the thing with the names
I sit down and watch the pilot from time to time, most times showing it to a friend because I am always actively recruiting 
And what I noticed this last time is that it’s right there, from the very first—Marge is one of the switchboard operators, and Peggy’s roommate is Marjory. Come to think of it, in Ladies Room we first hear about Margaret Sterling.
You’ve got Bobby, Don’s son, and Bobbie Barrett.
Pete’s wife Trudy, Bud’s wife Judy, Betty’s sister-in-law Judy (thanks, Deb).
Juanita Carson (Betty’s old roommate/current party girl), Sarah Beth Carson.
(On a separate note, AMC refers to Sara Beth Carson, but the credits on the show itself spell it with an h.)
And similarly but on a somewhat different note, there are the variations. The most played with is Betty/Betsy/Birdie/Elizabeth. But there is also Carla/Carly.
We’ve never asked Matt about it, but my feeling is that it is a deliberate touch of realism. Like having the set wardrobes for the characters, pieces or outfits that you see the characters wear more than once.
On most television shows, names are carefully assigned–no repeats. In fact there’s a whole formula to it. Many shows, particularly the soaps, choose character names that are just unique enough that they don’t remind you of anyone, but not so weird that they are implausible. (And often those names wind up setting name trends–Party of Five gave us a lot of Julias.)
The world is not so orderly. Names overlap. And that’s what I think Matt was up to with this. Distinguishing his show from the others by not distinguishing it from life.
May 13th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Also, Sally was once a nickname for Sarah (My mothers name is Sally, and her teachers used to believe it was short for Sarah. Some refused to believe it wasn’t.)
May 13th, 2009 at 9:23 am
I really love that they’ve done this. It does feel more real. Growing up, my junior high class of less than a hundred kids had a bunch of repeats. There were multiple Sara(h)s, Katies, Jonathans, Jeremys, Allisons, Mikes, and Melissas. Heck, among my (slightly smaller) current group of local friends there are two Rachels. So while giving each character a unique name might make them easier to keep straight, a little repetition makes the series as a whole much richer.
May 13th, 2009 at 9:40 am
I noticed Pete called Trudy “Tweety” in The Inheritance. Was this a conscious decision by the writers to have Pete emulate Don or an insight into the men’s view of their wives?
Other random thoughts – whenever Don calls Betty “Bird”, I can’t help but think of the Tiki Room at Disneyland. And, my favorite scene thus far: Betty, in her night gown, with a smoke hanging out of her mouth, shooting at those damn pigeons. Classic.
May 13th, 2009 at 9:45 am
There’s the Joan/Jane thing, of course. And we shouldn’t forget that Midge and Peggy are also variations on “Margaret.”
May 13th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Hi,
just passing here, but this point of the names struck me too. Peggy is generally used as a short form of Margaret, right? So she was christened Margaret.
It’s also funny how often the names Betty and Peggy are accidentally switched in blogs on Mad Men.
Love the site.
Toodles,
A Dutch Fan
May 13th, 2009 at 9:49 am
That’s actually often how people get nicknames. At my last job, there were three Ukrainians who went by “Alex.” Quickly they became known as Sasha, Alexi, and Alexandra.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Forgot to mention Sal(vatore) Romano and Sal(amander) Draper. There’s also Paul Kinsey and Pauline Phillips.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I was definitely expecting you all to contribute more. Keep ‘em coming.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:43 am
I also like to think that Bobbie Barrett’s name was inspired by… me
A girl can dream, can’t she?
May 13th, 2009 at 10:52 am
The thing that threw me last time I was watching “The Jet Set” is the similarity between the names Joy and Joyce (i.e., Duck’s secretary). I think that one’s at least a little intentional, though; and I can’t help but feel the same way about Bobby/Bobbie.
May 13th, 2009 at 11:02 am
My mother grew up in the 50’s and 60’s and diminuitive names for women ending with -y or -ie givr her the creeps, they remind her of those patronising times… (she has a name like that herself, which she tolerates because its better than the long version)
I suppose the expectation is that Bobby Draper will graduate to the more manly Rob our Bob eventually, but Sally will be forever Sally (I like Salamander though.)
Ken is sometimes affectionally called Kenny, I notice, but Harry is never Hal…
May 13th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Back to the thing about Pete calling Trudy “Tweety”–I also noticed that and thought it was funny, it seemed so similar to Don’s calling Betty “Birdy” even though there’s no way Pete could know he does that. I just love hearing those nicknames…Tweety Birdy. Heh.
May 13th, 2009 at 11:18 am
old amsterdam, I’d think that a Harold chooses either Harry or Hal early on and never switches. At least I’ve never met a Hal who will respond to Harry. I don’t know if I know any Harrys.
I should think a few more unusual names would be good. Ivy is, I believe, the switchboard operator replaced by Lois. That’s a good name; right for the period but not another Margaret. Just as, in life, you meet people with the same name all the time, you also meet people with names you’ve never encountered before. I think the show could do with a few more Ivys.
May 13th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Deb, you were also thrown off by Jennifer being Harry’s wife’s name; it felt anachronistic. This is something we discussed–yes, Jennifer got crazy popular in the 70s, but the name existed before that.
