Tag Archives: Aurora

Sunday Summary: 4/3/11

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Number 3

Number 3 by Phil Parker via Flickr

First, a long overdue congratulations to Carolyn on the birth of Nolan Curtis, a little brother for Meredith.  Wishing you joy!

Second, I’m on Twitter.  Let’s be clear: I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing on Twitter.  If you’d like to follow me while I flail, please do.  I’m @appmtn.

Elsewhere online:

  • Thanks to British American for directing me to a thread where I found the following sibset: Aurora Dawn and Rain Storm. Only they decided Rain didn’t suit daughter #2, so she was rechristend Gwenyvere Rain.  I like Aurora and Guinevere, and even with the daffy respelling, it is a huge improvement;
  • WeeDecor’s Winter list is out. I’m intrigued by Caffrey from the boys’ list, and I’m delighted to see Liv.  Is it me, or is Emmelyn/Emmalyn/Emmeline going to be the next stealth hit;
  • Trafton?  I despair.  But other names spotted by ForReal in Pennsylvania fill me with joy: Tressa Jade, Ivy Wren, Bianca Florentina.  Then there’s Henry Swarm – let’s hope that’s a maiden name passed down after much conversation, and not a sci fi reference I’m missing;
  • There’s a great list of recent additions to the British line of succession up at Mer de Nomes.  Queen Cosima sounds lovely, doesn’t it?
  • Nancy delves into variants of the name Unique, which isn’t terribly unusual at all but makes me think of the pink-spotted Backyardigan Uniqua.  Sui Generis, on the other hand, would be a stand-out, though you’d be confused for just plain Sue;
  • Speaking of Sioux, For Real spotted a Gabriella Sioux.  Are the parents from Idaho?  Fans of Siouxie Sioux?  I wonder;
  • There’s a new book out called Bring Back Beatrice! It is a sound concept, but I think the author misses a few things.  First, she describes it as “a clarion call to break away from the pack when choosing a name.”  Great advice.  Trouble is, lots of people like Beatrice.  And Cora.  And Daphne.  It’s probably a decent sourebook if you want to be ahead of the next trend, but falls short of offering truly timeless advice.

In celebrity news:

  • Supermodel mama Eva Herzigova welcomed her second son, Philip, a little brother for George.  I think that’s the kind of slightly off-trend sibset that defies fashion;
  • 30 Rock’sElizabeth Banks welcomed a son, Felix;
  • Okay, Posh named her pooch Luna, so they’re stumped for a girl’s name.  Yawn.  I cannot believe for second that a couple who came up with Brooklyn, Romeo, and Cruz, won’t come up with an inventive name for a girl;
  • Now that Mariah’s due date is approaching fast, I’m paying more attention to suggested names for the twins.  Somehow I think they’re likely to disappoint.

Last week’s post for Nameberry was Power Girl Baby Names; tomorrow’s post is inspired by one of the names on that list – thanks to RachelMarie for the inspiration!

That’s all for this week.  As always, thank you for reading!


Sunday Summary: 9/12/10

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Let’s start a handful of picks from pop culture: first, True Blood’s werewolf Alcide.  He joined the cast in Season Three and will be back in Season Four.  If Sookie recently attracted attention, how about this romantic French spin on the Greek Alcaeus?

I’m also intrigued by Katniss, the heroine of the bestselling young adult trilogy The Hunger Games.  Her name is taken from the name of an edible plant, not just in her distopian fictional universe, but here on Earth, too.  Stephen King panned the name in a review, but I find Katniss pretty clever.  And what’s more, I can imagine Katniss catching on – she’s almost a blend of all those Kate names and the vintage, ends-in-ess choices, like Frances and Alice.

And let’s not forget TLC’s latest entry about families with lots of kids.  This one has lots of wives, too – yup, they’re profiling a polygamist family in Sister Wives.  The faces in their very crowded family portrait belong to:

  • Dad Kody;
  • First wife Meri and her daughter Mariah;
  • Second wife Janelle, and her kids Logan, Madison, Hunter, Garrison, Gabriel, and Savanah;
  • Third wife Christine and her kids Aspyn, Mykelti, Paedon, Gwenelyn, Ysabel, and baby-on-the-way Truely;
  • Fourth wife-to-be Robyn, who brings three kids to the bigger-than-Brady bunch: Dayton, Aurora, and Breanna.

