Gayle Brandeis: Hello, my name is Gayle Brandeis. I was named Gayle to honor my maternal grandmother, whose name was Gertrude. It's Jewish tradition to name a baby with the first initial of a loved one who's passed on. They took the G from Gertrude and named me Gayle. I'm grateful my name isn't Gertrude, I have to say. They also chose Gayle because my mother's maiden name was Baylen. And she considered naming me Gaylen, but she took the N off, and so I'm just Gayle.

My last name, Brandeis, was not originally Brandeis. It has been my whole life, but before I was born, my father changed his last name from Brandski to Brandeis. It was the 1950s, and he was having a lot of trouble getting work with a Russian-sounding name. This was during the McCarthy era, the red scare, and he thought as a businessman, it would be good to have a name that sounded less Russian. So he chose Brandeis, because it had the first few same letters and Brandski, and it also honored Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Supreme Court Justice, who he admired tremendously. And that way, he was also able to keep his Jewish heritage in his name.