[2][3] When Thornton Burgess began making up bedtime stories with named animals for his 4-year-old son, the boy was already familiar with Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit character, and would not allow his father to give his stories' rabbit character any other name.
Burgess was not the only author to reuse the name Peter Rabbit, though with the huge popularity of Old Mother West Wind, he became the most known.
A fuller treatment on this topic can be found in Nature's Ambassador: The Legacy of Thornton W. Burgess by Christie Palmer Lowrance.
Harrison Cady, who illustrated Burgess' books, wrote and drew the syndicated Peter Rabbit comic strip from 1920 to 1948.
In 1950 Mervin Shiner, Gene Autry, and others recorded the holiday song "Here Comes Peter Cottontail", which became popular on the Country and Pop charts and informally gave the Easter Bunny a name.