Nico Buwalda; Image via Wikipedia

Today’s pick is a fascinating gender neutral name with a certain sparky, international vibe.

Thanks to Findley for suggesting Nico as our Baby Name of the Day.

Originally, Nico is a Dutch version of Nicholas.  Or maybe he’s related to Nicodemus, a separate name with the same meaning, or Dominic, a saintly appellation.  Regardless, Nico is a logical short form of any name containing the nic sound – as is Nick or Nicky – and he’s also heard in German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and other European languages.

Nicholas was a wildly popular fourth century saint whose name has seen steady use over the years.  Royals and popes have answered to the name.

There are bunches of early 20th century Nicos, guys like Nico Buwalda, the Dutch footballer pictured above, or Italian crooner Nico Fidenco.  Over the course of the twentieth century, we find more and more Nicos.

Some of it may simply be better recording of personal biographies.  That’s how we know, for example, that youngest Llewelyn-Davies brother Nicholas answered to Nico.  (Along with George, John, Peter, and Michael, the brothers and their family were friends of J.M. Barrie, and the inspiration for Peter Pan.)

Llewelyn-Davis is the first English Nico I find.  But then, despite Nicholas’ steady use, he wasn’t wildly popular in English until recent decades.  In 1900, Nicholas ranked #200.  Feminine form Nicole is even more of a new arrival.  She first appears in the US Top 1000 in 1942, and stayed at the fringes until the 1960s.

All of the Nick names were on top of the world in the 1980s.  In the midst of this, in 1988, Nico debuted as a boys’ name.  He reached #591 in 2010.

Nico in La Dolce Vita; Image via Wikipedia

Nico has never charted as a girls’ name, and was given to just 39 girls last year.  But she has had some use for girls, thanks to a German singer.  Born Christa Päffgen, the lingering rumor is that her stage name was borrowed from Greek director Nikos Papatakis, also nicknamed Nico.

In recent years, Nico has been catching on :

• Actress Thandie Newton has daughters called Ripley and Nico, and Nico is said to be named after singer.
• Coldplay’s Guy Berryman has a daughter called Nico, as does the lead singer of Blind Melon, the late Shannon Hoon.
• Short-lived television series Lipstick Jungle included a character named Nico, a high-powered magazine editor.
• Then there’s singer-songwriter Neko Case.  It appears to be her given name.

In Germany and Austria, Nico is big for boys, and it is also the name of a male character in the Percy Jackson series.

M by Mary Hockenbery via Flickr

Matthew was a Top Ten staple from 1974 through 2007, a Biblical boy with a long history of use.

Today parents are borrowing the Italian form for a name that’s fresher and more interesting, but every bit as enduring.  Our Baby Name of the Day is Matteo.

Call out Matteo on a Hollywood playground, and you’d expect to see little heads swivel.  In recent years:

• Colin Firth welcomed a son called Matteo in 2003, a big brother for Luca.
• Benjamin Bratt called his son Mateo Bravery in 2005, a brother for Sophia Rosalinda.
• Ricky Martin named one of his twins Matteo, a brother to Valentino in 2008.
• Tom Colicchio is the most recent member of the club, with son Mateo Lev born in 2009.  Mateo’s brothers are Dante and Luka.

Strictly speaking, the single t spelling is Spanish – and common throughout the Spanish-speaking world – while the double t is Italian, and a Top Ten choice in Italy today.  But Ricky Martin used Matteo, and Tom Colicchio opted for Mateo, so in the US, that’s not necessarily a meaningful distinction.

It is no surprise he’s so very international.  Saint Matthew was one of the twelve apostles, a witness to the Resurrection, the presumed author of the New Testament’s Gospel of Matthew.  You would expect to find a version of Matthew in every European language, and so there is – from Mads in Danish to Matvei in Russian.  Mathias and Matthias are very common, too.

But parents are embracing Matteo for another reason – his ends-in-o sound.  As boys’ names have become softer, vowel endings like Joshua and Noah have become far more common.  Ends in -o options are especially stylish, with Leo (ranked #193 in 2010) and Theo (Theodore ranked #263, with Theo at #915) at the top of the pack, followed by Milo, Marco, Arlo, and Rocco.

