Esau and Jacob presesnted to Isaac; Image via Wikipedia
His twin brother’s name has been on top since 1999. So why is Esau an also-ran?
Thanks to Christina for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day.
Baby Name of the Day: Esau
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Tag Archives: Eli
Sunday Summary: 5/22/11
Image by jontintinjordan via Flickr
After the one-two punch of Mariah Carey’s twins and the release of the US Top 1000, May is finally settling down.
- What do Peighton, Promise, and Katia have in common? They all appear on Nancy’s list of girls’ names slightly outside the US Top 1000. The boys’ list is equally intriguing: Princeton, Kalel, or Nixon, anyone?
- How to spell Eliana’s nickname: Eli, Elli or Ellie? To me, Ellie is the only one that makes sense, but apparently the parents disagree;
- More Ohdeedoh Baby Names up at You Can’t Call It “It,” including Dex, Rex, and brothers named Arlo and Wylder;
- Evidence as a baby name – my initial reaction to Isadora’s post was no, but it is growing on me;
- My reaction to this list of names at For Real Baby Names? I love Esther Perpetua, I’m confused by Maybree, and I find Zocie intriguing;
- Speaking of intriguing, how ’bout Clotilde? I’m always inclined to spell it Clothilde, but I’ll admit that omitting the “h” simples things up;
- Find Bessiebell, Janebell, and more unexpected -bel smooshes up at British Baby Names this weekend;
- And lastly, Kathryn shared all four of her kids’ names stories at her site. It is a lovely, thoughtful post.
There was just the one starbaby birth announcement this week: Marion Cotillard welcomed a son, Marcel. How impeccably French.
Last week’s Nameberry post was a Hollywood-inspired review of Norse mythology names. My new favorite? Definitely Embla. This week’s post is inspired by none other than Oprah Winfrey. You can read it here tomorrow.
That’s all for this week! As always, thanks for reading and have a great week.
Sunday Summary: 3/27/11
27 by Cappellmeister via Flickr
First, I’m incredibly excited to see who wins March Madness! Thanks to everyone who voted so far, and if you have not, please remember to weigh in: Boys’ Final and Girls’ Final.
I thoroughly enjoyed compiling Rock’n'Roll Baby Names for Nameberry last week. This week’s list is equally edgy. Here’s a hint: Buffy is on the list.
Elsewhere:
- I haven’t seen Just Go With It, but I’m fascinated by the names. Nicole Kidman plays a not-so-nice character called Devlin. Brooklyn Decker plays a girl named Palmer. The 2011 film is based on a 1969 movie, which was based on an American adaptation of a French play. Up until now, Palmer’s character called was Toni. I’ve no idea why they opted for such an unconventional choice in the remake;
- Swistle posted a reader question about the name Story. Comments suggested Astoria as a formal name. I’m torn – Astoria is an undeniably pretty sound, but have you been to Queens? Then again, a less-than-idyllic setting hasn’t hurt Brooklyn;
- Which leads us to Nancy’s note about baby boys named Travolta. More than you’d think, less than you’d fear;
- From Nomes e mais nomes: which do you prefer Carolina or Catarina? It’s the kind of question that makes me want to say “twins!”
- Step into the Wayback Machine. In 2009, the featured name was Lana. Last year, it was Orla;
- I always enjoy her birth announcements, but this one really surprised me: For Real spotted an unusual combination, which just happens to be my cousin’s name;
- She also spotted Jaxlen McCade, Riggen Joseph, Brawk David, and Dash Ayden. Oh, and a Dollie Michelle. I adore Dolly as a nickname for Dorothy, but I think it would be tough to answer to Dolly at 25.
On to Hollywood. There’s been much chatter over Rachel Zoe’s new son’s name, Skyler Morrison. It’s not the stylish choice I would have expected, but what really stunned me was a comment in New York Magazine. The writer congratulated Rachel & Rodger on their healthy baby boy and “also for naming him normally. Baby names shouldn’t be trends.”
