Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - The Name Katie

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Alex Schmidt and Katie Goldin explore why the name Katie is secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the new SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5

The name Katie, known for being Catherine, famous for being my buddy, my co-host. Nobody thinks much about the name, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why Katie is secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone because I'm joined by my co-host, Katie Golden. Katie, fun question this week. What is your relationship to or opinion of our topic, which is the name Katie? That's my name. Don't wear it out. Pretty much the premise of the episode is wearing out the name. We're really going to wear it out. We're really going to get into it. Every time you say Katie, I'm going to be like, yes, yes, yes.

Hello. Yes, that's me. It's just always distracted within the main thing. Yeah. I'll be doing other things as usual, building card castles. And then Alex will be like, anyways, Katie, what? It would be. You're so great on the show.

It would be cool if you were also doing incredible puzzles at the same time. Like you were just that kid. Like those Lego sets of amazing architecture that are really hard to do. I'm building a Imperial Falcon with Legos under the desk. With my feet. with Legos under the desk with my feet. And I want to thank many folks on the Discord, including Shane, I think was the most recent person to suggest it. What a great topic. And I think it's partly inspired by an episode about the name Alex that we did a few weeks back. So I'll link that too, because people said,

let's get Katie's name going too, because it turns out it's very interesting. It's yet another thing that is SIF in the world. Fun fact, you can write Katie in a variety of ways. K-A-T-I-E is how I spell it. You can also spell it K-A-T-Y. You can spell it with a K and then the number 80 behind it, because that's just Katie. This episode is universal to all spellings, whether it's with a K or a C on the front

or all the other, even variations of the name, like shout out to my mom, Kathleen. It turns out that's an Irish version of Catherine. And shout out to my cousin, Caitlin, spelled with a C on the front. The gist of why there are so many of those is that the name Catherine has been really, really popular for a really long time. And then we got a bunch of others from there.

And that is technically my legal name, Catherine. Katie is more or less a nickname. I've never gone by Catherine. Cool. Like me with Alexander. How about that? Exactly. Yeah. No, it sounds, it's like, who are we? The nobility? Yeah, no, it sounds it's like, who are we? The nobility? Fellow Catherines, we need we needn't fight. We're all the same. We're all under the umbrella of Catherines and we need to fight against, you know, I don't know.

I was like, what lady's name is she going to choose as a rival? Will it be Jessica? Will it be Anne? Oh, there's so many ways. Okay. Yes. Jessica. Jessica.

Actually, I'm friends with a Jessica, but still, Jessica's. You know them. You know how they are. Jessica's. No, there's nothing wrong with the name Jessica. I picked it randomly. I put it on you. Except that you're all Jessica's and you can't help it.

How did you choose Katie when you were listed as Catherine when you were born? My parents just called me Katie. Like, you know, come on, make up your minds, parents. You write down Catherine, but you call me Katie. What's the deal? No, they liked, I think they just liked the name Catherine, but then it felt maybe a little heavy for a baby. So they called me Katie as the nickname because they also liked the name Katie, but that really

stuck. And I never outgrew being like a cute cherubic type person, I suppose. So I don't know. person, I suppose. So I don't know. I had thought about changing my name to like Kate or Catherine in college, but then like a friend I had made in San Diego, like immediately started calling me Katie. And I was like, well, it's too late. Maybe it's just an American thing. So many people consider that at the start of freshman year of college, they're like, do I change something? Do I change what I'm called or a hair thing or my vibe? Yeah. I've heard that from so many people. Am I going to be a hat person? Am I going to be a hat person? It didn't work for me. Katie was too strong. It clung to life there. And so I like the

name though. When I was younger, sometimes I felt like it wasn't a serious enough name. But then I kind of grew to realize I'm not a serious person. So it's perfect. I feel like I don't have enough like sort of flower crowns to be named Catherine. People who go by Catherine, I feel like you guys are princesses. Not in a bad way. I mean, like you're maybe like an enchant, you live in an enchanted wood and you deer and fawn come at, at your beckoning, uh, little birds land on your shoulders. Um, you're like a whimsical person from a fairy tale. And, uh, that's lovely. I just,

it's like, I feel, I feel like I'm putting on airs if I go by Catherine. Right. Like you if you're named Catherine, you know, some knights and partway through the book, you will become a lady knight. And everybody's like, ladies can't be knights. And you're like, I'll prove you wrong. And in the ensuing chapters, you prove them wrong. Yeah, but the but the name Katie does come from Catherine, right? I mean, certainly that's my... Are there any other longer names to which Katie is a nickname or is it really basically just Catherine typically? There's kind of a bunch, but it's partly the many spellings of Catherine and then Kathleen and Catalina. It's just all these many, many

branches of Catherine is the starting point. But Katie is a name for a bunch of them, it turns out. Yeah. Nice. We are many. This episode, the structure is fun because we're going to do stats and numbers at the end. We're going to start with a giant mega takeaway about the origin of the whole name and everything. Ooh, I'm excited. Yeah, because it turns out mega takeaway number one, the name Catherine comes from the Greek language and from the epic story of a Christian martyr who probably didn't exist. See, this is why Catherine has a sort of gravitas that I've never been able to work myself up to.

