If you follow Appellation Mountain on Instagram or Facebook, you might already know how I spent my Saturday night.
At the Build a Bear workshop in the Mall at Annapolis, making a new BFF for my daughter.
Towards the end of the process – after the fluff has been pumped into the skin (I called it a carcass and was gently corrected by the nice BaB attendant), after the creature has been bathed and outfitted, there’s the best part: The Name Me Station.
I could’ve spent hours generating names, toggling between English and Spanish, debating middles, and pulling the lever to generate more possibilities.
My daughter managed to name her stuffed cat Meowy Kitty in about three minutes, so I had to move on.
I love what Jennie and Rebecca said on Facebook about researching and carefully considering the names they gave to their dolls and stuffed animals. I agree – a lot of us were That Kid, and grew up to be parents intensely interested in what to name our children.
Elsewhere in nameland:
- An interview with Anna from Waltzing More than Matilda! I loved learning more about Australia’s baby name authority.
- Nancy’s Names from Africa is a fascinating look at the process of discovering heritage name possibilities – and the names that were newly popular in the 1970s.
- Some great names on Meagan’s list of underused possibilities – including Gable and Helene.
In France, a judge required two separate families to rename their daughters. Nutella is now legally known as Ella; Fraise as Fraisine. I’m particularly charmed by the second case. Fraise is the French word for strawberry, but Fraisine is “an elegant nineteenth century first name.”- Fraisine is not in the database at Meilleurs Prenoms, but if you haven’t dropped by lately, you should. They’ve got a whole new upgraded look – it’s simply grand.
- Meanwhile in Germany, 400 new names were added to the list of approved appellations. According to the article, about 85% of requests to use names not previously on the official list are approved. That’s a pretty high rate. There’s also a mention that names invented by the parents were usually approved, if “the name could be recognized by its structure as a first name,” like Suma, Nelvana, and Rionella.
- Check out the aristocratic names of those boy twins at the bottom of the British Baby Names birth announcements list! Montague Bertram Kenneth and Rufus Wellington William, little brothers for Archibald Digby Douglas. Would love to know what they were considering for a girl.
- Speaking of handsome names for boys, Once Upon a Time Baby Names profiled Soren. Great name!
- I’m fascinated by the comments on this question at Swistle: are Double-Mary names like Mary Agnes, Mary Eliza, etc. too Catholic for general use? I love double Mary names – Mary Claire, nicknamed Macy, once topped my shortlist when I was a teenager.
- Speaking of double names, did you see the birth announcement for Maria Antonia, daughter of Brazilian actors, at Nomes e mais Nomes? Double-Maria and double-Marie names can be great, too.
- There is no limit to the potential word names ready to serve as meaningful middles. Names for Real spotted a Lillian Reflection recently, and I remain intrigued by past Baby Names of the Day Solace, Endeavour, and Remember.
- Don’t you love a good set of baby name predictions? How long ’til Mother’s Day 2015?
- Let’s end with my favorite list of the week: baby names, mostly from San Francisco, from a friend who was kind enough to send along a collection of the kids in her super-stylish neighborhood! I’ve left off the classics and the Top Tens. Interesting choices for boys: Earl, Sam, Walker, Whittaker, Winslow. Girls: Annie-Cate, Ann Chason, Blake, Bianca, Dylan, Elise, Evie, June, Lyla, Ryland, Sloan. Both Parker and Spencer were on the boys’ list AND the girls’ list.
That’s all for this week! As always, thank you for reading – and have a great week!
I know a girl named Solace (and she happens to be pretty cool anyway) so I’ve always thought the name was lovely. Especially because of its meaning. Comfort and consolation, a safe haven really. So pretty.
I love Helene from the list of underused names. If we would have found out we’re having a girl Helena was on my short list. I love it!
Also, I was a boring namer as a child. I was obsessed with the name Kelly and all of my Barbie’s and dolls were named that until my mom had my little brother. If she’d had a girl he would have been named Lacy Nicole, once he came out boy all my dolls were names Lacy.
I named two of my favourite soft dolls Susie and Suzy, because I discovered at 5 that the same name could be spelled different ways. I didn’t know ONE human little girl named Susie/Suzy but I thought it a wonderfully “normal” name for a doll….? Susie, Suzy, Jenny and Betty. No made up names no one knew. (I had a name no one knew)
I think my chunky Cabbage Patch Clone was named Ramona specifically for Ms. Quimby, but I have no ideal why the “real Cabbage Patch” ended up Chelsea, except I thought it was cute at the time.
