Can you help me puzzle out what my sister is going to name her baby?
January 19, 2014 2:09 PM   Subscribe

My sister is pregnant, and they're keeping the baby's name a secret. But I get one guess, and she'll tell me if I'm right. They came across the name in a magazine article, and they heard it in a sci fi movie, as well. Here's everything I know about the article and the movie... can you help me sleuth out the name?

When my sister was telling me this, I didn't realize I was getting clues, so there could be incorrect bits I'm mis-remembering.
-The article where they read the name appeared in a magazine local to where they live, near Sarasota, FL. (I don't think she meant a digital-only magazine.)
-The article profiled about 10 area farmers at farmers markets.
-They moved to FL in April 2012 and read the magazine very roughly a year ago. So unless it was an old magazine, it was probably published in that general date range.
-The name was one farm family's "little girl's" name (I presume human daughter, but I came across a dog's name in one likely-looking article, and it did make me wonder...)
-They originally thought the name would be their choice for a girl or boy, but later decided they might not love it for a boy. But it must be at least plausibly unisex.
-She's heard the name before, though it wasn't on their minds as they thought about baby names. I got the sense it's not highly obscure.

Working with my husband and friend, googling uncovered this article and this one and this one, which seemed like pretty good matches, plus this good listing of farmers and farmers markets in that area.

It's not Asa (from one of the articles), and I have reason to think Roxie is not it (even if it could be imagined to have a variation suitable for boys). Other farms and kids so far, none of which are any good:
King Farm: Jeb, Lily, Reid
Porter Family Vineyards: Tim, Heather, Steven
Jessica’s Organic Farms: Jessica
Wordens: Asa & Grant (both boys)
Brown’s Grove Citrus: Travis, Trevor, Tressie (I don't think Tressie could be a boy's name, or one my sister would have heard before)
My mother’s garden: Calvin, Jesse (both grown boys)
Sheppard's Farm: there are kids; don't know their names

Then, there's the sci fi movie angle.
-My brother went to visit, and had dinner with my sister and brother-in-law at around 6:30 on Jan 5.
-My brother-in-law said that before coming to dinner, he had been watching "a dumb sci fi movie" in which a character had the name in question.
-He thought it was on a local channel (not sure).
-My brother later looked up some TV listings, and guessed Ashley, Adrian, and Logan, all of which were wrong. (Yes, he got more than one guess! I don't think I will, though.)

So, what's my sister going to name her baby? Don't worry - I checked with her and asking on the web is A-OK.
posted by daisyace to Grab Bag (24 answers total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Jesse is the name of a character in Looper. It is unisex, though usually Jesse is used for boys and Jessie for girls (at least that is how my family did it).
posted by gudrun at 2:22 PM on January 19, 2014


Jesse or Jessie. There's plenty of Sci-Fi characters with both names.
Logan's Run, Dune,, Looper (prob not on TV yet)
posted by Ideefixe at 2:23 PM on January 19, 2014


I don't know anything about the science fiction part of it .. but the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalogue features the daughter of the owners in many photos and her name is Sasha. That could be a boy's name but it would not be MY boy's name. The catalogue is beautiful and has articles in it so someone might remember it as a magazine, although it is not local to Sarasota.
posted by Kangaroo at 2:26 PM on January 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: To clarify why I dismissed Jesse, that's the name of that farming family's grown son, and my sister said that the name she read was the family's "little girl." (Also, we have a Jessica in the family, who sometimes is called Jess, so I'm guessing that makes it even less likely.)
posted by daisyace at 2:26 PM on January 19, 2014


Well, there is an actor named Sasha (male, his real first name) who is currently appearing on the TV show Grimm.
posted by gudrun at 2:29 PM on January 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Sasha is unisex -- it's getting to be more popular for girls in English-speaking countries, but it's traditionally a boys' (nick-)name. For some reason, it also seems to be incredibly popular as a dog's name, and has been for years and years.

I can't think of too many sci fi movie *characters* (as opposed to actors) named Sasha, though. The only one I can find is The Darkest Hour.
posted by rue72 at 2:48 PM on January 19, 2014


gudrun, just fyi Sasha is the Rusian diminutive for Alexander.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:49 PM on January 19, 2014


My bet is Reid.

See The Covenant (2006) at imdb.

