Here’s the latest batch of name-related quotes…
From an article about a Maryland National Guard medic named after the late Colin Powell (1937-2021):
For Spc. Collinpowell Ebai, […] Gen. Colin Powell’s passing is both a time to mourn and a reminder of a regimented and hopeful childhood that made him the Soldier and man he is today.
“My first name is a combination of the first and last name of my grandfather’s most-admired leader of all time,” said Ebai, who was born in Kumba, Cameroon, a month before Powell retired as a four-star general. “In fact, my uncles still call me, ‘the general.’”
From Cloris Leachman‘s autobiography Cloris (2009), a scene set in early 1966, soon after the birth of her daughter Dinah:
Sometime the following week — I think it was five days later — we gave a dinner party, and Dinah Shore was among the guests. She wanted to see the new baby, so we brought her to the crib, and she oohed and aahed about how beautiful she was.
“What’s her name?” she asked as she leaned over the baby.
“Dinah,” I said. Then I thought, Oh, oh.
Dinah Shore turned to us, emotion visible on her face. “You named her after me?” There was a tremble in her voice.
The truth was, we hadn’t thought of Dinah Shore or anybody else while we cruised around for a name. Some very fast footwork was called for.
“Yes,” I said, my eyes mirroring the emotion in hers. “George and I thought you were the perfect role model for our baby.”
I mean, what could I do? She was having something close to a religious experience. I couldn’t slap my forehead and say, “Can you believe it? We never once thought of you when we picked the name.”
From the lighthearted obituary of Lindy Gene Rollins (1928-2022) in the Amarillo Globe-News:
He had a lifelong obsession with airplanes which should not be a surprise since he was named after Charles Lindbergh (Lucky Lindy) the first U.S. pilot credited with making a solo, nonstop transatlantic flight. Lindy went on to take flying lessons after he retired as a diesel mechanic. Thankfully, he was not granted his pilot’s license due to his age and the medications he was on. No one in the family would have been brave enough to ride in an airplane he was piloting anyway!
From the book Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World (1999) by David Sheff, an account of the Nintendo of America staff — working out of a warehouse in Washington state — preparing the video game Donkey Kong (1981) for the U.S. market:
They were trying to decide what to call the rotund, red-capped carpenter, when there was a knock on the door.
[Minoru] Arakawa answered it. Standing there was the owner of the warehouse. In front of everyone, he blasted Arakawa because the rent was late. Flustered, Arakawa promised that the money was forthcoming, and the man left.
The landlord’s name was Mario Segali [sic]. “Mario,” they decided. “Super Mario!”
(The landlord’s surname was actually spelled Segale. And, if you’re remembering the video game character as a plumber instead of a carpenter, you’re right — his occupation was changed for later games.)
From a late 2021 article about college football by Associated Press journalist Stephen Hawkins:
Cincinnati cornerback Coby Bryant […] changed his number for the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Cotton Bowl against No. 1 Alabama on Friday.
Yes, Bryant is named after the late NBA great, even with the different spelling of the first name.
For the playoff game, Bryant switched from the No. 7 he had worn throughout his Cincinnati career to No. 8, one of the two numbers the basketball Hall of Fame player wore while winning five NBA titles over his 20 seasons with the Los Angeles Lakers.
“My parents loved Kobe Bryant and my brother does too,” the Bearcats cornerback said. “So I was named for Kobe Bryant. It’s just spelled differently”
From the book The Bonjour Effect (2016) by Canadian authors (and couple) Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau:
But curiously, the French still stick to the classics when it comes to naming children. […] And one rarely sees names with really unorthodox spellings. The French just assume having a weird name will limit you in life. Our twin daughters, who are adopted, had as their original Haitian names something along the lines of Mandarine and Mandoline. Before the girls arrived, many of our North American friends were worried that changing their names would damage their identities by depriving them of a link to their Haitian origins. Our French friends uniformly congratulated us for changing the names and helping our daughters avoid (what they assumed would be) humiliation all their their lives. Personne ne pourrait vivre avec ce nom, they said. No one can get through life with names like those.
For more quotes about names, check out the name quotes category.
