To commemorate Martin Luther King Day, we honor some of his fellow heroes and heroines of the civil rights movement.  It would be impossible to list all of them, so here are some of the most worthy namesakes.

AMELIA Boynton Robinson – brought Dr. King to Selma in 1953

ANGELA Davis  –radical Black activist, advocate of racial justice

CARLOTTA Walls – youngest member of the Little Rock Nine students who desegregated Central High School in 1957

CHARLAYNE Hunter-Gault –one of the first two African-American students to enter the University of Georgia in 1961

CLARA Luper – activist known as the ‘Mother of the Civil Rights Movement’

CLAUDETTE Colvin – refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus nine months before Rosa Parks did

CORETTA Scott King – Dr. King’s full partner in the civil rights movement

DAISY Bates –  a key figure in the integration of Central High School in Little Rock

DOROTHY Cotton – the highest ranking female in Dr King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference

ELEANOR ROOSEVELT –   a civil rights activist during her husband’s tenure as President.

ELLA  Baker – influential activist, key figure in the NAACP, SCLC and in the creation of the Student Noviolent Coordinating Committee (more…)

We talk a lot about the influence of celebrity baby names on the general population of baby namers, but just how potent is that influence in actuality?  I thought it might be useful to  take a closer look at some celebrity choices and see if there was some way to quantify their impact.

Of course there are, inevitably, other factors involved in whether celebrity baby names become popular.  For instance, how high-profile is this celeb and how much has her child been seen in the media?  What are other influences surrounding  the name?  A popular character in a movie or TV show?  Is this a name that would have risen anyway, just as part of the zeitgeist or is it one that was never—or hardly ever—even heard before?  Is  it a vintage name that had been stored in the attic until it was brought out and sprinkled with some stardust?

Here are a few specific examples, giving the child’s and his or her celebrity parent’s name, the year of birth, and where the name ranked before, during and after its arrival.

AVA is an interesting case.  Previously seen as an outdated, elderlyish name, it first showed signs of a revival when used by Aidan Quinn in 1989, but he didn’t seem to have the voltage to elevate the name above the 800’s on the Social Security list.  Next came Heather Locklear, a major TV star at the time of her Ava’s birth in 1997: the name subsequently rose from #737 in 1995 to 259 in 1999.  But it was following the more highly publicized arrival of Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe’s Ava-named daughter in 1999 that the name shot up to #133 two years later—and then all the way to #5 (and probably rising) last year.

HAZEL was another name that seemed to have little potential for a comeback when chosen by Julia Roberts for one of her twins in 2004.  It wasn’t even on the list in 1997, was at 681 when little Hazel Moder was born, but had risen to 359 three years later.

IRELAND is a clear-cut example of a name created by the celebrity culture, as it was unheard of when the daughter of Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin was born in 1995—a time when place names were heating up.  By last year, there were more baby girls named Ireland than there were named Tess, Tia or Tanya.

JADEN is another proof of the Starbaby Effect.  The son of Jada Pinkett and Will Smith was given this spin on the biblical Jadon in 1998, when it ranked #328; five years later it had zoomed to #82.  Jaden’s sister Willow’s name is also on the rise.

JAYDEN.  This spelling was already quite trendy when Britney Spears and Kevin Federline picked it for their son in 2006, but the maelstrom of  publicity swirling around Britney and her boys surely contributed to this version of the name reaching its current standing of  #11. (more…)

Saturday Night Live has been around for 34 years, and over its long run it has featured many of the funniest, most creative, offbeat comic talents in America–some of whom have gone on to become so iconic that we’ve almost forgotten they were ever regulars on the show.  As in Billy Crystal, Robert Downey Jr, Bill Murray, Dennis Miller, Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Martin Short and Senator Al “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough” Franken.

The question is: did they apply their quirky creativity when it came to naming their babies?  The answer is: not so much.  For example, Billy Crystal named one of his daughters Jennifer, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Brad Hall have a Henry and a Charles, Dana Carvey a Thomas, Al Franken a Joe,  and Jim Belushi a Robert.

But there are some who did–to lesser and greater degrees–think outside the box, most recently Maya Rudolph with her choice of Lucille. Here are some others:

ALEXANDRA  –  Joe Piscopo

ALICE ZENOBIA  –  Tina Fey

AUBREY  –  Victoria Jackson

BELLA ZAHRA  –  Eddie Murphy

BELLE KINGSTON  –  Dan Ackroyd

BIRGEN  –  Phil Hartman

BRIA  –Eddie Murphy

BRIDEY  –  Chris Elliot

CARA MIA  –  Damon Wayans

ELLA OLIVIA  –  Ben Stiller

FRANCES  –  Ana Gasteyer

GITRID  –  Tracy Morgan

HARPER  –  David Spade

JAMISON –  Jim Belushi

KYLA  –  Damon Wayans

LILY ASTER  –  Gilbert Gottfried

LOLA SIMONE  –  Chris Rock

LUCILLE  –  Maya Rudolph (more…)

What could be a greater gift to bestow on your daughter than a name with a heroic namesake, someone with an inspiring story to add a layer of pride to your little girl’s  feelings about her name–and give her great material for a school report?

The following is a list of mostly American women of great courage, perseverence and accomplishment—many of whom broke barriers for women– that could fill this bill.  And of course, this being nameberry, the name’s the thing, so apologies to all the equally distinguished Marys, Elizabeths, Sarahs and Anns who haven’t been included: the following  ladies were picked (almost) as much for their interesting names as for their  achievements.

ABIGAIL Adams – The first First Lady to occupy the White House and an  ntellectually equal partner of her husband, President John Adams.

ADA LOVELACE – daughter of the poet Byron whose work in mathematics was (probably) a precursor of the modern computer.

AMELIA Earhart — the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. (more…)

Maybe they didn’t have voices then, but lots of the silent screen stars did have intriguingly exotic looks and equally exotic names–even if many of them were invented by studio publicists.  Theda Bara, for example, the quintessential vamp, was not the Egyptian-born daughter of a French actress and an Italian sculptor whose name was an anagram of Arab Death, as the PR people proclaimed to the public, but was actually Cincinnati-born Theodosia Goodman, daughter of a Jewish tailor. Likewise,  Nita Naldi’s real last name was Dooley, Olga Petrova was born Muriel Hardy and Alla Nazimova’s birth name was Miriam Leventon.

But real or concocted, these names–primarily short, with two-syllables and heavy on the vowels–still retain vestiges of that sultry  1900’s-1920’s glamour, and  could have  some vintage appeal today:

ALLA

ASTA

GRETA

ISA

JETTA

LEDA

LEILA

LINA

LITA

LOLA

LYA

LYDA

NEVA

NITA

OLGA

ORA

ORMI

POLA

RIA

THEDA

TORA

VALLA

VILMA

VOLA

ZENA (more…)