It’s interesting to see that you can share everything, and still have very different taste in baby names.

Elsewhere online:

  • Speaking of family names, Laura Wattenberg’s article about A New World of Namesakes challenges readers to imagine the feminine form of today’s most popular boys’ names.  Will Connor’s granddaughter be called Connie?  Connorine?  The mind reels.  Apparently Joshlyn is already surfacing;
  • A comment in that post led to these addicting Sporcle games.  Maybe I’m a geek, but I nearly didn’t get the laundry done thanks to these;
  • Sebastiane’s post on Gregory includes a long list of feminine variants, including Jorina. Which gives me hope that we won’t be meeting girls called Connorine;
  • Spotted in Montana: Huxley.  ON A GIRL.  For Real reports a Huxley Isabella was born in Big Sky Country;
  • This one is for Claire.  During our discussion of Endellion, she wrote: “What if we dropped the ‘n’? Endellia is nice.”  Guess what popped up in the new names at Namipedia just the other day?  Wait for it – Endelia.  She may or may not stay there – Wattenberg has some criteria for determining which names can be listed – but other people are thinking the same way;
  • Check out the Class Rosters list at You Can’t Call It “It.” I was traveling for work when her post came out, so I couldn’t put my hands on our lists, but the biggest surprise I’ve heard so far?  Aly has a classmate called Ovid.  I’m not sure if I’m misunderstanding a foreign name or if he really is named after the poet.

In starbaby news, besides Winnie Cooper’s baby dragon, there’s:

Lastly, I was curious to see the upcoming Easy A for tons of reasons – it’s a spin on The Scarlet Letter, Malcolm McDowell plays the principal, the reviews have been great.  But best of all?  The heroine’s name is Olive!

That’s all for this week.  If you haven’t already, leave a comment on this post for a chance at choosing the five names to be featured the week of December 27!  Thanks for reading.

Sunday Summary: 8/29/10

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My week at the beach was spent listening for names (well, there was ice cream and sand and a giant waterslide called the Hippo) but I didn’t hear much.  There was a Veronica nicknamed Vera, but mostly it was the pleasant Top 100 assortment of Ethan, Dylan, Emma, Riley, Noah, Chloe, Caleb, Jackson, Zachary, Ellie, and the like.  I also heard a girl called Cooper and another girl named Gracen or Graycen or maybe Gracyn.  Thanks for checking out Rerun Week while I was slathering on sunscreen!

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:

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!

Baby Name of the Day: Frederica

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It’s a name so clunky it might just be cool.

Thanks to Paul for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day: Frederica.

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Sunday Summary: 2/14/10

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

Which reminds me, a new ABC series called Happy Town will premier in late April.  The character list includes a Henley.  I’m not sure about the plot or the character, but I find myself wondering: could -enley be the new -iley?  

In 2008, Project Runway contestant Kenley Collins made it to the finals.  It’s too soon to say if she’ll become a household name in fashion, but her given name debuted at #998 in the US Top 1000 in ’08.  And we just talked about Tenley, she of Olympic figure skating/The Bachelor fame.  The sound is close to gender-spanning Finley, but unlike Riley/Kylee/Mylie/Bryleigh/Skylea, I’m not sure there are as many -enley options.  (Though my husband proposed in Schenley Park …)

If you just can’t get enough reality TV, here’s one more:  Elisabeth at You Can’t Call It “It” tipped me off to my sure-to-be new addiction, 9 By Design, set to debut on Bravo in April.  The family of impossibly stylish NYC house flippers extraordinaire has seven kids, including two sets of twins.  The New Yok Post described the show as Jon & Kate Plus 8 meets Sex and the City.  Sign me up!  Oh, and the names?  Bob and Cortney Novogrtaz are parents to:

  • Wolfgang, 12;
  • Twins Bellamy and Tallulah, 11; 
  • Breaker, 9;
  • Twins Five and Holleder, 4;
  • Major, 1.

I remember them from an early issue of Cookie Magazine, back pre-baby Major when they were living in a house with a basketball court on the roof.  How many days ’til April 5?

In other news, some of you might recall that I was in the midst of a blizzard last weekend.  A family a few blocks away welcomed a baby at home on the worst day of the record-setting storm. She’s Regina, a little sister for Gregory and Gloria.  The new baby’s name full is Regina Caeli, and that’s not just some nouveau riff on Kaylee.  Regina Caeli – pronounced CHAY lee – translates to Queen of Heaven, and it is a prayer to Mary.  

