As reported in the recent HOPL paper, A History of Haskell, Haskell Brooks Curry actually didn't like his first name! I learned this when I visited his wife, Virginia Curry, at the time when we decided to name a language after her husband.

By the way, Haskell Curry's mother's name was Anna Baright and his father's name was Samuel Silas Curry. Samuel was the President of the School of Expression in Boston and Anna was the Dean of the school. Haskell met a student at the School of Expression whose name was Mary Virginia Wheatly, who would later become his bride.

(Silas Curry's school was one of the motivations for naming my book -- the other being that Haskell programs are just expressions :-)

You can learn more about Haskell Curry at: http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Curry.html

-Paul

Andrew Coppin wrote:

OK, so this doesn't actually have anything to do with programming in Haskell, but...

How in the name of God does a human being end up walking around with a name like "Haskell B. Curry"?