Ruth Cleveland

Namesake for the Baby Ruth candy bar The Curtiss Candy Company asserted that the "Baby Ruth" candy bar was named after Ruth Cleveland, after being sued by Babe Ruth for using his name without compensation. As she had died 17 years earlier and was born to a president who was last in office in 1897, it remains highly unlikely that this explanation was anything more than a way to avoid litigation. Known as "Kandy Kake" from 1900 to 1920, the candy bar was renamed in 1921, thirty years after Ruth Cleveland's birth and seventeen years after her death. That same year, legendary baseball player George Herman Ruth, better known by the nickname Babe Ruth, was nearing the top of his popularity, having just broken the single-season home run record.

As Richard Sandomir of The New York Times pointed out, "For 85 years, Babe Ruth, the slugger, and Baby Ruth, the candy bar, have lived parallel lives in which it has been widely assumed that the latter was named for the former. The confection's creator, the Curtiss Candy Company, never admitted to what looks like an obvious connection – especially since Ruth hit 54 home runs the year before the first Baby Ruth was devoured. Had it done so, Curtiss would have had to compensate Ruth. Instead, it eventually insisted the inspiration was 'Baby Ruth' Cleveland, the daughter of President Grover Cleveland. But it is an odd connection that makes one wonder at the marketing savvy of Otto Schnering, the company's founder."

Ruth sued the candy company, claiming the candy bar was using his name and not Ruth Cleveland's, but lost the case in 1931.