Since I’ve been talking about reality stars and local celebs, let’s start with the famous folk first:

Elsewhere online:

Of all the weird social media phenomena to emerge in recent years, I’ll admit I’m most fascinated by fictional characters with blogs.  Who writes them?  Isn’t it hard to avoid revealing upcoming plot twists, or over-developing the character who blogs?  Anyhow, The Office’s Pam and Jim have a baby blog, with a recent post on baby names.  Someone thinks Michael and Scott would be great names.

I’m off to stop the kids from eating all of the candy out of their chocolate hearts before lunchtime.  Wishing you a sweet day, and thanks for reading!

Name of the Day: Zora

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On the heels of Zane, here’s another zippy Z-name.

Thanks to Laney McDonald for suggesting Zora as Name of the Day.

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Sunday Summary: 10/4/09

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As part of our Birthday Fun Weekend, we took the kids off to Build-A-Bear Workshop.  Actually, Aly built a bear dog.  There was stuffing and fluffing and convincing us that yes, his bear dog absolutely needed ice skates.  And then we got to the moment – naming the bear dog.

After several suggestions were rejected by the Builder of the Beast, including Harry and Warren, we settled on Star.  Unimaginative, I guess.  But we’d been there for a while.  And a birthday party was bearing down on the birth certificate station.

“Maybe,” my friend suggested, “he should be Starr.  Star doesn’t seem like much of a name.”

“Starr?  Really?”

“I guess it is kind of feminine.  Maybe an e at the end?”

“Stare?  How ’bout Stahr?” I replied.

And just like that, I understood precisely how we end up naming our kids Jordyn and Madalon and Carsin.  Except that a plush pet doesn’t ever have to put his name on a business card.

In other news, Nymbler released their September search names:

  • No surprises from the Top Ten favorites – Charlotte, Ava, Amelia, Audrey, Grace and Ella for girls and Jack, Finn, Benjamin and Oliver for boys;
  • As for the new Nymbler debuts?  There’s surname-with-a-twist Everleigh (chosen by Twilight’s Cam Gigandet), the feminissa Elliana, the lovely Cornish Elowen, part-goddess, part-sci fi Inara and the French Marielle.

It’s been a quiet week in celebribaby naming news, and the choices have been quite conservative, including:

As for real life kids:

  • Bewildertrix spotted a child named Eternity Amenity.  Isn’t that something offered by a funeral home?  She also spied a Jahykuhb, which seems more like an entrant in a Wacky Respelling contest than a real name;
  • This week’s Toronto Star baby is named Graydon.  The parents were following Jewish tradition, so they needed to settle on a name that started with G.  I’m hearing Graydon as yet another Aidan/Jayden/Braeden/Hayden/Caiden twist more and more;
  • I loved reading Elizabeth’s post about her Baby with No Name dilemma over at Nameberry.  Her daughters are Courtney Olive – known as Olive, Kit Aurora and Nola Belle.  Elizabeth and her husband have a truly distinctive naming style, I think – and the story of how they arrived at a name for each daughter is great fun;
  • Here’s a guess: Eleni will reappear in the US Top 1000 by 2011, if not sooner.  (She’s currently unranked.)  It’s the name bestowed by two pairs of friends – with very different styles, inclinations and backgrounds – on their newborn daughters over the past few weeks.  

My vote for best diversion of the week goes here: this Nameberry post on Hawaiian Baby Names led to a link to find your Hawaiian name.  I spent much, too much time converting the names of everyone I know into Hawaiian.  In RL, of course, I am far too pasty to be answer to Apikalia.

Speaking of RL, I’ll confess that I’m dealing with a Level of Hectic that I haven’t encountered, well – ever.  I’m often slow to respond to Name of the Day requests – I like to save them up, then sit down with my calendar and look at bunches at once.  But these days?  It might be slower than slow.  Please stand by, and know that I do look at every request and do my best to squeeze ‘em in.

Thanks for reading – have a great week!

Name of the Day: Cinderella

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Jasmine, Ariel and Aurora have all been popular picks for girls.  And Belle is quite the sensation.  So why is this fairytale princess name off limits?

Thanks to Photoquilty for suggesting Cinderella as Name of the Day.

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