That would seem to fit.
posted by zizzle at 2:51 PM on January 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


My guess was Reid as well. Could be Reed Richards from Fantastic Four.
posted by sciencegeek at 2:58 PM on January 19, 2014


Response by poster: Reid's got the same disqualifier as Jesse.
posted by daisyace at 2:59 PM on January 19, 2014


The film 2012 was on the SYFY channel at 5 PM on January 5th (pdf). There is a character named Sasha in the film.
posted by the webmistress at 3:01 PM on January 19, 2014


Response by poster: Interesting! But so far no link of Sasha to anything that sounds much like the article described. Can anyone find a reason that the Baker Creek Seed family might have been included in an article focused on FL farmers markets?
posted by daisyace at 3:11 PM on January 19, 2014


Response by poster: Or that an issue of the seed catalog had an article on farmers markets, maybe including Florida ones?
posted by daisyace at 3:14 PM on January 19, 2014


I know someone who named their baby girl Ripley after the character in Alien.
posted by Ouisch at 3:23 PM on January 19, 2014 [2 favorites]


feckless f.f.m., I do know what name Sasha is a diminutive of, but the actor on Grimm lists himself in the credits as Sasha Roiz, not Alexander.

More importantly for this question, the name Sasha is now being used as a stand alone first name for both boys and girls. In the U.S., as a matter of fact, it is more commonly used for girls than for boys.
posted by gudrun at 3:24 PM on January 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


Do you have evidence that Reid is a boy? The only thing I can find lists the children by names alone, with Reid being last (usually children are listed oldest to youngest). But my googling is failing to find evidence of Reid being a boy (or a girl).

Just honestly curious.
posted by zizzle at 3:26 PM on January 19, 2014


Do you have evidence that Reid is a boy?

Google Image indicates that Reid is a boy, although I'm not linking because honestly this is feeling a little invasive.
posted by acidic at 3:29 PM on January 19, 2014


Response by poster: Can anyone find a Jan 5 TV grid like the webmistress's, but for Florida?

I see that Baker Creek Seeds also links to the affiliated Heirloom Gardner magazine -- maybe they ran the relevant article? I don't see searchable archives.

Zizzle - Without delving into google images, the front page of King Farm's website shows their family photo, with two boys and a girl. Lily must be the girl, so Reid is a boy.
posted by daisyace at 3:32 PM on January 19, 2014


I see.

But I still think Reid is a contender, especially if you think you might be misremembering some things.

Also, she could be leading you on a goose chase. I misled lots of family about things like names and sex in my second pregnancy because I did not want to deal with it. So I developed some things like this to keep people from bothering me about things like names and sex and due dates.
posted by zizzle at 3:43 PM on January 19, 2014 [1 favorite]


But I still think Reid is a contender, especially if you think you might be misremembering some things.

I agree. It could also be that your sister is misremembering, or didn't catch that Reid was not the girl in the photo. It could have been captioned incorrectly in the print edition -- this happens a lot in those local freebie newspapers, nothing against them, but they don't have the budget for more rigorous copy editing and fact checking.
posted by payoto at 3:55 PM on January 19, 2014


Response by poster: In trying to link Baker Creek with Sarasota, I came across this maybe useful resource. It's a news aggregator that compiles articles originally published across many Sarasota-area sources on the topic of local food.
posted by daisyace at 4:55 PM on January 19, 2014


Response by poster: If anyone's still following, I still haven't solved this, but I do have new info from my sister!

I'd called her a few days ago asking whether she'd at least confirm or correct the info above about the farm article. She thought it was all correct as far as she recalled, with faulty memory being possible. She told me that she'd tried to re-find the article herself, and couldn't, even when she included the baby name in the search. So I suspected she was misremembering something that made it pretty hopeless.

But then today, she did find the article again. She said she happened across another issue of the same magazine, and recognized the layout. She googled the magazine, went through back issues, and found it. So, we know it's a magazine that's still around, with back issues available online, and maybe a somewhat distinctive layout.

She confirms that it is a Sarasota County or Manatee County area farm, and that the info above is correct except that it's NOT the name of a girl in the article. She adds:
-The family has two kids.
-There's a photo in the article online that's different than the family photo that ran in the print version. The latter had been captioned with the names, and she'd assumed the order of the names matched the order of the family members, BUT...
-...there's another photo online of the girl (i.e., one kid of the two kids is a girl), and it's captioned with her name, which isn't the name in question. So the other kid must be a boy, I think. That rules out all the ones listed above.

So unless I'm misunderstanding, the family has one girl and one boy, and the name is either the boy's or maybe the mom's or dad's. But somewhere, there's a photo of this family, and another of the girl, in a magazine with back issues that are searchable online.
posted by daisyace at 6:39 PM on January 25, 2014


Response by poster: Ok, we got it. But I'm sworn to secrecy until the summer birth. I will say that none of the guesses or leads upthread are right, and that it would have been near-impossible with the info above. We got a new piece of info that unlocked the whole thing, and a correction to a key piece of info above: my sister was mistaken and the article is NOT a profile of about 10 farm families after all. So, very sorry for the wild goose chase, all, and thank you for the help! If it's August or later and you care to know the answer, memail me.
posted by daisyace at 12:56 PM on January 29, 2014


Response by poster: My niece was born the day before yesterday, and her name is Quinn! This was the article, and the movie was Reign of Fire.
posted by daisyace at 7:39 AM on August 3, 2014 [6 favorites]


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