Louis Chevrolet in 1914
Every once in a while we all likely have an odd realization hit us. This time, the realization was too good to not use as a QOTD.
Let me explain.
JL Hudson, 1891
Earlier last week a group of new employees came onboard where I work. One of them has the last name of Hudson, that independent make that would later evolve into AMC. This is when I realized I know a fair number of people having names shared with car brands.
Charles W. Nash
Because among my other coworkers there is a Nash, the other component of what would form AMC.
Ransom E. Olds, 1901
Yet another coworker, who is quite young, has the surname of Olds. It would be interesting to know if he’s related to Ransom E.
August and Fred Duesenberg
Another coworker, now retired, is named Duesenberg – although the spelling of his name is slightly different. Yes, it’s been a while since Duesenberg ceased making cars, but the name still sticks with us as it’s such a Doozie. His first name is neither Augie nor Fred.
Before that, I worked with a guy named Lincoln.
Henry Ford
Going back further, there was a family in the area where I grew up named Ford. There was a running joke during my father’s childhood about them getting a new Ford every year, which was true. They had somewhere around fifty-three children, with at least one new one every calendar year.
To digress for a moment, one of the Ford grandsons was a year or two younger than me and did his best to keep the name alive. When he impregnated his girlfriend in high school she was furious so he sought solace in another. Repeating his performance, her due date was about five weeks after the first girlfriend’s. He reconciled with the first after she gave birth and, well, they reconciled too well as another one was soon on the way.
For what it’s worth, when the wife was pregnant, I nominated the name of Mercedes for a girl; it was quickly vetoed. The Mercedes automobile was named for Mercedes Jellinek, the daughter of Austrian auto entrepreneur Emil Jellinek. Maybe I should have been more subtle; Dacia would be a great name for a girl.
So, for our Question Of The Day: Do you know anyone with a given or surname the same as a brand of automobile?
I went to high school with a Nash and a Kaiser and my kids went to school with two Fords.
As an adult, I have reported to a client named Olds, sued a Lincoln, lived down the street from a Studebaker and belong to an organization with a Dodge.
Going back further for names, I have worked with a Cole, gotten referrals from a Gardner and was taught 7th grade social studies by a Graham. A child was taught in the second grade by an Austin and another by a White. One kid was coached in baseball by a Stutz.
Given my locale, it would not be ridiculous to assume that the Stutz and the Studebaker were somehow related to the automotive people.
You reminded me I currently work with a Kaiser and used to work with an Alvis.
And yesterday’s story about 2 door sedans reminded me that I am related to a family named Essex.
The last Gardner son of childhood neighbors, still lives close to my parents. 🙂
I knew a wonderful gentleman with the last name Buick. He was the grandson of Buick fame, yet worked at the Ford Motor Company. He was a member of the DN101 Taurus team, but tragically died from bone cancer before that 1996 Taurus was introduced.
I also worked with another wonderful gentleman with the last name Beggs. In the early days of the automobile, there were dozens of boutique car manufacturers hoping to strike gold. Beggs was such a manufacturer. We weren’t certain if there was a connection.
Like many of the comments below, Ford is a fairly common name. I have met 5 Fords in my life. Four of them are great grandkids or great-great grand kids of Henry and Clara.
True story: A friend of mine with a last name that starts with “W” named his son (at least in part) so that his initials would be “BMW”
My wife’s niece has a son named Henry. The family name starts with J so he’s a Henry J. Not a car reference I’m sure but I like it. When he’s old enough I might get him a diecast model of one.
A good friend of mine changed her name, when she got married, by adding her husband’s name first. Her initials were BW, and she became BM-W.
My nephew’s initials are BMW, but he works for Mercedes-Benz! 🙂
The new windows in my house (Marvin, great windows btw!) were bought from a guy surnamed Dodge.
An old colleague’s boyfriend had the last name Packard, and was actually related to the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard.
I also knew a girl named Mercedes, and a guy named Studer which is pretty close.
I must know some people with model-name names but none are coming to mind right now.
My Mrs. went to college with a Newport, now that you bring up model names.
Of my three kids, when looking at first and middle names we have Jensen, Riley, Maxwell, and Cooper. The airplane industry is represented by Piper. And I suppose my wife Allison represents sturdy transmissions…
None of them was chosen explicitly for those reasons, it was all pretty much coincidental. No Homer and no Boeing although the little guy probably would have liked his middle name to be Airbus… 😀
My name is Delage. Not close relative with the car manufacturer though.
There used to be a Delahaye in my class at the lycée. As French car names go, it’s one of the more common ones. Delage is a great name.
I have a (now deceased) great-aunt Mercedes, who was born around 1910; we always pronounced her name “MER-suh-dees.”