You know, it sounds like it has some kind of epic origin of some like heroine who like cut off her own feet or something in the name of Christianity, probably. But like, you you know Something like that I don't know like whenever There's like saints or martyrs it's always like Well she ripped out her own eyeballs She cut off her own feet like she got eaten by

Giraffes Like there's a lot of weird Not to I'm not disparaging The religion but I'm just saying Like a lot of martyrdom Is like a wild story. And I feel like every time I see one of these sculptures or paintings of a martyr, I feel like there's going to be a record scratch. The martyr is going to go.

But you're wondering how I ended up tied up by my feet upside down, hanging over a bunch of jackals. Yeah. Hers is they tried to attach her to a torture wheel. And then she miraculously broke the torture wheel through her faith. And so then they just beheaded her because they were like, well, we can't draw this out because she has powers. But we're still going to make this mistake. Well, that's a bit of a downer. But the initial part of that I like.

Like, you put me on a torture wheel. I'm just going to break your freaking wheel. You know? Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah. Now you're out a wheel. Yeah, we'll talk about that medieval story, which is set in earlier history. But then also this name comes from just words in the Greek language. That was how people got it as a name in general. And it turns out it's the origin of this whole thing. Here's hoping it doesn't mean poopy brush in Greek. It does not. Cool.

It's a mega takeaway. So there's mega sources. We're using digital resources from the UK National Gallery and the book American Given Names by UC Berkeley professor George R. Stewart, Catholic stuff from the Loyola Treasury of Saints, Eastern Orthodox stuff from the Orthodox Church in America, and another book called The Darkening Age, the Christian Destruction of the Classical World by journalist Catherine Nixie. A little bit biased there, it sounds like. She definitely has a premise, but it seems to be true. The origin of the name Katie is this name Catherine, and it's derived from a Greek word, the Greek word katharos, which means pure.

Pure. So it's a purity word. Okay. Katharos. Okay. Catharos. Man, now I want to go by Catharos because that makes it sound like I'm some kind of space alien with like planetary domination vibes. Yeah, you could either be a Flash Gordon type character or his enemy. Right. Or maybe I'll do a heel turn. Maybe I'll start out villainous and become good or vice versa. Who knows? Oh, and then you're Flash Gordon's friend.

Yeah. Alex, I'm going to level with you. I do not know much about Flash Gordon. I think he jumped to mind because he vaguely looks like a Greek myth, like Hercules or something, but is also out in space shooting lasers. That's most of what I know about him. but is also out in space shooting lasers. Cool. That's most of what I know about him. So katharos was the Greek term for pure. Yeah, and it was just kind of the word in the language and then got adopted as a name for people. And if people remember the episode about the name Alex,

something kind of similar happened there. Like there were Greek words about being a defender or a protector that became an honorific title and then just became a name for people. And so famous people with the name came later. It's not like there was one hero who this came from. I think I had at some point looked up the name Catherine to see like what it means. And like they'll just give a very basic like description like this means purity. And I don't know, I was not that impressed. I was like, I was hoping for something cooler,

you know, like Catherine means like wheel destroyer or something, but purity, like, is that like for me growing up in modern day America, like purity is like kind of a weird, like, like, you know, what are you good at? Well, I'm good at lacrosse. What about you? I'm good at remaining pure. My spirit is pure and clean. It's like all those things where you read about colonial America and it's like his daughters,

chastity, purity, meekness, you know, like all the names are just very, very Christian virtues and not doing anything names. Hello, my name is Virginity Iron Underpants. And this name became popular and then it got adapted into many other languages. The Greek version was usually Aikaterine, spelled A-I-K-A-T-E-R-I-N-E. Aikaterine. Aikaterine. Hey, Katerine, how you doing?

And in Roman Latin, it was usually Katerina. One popular medieval European version was Katerline, which is C-A-T-E-L-I-N-E. And eventually that was anglicized into Catherine. And then a very common English nickname version was Kate. But there have been, there are just all kinds of other language versions or spinoffs like Kathleen, Caitlin, Katerina. Yeah. With all kinds of spellings. Yeah. I like the idea that there's just like spinoffs. So many. There's a greater Katie cinematic universe. You know, common versions.

Kathleen, Caitlin, Frasier. Frasier is an honorary Katie. I shouldn't have made Jessica the opponent name I should have made it Niles I can't stand that Niles To be fair Niles is such a Jessica And yeah Part of the reason there's so many spellings and variations

Is this is just a very old name It's been being used and reused For more than 2000 years. Yeah. And then the big thing that sparked it being popular, especially in Europe, is an early and popular saint story in Christianity, and especially the Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church. People got into the story of Catherine of Alexandria. Catherine of Alexandria.

Hmm. That's funny. We're hosting a podcast, Catherine, Alexandria. Yeah. It's like, what is this? Another secretly incredibly fascinating story? Anyways. Yeah. It's weird how much Alexander the Great is accidentally coming into this with like a Greek world of the Mediterranean and the city of Alexandria.

