Sunday Summary: 10/4/09

As part of our Birthday Fun Weekend, we took the kids off to Build-A-Bear Workshop. Actually, Aly built a bear dog. There was stuffing and fluffing and convincing us that yes, his bear dog absolutely needed ice skates. And then we got to the moment – naming the bear dog.

After several suggestions were rejected by the Builder of the Beast, including Harry and Warren, we settled on Star. Unimaginative, I guess. But we’d been there for a while. And a birthday party was bearing down on the birth certificate station.

“Maybe,” my friend suggested, “he should be Starr. Star doesn’t seem like much of a name.”

“Starr? Really?”

“I guess it is kind of feminine. Maybe an e at the end?”

“Stare? How ’bout Stahr?” I replied.

And just like that, I understood precisely how we end up naming our kids Jordyn and Madalon and Carsin. Except that a plush pet doesn’t ever have to put his name on a business card.

In other news, Nymbler released their September search names:

• No surprises from the Top Ten favorites – Charlotte, Ava, Amelia, Audrey, Grace and Ella for girls and Jack, Finn, Benjamin and Oliver for boys;
• As for the new Nymbler debuts? There’s surname-with-a-twist Everleigh (chosen by Twilight’s Cam Gigandet), the feminissa Elliana, the lovely Cornish Elowen, part-goddess, part-sci fi Inara and the French Marielle.

It’s been a quiet week in celebribaby naming news, and the choices have been quite conservative, including:

• Actress Sarah Sahai and husband Steve Howey welcomed a son, William Wolf;
• Nancy reports that House’s Robert Sean Leonard welcomed a daughter, Eleanor – months ago;
• Jon Cryer and wife adopted a daughter, Daisy, a little sister for Charlie Austin;
• Teresa Strasser welcomed son Nathaniel James – loved her posts about the search for the perfect name;
• And then there’s one daring choice of the week – Ben Lee and Ione Skye welcomed a daughter, Goldie Priya. Priya is gorgeous. Goldie is a bit too much of a diminutive for my tastes, but if Sadie and Molly can be given as independent names, why not Goldie?

As for real life kids:

• Bewildertrix spotted a child named Eternity Amenity. Isn’t that something offered by a funeral home? She also spied a Jahykuhb, which seems more like an entrant in a Wacky Respelling contest than a real name;
• This week’s Toronto Star baby is named Graydon. The parents were following Jewish tradition, so they needed to settle on a name that started with G. I’m hearing Graydon as yet another Aidan/Jayden/Braeden/Hayden/Caiden twist more and more;
• I loved reading Elizabeth’s post about her Baby with No Name dilemma over at Nameberry. Her daughters are Courtney Olive – known as Olive, Kit Aurora and Nola Belle. Elizabeth and her husband have a truly distinctive naming style, I think – and the story of how they arrived at a name for each daughter is great fun;
• Here’s a guess: Eleni will reappear in the US Top 1000 by 2011, if not sooner. (She’s currently unranked.) It’s the name bestowed by two pairs of friends – with very different styles, inclinations and backgrounds – on their newborn daughters over the past few weeks.

My vote for best diversion of the week goes here: this Nameberry post on Hawaiian Baby Names led to a link to find your Hawaiian name. I spent much, too much time converting the names of everyone I know into Hawaiian. In RL, of course, I am far too pasty to be answer to Apikalia.

Speaking of RL, I’ll confess that I’m dealing with a Level of Hectic that I haven’t encountered, well – ever. I’m often slow to respond to Name of the Day requests – I like to save them up, then sit down with my calendar and look at bunches at once. But these days? It might be slower than slow. Please stand by, and know that I do look at every request and do my best to squeeze ’em in.

Thanks for reading – have a great week!