Nunny Names

Today I was trying to find out if nuns have last names. I thought maybe, since they are married to God and often change their first names or add to them, they might not have last names. Based on the number of blogging nuns out there with last names...well, that answered my question. Yes, yes they do keep their last names.

Despite my deplorable religious ignorance, I kind of have to respect Catholicism. I like all the rituals. I also have this (completely unfounded, non-scientific) impression that Catholics don't take themselves as seriously as Protestants. Most likely this is not true (for example, I am 99% sure the Pope takes his faith more seriously than my New Apostolic mother-in-law. Also, recall chocolate Jesus Controversy, 1.0 and get the most recent version here). However, one sister bolsters my irrational claim. Her name is Helena Burns. Guess what she calls her blog? Yeah, that's right HELL BURNS.

It's funny because it's true!

Moral of this story: If your last name is Burns, do not give your offspring a name which can be shortened to "Hell." (Or, for that matter, any object that can be set aflame)

Baby Names and Place Names, Part II

As a follow-up to my previous post, I've compiled a couple of lists of place names that might make nice first names for a baby. With the introduction of VP-nominee Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, this post is especially timely.

First up, I was surprised, when looking at the existing SSA data, that Africa didn't make the top 1000, and in fact, it never has in this country. Not only would it does it suggest rich ethnic connections, but the -ica ending is familiar (with Angelica, Erica, Jessica, Monica and Veronica among the most well-known) and the bright consonants keep it fresh. In contrast, Kenya, which debuted in the top 1000 in 1968 at #925, had shot up to #275 only five years later and has maintained a strong presence in the middle-hundreds ever since. With that precedent set, I'd like to suggest three other African nations who sound like sisters: Mali, Mozambique, and Mauritania.

If you're too white-bread to pull of the exoticism off that trio, consider some of these. I stuck them in whatever list I personally thought they fit best in, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear of a boy named Holland or a girl named Lisbon.

Boys:
Brisbane
Cairo
Elko
Jericho
Lisbon
Melbourne
Oslo

Girls:
Holland
Milan
Monaco
Vienna

If that girls' list looks a bit skimpy, here are two over-looked but appealing names that have been used on American girls for ages: Odessa (which fell off the charts in 1956) and Valencia (1994).

And I also want to mention three names that have some potential aren't quite there yet. Havana rhymes with Savannah and is probably easier to spell, but politics and poverty prevent it from making inroads. Politics aside, I can't see either China or Korea making it as names. Both names sound pretty and would make a strong cultural assertion, just as Kenya does, but I don't think many people wanting to make that assertion would need those names. Most Chinese- and Korean-American parents, if they want to use their child's name as a vehicle for ethnic pride, can use traditional Chinese or Korean names. Traditional Chinese and Korean names won't sound strange to many Chinese- and Korean-Americans, because they have thriving linguistic traditions. In contrast, many African-American parents don't have that option, their ancestors' languages having been obliterated in this country hundreds of years ago. Definitely, there are African-language names in every baby name database I feature, but a lot of them will sound too foreign to English-speaking African Americans.

Baby Names and Place Names

Last night, after a heady evening of NBC Olympics, my husband mused that Helsinki would make an interesting name for a girl. While Helsinki doesn't have the sounds I associate with the next trendy winning name--it has consonant clusters instead of smooth, open vowels--it does have one trend on its side: it's the name of a famous city. Recognizing this trend, the SSA has made a little guessing game and put together a nice list of popular names that are also cities in the U.S. I put together my own list of names in the top 1000 for 2007 that are also famous places. I'm primarily trying to identify people names that were place names first. It's not a short list!

Asia
Austin
Boston
Brittany
Brooklyn
Chad
Cheyenne
Dakota
Dallas
Dayton
Eden
Heaven
India
Ireland
Israel
Jordan
Kenya
Kingston
London
Madison
Memphis
Montana
Montserrat
Orlando
Paris
Phoenix
Santiago
Savannah
Shiloh
Sydney
Trenton
Troy
Zaire
Zion

As you look through this list, you might disagree with me here and there; I was surprised at how much controversy I felt in compiling it. Take, for example, the name Brittany. Brittany is, of course, a region in northern France, and that's the origin and meaning of the name as well. But Brittany has been so popular as a girls' name over the years, and spawned so many variants, that I suspect most new parents think of Brittany as primarily a name, and only secondarily (if at all), as a place. If Florence were on the top 1000 list, I would definitely put it in the same category with Brittany. Other fairly established names, such as Austin, Chad, Jordan and Troy, probably also fit there. It's a matter of opinion.