Again, like Alexander gets to be like great. And then it's like Catherine, like, well, at least your soul's pure. Sorry about you getting beheaded. Yeah. And there is one Catherine the Great in Russia. We'll talk about her in a second. That is true. Yeah, that's pretty cool. And the stuff about horses is sl Catherine the Great in Russia. We'll talk about her in a second. That is true. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

And the stuff about horses is slander, in my opinion. Yeah. I don't think it happened. I don't think it happened. Why would anyone do that? Yeah. Although, like I did mention earlier, Catherines do seem to need to be able to ride a horse to be a Catherine. So I did say that. Right. Just riding a horse like humans do, you know? Yes. Come on. Pants on. And this Saint Catherine, this story doesn't start getting told until around the 800s AD,

but it's set in the 300s AD, which is one of many reasons we think it's probably made up. Yeah. But the story is in the 300s AD, when Alexandria was part of the Roman province of Egypt, there was a culturally Greek woman named Catherine. And she was brilliant, educated, beautiful. And she turned down all suitors, mainly because she was like secretly, privately married to Jesus in her heart and profoundly Christian. like secretly privately married to Jesus in her heart and profoundly Christian. She's, you know, like I do have a boyfriend. His name is Jesus and he lives in Canada. It's a country that hasn't been, you know, created yet, but Jesus is there.

That's right. And yeah, and the story has also been told a few different ways. There's even different tellings where her name starts with K or with C, you know? This is important. There's a big schism between the Catherines with a K and the Catherines with a C. We're bitterly, bitterly at war. A lot of people being killed in the Catherine schism. Well, that fits the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox vibe we have going on here. Anyway, in the story then, Catherine's in Alexandria, just being very pure and amazing.

And the Roman emperor visits. It's early 300s AD. Some of the stories say it's the Emperor Maxentius. Some of the stories say it's the Emperor Maximian. Those are similar names, but those are two real emperors who ruled near each other. And then whichever emperor it was, he either got into an argument with Catherine or fell in love with her or both. It's not clear. Okay. Sounds like this guy's going to be a real Jessica. Yeah. And he was also- Accepting that we're now turning Jessica into a slur. There's nothing wrong with the name Jessica. And I am actually opposed to the idea of like turning a common name into like a way to say someone is a bad person like Karen and stuff. It's like, I don't know yeah it stinks

it stinks so there's so many just regular good people with that right come on except for jessica's now continue alex so so what happens is the emperor is mainly in alexandria to persecute christians right he's hunting them down left and right and so katherine says don't that. And then possibly when she comes to tell him not to do that, he falls in love with her. It's sort of like when Elmer Fudd is like hunting wabbits, but then Bugs Bunny dresses as a hot lady. And then Elmer Fudd falls in love with Bugs Bunny, even though he's hunting wabbits. The emperor is hunting questions, but then he falls in love with a question. Right. The emperor visited Seville to get a haircut

from a barber. Yeah. He saw a poster that said Protestant season. So then the result of all this is the emperor says, let's torture Catherine into agreeing with her. That's not how you woo someone you love. Catherine, they attempt to torture her.

She reveals, I'm married in my heart to Jesus. There's nothing you can do to me. They try to torture her with a large wheel, but she breaks the wheel just by touching it, you know, miraculously. Okay. So like, I was thinking more of like a Hulk smash thing of her breaking the wheel. It's more magical. Yeah. Okay. It's more magical. That's fine, I guess. That's cool too. So when you say torture her with a wheel, are they just going to kind of like run her over with the wheel? Is it like a thing where you tie someone to a wheel and it dunks them in water over and over again uh what what is why is this wheel torturous excellent question because i wondered and it turns out there's two ways people use these either you attach the person's like spread eagle to the wheel

and then hit them or you tied them down and then squash them with the wheel neither of those are very creative like yeah i think torture i think torture is wrong in every situation that being said the creative torture is at least you get points for creativity if it's like we tie you to a wheel and then we beat you, it's like, what's the point of the wheel? Yeah, right. I could imagine sort of a Rube Goldberg device where you have a wheel turn and then you hit your head

on like a lever that releases some bees. I don't know. Anyways, that makes me mad, but continue with your story. Yeah, the Romans are real clads in this story because also their actions and Catherine's purity convert hundreds of new Christians. In Alexandria, there's an epic event in the history of the city and the faith. Right. And then as they fail to torture her, they give up and proceed to have her beheaded. Yeah. And then there's a coda to the story where either angels collect her body or her body just vanishes.

Or there's some lofting immediately to heaven that converts more people who say, oh, obviously, Christianity is real if this amazing woman did this thing. Yeah. And that's the story. Catherine and Alexander. Okay. So she breaks a wheel, gets beheaded, and then goes to heaven. You know? Because some

Roman emperor did not know how to flirt. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah. I keep imagining Joaquin Phoenix as Commodus in Gladiator. It seems like it's one of those guys in the story. You know, like an extremely weird pent up guy. Right. It's like the guy in Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Disney movie. What's his name? Oh, Frollo. Yeah.

Frollo. Yeah. Where he's like, like, homina, homina, homina. And then he's like well that means that i gotta torture this lady right a lot of weird stuff going on frallo did not make enough comedy noises like homina homina homina that really would have improved the movie men will literally uh tie the object of their affection to a torture wheel and create a whole new uh for Christianity before going to therapy. Yeah, and this story was a massive hit in medieval Christian culture. In the Orthodox Church, Catherine is venerated by the special classification of great martyr that only a few martyrs got. The other martyrs, they're okay. Sure, they're martyrs. They're okay, but they're not great martyr that only a few martyrs got. The other martyrs, they're okay.

