Tag Archives: Ryder

Starbaby News: Welcome Bingham!

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30
Cropped screenshot of Bing Crosby from the tra...

Image via Wikipedia

Kate Hudson has settled on a name for baby boy Bellamy!  She and boyfriend Matthew have named their little guy Bingham Hawn Bellamy, and US Magazine reports that they plan to call him Bing.

Bing’s big brother is Ryder Russell Robinson.  Ryder and Bing – they’re a matched pair, both quirky and novel but not completely out there.  Bing makes me think of the search engine, but on a better note, legendary crooner Bing Crosby.  Bingham is also a place name in England, and has inspired plenty of other place names in the US and even a crater on the moon.

My take on Bingham?  I love it for Kate Hudson, but a jazzy name like Bing Bellamy might an awful lot to wear for a non-celeb kid.

Congratulations to Kate and her family!

 

Baby Name of the Day: Heather

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19
Heathers

Image via Wikipedia

She’s a botanical choice from a few decades back, once so popular that Winona Ryder went to high school with three of them.

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

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Baby Name of the Day: Nolan

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N (North Scituate, RI)

N by takomabibelot via Flickr

He’s a lively Irish surname associated with the most American of pastimes.

Thanks to Carolyn for suggesting one of the options she’s considering for her baby on the way.  Our Baby Name of the Day is Nolan.

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Baby Name of the Day: Archer

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Bow and arrow

Image by Valerie Everett via Flickr

He’s a nineteenth-century rarity, newly returned to the Top 1000 in 2009.

Thanks to Rachel for suggesting Archer as Baby Name of the Day.

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Sunday Summary: 8/22/10

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22

Please tell me that I’m not the only person who watched My Fake Fiance, the first pairing of Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence?  It was raining, the baby was fussy … wait, never mind.  Someone else must’ve tuned in – enough of us for ABC Family to greenlight a new original series called Melissa & Joey.  The series premiered this week, and this time I didn’t watch.  But I did Google enough to learn that Joey is a manny to Mel’s orphaned niece and nephew. The boy is called Ryder and the girl?  Her name is Lennox!  The actress playing Lennox is named Taylor, so maybe Lennox isn’t so outrageous.  Plus, there’s the china.  And a very minor Agatha Christie character was a girl called Lenox Tamplin. But if this one starts appearing embroidered in pink, it’ll be a surprise.

Speaking of character names:

  • Jason Bateman plays Wally in The Switch.  The cute kid answers to  Sebastian, but that’s a solid Top 100 pick these days.  Will Bateman breathe new life into Walter and Wallace?
  • The Nanny McPhee sequel gives us kids called Norman, Megsie, Vincent, and their London cousins Cyril and Celia.  The young actors’ names are interesting, too – Asa Butterfield played Norman, and Eros Vlahos played Cyril.  Aggie – the baby from the first Nanny McPhee flick – also features in the plot, though she’s all grown up.  In the 2005 movie, Aggie was played by twins named Hebe and Zinnia.  That’s quite a pair!

While we’re on the subject on sibsets:

Elsewhere online:

And lastly, the name was released for Paz Vega’s third child, son Lenon, a little brother for Orson and Ava.

But here’s the important news: next week is re-run week here at Appellation Mountain.  I periodically try to update posts from 2008 because, you know, time marches on.  But I’ve never done so in a systematic way.  So instead of a new post, look for a week’s worth of revamped, revised, and re-invigorated names.

Things get back to the normal – meaning new posts – on Monday, August 30.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

Baby Name of the Day: Ezekiel

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11

Take Noah and Isaiah, cross them with Zachary and what do you get?

Thanks to Kelly for suggesting Ezekiel as Baby Name of the Day.

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Baby Name of the Day: Zoltan

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10

There’s Xavier and Zane and Zander, too.  With the z sound finding favor, why has this one been overlooked?

Thanks to Urban Angel for suggesting Zoltan as Baby Name of the Day.

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Sunday Summary: 3/7/10

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First, thanks to Pam and Linda at Nameberry for running my guest post on Movie Award Names: Looking beyond Oscar.  Lilia, Magali, Denholm, Tahar … I could’ve gone on for pages.

Speaking of winners, whilst channel surfing earlier this week, I caught an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras featuring BFFs turned rivals, Jacee and Mayce.  I like Macy, but find Jaycee a touch too civic to wear.  But here’s the thing – neither of those spellings immediately suggests the correct sound.  I think I’d say JAH see and mace, like the weapon, except that I can guess what they’re meant to be.  Maycee, sure.  Jaycie, okay.  But Jacee and Mayce, IMHO, fail some essential test about phonetic transparency.

Not that that’s anything new.

And of course, I watched the two-part special episode of The Office just to hear the baby’s name.  Pam and Jim Halpert are now parents to Cecilia Marie.  Cecilia ranked #270 in 2008, and seemed to have plateau’d.  I suspect she’ll rise in 2010, because even though Nancy’s advice to Turn Off Your TV When Choosing Bad Names is sound, pop culture is powerful.

Elsewhere online:

Here’s the starbaby news, via Celebrity Baby Blog:

Drumroll please!  It’s time to enter the 5th Annual Baby Name Wizard 2009 Baby Name Pool! Guess three fastest rising and three fastest falling names and win bragging rights.  Serious bragging rights.  Entries are due April 15.

That’s all for this week – thanks for reading!

Sunday Summary: 1/3/10

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10

It’s the first Sunday Summary of 2010.  Happy New Year!  Congratulations to Chanara and her family as they celebrate their first New Year’s Day with new daughter Rosemary Amelie Belle.

