This is the transcript to The Baby Names Podcast episode 38 Superhero Names
Intro: You’re listening to the international hit show, The Baby Names Podcast, and here are your hosts, the Moss sisters.
Jennifer: I’m Jennifer Moss.
Mallory: And I’m Mallory Moss.
Jennifer: And we’re the founders of BabyNames.com.
Mallory: And we’re sisters too!
Jennifer: We are! For many, many, many, many, many years. So our first segment is interesting names we found since the last episode and I am bingeing currently on an Australian show called Harrow, H. A. R. R. O. W. And the main female characters name is Soroya, Soroya Dass. And I looked it up. Soroya is actually a place name in Norway. It’s an island with a population of about 1000 people. Soroya is used worldwide as both a first name and a last name and it means land of the big fish.
Mallory: Well, there you go.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Mallory: Some names I have heard over the last week or two is Buck for a boy. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It’s a strong masculine name, but it obviously has a rhyming problem.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Mallory: I also met an Alyssia, A. L. Y. S. S. I. A. It’s similar to Elise and Elisa but spelled differently. I’m going to go with the name Alicia to extrapolate the meaning, which is of English origin and means of Nobel kin.
Jennifer: That’s pretty, it’s a nice alternative to Alyssa or Alicia, A. L. Y. S. S. I. A, Alyssia. Now I have a client named Buck and he always introduces himself as Buck with a B. So yeah, life in the mountains. I’ll tell ya.
Mallory: Well, I’m gonna start to get used to it as I moved to the mountains.
Jennifer: That’s Buck with the B.I know you’re going to be moving to the mountains to copycat.
Mallory: Yup.
Jennifer: So the topic of the week is superhero names and I must say that I had no idea what I was getting into when I suggested this as a topic because we can’t possibly name them all. It’s just so extensive, but we’re going to hit the top ones. So dictionary.com defines a superhero as a quote figure, especially in a comic strip or cartoon endowed with superhuman powers and usually portrayed as fighting evil or crime. Merriam Webster defines it as a fictional hero, having extraordinary or superhuman powers. Also an exceptionally skillful or successful person. But there are some superheroes that do not have superpowers like Iron Man or Batman, but they create and use technology to enhance their human abilities.
Mallory: Yeah. I love all those computers in the bat cave. Those are amazing.
Jennifer: You know, I think that’s what encouraged me to become a computer person. Seriously.
Mallory: Well there you go. You are motivated by superheroes.
Jennifer: Yeah, We’ll talk about that.
Mallory: But we’re also going to talk about super villains, right?
Jennifer: Yes, yes, yes. A superhero always needs a supervillain to fight. That’s one of the cardinal rules of fiction, that your villain must have at minimum equal abilities or more to the hero of the story. Superheroes were born out of comic books, which were originally anthologies or collections of comics from the strips in the newspaper. The comics featuring superheroes were often serialized, meaning that the story would continue from week to week, which easily led them to be booklets. Now, serialized fiction even nowadays or especially nowadays is popular because it hooks the reader and they want to know what’s going to happen next. We’re in a golden age of serialized fiction now with books series, binge-able TV series shows with ongoing storylines which don’t wrap up at the end of the episode. And now we even have serialized movies like the Marvel films. It’s all coming back into style.
Mallory: Jennifer, are you bingeing anything right now?
Jennifer: I’m binging a lot of things right now, but I did just finish the last season of Jessica Jones and we’ll talk about her later because she’s a Marvel character.
Mallory: I’m bingeing Mind Hunter, which is definitely a superhero all unto themselves. The behavioral analysis unit.
Jennifer: Yeah, yeah.
Mallory: The first costume superhero was today Superman and action comics number one by DC comics in 1938. A lot of superheroes we recognize and current pop culture have come out of one of the two comic publishers, DC and Marvel.
Mallory: Yeah. I wonder how much action comics number one is worth today.