Factor in names popular with Spanish-speakers but very wearable in the English-speaking world, like Diego, Antonio, and Santiago, and it is easy to see Matteo’s appeal.

Mateo is more popular in the US, charting at 221 in 2010, with Matteo more than two hundred spaces back at #428.  Doubtless Mateo is boosted by Spanish-speaking parents seeking a crossover name.

But despite Matteo’s lesser use, he seems like the spelling to watch – a good choice for parents seeking a name that embraces their Italian heritage, or even just a name for parents who want something only a little bit different.  Matteo can still answer to every-guy short form Matt, but his overall sound is distinctive.

Today’s parents grew up with Matthew.  We all knew at least one, and actors like Matt Dillon, Matthew McConaughey, Matt Damon, and Matthew Broderick keep the name visible.  That’s without counting historical figures like nineteenth century sailor Commodore Matthew Perry, part of the first Western mission to Japan.

Matteo has history aplenty, too.  Matteo Visconti ruled Milan in the 1300s; in the sixteenth century, Matteo Ricci was one of the first Jesuit priests in China.   Field Marshal Mateo de Toro Zambrano, was a major figure in Chile under the Spanish Empire, and was the fledgling independent state’s first president in 1810.

Matteo bridges a gap between the familiar, boy-next-door name and a modern, international one.  He’s a great choice for parents seeking a culture-spanning name, and an equally good option for families intent on finding a not-too-familiar, but not-too-out there option for a son.

O by Too Far North via Flickr

Today’s choice has two distinct origins with similar meanings.

Thanks to mom-to-be Michelle for suggesting Orly as our Baby Name of the Day.

Let’s start with the Hebrew origin for this name.  Remember the middle name songstress Christina Aguilera gave to her son Max?  It’s Liron – Hebrew for my song.  The “li” element – my – appears in the name Orli, too.  Or- comes from the word for light.  The meaning is roughly the “light is mine.”  File this under yet another appealing Israeli option, as worn by notables like Jerusalem-born pianist/radio host Orli Shaham.  The spelling Orlie is out there, too.

But that might not be your first thought.  You might hear Orly and wonder when your flight arrives.  If you’re in Orly, you’re in the Paris ‘burbs.  Most flights in the metropolitan area head in and out of De Gaulle, of course, but a 2010 French film was set in the airport.

You’re also not too far from an ancient settlement called Aureliacum.  Roughly translated, it means Aurelius’ place.  Here’s the really fascinating part: Aurelius was, of course, a Roman family name, worn by several saints.  But the -acum is Celtic in origin, a suffix added to the Latin name.

Back to Aurelius: it came from Latin aureus – golden.  It’s not quite the same as light, but they’re in the same ballpark.  The lovely Aurelia left the US Top 1000 after the 1940s, but has attracted some attention of late.  Aurelia would fit right in with Amelia and Olivia.  The French version Aurélie has migrated into English as Oralie and Aura Lee, too.

Orly has a totally different vibe, but she feels quite current, too.  She’d fit with:

• Modern, gender-bending choices like Avery, Aubrey, and Riley;
• Brief-but-complete names like Zoe and Chloe;
• The -or sound brings to mind names like Marley, Lorelei, Carly/Carlie, Cora, and Caroline – everything from the modern to the vintage to the classic.

This next generation of parents might think of one other thing: O RLY.  If ILY is your equivalent of hearts and flowers doodled on the bottom of a notebook page, O RLY might be your version of an arched eyebrow.  If that describes you, then you might see Orly and think not of light or airports or Ancient Rome, but of the phrase “oh really.”

In that case, Orly seems an unlikely choice for a daughter.  Should you still like the sound, there’s always the similar place name Airlie, previously covered here, or the Irish Orla.

But Orly has the virtue of being that rarest of names: legitimately female, frills-free, complete in her ends-in-y form.  She’s almost a 21st century Mary - but unlike the former #1, Orly is undeniably unexpected.

Lump of Indian indigo dye; Image via Wikipedia

David Bowie met a girl called Blue Jean back in 1984, but you’re more likely to meet a child wearing this colorful appellation.

Thanks to Photoquilty for suggesting Indigo as Baby Name of the Day.

If Scarlet and Violet are acceptable given names with some history of use, why not Indigo?  The story is at least as ancient and compelling as many a nature name – maybe more.

