• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Request a Name

Appellation Mountain

Where every name has a story

  • Baby Name Advice & More
  • Master List: Girl Names
  • Master List: Boy Names
  • Private Baby Name Consulting

Baby Name of the Day: Lourdes

September 28, 2010 By appellationmountain 16 Comments

She’s a deeply spiritual place of pilgrimage, and a serious starbaby name.

View from distance by -bLy-

Thanks to Kelleita for suggesting Lourdes as Baby Name of the Day.

When the Material Girl was expecting in 1996, the starbaby craze was early days.

More names you might like:

  • Name of the Day: MarianaName of the Day: Mariana
  • Baby Name of the Day: LindaBaby Name of the Day: Linda
  • Baby Name of the Day: MontserratBaby Name of the Day: Montserrat
  • Baby Name of the Day: SusanBaby Name of the Day: Susan
  • Baby Name of the Day: IsaBaby Name of the Day: Isa

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Print

Comments

  1. Lourdes says

    February 11, 2019 at 9:52 AM

    Today, February 11 is Lourdes’ names day :)-
    MY names day. I love being Lourdes! ❤️
    I pronounce Lourdes as one syllable – “lurds”

    Reply
  2. Lourdes Gallardo says

    January 23, 2011 at 8:41 PM

    My mother is Lourdes. I am a Lourdes. I don’t care if Madonna named her child Lourdes or Magnificent Poop nor do I care how people pronounce this name. It’s a hugely popular name in all of Mexico and South America and it’s pronounced loure-des. It sounds nicer in Espa

    Reply
  3. Nicole says

    October 9, 2010 at 12:10 PM

    Better late, as they say! I’ve always loved Lourdes and have known a few my entire life. It’s true, I do see it as leaning towards the Latina side of things but then, that’s because I’m Hispanic and every Lourdes I’ve ever met is as well. I also love religious names. Most names that I’ve come across that honor the Virgin Mary are lovely in my book!

    Reply
  4. Sebastiane says

    September 29, 2010 at 11:31 AM

    Yeah, I must admit Lourdesita is pretty awesome.

    Reply
  5. Kelleita says

    September 29, 2010 at 10:44 AM

    I don’t think we’d use a nickname if we named this baby Lourdes. My husband’s not big on nicknames, and in Spanish, instead of shortening names, they lengthen them by adding “ita” as a diminutive. I could definitely see her being called Lourdesita. Crazy, I know.

    Reply
    • appellationmountain says

      September 29, 2010 at 11:19 AM

      No, I love Lourdesita! Ah, um, there’s Lolita. Except that’s not really a possible option for ANYONE, is it?

      Reply
  6. Bek says

    September 29, 2010 at 9:54 AM

    I’m related to Puerto Ricans through marriage, and growing up we spent a lot of time over at my cousin’s grandma’s house – there were several Lourdes in the family. So maybe because I grew up in a heavily Catholic area, with a lot of those being either Italian or Spanish, Lourdes never struck me as exotic.

    It almost seems a bit middle-aged to me actually, since most I know are in their 40s+.

    As for the prn., if I heard someone in America using the French prn., I’d probably think they were just putting on airs. It just sounds a little awkward to my English-speaking (listening?) ears.

    Reply
  7. Sebastiane says

    September 29, 2010 at 7:15 AM

    Actually, I think most people would probably end up pronouncing this LORDZ as in Lourdes Water :/

    Reply
    • appellationmountain says

      September 29, 2010 at 11:18 AM

      Oh dear. And then would come the inevitable respelling in the teenage years: Lordzz. Or L’ordz. Or … I’ll stop there.

      Reply
  8. appellationmountain says

    September 29, 2010 at 5:22 AM

    Sebastiane, pronunciation is an issue with so many names, and French names seem to be particularly tricky in English … but in the US, I cannot imagine a girl called Lourdes answering to any other version than the Spanish/Madonna way. Maybe it is because LOR des seems comfortable to say in English, while the French feels awkward. Or maybe it is because there are so many Spanish speakers that it is starting to have a subtle impact on names?

    Kelleita, I do like this name – would you use a nickname?

    Montserrat! I LOVE Montserrat … there was a character in the movie Barcelona with this name, and I’ve loved it ever since.

    Reply
  9. Kristine says

    September 28, 2010 at 6:53 PM

    What’s funny is I never thought of Lourdes as a different or exotic name. But, to me, it is rather old fashioned, something from my grandmother’s generation.

    Reply
  10. Julie says

    September 28, 2010 at 5:56 PM

    There’s a Sister Lourdes who teaches religion at my step-daughter’s school. The kids adore her, so I only have pleasant associations with the name, but it’s Religious with a capital R. As a Lutheran married to a lapsed Catholic, Lourdes is too Catholic for my family, but it’s very pretty.

    Reply
  11. Christina Fonseca says

    September 28, 2010 at 4:18 PM

    Back in my teen years when I created imaginary families the middle names of all my girls were going to be different titles of the Virgin Mary: Lourdes, Fatima, Guadalupe, Montserrat, Pilar. Great reading about this today.

    Reply
  12. Kelleita says

    September 28, 2010 at 10:08 AM

    Thanks for doing this, Abby. We’re really having a hard time picking a name for #2 if it’s a girl and Lourdes was one my husband suggested that I actually thought sounded kind of cool. He is Mexican, so we would pronounce it Loor-des (even though I know that’s not the French way). I can see Sebastiane’s point about how it would be frustrating to hear a name pronounced “wrong” when you learned it in the native language; on the other hand, we’ll be living in the U.S. with Spanish-speaking relatives, so this pronunciation would make the most sense for us.

    Not sure if it will be the final pick, but I loved reading about it!

    Reply
  13. Sebastiane says

    September 28, 2010 at 6:59 AM

    When Madonna first named her child this, it irked me, not only did I think she was doing it for shock value, but I also thought she was pronouncing it wrong at the time. In French, this is pronounced something like (LOOORD). Believe me, the French and especially the natives of Lourdes are quite picky with the way you pronounce this town. They will not feel shy at all about correcting you if you say (LORD) (LORDZ) or (LOR-des). I learned later that (LOR-des) was the Spanish pronunciation of Lourdes, the same way American Catholics say (LORDZ). But still, if you spent most of your childhood in France, either pronunciation other than the French way really gets to you.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter


POPULAR POSTS

Tweets by @appmtn
Visit Appellation Mountain's profile on Pinterest.

Copyright © 2023 · AppellationMountain.net on Genesis Framework · Privacy Policy · Log in