Ever since the introduction of Zander Smith, I'd wondered about the genesis of his first name. Surely, it's not a Buffy reference, as it would be spelled "Xander". I had a few spare moments, so I decided to indulge my curiosity. (Of course, without input from the writer who actually produced this first name, it's all going to be conjecture, but that's usually more fun than the truth, anyway).

Tapping into the Internet, I typed "Zander" into my search engine, and got an interesting variety of results:

1. There are a number of book publishing related sites attached to that name, "Zanderbooks" being the most direct hit. It features a series of children's books about Zander the Dragon, who is apparently a very short dinosaur. His pictures didn't seem to bear a great deal of resemblance to our Zander (save for the dinosaur's dark, soulful eyes) so I ruled this one out.

2. "Zander" is also a somewhat common Scandinavian and Germanic first name, as I noticed a more than a few sites about various Zanders in German and Swedish. My German not being up to the task, and my Swedish being confined to pleasantries exchanged at holidays and dinners, I left those alone.

3. "Zander" is also a type of fish found in southern Finland. It's apparently a rather wily and elusive fish (as fish go), earning the following quote: "If we had to name the most difficult fish, when it comes to feeding habits and hiding places, it would be zander." Well, GH's Zander lived up to that standard for a while, successfully hiding from the long arm of the law until his ill-fated decision to start dealing in grape pixie sticks brought him back to PC, leading to his arrest and confinement. Could this be the one? Somehow, I doubted that a writer from southern California would be that into fish. A Minnesotan writer, on the other hand...

4. "Zander" as a surname produced the most results. Ed Zander is the president of Sun Microsystems and is the subject of many-a-website. There's an interesting website combining mathematics and geography which features an author named Zander, but given the large numbers of geographical blunders on GH throughout the years, I'd be surprised to learn that anyone on the GH staff frequented the site. There's also a Zander who wrote a couple of songs for the Irish group "The Pogues", but again, these references seemed too vague.

5. One of the more interesting sites I stumbled upon dealt with a silent movie made by MGM back in 1925: Zander the Great. An unfinished synopsis (presumably, they want us to seek out and watch the movie, to see how it ends) tells us that Zander the Great is really a small child, "adopted" by the movie's heroine Mamie. Mamie was raised in an orphanage by an evil woman identified only as "The Matron". She was adopted by a kindly lady for a while, but then she dies and Mamie is faced with returning to "The Matron". Meanwhile, a woman in despair over her husband's desertion, gives up her baby boy (Alexander) for adoption. Mamie takes a shining to him and re-christens him Zander, saying that "the name is far too big for such a tiny boy." After Zander's mother dies (he's about 5 years old now) Mamie vows to help him find his father, who's now living in Arizona, and together, they set out to do so. While in Arizona, they meet up with liquor smugglers, with whom Mamie bonds, not knowing about their nefarious occupation. The gang leader likes her too, and is loathe to "take care of her" when she eventually discovers the truth. (At this point, the synopsis ends, but I'm assuming all goes well, as there's a lovely shot of Mamie's "farewell" to Zander, presumably after she finds his father--perhaps amongst the smugglers?)

Gang references, illegal substances, and missing (perhaps notorious) fathers aside, I wasn't entirely convinced that this Zander was the inspiration for our Zander, even though he did go on the run with an orphaned woman named "Mamie" (which sounds a little like "Emily", if you have a nasty head cold) and got mixed up with the wrong people. He was, after all, only a five-year-old child; and the name "Zander" was chosen long before the very-talented Chad Brannon took over the part, expanding the role considerably from Zander's original conception as a two-dimensional, drug-dealing plot-device. At any rate, the most intriguing thing about this movie is that one of the stars is named Harrison Ford (he plays the gang leader), and was apparently quite the silent film matinee idol back in the teens and twenties. Perhaps Shakespeare had it wrong when he proclaimed: "what's in a name?"

6. As with the solution to most riddles, every possibility seems slightly off, except for the right one. So when "Zander" popped up on a couple of Gustav Mahler websites, all of my "eureka" bells went off:

Benjamin Zander is a British conductor, now living in Boston. He conducts the Boston Philharmonic, and together they've produced some very well-received recordings of Mahler's Sixth and Ninth Symphonies, with the Ninth Symphony recording featuring a dialogue with the conductor about the composer and his work. Could this recording also be a favorite of one of the writers? After all, Mahler was featured in Cesar Faison's dialogue, and later, Lucky mentioned the composer again in reference to his captivity. Could the creator of "Zander" also be the same writer who gave Faison his Mahler-mania? Works for me!

On the other hand, it's far more likely that Zander was chosen because it's a family name, (an uncle? a brother? a dog?) or because it's a trendy-sounding soap name, in the tradition of "Cord," "Pierce," "Edge," and "Decker". Whatever the real reason, I choose to believe in the Faison-Mahler-Zander connection. If nothing else, the theory lends itself to more wild speculation about Zander's paternity, yet another of my favorite past-times, of late.

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