SUNDAY SUMMARY

It’s officially spring, and that’s the start of busy season. First there’s the annual release of name popularity data, slated for May 12th this year. (Mark your calendars!) Then there’s July and August, typically peak season for births in the US. But for now, it’s still calm, so I took a minute to completely revamp […]

A few years ago, I was talking to a parent about a name for her new baby. Her older child had been named, as she put it, “after a bird.” (It wasn’t in the Top 1000 then, and still isn’t … though it’s not as rare as it was then.) The thing was, she said, […]

Did you see this story about a Gabrielle who found out that, thanks to a typo, her legal name was actually … Babrielle? It’s not the first story about a birth certificate mistake. In fact, comments on the original post are packed with tales of a Bethany/Bethang, Cameron/Carmon and so on. Typos are easy – […]

Here’s something that I didn’t know in my twenties that is painfully obvious to me now: In any relationship, for any given issue, someone always cares a little more. Sometimes the dividing lines are clear and obvious. Marry an interior designer, and chances are she’ll have lots of thoughts about which couch to buy. But […]

It’s a little bit of a riddle: how do you name your kid after yourself without actually naming your kid after yourself? Recent weeks have given us two stand-out examples. Paris Hilton, who used to say she planned to name a future daughter London, instead welcomed son Phoenix Barron Hilton Reum with husband Carter Reum. […]

There’s something about repeating letters. Sometimes they offer visual appeal – think Scarlett or Everett. Jenn might’ve added an extra N in a bid to stand out in a crowd. Other times, they indicate an appealing sound, or might even emphasize a preferred pronunciation or tie to a particular heritage. There’s no doubt about how […]

Are you watching the Super Bowl tonight? Football isn’t for me, but we’ll be tuning in for the halftime show featuring the incomparable Rihanna. Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty in Barbados, she’s been known only as Rihanna since she released her first studio album in 2005. (Though her other endeavors, including the trend-setting beauty line, are […]

But so does 5 plus 4. And 7 plus 2. Also 8.1326 plus .8674. You get the idea. The same is true in naming: there’s more than one way to think about things. Your way is right for you; someone else’s way works for them. That’s not to say that 6 plus 4 makes 9, […]

Do you have a familect? Chances are good that you do. It’s a set of words or phrases that only make sense in your small group. Even though I’ve known that my family – both the home I grew up in, as well as my own household – has a complicated, convoluted familect for years, […]

I don’t follow astrology. But I do notice it, particularly around the Lunar New Year. So yes, I have rabbits on the brain this week. As fictional creatures go, there are quite a lot of them – which seems right. And while some of them – sorry, Flopsy and Mopsy – probably shouldn’t inspire your […]