Name of the Day: Poppy
Here on ApMtn, we quailed when Elisabeth suggested Poppy for today’s Name of the Day.
Poppy reminds us of the super-creepy scene in The Wizard of Oz, when the Wicked Witch curses the field of flowers to put our heroic travelers to sleep and thus prevent them from ever reaching Emerald City. What’s that? You thought the flying monkeys were more of a menace?
Sniff.
I can still hear Margaret Hamilton cackling, “Poppies … poppies will put them to sleep.” And yet, despite this bad childhood flashback, we admit that there is much to love in this flower power moniker.
We named Holly one of our 25 Sensible Names for Girls partially because the name’s botanical background makes it a bit more substantial than the diminutives Molly and Polly. Likewise, Lily stands alone while Milly is a too flimsy for a formal name. By this reasoning, Poppy – a vibrant flower most often seen in shades of red – should qualify as a contender for a girl’s name from the garden.
Still, we pause on Poppy. Perhaps because the flowers are not only associated with sleep, but with death. In fact, they’re often worn on Veterans Day to honor those fallen in war. In the UK, a major fundraising drive is called The Poppy Appeal.
And then there’s the whole opium connection.
There is, of course, the option of using Poppy as a nickname. But unlike Daisy, which is linked to Margaret, there’s no historical formal choice. You might consider:
- Paula
- Paulina
- Penelope
- Persephone
Or even, if you stretch a bit, Josephine. After all, Pepe is a Spanish nickname for Joseph; so Poppy might plausibly come from the feminine version. In any case, it’s not less similar than Daisy is to Margaret.
But Poppy may well stand alone. With names like Maisie, Sadie and Lola gracing birth certificates, some parents are choosing this daring moniker for their daughters. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver called his firstborn Poppy Honey. Of course, we mere mortals should probably anchor such a sweet first name with a serious choice in the middle – Poppy Elizabeth, perhaps.
Poppy is also the name worn by an adventurous dormouse in a series of stories by Avi, the Newberry Award winning children’s author. And if Marley – the name of the dog profiled in the New York Times bestseller Marley and Me – can race up the girls’ charts, then a brave mouse can’t mar the name.
If you were to call your daughter Poppy, it would be an easily recognized name that she’d share with almost no one – it has never appeared in the Top 1000 in the US.
And so we now block out the cackle of a fictional troublemaker and put Poppy on our list of possible choices for our daughters.
Filed under: Names for Girls, Names of the Day | 14 Comments
Tags: Josephine, Paula, Paulina, Penelope, Persephone, Poppy
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Hey, if Maxim can make the list for boys with his own porn mag, Poppy can have drugs, right?
I find it a fresh, English countryside sounding name. I’d love to hear it more than Lily right now. I’m so tired of Lily, even though it is such a pretty name and one of my favorite flowers. (I would never name a child Alstroemeria, which is my favorite flower!)
LOL at the seamy underbelly of baby names. Drugs, porn … time for a good name related to weapons. Gunnar, maybe? Uzi?
As for alstroemeria? I had them in my wedding bouquets. Maybe as a middle name.
I agree with you 100% on Lily – lovely but done to death. And Liliana, Lillianah, Lilyanna just crazes me. When you compare the stale Lily to the fresh Poppy – it sounds like quite the viable option.
I like Uzi. It makes me think of The Royal Tenenbaums. Ari and Uzi are a great sib set, eh?
I saw a birth announcement for a Lillielle Jaidyn Maryssa a couple of days ago. It simply boggles the mind!
I forgot about Uzi and Ari, LOL!
As for Miss Lillielle Jaidyn Maryssa – goodness, they packed every questionable naming trend onto one birth announcement, didn’t they? Well – she could’ve been called Lillielle Jaidyn Maryssa Destynii Savana, which would toss in misspelled noun names and place names, too. Wonder if they ran out of space on the form.
I must admit, I am crazy about Poppy. Perhaps as a middle name or a nickname, but the triple P power and that orange-red color, not to mention that the poppies were in bloom in Provence when I was there, drives me wild. A little too wild, perhaps. The opium and heroine reference is not a great one, and I think a pre-teen could get terribly teased, so I too pause on this one.
Poppy is rated #28 in England for 2007.
~Elisabeth
http://www.youcantcallitit.com
I’m amazed that Poppy is not in the US top 1000 names because as Elisabeth noted, the name is incredibly popular in the UK. A friend of mine recently named her daughter Poppy as she was born on the aforementioned ‘Poppy’ day but I have to say that despite the obvious associations of this, I have never once linked the name to death (nor opium). It’s funny how people ascribe to a name such different connotations. For example – to me Holly is the least favourable of this name type as I cannot escape the image of a prickly, drab, winter plant.
The way I see it, (in the UK) Poppy like Daisy and Lily was seen as a natural, hippy cool, simple yet daring name to give your daughter 10-20 years ago but now seems a little ‘done’ and far too mainstream to be cool. To prove my point, the birth annoucement page in my local rag contained no less than 4 Lilys this week!
However, to my mind, the fatal flaw of these names is not their over-popularity but the ‘flimsiness’ that was mentioned above. Punchy, sweet and feminine they may well be, but they remain nicknames and can never transcend that status. For that reason, I adore your idea of using Poppy as a nickname for Penelope as much as I love the idea of Milly as nickname for the infinately more ‘proper’ Millicent….
Poppy may be set to spike on our shores, then – so often looking at the Top 50 in the UK is a good way to guess the next hot names in the US. You’re just a bit more fashion-forward than we are in this regard.
As for Lily – sigh. Add up the variants making the Top 1000 in the US in 2007 – Liliana, Lilianna, Lilliana, Lillianna, Lilyana, Lilian, Lillian, Lilia, Lily, Lilly and Lillie – there were 22,005 baby girls given this name. That makes it a Top Ten pick.
We’re living in a Garden of Girls these days.
I absolutely adore Poppy. I may be biased, as it is my eldest’s middle name [Matilda Poppy Rae], but I love her zest and the reoccurring P sound is so enchanting to me!
Matilda Poppy Rae – that’s a GORGEOUS combo! And in the middle spot, it’s an unexpected shot, so the issue of whether or not a Poppy can be taken seriously as, say, a brain surgeon, is nicely sidestepped.
I have a real affection for names that end in y in the middle spot. Not sure why – and we actually haven’t gone that route – but I love them!
Hi.
I am a 20 year old (girl) from Sweden, my name is Lillielle.
In sweden there are only two people named Lillielle, and I would love to se more have my beautiful name. Do you know anyone named Lillielle? would like to know
kramar “Lillan”
I can explain the connection between Margaret and Daisy. The name Margaret comes from margarita, the Greek word for daisy. So there you go.