They're sure they're martyrs. They're okay, but they're not great martyrs. They're decent martyrs. That's the thing. A bunch of them are just regular martyrs. Like they're not in the great martyr tier. Yeah. It's like, I got stung by bees while worshiping God.

Okay, you're a martyr, but you know, come on. It's not like, it's not like a great. Can you show us any wheels or anything? Yeah. How about a wheel? Did you break a wheel? The martyr's agent is like, if you can book a wheel, that would be huge. But, and so throughout places in the Orthodox church, this name becomes popular from the

story of Catherine. One odd story within that is a mini takeaway number two. Both of the Russian empresses named Catherine adopted that name for saint reasons and political reasons. Hmm. Okay. It turns out there were two empresses of Russia named Catherine. Both of them actively ruled the country. But both of them were ladies born outside Russia and born not named Catherine. They took it on in

the process of becoming a workable wife to the emperor of Russia. Hmm. Interesting. Why was it sort of a popular name for like a leader? Just to indicate that they had converted to Orthodox Christianity. I see. I see. It was like, oh, this is such a common Orthodox name. This indicates that they're really on board. They like did the baptism and they're in. I see. I see. So this is like, it is proving sort of their nerddom about Christianity. It's like, about Christianity. It's like renaming yourself Daenerys to show that you are a true, devout, ice and fire reader. So there was Arusha's Catherine I,

and she began life as a Polish Catholic commoner. Her name was Marta. And then she just connected with so many different aristocrats that the Tsar fell in love with her, married her secretly. And then when they debuted this empress who was not a noble person, they smoothed it over by announcing she definitely converted to Orthodoxy and her name is Catherine. So that's all. So she's one of us. It's cool. Yeah. Right. Huh. That's interesting. It seems like an unusual story where like an emperor actually does marry like a commoner and then everyone accepts it. Yeah, it's rare. And then later on, Russia's Catherine II, who is the one called Catherine the Great later on, she began life as a German Lutheran princess named Sophie. And in the process of like official royal intermarriage, they said, you're going to marry into the Russian royal family and you need to convert to orthodoxy.

And your name's Catherine now. Yeah. And there's that great, not very historical show called The Great, which is just realized I called it a great show. And it's called The Great, which is, I just realized I called it A Great Show, and it's called The Great, which is not so cool. I'll bet everybody does that. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, it's a good show, but it is not really, I think it's a lot, the inaccuracies I think are for storytelling, fun comedy reasons, but they do get it right that she is German. Yeah. And because of this saint being such a huge deal in that church, we get a bunch of important Russian monarchs and people named

Catherine. Right. Just on the basis of this will make you seem Russian and like one of us, even though we kind of imported you from out West there. And yeah, and this name was also huge in Catholic culture. Gets in her own special group of saints. She's named as one of the 14 Holy Helpers. That's, yeah. And I grew up Catholic. I had never heard of that. But I know people pray to saints specifically.

Holy Helpers, like, it sounds like you're at some kind of like religious theme park and the people that help you are like and here come the holy helpers if you get lost if the ride comes to a stop and the light goes on remain seated until assisted by a holy helper and then they just levitate you out of the ride like oh wow this is pretty good yeah um they just levitate you out of the ride. Like, oh, wow, cool. This is pretty good. Yeah. It's like, Catherine, have you been breaking the wheels of the ride again?

Yeah. And the 14 holy helpers people prayed to them for specific protection against diseases. Catherine also was so popular, the later French martyr Joan of Arc said that she saw Catherine in a vision. There's also a lot of medieval art depicting Catherine, and they usually included a torture wheel somewhere in the composition. With all martyrs, they tended to paint the instrument of their death or torture somewhere in the frame. So she got a wheel in there. Martyr iconography is really interesting. Like there's one who I think had her breasts cut off and she's like depicted like holding up either one or two breasts, like just like, hey, this is how I died. Cool, huh? Like, oh, thanks, guys.

That's real cool. Yeah, and medieval times got really into this, and she really became famous for that wheel. Wheelie famous. Just other stuff got associated with her with wheels. One of the largest colleges within the University of Oxford is St. Catherine's College, and the coat of arms has a bunch of wheels on it. There's also a firework named after her. It's called the Catherine Wheel. Yeah, that's the one that like spins around and it has like the flares sort of on the spokes of the wheels.

Yeah, it doesn't launch into the air. It's a big wheel with a bunch of like Roman candles on it, which spins really fast. Yeah, it's fun. So she has her own firework and everything. It was a good time. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other thing that spreads this name through the saints is a relative lack of female saints. In George R.R. Stewart's book, he talks about how approximately half the population needs female names and way less than half of the saints are female. The list of 14 holy helpers in Catholicism, only three are women, Catherine, Margaret, and Barbara. So a couple of names like that, especially Catherine and Margaret, just become really popular for centuries because there's not that many other women in Christian folklore.

Yeah, I mean, like they could come up with some more saints that are ladies, I guess, but hey, you know, I guess we'll all just be called Katie. Yeah. And like most of all Mary, but then after that, it's like, there's not that many women in the New Testament. And so Mary really takes off that way. And then, and then these saints that they come up with outside of the Bible take off too. Right. And then it partly leads to the evolution of all these variations. Takeaway number three. Nicknames like Kate and Katie help this name remain popular through the Reformation.

