Phillis Gershator: Hello, my name is Phillis Gershator. Gershator rhymes a little with alligator. Gershator is really my husband's name. I was always called Phillis though. My mother named me Phillis after an old friend, Philip, and it's spelled with an I like the poet, Phillis Wheatley. If I had been a boy, I would have been named Peter after another old friend, the folk singer, Pete Seeger.