I am a collector of daylilies. Not much into trying to make new ones there are so many i dont have. I am instrested to know if any of you have any history behind any named daylilys that are not memorials. I only know two stories behind two cultivars.
First is You Lucky Girl by Terah George. She always introduced one pink a year. The year it was introduced she didnt have a pink to introduce so Jessie gave her one of his.
Second is Coach's Hot Lips and he said it was like lipstick on a woman. He said that when we weedeated his yard. He said just like lipstick on a woman. The finishing touch.
I am curious to if yall have any info on the history behind the names.

Perhaps not quite like you are expecting, but this anecdote is certainly about some background on a recent introduction. The challenge here teases one to tell their story, soooo .....

Since I was a youngster (A loooong time ago, folks) I've been interested in birds. All kinds of birds - domestic & wild - local & exotic. Plus was brought up on our common nursery rhymes as were most of yourselves ... And the two became blended in my mind when I became interested in breeding daylilies several years ago. I started casually to prepare a list of potential daylily names should I ever create a suitable seedling to introduce. (Not so far)

In my mind's-eye, for one such name, I visualized a small-flowered dark-black-purple bloom (Ideally a trumpet like Huben's 'Ice Trumpets') on a tallish multi-branched scape (SoT) ... Something like both Apps & Huben described many years ago ... A 'wildflower-like' scape that would hold several open blooms on any given day.

I had in mind to call this imagined plant '4 & 20 Blackbirds' derived from the Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme 'Sing-A-Song-Of-Sixpence'. The histories of this name, the rhyme itself & the words employed had always had more than a passing interest for me.

And then daylily breeder C.M. Barnes (Slate Hill Farm?) registered & introduced 'Four And twenty Blackbirds' in 2018 thus eliminating one of my daylily daydreams - of which we all have many. (It seems certain that breeder C.M. Barnes had the same 'vision' as myself as the cultivar is certainly similar to what I'd imagined.)

As a youngster I had miscalculated & thought of 80 such blackbirds in the King's pie (4x20?), when of course, it's really only 24 birds. Plus I'd wondered back then about how his cook would get those 80 LIVE blackbirds into such a pie & bake it too? How would that work? ....

As I grew up, I was curious enough about this contradiction about 'baking live birds' to do some checking & discovered it really was true. It was an entertainment technique in medieval times in England, perhaps even elsewhere in Europe also? .... Make/bake a HUGE pie shell & 'hide' the live blackbirds inside to surprise everyone when the pie was opened at the banquet before the king & his guests! (Those 'blackbirds' were most likely European Starlings - one of their local indigenous species)

The rhyme itself evolved over time. Originally a traditional hand-me-down oral-history poem, was first put into print during the mid-1700's & then modified somewhat over the centuries.

Not quite what i was looking for but still interesting.
I guess what i am looking for is why someone named a cultivar what they named it and why.
Ie i know Char named Sculpted in Vermont. She lives there.
I can just only imagine when Scream and Shout was named. I can just picture Terah George when she seen it for the first time screaming and shouting . Kinda like that.
Like why did Kenny Shivey name Liddy Love. Liddy Love.
Why did someone come up with something like Crotchless Panties? Nakid Lady doing a Giggy Dance?
Where did these people come up with these names and why?
I would like to know why some of the old timers named cultivars what they did. I know there are stories to some of the names just thought it would be interesting to hear/read their stories.

Here's an image I took of a daylily named 'Martini's Arruebarrena.' I only saw this once in the hybridizers garden, and doubt its well distributed outside of that part of the country. Will tell the story and about the name if no one knows anything about it by tomorrow!!

https://garden.org/pics/2015-1...

Wow, Julie, that is a cool double! I really like the color...very tropical.

So, no takers on the 'Martini's Arruebarrena' daylily name? LOL. This was one of the oddest names I'd seen for a daylily. Some might remember Kevin Walek, who served AHS in many capacities. He was a mentor and friend for years, had encouraged me to become a garden judge, then an instructor, then an Exhibition Judge. We judged on many panels together as well as instructed together in Region 3, and he was a fount of knowledge. So when he became AHS President, he pushed me to become Awards Chair. Just before I became AHS President, Kevin became Registrar for AHS and worked diligently to correct many problems that had plagued registration for years. He subsequently wrote several interesting and informative articles about the history of daylily names that people just raved about. ( articles were in Daylily Journal)

So, knowing Kevin's talent for digging out the history of weird daylily names, when I saw this one, I thought, " He will never figure this crazy name out! ".

First, I photographed this at the Baton Rouge National ( 2011) and saw it in the garden of Ronnie Rossie, the hybridizer. So going through pictures afterwards, I sent Kevin the names and asked if he knew where the name came from. I thought I had him over a barrel, he grew up in NY state. When he emailed me back just a couple of minutes later, I realize I'd severely underestimated him!! Had forgotten that Kevin had a relative ( grandfather) who lived in the LA Cajun country and that he'd spent several summers there as a kid.

So, the response was, " That's easy. Martini's Arruebarrena is the name of a famous high end hair salon in New Orleans." He even named the street. I gave up on trying to fool him!!! Here is Martini's Arruebarrena.'

Subhana Ansari mentions in her writing that Solomon's Sunrise is named in honor of a friend who died in Thailand. I have it growing in a pot on my deck now and hope to see it bloom this season. Naming a daylily in honor of a friend is a lovely homage.



edit: I just saw the proviso to name ones that aren't memorials. My error.

I Missed That Day in Science Class (Massengill 2018)
I named this Cultivar after my grandmothers saying of "I missed that day in science class" . Sometimes the deep explanations I go into about Ploidy, parentage, foliage and such. I get the reply of "I missed that day in science class"

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'I Missed That Day in Science Class')

Thanks to you all. I do find this fascinating. Sometimes when i see the cultivars names i often wonder WHAT THE HECK were they thinking what was going on in their lives, who was important at the time of naming.
I didnt think this thread would go anywhere.
Beautiful cultivars to all that posted. I welcome more.
Thanks again.