“I don’t think they were thinking of making history, just that it was a nice name,” Echevarria said. “But apparently there was a bar that was called the same, Zorba, like two blocks away, and the owner of the bar came and said, ‘This is going to confuse things to have two Zorbas.’ They had already made the molds for the letters in the sign, so they just rearranged them to see what they could find. They found Zara.”

And what a good find it was. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. Just like Sara, but less common, more pizazzzzz. And nothing like some British royalty to up the ante. The birth in 1981 of Zara Phillips, a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, probably wasn’t bad for sales. Nor is Kate Middleton’s flair for weaing the fashionable yet affordable brand.  Mera of Zara Dies