I know a woman, a few years younger than me, named Elaine (she is maybe in her late 30s.). Most Elaines I know are at least 15-20 years older than me. But that doesn’t mean there are no Elaines outside of that range.
Names have peak time periods of popularity, but Matt is smart enough not to make every name ‘period’.
May 13th, 2009 at 11:37 am
Right. And you were right about that.
As Roberta knows, my son was born in 1990. At that time, I had several baby name books in the house, including the Guiness Book of Baby Names, which had all sorts of cool statistics.
I found out that my name (Deborah, and variations thereof) was in the top ten of baby girl names in 1955-1965. In no other year from 1890-1990 was it even in the top 100. So if you meet someone named Deborah, Debra, Deb, Debby, Debbie, or Debbi, she was probably born between 1955-1965. But of course, not necessarily.
My name became popular, as many names do, because of a movie star: Debbie Reynolds. (The Jennifer craze was apparently sparked by Love Story; Ali McGraw’s character was named Jennifer.) But before Debbie Reynolds there was Deborah Kerr, who was popular but not in the same way.
May 13th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I’m surprised there aren’t more of the really (at least to me, anyway) common names from that era:
John, James (Jim), David (Dave), Michael (Mike), Joseph (Joe), Charles (Chuck/Charlie), Louis/Lewis (Lou/Lew/Louie), Daniel (Dan/Danny), Thomas (Tom), Timothy (Tim), Christopher (Chris), Ralph, George, Lawrence (Larry), Bernard (Bernie), Phillip (Phil), Walter (Walt), etc. for the men; and
Mary, Susan (Sue, Suzie), Cynthia (Cindy), Beverly, Patricia (Pat/Patsy), Sylvia, Linda, Christine/Christina, Shirley, Norma, Julia/Julie, Marion, Ann/Anne, Diane, Louise, etc. for the women.
The Margaret/Marjory/Marge/Peggy overlap is the only one that really rings true to me because that’s such a common name (my mother has 3 friends with that name, plus it’s also her middle name as well as the middle name of her first cousin — and they’re all of the MM generation). But the Judy/Trudy thing kind of bugs — mostly because those names don’t seem as common to that time as some of the ones listed above, yet we haven’t seen anyone with those names. I’d almost expect to see multiple Catherine’s or Elizabeth’s, and certainly at least one Mary or Pat, as well as the multiple variations of Jane/Joan/Jean, which we do have.
May 13th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Betty/Betsy/Birdie/Elizabeth… don’t forget Betts, which Don calls her more than anything, especially in the second season. Even when he was gaslighting her in A Night to Remember he still called her Betts. It’s such a normal, familiar shortening compared to Birdie, which to me has always sounded so sterile. Like Don overheard someone else using it once on their wife and decided to steal it.
I’ve also noticed reading the guardian’s blog that so many of the commentators use Betts instead of Betty. Which amuses me because it’s such a UK/Australian thing to do, to incessantly nick name everything. I’ve almost written Betts myself loads of times, because I just can’t help but nickname people, even fictional characters.
“It’s also funny how often the names Betty and Peggy are accidentally switched in blogs on Mad Men.”
I know! It’s weird. Is it the tty/ggy thing? The names aren’t that similar otherwise.
Peggy gets call
May 13th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Oops, I cut myself off.
Peggy gets calls Peggs more than once. I can’t remember who by though.
It’s interesting how nicknames come about. An Elizabeth today is usually a Liz, Lizzie or a Libby, but not often a Beth or Bess and never a Betty. I had no idea that Betty was even a diminutive of Elizabeth until a few years ago. Some Jennifer are only Jen but never Jenny. I knew a Melissa in high school who was always Missy but never Mel.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I still prefer Preggers.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
One of my favorites is that Betty’s and Helen’s husbands have such similar names (Don and Dan) when Betty and Helen are totally opposite sides of the suburban housewife coin. One of them is the tragic double, but it’s hard to know which one!
May 13th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
My former sister-in-law is a Melissa who is Mickey. And the well-known blogger Melissa McEwan is Lissie.
Nicknames are cultural, of course. I once interviewed a Regina (boy was that ever the interview from hell). I expected her to be a Gina, which she was, but my Australian co-worker expected her to be a Reggie. We don’t have Reggies here.
Likewise, Alexander is Alex here, or, lately, Xander, whereas in Slavic countries it is Sasha.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Oh, and I forgot to add:
Betty and Peggy are similar phonetically. The same vowel sounds, the same word construction (#e$$y), said at about the same tempo, and B and P are similar sounds.
May 13th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
In third grade we had six Debbies out of 30 people and yes, I was born in 1957 when Deborah and Debra were #7 and #8 in popularity. Others you don’t see much these days in that same top ten: Patricia, Susan, Linda, Karen and Barbara. Definitely makes you feel dated at the dentist office when Tiffany, Brittany, or Brianna scold you for not flossing. Can’t wait for Emily, Abigail and Hannah to get their turn.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
I thought old amsterdam’s point about names and nicknames was interesting, and something I had not thought of before. Bobby is very much a child’s name, but he can pick a more adult nickname when he grows up. Sally will always be Sally.
