Welcome to the latest batch of name quotes! Here we go…
From an interview with English actor Marcus Rutherford in British GQ:
Marcus Rutherford realised The Wheel Of Time was going to be a big deal when he heard about the baby names. It was his birthday, not long after he’d been cast as the young blacksmith Perrin Aybara in Amazon’s new big-budget adaptation of Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy book series, and he decided […] to check out some of the birthday wishes on Twitter from a handful of die-hard Wheel Of Time fan accounts. […] “A lot of it came in, then there was a picture of a newborn baby. And this guy was like, ‘This is Perrin, who’s just been born. I’ve named him after your character. He says happy birthday.'”
From an interview with Brazilian soccer player Oleúde José Ribeiro (translated from Portuguese):
Q: But, after all, is your name, Oleúde, inspired by Hollywood or not?
A: No, no, it was just a brilliant idea from my parents (laughs). Like it or not, this story always helped me, it drew the attention of reporters… the late Luciano do Valle always asked listeners to guess my name, saying that it was the capital of cinema, it had a lot of impact at the time. This Hollywood thing has become a legend, but it has nothing to do with it.
From the obituary of Dana Marie Ek in Fauquier Now:
Dana was born on October 19, 1995, in Astoria, Oregon. She was named after the Dana Glacier — located deep in the wilds of the Glacier Peak Wilderness Area, because her father thought it was the most beautiful place on heaven or earth.
From an MLB.com article recounting how Jeter Downs met Derek Jeter:
So the man named after Derek Jeter by his baseball-crazed mother — even though his father is a Red Sox fan — had never actually met Derek Jeter?
It finally happened last week in a random encounter on a road in South Florida — sort of.
“This last week, I was driving, me and my brother were driving to go to [the] train,” said Downs. “We’re in traffic. My brother sees this Range Rover pulling up. He was like, ‘Oh my God, is that Jeter?’ He honks and I wave at him.
“I’m doing training with Raul Ibanez, [Jeter’s former teammate]. I called Raul and said, ‘Tell [Derek] Jeter that the kid he was waving at was Jeter [Downs].’ So then he told him that and it was pretty cool that I met him that way.”
From an article about Manchester twins named Ronnie and Reggie (like the famous London criminals Ronnie and Reggie Kray):
[W]e found two sets of twins and siblings named Ronnie and Reggie, as well as some Ronnies on their own.
Among them are the adorable twins pictured above (main image). Their mum said: “I thought it was only me capable of calling mine Ronnie and Reggie.”
But she’s far from alone. As well as finding another pair of twins with the same names, Moston mum Kellie Smart shared a picture of her sons, five-year-old Reggie Urch and Ronnie Urch, who turns four next week.
“People stop me all the time and ask are they twins and laugh when I tell them their names,” said Kellie, also mum to teenagers Mollie and Thomas.
From a 2007 article called “You Are What Your Name Says You Are” in the New York Times:
Sociologists like Mr. Besnard observed that first names [in France] were often quick markers of social and educational status. As another Libération reader, an elementary school teacher, pointed out: “I can often guess the ‘profile’ of a child thanks to the first name. A ‘Maxime,’ a ‘Louise,’ a ‘Kevin,’ a ‘Lolita.’ It’s sad, but that’s how it often works.” That is, Maxime and Louise probably have wealthy parents, while Kevin and Lolita are more likely to have a working- or lower-middle-class background.
Indeed, bourgeois French parents are unlikely to give their children “Anglo-Saxon” names; Jennifer was the most popular name for girls from 1984 to 1986, but it’s a safe bet few Jennifers came from well-educated families. (The craze is commonly explained by the success of the TV series “Hart to Hart” in France at that time — Jennifer Hart was one of the title characters — while “Beverly Hills, 90210,” featuring a popular character named Dylan McKay, is sometimes blamed for the explosion of Dylans a few years later.)
And finally, a bevy of B-names from basketball player Bradley Beal’s “About Brad” page:
Born on June 28, 1993, and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, by Bobby and Besta Beal, there was little doubt that Brad would eventually be an athlete. Both parents played sports for Kentucky State — Bobby was a football player, Besta a basketball player.
[…]
There were four other people in Brad’s family who were instrumental in his development as an athlete, and ultimately, as a young man. His two older brothers, Bruce and Brandon, and his younger brothers, the twins Byron and Bryon.