Baby names

[Marduk]

krebscout, I think the popular spelling is actually "Matt." I could be wrong though, and I feel like this debate may have happened before.

[yayfulness]

My name never left the top five from 1880 (the earliest year shown on the first site) until 1981. It's still in the top 20. I'm a fan of reasonably normal names, although the most important thing to me is how well (or badly) the first and last name fit together.

I just checked my brother's name, too, and it turns out it went from being pretty consistently in the top 10 from 1880 to 1989 to being below 60 last year. Interesting.

[krebscout]

krebscout, I think the popular spelling is actually "Matt." I could be wrong though, and I feel like this debate may have happened before.

Oh, no, it is. But for the purposes of the paraplegic jokes, it's Mat.

[Genuine Article]

I'm a fan of reasonably normal names, although the most important thing to me is how well (or badly) the first and last name fit together.

This is where I feel gyped, because I went from a weird first name/normal last name combo, which had a sense of balance, to weird on both counts once I got married, and now my name isn't really recognizable as a name - it looks more like typing gibberish.

[Digit]

The times that I have seen the National Spelling Bee on TV, it seemed to me that there was a high proportion of children of Indian (from India) heritage, and they all seemed to have extremely long names. I wondered if learning to write their own name prepared them for being able to remember long names more than little John Peters or Mary Jones.

[Imogen]

Maybe that's why I'm such a good speller! I have almost every letter of the alphabet in my name (except Q, K, P and X I believe).

My name doesn't even register on most baby name searches.

[bobtheenchantedone]

Closer to the original topic, my mother made up the name for one of my sisters - Brekke.

I've actually read this name before; Anne McCaffrey used it for one of her important secondary characters in the Dragonriders of Pern books. A little searching turned up that it's also a village in Norway and means "slope" in Old Norse.

Is there any chance your mom either read Anne McCaffrey, or got it from Norse?

I'm not 100% on this, but I'm pretty sure she came up with the name before she went on her Anne McCaffrey kick. And I do know that she later found out about the Norse meaning, but I again think she had it in mind before.

[Katya]

The times that I have seen the National Spelling Bee on TV, it seemed to me that there was a high proportion of children of Indian (from India) heritage, and they all seemed to have extremely long names. I wondered if learning to write their own name prepared them for being able to remember long names more than little John Peters or Mary Jones.

As a related point, all you plans to give your child a name that "everyone can spell" and "everyone can pronounce" are out the window if he or she moves to a country or region where they speak a different language. (Shoot, even the English speakers here in Maine have some trouble with my Scandinavian patronymic last name that's a dime-a-dozen in Utah and Idaho. But ask them to spell a French-Canadian surname like Robichaud or Paradis or Ouellette? No problem.)

[Portia]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/67950/

Can I just say, as a teacher, made up names are THE WORST!!! Mezmariah?! Really?!

And my people (the black ones) are the worst offenders of stupid baby names. I have a cousin named Sir Anthony Parker. SIR?!?!? WHAT'S WRONG WITH PEOPLE!! Or, Gynesis and Beautii (which I saw on TV).

In mass on Sunday, my priest had a RANT, which included baby names. He'll refuse to baptize your child if you give it a stupid name.

Now, my name is extremely unusual in the States, but not in Iran (where my dad is from). And I gravitate towards normal, but not over-used names. Things that are easy to spell, read, and say, but aren't top-100 names.

My people (Mormons) are perhaps tied, or a close second. I have a very Mormon name, but it's in the same class as a kid being born in this millennium and being named Bella or Fredette - from pop culture, and definitely a very specific reference, but there's nothing "weird" or "offensive" or "made-up" about Bella, per se. Still, this may contribute to why I will name my kids very traditional, top-200 names like Madeleine and Patrick.

[Portia]

I've been doing a lot of indexing in the past week or so, and I keep finding names on the 1940s census that are kind of outdated. The more I do it, though, the more I like the names. But many of them would probably be a bad idea. Like Eunice. (Take that, Genuine!)

It's also given me a new appreciation for my grandma's name, Maude. How darling! But again, maybe not the best for a little kid.

My obsession with 1930s literature and movies has introduced me to truly wonderful names: Nora, Brigid, Ginger. I like Marian too, which I got from the latest Emily "I Wish I Could Quit You!" Giffin novel.

And do you subscribe to the Baby Name Wizard blog and/or Name Candy, Katya? Such great sites.

ETA AND with the recent passing of Nora Ephron, one of my favorite screenwriter-directors of all time, it's decided. There WILL be a little Nora of Belmont in my life!

[Unit of Energy]

So I couldn't decide if I should post this here or in the random chatter thread. But a friend of mine just gave birth to her second daughter. The sisters' names are Domino and River. I can't decided where those names fall compared to my other friend whose kids are Darius and December.

[Portia]

River is hippie-ish, but not unprecedented (cf River Phoenix). Darius is cool: has Classical Antiquity sound (I think of it as a "black name," too, a black BYU professor or documentarian or something has that name). December I guess can work if you are as hot as JANUARY Jones. Domino: WTF.

[yayfulness]

My immediate reaction: River Song. Doctor Who has made the name River acceptable to me. The other three... not really.

[UffishThought]

I indexed a David Davies today. It made me happy.

[NerdGirl]

My cousin went to school with a kid named Free.

[yayfulness]

Also, I definitely assumed for a second that "Domino" was referring to a boy. It seems more like a guy's name to me. (Well, it doesn't seem like a name at all. But if I force myself to think of it as a name, it seems like it would fit better with a guy.)

[Portia]

Whaaaaat that makes it even worse. What sort of reference is she supposed to infer: "like dominoes, I am the beginning in a sequence of events that once set into motion cannot be stopped and represents the chaos and entropy inherent in this world."

[Marduk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_Harvey

So, I guess they just really liked the movie?

[Portia]

I have Sondre Lerche's "Domino" stuck in my head now. Guess my kids are getting named Lazenby and Two-Monologues.

[bobtheenchantedone]

I recently rediscovered my baby names book and have been flipping through it (much to Marduk's dismay, I am reading names aloud as I do so). For girls: Arabesque, Teal, Charisma, Gary, Lake, Explorer... it goes on. My personal favorite is Messiah. Yes, that's apparently a girl's name.

And those were only the names that the writers of the book liked! There were plenty of other names that were included in the book, but with disclaimers. (For example, they say if you want to name your child America then give it as a middle name.)