Big Name Meaning

(idiomatic) A prominent individual, especially one who is favorably regarded.

Example: 1909, P. G. Wodehouse, The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England, ch. 2:
  Solly had carried on the old business, and was making a big name for himself.
1915, Zane Grey The Lone Star Ranger, ch. 11:
  He made a big name in the war. And since he's been in the ranger service he's done wonders.
2013 Jan. 29, Benjamin Hoffman, "At Media Day, Spotlight on Head Injuries Grows," New York Times (retrieved 10 Oct 2013):
  Do you want to go out there and do the right things or do you want to make that big hit to gain a big name?
1917, Sherwood Anderson, Marching Men, ch. 4:
  "You don't want me, you want a big name. They're all set to hang you over there. . . . It's a job for the biggest and best criminal lawyer in town."
1949 April 10, Owen Lattimore, "Big Problem is to Make UN Work, Too," Sunday Herald (Connecticut USA), p. 12 (retrieved 10 Oct 2013):
  With the big names of Europe assembled in Washington for the signing of the Atlantic Pact, the pact itself and its implications continue to be the world's biggest story.
2004 Mach 26, Richard Corliss, "That Old Feeling at 100," Time (retrieved 10 Oct 2013):
  [J]ust before Christmas 1983 . . . our editors were alerted that the surrealist painter Joan Miro had died. (A big name almost always dies around Christmas.)