Indigo is the blue of blue jeans, a staple so common that rare is the American who doesn’t own a pair or three.  But once upon a time, indigo was a commodity so precious it was called blue gold.  The color actually falls somewhere between blue and purple.  (It depends on your perspective – there are many ways to parse and categorize color.)  The dye is also one source of the purple color of royalty, among the few to afford garments made with the precious stuff.

The word refers to the place the Western World first encountered the hue: India.  The Greek indikon means from India; it became indicum in Latin, indico in Spanish, and eventually indigo in English, sometime in the late thirteenth century.

Derived from a family of flowering shrubs called the indigofera, it was exported to ancient Greece and Rome at great profit.  Other ancient civilizations developed similar processes.

Add it all up, and Indigo emerges as a nature name with a luxurious undercurrent.  It’s certainly more subtle than Armani or Chanel.  And yet, Indigo has an over-the-top vibe, maybe because:

• A number of fictional uses, including a 1992 retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, retitled Indigo, by Marina Warner, and a 2002 young adult novel by Alice Hoffman, plus Ntozake Shange’s 1982 Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo.  Each of the nature names in the title belongs to one of her creative characters;
• It’s been heard in Hollywood circles.  Lou Diamond Phillips gave the name to his daughter in 2007;
• Ditto Blue and Bleu, names that are almost unsurprising with bestowed as a starbaby middle.

If your daughters are Ruby and Jade, Indigo might seem like the rare color choice that could work for a son.  Despite several female references, including 1990s folk phenom The Indigo Girls, you’ll see him listed as an option for boys, too.  Indigo sounds close to the masculine name Inigo – which may be related to Ignatius, and is familiar thanks to The Princess Bride – as well as Indio, a California place name used by Robert Downey, Jr. for a son.

Indigo could also appeal to the same parents who embrace Aura.  There’s a vaguely spiritual, New Age vibe to this choice, thanks to a number of traditions linking the color to intuition and the third eye.  Some believe indigo children possess certain supernatural abilities.

For now, Indigo has never appeared in the US Top 1000 for either gender.  Nickname Indy is equally gender neutral.  Nancy tells us that there were 20 boys called Indigo in 2009, against 67 girls.  Odds are good that this isn’t a future Top Ten choice.  But if you’re interested in a gender-neutral nature name with a long history, rich with meaning, Indigo could be an option.

Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr

There’s been much buzz about the newly coined Ily, but how ’bout this one?

Thanks to Emma for suggesting Ilo as Baby Name of the Day.

Ily comes to us from an acronym.  Unlike Mad About You’s Mothers Always Bring Extra Love – the reason the couple settled on Mabel – Ily is a true creation from a phrase – I Love You, abbreviated I-L-Y when texting.  Usually pronounced like Riley without the R, Ily is catching on for daughters.  At least, Nancy’s tally indicates that 29 girls were given the name Ily in 2009.

But Ilo?  Not even one.  No boys received the name, either.  And yet, there’s a case to make that this rarity could be bestowed on a child of either gender.

Ladies first: there’s a minor Estonian goddess called Ilo.  She’s charged with feasts, and if I’m understanding her role correctly, that’s more along the lines of Dionysus than Demeter.

33rd US Vice President Henry Wallace was married to a woman named Ilo.  I can’t say if she was Estonian – most Second Ladies’ bios are woefully incomplete.  She was born in Indianola, Iowa, so her given names repeats the sounds of her birthplace.  Henry and Ilo didn’t pass the name on to any of their kids: Henry, Jean, and Robert.

A handful of other female Ilos appear in the historical record, along with a few male Ilos.  The masculine origins of this name are no easier to unravel:

• A handful of sources insist that he’s a Nigerian name meaning joy.  This sounds plausible, but I can’t confirm it;
• In any case, the surnames of nineteenth American male Ilos suggest another origin.  And for this, we look to the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sylvia Plath.

