About the choosing of Ailsa, the first name of the daughter of gold-medal winning Olympic curler Joe Polo:
Both her parents were curlers, members of a tight-knit sport where an intense reverence for the game tends to bleed over into the players’ personal lives. And so it was only natural that Joe and Kristin Polo decided to name their future daughter Ailsa, after the Scottish island where the granite that makes curling rocks is mined.
(Ailsa Craig is an uninhabited islet located about 10 miles off the coast of southwestern Scotland. “Ailsa” may derive from the Old Irish word ail, meaning “rock.”)
Source: Gelineau, Kristen. “Premature baby named after curling rock island defies odds.” ABC News 20 Feb. 2018.