Solving Common Baby Naming Problems

Celebrity Name Trivia and Tips

Did You Know?

Both Richard Melville Hall (aka Moby) and Wentworth Miller's names were inspired by characters in literature. Hall's parents nicknamed him Moby soon after birth -- the author Herman Melville is his great-great-great-great uncle. Miller was named after Captain Frederick Wentworth, from Jane Austen's novel Persuasion. You might think Orlando Bloom was named after the hero of Orlando, by Virginia Woolf, but his parents actually named him after the 17th-century composer Orlando Gibbons.

There's Something About Mary

Meryl Streep's first name was Mary. Mary was also the first name of Debbie Reynolds, Sissy Spacek, Marg Helgenberger, Lily Timlon, Bo Derek, Debra Winger, Lauren Hutton, and Sean Young.

Take It Back, Please

Not every celebrity scion wants the attention that comes with an unusual name. Free Carradine, son of David Carradine and Barbara Hershey, changed his name to Tom. David Bowie's son, Zowie, went by Joe for years. One of Bob Geldof's daughters, Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa Geldof, asked celebrity parents to stop giving their kids silly names: "My weird name has haunted me all my life."

Names to Grow On by Suelain Moy with the editors of americanbaby.com (2007) is excerpted with permission from Meredith Books.

Copyright © 2008. Used with permission from the March 2008 issue of American Baby magazine.