Sunday Summary: Last of 2015!

Does anyone else have a wait, no way is the year over feeling right about now? Maybe it’s the weather – a balmy 66 degrees as I write, and it was even warmer earlier today, and warmer still on Christmas Eve. Maybe it’s because we’ve had more than our share of chaos in the run-up to Christmas: a car accident that means that we’re shopping for a new-to-us car in the next week or so, and a case of stomach flu that the elves must have packed on Santa’s sleigh.

Maybe it’s just that every year, no matter how event-free or seasonally cheerful or what-have-you feels like a big year, a year with more changes than we can really wrap our heads around in a mere 365 days.

Or maybe – and I do think this is it! – it’s because there’s just so much good to contemplate in between the insurance paperwork and the extra loads of laundry. 🙂

There is a tremendous amount of joy here, in my real life, yes, but also in this little community. It’s a tremendous privilege to talk with you about all things name-related over the year, and it’s difficult to pack all of that gratitude into any one post. Thank you all for sharing your naming stories and struggles and the names of your lovely children with us, each and every day of the year.

And now, on to the name news:

• We’re catching up on all of the movies in The Avengers canon, now that our kids are (mostly) old enough to watch them. How cute is little Loki in the beginning of the Thor movie? Seeing the bad guy as a child makes me understand why parents would name their children after the villain. Maybe it’s the Anakin Skywalker effect?
• Whoa – a baby Gotham!
• There are some lovely, unexpected seasonal names in this post from Emily.
• And a perfect, seasonal Name of the Week feature from Elea.
• Do you get personalized Christmas ornaments every year? We don’t, but if we did, we’d never be able to just pick them up in a store! After seeing Alyssa’s ornaments post, I’m tempted to plan ahead and order some for next year.
• Except I’ll be too busy dreaming up names for my 25 children.
• And voting for my favorite names at Names for Real. Neither of my favorites is in the lead for Short Name of the Year, so I’ll share the link here. But won’t tell you which ones to vote for, because it would be wrong to encourage you to vote for Liv Marion and Bay Foster. Ahem.
• I agree with Duana – I could never, ever have agreed to let my husband name a child without my input, even if it meant I got to name the second child all on my own. But I know couples who make this work beautifully – and it’s the way my own parents settled their naming disagreements.
• Siblings named Ralph and Ada!
• Is my nickname addiction due to my Italian roots? Because I’m completely fascinated by the DMNES analysis of how Italians form nicknames from nicknames.
• This is a rock solid list from Kara about ways to go about finding a new name. Except that I’ll add this: even if you know the name you were given at birth isn’t meant to be your name, it can be weirdly disconcerting to change it. There are good reasons to keep some connection between your birth name and the name you adopt.
• Lastly, if you missed any of my year-end posts, here’s a quick summary. First, my Best Celebrity Baby Names 2015 are here. “Best” isn’t exactly best in the conventional sense of the word, so even if you’ve read a dozen lists like this, I hope you’ll glance at mine. Then there’s my review of 2015’s predictions and my set of predictions for 2016, and the names on my Trendwatch for 2015, as well as Trendwatch 2016. And … that’s a lot of soothsaying for one month.

On that note, I’ll sign off for tonight. Happy Sunday, and I hope you have a fabulous last week of 2015!