Before their daughter arrived, Elvis and Priscilla did what a lot of young couples do. They couldn’t settle on a name.
Priscilla has shared how they went about it. She bought a baby-name book so the two of them could choose together. And then, night after night, they lay in bed going through it, reading names out loud, listening for ones that sounded good side by side.
We all know how that story ended. The baby was a girl, and they named her Lisa Marie.
But here’s the part that makes you stop. If that baby had been a boy, you’d know him by a completely different name.
Can you guess what they’d picked?
A tender Elvis song for a tender story
Let this play softly while you think about it. Turn the sound up. This is the kind of gentle Elvis that fits a young couple picking out a name for their first child.
So here’s the answer. If Lisa Marie had been a boy, Elvis and Priscilla were going to name him John Baron.
John Baron. Priscilla loved the name, and Elvis agreed. Say it out loud a few times. John Baron Presley. It’s a whole different picture, isn’t it? A son instead of a daughter, carrying that name through all the years that followed.
But fate had other plans, and a little girl named Lisa Marie came into the world instead.
And while we’re here, let’s clear up a story that’s floated around for decades. People have long said that “Marie” was chosen to honor Colonel Parker’s wife, who was also named Marie. It makes for a tidy tale.
Priscilla says it simply isn’t true.
According to her, there was no hidden tribute, no nod to anyone in Elvis’s circle. They picked “Lisa Marie” for the plainest reason there is. The two names just sounded right together. That’s it. A young couple in bed with a book, saying names until one of them made them both smile.
There’s something sweet about that being the whole story. There was no grand meaning hidden in it and no secret honoree. Only two people in love, trying out “Lisa Marie” on their tongues and deciding, yes, that’s the one.
It makes the name feel even more like theirs. Not borrowed from anyone. Not handed down. Chosen, night after night, off the pages of a little book, by a mom and dad who wanted their first child to have a name that sang.
A boy would have been John Baron. A girl became Lisa Marie. And the world is awfully glad to know both.
Let the song above carry you back to those quiet nights, two young parents picking the name that millions would come to know by heart.