When I was pregnant with my now 3 year old son, I knew from the day the stick turned pink that he was a boy. Finding a name for him was just as simple for me, but getting my husband to agree was a little bit of a different story …

Rewind about 10 years (I was barely a teenager) when I read a book in which I completely fell in love with the main character, Prince Nikolai, who went by Nick. I decided that when I had a son someday I would name him Nicholas and call him Nick. I never wavered from this decision, even when I started dating a Nick at the age of 16.

When I ended up marrying the same Nick I had dated throughout high school and we started thinking about having a baby, he was completely against re-using his name for his child. I was devastated, but there was another name I had my eye on: Boston. I loved the way Boston sounded, I loved that it had a preppy feel to it, and I could see it on a little boy, a teenager, and an adult. Nick wasn’t crazy about the name Boston, so I waited until the time was right to bring it up again.

While I was pregnant, we were listening to the radio and the song “Austin” by Blake Shelton came on. … And P.S. if this is Austin, I still love you. I’m sure you’ve heard it… If you haven’t, then we just can’t be friends anymore [insert sarcasm here]. We both sang along to the song and said it was one of our favorites. Nick thought for a minute and said, “What about Austin?” I nodded my head, smiled and said, “You know… Boston is just Austin with a B.” Simple as that, and he agreed. I didn’t think it’d be that easy, but it was!

We decided early on that Boston’s middle name was going to be James, but then we made the mistake of telling people his name. My sister-in-law did not like the name Boston at all. She did everything she could to get us to change it, but we didn’t waver… until she said she’d just call him BJ because she absolutely refused to call him Boston. I fixed that. We changed his middle name. With a few bats of the eyelashes and a “pretty please,” my husband agreed to give his name as his son’s middle name. (Okay… so it took a lot more than that – We considered everything from James Boston to Boston Matthew before he finally agreed to Nicholas).

Everyone thinks that Boston’s middle name is for his father, but I know better. His middle name has a double meaning for my childhood literary-love!

Chantal, thank you so very much!  Better still, Chantal has promised to share the story of her daughter’s name, too.

Florida exhibit from the World's Fair 1964; Image by karen horton via Flickr

She’s a place name associated with beaches, oranges, cartoon mice, and Spring Break.

Thanks to Kathleen for suggesting Florida as our Baby Name of the Day.

Despite the images she conjures, Florida properly belongs in the company of pan-botanicals like Flora, Florence, and Fleur.

Juan Ponce de Leon landed on the state’s shores in 1513 and immediately dubbed his discovery Florida – flowery land.  De Leon landed during Easter, and there’s a tie to the holiday, too – pascua florida is a Spanish phrase to refer to the Easter season.

If you’re not from the US, you might point out – and rightly so – that there’s more than one Florida, especially in the Spanish-speaking world.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a gentle literary link, too – grupo Florida was a gathering of South American literary leaders.  They met in Buenos Aires, at a cafe on Florida Street, in the 1920s.  This lends a romantic air to the name, as Argentine politics would soon turn repressive.

Back to the US.  Florida charted just about every year from 1880 into the 1930s, suggesting that the name carried the kind of exotic place name status that we might attach to Avalon or Catalina today.

From 1880 into 1930s, Florida was among the Top 1000 given names for girls in the US.  That tracks with the most famous bearer of the name – a fictional television character.

When Florida first appeared on television, she was a housekeeper on the sitcom Maude.  Actress Esther Rolle was soon promoted to the lead character in Good Times.  While her name was still Florida, many of the other details of her life were changed.  Florida and family – husband James, sons J.J. and Michael, and daughter Thelma, lived in the Chicago projects.  (The footage implied that it was the infamous Cabrini-Green housing project, but it was never explicitly stated.)  The show was famous for many things, including son J.J.’s tagline: Dy-no-mite!  Rolle’s character was admirable, but she was definitely a matriarch – not the kind of character likely to inspire parents.

