Once Upon a Time Baby Names

Congratulations to my sister and best friend Jennifer who recently named her newborn Giovanna! Speaking of real babies, my husband and I are expecting our first baby in early December, gender unknown. I would love to hear suggestions from readers and visitors to the blog - my mind is just static right now! When we make our final decision I'll post a list of the runners-up, both male and female. While my husband and I have loved the same three or four boy names for 5+ years, picking a girl's name has been way harder than I imagined! I am limiting myself too much (nothing that starts with a soft G or a B, nothing in the top 1000, etc) but other parts have been very fun, such as finding a middle name that honors my mother without using her exact name. Not sure why middle names are so much easier for me, but they are! As for first names, I've been drawn to very rare names with cute nicknames that also look good with our very Polish last name. In the past I've thought abou...

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 ...