I’ve since had two co-workers with the same name, both of whom pronounced it as Americans typically do for the automaker (“mer-SAY-dees”). I also worked with a Ford, a Dodge, an Austin, and a Sterling.
Not sure if model names count, but a girl in the high school class ahead of me had the first name of Chevelle. I’m pretty sure she was born about the time that the model name was introduced (late 1963)…and to my knowledge, she didn’t have siblings named Caprice and Nova. 🙂
Yes! While not a brand, I do share a name with a car model… and I didn’t even know it until last year when I discovered this fact while reading… of course, comments from a CC article.
My last name is Forman, and a Skoda Forman was produced in the early 1990s. It was the estate (wagon) version of Skoda’s compact Favorit.
According to Wikipedia, the word “forman” translates to something like “wagoner” (i.e., someone who operates a cart or wagon) in Czech, although Czech-English dictionaries don’t seem to include the term at all, so maybe it’s somewhat informal. In German, I think “fuhrmann” has a similar meaning, so it’s likely related. I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t matter to me much – regardless of meaning, I think it’s pretty neat to share a name with a car, even if it’s one that I’ll likely never see. And it’s funny that I never knew about this until last year.
Hi Eric Forman, Say hi to Red, Kitty, Jackie, Kelso and Hyde for me.
Ha! I get that all the time! I think about half the people I run into on a daily basis are fans of that show.
Makes me wonder if there’s a Czech version about a family living in a small town near Mlada Boleslav named Sportabout.
Right!
Forman and its hatchback sibling Favorit got many special editions, Marathon being one of them.
But how about one, that could interest the movie lovers out there? (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest)
Hopefully the picture will be included.
My first and middle initial are MG!
My neighbors are named Nash, and growing up I remember two teachers that were mrs. Ford, and one of my friends last name was Healey
I had a high school classmate named Nash, had a third-grade crush on a girl whose surname was Healey, knew of an older attorney named Buyck (close, but perhaps not that Special!), and once prosecuted a criminal defendant with the given name Chevelle (at the time, I speculated as to whether his name referenced the location of his conception). I also have friends with the surname Ferrari. They and I are long-time Ferrari owners.
US President Gerald Ford memorably said “I’m a Ford, not a Lincoln.”
I went to elementary school (fifth grade) with a guy whose last name was Olds. This was in Flint, though, not in Lansing. 🙂
A classmate in my undergrad architecture class was called Soichi Honda. Probably as close as one could get to the founder’s name without it being the same.
I attended high school with the Dodge sisters. I also knew Morgans, Benzes, a Monaco, and a lawyer named Kurt Bonneville.
Where I grew up, in western Kentucky, Ford is a fairly common family name. One Wendell Ford, from Owensboro, KY, served several terms as a United States Senator and members of his family are still active in local politics in his old home town.
Through the years I have gone to school and/or worked with people named Hudson, Tucker, Nash and Willys. The latter pronounced his name as “willies” which I was told was the original style; somehow most people pronounced the name of the car as something like “willis”.
Someone above mentioned that they had been acquainted with a young woman named Chevelle, perhaps that is where she was conceived:-)
When I was just out of high school, within our group of friends was a girl whose little sister was named Mercedes.
I remembered at the time thinking it was odd that her parents would name her after a car.
It wasn’t until I was much older that I learned that this was an actual name for a girl.
Similarly, there was a young lady that worked in my dentist’s office whose first name was Shelby. That seemed odd to me as well, but I think that may very well be a girl’s name too. Heck, Carroll Shelby himself had a girl’s first name. ;o)
I have dealt with a lot of girls who sport names of cars, like Mercedes, but also a few from the 1990s got tagged with Lexus or Porsche or some corruption of the car brand’s moniker. They also make wonderful stripper or drag nom de plumes. There are lots of names we now think of as feminine that were expressly masculine “back in the day”. Carroll is one, but so is Clare, Leslie, Gayle, and a host of others. Hell, the USN just named their carrier after the WWII hero Doris Miller. We gladly will anoint female babies with masculine names, but we cringe at giving a male baby a name that might confer femininity. I guess Johnny Cash had it right when he wrote “A Boy Named Sue”. That really conferred how stigmatizing a name can be, either good or bad.
Yeah, I was kinda kidding about the name Carroll as I do believe that this one was a guy’s name long before it was a girl’s name.
There are many more examples as you say. I even had a former uncle in-law named Les. Doris is a new one to me though.
Love the Johnny Cash reference, BTW!
One of my father’s co-workers was a man named Doris, he was a submariner during WWII. Maury Povich’s father, Shirley Povich, was a long term newspaper columnist in Washington, DC. I had an uncle Les, one of my mom’s younger brothers, his actual given name was Lester.
