Sunday Summary: Happy Mother’s Day!

This might set a record for the latest I’ve ever posted a Sunday Summary – it’s already after 9:30 as I type the first few words!

It’s been a wild weekend here. Friday was the release of the new most popular baby names data in the US, which sort of feels like Mardi Gras and the Super Bowl all rolled into one. I wanted to take a victory lap – I predicted that Benjamin and Harper would enter the US Top Ten, and they did!

And, of course, I also wanted to dig into ALL OF THE DATA. I can wander around in it for hours, especially after the amazing Natalie wrote and said that her amazing husband Brian had whipped up a spreadsheet comparing all of the Top 1000 names from 2014 to 2015. Would I like a copy? Yes, yes, and yes!

But this weekend’s main event took place in real life. My daughter made her First Communion, and we had lots of family in town to celebrate. Happily, this coincided with Mother’s Day.

And so here I am, at 9:43 PM now, yikes! – typing this post.

I’ll have much more to say about the new stats in the coming days, but for now, let’s take a look at all of the baby name news – data-related and otherwise:

• Nancy puts the spotlight on Gelsey. I’ve always loved this name. Except somehow I missed the fact that Gelsey pronounces her name with a hard G. I’ve been saying it with the soft G of Genevieve for ages. (And really for ages. I remember that Time magazine cover Nancy features in her post. My parents were loyal Time readers, and I was fascinated by it from an early age.)
• This is such a fun question at Swistle: Does it honor someone to choose that person’s favorite name?  I think it absolutely works in this case. And I do think it’s worth using popular names – even #1 names – if the story behind them is personally meaningful.
• We’re still wild for A names for girls, J names for boys.
• Not a big shocker, but Isis fell sharply in 2015.
• If computer programs invented baby names. More misses than hits, but some of these totally work.
• From this birth announcement round-up at British Baby Names: the swoon-worthy Wren Ophelia, my first spotting of a girl with the middle name Rey – was she born on May the 4th?, and two – count ’em two! – uses of Fraser, one as a first, one as a middle.
• Ren’s got a list of all of the comeback kids of 2015. Zelda, Adaline, and more.
• And all of the newcomers, names debuting on the list in 2015.
• There’s no such thing as a mispronunciation-proof name.

We’ve also had a bumper crop of celebrity babies. (Michael Phelps, there must be a story behind that name. Please share!) SO much to think about, but for now, I’m signing off.

Wishing all of you a very Happy Mother’s Day. And if this is holiday is difficult for you, sending warm thoughts your way.

As always, thank you for reading – and have a great week!