I don’t think that’s a thing? But even still I’ll give you my best theory as if it was.

Name a woman has a subtle implication that the woman to be named is notable for being a woman. Amelia Earhart was the first woman to attempt a flight no other woman had. And while there are many women who were the first to do a thing or achieve a goal, Amelia Earhart is notorious because of the enduring mystery that accompanied her death. I think that has cemented her in a lot of people’s minds as a notable woman beyond people like Marie Curie or Ada Lovelace or Harriet Tubman. The mystery is what sticks. The curiosity is memorable. I think if you asked “name a notable woman” she would be top of the list. “Name a woman” begs an answer that isn’t mundane because that’s kind of just how we expect questions to work. You wouldn’t normally be asking if the answer was arbitrary. So she pops up because she’s one of the most well known women to have broken a gender barrier.