What’s more, in the fictional pop-culture world, when girls are named after their mother, the act tends to be used to portray eccentricity. Lorelai Gilmore of Gilmore Girls, for example, is a larger-than-life character who had her daughter, Lorelai Gilmore (a.k.a. Rory), at 16. Rory explains in the pilot episode that her mother “was lying in the hospital thinking about how men name boys after themselves all the time, you know, so why couldn’t women? She says her feminism just kind of took over. Though personally I think a lot of Demerol also went into that decision.” The implication is that naming a daughter after her mother is a decision one would have to make under the influence of either heavy pharmaceuticals or feminist rage. Pamela Redmond, one of the creators of the baby-name site Nameberry, told me that she has spoken with mothers who have thought about naming babies after themselves but who felt “uneasy” or “apologetic” about it.

An added layer to this hesitance may be the fact that naming boys Junior is sometimes associated with a tradition of masculinity and even narcissism. But for Nancy Swider-Peltz Sr., a former competitive speed skater and coach in Wheaton, Illinois, naming her daughter after herself was an enthusiastic decision that brought her joy. Still, she says she runs into judgment when people learn of Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. “People feel odd about it,” she told me over Zoom. “They think it’s egotistical. And it’s like, well, what do you think the men [who do it] feel?” For her part, Nancy Jr. has loved the uniqueness of her name, and the connection it draws to her mom, especially as she built her own career as an Olympic speed skater. “I was proud to carry on the name,” she told me. “I think what my mom did well when we were younger was never pressure us into something just because she did it. I didn’t like skating until I was 13.” By the time she did begin to skate competitively, being known as her mother’s daughter on the ice wasn’t a negative thing, she said. “I wanted to follow in her footsteps.”