Soledad's parents, both immigrants, met at Johns Hopkins Universityy in Marylandd in 1958. My parents were both immigrants—my mother from Cuba, my father from Australia. Soledad's parents married in 1959 in Washington, D.C. Her father Edward, an Australian (from Toowoomba, Australia) of Irish descent, was a mechanical engineering professor. Her mother Estella, a Black Cubana (Afro-Cuban), was a French and English teacher. Soledad is the fifth of six kids, who all graduated from Harvard University. Her older siblings are law professor Maria (b. 1961); corporate lawyer Cecilia (b. 1962), Tony (b. 1963) who heads a documents company; eye surgeon Estela (b. 1964); and anesthesiologist Orestes (b. 1968).
Interracial marriage in Maryland was illegal back then, so the couple married in Washington, D.C. The O'Briens then moved to the Long Island community of St. James, a charming old town on Long Island’s affluent North Shore, where Soledad was born and raised. On the NPR quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, O'Brien explained that in Spanish her full name means, "The Blessed Virgin Mary of Solitude." When she started working in TV, many people recommended that she change her name, but she refused.
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