More than 700 of those posts are deep dives into one particular featured Name of the Day.  Here’s a quick look at what I’ve learned over the past two-going-on-three years.

1.  The more I write about names, the less significant I find their stated meanings.

I used to be very concerned about meanings.  How could anyone name a child Mallory or Tanner?  The only thing I liked about my very common – and quickly shed – first name was that Amy had a pleasant meaning, consistent from baby name book to baby name book.

But the more I’ve written, the more I realized that the assigned meanings are often open to debate.  The obvious example is Katherine – everyone might believe she means pure, but that’s folk etymology, made true by the weight of a billion baby name books.  For other names, though, pop culture and current events loom larger than the name’s stated meaning.  If you named your daughter Monica in 1995, you were asked about Friends.  (Though Monica had been in the US Top 100 for more than three decades when the show debuted.)  Three years later, it was all White House sex scandal.  Monica exited the Top 100, and continues to fall rapidly.

That’s not to say parents shouldn’t consider a name’s meaning – if it matters to you, then it matters.  But unless you’re using a straight-up noun name – Sky or Honor or Indigo – it is almost always more complicated than you might think.

2.  The Myth of the Normal Name persists and will be with us always.

We have very short memories when it comes to names, and we’re heavily influenced by our experiences.  It’s surprising to discover that Melvin and Ethel, Luther and Loretta were once perfectly ordinary choices.  (Those four are Top 100 picks from the 1920s.)  Our names (Jeffrey and Michelle, Chad and Dawn) will sound just as dated in another generation or two.  And when we’re grandparents, some of us will be asking why no one calls their kids Chloe and Austin, Elijah and Isabella anymore.

Names are governed by customs and trends, and both shift over the decades, strongly enough that what sounds normal to someone in her 50s is unthinkable to a new parent today.  And yet sometimes we’re harshly dismissive of emerging names, convinced that it’s just short of child abuse to name a boy Julian or a girl Taylor, not realizing that they’re solidly established Top 100 picks in the US.  They might not be our personal style, and that’s fine – but they’re nothing if not normal.

3.  Rules are elusive.

We want to believe that given names are fixed and unchanging, but they’re actually amazingly flexible.  Dominant spellings evolve (Sallie to Sally, Philip to Phillip).  Surnames and first names are more fluid than they appear at first glance.  Gender shifts across languages and continents.

Take spellings.  Many of us want there to be correct, etched-in-stone, though-shall-not-alter spellings.  Most of the time, it isn’t so.  There are better spellings – spellings that are familiar, that don’t require us to stop and question if the parents intended a different pronunciation for Alyzabeth, or if Zachareigh is a girl.  (I’d guess no and yes, but I’d be prepared to be wrong in both cases.)

But standardized spellings are a very recent phenomenon – much, much younger than the practice of addressing each other by a given name.  Any name with a history longer than a century or two has multiple spellings.

The same goes for the idea that surnames should never be given as first names.  An astonishing number of names have traveled from first to last and back again.  Some fall out of use, others become so common that we forget their origins.

When I first started writing, I set out to gather and explain the rules – as if no one would name her daughter Jordynne if only she understood.  1,000 posts later, I’m less certain than ever that I’m right.  And I’m quite certain that Jordynne’s mom couldn’t care less!
And here’s one more, a bonus, The Very Most Important Thing I’ve Learned Since January 2008, when I wrote my very first post.

There really is no substitute for thoughtful, engaged, and equally name-obsessed readers.  I would’ve long since grown bored with Baby Names of the Day without your challenging, intriguing suggestions.  And your comments?  I learn, I laugh, once in a while I even talk back at the monitor, forgetting that we’re not all on the playground together.

So cue the confetti – that’s all for post 1,000.

Or wait – not QUITE all.  Stand by for a Very Special Give Away – the first one ever at Appellation Mountain.  A chance to win is coming to you next Saturday, so check back.  (Well check back before then.  But next Saturday?  Definitely stop by!)

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

Plenty of ancient locations, many long gone from the map, survive as given names.  There’s Lydia and Delphine and Adrian, too.  Isaura shares her origins with these names.