I believe that “Carroll” is one of many family names that has gradually been adopted as a given name; when spelled with two r’s it is almost always a male’s name, “Carol” with one r is usually a female name. I’m sure that there must be exceptions to this practice.
A couple more examples and I will quit, there used to be a player in the NFL (he was a coach as well if I recall correctly) named June Jones III. I have no idea why “June” was considered to be an appropriate name for male children in his family. The Briley Parkway in Nashville is named for Beverly Briley who was the first mayor of the consolidated Nashville-Davidson County government. Mr. Briley was actually named Clifton Beverly Briley but apparently was always known as Beverly.
The Uncle Les to which I referred was in fact named Leslie.
I thought of another name like Carroll/Carol that has a spelling differentiation. There are a couple of folks where I work named Terry/Terri. You guessed it, male/female respectively.
And @ JFrank… Thanks Man. I read about Doris Miller… a real American Hero. I just had to look him up. It’s so sad after saving those fellow sailors at Pearl Harbor, that he makes it all the way through the war, only to go down on the Indianapolis… yet another sad tale of heroism from WWII.
Reminds me of an older gentleman I knew named LaVerne; he was a no nonsense kind of guy and a Korean War veteran, so I doubt he got much grief over his name.
While it’s a nickname, I’ve known several men who went by “Bunny.” That was also my nickname among family members until I started school, at which time my folks decided I would hence be called by my legal given name.
See the Julia Roberts character in “Steel Magnolias”.
Mercedes (or rather, María de las Mercedes) is very common in Spanish-speaking countries. Around here, a common nick for Mercedes is Mecha. So, Mercedes Benzes came to be known as “Mechas” also.
There is a well-known English ex-rugby player names Austin Sean Healey ! I presume his father was a car enthusiast….
I share my surname with a defunct motorcycle manufacturer… Squirrel anyone ?
There’s always Dr. Lexus.
Not a car name, but I once knew a Kevin McCallister, same as in Home Alone.
I once worked for a Mike Wallace. (Not the CBS News one, though.)
I’ve worked with a Mary Martin (not the Broadway star and mother of Larry Hagman) and a Carol King (not the singer/songwriter, and no “e” at the end of her first name).
Mr. Studebaker was my Driver’s Ed teacher back in the ’70s. If I remember right, the teaching car was a ’74 or ’75 Chevy Nova with two brake pedals. Cool guy, cool car.
From Wikipedia:
“Herbert Skinner (1872-1931), pioneer motorist and an active participant in the development of the petrol engine,[2] invented his Union carburettor in 1904. His much younger brother Carl (Thomas Carlisle) Skinner (1882-1958), also a motoring enthusiast … helped Herbert to develop the carburettor.
S. U. Company Limited (Skinner-Union) was incorporated in August 1910 to acquire Herbert’s carburettor inventions and it began manufacture of the carburettors in a factory at Prince of Wales Road, Kentish Town in North London.”
So all the CC readers know someone with an automotive surname- Me!
Skin-nerrr!!! LOL!! 🙂
I worked with a fellow officer named Dodge. Are nicknames included? We also had a “Gremlin.” We all issued Citations (yes, that was awful!)
I knew a girl named Vega. Also a railroad official surnamed Savoy.
Personally I had a classmate from a French Caribbean island named Peugeot and I’ve know several Isabellas and Felicias, plus an Octavio (male form of Octavia) plus some Shelby’s and I think at least one Ford and Dodge.Along the lines of Dave Skinner I know some Carters, but all the Holly’s were spelled like the bush and not Holley. I did know a Bosch but the only Stromberg I can think of is the Bond villain
In popular culture Fred Dodge is a major character in the reality show Gold Rush, Tom Ford is a fashion designer, Bing (motorcycle carbs) was a conductor, and Porsche is a common stripper name. I’ve also heard of Chevette as first name (major head scratcher there). Also slightly OT was a college classmate named Daguerre and descended from Louis Daguerre himself.
This perhaps doesn’t count for the QOTD, but we’ve named our three schnauzers Packard Patrician, Bentley Continental, and Nash Metropolitan.
Any of you guys sell car radios?
Off the top of my head, I have a friend named Jensen and have had colleagues named Ford (who drove a Ford) and Honda. I’m quite sure I’ve never run across either Buick or Chrysler as surnames, other than the car guys.
I’ve always wondered if Chrysler was an Anglicanized version of Kreisler, as in Fritz Kreisler, one of the greatest classical violinists ever.
I’ve wondered that too so I went looking. Wikipedia’s article on Walter Chrysler says “Karin Holl’s monograph on the subject traces the family tree to a Johann Philipp Kreißler, born in 1672, who left Germany for America in 1709.” (That ß is like a double-s.)
