SUNDAY SUMMARY

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 […]

Spring is here! The days are longer, and – most days, at least – there’s more sun, too. It has me thinking about names that mean light. But then again, those names feel right in winter, with candles and fireplaces. And they’ll speak to me in the heat of summer, with the longest, warmest days. […]

Most of the time parents settle on a name sometime before their child’s birth. They announce it – sometimes in advance, but often not until their child is actually born – and that’s the end of the story. If that represents a majority, there’s still a big number of couples struggling to finalize a name […]

Around the time you read this, I should be eating a Mickey-shaped pretzel and soaking up all the magic. Yup, it’s time for another Disney trip. Here’s hoping the #namespotting will be as marvelous as it usually is. Cast member nametags! Families in personalized tee shirts! And all those ears with names on the back. […]

The world is constantly changing. Often it inches forward, at a creeping, snail-like pace. Sometimes it lurches forward. This? Is a lurching time. And yet, names still change very slowly. After all, parents live many years, building up their ideas about everything. Data tells us that first-time mothers in the US are typically around the […]