I’ll be curious to hear Rachel’s explanation for choosing the name. Maybe she’ll have the kind of backstory that makes me regret every snarky thought I’ve had about her choice.
In other starbaby news:
- The conversation of the week should really be this: How did Luca and Matteo become the sibset of moment? Top Chef’s top chef Tom Colicchio and wife Lori welcomed a son, Mateo Lev. Mateo joins big brothers Luka Bodhi and Dante at home. Impeccable Italian heritage picks, right? Masculine without going overboard, classic but not plain. Last month, E’s Kristin Dos Santos welcomed a son, Matteo Tomaz, a little brother for Luca Alexander. And Colin Firth and his wife Livia Guiggioli are parents to Luca and Mateo, too;
- TLC’s Design Star Vern Yip welcomed a daughter, Vera Lillian Beatrix. He and partner Craig Koch are also parents to son Gavin Joshua Mannox;
- Quarterback Eli Manning is a first-time dad. He and wife Abby welcomed a daughter, Ava Frances.
If you’re looking for more talk of celebrity births and general name talk, check out my Facebook page.
That’s all for this week. As always, thank you for reading!
Baby Name of the Day: Eli
Image by Leo Reynolds via Flickr
He’s one of the Biblical boys, an Old Testament figure found on every fashionable playground.
Thanks to Melissa for suggesting Eli as Baby Name of the Day.
Sunday Summary: 9/12/10
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:
- Mario Lopez’ new little girl, Gia Francesca. Is Gia the new Mia?
- Rachel Dratch’s new son Eli;
- Rascal Flatts’ Joe Don Rooney welcomed daughter Raquel Blue, a little sister for Jagger Donovan. Raquel and Jagger feels like a mismatched sibset, but when you throw in the middles, it seems a little more matched.
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
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:
- Here’s something you don’t know about me: I rarely drive. I have a license, but we’ve arranged our lives so most of the time, our car stays parked. And I plain like mass transit. So Nancy’s recent post about a baby named Queenie after a bus company? That could be me;
- I understand Ever and Everly. A kid called Eternity would not be a surprise. But Never? ForReal spotted one, and it just seems off;
- Did you see the great Nameberry post on TV character names? Ask a parent if she’d be willing to name a child after a TV character and you’ll often get a refusal, maybe a snicker. But they do filter into wider use. So get set for birth announcements reading Landry, Horatio, Brick, Remy, Cricket, and Astrid. One not on the list: Dwight, Jason Lee’s character on his new show, Memphis Blue. Rainn Wilson’s salesman/beet farmer on The Office has put a dent in Dwight – he left the US Top 1000 in 2004 – wonder if Lee can revive him?
- The Globe and Mail has an essay by a parent who really can’t decide what to name son #3. It’s a common struggle, but what’s particularly interesting is the drama caused by their common surname: Jones. Nearly any popular choice has a notable bearer: George Jones, Tom Jones, and so on. After naming firstborn son Jack they learned that Jack Jones sang The Love Boat theme song. I always thought it was the long, unusual surnames that posed problems, but I guess it goes both ways;
- Here’s a fun list of model names from Babble columnist Ceridwen Morris. But Nameberry did it first, and even compiled a list of super-stylish names supermodels gave to their offspring (before, we assume, slipping back into some fabulous get-up for a photo shoot with baby on hip like a designer bag.) Yannick or Mingus, anyone?
- I haven’t checked in with the Toronto Star’s Kristin Rushowy in months. A few recent posts: a boy called Timo Wolf, a girl named Tanys Aurora Alexandra Piia, and a cautionary tale about pronunciation issues when you name your cute Canadian kid after a Hindu goddess.
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: Thisbe
If you love Zoe and Chloe, but fear they’re too popular, here’s one to consider.
Thanks to Urban Angel for suggesting Thisbe as Baby Name of the Day.
