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I was recently trailing a just-pregnant-enough-to-need-maternity-wear friend through the mall when I spotted a baby names book. Moth to a flame, I flipped through the pages.
And I was horrified. The definitions weren’t just wrong – there’s room to quibble about the origins of many names – they were absolutely uninformed. Cleo meant “Egyptian queen” as did Cleopatra. (Wrong.) Julie was listed as an American name, Juliet as Italian, and Juliette as French. One out of three is … pretty pathetic.
I stopped short of telling the clerk they really needed to stock Beyond Ava and Aiden. And I must say, I have a renewed sense of how hard it is for the non-name-obsessed to get good information.
Speaking of which, there was quite a lot of great conversation this week:
- All the buzz was about Girl’s Gone Child’s list of names she’s not using for their twin daughters. My favorites from her list: Season, Blythe, and Nova;
- Check out Chanara’s list of possible names for Rosy’s little sister or brother. Alice Cordelia is my favorite, but she’s not made the final cut;
- For Real spotted a Madalina – pretty, but loses something thanks to all of those little Madelines and Adalyns;
- British Baby Names has a list of families from the Edwardian era that rival the Duggars for matchiness;
- Did you see this list at Nameberry of double names? I’ve long loved Coco, Gigi, Mimi, and Lulu – and never noticed that they shared a pattern;
- What do you think of Eisley for a girl? A Swistle reader has it on her short list;
- As if Glee wasn’t enough, Cars 2 features a British secret agent car called Finn McMissile;
- While we’re looking at animated characters, Nickelodeon is about to import an Italian series about fairies at a Hogwarts-esque academy. The main character of Winx Club is called Bloom. I get a very Producers/grocery store vibe from Bloom, but I like it anyhow.
If you follow AppMtn on Facebook, you heard me shouting “Noooooo!” when David Schwimmer’s daughter’s name was announced last week. Even more strange? A New Zealand news site said this of Cleo Schwimmer: “After several weeks of bizarre celebrity baby names, it’s refreshing to find someone who has given their newborn the best chance of a normal life.”
H’okay. I’m not saying Cleo is especially weird, but it isn’t exactly Anne.
Speaking of celebrity names, Oprah inspired last week’s post at Nameberry. There’s no post here tomorrow thanks to the Memorial Day holiday, but my list at Nameberry is super-season appropriate and very much fun.
As always, thanks for reading and have a great week!
Aw thanks for giving me a shout out! My favorites at the moment are Lucy and Bonnie. I could see myself with either one
Cleo is on our long list too, I love it very much, and it’s anything but Anne! Any little Cleo would be lucky to be named Cleo 
It’s just vastly better than Apple and Coco lol.
I did the exact same thing yesterday. I was in a highstreet bookshop and decided to meander past the name books. There were about 20 there – all pretty much the same format; list of names with patchy or incorrect meanings. Most of them just seem to copy the same incorrect information from each other. How hard is it to search on behindthename? My main guide for whether the book is any good or not is to flick to my name. If it simply says “French form of Helen” I put it straight back.
My favourite ‘weird’ entry was “Dejonaise – A combination of Dijon and mayonnaise”.
From a Brit point of view I also noticed that all the books were written by American authors. Not that that is a bad thing (they did mercifully stock The Baby Name Bible) but it wasn’t obvious when picking up the book, so most Brit parents could be mislead by the books that talk about “popular” names.
It’s so hard to find good information these days…
But your blog is my favorite.
Would you consider profiling the name Enola? It’s such a mystery to me! I find myself drawn to it!
Oh you’ve raised one of my pet hates about baby name books – where they seem to have got all their information by using Google! I get so frustrated when I see baby name sites that say Juliet means “a name from Shakespeare”. It’s disgraceful that they are now publishing this tripe in book form.
Re: the Cleo comment from New Zealand – New Zealand is notorious for having an exuberant approach to baby naming. I read an article on outrageous baby names, and 7 of the 10 were from NZ; not bad for a small country! Articles on “banned baby names from Australia” such as Satan and Tallulah Does the Hula in Hawaii are often actually from New Zealand (sloppy journalism). I’m sure in New Zealand, Cleo seems very restrained, although I must say it seems like a pretty normal name to me as well.
@dotmyiis – Did you hear Enola from the middle-grade mysteries? I love those books.
I liked GGC’s list of names, some really stylish choices there. I can’t wait to find out the twins’ names – I’m so excited she said that they “go” together but don’t “match.” I hope she influences the masses!
80% of baby name books I’ve flipped through have been onomastic refuse pits. Keightlenn means “Princess battle Leprechaun” or somesuch nonsense. I hate the misinformation. It’s infuriating.
I ♥ Blythe.
I’m surprised by the Stuff news comment re: Cleo. I never expected it would be called “normal” here. It seems to get a lot of “like the magazine” comments. Or “.. Patra??? Um?”. Regardless, it’s a lovely choice.
Despite the Tallulah does the Charleston from Masterton or whatever the hell it was (and a few other outrageous examples) I think we are fairly conservative here. Too much so. I got a “That’s different” for Bonnie a month or so ago. Bonnie? It’s so very run-of-the-mill. Perhaps they meant unusual for the 2000s, I don’t know.
And Enola? Yikes.