I do think the fact that there are repeated names adds authenticity. I remember helping my father doing large mailings, and noticing that which names were popular changed each year. It also adds realism that not every name is period. I went to school with people who had names that were not popular, but were family names/named after older relatives.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
The name Judy not popular in the 1950s — I beg to differ, since I consider it all too boring and mundane, and it also dates me.
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Although it was most popular in the 1940s, when it ranked 15th for baby girl names (which brings us to our Mad Men Judys.)
Always thought it a bit too ordinary, however, as a child, I most got into full name after discovering in my grandparent’s Douay Bible an Old Testament chapter devoted to:
“Judith in the Apocrypha, is a Jewish heroine who decapitates the Assyrian general Holofernes and brandishes his head to the Hebrew army to spur them on to victory.”
Judy has been out of style for awhile, but Judith is coming back, and thank god, the parents use the classier sounding Jude as the diminutive.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
The below reference to Judy’s popularity got eaten in my comments above:
“Hebrew word for “Jewish”. The Puritans neglected this name when they were searching for suitable girls’ names. However, the name managed to make a breakthrough and made its debut as a trendy name in the 1920s all through to the 1950s.”
http://www.quickbabynames.com/meaning-of-Judy.html
May 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
The only other show I can think of that offers a somewhat similar example is Rescue Me, which introduced a 2nd “Sean” to the main firehouse crew in Season 4. He was affectionately known as “Black Sean” for the first few episodes.
May 13th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
I was born 2 months before the end of the 50s, and when I was in second grade there were 7 Susans in our class. We all got nicknamed according to social norms (Sue, Suzie, Suzanne, Sissy, Suse, Susie Q, Susan). I was called Susan there, and it stuck forever.
One of my classmates was named Jennifer, and we all thought she had an old-fashioned Grandmother-sounding name. We felt sorry for her, and tried to call her by her middle name, Marie. Because of that stigma, we all thought it was funny to see all the babies being named Jennifer in the 70s.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
There’s lots of Jennifer’s … but only one Gennifer.
Funny how that works.
May 14th, 2009 at 12:00 am
The Social Security administration has a fabulous site loaded with information about popular. top ten, to top one thousand, names by state, by year, going way back (to 1879). Find lots of other interesting nuggets about male and female names, names, names!!
Check it out sometime when you have a few minutes…or hours…
http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/
May 14th, 2009 at 12:16 am
In France a child’s name must be approved by the local council.
Names which are considered ‘un-french’ or ‘odd’ are rejected (the spelling of the name must also be traditional).
This rule has resulted in hardship for immigrants wishing to retain their culture’s traditional names.
May 14th, 2009 at 1:16 am
The Social Security administration’s name site listed above was cool — if you’re ever writing fiction, for instance.
And although Judy may have been #15 in popularity in 1940 for birth names, “Judith” was #4 (and guess which dimunitive we then got stuck with, no girls got to be Judith in my school.)
Margery was #11, so much for all the Megs, Pegs, Marges.
Which may go a long way to explain the double Judys on Mad Men.
(But I get your point on the lack of some common names of that period, James was #1 that year.)
May 14th, 2009 at 8:20 am
There were lots of Melissas in my school (born in the 1970’s, when those “Little House on the Prairie” girls were the big child stars) but for some reason they never tried to nickname us. We just got called by our full names (Melissa Jones, Melissa Smith, etc.).
May 14th, 2009 at 10:46 am
For Mad Men purposes, though, we should be checking the names from the late 20s and 30s. Probably 1937-37 or ‘38. I think Peggy would be the only character born in 1940.
May 14th, 2009 at 10:48 am
Oops. I mean 1927-37.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I was born in 1977 and named after my grandmother who was named after her grandmother. I was the only Jacqueline in my grade of about 100 people until 4th grade when another one showed up, but I think she moved in the next couple of years. There can be only one. Mwah ha ha ha. Ahem. No I didn’t really run her off.
When I was little I always wanted a more afrocentric-sounding name ending in an -isha or an -ika like all the cool girls, but later I came to like my name as it is. I always wonder about those resume experiments they do on 20/20 and in Freakonomics , like would life be the same if I had a more obviously “black-sounding” name.
It’s funny, one my friends at work grew up the same area but went to Catholic school so she knows all these Johns, and Pauls, and Jameses which were rarer names in my public school. In addition to the Michaels and Brians, and Seans/Shawns we had a decent-sized Jewish population so there were lots of Davids, Adams, and Joshuas. Also a bunch of Coreys.
May 14th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
One of the places you see prejudice really showing up is resumé screening. Those -isha and -ika resumés get poorer response than the identical resume from a Jacqueline.
Names reach our subconscious prejudices. If an African American is sitting in a job interview, the white interviewer might have to consciously acknowledge that, hey, this is a black person, and maybe have to own the prejudice. But when it’s black ink on white paper, people reading the resumé don’t ask themselves if they’re reacting to a name’s ethnicity.