Names make news. Last week these names made this news:

Josephine Baker, the St. Louis-born singer who grew up to be the light brown toast of Paris, was causing a new kind of sensation on a lecture tour of South America. From her lecture platform last week Speaker Baker cried: "The United States is not a free country . . . I do not envy those who have to live there . . ." The only country, she said, where "Negroes are treated like dogs is the 'model democracy,' the United States." The anti-American Argentine press gave the Baker line as big a play as the U.S. election results as she charged Ike Eisenhower with racial discrimination: "Colored people will suffer as they have never suffered. And white people who dare defend them will be persecuted in such a way the famous German persecutions will be kid stuff. May God have pity on them." In Washington the Immigration Department indicated that should Singer Baker care to re-enter the U.S., she would have to prove her right and worth. Said Josephine Baker, who gave up her U.S. citizenship in 1937 when she married her second husband, a Frenchman (as is her third) : "To be barred from entering the United States is an honor."

A four-day national celebration began in Japan as Emperor Hirohito proclaimed his 18-year-old son Akihito of age and heir apparent to the throne. The proclamation was read in a public ceremony attended by Tokyo's diplomatic corps, including General Mark W. Clark and U.S. Ambassador Robert Murphy. Later, in a private ceremony, Akihito received the Prince Imperial's badge of office, a 3-ft. 4-in., 1,000-year-old Samurai sword. Akihito, whose last public appearance before the proclamation was at the National Horse Show, where he won second prize, received his first formal assignment as Prince Imperial: to represent his family at the coronation in London next June.

The 60-room, 90-acre, Long Island estate at Muttontown, N.Y., which ex-King Zog of Albania bought last year--at a reported price varying between "a bucket of diamonds" and $105,000--but never occupied, is on the market again. Nassau County advertised its sale on the tax arrears list. The tax lien: $2,654.

In the little Catskill Mountain village of Tannersville, N.Y., the theater's most famous Peter Pan marked her 80th birthday. Maude Adams, who was delighting Broadway 47 years ago as the little boy who didn't want to grow up, now lives in quiet seclusion, seldom seeing friends or neighbors, as she works on her memoirs.

In London, three years, seven months and some 1,500 performances after the Manhattan opening of South Pacific, Actress Mary Martin stepped out of her role of Nurse Nellie Forbush and turned it over to Nightclub Singer Julie Wilson. The next night Mary was doing a nightclub stint herself. She agreed to do a cabaret skit, including singing a duet (Baby, It's Cold Outside), with Friend Noel Coward. Occasion: a benefit performance for the London Actors Orphanage.

The old Rosenthal china company of Bavaria reported a recent customer: Yugoslavia's Dictator Marshal Tito, who paid $8,214.15 for a special dinner service for his wedding. To place the Marshal in proper economic perspective, some other customers were also mentioned: the Maharaja of Indore, who paid $25,000 for a gold-encrusted service, and the best client of the year, Saudi Arabia's Ibn Saud, who bought a 100-place service set, including huge meat platters for each diner, for $250,000.

The Russian embassy in Washington threw its champagne and caviar party of the year in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the revolution. Among those present and ever welcome: Baritone Paul Robeson, who posed for a picture with bemedaled Ambassador Georgi Zarubin.

In Santa Monica, Calif., Anna Roosevelt Boettiger, 46, only daughter of F.D.R., and Dr. James A. Halstead, 47, a physician in the Los Angeles Veterans Administration, bought a marriage license and invited members of their families to attend the wedding (her third, his second).

In London, Metropolitan Opera Star Patrice Munsel was winding up the final scenes of her first movie, in which she plays and sings the part of Nellie Melba in a biographical picture of the famed coloratura. Her next engagement: two months back at the Metropolitan, then retirement for the birth of her first baby.

Stockholm officially announced more 1952 Nobel Prizewinners. Physics: Dr. Felix Bloch, 47, of Stanford University, and Dr. Edward Mills Purcell, 40, of Harvard, for developing new methods of precise nuclear magnetic measurement. Chemistry: Dr. Archer Martin, 42, of London, and Dr. Richard Synge, 38, of Aberdeen, Scotland, for their invention of partition chromotography, a method of identifying complicated molecular structures. Literature: 67-year-old French Author Francois Mauriac (Therese, The Weakling).

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