Sunday Summary: 5/16/10
Conventional media is still abuzz with news that Jacob and Isabella are the most popular baby names in the US for 2009. Yawn. Luckily, the baby name blogosphere has moved on to more interesting topics. Here are my two Big Questions of the week:
- Is the speed of change in baby name trends accelerating? Elisabeth mentioned the possibility in her post about the Top 100 baby names of 2009 over at You Can’t Call It “It.“ We’ve certainly seen the pace pick up over the generations, but I was whopperjawed at the rise and fall of Miley.
- Is it right to correct a name’s meaning when a parent’s assertion is just plain inaccurate? Nancy asked the question specifically about reporters, but it comes up in discussion, too – online and off.
And, of course, Time Magazine pondered Why Do Babies Have the Same Names? They called it “The Twilight Effect.” Is it me, or did they completely miss an important point? Sure, lots of us are naming our kids Jacob and Isabella and Emma and Ethan. But, generation after generation, we’ve become more tolerant of diversity in baby names. Maybe my perspective is skewed by living in a big urban area with a huge international population, but I’m most impressed by how few kids continue to receive the most common names.
In good ol’ fashioned name-spotting this week:
- Design Mom blogger Gabrielle Blair and husband Ben welcomed daughter Flora June, a little sister for Ralph, Maude, Olive, Oscar and Betty. They’re calling her June. Congratulations;
- Speaking of June, she’s on the Quirky Classics for Girls list at Nameberry’s Baby Names 2010: What Names are Heading This Way? In the harder to classify category are the testosterone-charged Gunner and Ace. All this means that circa 2040, we should be seeing marriage announcements for mismatched couples like Annabelle and Colt;
- For Real brings us reports of London newborns called Myrtle, Ludovic and Albus, as well as a girl called Betzabet in Maine and another named Manhattan Rose, presumably not in New York;
- Nancy crunched the data to bring us Which Baby Name Ranked #1 in the Most States? The handful of names that the top spot in just one state are an interesting mix: Addison, Aiden, Allison, Daniel, Jose, Ryan and Wyatt;
- More data-crunching: Baby Name Wizard announced that Kaydence was the fastest rising name of the decade. The name Cadence was worn by American Pie’s band camp alum Michelle’s little sis in 2003′s American Wedding, but she was on the rise before. Caydence is just a step behind the K-spelling;
- You give your child a nice, normal name like Richard and what happens? Language Log tells us that Richard Smith of Carlisle, England, legally changed his name to Stormhammer Deathclaw Firebrand. And I thought For Real spotted some truly eye-popping appellations;
- I love Julie’s description of her kids: “My children are wonderful, hilarious, terrifying little creatures. It is still mind-boggling that we have one kid, let alone three.” Their names are nice, too: Henry, Eli and Zuzu;
- Nancy brings us a story about baby Karina, born to the wife of a Soviet scientist aboard a ship in the Kara Sea in 1933. And that’s only part of the story;
- Ellie Kate’s mom mentions Sylvie as a possible name for a future daughter. Well, Sylvie and Phyer. But Ellie’s dad veto’d Phyer, so that’s out. I found her post via Kelly’s Korner, a blog that asked parents to share lists of their kids’ names or future names – there are over 400 links!
And Claudia Schiffer has a new daughter, but if Caspar and Clementine’s little sis has a name, they’ve yet to share. The supermodel mentioned she was struggling with name choices, so it is possible they’re still debating. My money is on Cordelia, but I bet she’ll surprise us all.
That’s all for today. As always, thanks for reading and have a great week!
Baby Name of the Day: Ruth
She’s Biblical and brief, and she’s been part of the US Top Ten before. Is she due for a comeback?
Thanks to Kelly for suggesting our Baby Name of the Day, Ruth.
Name of the Day: Campbell
It’s a Scottish clan and an iconic can. How would it wear as a baby name?
Thanks to Maureen for suggesting Campbell as Name of the Day.