Still, that’s not why Florida fell.  Could it be that the real estate bust tarnished the name?  Florida boomed in the 1920s.  A real estate speculator even put a huge billboard in Times Square announcing “It’s June in Miami.”  By 1925, the party was over and it would be decades before some parts of the state recovered.

Today Florida does conjure up some amazing places – think of Key West or Miami.  Florida appears in the name of several types of trees – there’s a Florida Yew, a Florida Maple, a Florida Royal Palm, a boxwood, and a buttonwood, and many more.  If you’ve ever been off the beaten path, the state’s natural beauty is undeniable.

Today, Good Times is unfamiliar to the next generation of parents, and place names like Georgia and Carolina are mainstream.  Even Orlando, the town dominated by Disney World, has reclaimed some of his swashbuckling style.

Florida can share the nicknames used by other Flor- options: Florrie, Flossie, even Flo.  She’d be an undeniably unusual choice, but somehow, the more I think about her, she’s not so different than Savannah or Brooklyn.  If you’re looking for a daring but familiar choice for a daughter, Florida might be one to consider.

Image via Wikipedia

She’s a spiritual place name and a mobster’s missus.

Thanks to Brieta for suggesting her daughter’s name as our Baby Name of the Day: Carmela.

From 1999 to 2007, the world tuned in to HBO to see what would happened to conflicted mob boss Tony Soprano and his family – kids Meadow and A.J., plus wife, Carmela.

Carmela knew how Tony brought home the bacon, and while she put up a good front, she found some of her husband’s dealings troubling.  Their marriage was also strained by Tony’s philandering, though at the end of the series, it looked like those two crazy kids were going to work it out.

Even without the series, Carmela reads Italian-American matriarch.  The name peaked in the 1920s, and last charted in the US Top 1000 in 1976.  She’s not gone – 93 newborns received the name in 2010, plus another 193 girls were called Carmella.

Some of those little misses are Spanish, too – the folk song “Ay, Carmela” is tied to the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, but dates back even farther – and continues to be used in reference to the era.

In Hebrew, karmel means garden.  The name was given to a mountain in Israel.  Today Mount Carmel can refer to an entire mountain range, starting at the Mediterranean and stretching 24 miles inland.  The city of Haifa is located on its slope today.  Carmel appears in the Old Testament, and there’s evidence that the area has been inhabited for roughly 2.5 million years.

Long before the advent of Christianity, ancient historians suggest that there were altars on the mountain.  The story of the prophet Elijah is wrapped up with Mount Carmel.  The story goes that he had a showdown with the prophets of competing god Ba’al on the mountainside.  Elijah was able to call down holy fire to ignite his altar, while the others failed.

Fast forward to the twelfth century, when a Crusader inspired by vision of Elijah became a hermit on the mountain.  Saint Bertold gathered a following, a small community eventually known as the Carmelites.  Distinguished members include:

• Titus Brandsma, a Dutch priest who spoke out against the Nazis and died at Auschwitz;
• Christian convert Edith Stein did the same;
• Saint Therese of Lisieux was also a Carmelite.

Because the order is especially devoted to Mary, one of her many styles is “Our Lady of Mount Carmel.”  Carmela sounds as Catholic as other Marian appellations, from Assumpta to Lourdes.

But just like Lourdes has some currency apart from her religious meaning, Carmel conjures up other things.  California’s Carmel-by-the-Sea has been an artists’ colony since the early twentieth century, with notable residents from Sinclair Lewis to Clint Eastwood.

While there’s no connection between the word caramel and Carmela, the similar sound lends a certain sweetness to the name.

Masculine form Carmelo has fared well in recent years, but that’s almost certainly due to the popularity of hoop star Carmelo Anthony.