Mallory: Just a few dollars. Now because of the huge success of Superman. Then DC comics created the Crimson Avenger in 1938, the Sandman in 1939 and then Batman in 1939. Now, as far as names go, many superheroes have a superhero name like Batman, an alter ego or a human name like Bruce Wayne, and in Superman’s case, he has three names. Superman, Clark Kent, and Kal- El, which was his Kryptonian name because remember he was adopted by the Kents and he came from another planet, Krypton and on Krypton his parents were Jor-El and Lara. Nicholas Cage named his son. Kal-El didn’t he?
Jennifer: Yep. Kal-El Coppola Cage. Nick’s real surname is Coppola. CUP-pola? COH-ppola? How do you pronounce it…?
Mallory: Francis Ford Coe-ppola.
Jennifer: Yeah Coppola. Yeah. Now you can give human babies superhero names, but they might sound pretty silly unless you bury them in the middles like second names like they did with Moxy Crimefighter, daughter of Penn Gillette. I’m sure she just goes by Moxie Gillette, which is not terrible. It just sounds like an aging lounge singer.
Mallory: Well, I’ve certainly made fun of Moxie Crimefighter over the years.
Jennifer: Yes, you have.
Mallory: Um, but you know what? Moxie is pretty cute.
Jennifer: It is.
Mallory: Mainly we’re going to discuss the human alter ego names of the more famous superheroes and supervillains. And when we say hero or villain, we mean all genders.
Jennifer: Yes. So starting with the big two, I absolutely love the name Clark. Well, Clark Moss sounds important. I kind of would have used that and it would also work with people who’ve had longer names because it’s short and sweet, simple and a solid name. So if you had a boy, for example, it could have been Clark Lubofsky. What were you going to use for a boy?
Mallory: Max or Benjamin. In fact, when I delivered the gender was in question because there must’ve been a dangling finger somewhere because my doctor thought it was a boy all the way up until my baby shower. Ay-yi-yi! So when I delivered, she actually said it’s not a Benjamin, as we all know. That’s when Veronica was born.
Jennifer: Well, I was going to use Alex because of family ties. Sidebar, the TV show, Family Ties came after us. We were the original Mallory and Jennifer.
Mallory: It was really strange when it first came out because Mallory was not a popular name at the time. I never knew anyone other than me who had it.
Jennifer: Right. So I remember mom telling us there’s a new show coming out with sisters named Mallory and Jennifer and it seemed so crazy. And then fast forward, later in life, Mallory Moss married a man named Nick and I married an Andy, which were both names from the TV show, but we didn’t do that on purpose. It just happened. So when I was pregnant with Miranda, I decided I was going to intentionally use Alex or Alex P Keaton if she was going to be a boy.
Mallory: You know Keaton’s kind of a cute name too.
Jennifer: Yeah, that is.
Mallory: You could have used Alex for a girl too. And to add to the craziness from family ties, my best friend was named Elise, like the mom’s name.
Jennifer: Oh, that’s right.
Mallory: And my prom date was Andy also.
Jennifer: So crazy back to superheroes. Now everyone who knows me knows that I have a special place in my heart for Batman. And that’s because during its original run in 1966, and I’m dating myself here, mom would park my little self in front of the show and I was fascinated with it and I still am.
Mallory: And you met Adam West, didn’t you?
Jennifer: Twice? I met him twice. In-person.
Mallory: Didn’t he charge for his signature?
Jennifer: Yeah, they all do now.
Mallory: Oh.
Jennifer: When you go to Comicon or anything.
Mallory: Oh, okay. He’s on your bedroom wall I believe.
Jennifer: Yep. I have signed photos of Adam, Yvonne Craig who played Batgirl and Julie Newmar who played Catwoman and Lindsay Wagner, another superhero. She played bionic woman. And we’ll get to Lindsey later when we talk about TV superheroes. So back to Batman. His real name was Bruce Wayne, or he was referred to as millionaire Bruce Wayne. And Bruce is a pretty dated name and not very used nowadays for contemporary babies.