Hmm. Okay. remain popular through the Reformation. One thing that changed with the Reformation is that a lot of Protestant churches de-emphasized saints or stopped doing saints at all. And so then those were less of a name inspiration. But one reason the name Catherine stuck around is it was just hugely popular outside of the saints over time. And a particular leader in this was the country of England that got way into the nickname Kate. Like several hundred years ago, they started really pushing Kate. Apparently in Europe and medieval times, people assumed you were English if you were named Kate.

It was just typically from that country. Interesting. Oh, that's very interesting. And so that was another reason this name stuck around is that a nickname like Kate is less biblical and less tied to the saint. And so then as people did a reformation and as some churches said, we're dropping the saint thing that the Catholics do, they still kept the name Kate because like, sure, that's not that tied to St. Catherine, whatever. It's great. Yeah, it's fun. So, you know, it's not got any baggage. You're not like, oh, you break any wheels lately, Kate? It's just a good old fashioned monosyllabic name. Yeah, it's just punchy and fun and feels good. And I really wanted a date

or inventor for the related nickname, Katie. That doesn't exist. We don't know exactly where it came from. But this name is kind of more popular than ever because of those variations. Like it really makes it modern, too, and not just tied to a medieval saint on a wheel. Yeah. Yeah. Gotta get fun and flirty with those names. Otherwise, everyone's going to be named Aloysius and Bartholomew for the rest of time.

Oh, bring back Aloysius. Oh, man. That's a good name. But yeah, and then we think this story of Catherine of Alexandria was invented basically as entertainment for medieval people. Makes sense. And it's part of a whole set of martyr stories that were invented that way. Fan fiction is not new. It has been around literally since we knew how to communicate with each other.

Yeah. Yeah. We just, we have the Bible and it's like, that's cool. What other thrilling stories can we come up with? And a lot of male and female martyrs come along. Yeah. Yeah. stories can we come up with? And a lot of male and female martyrs come along. Yeah. And also these martyr stories were partly drawing on a real but very limited phenomenon of ancient Romans

martyring Christians. Like that did happen and was horrible, but... Romans were real Jessicas. Real bunch of Jessicas. But a Roman version like Jessica's or something, you know, like with a V instead of the U, you know, Roman jokes. Anyway. And Catherine Nixie's book, she explores what a lot of scholars have, that there are a few real periods of persecution of Christians, but it was pretty limited. It was either brief or not really targeted at Christians or both. The thing we apparently keep finding in the journals and letters of especially Roman governors and Roman officials, it sounds like it was basically annoying to them that they needed to execute a couple of Christians for like political posturing reasons.

And there was not really a goal or an action to like wipe out the faith. It was more like, oh, this is a period in the early 300s when it is politically popular to oppose Christianity. And I can't believe we have to do this to a couple of guys because there's going to be a bunch of unrest after and I just want to like be the governor of this province. This is annoying. Yeah, well, that's interesting. I mean, you know, I think it's still bad to make an example out of those couple guys, but, you know, that's far from sort of them feeding Christians to lions in a giant pit of death.

So, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Like when there were big persecutions, there was one under an emperor called Decius. And Decius' thing was. More like douchess. Is that allowed on the podcast? We haven't established.

Somebody said it once and then, oh, the persecution. He just went wild. But his thing was he demanded a more active public worship of Roman gods and then persecuted anybody not doing that. So like Christians got lumped in, but he wasn't like specifically anti-Christian. Right. And then these emperorsors Maximian and Maxentius from the saint story, they did reign during a period called the Great Persecution. And that was a little less than 10 years long. There were executions of Christians, there were destructions of Christian texts. And so it makes sense that early Christians really remembered that horrible thing, but then it became a springboard for like wild medieval stories

that are super not true. Like a lot of the stories involves a Roman emperor drinking the blood of the innocent kind of stuff. Like nobody did that stuff. Yeah. And again, like some of these martyr stories are like, you know, someone being like hung upside down, flayed alive and then hit with a hundred arrows. And it's just sounds like 13 year old boys trying to come up with the coolest, goriest story. Yeah. It's very comic books. Yeah.

Like if people remember the episode about the name Alex, we talked about the Alexander romance, which is made up medieval stories of Alexander, the great exploring the bottom of the ocean and flying on a Griffiniffin and stuff. Like people just wanted wild stories. And this was that, but more faith oriented, too. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure I'm sure there were many horrible deaths and people executed in horrible ways.

Because again, people given that people were bored, sometimes the way they alleviated boredom was by killing people in horrible ways. Because again, given that people were bored, sometimes the way they alleviated boredom was by killing people in horrible ways. But I think a lot of it was just like coming up with stories about horrible things rather than them actually happening. Yeah. Yeah. Like something to tell each other is a thing. Yeah. That's kind of the other big reason we think Catherine might be made up, because there are two kinds of other stories that she might be patterned off of or copying or matching. Plagiarism.

Right. The Roman writer H. Bomberguy steps in to say, actually. One possible inspiration is many other extremely similar medieval female martyr stories. Like they just kept writing stories about a very pure lady in a port city of the eastern Mediterranean. So pure. Being martyred by ancient Romans. That was a constant thing. Yeah. There was St. Dorothea in the city of Caesarea.

