Welcome to this month’s batch of name quotes! Here’s what we’ve got this time around…
Talk show host Kelly Ripa’s explanantion of her daughter Lola’s name, via People:
“Lola was supposed to be Sophia, but on the way to the hospital in the taxi cab, the driver was listening to the radio — the 70s station — and ‘Copacabana’ by Barry Manilow was playing,” the mom of three recalled.
“I heard that [lyric], when he said, ‘Her name was Lola,’ and I said to Mark, ‘Lola Consuelos would be a really cool name.’ And he said, ‘If she’s a girl, let’s name her Lola.’ And that was it,” she shared.
From a 1933 article about baby name trends in a newspaper from Queensland, Australia:
THE latest development in public feeling, in Britain, against Defence of the Realm Act is that the name Dora has gone definitely out of favour as a Christian name for girls.
[The U.K.’s restrictive Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) was passed in 1914, at the start of WWI. According to the historical data available at British Baby Names, usage of the baby name Dora does indeed seem to decrease in England and Wales after 1914.]
From the obituary of Reinhold Weege, creator of the TV sitcom Night Court (1984-1992):
In an inside joke during the third season, it was revealed that [character Dan Fielding’s] real first name was Reinhold, but he changed it to Dan out of embarrassment.
From a 2011 article in Discover Magazine about parrots having names:
Parrots, those irrepressible mimics of the animal world, are some of the few creatures known to have individual names: each bird has its own signature call that others use when addressing it and that the bird uses itself in avian “conversation.”
[…]
Dolphins and humans are, so far, the only other members of this select club of animals who use names for individuals. Scientists think this ability is related to the intensely social lives of all three of these creatures.
From Through It All, the autobiography of Christine King Farris (older sister of Martin Luther King, Jr.):
My full name is Willie Christine King. Hardly anyone knows my first name. I am rarely called by it. “Willie” was chosen as a way to pay homage to the Williams side of my family; it was given in tribute to my maternal grandfather, Reverend A. D. Williams.
From the obituary of Nile Kinnick Clarke in the Mercer Island Reporter:
Also in the sports realm, Nile was named after Nile Clarke Kinnick Jr., the 1939 Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Iowa who died in World War II.
From a write-up of a name study conducted by Carnegie Mellon researchers:
As the popularity of one name, say Emily, peaks, parents may decide to forgo that name and pick a similar one, like Emma. By following this strategy, they are instilling in their new daughter a name that is socially acceptable by its similarity to the popular name but will allow her to stand out in the crowd by putting a unique twist on her identity. Many parents may be thinking the same thing and the number of little girls named Emily will decline while those named Emma will increase.
