Talk:Lilith Sternin

Latest comment: 10 months ago by Lovelano in topic Lilith


Lilith edit

Can anyone find evidence ("reliable sources" in Wikipedia parlance) that the producers of the show thought of Lilith when naming this character? As in "a first wife who turned into a minor demon". It is rather hard to imagine they would not have known the mythology when naming this character. Might warrant a mention in this article if sources can be found.

Extra points for deciphering the meaning, if any, of the last name "Sternin". 85.76.41.21 (talk) 16:02, 20 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Writer-producer Cheri Steinkellner connected Lilith Sternin to the mythic Lilith in an interview published by the Hollywood Reporter in 2018:

We named her Lilith for Adam’s first wife, who comes from the same earth he does. She’s his shadow — not bad, just dark and misinterpreted. We named her Sternin for our friends, Prudence Fraser and Robert Sternin, who co-created The Nanny.

Though a 2015 blogpost by writer Ken Levine claimed to copy a Facebook post by Cheri Steinkellner stating that Lilith Sternin had no connection to the mythic Lilith.

Cheri Steinkellner was gracious enough to answer the question on Facebook, but I wanted to share it with all of you. So here it is:

Last name first, Billy and I named her Sternin as a pairing for Frasier in honor of our old "Who's The Boss?" writing buddies, Rob Sternin and Prudence Frasier (they went on to co-create "The Nanny").

We wanted a first name to go with it that embodied stern-ness […] "Lilith" was the sternest, least-nonsense, comb-mark-counting-est name we could find. The Biblical badass didn't factor in. It just sounded right to our ears and made us laugh.

My cursory Google search using the search terms site:facebook.com "The Biblical badass" did not turn up a Facebook post or comment by Cheri Steinkellner corroborating Levine's blog post, though I don't know how well Google indexes Facebook.
Lovelano (talk) 19:03, 17 June 2023 (UTC)Reply