There was St. Margaret in the city of Antioch. St. Agnes was martyred in Rome itself. Like they all apparently lived in the 300s AD and were killed for rejecting the advances of ancient Roman men and for being too Christian. I mean, maybe there was just a lot of real hot, real pure Christian ladies. Yeah. You don't know. You never know.

Maybe they're just so... You never know. Could have been. Were they all breaking wheels or was that just the Catherine one? That's kind of the most specific Catherine thing is a wheel and each of these ladies tended to have a different instrument or symbol or implement. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody really copied the wheel.

That was really her thing. implement. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody really copied the wheel. That was really her thing. The other amazing possible inspiration is a real lady, but who had kind of the reverse experience. It was a real woman called Hypatia, also might be pronounced Hypatia or some other way. She was a real person. She was a philosopher and mathematician in Alexandria, And she was believed to be a lifelong virgin, but for philosophical reasons. She was part of the Neoplatonist philosophical practice, like a new version of Plato's work. Okay. And so there was some purity culture with this? Yeah, it was trying to bring back the extreme interest in science and nature and ideas of Plato. And so she said, I'm going to be celibate.

So my head's just really clear for thinking hard. So ancient voluntary celibate. And the trouble is she was so into Neoplatonism that she didn't expressly ever say she had any interest in Christianity. expressly ever say she had any interest in Christianity. And in the early 400s AD, a gang of Christians tortured and executed Hypatia. Oh, well, well, well. Look at what we have here, a bunch of hypocrites. Yeah. So the other potential origin is Christians martyring a very culturally Greek lady. Right. And then the reason the name Catherine is on the story is probably just the setting,

like this very culturally Greek city of Alexandria. You would pick a very Greek name like Catherine, like that's probably why she's named that and is otherwise made up. So like, it's possible that Christians did this. And then later, like, oh, that's a bad look. What if we say we were the ones that had it done to us? Yeah, it's easy to just tell the story the other way and throw in an emperor instead of yourselves. Yeah, true.

Right, right. Well, you know, either way, stop putting ladies on wheels. That's not how you woo a lady. You don't put her on a wheel. Yeah. Then she can't do her own thing. She can't wear boots made for walking or whatever, you know? Feminism.

She can't wear boots made for walking. She can't, you know, vote. Look, you sit her down on a chair. What you do is instead of sticking a lady you like on a wheel, you sit her down on a chair and you respect her opinions about things. Yeah. Simply true. And that's our mega takeaway and other little takeaways. We have stats and numbers to come about pop culture and more after a quick break.

Hey folks, I'm running a stopwatch, so I spend less than 30 seconds making this request. Please rate and review our podcast on your podcast app if you possibly can. Some podcasts ask that every week. I try to do it really rarely once in a while, but giving us five stars and on Apple in particular, if you could say a couple of nice words about us, one sentence is plenty. It just takes you a moment. You can do it in the app you're listening on and it helps other humans know that this show is good and actually worth listening to and means the world. Also, thank you to anybody who has done that already because you can only do it one time. You don't need to do it again. And please rate and review. I'm at my time limit. Thank you. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters,

and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney,

is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. And we are back and we're back with numbers and statistics about the name Katie in a segment called.

Well, I've researched all the numbers and I've got some stats for y'all. So I called up Katie Golden and we'll we'll cast a pod. We'll cast a pod. I like that sort of grammatical structure. I'm going to cast a pod now. I'll be in my casting chamber. That is, if Catherine is this mystical medieval forest person, she could cast a pod with some kind of druid powers. I'm going to cast

a pod upon you! For a thousand years! And then that adventurer is like, oh no, I'm being entertained! No. This is good. You will do the dishes and time

will pass by more quickly. You will do the dishes and time will pass by more quickly. And that name was submitted by Sigmund Fraud on the Discord. Thank you, Sigmund Fraud. We have a great name. And we have a new name every week. Submit through Discord or to sifpod at gmail.com. First number this week is four.

Four. Four. Because the top 200 U.S. names for babies presenting as girls of the 2010s include four variants of this name. My God, there's too many Katie's. Too many Katie's. I'll say as a Katie, there's too many of us gals because it gets confusing. Like someone will be like, hey, Katie. And then like 10, 20 people turn their heads around and we're like, what? Like meerkats. It's getting confusing. Yet another way I relate as an Alex. Yeah, there's a lot of us. Yeah. Unlike what we found out with the name Alex, where that's starting to actually be on birth certificates, it seems like Katie is not on a lot of birth

certificates yet. Okay. But according to the U.S. Social Security Administration, four names that often get nicknamed as Katie were in the top 200 for the decade of the 2010s. Catherine was in 84th, highest one. Okay. That's Catherine with a K and with a middle E because there's all these spellings. And then next was Caitlin spelled with a K, K-A-I-T-L-Y-N. That was 172nd. And then Catherine with a C on the front and an E in the middle. And then Caitlin spelled K-A-T-E-L-Y-N was 192nd in the list.

