I’m sure you’re all really busy making preparations to celebrate National Radio Day tomorrow, the day set aside to commemorate old time radio—I but hope you can take some time out to look at these interesting vintage radio character names we’ve dug up.
They date back to a time, from the 1930s to the fifties, when listening to the radio was the only home entertainment there was, aside from harmonizing around the piano. Moms tuned in to their daily soap operas— often only fifteen minutes long—as they feather-dusted and darned Junior’s socks, before Junior rushed home from school to hear the latest adventure of Don Winslow of the Navy. And in the evening the whole family would gather around the big console to laugh at Baby Snooks or shudder at Suspense Theater.
Many of these shows were populated with great old names you don’t hear any more, from exotic flowers like Geranium (used not once but in two different shows), Gardenia, Lotus and Tulip, to unusual word names like Fury, Casino and Tweed.
Here are some of the most interesting examples, with the titles of the mostly long-forgotten soaps and space odysseys they appeared in:
Girls
Ardala Valmar, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
Birdie Lee Coggins—The Great Gildersleeve
Casino—Home of the Brave
Charity Amanda Dyke—Amanda of Honeymoon Hill
Corliss Archer—Meet Corliss Archer
Ebba Fielding—Against the Storm
Eula Sherman—Dan Hardin’s Wife
Geranium—The Judy Canova Show, Amos ‘n’ Andy
Inza Burrage—Frank Merriweill
Lillums—Harold Teen
Lorelei Kilbourne—Big Town
Marilly—Mayor of the Town
Mercy—Backstage Wife
Portia Blake Manning—Portia Faces Life
Sapphire Stevens—Amos ‘n’ Andy
Tulip Valentine Elson—Hilltop House
Zenith Sambrini—Ma Perkins
Boys
Ajax Cassidy—The Fred Allen Show
Alabama Randall—The Jack Pearl Show
Ballard Brandon, John’s Other Wife
Bronco Thompson, The Great Gildersleeve
California Carlson—The Hopalong Cassidy Show
Cleve Harrington—Evelyn Winters
Cosmo Topper—The Adventures of Topper
Eben Crowell—Four Corners, U.S.A
Goodman Ace—Easy Aces
Greyling Dennis—The Brighter Day
Kyron Welby—Pretty Kitty Kelly
Nero Wolfe—The Adventures of Nero Wolfe
Oogie Pringle—A Date With Judy
Pagan Zeldschmidt—A Man Called X
Pascal Tyler—Against the Storm
Pepper (born Lawrence) Young—Pepper Young’s Family
Philo Sands—The Story of Mary Marlin
Phineas T. Grant—The Man I Married
Robespierre—The Baby Snooks Show
Scotson Webb—Girl Alone
Socrates Mullen—The Fred Allen Show
Tweed Parker–The Romance of Helen Trent
Ulysses Hink—Dear Mom
Anything here that strikes your fancy?
Plus! Hurry on over and vote for the Nameberry Awards.
Linda Rosenkrantz
Linda Rosenkrantz is the co-founder of Nameberry, and co-author with Pamela Redmond of the ten baby naming books acknowledged to have revolutionized American baby naming. You can follow her personally at Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed New York Review Books Classics novel Talk and a number of other books.