She’s a deeply spiritual place of pilgrimage, and a serious starbaby name.
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.
Baby Name of the Day: Lourdes
on Sep 28, 2010
Yeah, I must admit Lourdesita is pretty awesome.
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.
No, I love Lourdesita! Ah, um, there’s Lolita. Except that’s not really a possible option for ANYONE, is it?
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.
Actually, I think most people would probably end up pronouncing this LORDZ as in Lourdes Water :/
Oh dear. And then would come the inevitable respelling in the teenage years: Lordzz. Or L’ordz. Or … I’ll stop there.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.