Then there were other names, such as Orlando and Shiloh, which have become popular recently, but are probably following a different trend, specifically, the trends of Orlando Bloom and Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. So I don't blame you for quibbling with me a little.

Just to make one last point, there are plenty of names that were people first, places second, notably Georgia, Carolina, and Virginia. Eugene, Oregon, where I went to graduate school, is named after a man named Eugene. I left those names off of my list, so again, if you compare my list to the one made by the SSA, you'll notice some differences. And again, you may disagree with my judgment.

I hope to put together a list of place names that have as-yet untapped potential to be bestowed on human beings. I'll consider any suggestions! Stay tuned for that post in the near future.

New Links & Tools

A short note to draw your attention to all the new links to name databases, name blogs and websites, and name tools that I've added in the side bars. A few demand a short explanation: Baby Namescape allows you to get local by seeing what names babies have been getting at individual hospitals. Nymbler is a tool associated with the excellent Baby Name Wizard that suggests names and responds to your feedback about which ones you like to gradually refine the results to match your tastes. Similar, though somewhat less effective, tools are available at Baby Names World and Behind The Name. Baby Names World also offers a free suggestion service that I've never found to be terribly perceptive, but it's still a fun thing to get in your email every day.

Of course, all sites have their own unique features and advantages. Happy browsing!

Sophia for Boys

As many people have noticed I'm sure, there's a trend in U.S. naming toward Victorian, old-world style names, especially for girls. They travel well and they feel upper-class, historical, important. Girls have many popular choices in this genre, including Isabella, Sophia, Lily, Ava, Olivia, Emma, Samantha, Amelia...you get the picture. Moreover, going back to lists of given names from 100 years ago (see the Social Security Administration's lists) yields even more lovely, usable names for girls. But, as Laura Wattenberg points out, boys' names with this same feel are harder to come by. Parents who like Isabella and Sophia face the same familiar choices that parents of boys have always faced: William, Thomas, James, Edward, Charles, Jonathan, etc. All solid, traditional names, but just too normal. (As a compromise, informal observation suggests that baby William is more likely to go by his full name, and if he does get a nickname, you can bet it's "Will.")

I feel for parents expecting boys. So I took a look at lists of names given to boys in the early parts of the 20th century, which yielded a few possibilities. I also looked at popular names in Europe, and that's where the gold is. The Swedes are way ahead of Americans in choosing brothers for Sophia, and what's more, if the name appears on a European list, it's an automatic guarantee that the name travels well to that country at least. Here are some suggestions:

Adrian
Andre
Basil
Byron
Cecil
Conrad
Constantine
Cyril
Dominic
Dorian
Emil, Emile
Florian
Frederick
Hugo
Gabriel
Ivan
Ivar, Ivor
Harlan
Hector
Jasper
Julius
Leander
Linus
Louis, Lewis
Lyle
Magnus
Marius
Maximilian
Oscar
Paris
Quentin
Raphael
Raymond
Reginald
Roland
Sylvan
Thaddeus
Tobias
Victor
Vincent

It's a long list, but by no means do I think it's an exhaustive list. If tastes change just a little, some of the names that I hesitated to recommend whole-heartedly would sound great as globe-trotting come-back kids too.

Unisex Names & Word Names

I don't know how my Adolescent Studies professor gets going on some of his tangents, but for whatever reason, he ended up talking about the small percentage of babies who are born with ambiguous genitalia such that you can't tell what gender the baby is. Apparently, at some point there was a law in most of the U.S. (whether or not it's still on the books is in dispute) that you couldn't take the baby out of the hospital until you had made a decision about "what" it was and had the proper "corrective" surgery. How would you know you were making the right choice? And would your baby's gender really matter to most parents, as long as you had a beautiful child to love? Those were my first questions. Then, of course, I thought to myself: What if I had such a child--what could I name it so that, whatever gender the child came to identify with, the name would fit? In other words, I started wondering about unisex names.

We all know the traditional list of "unisex" names, such as Terry, Robin, Jackie, etc. Many of these names end up being nicknames for fairly different, gender-specific names, and therefore, in my mind, unacceptable as given names. Terry could be short for Teresa or Terrence; Jackie short for Jacqueline or familiar for Jack or even John. The truth is, most of those names carry some gender valence anyway: Kelly is almost always a girl, though I know a male Kelly; Jude is strongly masculine to me, despite being a nickname for Judith. To complicate things further, the gender valence of a name may change depending on how it's spelled (as in Aaron and Erin, Loren and Lauren, Cary and Carrie), which wouldn't be very helpful if you were naming someone whose gender you don't actually know. No, I am looking for truly unisex names, ones where the kindergarten teacher can look at the name on the sheet and have no idea who owns it, where the owner could change their clothes but keep the name.