Overall, Carmela is an interesting case.  She reminds me of Carlotta or Loretta.  They’re not quite vintage revivals, nor are they clunky hipster choices like Opal or Trudie.  Instead, she’s almost a 1950s throwback, the kind of name you expect to see on a beauty queen with a bouffant.  She can blend in as Carrie, Callie, or Cammie - or she can stand out, an unusual appellation with deep and meaningful roots.

William Penn statue atop City Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Image via Wikipedia

He’s the keystone state, an appealing young actor, and a dark comic genius.

Thanks to Danielle for suggesting Penn as our Baby Name of the Day.

William Penn was the son of an admiral, also named William Penn.  But it is the son we in the US remember, thanks to the state that bears his name – Pennsylvania – though technically it is named for his dad.

Penn’s legacy was greater than just a place name.  Pennsylvania was established with religious tolerance in mind.  The democratic principles he used to structure the colony’s governance would inform the US Constitution.  Penn was also known for treating the Native Americans more fairly than was customary for his day.  And then there’s Philadelphia, city of brotherly love and cheese steaks.  His statue, pictured above, tops City Hall and the Philly skyline.

The Penn family flourished in the new world and a few intriguing names appear on their tree, like Springett and Letitia.  But the surname itself has fairly humble roots.  It could come from:

• The Welsh word for head, which makes sense given the family’s – and the colony’s – ties to Wales;
• A Celtic word borrowed into Old English that meant hill;
• Possibly an occupational name for someone who kept sheep in a pen.

Other notable Penns include Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, as well as his talented family.  Actor/White House staffer Kal Penn is another, but he was born Kalpen Modi.  Writer Robert Penn Warren’s mom was born Anna Penn, from the Penn family of Virginia.

Atlas in front of Rockefeller Center; Image via Wikipedia

Boys are named Orion and Jove, Egypt and Dakota.  Why not this mythological moniker that conjures up maps?

Thanks to Sinead for suggesting Atlas as our Baby Name of the Day.

Atlas could, of course, strike some as an appealing word name, almost a modern virtue choice, akin to Journey.  But there’s so much more here.

Atlas is usually depicted holding a sphere, and sometimes even a globe.  But Atlas doesn’t hold up the Earth.  Instead, he separates the heavens from the mortal realm, turning the skies and making the stars revolve.

In some tellings, Atlas was given his task as punishment.  He’s one of the Titans – an earlier generation of immortals, the aunts and uncles and parents of Zeus and company.  There was much inter-generational strife, and some say Atlas hefted his burden only after the Titans lost.  Other sources consider it more of a role Atlas was born to, or even an honor.  Regardless of how Atlas got the gig, it could be boring.  He once tricked Herakles into holding the heavens for him, but Herakles managed to shift the task back to the Titan.  In some tellings, Atlas is the Atlas Mountains of Northern African, turned to stone by Perseus wielding Medusa’s head.

The Atlas that springs to my mind is not ancient, but Art Deco.  He’s Lee Lawrie’s  bronze sculpture at Rockefeller Center, installed in 1937.

He’s come to symbolize a kind of capable strength, but his meaning may – or may not – match up:

• One theory suggests that his name is derived from a Greek word for endurance;
• Virgil took the same information – the verb tlao, to endure – and suggested that the prefix a meant the opposite – not enduring;
• Other theories link it to the root tel – support, or thalassa – sea.  Thalassa is from a Mediterranean language that pre-dates the Greeks – fitting, perhaps for a Titan.

Regardless of his origins, Atlas did lend his name to the Atlantic Ocean – the sea of Atlas.  In the 1570s, Antonio Lafreri – a powerhouse in map-printing of his day – referred to Atlas on the title page of a collection.  But it was the Flemish-born innovator Gerardus Mercator who gets credit for first referring to the book itself as an atlas.  The fact that an atlas contains maps of the earth, probably adds to our confusion about what, exactly, the god is holding aloft.

Depending on your philosophical leanings, there’s Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged – though none of the characters wear the name.  Today’s generation of parents might also think of Atlas and hear certain hard rock hits from the late 1980s.  Van Halen put Atlas on the cover of their 1986 smash hit album 5150.

