Welcome to May! Here’s this month’s batch of name-related quotes.
In a 2022 interview with The Telegraph, English lyricist Sir Tim Rice was asked to recall his ‘best day’:
When my first child, Eva, was born in 1975, although you don’t think of these things in a league table of great events. We named her after Eva Perón, but also because Eva is a good old English name.
(Rice, who became interested in the life of Eva Perón in the early 1970s, later collaborated with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber to create the Perón-inspired musical Evita, which opened in 1978.)
From the 2018 article “Oscar, Marcus, Casper, Cora: Companies are using human names to seem more friendly” in the Los Angeles Times:
Over the last few years, a crowd of new companies has emerged across tech, finance and health sporting a first-name brand. Oscar, Alfred, Lola — they have the look and feel of a friend, a colleague, maybe even your cat. And that’s the point: Make a connection with consumers that even Carnegie would appreciate.
[…]
The strategy seems to be working. Research shows that the more simple and human-sounding the name, the greater the company’s success.
[…]
The name game isn’t so much about the products or services being sold. It’s a subconscious approach to branding that borders on anthropomorphizing a company.
(I stumbled upon this one while doing research for a request post.)
From a January 2013 article about the divorce of Kelly Hildebrandt and Kelly Hildebrandt — one a male from Texas, the other a female from Florida:
The tale of the two Kellys began in February 2009, when Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt, of Coral Springs, found the Facebook profile of her future spouse. She saw that they had the exact same first and last name and sent him a friendly greeting to note their shared name.
They started having online exchanges and three weeks later, male Kelly, then 24, traveled from Texas to South Florida to meet female Kelly, then 20. They hit it off immediately and got engaged.
NBC 6 first reported about the Kellys in July 2009, and their story soon after went worldwide.
(My favorite line from the piece: “Male Kelly said he would be reluctant to marry anyone with the same name again.”)
.svg){kind=link}