It’s a new month — time for a new batch of name-related quotations!
From a write-up about Ryan Reynolds’ appearance on the Today show in mid-December:
After Hoda asked how he and Blake came up with the name of their third (a clever way to get the actor to publicly confirm what the name actually is), Reynolds quipped, “We haven’t yet! We’re gonna be original, and all the letters in her name are silent.” […] He continued, “I want to give her something to push against in life.”
From an article about the weirdly common celebrity baby name Charlie Wolf:
Celebrity moms and dads are going wild for the animal-inspired baby name Charlie Wolf.
Zooey Deschanel and her estranged husband, Jacob Pechenik, kicked off the trendy moniker when they welcomed their baby boy in 2017.
[…]
Lauren Conrad and William Tell welcomed their second little one in October 2019 — and named him Charlie Wolf as well.
[…]
The following month, another Charlie Wolf arrived — or rather, Charles Wolfe.
(The third one was born to former Bachelor in Paradise contestants Evan Bass and Carly Waddell.)
From an article and a blog post about the naming of Wendy’s:
When it came to deciding what to call the chain, [Dave Thomas] tried out the names of all five of his children before he settled on the nickname for his daughter, Melinda, which was Wendy.
Before my dad left us [in 2002], we had a long conversation about him naming the restaurant Wendy’s. It was the first time we’d ever had this conversation. He said, “You know what? I’m sorry.” I asked him what he meant. He explained, “I should’ve just named it after myself, because it put a lot of pressure on you.”
From an article about the “-Mae” trend in Australia:
Marlie-Mae, Gracie-Mae, Mila-Mae… you may have noticed the trend.
Aussie celebs are giving their baby girls hyphenated names with a sweet, old-fashioned sound. The Bachelor’s Matty J and Laura Byrne went for Marlie-Mae, Bachelor In Paradise’s Simone Ormesher and partner Matt Thorne chose Gracie-Mae, while Married at First Sight’s Davina Rankin and boyfriend Jaxon Manuel decided on Mila-Mae.
[…]
Although these names might sound American – think Elly May Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies – this is actually a huge British trend that seems to be just taking off in Australia.
From a 2017 LDS Living article about Mormon names:
Jennifer Mansfield, a current graduate student in the Folklore Program at Utah State University, identified six different types of Mormon names: religious (Moroni, Nephi, Brigham), combination (Taylee, Mandylyn), invented (Kaislen), creatively spelled (Kady, Taeler), ancestral (Freestone, Jenkin), and themed (Monson, Hinckley, Kimball).
From the post “Names 2011!” by Jessie Jensen of Bloggity Blog:
A few months ago I sat in front of an older woman on a flight who was cheerfully explaining to her seatmate that she was on her way to visit her new grandson. When the lady asked what the sweet little dear’s name was, the grandma clammed up and replied reservedly, “Slate”. To some degree, his name diminished her joy. (It came out later that Slate was the younger sibling of Crimson, Indigo, and Sage.)
From a Daily Mail article about life in ancient Rome:
In fact, one of the major sources of [Roman] slaves was probably these thrown-away babies. You can tell that from the names people gave them. One common name was Copreus — it translates as ‘found on the dung-heap’. This probably happened more to baby girls than to baby boys.
From CUNY linguist Leonard R. N. Ashley (via Futility Closet):
I once had a student named Usmail, which I at first thought was some Hispanic version of Ishmael. It transpired that he had been named for the only contact his family in a remote Puerto Rican village enjoyed with the outside world, the red-white-and-blue truck that came frequently and had painted on its side US Mail.
(Here are more names like Usmail.)
Why “Robert Galbraith”? J. K. Rowling’s answer (via Nancy Friedman):
I can only hope all the real Robert Galbraiths out there will be as forgiving as the real Harry Potters have been. I must say, I don’t think their plight is quite as embarrassing.
I chose Robert because it is one of my favourite men’s names, because Robert F Kennedy is my hero and because, mercifully, I hadn’t used it for any of the characters in the Potter series or ‘The Casual Vacancy’.
Galbraith came about for a slightly odd reason. When I was a child, I really wanted to be called ‘Ella Galbraith’, and I’ve no idea why. I don’t even know how I knew that the surname existed, because I can’t remember ever meeting anyone with it. Be that as it may, the name had a fascination for me. I actually considered calling myself L A Galbraith for the Strike series, but for fairly obvious reasons decided that initials were a bad idea.
Odder still, there was a well-known economist called J K Galbraith, something I only remembered by the time it was far too late. I was completely paranoid that people might take this as a clue and land at my real identity, but thankfully nobody was looking that deeply at the author’s name.
From a Rolling Stone article about Davy Jones (found while researching the Monkees):
Davy became so famous that another David Jones – a struggling singer-songwriter at the Monkees’ peak – had to change his last name to Bowie.
[He got “Bowie” from the Bowie knife, named after American frontiersman Jim Bowie.]
From the obituary of Art Ginsburg, founder of Art’s Deli in Los Angeles:
Using family recipes and an investment of $3,000, he opened Art’s Deli — “where every sandwich is a work of Art” — on June 22, 1957.