But the parents who put Atlas on the baby naming map were actors Anne Heche and James Tupper.  God and goddess names are a trend, with plenty of Hollywood kids answering to these exotic appellations.  Anne’s firstborn also has a name that nods towards antiquity – Homer.

Back in the nineteenth century, Atlas peeked into the US Top 1000 twice, but he’s been gone since.  99 boys received the name last year, though, so perhaps Atlas is not so much of a burden anymore.  He strikes me as a choice that is unusual, nicely wearable, and, unlike some mythological picks, free of negative associations.  As a name for a son, Atlas holds up.

Santa Catalina Island, California; Image via Wikipedia

She’s a spin on the classic Katherine, and a popular island destination, too.

Thanks to Laura for suggesting Catalina as our Baby Name of the Day.

Most baby name books attribute Katherine’s origins to the Greek katharos – pure, but she might trace her roots to the goddess Hecate, or maybe  the name Aikaterine.  Katharos influenced her spelling, and over the years, she continued to evolve, to Katerina, Caterina, Katrina, and more.  I can’t find a single satisfying explanation for the r-to-l shift, but it occurs in several languages, hence Kathleen, Caitlin, and Catalina.

There have been plenty of saints Catherine, starting with Saint Catherine of Alexandria, the whip-smart daughter of a pagan governor.  She converted to Christianity in her teens, refused to marry, and eventually died for her faith.  Historical evidence for Catherine’s life is lacking, but her biography is strikingly similar to that of Hypatia of Alexandria, a real-life pagan scholar who was killed by a Christian mob around the era attributed to Catherine.

Nonetheless, Saint Catherine was incredibly important in the Middle Ages, and her name has been widely used ever since.

Catalina has appeared in the US Top 1000 in the 1920s and 30s, and again from 1989 to present.  She stands at #683 today.  But unlike Katelyn or Karen, Catalina hasn’t quite taken hold as an independent given name in the US.

You’re likely to see the names used interchangeably.  There’s Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, born Catalina.  My favorite quirk is in California:  Santa Catalina Island is the only place you can find a plant known as St. Catherine’s Lace, and the island was also home to St. Catherine’s Hotel.  The famous mountains that form the backdrop for the city of Tuscon, Arizona were originally referred to as both the Santa Catarina and Santa Catalina mountains, before the latter was formally adopted.

Other references include:

• When the Spanish invaded Colombia, they kidnapped a chief’s daughter from the coast to serve as guide and translator – her given name is not known, but her captors called her Catalina;
• W. Somerset Maugham’s last novel was Catalina, set in 16th century Spain;
• On My Name is Earl, Catalina was the Brazilian wife of Earl’s little brother Randy;
• Catalina Moreno scored an Oscar nomination for her role in 2004′s Maria Full of Grace.

Australian disc jockey Jackie O named her new daughter Catalina Mae last year, but calls her Kitty.  While we’re on a world tour, Catalina is in the Top Ten in Chile, and popular in Argentina, too.

But my first association isn’t any of those things – it is the island, pictured above, and the Four Preps’ hit 1958 song, “26 Miles.”

26 miles refers to the distance from Los Angeles to Santa Catalina Island.  The island has oodles of history, and in the 1920s the S.S. Catalina began ferrying pleasure-seekers from L.A.  Service continued into the 1970s, with a brief break for World War II.  Spanish explorers reached the island as early as 1542, but it was a later group that landed in 1602 that gave the island its current name.  Catalina picks up some Hollywood glam thanks to her proximity to L.A. – and popularity as a backdrop for hundreds of movies and television shows.

With all of this history, it is hard to imagine why Catalina hasn’t taken hold.  She shares plenty of attributes with popular picks like Alexandra and Gabriella – elaborately feminine, but without sacrificing any strength.  If you’re looking for an alternative to those Top 100 appellations, Catalina is one to consider.