Mallory: Yeah, I’m not a big fan. Bruce was most popular in the US from 1940 to about 1970 the highest rank being 25 in 1952 which could have been influenced by Batman. You never know.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Mallory: Funny enough, Clark really never made it that high. It’s been up and down on the US charts. Also popular in the forties and fifties but now having a bit of a resurgence probably because it fits the occupational surname trend. Clark comes from the English word clerk, C. L. E. R. K, and they pronounce it in England as Clerk.
Jennifer: They pronounce it as Clark.
Mallory: Just completely?
Jennifer: Yeah. So the occupation is a “Clark.”
Mallory: Okay. I have to go to the clark.
Jennifer: Clark comes from the same root word as clerical, meaning one who keeps records and performs clerical administrative duties. The name Clark is currently number three 77 in US birth.
Mallory: And of course we’re referring to Clark Kent, which is the name for…
Jennifer: Superman.
Mallory: Superman. Now we can’t forget Robin, Batman’s sidekick. Robin’s real name was Dick Grayson and was Bruce Wayne’s, quote, ward, whatever that means. I guess Bruce was his legal guardian. I don’t know the story there, but there were more Robins as members of the Teen Titans, a superhero group. Now, Dick Grayson was a founding member and the leader, but others have been costumed as Robin, including Jason Todd, Tim Drack, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne. Now in Else Worlds, another comic world, Carrie Kelly, a girl was Robin number three. In the movie, the Dark Knight rises. Robin’s real name is John Blake.
Jennifer: Hmm. It’s so complicated.
Mallory: Yes. In the comic universes, there are parallel worlds and future worlds and past worlds. A Superhero identity could be donned by several people. So back to Batman again. Batgirl was named Barbara Gordon. Barbara is another name that’s quite dated nowadays and not used much. I was fascinated with batgirl because she was the first woman on television who really literally kicked ass. And when I met Yvonne Craig, I told her that, that she was an important role model to girls who grew up in the 60s because we had just never seen that before. And she’s told me that she got the part because she was a ballet dancer and she could do those kicks. Anyway. RIP Yvonne and Adam.
Jennifer: There are some wonderful villain names in the Batman universe too.
Mallory: Yeah. But don’t go naming your baby joker. Okay. Now in the latest movies, centering around joker, his name will be Arthur Fleck, who is a failed stand up comedian and he’s going to be played by Wakeen Phoenix. Another name used for the joker is Jack Napier from Batman White Knight, the Tim Burton 1989 film. And it was also used as in one episode of Batman, the animated series.
Jennifer: My favorite is Edward Nygma or E Nygma, like enigma, the name of the Riddler.
Mallory: I like that too. Joe Chill is the gangster who murdered Bruce’s parents, Martha and Thomas.
Mallory: Lew Moxon, L E W, Harvey Dent, Two-Face and Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot.
Jennifer: I love that name. That’s the penguin.
Mallory: Yeah.
Jennifer: Oswald Cobblepots. He’s great on the TV show Gotham.
Mallory: Yeah, he really is. Dr. Victor Freeze. Mr freeze. Does Cattleman have a name?
Jennifer: Well, in the 1960s movie she creates a name KitKat for kitty cat and she’s played by Lee Meriwether, but she’s best known as Selina Kyle. And Selena also has a younger sister, Magdalen Kyle.
Mallory: Um, I like Selina. S. E L. I N A, that’s pretty.
Jennifer: Yeah, I like Selena too, after the singer.
Mallory: Oh yeah. Pamela Lillian Isely is Poison Ivy. Jonathan Crane is Scarecrow; Professor Hugo is Strange of course. Jervis Teche, J E R V I S is the Mad Hatter. Arnold Wesker, Peyton Riley, and Shauna belts are the ventriloquist. Victor’s Zas Harley Quinn, like Harlequin. Dr. Harleen Quinzel is her actual name. Who named their daughter Harley Quinn again?