After Plath’s tragic demise, her journals and personal correspondence were collected and published. The year was 1950, and a very young Plath worked at Lookout Farm in South Natick, Massachussets.  Her description of a stolen kiss appears in her Journals:

Smiling he was between me and the door. A motion. His hand closed around my arm. And suddenly his mouth was on mine hard, vehement, his tongue darting between my lips, his arms like iron around me. “Ilo, Ilo,!” I don’t know whether I screamed or whispered, struggling to break free, my hands striking wildly, futilely against his great strength. At last he let me go, and stood back. I held my hand against my mouth, warm and bruised from his kiss. He looked at me quizzically with something like surprised amusement as he saw that I was crying, frightened. No one ever kissed me that way before, and I stood there, flooded with longing, electric, shivering.

So there he is: romantic and literary, and backed up by brief cameos in US Census records.  But I can’t confirm his origins.  My hunch is that he’s an unusual nickname for an uncommon name.

Desperate, I turned to the Baby Name Guesser, which tells us that Ilo leans female – but only just.  Other names with similar statistics to Ilo include Delta and Bellamy, Wonder and Peak.

The good news is that Ilo is probably closer to Delta and Bellamy – seldom heard, but not a shocker of a given name – than Wonder and Peak, which keep company with Apple and Pilot on the “really!?” side of the spectrum.  If you’re looking for an unusual but simple gender-neutral name that isn’t a surname choice, Ilo could be the one.

Thanks to Alta for suggesting Ornella as Baby Name of the Day.

Ornella conjures up words from ornery to ornate, but her origin is completely different.

The Italian writer Gabriele d’Annunzio invented Ornella for a character in his 1904 tragedy La Figlia di Iorio.  By 1907 it had been translated and imported to the US as The Daughter of Jorio.  It led to a not-very-successful operatic adaptation in 1906, and at least two European film versions, in 1911 and 1917.

When the play debuted stateside in 1907, the New York Times described it as “a poetic drama dealing with unpleasant things.”  That’s fairly accurate.  Bridegroom Aligi falls in love with Mila – Jorio’s daughter – before the ink is dry on his marriage certificate.  He’s just met Mila as she fled a mob of angry peasants, convinced she’s a dangerous witch.  Aligi saves her, only Aligi’s dad is smitten, too.  Things go downhill from there, and eventually Aligi kills his father and his spared from a horrible death only when Mila shows up to take the blame – and the death sentence – claiming it was witchcraft.  No one lives happily ever after.

Ornella is Aligi’s little sis, not a main character, but present in many pivotal scenes.  Ornus is the Latin for mountain ash; d’Annunzio would’ve been thinking of the Italian words orniello or ornello.  I’ve found a few men named Ornello, too.

D’Annunizo was wildly successful in the late 1890s into the 19oos, running afoul of censors and scandalizing his attentive audience.  The King of Italy made him a prince in 1924, but he’s mostly remembered as an early Fascist – and that’s not done much for his literary legacy.

The play was a big hit, and you can find Ornella in use almost immediately in Italy.  (I can’t say just how common she would’ve been, but she’s there.)

While she never ranked in the Top 1000, you can find Ornella in US Census records, too, often paired with an Italian surname.

But at least some parents thought up Ornella before d’Annunzio!

Ornella simply fit with the sounds popular at the time.  While -or has never disappeared – there was Lori in the 60s; Jordan and Morgan today – she was quite current in 1907.  Dorothy and Florence were both very popular, and Eleanor, Doris, Cora, Georgia, Marjorie, and Dora also appeared in the US Top 100.

The two most famous Italian Ornellas are:

• Pop singer Ornella Vanoni, big in the 1960s.  Her career got a boost when her 1970 single “L’Appuntamento” was used in the Oceans Twelve soundtrack;
• Actress Ornella Muti began her acting career in 1970 – but she was born Francesca.  If you’ve seen the 1980 film Flash Gordon, Muti played Princess Aura.

She’s quite unusual today, but with her -ella ending and decidedly retro vibe, she might wear just fine.  Nickname options range from Orrie to Nell to Ella, making this unusual Italian option surprisingly versatile.

Marcello has never charted in the US Top 1000, but could he follow other celeb-inspired, ends-in-o names like Harlow and Marlo into more common use?  Or is the o-craze just a phase, the next generation’s -aden?

Readers, thoughts?

Thanks to Emma for suggesting the surprisingly wearable Otto as Baby Name of the Day.

Like the very popular Hannah, Otto is a palindrome – a word spelled the same forwards and backwards.  It’s a quirky quality, but probably  not reason enough to choose the name for a son.

