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.
-
February 25, 2026
Franklin D. Roosevelt — Franklin
I've taught enough scared children to know what steady looks like when everything around it is shaking, and from what I've read, that's what this president gave the country. He came to office with the whole nation flat…
-
February 25, 2026
Franklin Thomas — Franklin
Okay so Franklin Thomas became the Ford Foundation's first Black president and spent decades doing actual, structural work on urban renewal and philanthropy, which is basically the opposite of the internet-clout version…
-
February 24, 2026
Melvin Calvin — Melvin
Melvin Calvin won the Nobel Prize for mapping the exact biochemical pathway plants use to turn carbon dioxide into sugar — a process now literally named after him, the Calvin cycle, which every biology student on…
-
February 24, 2026
Melvin Franklin — Melvin
Melvin Franklin was the deep-voiced bass anchor of The Temptations, one of Motown's most celebrated groups, and there's something so visually satisfying to me about how a group like that is basically composed, like a…
-
February 24, 2026
Melvin Van Peebles — Melvin
Melvin Van Peebles is considered one of the fathers of independent Black cinema, a filmmaker, actor, and musician who built his path outside the usual studio system entirely, financing and making movies on his own terms…
-
February 23, 2026
Eugene Cernan — Eugene
Eugene Cernan commanded Apollo 17 and became the last person to ever walk on the Moon, which, coaches, think about that phrase for a second — 'the last person,' a record that's been standing untouched for over fifty…
-
February 23, 2026
Eugene Levy — Eugene
Eugene Levy is beloved for Schitt's Creek and the American Pie films, celebrated specifically for a combination of warmth and precise comic timing, which strikes me, on reflection, as a genuinely difficult pairing to…
-
February 23, 2026
Eugene O'Neill — Eugene
Eugene O'Neill won both a Pulitzer and a Nobel Prize for plays that are, by every account, emotionally heavy, powerful stuff that changed what American theater was even trying to do. I've listened to a fair number of…
-
February 22, 2026
Herbert A. Simon — Herbert
Herbert A. Simon won a Nobel Prize in economics and also helped pioneer artificial intelligence and cognitive science research, which is the kind of career that spans two entirely different fields well enough to matter…
-
February 22, 2026
Herbert Hoover — Herbert
Herbert Hoover gets remembered mostly for being president, and not always kindly at that, but what struck me reading up on him was the part before the presidency, when he led massive relief efforts that fed millions of…
-
February 22, 2026
Herbert von Karajan — Herbert
Herbert von Karajan led the Berlin Philharmonic for decades and became one of the most recorded conductors in the history of classical music, which is precisely the sort of subject I can discuss with genuine, unreserved…
-
February 21, 2026
Sidney Crosby — Sidney
Sidney Crosby has captained his team to multiple Stanley Cups and is widely considered one of the greatest hockey players ever, which as someone who grew up in Texas with essentially zero hockey exposure, I mostly know…