Jennifer: Kevin Smith, the actor-filmmaker. So she is Harley Quinn’s Smith, which is kind of cute actually.
Mallory: Yeah, I like it.
Jennifer: Harley Quinn and the joker in the universe had a daughter named either Delia Dennis or Dierdra Denis, depending on which story you read and she’s known as DD.
Mallory: Kevin Smith is a big comic book fan, to take it back a step. I think Stan Lee was even in a few of his movies.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Mallory: Anyway, Basal Carlo is Clayface and some cool names of minor villains in the Batman universe, Roland Daggett, Roxy Rocket and Knuck Turno also known as Natalia Knight. I like the name, Natalia.
Jennifer: Natalia Kight is kind of cool. Yeah. As for the Superman universe. Supergirl is the cousin of Superman and her original name is Carra Zaur-El.
Mallory: And crazy how they’re Batman and Superman, but Batgirl and Supergirl. Never woman.
Jennifer: Well, there was one storyline with Superwoman, but it was a dream that Lois Lane had while she was in the hospital and she dreamt that she was Superman’s counterpart. Then later in the comics, she temporarily gains powers and identifies as Superwoman, but it was never for sure for real.
Mallory: Hmm. We talked about Stanley and how he named his characters for a bit in our fictional naming episode. He liked alliterative of names for his civilian names.
Jennifer: Yeah, like Peter Parker, Jessica Jones, J Jonah Jameson, Pepper Potts, and Dr. Doom and Dumb Dumb Dougan,
Mallory: But he’s created some of the most iconic superheroes that are popular even today or especially today with the Marvel movies and television shows. Let’s see, what do we have? Thor and Loki, L O K I based on Nordic mythology.
Jennifer: Yeah. He didn’t really name them.
Mallory: Thing or Ben Grimm, Iron man or Tony stark and then Spiderman, Peter Parker. Speaking of which I really liked the animated movies, Spiderman into the spider verse. The main character who becomes a Spiderman is named miles Miralis. He’s an Afro Latino teenager who is in this alternative spider man universe where there are more spider mans than just Peter Parker.
Jennifer: Wow. I never heard of that. I’m going to watch it.
Mallory: Oh yeah, definitely watch it. It was very well done. And then let’s not forget Black Panther. We did a whole episode about names from black Panther when the movie came out, go back and listen.
Jennifer: Yep.
Mallory: Let’s see. Captain Marvel, who was basically an alien. His alien name was captain Mar-Vell, V. E. L. L from the Cree Imperial militia. The third captain Marvel was Monica Rambo, who then gave up the name to the original Captain Marvel son. Other characters who became captain Marvel include Genis Val, G, E N, I, S, Phyla Val, P H. Y. LA. I don’t know how to pronounce this. [inaudible], K. H, N, N, R with an apostrophe between the Ns. Nohvarr or Novar, N, O, H, V, A, R, R, and Carol Danvers. That’s the easiest one to pronounce.
Jennifer: Yeah. You know, I thought having captain Marvel be a woman was just a movie thing. Like they’re trying to do gender-bending casting nowadays, like James Bond, but I guess the character actually has been a woman off and on for quite some time. I think that’s interesting.
Mallory: Yeah, and you know who we forgot? Wonder woman. She’s a woman and not a girl.
Jennifer: That’s true. She is a woman.
Mallory: There you go. They’re all women. They’re just called girls. Anyway, some more popular Stanley characters include Doctor Strange or Steven Strange.
Jennifer: Groot. Everyone loves Groot. I love trees. I wonder if anyone will use Groot as a name.
Mallory: Groot is an awful name.
Jennifer: I love Groot.
Mallory: Hulk and she Hulk were Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, also known as Bruce Banner and Jennifer Walters respectively. I definitely dislike she Hulk as a name and Hulk for that matter. It sounds like Huck though. H. U. C K, which is a name that I find kind of cute. Not huckleberry though.
