Brand naming kids

[Dave Wilton]

> A similar article ran in the Orlando _Sentinel_ a month or so ago--it's an
> interesting trend, but I have to wonder about some of the assumptions. For
> example, is Saran *actually* derived from Saran Wrap (even unconsciously),
> or is it simply derived from Sarah Ann? After all, there's enough brand
> names out there that you could find a brand name for a huge number of
> randomly chosen names, I'd suspect--I'm sure that somewhere out there
> there's a company called David Industries or somesuch.

I know of at least one woman named "Saran" who is not named after the
plastic. I'm not sure when she was born, but it was definitely before 1953
when "Saran Wrap" hit the market. The OED2 has Dow using "Saran" in a 1940
patent application. This earlier use may predate the woman's birth, but use
of the term before 1953 would be pretty arcane and unlikely to be the source
of her name.

This website (http://www.bubbaboo.com/meaning-of-baby-names.asp?n=SARAN)
ascribes an African origin to "Saran," meaning joy. This is repeated in at
least one other baby names web site. "Saran" was also the name of a 4th
century Irish chief.

I'd go with the "Sarah Ann" explanation, myself.

As for another name, my mother is named "Shirley," and my grandparents
absolutely insisted that unlike all those other "Shirleys" of her
generation, she was *not* named after Shirley Temple. In many (most?) cases
I don't think that children are directly named after such celebrities. The
name is just "in the air" and the parents like the sound of it.

--Dave Wilton
  dave at wilton.net
  http://www.wilton.net