From comedian Mitch Hedberg:
“I wish my name was Brian because maybe sometimes people would misspell my name and call me Brain. That’s like a free compliment and you don’t even gotta be smart to notice it.”
From the Mental Floss article “18 Athletes Going to Sochi Alone“:
If you do a Google search for the name Bruno Banani, you will get the German underwear company of that name. But it’s also the name of the first Winter Olympian from Tonga. Born Fuahea Semi, the Tongan rugby player and luger went by Bruno Banani to court sponsorship from the company. It was part of a deal endorsed by the Tongan royal family to enable the athlete to afford training in Germany with the world’s best lugers. The company insinuated that the name was just a coincidence that led to the sponsorship, but that story unraveled quickly. It wasn’t “just” a hoax; Semi legally changed his name to Bruno Banani. The International Olympic Committee decided that even though using a sponsor’s name is in bad taste, Banani is the name on his passport, so he will be the lone athlete representing Tonga at Sochi in the luge event.
From Penelope Trunk’s blog post My name is not really Penelope:
So when I signed up for my son’s preschool, I told them my name was Penelope Trunk. My husband had a fit. He told me I was starting our new life in Madison as an insane person and I cannot change my name now.
But I explained to him that it would be insane not to change my name now. I am way better known as Penelope than Adrienne. And my career is so closely tied with the brand Penelope Trunk, that I actually became the brand. So calling myself Penelope Trunk instead of Adrienne Greenheart is actually a way to match my personal life with my professional life and to make things more sane.
At first it was a little weird. For example, we were driving in the car one day and my son said, “Mom, who’s Penelope Trunk?”
But now it feels good to be Penelope Trunk. No more having to figure out what name to give where. No more pretending to be someone, sometimes. No more long explanations and short memories of who calls me what.
From the New York Times obituary of Pitcairner and Bounty mutineer descendant Tom Christian:
There are no automobiles on Pitcairn, and the island’s rocks and cliffs bear names redolent of long-ago tragedies: “Where Dan Fall,” “Where Minnie Off,” “Oh Dear.”
[…]
Besides his daughter Jacqueline, Mr. Christian’s survivors include his wife, the former Betty Christian, whom he married in 1966 (like many Pitcairn couples, they are distant cousins); three other daughters, Raelene Christian, Sherileen Christian and Darlene McIntyre; and six grandchildren.
From a Stir post about “Teen Mom” Leah Messer and her new baby Adalynn:
[S]he is spending the whole week correcting every media report out there on how to spell the baby’s name. Whoops!
The problem started when US Weekly spelled the little girl’s name with two “d”s instead of one, and just spiraled from there. Leah has had to turn to social media to make the correction.
Sounds like the Teen Mom just got a taste of what happens when you decide you need your baby’s name to be insanely “unique.”
From Summer Pierre’s blog post about her name:
I grew up in what I have learned since then, is considered an ALTERNATIVE environment. I went to a hippie school, and my classmates had names that included Andromeda, Boreas, Vitali, Oak, and Rolly (pronounced Role-e) (hi guys!). Considering the roll call, I was kind of the “Jane Smith” of the group. However, regardless of the pillows on the floor, and meetings where we had to discuss our feelings, I still got teased on the playground and called names. None of them were season-based. They were things that rhymed with my name–names that STILL make me cringe and feel bad. Names like “Bummer” and “Dumber.”
[…]
Then, I moved to the East Coast. East coast people find it a very funny name. This morning, as it would happen, two co-workers discussed my name in front of me, and one said, “I didn’t think it was your real name.” I get that a lot. Maybe it’s because there aren’t any hippies left here. I know the cultural consciousness happened on the east coast, because I’ve met people that had hippies for parents, but it seems that east coast hippies have moved on to academic postings or documentary filmmakers, and they seem to name their kids Amos or Noah, and not after seasons or other natural occurrences.
From a Fader article about musician/rapper (and snappy dresser) Fonzworth Bentley:
That man was Derek Watkins, but he’d become known to millions as Fonzworth Bentley. His moniker was inspired in part by Bootney Lee Farnsworth, the underdog boxer from the 1975 Sidney Poitier-directed movie Let’s Do It Again.
From a 2019 article about Amazon Alexa’s influence on the baby name Alexa:
About 4,250 Alexas are turning five in the U.S. this year. One of them is Amazon’s.
The voice-computing technology that can now control more than 85,000 different devices debuted Nov. 6, 2014.
[…]
In 2015, the year after Amazon Alexa debuted, Alexa was the 32nd most popular female baby name in the U.S., bestowed upon 6,052 newborns that year, according to Social Security Administration data.
Alexa as a baby name has since declined in popularity.
From an article about a surname mash-up in Australia:
Sydney couple Courtney Cassar, 31, and Laura Sheldon, 29, welcomed daughter Lyla Jill last month, but rather than using a hyphen between their family names, they bestowed the ‘mashed-up’ moniker ‘Casseldon’ on their baby girl instead.
For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.
