The Baby Name Wizard

I love a lot of these names--not that I would inflict them on a child, but they do seem to represent a different time, when people wore their values and aspirations on their sleeves.

It made me think of another interesting name belonging to a famous judge, Learned Hand (whole name apparently Billings Learned Hand). He served in NY from the 1920s to 50s, and is still much quoted today--I guess he lived up to his name.

Some of these names are also pleasant in their more familiar forms:
Constant--Constance
Victory--Victor/Victoria
Grove--Grover
etc.

I wouldn't mind seeing a resurgence of these sorts of names, but I wonder if our values today would produce such upstanding names....

Laura, I love these lists! Would you mind attaching dates to them (what year each one made the top 1000)? I'd love to be able to put them in more context. If there's a reason you don't want to attach dates to them, what is it?

I wouldn't be surprised to see Cinnamon on an increasing number of babies: it's been used as a character name in a couple of recent stories/books, it's both a noun and a color, it's a little exotic sounding ... It's not a name I'd pick for my own child, but I could see other people using it.

I saw a 'Red' in our local paper a while back and just finished a book (the name evades me but it was of the chick lit varity) where the protagonist was called Victory - I think it's a refreshing alternative to Victoria, although I'm really not into Vic, Vicky, Tor or Tory which every Vicotria I've ever met seems to become...

Any chance the occurrence of "Wing" is Chinese? Chinese names in old US records are often recorded as familiar English words like Song, Sing, Wing, Young, Gum, Fang, Hang, Hung, Chin, Pin, Win, Jay, etc., even if the actual name didn't really sound very much like these words.

I'd also wonder if "Friend" was a reference to the Quakers (The Society of Friends).

My sister-in-law lives in SE Idaho and works at a hospital. She says that she is coming across the name 'Heavenly' quite a bit for little newborn baby girls.

I think this is just hilarious. Mind you, it is a pretty religious (mainly Mormon) community, but I myself am also Mormon and I still think the name is odd as all get out.

Some of these again are only "one-hit wonders" because the data is only from 1880 on. Several of them were fairly common in the earlier part of the 19th century. I'm actually a bit surprised that Vienna only made the list one year because I've seen it so frequently as a girl's name in old records.

Constant is somewhat of a Puritan name but also has been regularly used as a male given name in France. Welcome and Wealthy are both survivals of "Puritan" names. Omega is from the Biblical phrase "Alpha and Omega"; Alpha is on the SSA list for girls until 1944, and on the list for boys until 1913. I myself had a great-uncle named Alpha. Gentry, North, Grove, and Swan are probably surname transfers more than being directly from the words. Wing could be partly Chinese, but it's also an English surname.

Cinnamon's appearance in 1969 is of course because of the character Cinnamon Carter (played by Barbara Bain) on the original television series version of "Mission Impossible". :)

Ah, Pepper! I had a friend in high school named Pepper. She was so quirky and cool and the name fit her perfectly. I remember she said that her mom had been planning on naming her Alison but changed her mind at the last minute. I always wondered how different she would have been had she been Alison (a pretty name, but she would have been one of many).

Sarah R.--Do those kids named "Heavenly" live in Bliss, ID? I like the wide open spaces as much as anyone, but blissful it ain't.

Maybe "Omega," representing the last letter of the alphabet, is a more acceptable way of calling it "Quits."

Omega is one of the names I could see coming back.

Haven would fit right in with the "en" names for either a boy or girl.

And Vienna would be right at home with Paris, Savannah, Brooklyn and China.

But I don't see Wealthy coming back any time soon...

Oh, I think you're right, Constantly Kid-- "Omega" might well have been a declaration of family completion on the namer's part, either for the tragic reason that the mother passes away in childbirth (thus, Omega really must be her last), or because the parents just hope for baby to be the last. There are names for the "last baby" in many traditions. Better than naming them "Caboose," anyway! (That was my mother's joke name for the youngest.)

I quite like Ceylon! It fits a lot of the trends, and it's not too far from names like Celia and Taylor. So I guess it sounds more like a girl's name to me.

"Omegas" are the damaged last cohort of humans in PD James' _The Children of Men_--I couldn't see it as a personal name after that. That and it just has a Star Trek vibe... Most Greek letter names do, I think, except maybe Delta, and Pi (as a nickname).

The daughter of Paula Yates and Michael Hutchence is named Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, known as Tiger.
I also have friends who named their daughter Tiger and their cat Nick. Very confusing! I have to admit to secretly liking Tiger though...

Last child name of my aquaintance (father had a vas.) - Finn. Subtle, but point taken!
Heavenly - does this portend other adverb names?

Viennas coming back - my friend just named her baby Vienna Susanna Eve (after her cat..)

