Talking Names With the Ephrons: The Amazing Baby Name Book
The Ephron family is known for their exceptional writing, and — to us, at least — their exceptional names.
Screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron had four daughters in the 1940s and '50s, each with a unique name for their time — Nora, Delia, Hallie, and Amy. The youngest, Amy, is a writer herself and authored The Amazing Baby Name Book with her daughters Maia Wapnick and Anna Ephron Harari. (Ephron is also mother to a son named Ethan).
Keeping the family tradition of great names alive, Maia has children named Chloe and Zachary, and Anna is the mother of a Madeline and Roman.
The Amazing Baby Name Book is Amy, Maia, and Anna's witty, inclusive, creative, and highly curated collection of names. It features classic names like Simone ("Expect romance and intrigue."), namesake names like Zaha ("In honor of Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi-born British architect who broke and then deconstructed the glass ceiling."), and new-to-us word names like Dizen ("It means 'to dress up.' Dutch origin. Even if you don't use it as a name, remember that it's a valid Scrabble word.")
Below, we speak with Amy, Maia, and Anna about their charming baby name guide, writing process, and favorite names.
But first, be sure to order your own copy of The Amazing Baby Name Book via Bookshop or Amazon.
What inspired you to write The Amazing Baby Name Book?
Amy: It actually started as a lark, which is a name in the book.
Maia: We created a dinner table game 17 years ago when it became more common for celebrities to use interesting baby names. We thought there were so many words that could be names and would come up with characters around them — Bannister would be a preppy boy from Connecticut, for example.
We started writing during the pandemic. I was so busy and stressed at the beginning trying to figure out how I was going to work, but my mom was like, “I’m bored, let’s write this book.”
Amy: Meanwhile Anna was producing full-time. They each had a one-year-old and a three-year-old at home at the time.
Maia: It was a nightmare! But you can’t say no to Amy.
You could tell when a name in the book is connected to someone dear to you. I enjoyed picking up on your inside jokes and secrets, even if I wasn’t in on it myself.
Anna: Even though we were searching outside the boundaries of usual names, we weren’t trying to exclude names that have been around forever. Dave and Rachel are names of people who are very important people to us. This was our way of recognizing all the names that are already out there.
Photo credit: Brantley Gutierrez
Maia: We wanted to create this space where you could have a really fun conversation with a friend about names, where you could make fun of a name or love a name even if it’s kind of boring.
How did you decide which names to include and which to leave out?
Amy: We couldn’t have had an all-inclusive book. We wanted it to be a little tiny thing that was pretty and fun and artful and helpful and inclusionary, and also a little attitudinal and funny.
Maia: We looked at names of meteors and stars, names of colors and trails. Minerals and gems, the dictionary. We do this in my job too, because we name products. I had some ideas of where you search for names. We just had our eyes open everywhere and ultimately, Mom said yes or no.
Anna: I want to know the story behind everything, and writing this book was a fun way to do that. I remember we were driving to Utah and I passed a sign for Seraph. I was curious and Googled it — Seraph Young was the first woman to ever vote in the United States.
But then I found out that it wasn’t that she was an activist, she just so happened to be the first woman in line! It’s a great story and had we not been writing this book, I might have just passed the sign and not thought twice about it.
Photo credit: Brantley Gutierrez
Maia: There were some names that I wished we could have included, like Ikea. Other names we really went back and forth on, like Mickey. Mickey Mouse and “Hey Mickey, you’re so fine” are great connotations, but “to slip a mickey” is a bad association.
Amy: Maia went down this Prohibition rabbit hole and tried to convince me to write a novel about it.
Maia: There was a couple in Chicago who was drugging and robbing patrons at their bar. The guy’s name was Mickey, which is where the phrase comes from. We talked ourselves into keeping the name in the book! We ultimately decided that one bad actor didn’t ruin the name.
How do you feel about your own names?
Amy with Anna (left) and Maia
Amy: I love my name. My mother wanted to name me Irene but when I was born, I weighed under five pounds. She decided that she couldn’t give me a name that had more letters than I had pounds, so she named me Amy. I think of it as my first act of self-empowerment, because I would not have wanted to be named Irene.
Anna: I love being a palindrome.
Maia: I love my name. My uncle Jerry says he came up with my name, other times my mom claims it was her, and other times my dad says it’s an Israeli pop song that he’s always loved. I feel like my name came out of nowhere. It was spontaneous and everyone thinks they came up with it.
How did you name your children?
Anna: My children’s last name is Blum. My husband Kevin and I had a joke that we were going to name the baby Cinna. Cinna Blum!
When I was pregnant with my daughter, we liked Amelia but I felt like it wasn't a fit. Kevin and I saw a Bond movie and there was a Bond girl named Madeline — she was the only Bond girl that ever saved James Bond, so it felt like a sign.
We named Roman after he was born but could not agree on it. I thought he was a Roman and Kevin liked Jack and Sam. With Roman, I actually was worried about the context of Polanski and I remember I asked my hip teenage niece if she knew who he is — she said no. I decided that Polanski is a problematic person but in my child’s generation that wasn’t going to overshadow the name.
We did put our babies’ full names into a font generator. I always tell people to do that. You see it written a million different ways and get a feel for whether you like it or not.
Photo credit: Brantley Gutierrez
Maia: With Zachary, we really wanted a Jewish name that would be the same for his English name and Hebrew name. And it had to sound good with Wapnick! It’s the kind of last name that could make you sound like a really old man with the wrong first name.
My Zachary is a Zachary, not Zach. We call him both, but at school, there’s another Zach and he likes being Zachary.
Chloe writes her name backward all the time on purpose. It’s funny how kids adopt their names and make them their own.
Amy: When Anna was three or four, she changed her name to ANA. All caps, no last name. Her father and I got called into the preschool because they were very concerned about her. We thought it was hilarious and couldn’t stop laughing. As she got older, she invented an alter ego named Skye. She came by all of this honestly or dishonestly, whichever way you want to put it.
The first person who mentioned the name Maia to me was my sister Delia’s second husband, Jerry. He suggested Maya, spelled with a Y. I like the Greek spelling because I was very attached to the idea that she would be one of the Seven Sisters in the Pleiades. Her middle name is Calypso, and that’s my fault.
What are your favorite names in The Amazing Baby Name Book?
Amy, Maia, Anna, and Ethan
Anna: I really like Eno and Bevel from the book.
Amy: I like Chai and Hai. I was proud of those ones. And colors make amazing names, like Vermillion and Chartreuse. I’m very attached to the name Chartreuse! If I had another daughter, it might be very high on my list. I don’t know how my present husband would feel about that.
Thank you so much, Amy, Maia, and Anna!
Photos via Brantley Gutierrez and Amy Ephron