Now, on to the random name spotting:

  • Hat tip to Photoquilty for the heads up on Today’s story about bizarre baby names, including Marijuana Pepsi. Yes, really!  And she’s lovely, and nope, she doesn’t shorten it to Mari;
  • My neighbors have welcomed a daughter named Murielle!  They weren’t sharing pre-baby, but did say that they found the name on their family tree.  Can’t wait to learn more, but maybe I’d better stick with saying congratulations first;
  • One of Clio’s Christmas gifts was a Parents-branded ladybug popper thing-a-ma-jig.  Very cute.  The lagniappe was a toy catalog tucked inside, complete with cute kids identified by name.  The model kids were called the predictable Emma, Ava, Charlie and Brady, but there was also a Delana.  Is it a twist on Delaney?  Or a smoosh of Della and Anna?  I’m intrigued, and I can’t find it mentioned elsewhere;
  • Not only does Laura of Heavenly Homemakers make her own vanilla wafers, she named her four boys Asa, Justus, Elias and Malachi.  Yes, it’s true.  If I follow a link to your blog to find a recipe, my second click is your “About” page to see if you share your kids’ names;
  • Bewildertrix spotted a Harryo Lucy, twin sister to Poppy Grace.  I’ve been thinking about Harryo ever since I watched The Duchess.  Harriet was her daughter’s name, but she answered to the nickname Harryo;
  • I’d never use it, but I love Richlinde, recently profiled over at Legit Baby Names;
  • While flipping through an old Martha Stewart Living, I spotted a sibset: sisters Io and Adda, and brother Ray.  I’m always impressed when parents manage to use short names and still make them distinctive;
  • Remember my How Close is Too Close post?  Discovery Health has a new show called Make Room for Multiples.  A couple named their triplets James, John and Jack – then welcomed twin boys called Jason and Jacob;
  • For Real spotted a Daphnee.  Is it a typo, or will an -ee spelling emerge as Daphne variant?  Should we be expecting to meet Daphni and Daphnie, too?

In year-in-review news:

A few starbabies arrived just before the clock struck twelve, including:

  • Black Crowes’ frontman Chris Robinson welcomed a daughter named Cheyenne Genevieve.  Chris is also dad to Ryder Russell with his ex, Kate Hudson.  Ryder and Cheyenne sound like siblings, but I’m surprised by the choice – Cheyenne is fading fast from her peak of #68 in 1997 and sounds rather uninspired for such a stylish dad;
  • Indy car driver Hélio Castroneves and girlfriend welcomed a daughter called Mikaella. Call me crazy, but I like the spelling.  I’m just weary of any -ayla sounding name;
  • Van Morrison is a dad – again – at the age of 64.  New baby is named George Ivan Morrison III.  (Hmmm … can’t confirm this on his website, and the original link is gone.  Am I imagining things?  See the comment below – thanks, Joyce!  The birth announcement was a hoax, but hey, Van as a nickname from George Ivan is still pretty cool.)

There’s an interesting article on double naming quoted at the Omaha World-Herald.  You’ll note that she’s mostly talking about English and French practices.  In the US, you can give a child a compound name, but unless you smoosh it together, Ava-Leigh is usually recorded as Ava L., not Avaleigh.  NOTE:  Please see Meredith Cane’s comment below.  She is, indeed, the expert quoted on double names.  But Cleveland Kent Evans wrote the article, and his research incorporates more than just Ms. Cane’s observations.  And 48 variant spellings for Lily-Mae is something else!

That’s all for this week.  Many thanks for reading!

Sunday Summary: 9/13/09

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10

Ah, September.  The leaves change color, apples of every possible variety can be found in stacks at the Farmers’ Market and me?

I’m glued to the television:

  • Okay, not really.  I missed the debut of the rebooted Melrose Place the other night.  (Though I was sorry to miss Bronx‘s mom in action.)  This edition includes an Ella and a Violet, as well as a female Riley.  On the masculine side, there’s Auggie and Jonah;
  • Also on TV, I hear that Glee’s characters include Finn (a boy) and Quinn (a girl). Of course they’re dating;
  • Before there was Twilight, there was The Vampire Diaries.  Now a series on the CW, Elena is torn between blood-sucking centuries-young, suntan-challenged brothers Stefan and Damon;
  • Technically this is big screen news – So You Think You Can Dance alum Kherington Payne has a lead role as Alice in the big screen remake of Fame.  But will Kherington catch on for girls?  Or the Dynasty-esque original, Carrington? 

Also on the big screen, there’s Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.  Stand by for boys called Aldo, after Brad Pitt’s hyper-masculine hero.  (The character was named after a real-life tough guy actor from the 50s and 60s, Aldo Ray.)   There’s also the heart-breaking Jewish-French Shosanna, a name memorably yelled by the creepy Nazi Sicherheitsdienst officer Hans Landa, and her alias Emmanuelle.

Onto starbaby news:

Should you find yourself in a pediatrician’s office this month, pick up the current issue of Parents Magazine – there’s an extensive article on baby naming.  For true name aficionados, it is not exactly news.  (Though the report of one couple’s use of a name consultant was interesting and it was among the better coverage I’ve seen in a mainstream publication.)  But the big takeaway?  Laura Wattenberg contributed her Top Ten picks for the most popular names of 2019:

GIRLS:  Lila, Peyton, Lucy, Violet, Aubrey, Amelia, Piper, Ruby, Juliet and Harper.

BOYS: Miles, Rowan, Lincoln, Eli, Jude, Cooper, Wyatt, Ryder, Lucas and Henry.

I’ll have to do some thinking about her lists – some strike me as spot on, others … maybe not so much.  But seriously, if Laura Wattenberg is touting them as the likely hot names of 2019?  That alone might be enough to make it so.

Thanks for reading!