SUNDAY SUMMARY

Here’s something that throws me, even after all these years I’ve been writing about baby names: We use terms to describe styles in inconsistent + sometimes incorrect ways. “We like classic names like Jackson.” “I’m looking for something unique, like Lyla.” “Our kids have traditional names, Liam and Ava.” “We want to avoid trendy names […]

I’m old enough to remember hanging out with friends as young adults, pre-smartphones. At the risk of sounding like I had a pet dinosaur, it could sometimes be much more fun. We would banter about what year this movie came out. Or the right lyrics to that one song. The point wasn’t getting to the […]

It’s Memorial Day weekend, which kicks off the unofficial start of summer in the US. There’s lots to celebrate this month, too – graduations, of course. Weddings. And, particularly for this site, August is the month when the most babies are born – except for a few years when it’s been edged out by July. […]

Do you name everything? I don’t think I do. A great many inanimate objects exist in my house, all free of names. (I use the toaster oven daily, but I’ve never felt the impulse to call it Greg or Bob.) But it turns out my kids are namers. The plant in the picture is a […]

Life sometimes crawls. And sometimes it goes by with a rush and a whoosh. Parenting is often both at once. Pregnancy, too! I’ll never forget my 38-week check-up with my first child. The doctor’s last words before he left the room? “Nothing’s happen just yet, but at this stage of your pregnancy, that doesn’t mean […]

(Nearly) every year, the US Social Security Administration delivers an early Mother’s Day gift: an updated list of the Top 1000 most popular baby names. And that means that Mother’s Day weekend turns into a feast of data and data analysis. Sharing just a few of my favorites pieces so far: Disney dominates the fastest-rising […]

The marvelous month of May is here! For American readers, that means Mother’s Day is coming up next Sunday, May 8th. Which means that we’re less than a week away from ALL the new most popular names data, as released by the US Social Security Administration. Looking back at last year’s data release, these were […]

You’ve probably heard of discussion site Reddit, and likely stumbled across AITA, along with associated acronyms YTA, NTA, NAH, and ESH. Just in case that alphabet soup is new to you, here’s a quick primer: AITA allows posters to ask if they’ve been the @$$ho!e in a particular situation. The answers are as follows: YTA […]

I don’t just love names; I’m wild about language. Maybe that’s true for you, too. Or maybe you’ve just happened on this 2020 article about Catherine O’Hara’s crazy-but-brilliant accent as Moira Rose on Schitt’s Creek. It’s worth a read just because, well, the show is smart and funny, and it’s interesting how much that voice […]