Otto’s status as a historic and regal appellation is probably a better reason.  Flip through the history books and you’ll find three Holy Roman Emperors from the 900s into the 1200s wearing the name, plus nineteenth century kings of Greece and Bavaria.  A twelfth century Saint Otto lived in Swabia.

Then there’s Otto von Bismarck, the man that lends Otto his Prussian military vibe.  Historians debate whether Bismarck always planned to unify Germany or if he was just taking advantage of circumstances.  Regardless, Bismarck was appointed by a king but eventually served an emperor.

As all things German fell out of favor during World Wars I and II, it is no surprise that Otto fell out of use.  But he’d been slipping for years.  In the nineteenth century, Otto appeared in the US Top 100.  He fell steadily, leaving the Top 500 in the 1940s and the Top 1000 in the 1970s.

Of course, the 1970s made Otto a punchline.  In the smash hit comedy Airplane, the autopilot blow-up doll is called Otto.  Otto, of course, can fly the plane but can’t land, requiring former fighter pilot Ted Striker to step up and save the day.  And get the girl.

As if the inflatable flyboy wasn’t enough to steer parents away from the name, there’s also the adoption of Otto the Orange as Syracuse University’s mascot in 1980.  He replaced a controversial Native American figure.

But today Otto need not be ostracized.  Yes, there’s still a whiff of German imperialism about him.  But he has much in common with starts-with-O favorites like Oliver and Oscar, as well as ends-in-o choices like Leo and Milo.  (See?  That palindrome business does matter.)

While regional accents could morph your son’s name from Otto to Auto, he’s still an interesting option.  Nameberry lists him with Antiques Ready for Restoration.  This puts him in the company of the dusty Dudley and languishing Lavinia, but also the fast-rising Adeline and Jasper.

If you’re not sure you’d consider Otto a classic along the lines of Henry or Arthur, Otto also appears on Nameberry’s Offbeat Names list, and that might be the better place for him.  The Offbeat list also includes new hipster picks like Hazel and Rufus, but also names that might take some real daring, like Pansy and Balthazar.  Tobey Maguire called his son Otis – a name that seems even more offbeat.

If I had to file Otto, I’d put him squarely in the middle of the two categories.  He’s easy to say and spell, and his roots are undeniable.  But he is definitely just outside of the mainstream.  That might make him too daring for parents who are still surprised to hear Max and Leo in heavy use.  But if you’re hoping to give your son a name he’ll never have to share, Otto is a good option.

Thanks to Jane for suggesting Orlando as Baby Name of the Day.

Back when Central Florida was still swampland, long before Walt Disney ever picked up a pencil, Orlando was the stuff of dreams.

Roland was a medieval hero, celebrated across the continent.  Appropriately enough, his name derives from the Germanic bit hrod – fame, like Roderick and Rodney. La Chanson de Roland claims he was Charlemagne’s nephew.  That’s a matter for the scholars; what’s known is that some of the events in the epic poem did take place, and contemporary accounts placed a real Roland on the scene.

The Normans imported Roland to England.  Centuries later, Shakespeare shared the Italian version, Orlando, in his comedy As You Like It.  His Orlando is in exile – and very much in love with the banished Rosalind.

But Orlando’s romantic hero status predates the Bard.  More than a century before, the Italian poet Matteo Maria Boiardo wrote “Orlando in Love.”  Handel based an opera on this version of the parfait gentil knight.

A few decades later, Ludovico Ariosto picked up the thread in “Orlando Furioso.”  Both Boiardo and Ariosto based their Orlando on the earlier Roland, but Ariosto sent his hero off to Japan, even the moon.  Plus it was Ariosto, not JK Rowling, who invented the hippogriff.  (Ariosto also coined the name Melissa for a good witch who fueled some of Orlando’s adventures.)

The name pops up over the centuries:

• Orlando Gibbons was a Tudor-era composer;
• An English nobleman wore the name in the seventeenth century, and passed it on to a son and eventually a grandson.  The last Orlando in that series faked his own death to escape creditors; he died in debtor’s prison.  Aristocratic Orlandos can be found into the twentieth century;
• In the US, Civil War officer and engineer Orlando Poe turned his talents toward designing lighthouses along the Great Lakes post-war.