Plus, I want names that I don't think suck. I'm not interested in all the "cross-over" names and surnames as first names that are popular today. They're fine for some people, I guess, though I have a beef with them not having much of an etymology. But essentially, they're just not my style. In case you're not sure what I'm talking about, that list includes names like Madison, Avery, Kennedy, Mackenzie, Reese, Riley, Laney, Tegan, etc.

My general observation is that the most successful (by success I mean as gender-neutral as possible and as non-sucky as possible) unisex names are word names. I made a pretty long list, but here are a few. It would take a lot for me to give up on baby Ivan and Isadora, but some of them are actually worth considering.

Unisex Word Names
Aspen
Cedar
Day
Ember
Grey
Indigo
Marin / Maren
Moon
Night
Ocean
Paz
Phoenix
Raven
Rio
River
Shadow
Sky
Story
Thessaly
Topaz
Vox
Zenith
Zephyr

In addition, here are a few from traditional naming practices, though not all are Western / European. Personally, I think there's more to dispute here as far as gender-neutrality goes. Of course, you are always welcome to dispute my taste.

Other Unisex Names
Casey
Ilar
Jaime
Jody
Fallon
Morgan
Pavan / Pavane
Umi
Wynn

Despite the alleged neutrality of these names, I still think I would prefer most of them on one gender or another. Maybe that says something about how much our society values an easy division of gender. Naturally, I hope I never am surprised with a child whose path through life will be so much more difficult than it should be just because of biology, and if I ever were in such a position, I hope the kid's name would not be at the forefront of my thoughts.

Random Name Generators

One fun feature that two of my favorite names sites have is a random name generator. It's exactly what it sounds like: you click a button and a random name appears. Refresh to get another one. As usual, Behind the Name has more options for customizing your results (you can narrow it by categories, including major linguistic/ethnic groups and wildcards such as "Norse Mythology" or "Transformer".) Except for the wackiest categories, the randomly generated names link to the name's main entry in the site database so you can learn more about its meaning, usage, etc. The "Random Renamer" on BabyNames.com unfortunately doesn't link to the name's main entry, but it has a more casual feel to it, and some might find it less daunting for its lack of customization options. It purports to generate names for a particular personality trait, but I frankly can't see any difference between the categories.

Besides being just kind of a fun way to waste time, random name generators help keep your favorites list fresh. They can put a familiar name in a new light, and because they cull from the site's entire database, it's also a good way to discover new names that you like without actually poring over each entry individually. Since both sites have "regulars" on their boards and cater to certain groups of name-users, you tend to see the same names over and over on their forums and polls, which doesn't give you much exposure to the much larger set of names available on these sites.

Anyway, enough of my ramble. Here are a few of my favorite randomly generated combinations.

Random Female Names
Eithne Aspen
Ever Fenella
Scoop Zoheret
Giza Jenibelle
Nina Leontyne
Clotilda Cactus
Hannah Banji
June Emelyn
Lovisa Jonquil
Mollie Opaline
Fracas Pipes (Transformer Name)
Startlespoon Bubblepop (Witch Name)
Ina Kjersti (Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian & Swedish names)

Random Male Names
Shiva Johnnie
Govannon Gerfried
Snorri Ivo
Bernardino Shaw
Aras Allan
Rylan Constant
Uzi James
Taffy Alaric
Severi Tecumseh
Casper Pallas

Joke Bad Names

I have a lot of terrible names gathered from BabyNames.com. But I also want to mention that sometimes, you can tell that the parents are joking about a certain name. When all the names are properly capitalized, spelled conventionally (as opposed to kre8tiv-ly), and come from a set of trendy-yet-traditional names, the list-viewer finds it easy to believe that the parents are intelligent and careful. Furthermore, when all the other names on the list are fairly "normal," one unusual name suggests that the parents are joking around, not seriously considering it. Often, you'll see two distinct styles represented in a list (presumably the parents each have different tastes), but rarely do you see a stylistically regular list with one oddball, unless the parents are joking.

Anyway, the joke bad names are almost as good as the genuine bad ones, so here are a few...

