Sunday Summary 1.1.17I’m a little late, but nonetheless, let me offer each and every one of you best wishes for a very happy New Year!

Some things in human existence feel truly universal. One is the practice of bestowing names on our new arrivals. The process varies, and fascinates us. The names make for an endless source of stories.

The other is celebrating the possibilities of a new year ahead. Our calendars may vary, and our traditions, too, but there’s something very human about looking forward.

Both acts, of course, come down to one essential human quality: the capacity for hope.

And so however you mark the ending of the old and the coming of 2017, I wish you hope and joy and glad tidings.

My recent blogging break was mostly unplanned – in fact, I’d just started to find my groove, identified an awesome new tech support team, and was in the middle of several draft posts when …

… I got the flu.

The kind of flu that the flu shot does not prevent, which is, apparently, a thing. Except it has been so long since I had the flu that I didn’t recognize it until I was Not Functional in a way I did not realize was possible. (My doctor’s advice when I finally crawled my way into her office? “You’re going to feel like you’ve been hit by a bus for about another week.” Diagnosis correct.)

While I was on the mend – thanks to the best husband ever – there was no practical way to celebrate the holiday with my family and catch up.

So I chose the celebration this time. I missed you all terribly, and post fragments kept popping into my mind.

I’m mostly recovered, and slowly digging out of a mountain of what wasn’t done over the last few weeks. (Like our Christmas cards – yikes!) I’ll be sharing a few posts I had planned for late December this month.

Speaking of this month, the posting schedule will look like this, at least for a while:

  • Monday: List Post
  • Wednesday: Baby Name of the Day
  • Friday: Name Help
  • Sunday: The Summary!

Now, the round-up of all things onomastic:

That’s all for today! As always, thank you for reading – and have a great week!

About Abby Sandel

Whether you're naming a baby, or just all about names, you've come to the right place! Appellation Mountain is a haven for lovers of obscure gems and enduring classics alike.

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3 Comments

  1. Abby, how many languages do you know? From your summaries, I’ve read articles in French, English, and now Portuguese. I can follow, with my Spanish skills. But do you actually read/understand/know 100% what the articles say? I’m impressed!!

    1. Ha! I wish I was fluent in even one other language! Most of the time, it takes Google translate for me to really understand what an article in saying. I had a childhood fascination with languages and studied French, Spanish, Russian, and Polish over the years, so I’m pretty good at picking apart romance languages and parts of Slavic languages. My husband speaks Polish, and we have family all over Poland, so I’m usually pretty confident on Polish names – even if I don’t speak the language. I also studied some Finnish, but that’s such a different language – it rarely comes up. Gaelic eludes me, as does Arabic, so it takes me much longer to research anything in those categories, as well as anything Chinese/Japanese/Korean.

      Because I’ve read a lot of Dutch baby naming sites, I’m getting much better at understanding fragments of Dutch, and even some German. It’s funny how much you pick up just by reading. I’d love to learn some Swedish or Norwegian, or maybe pick up my Russian – though the alphabet is a serious barrier.

      Other than a few phrases, the only one I’m diligently trying to speak is Spanish, though I find that it gets jumbled with French in my head during actual conversation. I think it’s the most important, though, because the impact on baby naming in the US is massive, and not slowing down any time soon.

      But no – while I can probably say “baby names” in a dozen languages or more, I couldn’t hold a conversation in most!