Modern day Turkey was once home to a people known as the Isaurians.  They were a contentious tribe, fighting amongst themselves and terrorizing their neighbors.  In the first century BC, the Romans attempted to bring the unruly Isaurians under their control.  It took four centuries for it to take.

Or maybe it is more accurate to say that the Isaurians ultimately conquered their conquerors.  Fifth century Byzantine Emperor Zeno hailed from Isauria.  From 711 to 802, the Isaurian Dynasty ruled the Byzantines, beginning with Leo III and ending with the gory story of the ruthless Irene.

The masculine moniker Isaurus first surfaces sometime in the third century, when a martyr was beheaded in Macedonia, along with a group of early saints.

I’m not certain when the first Isaura was born, and I’ll have to guess at her pronunciation.  In my best American English, I say eye SAWR ah – not a pretty sound, sort of like “I sawr a brown cow in that there field over yonder.”  But I’m guessing the Spanish sounds more like ee SOH rah, instantly transforming her from awkward to glamorous.

And you’ll inevitably hear Isaura said with a Spanish or Portuguese pronunciation because A Escrava Isaura is an 1875 novel that’s been making waves for decades.

Bernardo Guimarães’ late nineteenth century novel tells the tale of a biracial Brazilian slave girl on a coffee plantation, from her myriad sufferings to her eventual happy ending.  The author became a star in his native country, but it wasn’t until the twentieth century that Isaura became an international sensation.

Telenovela Escrava Isaura debuted in 1976.  Viewers tuned in to watch if the noble, innocent Isaura would be forced to become her owner’s concubine, if she’d marry Melchior the dwarf to escape cruel fate, or if she’d somehow manage to marry her true love, Alvaro.

Not only was the show a hit in Brazil, but it spread throughout South America and Europe.  In the 1980s, it became the first soap opera broadcast in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.  It even aired in Africa and China.  Brazilian actress Lucélia Santos became major international star for her portrayal of Isaura.  (Though Santos would still probably wait for table at a Cracker Barrell in US.)

The original series ran through 1977.  In 2004, the telenovela was rebooted, again for Brazilian television.  Once again, it has spread well beyond Brazil, and can be seen in Europe and the Middle East.  A Spanish version has been broadcast in the US by Telemundo. This time, Isaura is played by Bianca Rinaldi.

Sharing her sounds with Isabella, it is no surprise that Isaura is starting to surface.  Nancy reports that 38 girls received the name in 2009. But I’m guessing that most of them have brothers called Diego and Santiago.  It’s not unthinkable for non-Latino parents to consider Isaura, but the sound seems more appealing if you expect to sing your lullabies en español – or at least can cite a grandparent from somewhere in Latin America.

Thanks to Joy for suggesting Baylor as Baby Name of the Day.

As Joy pointed out, Baylor is almost a smoosh of two popular surname choices: Bailey and Taylor.  If he didn’t exist, you can imagine him being created, along the lines of Rylan or Kyler.

But Baylor does exist.  Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor – usually referred to as R.E.B. Baylor – was one of three founders of Waco, Texas’ Baylor University back in 1845.  It’s far from his only achievement.  Baylor had a long career in politics in Kentucky and Alabama before moving to the Lone Star State – which was actually not yet a state on his arrival.  R.E.B. helped draft the Texas state constitution, too.

Baylor was a busy guy, and he didn’t establish the institution of higher learning that bears his name solo.  He and William Tryon initially suggested the idea at a gathering of Baptist church leaders.  Reverend Matthew Hopkins got involved shortly afterwards, taking the lead raising money for the new school.  Over the course of the nineteenth century, many changes took place – for a time, Baylor Female College operated independently.  There was a merger with Waco University.  But mostly, Baylor grew and grew and became well-established as a liberal arts college and member of the Big 12.

There are several possible sources for R.E.B.’s surname:

• Spelled Bailor, it could be an English surname related to bail, as in the money posted to temporarily spring someone from the pokey.  Bail has Latin and French roots, but ultimately relates to a word that meant something along the lines of to bear a burden;
• Bailer and Beiler are German occupational surnames for those who work with barrels;
• Böhler was bestowed upon those who came from Saxony, where more than one village was called Böhle or Böhlen.  I lost the thread there; bohl could mean bald or could be a term signifying kinship, or I could be missing it entirely;
• Some link Baylor to horses.  Bay is used to describe a chestnut brown color, via the Latin badius, originally of horses.

