Learning that Carrie-Anne Moss was not named after the song “Jenny Rebecca” led me to discover a baby who was named after “Jenny Rebecca.”
Before we get to that, though, let’s start with the fact that the song itself was named after a baby named Jenny Rebecca.
It was written by composer and lyricist Carol Hall for her friends Ilene and William Goldman upon the birth of their first child, Jenny Rebecca, circa 1962. The lyrics begin, “Jenny Rebecca, four days old / How do you like the world so far?”
The song was recorded first by Barbra Streisand in 1965, then later by other artists.
One of those other artists was classical singer Frederica von Stade, who recorded “Jenny Rebecca” [vid] in December of 1977 for her album Song Recital (1978). According to the album’s liner notes, von Stade was “so fond of [the song] that she named her first child, born just forty-eight hours after this record was recorded, Jenny Rebecca.”
Her daughter’s full first name was actually Jennifer, which makes sense, given that Jennifer was the top girl name in the nation at that time. (It ranked #1 for fifteen years straight, from 1970 to 1984.)
P.S. William Goldman was the screenwriter/novelist behind Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride.
Sources:
- Song Recital – Wikipedia
- Simon, Scott. “Frederica von Stade on being inducted into the Opera Hall of Fame.” NPR 27 Jan. 2024.
- Cryer, Gretchen. “Carol Hall.” Dramatist 1 May 2019.
- Swan, Annalyn. “The sweetheart of American opera.” Newsweek 4 Apr. 1983.
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