Jennifer: That’s aside. I didn’t ever know there was a superhero named Jennifer and that is super cool. So one of my all-time favorite Marvel characters is Jessica Jones, another woman who kicks ass on TV. Well, maybe she reminds me of Batgirl, although a very emo, surly Batgirl.
Mallory: I’ve never seen it. Do you think I’d like it?
Jennifer: Definitely. It’s very realistic and she’s a private detective and only uses her superpowers when she has to. In fact, I enjoyed most of the Netflix Marvel shows more than the movies. I loved Luke Cage. That was awesome. Which begs the question, if you think about it, why didn’t Nicholas Cage name his son Luke rather than Kal-El? But whatever. Maybe he just loves Superman. I love the Daredevil. Matt Murdock is the Daredevil alter ego expertly played by Charlie Cox in the TV show. One of the few differently-abled superheroes as Daredevil is blind.
Mallory: Well, let’s not forget Deadpool. Wade Winston Wilson. Aquaman is Arthur Joseph Curry. That’s not alliterative. That’s kind of an old man’s name. But as we said, the new joker is going to be named Arthur. And I think there are more Arthur’s lately then say 30 years ago.
Jennifer: That’s true. Because the old man names are coming back into style, like the old woman names.
Mallory: Yeah.
Jennifer: And speaking of old man names, Captain America’s name is Steve Rogers. That’s the name of my friend Billy’s dog captain Steve Rogers. And that’s such a 50s white man named Steve Rogers,
Mallory: Well Wolverine’s name is James Howlett, H O W L E T. T. but get it as in howl at the moon, famously played by Hugh Jackman, one of my favorites.
Jennifer: Yup. I think we need to talk about the women. Um, Rogue is a superhero from the X Men series. That’s kind of a Maverick name. And we talked about a girl named Maverick in the last couple episodes.
Mallory: Storm is another name of the X Men played by Halle Berry in the movies. And as you remember, Stormi with an I is Kylie Jenner’s, baby daughter.
Jennifer: And stormy Daniels has been called a quote friend of the Presidents. That’s her porn name though. Her real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Mallory: Oh, I didn’t know that. Black Widow is also known as Natalia Alia Nova, Natasha Romanova, and she’s a founding member of the Avengers and an Agent of Shield played by Scarlet Johanson in the movies. I like Natasha and Natalia. Yeah, I like them both.
Jennifer: I like Natalia. Another girl is Aquagirl and there’s several Aquagirls. The first being Lisa Morale. Also, there was one named Selena and Tula, T. U. L a.
Mallory: Well we can’t forget Wonder Woman from DC. Oh, we already talked about Wonder Woman.
Jennifer: Yeah, but not her real name.
Mallory: That’s true. So that was princess Diana of the Miss blablabla Amazon identity. What is that?
Jennifer: Themyscira. She came from the Amazon.
Mallory: Oh, okay. And her civilian identity was Diana Prince.
Jennifer: It’s funny how she was princess Diana before princess Diana.
Mallory: True that.
Jennifer: And princess Diana was, in fact, a true wonder woman. I have to add.
Mallory: Yup. I agree. Now on to some of Marvel’s supervillains. Some of them just had a human name like Wilson Fisk.
Jennifer: Expertly played by Vincent D’Onofrio in the Netflix series.
Mallory: Yeah, I liked him there. Night Shade, also known as Tilda Johnson.
Jennifer: I like both Tilda and Night Shade as names. I think they’re both cool.
Mallory: What do you think of Magneto?
Jennifer: Eh, I don’t think so. Maybe as a middle name Magneto?
Mallory: No, I don’t think so. Norman Osborn from Spiderman.
Jennifer: At this point, I don’t think I’d recommend naming a baby Norman, although it refers to being from Norway or of Nordic descent, so it’s perfectly acceptable. But in pop culture, it is identified with Norman Bates.
Mallory: Yeah, I’m just not a fan. There’s Galactus from Fantastic Four. Thanos, T H A N O S.
Jennifer: That’s kind of cool.
