Skip to main content

Amethyst

Well, I lost my list of planned February posts, so I'm a little behind and frustrated. Believe it or not, a little effort goes into lining up the names I post, as I want each pair to fit well together. In my opinion, anyway. But, until I've covered each month's birth stone, you can at least expect me to have a post on a birth stone every month until August, since the first one I covered was this past September, sapphire.

Amethyst is February's birth stone, a beautiful purple gem, as you can see. I have long loved Amethyst as a baby name since, although it is a little quirky, it offers options for those of us who love names like Amber, Angelina, Amy, Violet, or any other names we are drawn to but would not use.

Like Violet, which is ever popular, Amethyst immediately conjures up the image of a distinct purple color, and like Ruby, also ever popular, it gives us thoughts of pretty gemstones. However, Amethyst has never graced the top 1000. In 2010 there were only 62 baby girls born named Amethyst.

Amethyst, a semi-precious form of quartz, is Greek, meaning "not intoxicated." The Greeks took this literally and wore amethyst as a form of protection against the effects of wine, sometimes even placing the amethyst in the wine itself. Tibetan Buddhists believe the stone is sacred to Buddha. Today people still believe in amethyst's calming properties, its ability to promote serenity, provide peace, and help with addictions.

With amethyst being such a common jewelry store find, and with accessable nicknames like Amy or Ama, it certainly won't be your fault if people have difficulty with this name. It should be just as easy for people to understand and pronounce as Amber, yet your child will probably never meet another in her lifetime.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Galician Baby Names

I grew up on a street that was named an Italian variant of Roger. When I got married and we bought our first house, it turned out to be on Roger Street. Once noting that coincidence, I started searching for other variants of the name. However, female variants turned out to be pretty nonexistent. Save for Roxeria, which I later discovered was the Galician female form, possibly pronounced rohz-AIR-ee-uh. That led me to a few lists of female Galician names, ranging from common to rare. Here is a sampling of names not often heard here in the states... Albina Alda Alma Alodia Aloia Amada Amadora Amalia Amparo Anisia Antia Araceli Aranzazu Artemisa Avelina Azucena Baia Balbina Baltasara Beatriz Benvida Berenice Bieita Branca Braulia Caetana Carola Casilda Casimira Ceferina Celsa Cipriana Cira Clorinda Coralia Cornelia Cosima Davinia Delfina Desideria Dionisia Dominga Dorinda Dorotea Dositea Edelmira Edenia Elba Elvira Emiliana Etelvina ...

Witchy Baby Girl Names!

Circe Invidiosa by John William Waterhouse Have a little girl due in October? Looking to name a character? Here's my [seemingly endless] list of witchy-sounding baby names. Most of them also fit in the "clunky but cool" category, or "vintage." Most plants, trees, herbs, spices, flowers, gems, space and nature names fit the bill, because in stories and current practice these things are useful to witches. I've put any actual witch names from legend, myth, literature, movies, etc in bold and up front. I have not considered the names of actual, living people or their Pagan names, and I've left out any characters that only have a surname, or truly ridiculous given names. In the second half you'll see a list of names that, to my knowledge, have not been used for witch characters. Please know that this is not a complete list. Wikipedia has an almost complete list you can view  here . Tabitha, Samantha, Endora, Clara, Serena  (Bewitched) Katrina...

Elowen

Elowen is a recent Cornish baby name meaning "elm." It may not take off in America like the last Cornish hit, Jennifer, but it's certainly pretty. She's part of a "linguistic revival," as Appellation Mountain puts it  here . Her nickname could be Ellie, Elle or Ella, or a more unusual choice, Wendy. The pronunciation of Elowen is "ell-LOH-en," though most Americans will probably stick with "ELL-oh-wen." Please note that it is not spelled Elowyn. There is a similar name, Eowyn, but if you spell it Elowyn it will no longer be the Cornish name meaning elm tree, just some creative name. Other great Cornish names include Penrose, Chesten (the Cornish form of Christine), Demelza, Denzel, Hammitt, Kerensa/Kerenza, Meraud (very similar to French gem name Emeraude, both meaning emerald, but Meraud is pronounced "meh-row"), Merryn, Morwenna, Tremain, Emblyn, Jory, Massen, Treeve and Cotton. Here's 's a link to a post on Cornish n...