Bella Dancer
Piper Crane
Cross Beau
Carys Elle
Indianna Jones

With the exception of the future Miss Jones, all are first-name, middle-name combinations.

Surname Incompatibility

I like to keep a list of the more, um, "thought-provoking" names that I run across on BabyNames.com, a site whose main audience is expecting parents. In my opinion, it's okay to both make fun of these names and post them on this blog, since they were gathered from a public internet site. I am constantly amazed at the disregard parents show for their future child's last name. Below are two short lists of names that are inappropriate based on their interaction with the child's last name.

Phonological
Brooke Burke
Isabelle Bell
Anabell Bell
Maya Myers
Emma Grace Embry
Zane Adams Swain
Lain Adams Swain
Dane Mitchell Swain

I think the last four suggest an obvious reason for the parents' oversight--they're so focused on the first name-middle name combination that they overlook the last name. Which, honestly, how often does someone use their middle name? Only when during scoldings and graduations. So while "Emma Grace" sounds lovely, she'll rarely say her name that way. Most of the time, she'll be Emma Embry, which sounds a comic book character.

Then there are names which sound fine, but are inappropriate based on thematic considerations. These are a little bit funnier.

Thematic
Hunter Butcher
Harley Ryder
Amber Jade Fields ("amber waves of grain," anyone?)
Jack Russell (an excitable dog)
Honey Newcombe
Charlotte Weber
Benson Hall (probably okay, just sounds like a dormitory building to me)
London Rosalia Towne
Isaac Cox
Asa Wipperman
Colt, Remington, and Wesson Porter (three brothers, already born and named, unfortunately)

While I'm sniggering at these goofy parents, I should mention that with the exception of the gun-rack brothers, these are only proposed names. We can hope that the parents end up settling on something else.

So hard to remember, so easy to forget.

My first post should probably be some kind of justification for the creation of a blog dedicated to a topic that most people consider so trivial they can't even remember it for the duration of a handshake. It's like admitting that you like Star Trek. Actually, it's like admitting that you like Star Trek so much that you have every episode of every series on DVD (catalogued), as well as Star Trek paraphernalia (catalogued), and that your most joyously spent hours (besides watching your DVDs, of course) are those where you're socializing (inasmuch as this is possible) with other "Trekkies" about Star Trek. At that point, you don't just "like" Star Trek, the way most people like it enough that they'll pause on it for a few minutes when they're channel surfing at a hotel: at that point, you are obsessed with Star Trek. And it takes either a truly self-assured or a truly oblivious person to admit they are obsessed with something as un-scholarly and non-essential to everyday American life as Star Trek.

As someone who is neither particularly self-assured nor particularly oblivious, but just feels safely shrouded in the anonymity of the internet, I hereby confess my obsession with names. In particular, I am interested in the occidental canon of given names, both its constituents and its confines, as well as the trends that have shaped it over time (insofar as there are records). Which is to say, I like to browse online databases of first names and check out the historical usage of that name. If I had time or resources, I could probably spend many a happy hour conducting my own research. (Although, I would likely get distracted by chocolate cake or an online version of pinball)

Maybe that didn't seem like a monumental confession to you, the reader. I think everyone has a few favorite names, or has thought about what they would call their hypothetical offspring, just like most people have seen the "Tribbles" episode or have a preference for one Enterprise captain or another. But I doubt most people attach the kind of importance to names that I do. Shakespeare apparently didn't. And think about your own experience with other people's names. (Actually, if you're actually reading this, you're probably as obsessed as I am (or related to me)). It's socially acceptable to forget the name of someone you've just met, as long as at some point you use that appeasing phrase, "I'm sorry; I didn't quite catch your name." Like you're playing some kind of casual ball game. I've never understood this. (On the contrary, I'm actually so good at remembering names that it seems uncanny to the average person, and as a consequence I frequently pretend that I've forgotten so that I don't look like a creepy stalker or make the other parties in a re-introduction feel like jerks for having forgotten my name.)

To me, a name is an integral part of a person's identity. That is, I agree that a name has no necessary influence over its referent, but I do think it's significant that every human being has a single unique name to call him or her up by. A person's name is part of what defines him or her as an individual. Not only that, but practically speaking, you can glean all kinds of information about a person's background from their name, if know where to look. By extension, the naming canon of a particular group or time period contributes to your understanding of their customs and values. All this is not to say, "You there! Join me in my quest for nominal knowledge or face the consequences!" but merely to explain my own peculiar interest.