At 17, I had never met another Molly. But when I walked into Jones Hall and opened a thick welcome packet, I flipped to the room assignments section and on floor two found Molly Chodos of Morganville, New Jersey; Molly Connelly of Lafayette, California; and Molly Kurtzer-Ellenbogen of Washington, D.C. I finally found myself, Molly Kaplan, a native of San Jose, California, on floor three.
Other name pairs, like the Mayas and the Logans, lived together. Not the Mollys. I confirmed the reason with head instructor Dr. Mary Lou Song: “I wouldn’t want to torture you guys.”
It’s confusing enough with four Mollys, let alone putting two Molly C’s and two Molly K’s in the same dorm room.
With 90 cherubs, I assumed there would be at least some name twins. But a quartet?! And with a name that ranked 75th on the “most popular baby names” for girls when we were born?
For the next four weeks, every shout of “Molly” ended with four head turns, no matter who it was intended for, and every introduction started with an explanation of which one we were.
Our five W’s: the what (a shared passion for journalism), the why (ask our parents), the where (Medill), the when (July 2025) and of course, the who (the Mollys!).
