Nameberry of the Day: Sutton
March 18
Happy birthday, Sutton Foster!
Actress, singer, and dancer Sutton Lenore Foster single-handedly propelled her gender-neutral surname name to prominence. After winning the Tony on Broadway for Anything Goes, Foster starred in Younger, the seven-season television show based on my novel of the same name.
The name Sutton debuted on the Top 1000 a decade ago, as Foster’s star began to rise, and is now poised to break into the Top 200. Sutton means “southern homestead,” appropriate since Foster was born in Georgia, where she lived until she was 13.
Foster told interview Don Shewey that her parents named her Sutton and her younger brother Hunter because they wanted names more unusual than their own — Bob and Helen.
“I think because their names are so common and run of the mill that they wanted to name their kids something different,” said Foster. “My mom always said she hated her name so she wanted to name her children something really exciting.”
Ironically, Foster may have felt the opposite: She named her own daughter, adopted in 2017, Emily. Sutton Foster uses her middle name, Lenore, in her Instagram handle, @suttonlenore.
Now starring on Broadway in Sweeney Todd, Foster voiced the audiobook of the Younger sequel Older, and is an author in her own right of a memoir about her passion for needlework and crafting, Hooked.
In case you missed these Nameberries of the Day:
Nameberry of the Day: Emily
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Nameberry of the Day: Albert
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