Waldorf=Astoria Hotel; Image via Wikipedia

Babies are named Brooklyn.  Why not this pretty place name also borrowed from the Big Apple?

Thanks to Virginia for suggesting Astoria as our Baby Name of the Day.

John Jacob Astor came to the United States from Germany by way of England in 1784.  He became a fur trader, and with the assistance of his shrewd wife Sarah, the Astors quickly amassed a fortune.  They expanded their business, and eventually invested in Manhattan real estate.

You’d expect to find his name dotting the New York landscape.  But his investment in Hallett’s Cove – a vacation retreat for the well-to-do on Queens – was modest, barely enough to justify renaming the place Astoria.  And yet the residents did rename their settlement for America’s richest man.  Apparently, he never even visited.

Today Astoria is a fascinating, vibrant, and diverse place, but it is not exactly upscale.  Steinway made some of their first pianos there.  It is home to the Museum of the Moving Image, a tribute to Astoria’s roots as a center of the American film industry, pre-Hollywood.  Valentino and the Marx Brothers made movies on 36th Street.

The luxury link isn’t completely gone from this name, of course.  The Waldorf=Astoria persists, a grand hotel dating to the 1890s, initially developed by two Astor descendants, with plenty of tangles and family intrigue behind the construction.

A few other Astorias dot the map, including a town in Oregon considered the oldest US settlement west of the Rocky Mountains.  Originally established as Fort Astoria by members of the Pacific Fur Company, the place name was inspired by company owner John Jacob Astor.

So where did the surname come from?  Apparently, in Occitan – a medieval Romance language that developed near the borders of France, Spain, and Italy – astor means hawk, specifically a goshawk.  Confirming this has been tricky – Occitan doesn’t have one standard form.  But Astor’s family was from Savoy, part of the area where Occitan and associated dialects flourished.  His family ended up in Germany thanks to their religious convictions – they were part of a movement called the Waldensians after twelfth century founder Peter Waldo.  Persecution made them mobile – and made America a very welcoming home for the ambitious John Jacob Astor.

A few figures have worn the name in recent years:

• Muppet judge Waldorf has a sometimes-seen wife called Astoria;
• Terry Pratchett gave the name to his Ephebian goddess of love in his Discworld universe;
• At the end of the Harry Potter series, we see that a grown-up Draco Malfoy has married Astoria Greengrass.

Astoria sounds like popular girls’ choices Amelia and Olivia.  Plus she is sometimes suggested as a formal name for Story, sort of like the Rory/Aurora connection.  There’s no etymological link whatsoever, but the sounds make it an option.  Tori is another possibility.  Another bonus: Astoria sounds like she could be a vintage antique, but she’s actually a relatively modern invention.

It’s an unconventional choice, but with Astoria’s pretty, current sound she’s an option for parents who love feminine choices, but want something truly unusual, too.

Image via Wikipedia

Note: This is a special Saturday Baby Name of the Day for an expectant mama!

There’s the actor.  The aircraft.  And yet has this Scottish heritage choice lost his dash?

Thanks to Bridy for suggesting a family name she’s considering for her baby on the way.  Our Baby Name of the Day is Douglas.

Douglas begins on the map, the name of a river derived from the Gaelic dubh – dark and glas – stream.  The river gave its name to a nearby village, and the village shared its name with a castle.  The castle was the stronghold of the Earls of Douglas, once Scotland’s most powerful family, the heads of Clan Douglas.

Legend has it that the clan was founded by an eighth century knight named Sholto Douglas, the hero of a decisive battle.  There’s not much in the way of historical evidence for Sholto, though family members have used the name since.  The first Douglas on record as a landholder appears in the twelfth century.  Early leaders fought alongside William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, rising to prominence over the years.  By the 1400s, they were such a big deal that it became rather hazardous to be the top of the family – if you didn’t die in battle, there was a decent chance others would conspire to send you to your death.