Logical short form Bay also adds a hint of nature name style to Baylor.  Couldn’t all those boys named River lead to a Bay?

And yet, Baylor is subject to being viewed as a nouveau coinage.  If you have Baylor on your family tree or your college diploma, he’s a meaningful choice.  Otherwise, you’d have to consider whether introducing your son as “Taylor with a B, like the university” will bother you.

If you’re up for the spelling, Baylor feels like a stronger option than some invented surnames.  He’s yet to crack the US Top 1000 and even in 2009, Bayron was slightly more popular.  But along with Baylan and Bayne, parents may discover Baylor yet.

Thanks to Kristine for suggesting Liliane as Baby Name of the Day.

Make no mistake, there are a lot of little Lilys growing up out there.  In 2009, Lily ranked #18, followed by:

• Lillian, #27
• Lilly, #117 – also common as a surname, and place name with non-floral origins
• Liliana, #120
• Lilliana, #376
• Lillie, #426
• Lilian, #436
• Lilyana, #522
• Lilianna, #739
• Lillianna, #864
• Lilyanna, #999

And that’s without counting a handful of similar-sounding choices like Lila.

Liliane has yet to make the list, and she is just a little bit different.  The pronunciation shifts from LIL ee ehn or lil EE ehn to lil ee AHN.

With more parents considering Vivienne instead of Vivian, Liliane seems like an equally logical choice.

There are two possible origins for Lily and company:

• The first, and obvious, is that she’s related to the Latin lilium – a floral name found throughout much of the world;
• Lily may also have evolved as a pet form of Elizabeth – which makes the longer names elaborations of the diminutive.

The truth is probably somewhere in between.  Not only are lilies lovely, but they’ve long between symbolic of purity and religious significance.  You can still buy Easter lilies, and go back farther and you’ll find them associated with ancient goddesses, like Hera.

There are just a handful of notable Lilianes:

• Leelee Sobieski was born Liliane, and named after a grandmother;
• The heiress who inherited the L’Oréal fortune is Liliane Bettencourt.  She’s excessively wealthy and incredibly controversial, from her politics to her personal life.

In French-speaking countries Liliane is on the outs – akin to Gertrude in the US.  But the French are madly in love with Lilou.  You’ll find Lilou listed as a pet form of Liliane (or other given names with a lee sound, like Amelie) but that’s not the whole story.

Remember The Fifth Element?  The 1997 sci fi smash cast Bruce Willis as a taxi driver who has to save the world by protecting the mysterious creature Leeloo, played by Milla Jovovich.  Director Luc Besson is French; he nabbed a César Award for Best Director for the film.

While -ou is a genuine nickname construction in parts of France, and you can find references to Lilou (and Catou and Madou) the first year it was bestowed independently?  1997, along with Leeloo and Leelou.

If you love the idea of a daughter called Lilou, then Liliane is a logical option for a formal name.  And if you’re looking for a slightly different way to get to Lily, Liliane might satisfy.

But if you just find Lillian frumpy, you’ll have to think about whether Liliane is different enough to satisfy your concerns.  Like many just-a-little-bit-different names, it can be difficult to insist on a precise pronunciation.  Other intriguing getting-to-Lily options include the Scottish Lilias or the Slavic Lilia.

Then again, if you’re going to call your little bloom Lily, Liliane seems like a fresh option for the birth certificate – formal, enduring, but still on trend.

Thanks to Elta for suggesting Langley as Baby Name of the Day.

Baby name devotees recognize -ley names as place names, usually describing a wooded area.  In Langley’s case, the lang means long, so a long wood -

There are two other possible origins:

• There’s an Old Norse feminine appellation Langlíf – long life;
• In French, l’anglais referred to an Englishman and became the surname Langlais or Langlois.

The de Langley family came from France to England with William the Conqueror, and eventually settled in Lancashire. Subsequent generations were powerful into the 1500s.  Fourteenth-century Thomas Langley served as Lord Chancellor of England.  There’s still a Langley Castle in England, and there are places bearing the name throughout the English-speaking world.

