Brand naming kids

[Nathaniel Thomas]

Well, there is the love interest of "The Count of Monte Cristo" by
Alexandre Dumas who is named Mercedes.  So perhaps girls named Mercedes
prior to the car company becoming prominent were named after her.  I've
no idea if it was a traditional or popular name anywhere, though
perhaps in Monte Cristo :-) (haven't read the book, I just remembered
the reference from "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" in one of
Stephen Dedalus' fantasies, and quickly checked the Gutenberg version
of "Count")

Nathaniel Thomas
nathanielt at airpost.net

On Mar 30, 2004, at 3:43 PM, James A. Landau wrote:

> Also, about the name "Mercedes":  The German automobile pioneer
> Gottlieb
> Daimler  set up an automobile company aaround 1890, which he named
> "the Mercedes
> Company" after his daughter.  Eventually his company merged with one
> founded by
> Karl Benz to create Mercedes-Benz.  [L. Sprague de Camp _The Heroic
> Age of
> American Invention_ Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1961, no ISBN, page
> 217].
>
> The only other woman I know of named "Mercedes" is Mercedes Lackey,
> who is
> not a porn star but rather a science fiction writer who was born in
> 1950.
> (Aside to Mark Mandel---she is also a filksinger and filk writer).