It finally feels like summer!
Maybe it’s because my kids had their last day of school on Wednesday.
Or maybe it’s because we’ve front-loaded all sorts of summery stuff into our June: a quick trip to the beach, an outing to an amusement park. (Note to self: next time check and make sure the roller coaster you’ve just agreed to ride with your ten year old does not dangle you upside down with only harness between you and the earth below before you are strapped in.)
So let’s start with a round-up of summery baby name posts. I’m guessing we’ll see more new ones around the official start of summer, but there are plenty in the archives:
- Let’s start with a post from JolisPrenoms – yup, French names for a summer baby. How awesome is Heliodore? Though I suppose Oceane and Auguste are much more wearable.
- The Art of Naming has great lists of summer names for girls, as well as summer names for boys.
- Nameberry has some great lists, too. This is one of the earliest summer baby name posts there, from way back in 2009!
How cool is it that Thalassa makes all three posts? And how crazy is it that I’ve never written about Thalassa as a Baby Name of the Day? Especially given my love for names starting with Th! We’ll fix that in July.
Which reminds me, I’m a little short on July feature names, so please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments of this post!
Now, on to the general baby name news:
- Ooh … this is a toughie! Can you back on a namesake promise? I like this quote: “A child’s name should never be a reminder of conflict and discord.”
- Thanks to Jennie for pointing out the birth announcement for Hallie Alphia Beau Radford, of the UK’s 16 Kids and Counting. Hallie joins sixteen older siblings at home. Last year, mama Sue miscarried baby #17, Alfie. Hallie’s middle is a nod to her late brother. Their other kids are Chris, Sophie, Chloe, Jack, Daniel, Luke, Millie, Katie, James, Ellie, Aimee, Josh, Max, Tillie, Oscar, and Caspar.
- That other mega-family – well, that other other mega-family – also have kids called Katie and Ellie, too. Also, one of the Bates kids is called Isaiah Courage. What a great middle name!
- Speaking of cool middles, how great is Hector Michael Neptune? The family is expecting another boy soon; Elea has some good advice for them.
- How do you feel about nicknames derived from initials? This list includes one of my favorites – C.C. – but omits another great possibility, L.C., pronounced like Elsie. Oh, and Ivy from I.V. – I think that works nicely, too.
- Oh, how I love reading Cleveland Evans’ name features. This time, he talks about Adelaide, a name he says could crack the Top 100 by 2025.
- Charlie! Magnolia! And more great names for fans of the Grateful Dead.
- Or, if you’re more into Star Wars, there are names for that, too. Can you imagine Leia and Lando going mainstream? I love both names.
- There’s a ferris wheel pic in this post – it’s from Virginia Beach, taken a year or two ago – and Ferris just came up as a possible baby name at Swistle. I know a family who chose Ferris for their son about a year ago, so I was really delighted to read all of the positive comments. Yeah, okay – I wrote the first one.
- How do you feel about double middles? I’m a fan.
- There’s a new Netflix original series called Between. It starts Jennette McCurdy as a pregnant teenager called Wiley. It’s dark – very dark – but I’ll admit I’m intrigued by the character’s name. It’s cooler as less expected than Kylee/Riley/Mylie, but I do think of it as a boys’ name. Maybe because Wilder and other W surname names feel so stylish right now.
- A Penelope called Poppy! I do like an unusual nickname for Penelope.
- Kim says that she won’t name her second child South. No word on the names they are considering, but I have a list for her and Kanye to consider.
That’s all for this week. As always, thank you for reading – and have a fabulous week!
For a July feature name…Carlin
Coming up on July 15th!
Name suggestion: Cato. I confess this is actually our dog’s name. He came with the name Kaden, which we all agreed did not suit a small but rather sophisticated-looking animal; so we pivoted to Cato.
Two boy suggestions for Baby Name of the Day: Lorenzo and Roel
Ooh – I’ve never written about Lorenzo! Coming up on July 9th.
Roel is interesting – not sure I’ll have tons to say about it, but we’ll find out. It’s July 16th.
Is there a possibly that all of your Name of the Day features could be in one place? I do love to go back and scour them for ideas. 🙂
As for a name possibility, would you consider featuring Nelianna?
You can click on Master List: Girl Names and Master List: Boy Names. They are listed alphabetically.
Your mention of Star Wars names got me thinking Lando might make an interesting name of the day, but then I thought it might be included in the Orlando post (it certainly seems like they should be related). I went to check and it looks like that post never got all the way moved over when you updated the site.
You’ve covered the names for most of my family, so I guess I’ll offer up the others as suggestions: sister Je@nette and my parents, R@ndall and M@rcile. And since I know you at least used to get more suggestions for girl names than boys, I’ll throw in Hiram as well. I’ve been curious about its history since variant spelling Hyrum got really popular in my circle.
Oh dear – I’ll fix Orlando. And Lando is coming up on July 14th. Hiram will be July 28th.
Randall is up August 11th, and Jeanette on August 25th. Thanks!
How about Amalia for a featured name?
For a July feature name – Joss. I know we’ve discussed great Joss Whedon names before, but what about his name? I thought it was a nickname or an unusual one-off, but then I heard a musician on NPR named Joss and of course there is Joss Stone. Also, a feature on unusual NPR names would always be fun too!
Excellent suggestion, Kathryn – coming up on July 8th!
Another great Th- name that you’ve never covered (to my recollection) is Theophania. I’d love to see a post on it sometime!
If you like Th- names, have you ever done Theodoric? The name of a few Gothic kings and the producer of one of the most extensive range of variants, rivaling John.
I was going to suggest Derek, which I think is actually related to Theodoric. I’d also be interested to see Leah as a name of the day.
I work with a Heliodoro who goes pretty exclusively by Lolo, which is probably too traditionally Hispanic for most people. But a less traditional nickname might be Leo…