Langley could be just another aristocratic surname, but there’s the considerable legacy of Samuel Pierpont Langley to consider.  Born in Massachusetts in 1836, Langley was a scientist and aviation pioneer.  Among his many achievements, he was the Smithsonian’s third secretary, and founder of the Smithsonian Observatory at Harvard.  Langley also served as Chair of Mathematics at the United States Naval Academy.

He never did design a fully functional aircraft – though his Great Aerodome came close, after many improvements made after his death, and eleven years after the Wright Brothers’ sucess at Kitty Hawk.  But his contributions to science are considerable, and everything from the Ly – a unit of energy used to measure solar radiation – to an Air Force base are named in his honor.

In 1916, Langley Air Force Base opened near Hampton, Virginia.  It was pre-World War I.  The base is still in existence today.  Over the years, it has hosted a flying field, test course, training space, engineering labs, and served as an active part of the US’ coastal defense system.  Technically it is now known as Joint Base Langley-Eustis; it is open to the public for a huge air show every May.

With so much history, many of us link Langley and flight, giving the name an adventurous spirit.

A handful of other references include:

• Bearers of the surname are many, like Australian poet and author Eve Langley;
• In 1979 All My Children introduced con man character Langley Wallingford.  He’d adopted his posh identity after shedding the humble given name Lenny.  Langley was intent on marrying the wealthy Phoebe for her money, but they fell in love anyhow, and he was a series regular until the actor’s death in 2001;
• Fort Langley, British Columbia, figures in Canada’s history, as a former outpost of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Mariel Hemingway named her second daughter Langley in the late 1980s.  (Big sister is Dree.)  But the name failed to chart then, and still has only been used sparingly over the years.

This could be a great alternative to Avery and Delaney, Harper and Madison.   With so little use, it is safe to say that you could certainly call a son Langley, but something about the sound suggests the Langley might be among the surname choices embraced by parents for their daughters.

In the meantime, a new neighbor has arrived and her kids names?  Be still my heart: Nella and Arlo.  I haven’t actually met them (she joined a listserv for local moms) but I might hug her.

Also in the real world, the incredibly talented Brooke at Dinkypopsnomore is now mom to two!  The incredibly photogenic, more-stylish-at-3-than-I-am-at-37 Temperance is big sister to Verity Blythe.  See the post about her name here.

Elsewhere online:

• Here’s something you don’t know about me: I rarely drive.  I have a license, but we’ve arranged our lives so most of the time, our car stays parked.  And I plain like mass transit.  So Nancy’s recent post about a baby named Queenie after a bus company? That could be me;
• I understand Ever and Everly.  A kid called Eternity would not be a surprise.  But Never?  ForReal spotted one, and it just seems off;
• Did you see the great Nameberry post on TV character names? Ask a parent if she’d be willing to name a child after a TV character and you’ll often get a refusal, maybe a snicker.  But they do filter into wider use.  So get set for birth announcements reading Landry, Horatio, Brick, Remy, Cricket, and Astrid. One not on the list: Dwight, Jason Lee’s character on his new show, Memphis Blue.  Rainn Wilson’s salesman/beet farmer on The Office has put a dent in Dwight – he left the US Top 1000 in 2004 – wonder if Lee can revive him?
• The Globe and Mail has an essay by a parent who really can’t decide what to name son #3.  It’s a common struggle, but what’s particularly interesting is the drama caused by their common surname: Jones.  Nearly any popular choice has a notable bearer: George Jones, Tom Jones, and so on.  After naming firstborn son Jack they learned that Jack Jones sang The Love Boat theme song.  I always thought it was the long, unusual surnames that posed problems, but I guess it goes both ways;
• Here’s a fun list of model names from Babble columnist Ceridwen Morris.  But Nameberry did it first, and even compiled a list of super-stylish names supermodels gave to their offspring (before, we assume, slipping back into some fabulous get-up for a photo shoot with baby on hip like a designer bag.)  Yannick or Mingus, anyone?
• I haven’t checked in with the Toronto Star’s Kristin Rushowy in months.  A few recent posts: a boy called Timo Wolf, a girl named Tanys Aurora Alexandra Piia, and a cautionary tale about pronunciation issues when you name your cute Canadian kid after a Hindu goddess.