It’s no wonder that the family’s name filtered into use as a given name, too.  Douglass is a valid variant, and the first female Douglas appears in the history books in the 1540s, an English noblewoman likely named after her godmother, a member of the powerful Scottish family.

It is impossible to list all of the notable bearers of the name, but a few highlights include:

• Explorer Douglas Mawson reached the South Pole in the Antarctic in 1909;
• Douglas Douglas-Hamilton, the 14th Duke of Hamilton.  The well-born double Douglas distinguished himself as a member of the Royal Air Force, taking part in the first flight over Mount Everest and organizing the air defenses of Scotland during World War II;
• Actor Douglas Fairbanks played Zorro and Robin Hood, and with wife Mary Pickford, was part of the original Hollywood super couple.  (The name of their legendary Hollywood estate, Pickfair, presages smooshes like Brangelina by nearly a century.)  Fairbanks also co-founded United Artists and the Motion Picture Academy.  He and wife Mary were the first pair to ever put their handprints in cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater;
• General Douglas MacArthur remains one of the most decorated military leaders in US history;
• Writers like Douglas Adams and Douglas Coupland take the name in a creative direction.

If that’s not enough history, there name is wrapped up with the entire aeronautics industry.  In 1921, Donald Douglas, Jr. founded the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1921.  Four of their planes were the first aircraft to circumnavigate the world by air in 1924.  Chances are good that you’ve flown in a DC-9 or DC-10.  The company merged with McDonnell Douglas and then Boeing, taking the name out of the skies.

Despite all of this history, Douglas is falling fast these days.  From 1929 through 1989, he was a Top 100 staple, reaching as high as #23 in 1942.  Today he comes in at just #485.  You might have an Uncle Doug, but odds are you don’t know many little bitsy Dougs.

But could Douglas be revived?  Boys today answer to Daniel and William, not Danny and Bill.  While Doug feels dated, Douglas seems to retain much of his daring past, combined with a certain surname style.  If you’re looking for a classic Scottish option that is instantly familiar, but relatively underused, Douglas could be a surprisingly fresh choice.

Bethany; Image by See The Holy Land via Flickr

She’s a Biblical village, and a reality superstar.

Thanks to Clio for suggesting Bethany as our Baby Name of the Day.

Bethany appears in the New Testament, first as the home of Mary and Martha.  You might recall that Mary of Bethany sat and listened to Jesus’ teachings while her sister Martha bustled about.)  Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead in Bethany.  And, according to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus ascended into heaven from an earthly spot – in Bethany.  It’s an awful lot of action for a Jerusalem ‘burb.

There’s a second place, a village on the Jordan River, sometimes called Bethany in the New Testament, too.

With all of this significance, no wonder scholars have been eager to unpack Bethany’s origins.  There’s general consensus that her first syllable – bet – means “house of” in Hebrew and Aramaic.  A few theories for the second syllable include:

• Hini – figs.  House of figs is the preferred definition in many a baby name book;
• Ananiah – the name of another town outside of Jerusalem, possibly related to a feminine given name;
• Anya – poverty.  The Biblical village was the site of a large almshouse for the poor, and Jesus cured Simon the Leper in Bethany.  While this may not be the most appealing option, it is the one that most scholars agree is likely accurate.

You can find Bethany on the map throughout the US.  There’s Delaware’s Bethany Beach; Connecticut’s Bethany, just outside of New Haven; and a pair of colleges, one in West Virginia, one in Kansas.

Odds are that some parents embraced Bethany for her status as a place name, but many more parents simply liked her sound.  She first appears in the US Top 1000 in 1949.  Bethany climbed steadily until she peaked at #87 in 1987.  She reached even greater heights elsewhere in the English-speaking world.  She’s been sliding ever since, reaching #369 in 2010.

