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Here is the link to today's column:

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https://omaha.com/lifestyles/cleveland-evans-television-fueled-the-meredith-comeback/article_96c565f0-1ba8-11ec-ace2-4f9731a64605.html

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I have been intrigued for years by the special popularity of Meredith in North Carolina. This is one of the few names where I have ever found such a large oversupply in a single state in the USA during its height of use. All I can surmise is that because of the fame of Meredith College in that state, parents in North Carolina were much more likely than parents elsewhere to think "Oh, that's a cool name!" when they saw Meredith MacRae or Meredith Baxter on the television. There was a little bit of spread of this popularity into neighboring South Carolina and Virginia, but even in those two states Meredith was nowhere near as popular as in NC. I hope someone does research some day on whether or not North Carolina parents conscioiusly knew they were being influenced by the location of the college in Raleigh or if this was a completely unconscious influence. In any event, Meredith College is one of the few institutions of higher education that can rightfully claim it had a lot of babies named after it. :)