In starbaby news:

• Let’s hear it for the double palindrome power of Ava Katherine Otto, a new daughter for country singer James Otto and wife Amy;
• Actor Matt Walton – he plays Eli on One Life To Live – has an Ava, too, plus a brand new son called Greyson James.  Greyson is the new Jayden. Add up all the boys called Greyson and Grayson, plus the girls wearing a variant of sound-alike Gracen, and you have the formula for a gender-neutral, hard-to-gauge usage name that every parent thinks is uncommon.  Too bad, because I do love Gray;
• Army Wives’ Catherine Bell has a new son called Ronan, a little sister for Gemma.  That’s a nice sibset, a pair of names that are underused, but not outlandish;
• And the big news is the birth of Florence Rose Endellion, a daughter for UK Prime Minister David Cameron, his wife Samantha, and three older siblings: the late Ivan, plus Nancy, and Arthur Elwen.  For a humorous and insightful look on place names popping up on birth certificates, there’s this News & Star column. Capri and Dublin, yes.  St. Bees Flimby Pie?  Probably not;
• Lastly, the best use of Twitter for baby naming since Erykah Badu live-tweeted the birth of her third child and claimed she was calling her Twittymilk surely goes to Neil Patrick Harris’ twins teaser. That’s an instant sibset I can’t wait to learn.

As always, thanks for reading!

Inspired by British PM David Cameron’s new daughter, our Baby Name of the Day is Endellion.

The littlest Cameron is actually named Florence Rose Endellion.  There’s very little chatter about her botanical first name and first middle – both fairly common in the UK and familiar throughout the English-speaking world.

But Endellion is quite the rarity, and almost certainly would never have appeared on the new baby’s birth certificate, except that Samantha Cameron unexpectedly delivered while on a pre-baby holiday in Cornwall.

If obscure saints are your thing, Cornwall is home base.  Starting in the fifth century, missionaries from Ireland and Wales came to the isolated peninsula at the south-western end of Great Britain, a place so distant the Romans barely made it there.

Historical evidence for many local saints becomes problematic.  St. Brychan is listed as the father of perhaps as many as two dozen children – all of whom are listed as saints themselves, many with villages named in their memory.  One of Brychan’s daughters wore the name Endellion.

The Camerons babymoon took them to the area near St. Endellion, also known as Sen Endelyn in Cornish.  You may have heard of the music festivals that have taken place in the area for decades. The fifteenth-century parish church is still called St. Endellion.

Endellion appears on the catholic.org list of saints, but that’s not quite the same thing as saying there’s rock solid evidence for her life.  For hundreds of years, saints were established by local custom.  Most of the process we think of for becoming a saint was added in the twentieth century.

Her name was Latinized as Endelienta, and she also appears as Endelient, Edellienta, and Endelyon.  That last one gives a clue to one of the more common pronunciations: en DEL yon.  But I’m hearing end del EE on in British news reports of the birth.

Most accounts list her as a virgin and recluse.  The stories are more fantastic from there: she was King Arthur’s goddaughter, she subsisted only on cow’s milk.  Two wells were named in her honor.

Regardless of the saint’s backstory, the world now knows much about the tiny Cornish village.  It gives Endellion an air of mystery and rugged outdoors appeal, too.  The name lands somewhere between the tailored Allison/Madison crowd and the elaborately feminine Isabella/Olivia cluster.  While Endie doesn’t make for much of a short form, Della and Delia and the boyish Lio are options.

The name had never surfaced in the US Top 1000, is not listed on most conventional baby name websites, and her origins are obscure.  (A handful of sources give her meaning as fire or fire soul, but I couldn’t confirm the derivation.)  She sounds something like the Greek shepherd of myth, oft-borrowed by poets and a Mardi Gras krewe, Endymion – but there’s no connection.

Congratulations to the Camerons.  I believe we owe them our thanks for introducing an obscure gem into circulation once more!

Please check out the polished-up version of Orion here.

Maybe it is because I know a Vincent and we recently discussed his unwillingness to answer to Vincenzo.  (Apparently, I wasn’t the first to suggest it.)  It’s also a family name in my very Italian family, but somehow, it isn’t one we’ve ever considered using.

In any event, he’s been updated and rebooted and here he is: Vincent, the 2010 edition.