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Corporate Baby Name Day

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corporate baby name dayToday is Corporate Baby Name Day. On August 6, 2001, AmericanBaby.com, a (now defunct) online resource for pregnancy and parenting advice, announced the results of a survey it had recently conducted. The poll asked six hundred respondents if they would sell the right to name their baby to a corporation for $500,000.

We’ve learned about many odd baby names over the years and tried our hand at tongue-in-cheek baby name generators here and here, but we’ve never seen anything like this.

Twenty-one percent stated they were willing to allow a conglomerate to brand their child “Pepsi,” “Friskies,” “Mop’n’Glo,” “Kleenex,” “Budweiser,” “Jeep,” “Windex,” “Tropicana,” or any product featured on the shelves at eye-level in the supermarket. Twenty-eight percent indicated they weren’t sure but would consider it.

The site created the study because of a couple in New York State who tried to auction off the name of their newborn boy on eBay. The bidding started at $500,000; there were no takers. They finally named him Zane on August 6, 2001, the deadline to add the first name to his birth certificate.

We wonder how many companies would pass up that opportunity today. No one would have it worse than the teacher at recess: “Taco Bell, stop picking on Charmin! Don’t make me come over there!”

Happy Corporate Baby Name Day!

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National Watermelon Day

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2025 Watermelon Queen Elanie Mason

Today is National Watermelon Day. It closely follows July’s Watermelon Month, established in 2008 by a unanimous U.S. Congressional Joint Resolution.

Today’s holiday is sponsored by the National Watermelon Promotion Board (NWPB), an organization whose strategic mission is to increase consumer demand in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico while working to develop trade with England and Japan.

NWPB raises funds by charging nine cents per hundredweight of watermelons intended for human consumption. The fee is split between producers and handlers and paid in total by importers.

Its Board of Directors decides how best to spend those fees to secure high-value print, television, and radio publicity. It is dedicated to expanding watermelon’s summertime appeal to make it an everyday, year-round choice for consumers.

Another group supporting today’s holiday is the National Watermelon Association (NWA), which welcomes all who work in the industry to join one of nine regional chapters. Its website has information on everything from creating attractive in-store displays to factoring climate change into crop planning.

Since 1964, NWA has crowned a National Watermelon Queen. The 2025 Queen is Elanie Mason. Here’s a description of her duties.

She embarks on a nationwide tour throughout her reign, blending media expertise with industry knowledge to champion watermelon consumption. From engaging supermarket shoppers to influencing policymakers, she tirelessly advocates for the prosperity of the watermelon industry.

This holiday has made us appreciate watermelon as more than just something we buy when we’re feeling nostalgic. We lug it home, resent it for taking up half the fridge, never cut into it because it seems like too much work, and finally throw it out, vowing never to buy one again. But the siren song of the watermelon is strong. In fact, there’s one in my fridge right now. Maybe this time will be different!

Happy National Watermelon Day!

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National Ice Cream Sandwich Day

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national ice cream sandwich day

Jersey Shore circa 1905

Today is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day.

According to Geraldine Quinzio, author of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making, the ice cream sandwich was invented in 1899 by a pushcart peddler in New York City. It consisted of vanilla ice cream pressed between two thin graham crackers.

In July of 1900, The New York Tribune reported that the vendor was so busy making the sandwiches that he didn’t have time to make change and required all customers to pay exactly one penny.

The photograph you see here was taken at the New Jersey shore in 1905  and shows a popular pushcart on the beach. Supposedly, the modern iteration of the sandwich using rectangular chocolate cookies was created in 1945 by Jerry Newberg, who sold them at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, PA.

Here are a few of the “fun facts” quoted everywhere from blogs to news outlets today:

  • It’s estimated that 48 ice cream sandwiches are consumed per second in the United States.
  • If all the ice cream sandwiches made during the year were placed end to end, they would circle the globe 3 1/2 times.
  • Almost 50 percent of all ice cream sandwiches are consumed by residents of states on the Eastern seaboard.

We don’t know this trivia’s original source, but we’ve tracked it back to a newspaper article dated December 21, 1995. We hope someone will freshen up those stale statistics. Inquiring minds want to know how many times ice cream sandwiches would wrap around the planet now.

Other versions of the ice cream sandwich have been created all over the world, many predating the American kind. We’ll leave that debate to the food historians.

Happy National Ice Cream Sandwich Day!

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National Intern Day

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National Intern Day, observed on the last Thursday in July, recognizes the hard work and dedication of interns across the country. It was created in 2017 by WayUp, a unique platform that connects college students and recent grads with job opportunities and career advice.

The task of getting an internship has always been a difficult one, often dependent on luck or “who you know.” Most people just starting out don’t have access to traditional on-campus recruiting services.

WayUp, the brainchild of CEO Liz Wessel, has democratized and streamlined the job application process, introducing a single, common form that makes it easy for candidates to apply for jobs and helps prospective employers find suitable candidates and set up interviews.

It’s only fitting that WayUp would seek to acknowledge the bright young people who help make the venture a success. Companies are encouraged to submit nominations for its Intern Awards, which will reward outstanding interns in six areas of expertise. Businesses that visit the holiday’s website and pledge to observe National Intern Day will receive a free kit with information and materials to hold their own in-office intern celebration.

As WayUp grows exponentially, it still has a sense of humor. We noticed this in the Frequently Asked Questions:

Do I need a picture?
A profile picture is not mandatory, but according to industry standards it increases your chances of getting hired by 14x. That does NOT, however, include the following: selfies, awkward pictures taken against white walls, or pictures where a red cup has been cropped out.

Sage advice! Happy National Intern Day!

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