This is the twenty-eighth in a series of examinations of legends about television and the people involved in TV and whether they are true or false.

Click here to view an archive of the previous TV urban legends.

This week has a special theme! I’ll call it “What’s in a Name?”

Let’s begin!

TV LEGEND: Oprah Winfrey got her name via a typo on her birth certificate.

STATUS: False

Oprah Winfrey, as you all, of course, know, is one of the most famous personalities in the world, let alone the world of television.

However, her famous name is NOT her actual birth name!

Oprah was named after Orpah, the sister-in-law of Ruth (from the “Book of Ruth” in the Bible). So her birth name was Orpah, NOT Oprah.

This, though, has led to many stories that the name Oprah came about via a typo on her birth certificate.

In fact, on the website oprah-winfrey.com (not affiliated with Oprah Winfrey – I’m just pointing it out as a notable source for a common story), it says:

She was originally named Orpah after a woman from the “Book of Ruth” but a spelling mistake on the birth certificate changed it to Oprah.

This is false. She was born Orpah Winfrey.

There are a bunch of different stories on how the name went from Orpah to Oprah, but they all basically come down to the fact that her friends and family all had difficult pronouncing the obscure biblical name, always transposing the R and the P.

But it started with Orpah, not a mistake on the birth certificate!

TV LEGEND: Joe Mantegna came up with the name of his Criminal Minds character from an out of the ordinary source.

STATUS: True

Joe Mantegna took over from Mandy Patinkin as the co-lead (along with Thomas Gibson) of Criminal Minds beginning in Season 3.

Mantegna plays David Rossi, a retired FBI agent who comes out of retirement to work with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.

Peculiarly enough, there is an actual history behind the seemingly straightforward name of Mantegna’s character.

In an interview with The Onion’s AV Club, Mantegna explained:

I got a chance to name this character after a real person, a policeman named David Rossi who was the first guy to testify in the O.J. Simpson trial. I thought he got piled on by O.J. Simpson’s lawyers at the time. So I thought “Someday I’m gonna name a character after this guy.” He went up in his dress blue uniforms and testified for two days. And I thought “What integrity.” For two days, this guy just got beat up—and all he did was answer the phones—and it’s obvious the defense is just gonna beat this guy up and try to hang the LAPD over the fact that this {expletive} idiot murdered his wife. To me it was a joke. And so because of it, I named him after this guy, and he found out through surreptitious methods, and we became great friends. ’Cause he was so flattered that I had done that.

Isn’t that fascinating?

I’d love to have a picture of the “real” Rossi, but I’ve yet been unable to find one. Anyone out there have a picture I could use?

Thanks to Joe Mantegna and the Onion AV Club for the information!

TV LEGEND: A character on Seinfeld was named after a Producer of Smallville.

STATUS: True (although, of course, the timing is a bit different than that)

Reader Taylor wrote in to ask:

For years I’ve seen the name “Joe Davola” as a producer on Smallville. There was also a character on Seinfeld (And we know how Jerry loves Superman) named “Crazy” Joe Davola. He wants to kill most of the gang, and goes nuts over Elaine, even dressing up as a clown in a creepy performance of “I Pagliacci.”

Any chance any aspect of the Seinfeld character was based on the real guy?

Yes, it is true, the character “Crazy Joe Davola,” who appeared throughout the fourth season of Seinfeld…

was, indeed, named after Joe Davola, a television producer…

who later produced Smallville.

However, the character has nothing to do with the “real” Joe Davola.

You see, a fairly common occurrence at Seinfeld was to work actual people from the TV industry into the show. Basically names that Jerry Sienfeld and Larry David found interesting.

Joe Davola was one such name, and so was Lloyd Braun (the real Lloyd Braun was Larry David’s lawyer, and eventually became a major television executive, even heading up ABC Entertainment for a few years)…

So was Alec Berg (who was a writer on Seinfeld)…

They even point out on the episode where a character named after Alec Berg appears that Alec Berg is a “good John Houseman name -’Alec Beerrrrg’” (can’t you just imagine Houseman calling on that name in the Paper Chase?)

In any event, while it IS cool that a guy who got a character named after him on Seinfeld (whose star is a BIG fan of Superman) is currently a producer on a show about young Superman, that has nothing to do with the name being used on the show.

Thanks to Taylor for the question!

Okay, that’s it for this week!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com