Atticus in the News: The Good & Bad

Atticus -- the name, not our almost four-month-old baby -- has been all over the news this month.

The headline on a Today.com article sums up the hubbub: "Atticus is top trending baby name: Can he survive racist portrayal of namesake?"

Two things happened that spurred the article: "Go Set a Watchman," the sequel to Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" was released, portraying character Atticus Finch as a racist. Around the same time as the book's publication, website Nameberry declared Atticus to be the top-searched boy's name during the first half of 2015.

I'm pretty dismissive of the Nameberry "news." Why? Top name searches seem to have little to do with what names parents ultimately choose for their children.

Case in point: Last year, before we found out that we were having a boy, Imogen was on my short-list for a girl name. Lo and behold, Imogen was Nameberry's top-searched girl's name during the first half of 2014, as well as in 2013 (this year it dropped to No. 14). But according to the Social Security Administration, Imogen hasn't been in the top 1,000 girls' names since at least before the year 2000. Will we see a spike in the next couple of years? It's possible, but I highly doubt it will break the top 10 ... or even the top 500.

The Atticus Finch reference is more complicated. Of course, no one wants a name with a bad association. Not too many Adolf's around anymore, eh? I haven't yet read "Watchman" (I'm still on the library waitlist), but by all accounts Atticus Finch in this book is not a man with his feet planted firmly in the footprints of justice, as he was portrayed in "Mockingbird."

At best, that makes Atticus Finch more realistic. An English teacher not far from where I grew up in Northwest Ohio, who also has a son named Atticus, explained this well in a column written for the Washington Post. At worst, strangers will think we named our son after a fictional racist.

The funny part is that our Atticus isn't named after Atticus Finch at all. Paul and I both sincerely like the name independent of any associations. The strength and moral rectitude of Atticus Finch didn't hurt, but it held about equal weight as the background of the only other halfway famous Atticus, a man of ancient Rome and Athens. Paul is a big history geek and liked that the name means "man of Attica." With my writing background, I liked that he was a publisher.

When Paul and I first heard about the release of "Watchman" several weeks before our son's birth, we discussed how that might affect the popularity of the name. But by that time we had firmly settled on the name and didn't even consider changing it. When I heard that actress Jennifer Love Hewitt named her son Atticus in June, I thought that might have a greater impact on the name's popularity than the book.

I have mixed feelings about Atticus in the news. On the one hand, I dislike that the name will have a negative connotation, at least for a while. On the other hand, perhaps the association with the new book will make Atticus an even less common name (despite its use by celebrities) while "Watchman" fades behind the more popular "Mockingbird." Atticus is by no means the most fashionable name in the country, but it has grown in popularity over the last decade, rising from number 937 in 2004 to 370 in 2014, according to the Social Security Administration.

Interesting SSA footnote: "For 2014, the number of births with name Atticus is 846, which represents 0.042 percent of total male births in 2014." Believe it or not, Edith is an even less common name.

But perhaps the most disappointing article I've read recently about the name Atticus is this New York Times one. The featured couple has two kids. One is named Atticus, of course, and the other is named Edith. “We’ve always wanted to have names for our kids that aren’t super-popular,” the father says in the article.

My disappointment: The confirmation that I'm not as unique as I think I am.

The New York Times & Times Square

The New York Times lent its name to Times Square, but it hasn't been the newspaper's home for quite some time.

The Times has a magnificent building on a dingy block, just across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. It's only a few blocks from Times Square's neon lights, yet you'd rarely have an excuse to see the building unless you're about to catch a bus -- or accompanying a friend to the Port Authority to catch a bus, as I did a few weeks ago.

Seeing the building and its ladder-like facade reminded me of the men who tried to climb the building, with some success. Putzing around Wikipedia, I found out some more about the New York Times and all of its headquarters.

The current building became the New York Times headquarters in 2007, moving just two or three blocks south. It began life, however, in lower Manhattan, a few blocks from where I work. Its first locations in the mid-1800s were on Nassau Street, followed by a building on Park Row, once nicknamed "Newspaper Row."

In 1904 the New York Times moved way north, to Longacre Square, renamed Times Square. Fun fact: The Times started the annual tradition of dropping a lit ball on New Year's Eve. It still occurs on the top of the former Times building at One Times Square.

Living in Bay Ridge, According to the NY Times

Bay Ridge. Photo by Emily K.

The New York Times features a different tri-state neighborhood each weekend in its Real Estate section, and last Sunday I was pleased to see that Bay Ridge was in the driver's seat.

