We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Seymour.

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Freya.

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Jemima.

Althea Gibson was an American tennis player and professional golfer, who was, incidentally, the first African-American to cross the color line in international tennis as well as being the first African-American woman to play on women’s professional golf tours. Often called the Jackie Robinson for her gender and sport(s), Althea Gibson, in spite of her tremendous accomplishments, always remained a gracious and modest woman. Born in South Carolina and raised in Harlem, Althea showed an affinity for sports early on, and with the help of mentors, forged her way into any number of “firsts” for her race and her sex. She was the first black Wimbledon champion, the first African-American athlete to win a Grand Slam event, and the first black woman to appear on the covers of Sports Illustrated and Time. At the age of thirty-seven, she became the first black woman to join the LPGA. In addition to her prowess in sports, Althea also sang professionally, appeared in a movie, wrote her memoirs, taught, ran for public office and spoke on innumerable occasions. All of this fame brought little fortune, however, and Althea Gibson was actually considering suicide in her later years, when she was sick and living on welfare (a former tennis partner came to her rescue). No less a luminary than Venus Williams says it all: “I am honored to have followed in such great footsteps…her legacy will live on”.

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Ophelia.

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Ebenezer.

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Alistair.

Clementine Hunter was an important African-American folk artist/painter. Born in Louisiana just a couple decades after the Civil War, Clementine Hunter was the granddaughter of slaves. She grew up living and working on a plantation herself (Melrose Plantation), at first picking cotton before being called up to “The Big House” to do domestic chores. The plantation owner offered the main house to artists from New Orleans as a retreat. It was from these artists where Hunter found her inspiration (and her tools). Illiterate and uneducated, Clementine Hunter had a god-given, self-taught talent. She would take the discarded paints and brushes left by the visiting artists and “mark” her first picture on a window shade in her tiny cabin. Her works depicted early 20th century plantation life; the community of African-Americans who worked and lived together picking cotton, going to church, attending baptisms and such. Over 5,000 pieces have been attributed to her.

Fanny Brice was a hugely popular American comedian, singer and actress who had successful careers in cabaret, theater, film and radio, and was further immortalized by Barbra Streisand’s portrayal of her in the 1964 Broadway musical and the subsequent 1968 film, Funny Girl, (which won Streisand the Best Actress Oscar). Born Fania Borach in New York City of Hungarian Jewish descent, Fanny dropped out of school in 1908 to work in burlesque and, within only two years, had made it into the famed Ziegfeld Follies. Fanny went on to great acclaim and fame over the years, with her inimitable (assumed) Yiddish accent, and perhaps had her biggest success playing the bratty little “Baby Snooks” for almost twenty years on the radio. Married three times and the mother of two, Fanny Brice made “My Man” her signature song (along with “Second Hand Rose), and it inevitably evokes the memory of her second husband, the con-man, Nicky Arnstein. He may have used her and abused her, but, as she sang: “But whatever my man is, I am his – forever.” Well, maybe he really did look like Omar Sharif.

We cannot find any historically significant people with the first name Elmer.