The term ’soap opera name’ has always had a pejorative connotation, suggesting over-the-top, strong, silent Ridge-Thorne-Trent type names. But the truth of the matter is that the scripters of daytime dramas have actually been a lot more imaginative–and prescient–than those of, say, sitcoms or nighttime dramas.
The classic example–as Abby Sandel mentioned in her guest blog the other day–is Kayla. When the character of Kayla Brady was introduced on Days of Our Lives in 1982, her name had hardly been heard of–much less used. But not long after that, Kayla began an unprecedented leap up the lists, and stayed there for well over a decade.
Soaps also anticipated the trend of using place names for people–there were Egypts and Indias, Sierras and Friscos years before it was a baby-naming trend and they were in the forefront of using last names as firsts. And there were too many individual names that were ahead of their time: Cameron, Kyle and Kylie, Logan, Hunter, Holden, Colton, Cooper, Roman, Jagger, Harley for a girl…. all of them appeared on the soaps from the 70s to the 90s.
Now, as one of the stalwarts of soap operadom, The Guiding Light, is about to bite the dust after 72 years on radio and TV, this seems like a good moment to celebrate some of the more original sudsy names of the past and present (but sorry, I draw the line at Chardonnay):
GIRLS
AMBROISIA
GREENLEE
BOYS
WHIP (!)
ZENDE
Tags: baby names from soap operas, baby names from tv, boy names, Days of Our Lives, daytime drama names, girl names, soap opera names, soap operas, The Bold and the Beautiful, The Guiding Light, TV names
This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 12:46 am and is filed under TV character namesV, Uncategorized, baby names from tv, boys' names, girl names, girls' names, name ideas, namesakes, soap opera names . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:23 am
You should add Spinelli to the list! He’s on General Hospital, he’s a geek, but he has an interesting name.
I mostly love this list, a few of the names annoy me, but I like most of them a lot. Especially Frisco… is it usable, though?