The weekly article is much more of a neighborhood guide than a feature story, as indicated by each article's heading: "Living In / [Neighborhood]." Every article follows the same format, with short sections on what residents there do, what they pay for housing, how the schools compare to averages, the typical commute time and a mini history.

And so on Sunday I found out what the New York Times had to say about Living In / Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and I found out a few things about my neighborhood in the process.

Read the link above for the full article, but here are the highlights:

• Bay Ridge has a population of about 80,000. 

• Bay Ridge is three square miles.

• The neighborhood is largely Italian and Irish, and 9 percent have an Arabic background.

• New York City honored Bay Ridge's Scandinavian roots in 1969 by renaming part of the Belt Parkway "Leif Ericson Drive."

• The average selling price of a Bay Ridge single-family home last year was $812,000.

• Fort Hamilton, at the southern tip of Bay Ridge, is the city's only active military base.

• The fort was built in 1831 because of the fear of a European invasion.

• And what might do the most to convince people to visit us ... "Bay Ridge has 113 places to grab a drink."

Columbus and Its Search for a Slogan

Not long after I started my job in New York, I had a short email correspondence about a work-related matter with a woman I had never met. I noticed a 614 area code in the signature of her email, and I asked if she lived in Columbus. Yes, she responded. In fact, she lived down the street from one of my favorite Columbus restaurants.

Turns out she had just moved there from Boston. Her friends in Massachusetts, however, wondered why she would ever want to move to Ohio. I don't remember if I ever found out the reason that she moved there, but I do remember that she was enjoying the city.

I recalled those emails this past weekend when I read an article on page A13 of Saturday's New York Times. "There May Be 'No Better Place,' but There Is a Better Slogan" is about the efforts of Columbus to brand itself.

The first two paragraphs of the article meshes with my own experience:

Quick, what do you think about when you hear the words 'Columbus, Ohio'?

Still waiting. ... And that’s the problem that civic leaders here hope to solve.

When I say I'm from Ohio, let alone Columbus, no one knows quite what to think. If they know anything about the state, it usually has to do with college football, but they're almost as likely to confuse the state with Iowa or Idaho.

As the article says, Columbus doesn't have an image. (A slogan, yes -- albeit a boring and highly debatable one: "There's No Better Place.") That's unfortunate, because Columbus is a great city, and I often miss it for reasons beyond it being the home of so many friends and family. Good food. Gallery Hop. Shakespeare in the Park. Grocery stores with wide aisles.

It's all so accessible.

Which, I suppose, isn't the most exciting slogan either.

Bay Ridge Food in the News

No. 1: Bay Ridge is much more diverse than people think. Yes, the neighborhood is known primarily for its Greek and Italian residents, but people of Scandinavian and Middle Eastern heritage also have roots here.

No. 2: Bay Ridge has a lot of restaurants. A lot. I think I've read that we have the highest concentration of any Brooklyn neighborhood.

For those two reasons, I was excited when I found this article the New York Times recently published about the variety of restaurants not only in Bay Ridge, but on Bay Ridge's 5th Avenue, where we live.

(Our apartment building even got a cameo-- scroll down to the second photo on the left. That's our building through the window of Al Safa!)

Paul and I haven't been to as many neighborhood restaurants as you would think. When the weather is nice, or even when it's cold but I get cabin fever, we tend to go into Manhattan to eat or at least to another Brooklyn neighborhood. But as the weather has gotten colder, we're staying closer to home.

As for the restaurants mentioned in the article: We've tried Al Safa across the street, and Agnanti is next on the list.

I had to laugh at the first sentence of the article: "In the popular imagination, Bay Ridge is New York’s Midwest: more conservative, less diverse and distinctly unhip."

It's true-- that is the perception, but I think it's changing as people get priced out of Manhattan and the ritzier Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Yes, Bay Ridge is more conservative than New York as a whole-- it's decidedly Republican. No, it's not less diverse-- particularly compared to Defiance and even Columbus. As for the unhip? Pay me a visit and decide for yourself.

Props from the NY Times

When I read the New York Times, I always pay special attention to the news from Ohio.

It's not uncommon to see Columbus or Cleveland mentioned, but imagine my surprise when I saw Defiance's name in print a few weeks ago.

The article? Excerpts of notable commencement speeches, and Defiance College's was included. Read the article.

Maria Hinojosa seems a lot more interesting than whoever spoke at DC's commencement a few years ago when my sister graduated. The speaker that year confused Defiance with Findlay in his speech.