Huh. Well, my name is most popular, so I think I win. Yeah, Catherine with a front K and a middle E seems to be the overall most popular one. Kind of across U.S. history and a lot of Europe. Yeah, it's because it's the right way to do it. one, kind of across U.S. history and a lot of Europe. Yeah. Yeah. It's because it's the right way to do it.

The objectively right way, spelled correctly. Now I'm relating with the last name Schmidt, because when I see it with two T's on the end, I'm like, wrong one. That's wrong. You did it wrong. It's like, but that's how my family's been spelling this name for generations. Well, all of your generations were wrong. I'm sorry, but that's how my family has been spelling this name for generations. Well, all of your generations were wrong. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you. I think you'll find I'm biased. So there you go.

I objectively know that my name spelling is the correct one, but go on. Yeah. Yeah. And I also wondered if we combined all these, how high does the name rank, especially the two first letter versions of Catherine and Catherine with a K or C, that would be around 39th on the list if we put those two together. It'd be just above Anna, just below Audrey. What's the number one feminine name? That turned out to be really interesting. In the 2010s, here's the top five U.S. girl names. Number one, Emma. Okay. Number two, Olivia.

Number three, Sophia. Number four, Isabella. Number five, Ava. And then number six is Mia. So all of the top six end in that uh syllable. That syllable is like going off in the 2010s. It's going great. Man.

Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Isabella, Ava, Mia. Top six. Yeah. I mean, it's a good thinking sound too, because we say uh when we're thinking. And so you're trying to come up with a baby name. You're like, uh, Mia, Mia, Mia. Emma. Yeah.

Emma. Emma. Emma. Emma. Yes. There we are. It's a good name. It's a good name.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So like variations on names that can become Katie have been popular really across U.S. history and back into European history because of the saint. It's probably going to be with us forever. We got to have another Catherine representative do something cool, like break a wheel. But I guess maybe let's judge it up a bit, have the wheel be on fire, break it with a sledgehammer. We should sort of, I think, start a tradition of every

few hundred years, have a new Catherine, do a stunt that kind of really reinvigorates the legend of Catherine. In a legit way, they're also just keep being famous Katie's and Kate's and Catherine's. The next number is 1907. That is when Catherine Houghton Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut. I do think that my mom was fond of the name Catherine because of Catherine Hepburn. That doesn't really mean that she named me after Catherine Hepburn. It wasn't quite like that. It's just like she liked Katharine Hepburn, the actress. And then like she like it's like, oh, that's a pretty name. I'll stick that in my back pocket if I ever have a bun in the oven.

Yeah, she commonly came up when I looked up just who is famous named this name. And she also speaks to its flexibility. Apparently, as a young child, she often went by Kathy. And then when she was in college at Bryn Mawr, she went by Kate. Yeah. Like she, I guess, kind of did the freshman year of college. I'm changing it up move.

Yeah, it's a good move. It's a solid move. Yeah. And then she was discovered by Hollywood and became an actor and went by her just real name. It's Catherine with a first K and a middle A, Catherine Hepburn. Well, then she spells her name wrong, but that's okay. We still like her. And another spelling there, the next number is 1994.

That is the year 1994 when the actor Kate Mulgrew renamed the character of Captain Janeway on Star Trek Voyager. Who was the first recurring female captain in Starfleet in a Star Trek show. Captain Janeway. She renamed the captain? Yeah, it turns out there was a bunch of behind the scenes casting stuff with this character. When they were developing Voyager, they initially were going to have a male captain. Even though what feels like almost the premise of the show is first female captain. Right.

Other than the ship getting sent across the galaxy. But their first name idea was Elizabeth Janeway. And then the first actor cast was Oscar-nominated actor Genevieve Bujold, who was French-Canadian. And then they changed the character to Nicole Janeway to feel more like French-Canadian vibes. I see. Okay. And then Bujold quit the show after two days of filming after conflicting with producers and apparently avoiding the press and avoiding fellow cast. Wait, this is in space? You didn't tell me this was going to be in space. I hate space. And apparently she was mainly a film actress and was like, you have to keep shooting in TV. And they were like, yes, you have to keep shooting in TV. And she just quit. She like saw the first Klingon. She's like, what the hell is that?

Get that thing away from me. Yeah. And then the producer said, okay, who else did we look at casting? And actor Kate Mulgrew had been a breakout side character on an ABC daytime soap opera called Ryan's Hope. And when they approached Kate Mulgrew, she said she'd do it and also said, what if we changed the name to be more similar to my name? And because they'd already changed it a few times, they said, sure. And so they made it Catherine Janeway. There we go. So kind of one of the most famous pop culture Catherines is because a real life Catherine got cast and changed it.

Yeah, gotta represent. And that one's spelled K-A-T-H-R-Y-N. So close. Different again. And then another kind of pop culture thing here the next number is 2021 what that's like three years ago yeah that is the year when katie couric became the first female person to host jeopardy oh she guest hosted for two weeks very early in the run of alex trebek is no longer with us.

