In the great novel The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy, there is a character named Commerce St. Croix.
Is this at all plausible in real life, or was it just an attempt by the author to give someone an outlandishly aristocratic-sounding name?
Searching the US Social Security Death Index finds no hits for first name “Commerce.” That means little, only that no one died since the late 1930s with the first name of “Commerce,” at least not anyone who was in the SS system.
Commerce was the name of one of Santa’s children. Commerce Claus.
He was very elastic, as I recall. 
It’s not the unlikeliest of names. Back in my salad days, I knew two women who named their children based on the circumstances of their conceptions. One named her daughter “Omni,” because the back seat of the woman’s car, a Dodge Omni, set the stage for her impending motherhood. The other named her daughter “Asti,” after the wine that lowered her inhibitions enough to say yes.
And no, I myself was not present at either occasion.
When he wasn’t dormant.
My first thought at seeing such a name is that it’s a last name (e.g., from the mother’s side) that is being adapted as a first name. Quite common in the South.
OTOH, the SSDI lists only 8 folks with the last name “Commerce”.
I think it might be a play on names such a “Charity”, “Faith”, etc.
It’s a very subtle plot by Conroy to indoctrinate us into Marxism. First he supplies the character name. By power of suggestion, it’s picked up by women and assigned to their children. His playmates start calling him Commie, and we come to accept it as familiar. Then BLAM!, you’ve suddenly got a nation of Commies running around and everyone thinks it’s just peachy.
The Lords of Discipline has some pretty outlandish names in it. There are characters named Reuben Clapsaddle, Grainger Sox, and Frank Maccabee, to name a few. I’m tempted to put “Commerce St. Croix” in the same category, but part of me thinks that it’s somewhat plausible as a surname if it was pronounced in the French style, and if it could be a surname, then it could also be a given name.
I watched the film adaptation of Lords of Discipline yesterday, by the way. What a missed opportunity. They absolutely nailed all of the characters’ appearances and mannerisms, and they perfectly captured the mental picture of The Institute that I had in my head while reading the book. But, like The Bonfire of the Vanities, they tacked on a cheap feel-good ending that is the exact opposite of what actually happened in the book. It’s a real shame, because it could have been great.