My daughter and I settled in to watch Cheaper by the Dozen – the original movie about a big family from 1950 – the other night. In one of the early scenes, the dozen Gilbreth children assemble and give their names.
My daughter immediately shouted, “Wait, mommy, go back! I need to hear all of their names!”
Yup. That’s my kiddo. Name obsession kicks in early, right?
Just in case you’ve never caught the movie, here are the twelve Gilbreth kids’ names: Anne, Mary, Ernestine, Martha, Frank Jr., William, Lillian, Frederick, Daniel, John, Robert, and Jane. I believe those were the same names used in the movie, though John was Jack and Lillian answered to Lillie.
Then there’s the 2003 movie starring Steve Martin as the patriarch of a big family. The movies are only thinly related. Just for fun, in that movie the twelve children were called Nora, Charlie, Lorraine, Henry, Sarah, Jake, Mark, Jessica, Kim, Mike, Kyle, and Nigel.
On to the name news:
- This is a beautiful quote: A name might seem “awkward” to me at first, but if I take the time to learn about the name’s meaning and what it means to the family, chances are I will see the beauty in it.
- Alma, Ida, Alfred and the rest of the Danish Top Ten.
- And, of course, the new UK stats are out! Here’s the Telegraph’s story, and Elea’s thoughtful analysis.
- One more from England: is gangster chic the new trend? Mainstream newspapers tend to get these things wrong … so I’m assuming this one isn’t quite right, but I’d love to hear from British readers.
- Swooning over Bernadette Clover.
- Do you think Luella could be big? It’s one of the names of the month at The Art of Naming!
- Thanks to more recommendations than I can count, Stranger Things has moved to the top of my Netflix queue. Well, lots of recommendations and the promise that there’s a girl named Eleven, nickname Elle. There are some minor spoilers in this post at The Well Informed Namer, but also a good look at the inventive crop of names in this new series. Interesting, Clare at Name News brought up Elliven – Neville backwards!
- Oh, Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources, how I do adore the research you do! Their latest? Some possible insights into why medieval parents chose the names they chose. Looking forward to this month’s topic!
- Let’s end with this one: Duana wrestles with the question of formal names for Coco and comes up with some fabulous ideas!
That’s all for this week! As always, thank you for reading – and have a great week!
I just met a baby Luella last weekend!