It’s easy to see why she caught on in the 1980s:

• Another three-syllable, starts-with-B, ends-in-y, girl’s name with a geographic bent entered the US Top Ten in 1986 – Brittany;
• Bethany’s first syllable links her to the evergreen Elizabeth;
• While the connection is less obvious, Bethany also contains the classic Ann or Annie as a nickname option;
• As an independent given name, Beth had a good run in the 1960s, with a spike in 1977 thanks to Kiss’ power ballad of the same name.

Bethany is still around.  Reality star turned SkinnyGirl entrepreneur Bethenny Frankel is one of the most famous bearers of the name, and she has a show about raising daughter Bryn – and fitting into a size 4 less than a month postpartum.  There’s also actress Bethany Joy Galeotti, known as Haley on One Tree Hill.

All of this makes Bethany feel a little bit dated – more of a mom name than an obvious choice for a newborn baby girl.  Fresher alternatives could be Hollywood surname Bettany, Belle-inspired surname option Bellamy, or even three-syllable noun names with a vaguely spiritual bent, like Harmony or Amity.

And yet she’s not impossibly faded, and her Biblical status and sound-a-like qualities to so many classic girls’ picks give her some staying power.  You won’t meet many little girls called Bethany these days, but that could make her a good option for parents seeking the familiar, but not too common.

Boston Skyline; Image via Wikipedia

Montana, Brooklyn, London.  Is it a kindergarten roster or an atlas?  Oh wait, Atlas is in the class, too …

Thanks to Chantal for suggesting her son’s name as our Baby Name of the Day: Boston.

Boston is a big city, and its place in American history is tough to overestimate.

But it wasn’t always so.  Once Boston was a dot, originally called Shawmut by the Algonquins.  The Puritans arrived there after two unsuccessful attempts to establish settlements elsewhere in the New World.  William Blackstone beat them there by about seven years, so the area wasn’t completely uncharted on their arrival.

Boston flourished, and it has remained the center of New England ever since.  Benjamin Franklin was born there; the Declaration of Independence was first read from the steps of Boston’s Old State House.  It’s the home of Harvard and the Kennedy clan.  And then there’s the time they dumped the tea in the harbor …

But our Beantown isn’t the only Boston.  It’s not even the first.  That honor belongs to a town on England’s east coast.  Visit Boston in Lincolnshire and you’ll inevitably see St. Botolph’s Church.  The church’s tower makes it the tallest parish church in all of England.

There’s good reason for the towering tower.  Botolph – or Botwulf or Botulf – likely lived in the seventh century.  Travel was perilous under the best of circumstances.  Botolph is the patron saint of travelers; it is believed that the tower would’ve been lit by night, and was certainly a useful landmark by day.  Four London churches, all near gates in the City walls, were dedicated to St. Botolph.  Some of them are still standing, though they’re now all well within the City limits.

The name Botolph attached to the town where he founded a monastery, and over the years Botolph’s town contracted to Boston.  The saint’s name remains present in Boston, Massachusetts, home to the elite St. Botolph’s Club, as well as a street and a hotel.

Botwulf likely comes from the Germanic element wolf paired with another element, but that’s subject to debate.  It’s also possible that more than one Bo- name attached to ton/town or ston/stone evolved to Boston over the years.

As a given name, Boston fits right in with choices like Mason and Landon.  There is one famous Boston – the man who shot John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln’s assassin.  Only Boston Corbett was born Thomas – and while his actions could make Boston something of hero name, Corbett was, by most accounts, none too stable himself.

Place names can be great alternatives for parents seeking the unusual-but-familiar.  Overall, Boston sounds current and on trend, but isn’t shared by too many boys – yet.  He’s been in the US Top 1000 since 2004, and ranked #545 last year.

Name your son Boston today and all of that is history.  People might think of the Red Sox, or the Celtics, and possibly the classic rock band known for their string of 1970s and 80s hits.  As long as your name isn’t Amanda, that’s not a big deal.