Tad Campbell, Auburn, California: My grandmother Rowena LaRue (Arbuckle) Campbell (1916-2005) was named for her maternal aunt Rowena Jane (Wolf) Chase (1897-1979). Aunt Rowena was named for Lady Rowena, a central character in the novel Ivanhoe. Aunt Rowena’s mother had been a schoolteacher in the 1880s before her marriage, so I imagine she was well-read and a fan of the story.

Rachel Dobson, Cottondale, Alabama: Before I was born, my mother had read John Hersey's The Wall (1950), a historical novel about Jews imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II that focused on two characters who acted as archivists to collect and store evidence of their lives during that horrifying period. The character who survived the war, Rachel Apt, was later able to show the Allied soldiers where the archive was buried, providing evidence of life in the ghetto. This book must have had a profound impact on my mother as I am the only person in my immediate family not named for an ancestor, a tradition that goes back for generations.

Roxanne Walstrom, Portland, Oregon: I was named after Roxane, the love interest of Cyrano de Bergerac. My mother read the play, the 1950 movie followed, and my fate was sealed.

Jul Hansen, New Hartford, Connecticut: My 4th great-grandfather Charles Rhind was a Scottish immigrant who lived in New York City. He and his wife, Susan Fell, had ten children; the first was born in 1810. While eight of the children were named for family members, a set of twins were named Oscar and Malvina. Who? I discovered that Oscar and Malvina were characters in the Fenian Cycle—medieval stories, poems, and ballads about the deeds of Finn MacCumhaill (MacCool) and his band of warriors the Fianna Éireann.

Cecilia Blewer, New York, New York: My mother was born in 1931, a few years after the publication of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. My grandmother named my mother Sondra after the novel’s beautiful young socialite, Sondra Finchley.

Meg Spring, Dresden, Tennessee: My sisters and I were named Amy, Jo, and Meg after characters in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. (We were not named in the same order as the March sisters.) Growing up, we were often asked, “Where's Beth?” to which we replied, “Well, she died in the book!” My mom countered this statement with, “Not true, we just thought three children was enough.” When asked why we were given the girls’ nicknames instead of their full names, my dad would say, “I can't spell, so their names had to be three letters or less.”