Please tell me that I’m not the only person who watched My Fake Fiance, the first pairing of Melissa Joan Hart and Joey Lawrence? It was raining, the baby was fussy … wait, never mind. Someone else must’ve tuned in – enough of us for ABC Family to greenlight a new original series called Melissa & Joey. The series premiered this week, and this time I didn’t watch. But I did Google enough to learn that Joey is a manny to Mel’s orphaned niece and nephew. The boy is called Ryder and the girl? Her name is Lennox! The actress playing Lennox is named Taylor, so maybe Lennox isn’t so outrageous. Plus, there’s the china. And a very minor Agatha Christie character was a girl called Lenox Tamplin. But if this one starts appearing embroidered in pink, it’ll be a surprise.
Speaking of character names:
- Jason Bateman plays Wally in The Switch. The cute kid answers to Sebastian, but that’s a solid Top 100 pick these days. Will Bateman breathe new life into Walter and Wallace?
- The Nanny McPhee sequel gives us kids called Norman, Megsie, Vincent, and their London cousins Cyril and Celia. The young actors’ names are interesting, too – Asa Butterfield played Norman, and Eros Vlahos played Cyril. Aggie – the baby from the first Nanny McPhee flick – also features in the plot, though she’s all grown up. In the 2005 movie, Aggie was played by twins named Hebe and Zinnia. That’s quite a pair!
While we’re on the subject on sibsets:
- This month’s issue of Real Simple featured an office makeover for a mom of five girls: Tabatha, Mabel, Annabelle, Evalyn, and Rachael, plus baby boy Leo;
- Babynamelover brings us a great set of TWELVE from the Telegraph: The birth announcement for Florentina Emilie revealed that she’s a sister for Georgina, Christopher, Charlie, Clementina, Gabriella, Montgomery, Cordelia, Angelina, Seraphina, Decima, and Delphine. I love that they used Decima for baby #10;
- Nameberry explored celeb sibsets that tend towards the quirky and creative. Tamerlane, Kansas, and Judah for a girl make the lists.
Elsewhere online:
- Names for Real spotted a Prairie Taylor. Muppet aside, I stand by my comments from the post about Meadow – this is one nature name I thoroughly enjoy;
- Here’s an intriguing smoosh: Sebastiane spotted a Hannabeth in Alabama;
- There’s a fascinating analysis by Nancy on Strong Names/Weak Names for boys, backed up with mucho data from 2009. It’s a much more productive approach than insisting that Kelly is a boy’s name. (Except that I still think it is. In fact my new hair stylist is a guy called Kelly from Texas. But I did hair stylist, not auto mechanic or lion tamer.)
- Leelee Sobieski calls daughter Louisanna by the nickame Louie – that’s no surprise. Except that she spells it Lewi, which I don’t get.
And lastly, the name was released for Paz Vega’s third child, son Lenon, a little brother for Orson and Ava.
But here’s the important news: next week is re-run week here at Appellation Mountain. I periodically try to update posts from 2008 because, you know, time marches on. But I’ve never done so in a systematic way. So instead of a new post, look for a week’s worth of revamped, revised, and re-invigorated names.
Things get back to the normal – meaning new posts – on Monday, August 30.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
I watched it too – I didn’t get to see the last 15 minutes, but I’m not really going to go out of my way to. Does anyone remember her from Clarissa Explains it All?
“Jason Bateman plays Wally in The Switch.” – Lol, Bate and Switch
A note along the lines of Kelley: I was flying home yesterday and witnessed two men at the SWA counter, each wearing a nametag that said Shannon. I kind of did a double-take. I know Shannon is a traditionally male name, claimed by females, but I’ve never met a male Shannon but since the day was so crappy (tons of delays) I didn’t have the nerve to ask if they were really both named Shannon.
As for Hebe, it has an awkward sound even if it’s not a slur. Gives me the heebie geebies.
If they’re going by Shannon it’s probably their real names (first or middle), at least as likely as it would be with any other name. I have heard of Shannons of both genders, and although IMO it’s okay for either gender I think it would be a great name for a boy (like with my name it has fallen quite a bit for girls in recent years and thus may now be the time to reconsider it for Team Blue).
There you are, Kelly! And I do think Kelly is dashing on a boy these days …
Two male Shannons is a surprise!
Heebie jeebies! That’s a good reason not to use Hebe …
I love Walter. We considered it for both kids, and is still on the list if we were ever to have another son. I have loved it since reading Ann of Green Gables as a kid. It is amazing how that series has influenced my name preferences (and seems to have done the same for many others).
At first glance, I thought the name was Asa Butterfly—now that would be too much fun! Asa is still fabulous.
Zinnia is divine, shouldn’t be surprising that I love this. I have a “thing” for Z names. I’ve never heard of Hebe as a racial slur—yikes. Growing up I went to school with a girl one grade below me with that last name.
I think your Kelly NOTD was one of the first times I commented–I have a brother-in-law who gave himself the nickname Kelly–he is a huge R. Kelly fan. And my husband’s cousins son’s nickname is Kelly as well, not sure how that came about though. They are both NIgerian, and living in Spain and Ireland. That being said, I still find Kelly girly, and I’m not a fan of it on either gender.
Lennox, um not too sure about.. Love the x ending names like Brangelina’s Knox and Maddox, but my husband is a computer geek and his computer runs on Lenux (an operating system like Windows, but for super nerdy types) and their logo is a penguin named Tux. So I think Lennox would always remind me of a computer and a penguin.. not very girly.
Love the name Cordelia in the 12 siblings.. thats on “the girl list” as well as Meadow and her alter ego Willow. I think we still prefer Willlow above Meadow, but honestly I love anything that is feminine, familiar but not popular and pretty much nickname proof!