Good Names, Good People
A running, dated feed of short, positive profiles of real people — historic and present-day — who share popular names. New posts appear here on a regular schedule; every name's own detail page always shows the full set of profiles researched for it.
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June 17, 2026
Ian Fleming — Ian
Ian Fleming created James Bond, and whatever you think of spies and shaken martinis, the man built one of the most successful literary franchises there's ever been, still going strong generations after he first put pen…
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June 17, 2026
Ian McKellen — Ian
Ian McKellen has played two of the most recognizable characters in modern movies, Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and Magneto in the X-Men films, and it tickles me that both of them are, in their own ways, older men…
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June 16, 2026
Jordan Fisher — Jordan
Jordan Fisher has done about three careers' worth of work by the time most folks are settling into their first real job — Broadway's Hamilton, which from what my grandkids tell me is about as demanding a show as…
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June 16, 2026
Jordan Peele — Jordan
Jordan Peele went from being one half of a well-known sketch comedy duo to basically reinventing socially conscious horror as a genre with Get Out and Us, which is such a wild pivot that it still surprises me a little…
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June 16, 2026
Jordan Spieth — Jordan
Jordan Spieth won three of professional golf's four major championships, which is an enormous accomplishment in a sport that's absolutely merciless about small mistakes compounding over four long days. Golf's never been…
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June 15, 2026
Jeremiah — Jeremiah
Jeremiah got the nickname "the weeping prophet" because his writings don't hide the grief in them, don't dress up hard news to make it easier to swallow, and there's something about that honesty that's stuck with me…
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June 15, 2026
Jeremiah Fraites — Jeremiah
Jeremiah Fraites co-founded the Lumineers, a band that built its whole sound on something stripped-down and honest, closer to the front-porch folk music I grew up hearing than a lot of what passes for popular music…
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June 15, 2026
Jeremiah Owyang — Jeremiah
Jeremiah Owyang made his name as an early researcher of social media and what's now called the sharing economy, subjects I will confess I understand largely through the patient explanations of my assistant, who handles…
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June 14, 2026
Nathaniel Hawthorne — Nathaniel
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter about a woman the whole town decided to punish forever for one mistake, marking her out in public so nobody could forget it, and I think that book still lands because most of…
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June 14, 2026
Nathaniel Philbrick — Nathaniel
Nathaniel Philbrick writes narrative history with a novelist's instinct for pacing, In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower among his best-known work, and I confess a certain fellow-feeling with any historian who treats…
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June 14, 2026
Nathaniel Rateliff — Nathaniel
Nathaniel Rateliff fronts Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, and "S.O.B." is one of those songs that somehow became a genuine crossover hit despite sounding like it came straight out of an old soul revival rather…
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June 13, 2026
Christian Bale — Christian
Christian Bale treats his own body like a design material, honestly — reshaping himself dramatically from role to role, gaunt for one film and bulked up for the next, in a way that's less about vanity and more like an…