How did “Good Will Hunting” influence baby names?

The characters Skylar and Will from the movie "Good Will Hunting" (1997)
Skylar and Will from “Good Will Hunting“

The protagonist of the movie Good Will Hunting, which was released in December of 1997, was a young man from South Boston named Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon).

Will Hunting saw “nothing wrong with spending his whole life hanging out with his friends, quaffing a few beers, holding down a blue-collar job.”

The problem? He was also a self-taught mathematical genius with a photographic memory.

So several people in his life — including his best friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck), his psychotherapist Sean (Robin Williams), and his girlfriend Skylar (Minnie Driver) — pushed him to rise above his troubled past and embrace his gifts. As Chuckie put it, Will was “sitting on a winning lottery ticket” — he just had to find the courage to cash it in.

Good Will Hunting became one of the highest-grossing films of 1998. It also won a pair of Academy Awards: one for Best Supporting Actor (Williams), the other for Best Original Screenplay (Damon and Affleck).

So how did the movie affect the baby name charts?

The usage of Will, which was the only name used to refer to the main character (i.e., he was never called William), increased in 1998:

  • 2000: 447 baby boys named Will [rank: 510th]
  • 1999: 422 baby boys named Will [rank: 506th]
  • 1998: 339 baby boys named Will [rank: 578th]
  • 1997: 268 baby boys named Will [rank: 634th]
  • 1996: 280 baby boys named Will [rank: 622nd]

And the slow rise of Skylar for baby girls accelerated noticeably the same year:

Girls named SkylarBoys named Skylar
20002,503 [rank: 135th]748 [rank: 356th]
19992,513 [rank: 131st]695 [rank: 374th]
19981,731 [rank: 173rd]730 [rank: 358th]
1997953 [rank: 302nd]657 [rank: 372nd]
1996855 [rank: 328th]636 [rank: 373rd]

(The names Wil, Skyler, and Skyla also saw higher usage in 1998.)

Matt Damon wrote the first draft of the script for Good Will Hunting while attending Harvard College in the early ’90s. He based the character of Skylar, a pre-med student at Harvard, on his then-girlfriend, Skylar Satenstein, a former pre-med student at Harvard. (She’d since become a med student at Columbia.)

Incidentally, Satenstein went on the marry Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich (son of Torben Ulrich) in early 1997. Later the same year, Lars and Skylar attended the local premiere of Good Will Hunting together in New York City.

P.S. The movie was shot during the spring of 1997, which overlapped with the end of my own freshman year at Harvard. I remember other students saying they’d spotted a film crew in the area during those months.

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of Good Will Hunting

Where did the baby name Livan come from in 1997?

Baseball player Liván Hernández
Liván Hernández

The name Livan first appeared in the U.S. baby name data in 1997. It reached peak usage the very next year.

  • 1999: 23 baby boys named Livan
  • 1998: 66 baby boys named Livan [peak]
  • 1997: 36 baby boys named Livan [debut]
  • 1996: unlisted
  • 1995: unlisted

Where did it come from?

Professional baseball player Liván Hernández, who was born (as Eisler Liván Hernández Carrera) in Cuba in 1975.

Liván pitched for nine different teams during his 17-year Major League Baseball career (from 1996 to 2012).

He was particularly successful in 1997, when he helped the Florida Marlins win both the National League Championship Series (against the Atlanta Braves) and the World Series (against the Cleveland Indians). He was named MVP of both series.

Later in his career, he was selected as an All-Star twice (in 2004 and 2005) and received a Silver Slugger Award (in 2004).

What are your thoughts on the name Liván?

P.S. Hernández’s older half-brother, Orlando, was also a pitcher in the major leagues.

Sources: Liván Hernández – Wikipedia, SSA

Image: Adapted from Hires 110331-D-7377C-010b (public domain) by Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Carden

What popularized the baby name Corliss in the 1940s?

The character Corliss Archer (played by Shirley Temple) from the film "Kiss and Tell" (1945)
Corliss Archer from “Kiss and Tell“

After re-emerging in the U.S. baby name data in 1943, the name Corliss went on to feature in the girls’ top 1,000 from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s.

  • 1946: 182 baby girls named Corliss [rank: 591st]
  • 1945: 80 baby girls named Corliss [rank: 843rd]
  • 1944: 70 baby girls named Corliss [rank: 918th]
  • 1943: 44 baby girls named Corliss
  • 1942: unlisted
  • 1941: 6 baby girls named Corliss

(The spelling Corlis also saw higher usage during that period, and Corless was a one-hit wonder in 1947.)

What accounts for the trendiness of Corliss during those years?

A fictional teenage girl named Corliss Archer.

Created by writer F. Hugh Herbert, the “energetic and vivacious” Corliss was introduced in early 1943 as the central character of…

  • A series of six short stories published in the popular women’s magazine Good Housekeeping (starting in January),
  • The radio program Meet Corliss Archer (which also started in January), and
  • The Broadway play Kiss and Tell (which premiered in March).

In 1945, the play was adapted into a film of the same name starring 17-year-old Shirley Temple. The following year (which, admittedly, was the first year of the baby boom) the name Corliss reached peak usage.

Shirley Temple also starred in a second Corliss Archer film, A Kiss for Corliss, which was released in 1949.

The character Corliss Archer from the TV series "Meet Corliss Archer" (1954-55)
Corliss Archer from “Meet Corliss Archer“

During the 1950s, the radio program Meet Corliss Archer was adapted to television twice:

  • In the first adaptation, which was broadcast live on CBS from 1951 to 1952, Corliss was played by Lugene Sanders.
  • In the second, which was produced for first-run syndication during the 1954-55 season, Corliss was played by Ann Baker (above).

The radio program itself remained on the air for more than 13 years, until mid-1956.

I’m not sure why F. Hugh Herbert chose “Corliss” as the name of the character. (Perhaps he was inspired by Corliss Palmer?) But I do know that the character was based on his own teenage daughters, Diana and Pamela. He wrote,

I merely had to put into the lips of Corliss some of their more pungent phrases, into the life of Corliss some of their exuberant high spirits, their natural gaiety, bounce, and charm.

Sources:

Image: Screenshots of Kiss and Tell (1945) and Meet Corliss Archer (1954-55)

What gave the baby name Cara a boost in 1965?

The character Cara Bridges/Wilton from the TV series "The Cara Williams Show" (1964-1965)
Cara from “The Cara Williams Show“

According to the U.S. baby name data, the name Cara saw a spike in usage in 1965:

  • 1967: 604 baby girls named Cara [rank: 366th]
  • 1966: 677 baby girls named Cara [rank: 347th]
  • 1965: 987 baby girls named Cara [rank: 274th]
  • 1964: 663 baby girls named Cara [rank: 366th]
  • 1963: 682 baby girls named Cara [rank: 368th]

What caused the brief increase?

The 1965 pop song “Cara Mia” could be a secondary influence here, but I think the main influence was a single-season sitcom called The Cara Williams Show, which aired from 1964 to 1965 (30 episodes) on CBS.

The star of the show was actress Cara Williams, who played a scatterbrained character also named Cara. Fictional Cara went by two different surnames: Bridges (her married name) at home, and Wilton (her maiden name) at work. Why? Because she and her husband Frank (played by actor Frank Aletter) were co-workers at a company that forbade the employment of married couples. They therefore went to great lengths to conceal their marriage from their boss.

Cara Williams — a “perky redhead” often compared to Lucille Ball — was born Bernice Kamiat in New York City in 1925.

What are your thoughts on the name Cara?

Sources:

Image: Screenshot of The Cara Williams Show