I named my Barbies names I thought were dramatic and wonderful and more grown up than my ragdolls – I’m not sure what it says about me that the most glamourous of all was Karen…. Karen had wonderful white-blond hair WITH TINSEL IN IT, and deeply tanned beach-bunny skin, and purple and metallic gold eyeshadow. She was basically the ’80s made Mattel-flesh, so maybe it’s for the best that she was Karen.
I loved naming my animals and dolls. My primary stuffed animal was named George Pooh Smith, after Curious George and Winnie the Pooh. I thought Pooh was the prettiest name for the longest time.
My daughter is 4 and has an overload of animals and dolls and little mini people toys, and I’ve encouraged naming them after their characteristics for the sole reason that I can’t remember names that aren’t descriptors. (Yellow for the blonde mini, Blue for the blue puppy, etc) I wonder how I have shaped her future naming tastes by encouraging that. 🙂
I named bugs, animals, dolls, and stuffed toys ALL the time. But one that really sticks out to me is the made-up name I bestowed upon a fluffy stuffed dog when I was 4 or 5 years old…
Benetheo. (I pronounced it “ben-EE-thee-o”). Oddly enough, I look back and realize that name is completely comprised of Latin (bene) and Greek (theo) elements.
Maybe it was a glimmer of my future (current) love of etymology? 🙂
I loved naming my dollhouse dolls when I was in the fifth and sixth grade. I was so enthralled by names that one doll had nine names. She switched names monthly. I had the list (first and middle) written down, and I would keep track of what name she was this month. It was just too hard to pick one name for her. 🙂
Her name was Courtney the first month. I don’t remember the rest of the names. I think they were mostly ’80s and ’90s names, like Courtney, Tiffany, Brittany, etc. It would be fun to find my old list!
I wonder if Fraisine is related to Euphrosyne or Euphrasie. My grandmother had a sister named Frasyna, which is a Slavic diminutive variant of Euphrosyne. I wish I liked these names more because it has such a happy meaning (“cheerful’ or “merry”) but alas, I find them fairly clunky.
Thanks for the shout out, Abby!
Oddly enough, I didn’t care much for naming dolls as a child (they were Bridget, Patsy and Linda, so I think I must have seen them as already adults and much older than me!), but I did have fun naming my stuffed animals.
I’m glad you shared what Clio named her Build a Bear cat. I was totally wondering about that! 😀 Glad it’s not just my kid who is very literal in their animal naming. George (soon to be 4) has rediscovered his baby boy doll. I just asked him what the baby’s name is – it’s “Baby”. Though he did tell me that his stuffed gorilla is named “Gorilla Jungle Jim” (probably Gym). (There was some made up word before the name that I don’t remember.)
Nutella is an interesting one! The spread is very yummy and the -ella ending does sound namelike, but having Nut in your child’s name seems strange, plus it’s such a well known product. I wonder if they will still call her Nutella as a nickname for Ella. Seems almost a shame to go from a very unusual name to one that’s much more common.
My Mum called one of my bears “Bin Lid” when I was a child, since she wasn’t fond of the gift giver and Bin is the name for Trash Can. 😛
What I found fascinating is how much difficult I’ve had naming my daughter’s dolls and animals before she was old enough to name them herself. I ended up calling them after the person who gave them to her, with a few exceptions — the baby doll she got from my parents used to be mine, and thus still goes by the name I gave her, Catherine, and the baby doll she got from her other grandparents was simply Baby…that is, for almost two years in October, I think it was, Gwen announced that Baby’s name was Abelia (@-BAY-lee-@), and Abelia she has been ever since.
I have NO idea where she got that name.
(She also, about a month previously, named the large stuffed rooster of a friend “Neville”, and the moniker has stuck. No idea where she got that one either.)
I named a baby doll “Mavis” as a kid, my mother didn’t think it was a real name until she met an older lady named Mavis when I was in school. I have no idea where I got it from, TV maybe?
My daughter’s favorite doll is named Tatterlaine… it took me months to figure out daughter named her after my friend Elaine.