Despite the fact that I actually have a world class library in my hands in my house via the Internet, some times I just don’t think to use it!?! Thanks!
Funny that you should mention Buick and Chrysler together, dman. Reading up on Walter Chrysler, it says he started in the car business as production manager of Buick, and ended up running the whole place, getting very rich on GM stock in the process.
David Dunbar Buick, by the way, was born in Scotland. He was forced out of his namesake company in 1906, and died broke.
My initials are “MGB”. Is that close enough?
(My real name is not actually “The”)
Toronto had a mayor Ford, a city council (his nephew) Michael Ford, a former MPP (his father) Douglas Ford Sr. and a current premier of Ontario (his older brother) Doug Ford. I’m acquainted with the whole family, save for the father.
I had a dog named Elva, after the car manufacturer of the same name. Does that count?
I dated a girl years ago whose grandma was named Opel. I’m a Studebaker descendant through my mom.
Are you related to Jack Hardy? See my comment below
It’s possible, we have a bunch of genealogy stuff packed away at my mom’s but I haven’t looked at it in years.
My initials are MAC, close enough to Mack Truck.
And my younger son was contemplating naming his hypothetical first son Enzo (our surname is Italian, though not Ferrari).
Justy, Subaru’s least desirable creation ever: cheapskate, tiny, gutless and unreliable, and I’ve always been offended by the association as I am not in the least tiny.
Speaking of automotive brands and people’s names, how many of you know that Audi is a form of its founder’s name?
August Horch’s first car was called Horch. He eventually left that company and started another one, again using his name. But the courts wouldn’t let him, ruling the car name Horch belonged to the first company.
The son of a friend, who was a Latin student, observed that “Horch!” in German means “Hark!” or “hear”, which is “Audi” in Latin. So they went with that, in 1910.
Every strip club has a Lexus, Mercedes, and a Porsche.
In the mid ’80s, I ran into a guy in an expensive restaurant in Santa Monica whose name was DeLorean.
I knew an Edsel, he predated his automobile namesake by roughly 50 years; never met another Edsel.
My songwriting mentor was the late Jack S. Hardy, the S standing for Studebaker, and indeed, his mother was part of that line and he grew up literally in the Studebaker family. He downplayed it during his life but was a direct descendant. He also wrote a great song about his great-grandpa called “Wheelbarrow Johnny”. And about a thousand other great songs. Google him…. also stuff up at http://www.jackhardy.com.
I drove a Holden when I lived in Caulfield
I told my wife that if we had kids, Laramie (boy) and Laredo (girl) would be great names for our hypothetical children. She agreed for a split second, then put two and two together.
Hudsons lived down the street from us when I was growing up. I used to know some Nashes, a couple named Crosley once attended our church, and the Whites used to live behind us.
However, I also know some Grahams. They are the actual Graham family who once owned Graham Page and Graham. They are a local family. Our city has a Graham truck for parades donated by the family a few years ago.
We had a summer hire everyone called Yugo.
As in “Yugo get me this or that”.
Wasn’t offended, hard worker, good kid.
See the Julia Roberts character in “Steel Magnolias”.
Try the name Carr……
The Benz name is a quite common one in southwestern Germany, a co-worker and a female friend of mine go by that. Another guy I met briefly through car meets is named Porsche (not related afaik) and does a great job impersonating a southern (US) redneck in Bavaria – rural lifestyle, playing country music and owning numerous 50-60s chevrolet trucks and cars, the majority of them being not exatly mobile most of the time.
I was visiting a relative in Kingston, PA back in the 90’s, at the time my Dad belonged to AAA and we were looking at some attractions (both my Parents grew up in the area but haven’t lived there since they were married in the 50’s). There was an auto museum we had not heard about and we went there kind of just to kill time (my Dad isn’t really into cars at all). It turned out the owner was there and was closing the museum, it didn’t work out as he got few visitors…he was a bit upset and I think we were among the last vistors before it closed…I remember his last name was “Riley” and he had several Riley vehicles (more than I’ve ever seen before or since, as they aren’t common in the US). The collection was pretty nice and I was sad to see it close, although I wouldn’t expect too many visitors, as the area is hardly a tourist destination, I think most visitors would be like us, out of towners who are visiting family nearby.
Distantly related to the Dodge Brothers with the common ancestor having been born in the late 17th century. A similarly distant cousin who lived around the same time married a distant cousin of Ransom Olds. I know of a Camry Ford, went to high school with an Elva, & roomed with a Bentley. Not sure what Ms. Ford drives but the Elva drives a Spectra & Bentley drives a Veloster