Orlando takes on a very different vibe in Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography.  While her Orlando starts out male, he’s based on a woman: Vita Sackville-West, a fellow writer and Woolf’s lover.  By the novel’s end, the hero has transformed into a woman.  Tilda Swinton played the title role in the 1993 movie adaptation.

He’s a surname, too, as in pop group Tony Orlando and Dawn.

Given his romantic, gender-bending vibe, perhaps the biggest surprise about Orlando is this: he’s ranked in the US Top 1000 every year except 1896, and in the top 500 every year since 1953.  From the 1960s into the 90s, Orlando floated in the high 200s and low 300s.  He came in at #408 in 2009.

Some of that takes us to Hollywood – and Disney.  Elf prince Legolas and the orphan-turned-swashbuckler Will Turner were both capably played by actor Orlando Bloom.  Starring in two big-at-the-box-office trilogies cemented his career, but as it happened, his unusual first name didn’t need a boost.  (Incidentally, the town that Disney World dwarves was probably named after a real settler named Orlando, though accounts vary.)

There’s also Major League Baseball’s Orlando Cabrera, a shortstop currently with the Cincinnati Reds, and Hall of Famer first baseman Orlando Cepeda, plus others from the sporting world.

Just like Leonardo seemed more accessible post-di Caprio, some parents probably discovered Orlando thanks to the actor or the athletes.  But this is one extravagantly romantic name that has been in surprisingly steady use over the years.

Thanks to Urban Angel for suggesting Diego as Baby Name of the Day.

Diego is a Top 100 choice in the US, but it isn’t about Go Diego Go!, the companion series to Dora the Explorer introduced on Nickelodeon in 2005.  The name has ranked in the US Top 1000 every year since 1963, and has been in the Top 100 since 2002 – well before Diego and Baby Jaguar set off on their first animated adventure.

Instead, Diego is an impeccable classic, the Spanish form of James.  Many a James variant has been covered here, including:

• The Cornish Jago;
• The Scottish Hamish;
• The Italian Giacomo;
• The surname Jacoby.

All of the names share a common root: the Hebrew Ya’aqov.  Jacob follows logically.  James is more of a stretch, related to the Late Latin Iacomus, from the earlier Latin Iacobus.  The many saints James – including two New Testament apostles – help link Iacomus to Diego.

Santiago – currently a very fashionable pick in some South American countries – is derived from Saint James – Saint Iago.  Smoosh ‘em together, then split the name in a slightly different spot and you have Tiago, or Diago and Diego.

A famous fifteenth century Spanish saint was born Diego of Alcalá.  In the church records you’ll find him recorded as Saint Didacus, but that’s a medieval mistake.  San Diego, California was named after the saint.

From the 1600s onward, a steady stream of Spanish nobles and other notables were baptized Diego.  The name was clearly in use centuries earlier.  Early eleventh century Spanish military leader Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar is better known as El Cid.  El Cid’s papa was named Diego.  Earlier still, we find a Bishop of Oviedo, in Northern Spain, answering to Diego in the 970s.

There have been notable Diegos for generations, including:

• One of the Spanish Inquisition’s most notorious figures, Grand Inquisitor Diego Deza;
• Bishop Diego Calderón, appointed to the Yucatán in the sixteenth century.  His writings remain one of the most reliable records of a culture he helped destroy;
• Dominican friar Diego Durán was active about the same time, penning the history of the Aztecs.  He’s also remembered as being far more tolerant than many of his peers, learning the native language and gaining the confidence of the natives;
• There might have been a King Diego in the sixteenth century, had the son of Philip II of Spain survived;
• In the same century, Diego Siloe was a Spanish Renaissance architect and sculptor;
• Painter Diego Velázquez is best remembered for his portraits, including those of European royals;
• Diego Rivera was a famous muralist, painting his massive works all over North America.

Pop culture gives us two current Mexican actors wearing the name: Diego González, from the telenovela Rebelde and Diego Luna, most recently seen in Milk.

The big question is this: if you haven’t got a drop of Spanish blood, can you name your baby boy Diego?  His lively -o ending fits right in with Leo and Rocco, Hugo and Milo. If you don’t have to be Italian to name your daughter Francesca, could parents of Swedish or Japanese or Nigerian descent name a son Diego?

It’s tempting.