Mallory: Which is a derivative of or meaning death, I think. Or from Avengers, Barren Helmet Zemo, from Captain America Mystique from X Men and Viper from Captain America and Wolverine.
Jennifer: Mystique is kinda cool. Morgan LA Fay from Dr. Strange in Avengers, that’s a name and character from Arthurian legend. Now I like the name Morgan for both a boy and a girl.
Mallory: Yeah, I do too.
Jennifer: And there is Sebastian Shaw from X men. Sebastian is pretty popular nowadays. And then another name which has really risen on the charts is Ronan. And that’s from the Avengers also. And it’s catching on. And the only influence I can think of is actually because of the adventures because, since 2010, it’s jumped the charts and now is ranked of just at the end of the two hundreds, at 294 for boys.
Mallory: That’s true. And I think there was a movie, Ronan. Um, there’s Emma Frost who is known as Emma Grace Frost in Total, another character from X-Men. And she was also known as the white queen. Other villain names include Century, Craven, Nafaria, Nitrile, Mysterio, Lilith Cassandra Nova, Calista, and Terra X. The only names I like from this list are Lilith. Very biblical. Plus, I like the name, Lilly, and Cassandra. But if you change Callisto into the girl’s named Calista, I also like it.
Jennifer: Like Flockhart, the actress.
Mallory: Yep.
Jennifer: And here are some Villain names to avoid in addition to the Joker, Nuke, Sin, Executioner, Lizard, and Hobgoblin.
Mallory: Yeah, please don’t name your baby Hobgoblin.
Jennifer: Now I mentioned Lindsey Wagner, who is a superhero from television. She played Jamie Summers, the bionic woman.
Mallory: Hey woman.
Jennifer: Yeah. And the bionic woman was a spinoff of the original show, the $6 million man. He was played by Lee Majors and I had such a crush on him but then he had to go and marry Farah Floss. I said, okay, I get it.
Mallory: My favorite show when I was younger, besides Mork and Mindy. Was Mork a superhero?
Jennifer: No, he’s an alien.
Mallory: Yeah. Okay. Well, he could have been an alien superhero.
Jennifer: He didn’t fight crime.
Mallory: He could have been an alien superhero. But anyway.
Jennifer: He could have, but he didn’t.
Mallory: My favorite was, believe it or not, I’m walking on air. The greatest American Hero, which aired for three seasons from 1981 to 1983. And I had a crush, not on William Kat, who was the greatest American hero, but on Robert Culp. Funny names story. The superheroes character played by William Kat, like I said, was a teacher originally named Ralph Hinkley. But the name was changed to Ralph Hanley at the end of the first season because of an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr.
Jennifer: Interesting. So they thought that like the viewers would just not notice?
Mallory: I guess so.
Jennifer: They just changed his last name?
Mallory: That’s like they just changed characters like on Bewitch the Darren change like no one would notice.
Jennifer: And Roseanne, they made fun of that on Roseanne. They would always say you look a little different, Becky. Are you okay? Other TV superheroes include Buffy the Vampire Slayer and heroes of the series Heroes, Noah Claire, Peter Hero, Hiro Nakamura spelled H, I, R, O, which is kind of cute play on the name. Mohinder and Matt.
Mallory: Supernatural. The two lead characters are Sam and Dean Winchester.
Jennifer: Yup. Brothers. Are there any other TV superheroes other than those adapted from comic books?
Mallory: Well, other cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who have great names from art masters, Leonardo, Donna Tello, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
Jennifer: Oh yeah.
Mallory: And then the power puff girls, Blossom Bubbles and Buttercup.
Jennifer: There’s so many. You know what? This podcast would be five hours long if we named all the superheroes ever written, but maybe we’ll have to extend this to names from cartoons. I think that would be a really fun show and then I can talk about Dexter again.
Mallory: That would be fun. We grew up with our cartoons for sure.
