Ben and Luljeta Toma named their son Christian, now 13, after soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo.Galit Rodan
Football fans in the 1980s spent many given Sundays in thrall to legendary Chicago Bears running back Walter ‘Sweetness’ Payton, who made the team a championship franchise.
For many fans, sports are more than just games – they’re a passion, a set of values, a legacy waiting to be passed down. And for some, the devotion is so deep that it inspires a name.
One of those fans was Pete Vanstone, now a production manager in Toronto. In 2005, Vanstone was creating a list of possible names in preparation for his unborn son. What better moniker than Payton, in homage to his favourite player?
“Walter was an inspiration for a lot of people,” says Vanstone.
Born in Columbia, Miss., Payton was part of the first integrated football team at his high school, and went on to break the NFL’s record for rushing yards. The league’s annual honour for a player’s commitment to philanthropy and community impact is named the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award.
Today, Payton Vanstone-Wilson is studying kinesiology at University of Windsor, and has been drawn to different sports than his namesake. He plays intramural volleyball, and before that raced sprints in high school and with the Flying Angels, a high-performance track club.
People select baby names for all sorts of reasons, from paying tribute to family or cultural traditions to the desire to be creative. Yet some parents-to-be decided to name their child after a favourite athlete. That’s about more than pure fandom and hoping their offspring becomes a sports star, says Taylor Humphrey, a California-based baby name consultant.
“There’s an element of aspiration, but on a subconscious level choosing a sport-related name represents a deeper value system,” she says. “Parents are wanting to pass down values of greatness, determination and grit.”
Beloved athletes can tap into a deep emotional well for people, so it might not be surprising that parents see them as a source for baby names. Humphrey notes that rooting for your team or player is about a sense of pride and glory.
The Canadian baby name database reveals the influence that emotional winning moments can wield. Tiger started showing up after Tiger Woods’ ascendance in the late 1990s, Kobe spiked on the names graph in step with basketball player Kobe Bryant’s performance, and Kawhi made a brief appearance after the Kawhi Leonard-led Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship in 2019. In the U.S., Nameberry notes several other athletic names among the top 500 monikers, including Serena, Brady and Beckham.
When they were expecting a son in 2011, while living in Mississauga, Ont., Ben and Luljeta Toma found inspiration from the soccer pitch. “He was our first child, and we wanted to make it special,” says Luljeta. So they made the naming a family affair. One of Ben’s nephews suggested Christian after his favourite soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo, then a young star.
The Tomas embraced the name, as soccer was important to the family in Canada and back in Italy. Two cousins started kicking balls around with Christian when he was two. Today, 13-year-old Christian is a striker on Power Soccer, one of Toronto’s top youth teams, and recently was invited to spend a week with Stoke FC, a second-level professional team in England. “Playing this sport means everything to me,” he says.
As for Payton Vanstone-Wilson, he didn’t play football like Walter Payton but appreciates that his name is unique and is less ubiquitous than the sound-alike “Peyton” popularized by quarterback Peyton Manning. When people get the origin of his name right, he says it’s a special moment.
“I had one teacher in high school, also the football coach, and when he guessed Walter Payton right away, I was like ‘Yes!’ He didn’t even mention Peyton Manning. I think it’s cool when people do know.”