livonia,” named Livonia

Pullman car

In April of 1913, a woman gave birth to a baby girl while riding a train in California.

The baby was born in the drawing room of a Pullman car called the “Livonia,” so she was named Livonia Potter.

…Did you know that Pullman cars even had names? I didn’t.

A 1924 Popular Mechanics article reveals that “[n]ames of countries were first employed” as the names of Pullman cars, followed by the names of towns and villages, then by “birds, flowers, lakes, rivers, and poets and statesmen of note.” For the dining cars they used the names of historical chefs and prominent hotels.

So the Pullman car “Livonia” would have been named either after the historical region in Europe called Livonia (on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea) or after any of the U.S. towns named for the region.

Sources:

  • “Baby Born in Pullman.” Los Angeles Times 27 Apr. 1913: I10.
  • “How Pullman Cars Are Named.” Popular Mechanics Dec. 1924: 943.

Image: Adapted from Pullman car exterior (public domain)

Where did the baby name Gogi come from in 1957?

Gogi Grant's album "Suddenly There's Gogi Grant" (1957)
Gogi Grant album

In 1956, singer Gogi (pronounced GO-ghee) Grant scored her first and only #1 hit — “The Wayward Wind.” She was also voted Billboard’s Most Popular Female Vocalist that year.

The next year, the name Gogi made its first and only appearance on the SSA’s baby name list:

  • 1959: unlisted
  • 1958: unlisted
  • 1957: 6 baby girls named Gogi [debut]
  • 1956: unlisted
  • 1955: unlisted

Gogi Grant was born Myrtle Audrey Arinsberg in 1924. Here’s the story behind her stage name:

Audrey Arinsberg was using her married name, Audrey Brown, when she signed with RCA. Her manager changed her name to Audrey Grant, and she used that for two months while performing in the Borscht Belt. Then Dave Kapp came up with the name “Gogi.” “He told me, and you can believe it or not believe it, it came to him in a dream,” she reveals. “But Dave used to go to lunch every day in New York at Gogi’s La Rue. Some of Dave’s friends suspected that’s where he got the name.”

The “Gogi” in the restaurant name came from the name of the proprietor, Giorgi “Gogi” Tchitchinadze, a native of Georgia (the country).

Gogi Grant wasn’t too keen on the name Gogi at first:

“I thought it was very stagey,” Grant recalled, “very unlike me. ‘Why Gogi?’ I asked him. ‘Do I look like a Gogi? Do I sing like a Gogi?’ “

One of the first advertising slogans used to introduce the singer to the public, she remembered, was “What Is a Gogi?”

What do you think of the name Gogi?

Sources:

Baby name story: Fifa

This recent (& very short) news article seemed to me like a mash-up of older news:

A Qatari couple have shown their approval at their country being awarded the 2022 World Cup, by naming their baby ‘Fifa’.

Nayef Al Shimmari and his wife were planning to call their daughter Dana, until the decision last week.

“We saw that Qataris were truly overjoyed with the historic award and we wanted to contribute to the celebrations in our own way”, the mother told Arab newspaper Al Raya.

We saw babies named Fifa in South Africa (and elsewhere) during the 2010 World Cup, and babies named in anticipation of an upcoming sporting event in China in when babies were named Aoyun (short for Olympic Games) long before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Source: Couple from Qatar name newborn daughter ‘Fifa’

Baby born on Continental flight, named Connie

Continental plane

In late July, 1956, the wife of army staff sergeant Harold R. Worsley went into labor while flying flying from Honolulu to Tachikawa, Japan (where her husband was stationed).

She gave birth to a five-pound baby girl over the Pacific Ocean at an elevation of about 10,000 feet.

The baby was going to be named Patricia Anne, but the parents decided to add the name Connie in honor of the plane, a “Connie” (the nickname for a Lockheed Constellation).

Source: “Airplane Baby, Named for Ship, Has 1st Birthday.” Spokane Daily Chronicle 31 Jul 1956: 2.