Baby Name of the Day: Caleb

Sable Puppies

Image via Wikipedia

How can a Top 100 boys’ name borrowed from a faithful Biblical figure be so very controversial?

Thanks to Kelly for suggesting the surprisingly complex Caleb as our Baby Name of the Day.

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Baby Name of the Day: Robert

Director Chris Weitz (left), actress Kristen S...

Robert Pattinson; Image via Wikipedia

He was a Top Ten pick in the US for over a century, and the #1 name for fifteen years.  Today he’s fading, but a young Hollywood star might just bring him back.

Thanks to Heather for suggesting Robert as our Baby Name of the Day.

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Baby Name of the Day: Esau

Esau and Jacob Presented to Isaac

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.

Sunday Summary: 4/24/11

Number 24 – Clerkenwell

Image by World of Good via Flickr

Happy Easter!  If you’re celebrating, here’s wishing you all the chocolate bunnies you can decapitate without inviting tooth decay.

  • Let’s start with the inevitable: Nameberry’s Twelve Best Bunny NamesHazel and Niccolo are my favorites;
  • Last week was also Earth Day, and Elisabeth at You Can’t Call It “It” posted some intriguing options.  I’m all about Bay and Delphine;
  • From the Wayback Machine: in 2009, the featured name was Gail.  Last year, it was Temple;
  • For Real is on a roll.  I love this post with Trenna, Wren, Bren, and Nelle.  And Ethan Arlo is a cool combo;
  • Then there’s For Real’s twins post.  A bunch of these were super cringe-worthy: Lexa and Alexa, Noah and Noel, Charlee and Chelsee, Jonah and Josie.  I’m not a twin, and I’ve never named twins, but I can’t help think that names that matchy spell trouble.  Oh – and Luke and Leia.  What to say …
  • Speaking of head-scratchers, Nancy pointed out that The Greg Kihn Band’s single “Jeopardy” inspired parents – at least six pairs of parents – in 1983.  The song has been lodged in my brain ever since;
  • Speaking of games, did you vote in the Baby Name Wizard’s annual contest?  Entries closed mid-April, but T was good enough to share her guesses;
  • This is great advice for choosing a middle name!

Last week’s post for Nameberry was movie marquee names.  Thanks to Nicole for suggesting this week’s idea.  It’s a little bit cineplex, but in a very different way.  It’s one of the lists where I feel like the options for boys and girls are equally appealing.  Check it out on Monday.

There were some great lines about baby names on Thursday’s night double-episode of 30 Rock, but at the risk of revealing more spoilers (sorry, Photoquilty!), I’ll stick with mentioning the celeb birth of the week.  Jane Krakowski welcomed son Bennett Robert.

That’s all for this week.  It’s re-run week here at AppMtn, so while there won’t be new posts, there will still be a daily post telling you which name has been brushed up, 2011-style.  May marks my third year of writing name of the day posts, and it is amazing how many of the golden oldies could use some improvement.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

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 BlytheSee 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!

Sunday Summary: 8/16/10

Can the end of summer really be so near?  It feels like just yesterday, Washington DC was digging out of the February snowstorms.

Speaking of the February snowstorms, we were at the city’s summer concert series on Friday night and we’re anticipating A LOT of November babies.  One expectant mom was kind enough to tell me they’re naming their baby-on-the-way Maxwell, but mostly I’m looking forward to a pre-Thanksgiving wave of birth announcements.

Speaking of waves of BAs, there were so many Hollywood births in the past week that I’m putting them first:

Is it me, or are gender-neutral names truly staying neutral?  Conventional wisdom was that once a name had “gone girl” it would never be considered for a boy.  But many of these celeb names are solidly ambiguous – and still used for sons.

Which reminds me:

I dragged a very reluctant Aly to shop for school shoes today and was delighted to overhear a father calling out Hasting.  It was in the Nordstrom’s at the Annapolis Mall – you sort of had the impression the kid might’ve been Something Hasting Something IV.  It’s possible I misheard, and he was Hastings, as in the Battle of, raising the possibility that his parents are experts on the Norman Invasion.

That’s all for this week.  As always, it wouldn’t be worth writing if you weren’t here.  Thank you!

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:

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:

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!

Sunday Summary: 4/11/10

I’m not a loyal viewer of America’s Next Top Model, but I do check in from time to time to see the contestants’ names.  Naduah and Ren are already out, but Alasia and Anslee are still in.  Speaking of Anslee, there’s a historic home in Baltimore County, Maryland called Villa Anneslie.  I find it a slightly more appealing version of Ainsley, Ansleigh and company, though she would probably be confused with rising favorite Anneliese.

I’ve done a good job staying away from Yahoo! Answers baby name boards, but I got sucked into a vortex when I stumbled across MTV’s Remote Control blog question “Do you have your baby names already picked out?” The responses were predictable: Daylin, Tatyana Vanity, Egypt Kinsley Rain, Xa’Kaevyan Kohelre, Brance, Kendrix Olivia, Jurnee Ella Greer.  Here’s hoping that each of the posts was written by someone many years away from parenthood.

And one more from reality TV.  Tori Spelling turns her literary attentions from tell-alls to kidlit with children’s book called Presenting Tallulah. Is Tallulah the next Stella?

Elsewhere online:

In starbaby news:

But let’s face it, most of my energies this week have gone to the Top 100 lists at Nameberry for boys and girls.  Which reminds me – Imogen is on their girls’ list, and a friend recently spotted this rarity on his family tree: Imojune.

That’s all for this week.  As always, thanks for reading and tune in tomorrow!