Let’s start off our Sunday with some controversy.  The NameLady recently answered a reader’s question:  Are there rules for nicknames?  

Her answer was basically yes.  Julia can be Julie and David Dave, but take it much farther you really should just put the nickname on the birth certificate.  (In this case, she advised her reader to put Catie on the birth certificate.)

I disagree.  And I said so.

Much to my delight, other readers come out strongly in favor of nicknames, too.

In other, (mostly) non-ranting news:

• The Vancouver Winter Olympics are fast approaching.  The 5 y.o. wants to watch ski jumping.  Me?  I’ll be name spotting, thanks.  Angele Sionna gets a jump on our favorite sport with her post about Sandrine;
• I don’t always agree with Swistle, but she is dead on with her answer about a name’s meaning;
• How do you know Elodie is about to catch on big time?  She starts getting favorable reviews by Yahoo!Answers users who also like similarly trendy choices Dakota, Caiden and Grayson;
• Ariel is a lovely name, if you can overlook the red-headed mermaid and Disney princess juggernaut.  Names4Real’s Aerial presents something of a curious spelling choice;
• When one word name is not enough, why not upgrade to a whole sentence, like Victory Faith or Echo Melody?  Both combinations were spotted by the intrepid Names4Real;
• Want proof that Aerial, Victory and Echo have always been in good company?  Check out Nancy’s list of unusual baby names from the nineteenth century and earlier, including Zackquill, Zealous, Reverdy and Bland;
• And then there’s Nameberry’s crowd-sourced post: What Unusual Names Have You Heard Recently?  Responses included Tamantha, Foxen and Wych;
• When it comes to eye-poppingly unusual choices, Bewildertrix never disappoints.  This week, she stumbled across a baby Sylar. I share her reaction: Wait, as in the supervillain on Heroes?!  On the positive side, I enjoy seeing Hugo make regular appearances, and I especially like the Hugo and Hattie sibset she turned up;
• Sebastiane wrote about current Israeli favorite Shira. It should be a lovely, interesting choice, but I get a distinct “Princess of Power” vibe from her.

In celeb-spotting, all via Celebrity Baby Blog:

• The big news was the birth of Axel Ferrell.  I realize it is absolutely none of my business, but I always wonder when a middle name isn’t released – are Will and Viveca not into them?  Or just not sharing;
• Ditto Emily Mortimer’s new darling daughter, May.   A sweet, simple name, but is that it?  Big brother is Samuel John;
• Desperate Housewives alum Neal McDonough and wife Ruvé are parents for the third time.  Daughter London Jane joins sibs Morgan Patrick and Catherine Maggie.  I loved Neal as the Tin Man in Syfy’s reboot of the Wizard of Oz, so I’ll give him a pass on that inconsistent naming style.

Lastly, I keep meaning to share this snippet of conversation I had with two colleagues, after one had went to visit a friend’s new baby:

You might note that I am uncharacteristically speechless throughout this exchange.

Buppy = Black Urban Professional, and up until that moment, I was completely unaware that such a category of monikers existed.  (Though if I had thought about it for a second, I guess I’d have imagined it would.)  When I pressed my colleague for a list of buppy names, she shrugged.  Clearly this was not as interesting to her, though she did concede that Morgan is the default buppy choice for a daughter.

So I’m dying to know more about buppy names, but I don’t think I can ask E. anymore without risking her ire.  (And she orders the cookies for meetings, so I don’t dare.)  If anyone stumbles across a list, please share.

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