And Katie Couric was one of the first ones and did a good job. Wow. Katie Couric. Yeah. An American hero. Heroine. And she hosted for two weeks and also, I'm sure the producers were into it, but she convinced them to add up all the contestant winnings from when she hosted and do a matching donation to cancer research. You know, just like cool stuff. It's great. Yeah, that's great. Really setting

the bar high. Really setting the bar high, Katie. Thanks for that. Making all us other Katies look bad. Yeah, and she is possibly the most omnipresent Katie in American television history. She started working for NBC News in 1989, worked major jobs for NBC, ABC, and CBS. In 2006, she became the first sole female anchor of a nightly newscast, hosting the CBS Evening News for half a decade. evening news for half a decade. Been a 60 Minutes correspondent. In 2003, she guest hosted The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Just did a comedy late night show for a night. Really remained a fixture on TV, including this Jeopardy thing. Yeah. I mean, you know, good for her. Yeah. Yeah. Really all over. Really representing Katie's because, you know, there's probably a lot of Katie's that have done not so good things. We're not a monolith. But hey, there's also Katy Perry. I ran out of Katie's. I don't know any more Katie's that are famous. Here's one more surprising one. Our last number of the main show,

it is the number 348 because 348 is the official census population of Katy, Oklahoma. That's a city in Oklahoma. Yeah. I think many take away number four. There's an entire town in Oklahoma named Katy, like spelled K-A-T-I-E, not Catherine or something else. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to go to that town and just go around and be like, ha, this is my town. That's my gas station.

That's my street lamp. That's my dead possum. Feels like you've been there. Wow. Yeah, it's a town named Katy. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, that name got selected in the 1890s. Because in 1895, white settlers established a U.S. post office for Katy, Oklahoma. And the name is either from the postmaster naming it after his daughter or a powerful leader of the settlers naming it for his granddaughter. So either way, it's named after a little girl named Katie in the 1890s. Okay. I'm really hoping there wasn't some kind of horrific colonial crimes going on there where it's like, well, we just murdered everyone who used to live here.

I'll name it after my granddaughter, Katie. It's located in a broader thing about Native people that's being litigated now because it was an unincorporated community until 2004. It's now an incorporated town of 348 people in Garvin County. And it's also in the nearly half of Oklahoma that was recently declared by the Supreme Court to still be Indian country in some legal senses. It's a case called McGirt versus Oklahoma. It's on land that was the Chickasaw Nation and before that was the land of other Native people. There's ongoing cases about major crimes by Native people on Native lands where the conviction's been overturned if it was in Oklahoma State Court. They're figuring out a bunch of amazing tribal

sovereignty stuff there. I see. Interesting. Yeah. Well, I hope they figure out a solution that is just and fair. And if the town needs not be called Katie anymore, that is fine by me. I don't know why I sounded like a pirate just now. If the town needs not be named after this here Katie, that's all right by me. I think you wanted to make a very sincere proclamation. You really are good with them changing it,

and proclamations feel like are good with them changing it. And proclamations feel like they need to be older language. So that's what happened. I'm not used to making proclamations. Again, my name is Katie, not Catherine. If I had gone with Catherine, I feel like I could ride horses and make good sounding proclamations. Right. proclamations. Right. You would have swept into the main street of Katy and everybody would have looked from the saloon and obeyed. Right. Oh, I'm not your regular old Katy here. I'm a Catherine. I'm here to rule you people. Establish a duchy.

No, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't. I'm all for. You'd give it back. Yeah. I'd for, I'm for justice, you know, and, you know, not, not stealing. That's what the name Katie is all about. Yeah.

It means purity, not stealing, and justice. Hey folks, that's the main episode for this week. Welcome to the outro with fun features for you, such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways. Mega takeaway number one, the name Catherine comes from the Greek language and from the epic story of a Christian martyr who probably did not exist. Mini takeaway number two, both of the Russian empresses named Catherine adopted that name for political reasons. Mini takeaway number three, nicknames like Kate and Katie helped this name remain popular through the Protestant Reformation. Mini takeaway number four, there's an entire town in Oklahoma named Katie,

plus so many numbers about name popularity, iconic Katie's on TV, and more. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now if you support this show at MaximumFun.org. Members are the reason this podcast exists, so members get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is two amazing Catalinas, which is the Spanish common form of Catherine. Visit SIFPod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than 15 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, and a catalog of all sorts of MaxFun bonus shows. It's special audio,

it's just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things, check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include digital resources from the UK National Gallery, the book American Given Names by UC Berkeley professor George R. Stewart, the book The Darkening Age, The Christian Destruction of the Classical World by journalist Catherine Nixie, historical records from the Oklahoma Historical Society, and so much more. and so much more. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wappinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Scadigok people, and others. Also, Katie taped this in the country of Italy. The town of Katie, Oklahoma, is on the traditional land of the Ogoxpa, Wichita, Kickapoi, and Osage peoples. It's also within what became the Chickasaw Nation. I want to acknowledge that in my location,

Katy, Oklahoma, and in many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIF Discord, where we're sharing stories and resources about Native people and life. There is a link in this episode's description to join that Discord. We're also talking about this episode on the Discord. And hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I'm finding something randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator.

This week's pick is episode 125. That's about the topic of ball bearings. Fun fact, both the British and the Germans thought they could win World War II if they sabotaged their enemy's ball bearings supply chain. So I recommend that episode. I also recommend my co-host Katie Golden's weekly podcast, Creature Feature, about animals, science, and more. Our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven, science, and more. Our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to the Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extra, extra special thanks go to our members, and thank you to all

our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly

by you.