Nine Famous People Whose First and Last Names Rhyme

Faye Wray

Every month I say to myself, "Oh no! I can't come up with any new List of 9 ideas!" - and then magically, a few days later, I do. Even if it's a totally irrelevant list like this one. That said, whenever I start off convinced that I'm compiling the most random assortment of pointless trivia, I often discover during my research that there have already been several online discussions about the exact same topic that I'm covering. Great minds think alike? But in this case, I can truly say that this is the first list ever written on the Internet that brings together famous people whose first names rhyme with their last names. And note that I'm not including close calls like Steve Reeves or Chill Wills.

  1. Fay Wray. Legendary star of the original King Kong.
  2. Jack Black. Legendary star of the King Kong remake. (Let's also not forget singer/bandleader Jack Mack, of Jack Mack and the Heart Attack.)
  3. Harry Carey. Not to be confused with sportscaster Harry Caray, this prolific cowboy actor from the silent era performed in movies until his death in 1947. His son, Harry Carey Jr., another prolific cowboy actor, is still active today at 86. Neither is any relation to prolific porn star Mary Carey, though she deserves a mention.
  4. Cheri Oteri. The Saturday Night Live actress' name isn't exactly a rhyming couplet – "Oteri" is apparently pronounced "oh-TEE-ree" – but "Cheri Oteri" certainly sounds more sing-song than, say, Sean Bean or John Donne, whose names look like they rhyme until you speak them aloud.
  5. Sam Hamm. Screenwriter famous for penning Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie, and not much else.
  6. Jacques Chirac. President of France, 1995-2007. The name rhymes when you pronounce it more or less correctly.
  7. Shaquille O'Neal. Star of Steel.
  8. Wavy Gravy. Possibly the most famous hippie that ever lived, in the sense that he's not known for anything other than being a hippie. (You may remember him, if at all, from his Woodstock antics and from the Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor named after him.) Like Evel Knievel, Wavy Gravy is obviously not this man's birth name – that would be Hugh Romney – but who's going to raise a fuss? It's not like there are a lot of celebrities out there who choose rhyming names for themselves (rappers Slick Rick and Paul Wall notwithstanding).
  9. Faye Dunaway. I opened this list with a famous Fay, and thus I close it with a famous Faye.