You might not recognize Lady Gaga or Katy Perry, and you’re forgiven if you can’t tell the difference between Coldplay and Franz Ferdinand. But very few of us don’t instantly know a Beatles song. Plenty of the titles are pleasing appellations, and even more names are mentioned in their lyrics.
e61 by Too Far North via Flickr
Take the -ia from Olivia and Sophia, borrow the El- from Ella and Elizabeth, and you’ll arrive at a terribly pretty possibility for a daughter, one that just might have ancient roots.
Thanks to Cindy for suggesting her daughter’s name, Ellia as our Baby Name of the Day.
Photo by ambernectar via Flickr
It’s a classic cocktail and a medieval appellation. Would it be a possibility today?
Thanks to Findley for suggesting Pimm as our Baby Name of the Day.
Artemis was a goddess, eternally young. Today’s choice honors the huntress, but has been worn by some rather extraordinary women.
Thanks to Christina for suggesting Artemisia as our Baby Name of the Day.
I wanted to do something special in honor of four years, and here it is: a chance to win a signed copy of the all new Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Names, the book by Nook of Names’ K.M. Sheard.
The subtitle – “For Pagans, Witches, Wiccans, Druids, Heathens, Mages, Shamans & Independent Thinkers of All Sorts” – sounds a little out there at first, but there’s an important point in that list. We tend to embrace the names of the victors. Powerful cultures, those with written records that were preserved and passed down, tend to also be the sources of most of our given names. Sheard’s treatment of names like Katherine acknowledges both the dominant story – the saint, the meaning “pure” – but also delves into the murkier past.
I’ve seen books try to take a pan-cultural perspective before, but Nook succeeds where others have fallen short. She includes Native American, Celtic, Saxon, Norse, Egyptian, and Hawaiian appellations, as well as modern word names and more conventional choices. I stopped counting after I found the first dozen names that struck me as both novel and perfectly wearable – that was somewhere around the letter C.
But this give-away gets better, because not only do you get this fabulous book, it comes complete with a bookplate signed by the author.
There are three ways to enter:
The winner will be drawn at random from all eligible entries, and announced in next week’s Sunday Summary. Shipping is limited to the United States this time.
Good luck!
Photo by debaird via Flickr
First, thanks for the warm response to Aly/Alexei/Alex‘s story from yesterday. I actually drafted it more than a year ago, when we were in the midst of the whole drama. (Who knew eye-rolling sets in at the age of six?) But it didn’t really have an ending so I set it aside for a while.
Next, I’m tearing my way through The Hangman’s Daughter, which features compelling characters named Jakob, Simon, and Magdalena. The story is set in seventeenth-century Bavaria, so the names are period-appropriate – I think. Magdalena, especially, is growing on me. On paper I don’t think I would ever name a child after a fictional character, but in fact, I can completely imagine being stumped for a name and then finding one in the pages of a book.
Elsewhere in the ‘verse:
That’s all for this week, but check back tomorrow for something truly exciting!
If you’ve been reading for a while, you might know that I refer to my firstborn as Aly, short for Alexander. He’s named after his grandfather, a choice that I’ve never regretted, even if it wasn’t necessarily what I’d have chosen on my own.
But I did not love the idea of calling him Alex, and I was quietly hopeful that another nickname would stick.
