Olympic gold medal-winning cross-country skier Kikkan (pronounced KEE-kin) Randall was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on the very last day of 1982.
How did her parents (“free spirits who met at a California ski resort”) come up with her unusual first name?
It was a compromise.
Her father, Ronn, had wanted to name her Kikki in honor of Alpine skier Christina “Kiki” Cutter, the first American (male or female) to win a World Cup event (a slalom race in Oslo, Norway, in early 1968).
But her mother, Deborah, had preferred the name Meghan.
So they ended up combining Kikki and Meghan to create the name “Kikkan.”
(Kikkan’s two younger siblings, a brother and a sister, are named Tanner and Kalli.)
Sources:
- Crouse, Karen. “Kikkan Randall, the Pride of Alaska on Cross-Country Skis.” New York Times 10 Dec. 2009.
- Team USA – Kikkan Randall
- Kikkan Randall – Wikipedia
Image: Adapted from Kikkan Randall, Sprintvinnaren 2013 by Frankie Fouganthin under CC BY-SA 3.0.
[Latest update: Dec. 2024]