Jennifer: If you have a favorite superhero that we missed or just want to correct us on our limited comics knowledge, write us @podcastatbabynames.com. If you’re in the New York area, September 18th to 19th 2019, I’ll be on the main stage at BlogHer 19, a conference for online creators, influencers and entrepreneurs. On Thursday the 19th I’ll be on a panel with other digital CEOs who have created brands with longevity and that surely is baby names.com. We’re currently celebrating our 23rd year online. Whew. For more information about BlogHer 19 and to get tickets go to www.blogher.com that’s B L O G H E R.com.
Speaker 1: Now, it’s time for celebrity baby news.
Jennifer: Singer Alanis Morissette has announced the birth of her son with an interesting name, Winter Mercy. Winter is the third child Alanis has welcomed with her husband, Rapper, Mario Souleye Treadway. Their first son ever, Emery was born in 2010 and daughter Onyx Solace was born in 2016. Those sure sound like superhero names, Onyx Ever and Winter.
Mallory: Yeah. You just have to make them alliterative like Winter Westine.
Jennifer: Winston.
Mallory: I don’t know. I am getting back into Alanis Morisette’s music again. It’s interesting how the non-hit songs sound so good now when I just ignored them in the past. Let’s see. Model Ashley Graham and her husband, filmmaker Justin urban are expecting their first child together. They announced it on Instagram to coincide with their ninth wedding anniversary. Ashley is known for being a gorgeous quote plus size unquote, whatever that means. Supermodel and has appeared as a judge on America’s next top model. She was also on the cover of sports illustrated, I believe. Go big girls like me.
Jennifer: Ooh, yeah. She’s gorgeous. By the way. American nutrition, author and television host, Daphne Oz, the oldest daughter of Dr. Mehmet Oz has announced the arrival of her fourth child. Daphne and her husband, John Jovanovich, named their daughter Geovanna Inez, but they will call her by the nickname GG, just like us with our beamy and Vivi. Daphne and her husband John have two older daughters, Philomena and Domenica and one son Giovan.
Mallory: Eric Trump and his wife Laura announced the birth of their second child, a girl named Carolina or Carolina Dorothy. Carolina joins big brother Luke who turns two next month that makes the little one the 10th grandchild for Donald
Jennifer: Country music singer, Tyler Hubbard of Florida, Georgia Line and wife Hailey Hubbard have welcomed their second child, a son named Luca Reid. Luca joins older sister Olivia Rose, whose two. Very classic names.
Mallory: Yeah, and Hailey Hubbard also sounds like an alter ego for a superhero.
Jennifer: Definitely. And also in country news, Shay Mooney of Dan and Shay announced that he and his wife, Hannah Billingsley are expecting baby number two. They have one son together, Asher James born in January of 2017. Dan and Shay just celebrated their sixth number one song ‘all to myself”.
Mallory: And speaking of celebrity babies get this, Angelina Jolie just dropped Maddix, M A D D O X off at college.
Jennifer: Oh my God.
Mallory: That’s crazy. Maddox Chivan, C H I V A N. Jolie Pitt had an original name Rath, R A T H, Vibol and he was born August 5th, 2001. And to demonstrate how celebrity baby names influence baby naming, Maddox then hit the US charts in 2003 at 582 so it jumped, whatever it was, above a thousand.
Jennifer: From zero, it was not on the charts and then debuted at 580.
Mallory: Right. So that’s amazing. And it’s currently 140 for boys. And by the way, August 5th is definitely an illustrious day.
Jennifer: Yes, your birthday. For up to the minute celebrity baby news, just go to baby names.com and click celebrities in the menu. And now it’s the last segment where we take questions from you, our listeners. And why don’t you read the first one Mal?
Mallory: All right, well we have two letters this week that have a similar theme “naming a child after their father”. where this practice has kind of waned in the last decade or so, there are families who still feel strongly about it. Here’s the first. Dear Jennifer and Mallory. Well, let me fix that. Dear Mallory and Jennifer, Love the show. You guys are so creative in how you pick the name subjects. It’s so fun.
Jennifer: Thanks.
