Baby Name: Marissa

From a 2010 interview with GoDaddy.com CEO Bob Parsons in The Baltimore Sun:

Q: Do a lot of people register their own names with you? [Full disclosure: I did.]

A: That’s a phenomena that’s starting to actually grow, but I would say it’s still a minority. What I would say is we’ve noticed a trend of baby names. Parents will purchase the dot-com name for their baby. We have been aware of some instances where somebody didn’t name their child a particular name because the dot-com wasn’t available.

From a 2018 article about domain names influencing baby names in The Independent:

Millennial parents are picking baby names based on available domain names, a new study claims.

[…]

According to the research, as many as one in five millennial parents said they changed or seriously considered changing their baby’s name based on what domain names were free at the time.

From a 2018 article about Steve Jobs’s first daughter, Lisa Brennan, in the Daily Mail:

Lisa repeatedly tried to get [Steve] Jobs to tell her that the Lisa Macintosh computer was named after her but he refused to confirm it.

It was only when she was 27 and on holiday at a villa in the South of France owned by U2 singer Bono that Jobs finally came clean.

Over lunch Bono asked Jobs about the early years of Apple and whether or not he named the Lisa after his daughter. Jobs said: ‘Yeah, it was.’

Lisa was shocked and told Bono: ‘That’s the first time he’s said yes. Thank you for asking’.

From a 2019 article about America’s first exascale supercomputer in The Verge:

The supercomputer, dubbed Aurora — which [Secretary of Energy Rick] Perry joked was named after his three-legged black lab Aurora Pancake — is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of 2021, as the DOE attempts to keep pace with China in a supercomputing arms race.

(The dog’s nickname is “Rory.”)

From a 2017 WPMU DEV blog post about the Wayback Machine digital archive:

It’s name is actually a reference from the popular cartoon, Rocky and Bullwinkle. In the show, Mister Peabody’s fictional time machine, WABAC, was pronounced “way back”, and that’s how the index appropriated it.

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, in response to the Quora question: Is the name “Jimmy” unsuitable for an adult?

Interestingly, my actual name is Jimmy. Not James. I used to wonder the same thing, but decided – hey, I’m from Alabama, so people can get over themselves.

It has not seemed to hurt my career in any way, and may have helped as it (correctly, as it turns out) signals to people that I’m not stuffy.

From a 2009 article about Microsoft executive J Allard in Boston University’s alumni magazine Bostonia:

Allard still loves video games (his all-time favorite is “Robotron”). And even his name (legally changed from James) is an homage to computers. In the late 1980s, he explains, “it was my log-in on all of the computer systems at school, and it stuck.”

From a review of the 2023 documentary The Ashley Madison Affair in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Ashley Madison launched in 2001 and took its name from the two most popular baby names at the time, “Ashley” and “Madison.” Right away, that’s creepy.

[Not technically true, but close. Ashley and Madison were the 4th- and 2nd-most popular baby girl names in the U.S. that year. In Canada — which is where the dating website is based — they ranked 13th and 4th.]

From a 2005 article about the first spoken dialogue system used in space at Space.com:

Since Clarissa’s developers planned to set her up on the International Space Station (ISS), the team “went looking for names that had ‘ISS’ in them,” said [John] Dowding. “There aren’t many of those. Clarissa won out,” [Manny] Rayner told Space.com, adding that the team thought a woman’s name would make the system sound friendly.

(The system was first used aboard the ISS in 2005 — about a decade after Clarissa Explains it All was on the air.)

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 2019 BBC article about Doug Bowser becoming president of Nintendo of America:

In what is surely one of the most charming cases of nominative determinism ever, it has been announced the new head of Nintendo of America will be a man named Doug Bowser.

Bowser, as Nintendo fans will know all too well, has long been Super Mario’s main nemesis — a foe who, for more than three decades now, routinely kidnapped Mario’s girlfriend, Princess Peach.

Mr. Bowser will take over in April from retiring Reggie Fils-Aime, a highly popular figure among Nintendo fans.

“With a name like Bowser, who better to hold the keys to the Nintendo castle?” Mr. Fils-Aime said about his successor in a video message posted on Twitter on Thursday.

From a case study of Amtrak’s automated customer service representative Julie [PDF], which was launched in 2001:

Julie became popular with callers and even garnered national acclaim through blogs, YouTube videos, and as an answer on the TV quiz game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Her persona was even featured on Saturday Night Live. “I’ve been surprised about how attached people have gotten to Amtrak Julie,” says the woman who provides the voice of Julie, Julie Stinneford. “I find it funny. Because they’re not really talking to me. They’re talking to a computer.”

From a 2018 article about hotels using artificial intelligence in Condé Nast Traveler:

Meanwhile, in Singapore, the M Social hotel is using a front-of-house robot called Aura to deliver small amenities like water, towels, and toiletries to rooms. Another robot, Ausca, cooks your eggs in the morning. Elsewhere in the city, Hotel Jen uses colorful butler robots named Jeno and Jena to perform guest services that include in-room dining delivery.

From a 2019 article about Amazon Alexa influencing the baby name Alexa in The Seattle Times:

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 a 2018 article about the experience of having the name Alexa via CTV News Saskatoon:

“(It’s) kind of weird sometimes when people come right up to me and say ‘Alexa, what’s the best restaurant in …’ or ‘Alexa, how do I get to …’ and they’re joking of course, but initially you’re kind of taken aback a bit that people are using it in that way,” [Alexa] Gorenko said.

[…]

As for Gorenko, she said the newfound prominence of her name has actually helped her embrace it.

“It kind of brought the name out to me, because there aren’t very many people named Alexa and now you hear it all the time,” she said.

From a 2019 article about a Maryland couple whose toddler is named Alexa via NBC4 Washington:

The couple is so concerned that they wrote to Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, and proposed a different name to the popular device. Lew Klein said they did hear back.

Amazon explained to them that the product was named after the famous Library of Alexandria that “stored the knowledge of the ancient world.” While the message said the suggestion would be passed along, Amazon has no plans on changing the name anytime soon.

(This reminds me of the time when people named Zoe in France got angry about the name of the Renault Zoe.)

From a 2014 article about startup names getting human names in Fortune:

If you work in startups, there’s a good chance you know Oscar. And Alfred. Benny, too. And don’t forget Lulu and Clara. These aren’t the prominent Silicon Valley people that techies know by first name (although those exist—think Marissa, Satya, Larry and Sergey, Zuck). Rather, Oscar, Alfred, Benny, Lulu and Clara are companies. The latest trend in startup names is regular old human names.

From a 2018 tweet by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk:

[W]e didn’t actually come up with the Tesla Motors name. Bought trademark off Brad Siewert for $75k in late 2004. He’d originally filed for it in 1994. Our alternative name was Faraday, which was used by a competitor several years later.

Image: Adapted from Lisa by Marcin Wichary under CC BY 2.0.

[Latest update: Jan. 2025]