I had this really elaborate introduction planned, but I realized it had become a separate post.
So with very little prelude, here’s what caught my eye this week:
- British Baby Names’ post on Red Names includes two of my favorites –
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I went through a “Cactus as a middle name” phase — I’m from Arizona and just liked the sound and look of the name. I think Jasper Cactus was a favorite for a while. Saguaro’s not too far off!
Nicknames vs formal names – would totally put Beatrice / Beatrix on the birth certificate rather than Bea. Or I guess anything beginning with “B” could have an at-home nickname of “Bee”. My full name is Jennie and people do try to lengthen it to Jennifer – my prescriptions are labelled “Jennifer”. When I moved up to secondary school at age 11, they decided my name was Jennifer and so all my new teachers read out Jennifer when taking attendance. I’d presume schools would be less likely to assume these days, with the variety of names out there – but the pharmacy still currently presumes.
Several friends have just had babies. British twins: Ann@bel Fr@nces and Fl0rence R0sie, which I find lovely. American baby named EdieJ@ne. (I think Edie is after baby’s great grandma.) 11/11 baby named Mic@h Eric. (Eric is baby’s Dad’s name.)
Thanks for the mention!
It was funny that the Name Lady said that while you can shorten a long name, you can’t lengthen a long name – everyone chimed in with stories of Kates had become Katherines and Elizas that has become Elizabeth! (against their will). Hmm … is her theory exploded?
Thank you so much for the shout out! It means so much to me, especially as a loyal reader.
But not even Saguaro for a middle name?? 😉
Maybe in the middle! 🙂 Have you ever come across the Saguaro Seminar at Harvard? It tends to come up in my professional life, and it is so interesting to listen to everyone butcher Saguaro …
No, I haven’t! But I can imagine that outside of the Southwest U.S., there’s some confusion over Saguaro’s pronunciation – even at Harvard 🙂
‘zactly!