Mallory: Yeah, thanks. My husband and I just found out we are pregnant. He is the third in line of Edward Leonard’s. We call him Trey. His family wants us to carry on with Edward Leonard the fourth. I, on the other hand, do not like it. I think that it is time to move on and we can carry on with maybe just the E L initials. What do you think? Thanks, Kim. Well, I think using initials is a good alternative to the naming line, but I also feel like it would break a pretty long-standing tradition and certainly, Edward can be turned into names like Ted and Eddie.
Jennifer: So you’re saying that she should go with Edward Leonard?
Mallory: You know, I’m not a fan of Leonard, but you know, how long does it take to reach number four? Is that a hundred years?
Jennifer: Yeah, but she’s not obligated. What if it’s a name she just doesn’t like? I mean.
Mallory: No one’s obligated. I’m just saying my opinion.
Jennifer: I know. I think that first of all she didn’t say what her husband wants. She said what her husband’s family wanted. So it’d be interesting to know how he feels about it if he’s pushing for a son named after him. But I think just using the initials is a good compromise. So she’s willing to carry on a tradition with the initials, but she doesn’t necessarily want to use Edward Leonard for her son. And I don’t blame her. If you don’t like a name, I don’t think you should use it.
Mallory: Well, either way, they need to agree on a name.
Jennifer: Yes. Either way. The couple has to agree and forget outside influence. As long as you and your partner love it, that’s the most important part.
Mallory: Absolutely. You want to take the next letter?
Jennifer: Sure. Hello, my name is Christian Green, not Christian Grey, and I would like to name my unborn son, CJ meaning Christian Jr. Would this be written on the birth certificate as CJ Green or Christian Junior Green? I suppose my question is asking if CJ is a real name as it seems funny with just two letters. Thanks for your time Christian Sr. Now let me answer this first. I don’t think you should give your son two letters as a full name. I say if you want to name him Christian Jr and that’s the name that you want to name him. Be aware that if you name him Christian Jr and your middle name is not Jr, he’s not going to be a junior because the junior can only be if the first middle and last name all match. And I assume your middle name is not Jr so he wouldn’t be a junior and you wouldn’t be a senior at that point.
Mallory: That’s right.
Jennifer: So anyway, if you want a name him CJ, that’s cute. You could be like Ceelo Green, C E E L O and be like C E E J A Y or Christian J A Y for CJ. And just call him CJ.
Mallory: Yeah, and I knew a Cris Jon C, R I S, J O N.
Jennifer: But just be aware that if you name him Christian Jr green, he’s not a junior.
Mallory: Yeah, you’re undoing it and this is a good time to mention that there is no second unless there is a third.
Jennifer: Correct.
Mallory: In other words, junior is the correct way to refer to a second-generation name that is the same as the fathers. I also want to mention that although it is rare nowadays, there are many female names in our lineage from Ireland that repeated a mother’s name. For instance, Mary.
Jennifer: And Catherine.
Mallory: Yeah, Catherine too.
Jennifer: In Ireland, there were the very limited pool of names. I think we talked about this before that once I went back to our Ireland branch of the tree, it was really hard to know which Mary Riley was our Mary Riley because everybody was named Mary Riley.
Jennifer: That’s right.
Mallory: And so at that point, I kind of just got stumped and stopped investigating because there was no way to differentiate them.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Mallory: But so our answer is you can do that. I wouldn’t just give them initials. And if you do name him Christian Junior Green. He’s not a junior.
Jennifer: There you go.
Mallory: Okay, so that’s our show and I heard that your daughter and my daughter are now visiting together for the next couple of days.
Jennifer: We love our girlies.
Mallory: We do, and we also love our older sisters, Kate and Sue. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and tune in in a couple of weeks. Same baby name time, same baby names channel.
Jennifer: And remember to rate and review us on iTunes, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. That helps others find the show.
Mallory: If you love us, rate us, but not if you hate us. Bye.
Jennifer: Bye-bye.
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