My two favorite are both academics:
Lionel Tiger–a sociologist and
Ashley Montague–an anthropologist
I’m also fond of Rensis Likert, who invented a popular type of survey scale.
Most of my favorites are reporters (though my ABSOLUTE favorites have already been cited here: Dick Trickle and Boutros Boutros Ghali).
From CNN: Christiane Amanpour; Satinder Bindra (I fell in love with him when Clinton was in India; um, um, um); Wolf Blitzer (how can you go through life being called ‘Wolf’?); Jeanne Moos.
NPR is rich, too; I’ve always liked Mara Liasson’s name as well. Also great is Sylvia Poggioli, especially the way she says it (I also think she’s an amazing person); and Daniel Zwerdling. For the longest time I thought his name was Daniels Wordling. There are some technical people there that I hear mentioned. I don’t know how they’re spelled, but it sounds like there is a woman who works at NPR named Sarah Sarahson. There’s another one with a similar repeated sounding name, but I can’t think of it at the moment!
In the Truly Pathetic Division: There was a football player for Baylor a few years ago named Hunter Hunter.
From my college readings on the Civil Rights movement I remember the name Spottswood Robinson as a co-counsel on at least part of the Brown decision with Thurgood Marshall which is also a really cool name.
Spottswood Robinson is just fun to say.
Thurgood Marshall’s name inspires respect IMHO.
Let me add U Thant (what is it about secretaries-general of the UN?), Sojourner Truth, and Desmond Tutu.
Oh, and Svend Robinson.
Exchange between Kramer and Seinfeld upon seeing
George’s girlfriend sunbathing topless:
“Boutros Boutros Ghali.”
“Yo-yo Ma.”
So let’s add Chinese cellist Yo-yo Ma to the list.
Ron Tugnutt, NHL goalie. I laugh every time I hear his name.
The NHL is loaded with great names, many of them Finns:
Teemu Selane
Esa Tikkanen
Janne Niinimaa
Jari Kurri
And a few others, such as:
Nikolai Khabibulin (say the Kh as “a wad of phlegm”)
The already mentioned Miroslav Satan (SHA-tan)
Kjell Sammuelson (Kj=Ch sound)
Sandis Ozilincz (spelling may be off)
For all of the British History people, there was a prominent MP during the 17th century named “Praisegod Barebones” afterwhich the “Barebones Parliament” was named.