Cherie Jimenez (Gabi, DAYS)
“Tristan. Legends of the Fall is one of my favorite movies. Brad Pitt plays a character named Tristan in it. So, I always loved the name Tristan for a boy. When my husband and I found out that we were having a boy, I was like, ‘Oh, Tristan.’ And he went, ‘Tristan? Why Tristan?’ I was like, ‘Brad Pitt.’ My husband said, ‘We’re not naming our son after Brad Pitt and Legends of the Fall, babe, we’re not doing that.’ So, I let that one go. Then we decided on Phoenix, which could not be any more perfect.”
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Rick Hearst (Ric, GH)
“I like the name Thomas. I was going to name my son Cameron ‘Thomas James.’ Cameron came from a family member that my grandmother had mentioned, but I wanted his name to be TJ, honestly; I wanted him to have those initials. Then my grandmother said, ‘Well, how about the name Cameron?’ I went, ‘Cameron. Cameron James. Wait, we can call him CJ!’ Well, ultimately, that never happened! He never responded to CJ. He barely responded to Cameron. It’s Cam — that’s how he likes it, that’s how all his friends know him. The only time the word ‘Cameron’ comes out of my mouth now is when I’m not happy, or I’m incredibly proud of him, one of the two.”
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Melissa Ordway (Abby, Y&R)
“At first, I wanted to name [oldest daughter] Olivia ‘Sophia,’ but [husband] Justin was like, ‘Absolutely not!’ It’s so weird but there’s like an urban legend in his town that some ghost on a 40-acre plot of land haunted people, and that ghost’s name was Sophia. So, Justin was like, ‘I cannot name my kid Sophia.’ But he ended up listening to a speaker who said the name Sophie means wisdom, so he was like, ‘Okay, I can do Sophie but not Sophia.’ It’s funny because everyone actually calls [younger daughter] Sophie ‘Sophia,’ and Justin and Sophie are both like, ‘No, it’s Sophie, not Sophia!’ If she had been a boy, the name was going to be Levi.”
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Eric Martsolf (Brady, DAYS)
“Jagger. It came from my wife’s fondness for the character on General Hospital that Antonio Sabato, Jr., played [later played by Adam Harrington]. I think one day we were talking about, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if we named one of our kids Brady?’ And Lisa was like, ‘We’re not doing that.’ I went, ‘I know. That’s crazy. I’m not naming my own kid Brady when I play Brady on TV.’ Then Lisa said, ‘But I’ve always really loved the name Jagger from General Hospital.’ I was like, ‘I’m not naming our son after a different soap character that you like more than mine.’ But marriage is about compromise, so we ended up naming our dog Jagger instead.”
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Thorsten Kaye (Ridge, B&B)
“The two names I really liked were Rasputin and Rumpelstiltskin [laughs]. That’s what they would have been if [daughters McKenna and Marlowe] had been boys, but they were girls, so I didn’t get to use them.”
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Parry Shen (Brad, GH)
“Kara, after Kara Zor-El, also known as Supergirl. I thought it was unique, pretty and a name that only a select few comic geeks would clue in on. But [wife] Kim was not on board. However, my daughter Kori would grow up watching Supergirl with Melissa Benoist and now wishes we had named her Kara, so I got the last laugh!”
Kimberlin Brown (Sheila, B&B)
“I really loved the name Clint. I was a huge Clint Walker fan back in the day, you know, watching The Night of the Grizzly and all of that. He was so powerful and so strong and such a man. And I thought, ‘Wow, that’d be an awesome name for my son.’ But then I fell in love with Nicholas [which she named her son].”
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Rebecca Budig (Taylor, B&B)
“I loved the name Flynn; that’s what I would have named [daughter] Charlotte if she’d been a boy. I also loved George for a girl. My dad’s name is George, and I always loved the name. It was a name that we floated around, but in the end, we named her Charlotte, after my great-aunt Lottie.”
Tracey E. Bregman (Lauren, Y&R)
“Alexa Morgan was [eldest son] Austin’s name if he was a girl.”
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