Merry Christmas! If you’re celebrating today, here’s wishing you a happy, peaceful holiday.
But just in case you’re not … or let’s say you are, but you’ve officially overdosed on reindeer-shaped cookies and sparkly gift wrap … I thought I’d focus on non-holiday name news this morning.
Yes, there’s plenty!
- Oh, I do like Landry.
- How about Emblem? It sounds like a modern word name, but Zeffy spotted her in Cornwall between the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries.
- Reality television influence alert: For Real spotted a baby girl Sutton Rose.
- Oh, I do hope this couple goes with Andromeda instead of shortening it to Andi.
- The Adventures in Babywearing blogger, Stephanie, has a daughter called Ivy LaRue. Love the combination!
- Speaking of girls’ names, there’s a rumor floating around that Lily Allen has named her daughter Ethel Mary. It inspired Nomes e mais nomes to mention a few similar names from Portugal: Etel, the direct translation, as well as Etelca and Elca. I’m fascinated by Etelca, which is related to Attila via a German medieval epic.
- Kio for a boy – I kind of love the idea from Waltzing More than Matilda’s post on star names.
- Nancy Friedman’s article on The Wrong Names gets it exactly right. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been horribly distracted by a poorly-named character.
- Speaking of characters, Dolly Parton returns to the big screen in January’s Joyful Noise, a feel-good tale of a little choir that could. Her character’s name? G.G. Sparrow.
- How ’bout this happy word for a middle name?
That’s all for this week! As always, thanks for reading. I’m off to bake more cookies!
My husband actually suggested Andromeda as a middle name, but it just makes me think of the tv show. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213327/
Oh an Andromeda, how lovely! Can you believe she has a husband so awesome as to demand Andromeda, while most of us have to bludgeon ours (uh, with words!) to consider anything more exotic than Sienna?
I do love the way she says that Andromeda is an unusual name where they live … I wonder where in the world it is a usual name? 🙂
Abby, how would you pronounce Etelca in english?
eh TEL kah – but I’m just guessing!
Mirth is absolutely fantastic! I really love that -th ending. I like Landry too. There is a hilarious episode of Party Down called “Cole Landry’s Draft Day Party” so that’s my first association, but I do like it.
The link to Nancy Friedman’s article on the wrong names isn’t working…
Merry Christmas!
Yeah. It isn’t working for me either 🙁
I would love to spot a Mirth in the middle. That’s fabulous.
I don’t watch a lot of reality TV so I didn’t realize that about Sutton. I always think of Broadway actress Sutton Foster, when I spot a girl named Sutton.
Merry Christmas!
There’s also Ask and Embla, the first humans beings in Norse mythology. I almost mentioned them during the “So Lovely as a Tree” post, since the names mean “Ash” and “Elm. Since there are plenty of other names influenced by the Normans, I could see a connection… or at the least maybe Embla could help Emblem seem “namey”.
From Christmas newsletters I learned I have new little relatives named Lincoln and Meadow. Plus a friend from college is engaged to Cardiff. That one threw me for a loop, but as far as sources go it isn’t any stranger than Kingston or Bristol.
Merry Christmas!
I love Embla. I always thought it would make a cool alternative to Emma.
Emblyn is the Cornish form of Emmeline. In this case it’s most likely one of the many spelling errors clerics used to make.
Have a lovely Christmas!