Gossip Girl and Edith Wharton

I'll make this brief, but after seeing the Gossip Girl crew perform The Age of Innocence on Monday night, of course I had to read a recap of the book on Wikipedia (reading the Wikipedia article about something after watching a TV show/movie is such a classic meme). That started me into a vortex of reading about Edith Wharton, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Manfred von Richthofen, and eventually The House of Mirth.

When I read about The House of Mirth, I noticed that the main character's name is Lily Bart. If you watch GG, you will know that Lily van der Woodsen was married to Bart Bass and has some notable similarities with Lily Bart. Could the names of these two characters be related to the book? Are the TV writers/Cecily von Ziegesar huge Edith Wharton fans? Am I insane?