Skip to main content

Baby Names to Watch Part 2

I am done with my Rare 2011 Girls Names list, and have found quite a few interesting names I thought I'd talk about. I don't exactly remember what it was like compiling the 2010 list I made, but I do remember it being shorter, although I can't say if it really was. But overall I was very impressed with some of the names I saw.

Gregoria - didn't make the 2010 list, but there were 6 births in 2011. I find this an excellent alternative to Greer/Grier for those who still want to honor a Gregory. Grey would make for a nickname, or Oria.

Aradia - this is the name of a Tuscan pagan witch goddess, supposedly the daughter of Diana and Apollo. She was the subject of Aradia: Gospel of the Witches by Charles Leland, which Bewitching Names covered here. She is also the subject of another book: Tales of Aradia, The Last Witch, by L.A. Jones. By the way, if for some reason I was trying to name the baby of Apollo and Diana, Aradia seems utterly perfect.

Quirky/eccentric names like Snow (13 births), Rue (13 births), Whisper (16 births), Apple (25), Bliss (57), Arrow (5), Sonnet (7), Starling (8),  Fable (8), that I see mention of on message boards, but not in real life. I wish there was an SSA list for middle names (separate, of course) so that you could see what middle names were given per year, because I have the feeling these uncommon first names are a lot more popular for middle names.

Viridiana (62 births) - a lesser known saint which I covered here, along with other rare saint names Belina (8 births), Sunniva (6), and Attalia (5 births), although I'm sure there were more that I can't track down at the moment.

There were also a few ancient Greek and Roman names, which always pleases me. Artemisia (5), Apolline (5), Apollonia (8), Astraea (5), Amaranta (5), Accalia (7), Anthea (8), and Aphrodite (11) were at the bottom of the A names. Many more throughout the alphabet, though, worth digging up.

Lots of "new" nature names (in comparison to the oldies - Rose, Lily, Fern, Violet). Basil (7), Sequoia (62), Briar-Rose (6), Lavender (34), Berry (5), Cassia (33), Lotus (47), Maple (28), Cataleya (28), Kataleya (10), Cedar (28), Sparrow (31), Cypress (25), Lilac (9), Clover (109), Tigerlily (16), Cayenne (18), Jessamine (8) and Jessamyn (7). I think we were all rooting for Jessamine.

Month names beyond April, May and June - January (24), December (33), September (28), October (54), November. I think these are great, because you can have the nicknames Jana, Ember, Tova, and Nova, respectively.

Ostara - also covered here by Bewitching Names, this is the name of a Wiccan holiday similar to Easter that did not have any births in 2010, but 5 in 2011.

TV & movie names - Khaleesi (27), Kaleesi (7) from the TV series Game of Thrones (as well as a rise in Aria and Arya), Lumen from the TV show Dexter, Kataleya (10), Cataleya (28) from the movie Columbiana, Cricket (8) from the TV show GCB, and Quorra (25) from Tron, just as a small sampling. Also, Twyla (28) and Twila (27) could have easily been inspired by the Twilight series. There were 30 Twyla's born in 2010 and 15 Twila's, so overall the numbers went up. There's also Evoleth (14), Evoleht (8), Evolet (103), Evolette (19), and Evolett (18), which came from the movie 10,000 BC.

Phillipa, from which we get the nickname Pippa, only made it to 10 births, despite the super-popularity of Pippa Middleton, sister of the now-princess of England.

Lastly, although I could go on much longer, are gemstone names, such as Amethyst (61), Emerald (124), Garnet (11), Turquoise (5), and Sapphire (98), but I don't recall any Citrine or Topaz, and gemstone names are nothing new, although I suspect Garnet and Turquoise are.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Sailor Moon Baby Names

As a long-time fan girl of Sailor Moon, I was thrilled to hear about a potential reboot of the series, which was supposed to be in 2013 and has now been pushed to 2014. It's been over 20 years since Sailor Moon first aired, but many still get a warm fuzzy feeling when they think of the show. What is not often mentioned is how well researched Takeuchi's name choices were. She covered gems, minerals, astrology, mythology and creative word choices. Today I'll talk about Sailor Moon names. Usagi Tsukino- Bunny - Serena - Princess Serenity - Sailor Moon Usagi means "rabbit" in Japanese, referring to the Japanese legend of the rabbit on the moon, and Tsukino means "moon." In the translation of the comics, Usagi was renamed Bunny appropriately. Keeping with the mythological aspects of the moon and both Greek and Roman moon goddesses, Usagi's character was given the concept of "serene," which gave her the name Serena in the American TV series (a...

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 ...

Melisande, Melisende

The cover of E. Nesbit's Melisande Melisande (MAY-lee-sahnd French, English tend to say MELL-iss-ahnd)  is the French variant of Amalswintha, and the inspiration for the English name Millicent, meaning "strong worker." There has been some confusion on the name's connection to Melissa, meaning "honey bee." There's a possibility that each spelling variation has a different origin - Melisande from Melissa and perhaps Melisande as cognate with Millicent, but that is speculation, and there could be absolutely no connection to Melissa at all. Melisende was a popular name in France in the Middle Ages. This name has quite the list of credentials, including a play, opera, and fairy tale. Besides the play  Pelléas and Mélisande  by Maeterlinck, the opera by Debussy, and the fairy tale mentioned above, Melisande was the alias of a character in the Broadway show Bells are Ringing , a handmaid in the book Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm, a character in The G...