Heavenly is actually an adjective (despite the -ly ending, it modifies nouns, not verbs or other adjectives). But as for adverbial names.... well, there's Merrilee, I always think of that as "merrily." (Every once in a while you see it spelled that way, even.)

At the risk of stating the obvious, I think several of these names could make a comeback, but I think they're much more likely to return as girls' names.
Jack had a girl named Temple in his last swim class, and I've met Havens at the park. I've also seen baby polls with Gentry as a girl's option, and I believe someone was asking for suggestions for a sibling of a Vienna not long ago.
I could see North as a boy's name. I've heard of boys named West, Westin, and Easton.
I'm really enjoying hearing about the one-hit wonders. As a follow-up, I'd love to hear Laura's predictions for future one-hits.
I was also wondering if there are any perrenial bridesmaids-names that have been close to breaking through on multiple occasions but have never quite made the leap.

Thanks for another interesting-and classy-post, Laura.

Thanks Swan! 50 dumb points for me, oops!

I know a woman in her 30's named Gentry, and for what it's worth people have often commented positively about her name. Vienna is definitely an up and comer imho. Fits in with current trends on several levels (place name, -a ending, unusual initial letter). I've never met one, but it just seems right.

A friend had a baby boy a couple of years ago named Grove. I'd never heard it before, but it was perfect for their nature-loving family. Cinnamon and Pepper seem the most likely to be seen again to me, but from other posters, looks like Vienna is out there, too.

I agree with LKB- I'd love to see years attached to the one-hit-wonder names discussed in these posts. Any way to find out such information?

You can always go to the ssa site and type in the name. It'll come up. Also the site by Nancy has them grouped by decade.

Vienna is a character on As The World Turns now - somehow I still see soap opera character names as harbingers of rising popularity, so I agree with the peeps who think it might come back.

I can totally see Vienna rising in popularity. 'V' names seem to be very cute. Actually, I've never really thought of Vienna as a name before and I like it. It's prettier than Sienna, imo.

The mention of adverbial names like Heavenly and Merrily reminds me of a distant relative I have called Verily - I've never heard this on anyone else and have always wondered how she got this name... does anyone know any others?

Cinnamon's year was 1969, and it jumped all the way to number 700, which fits with the Mission Impossible connection.

Pepper's year was 1975, just after the premiere of Police Woman. Hmm, seems we've got a theme going here. (And also, incidentally, a theme in the naming of tough-but-cute women TV characters at the time.)

On the other hand, Mission Impossible premiered in 1966, Cinnamon didn't appear until 1969, and when it did it jumped all the way to 700. Can anyone think of another source that would have kicked it up in that year?

To be honest, Vienna just makes me think of sausage! Though I think it is a pretty name.

Lucky is another name up there I think could make a comeback - I've met several Luckys here and there. One was a nn for Lucas, another for Lucinda, but a couple were really just Lucky.

I knew a "Lucky" who was using it as a nickname for the Indian name Lakshman.

Hey Meg--Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" was released as a single in 1969, that might have contributed...

Is Lincoln rising? I feel like it is, but I'm not sure. If it really takes off, I can see people starting to use Link or Linc as a full name.

I knew a guy named Link in grade school. He'd be about 26 now. I always thought it was a really cool name, but that's probably because of his personality. I've known a couple of Boones. Has anybody from the north known anyone with these names? I live in the south. I think I have seen elsewhere on this board where some have predicted that Boone is about to take off again because of "Lost." Same with Sawyer.

BTW, I think Link was his full name. It seems that if Lincoln was the full name, the logical nn would be spelled Linc.

I have a current student (high school) named Council - I believe that it is his mother's last name.

I know a guy named Haven in his early 20's. His first name is actually Edmund, but he goes by Haven, which is his middle name. I could see both names making a comeback actually for boys.

By chance I came across a name which, if not a one-hit wonder, HAD to have been rare, no? "Phrisdewith". Phrisdewith Grafton (who I think died around 1625) was married to Jerome Lanier, who was appointed musician to the court of Elizabeth I.

I'd love to know the origin of the name, but haven't found any so far...

Katharine: Verily is probably a variation on Verity, a reasonably common name. Pepper reminds me of the spunkiest orphan in the Annie movie.

And you lead me to my question of the day- what is the most traditional spelling of Katharine/Katherine/Catherine. I'm not even entering the 'y' variations, but what about the second 'a' vs an 'e' or K vs C?

Clearly, my above question needs a question mark "what is the most traditional spelling of Katharine/Katherine/Catherine?". Sorry. I know we all hate poor grammar.

Formerly Arlene F...I seem to be the only Arlene on here...
That's one of the things I really like about this blog--almost everyone can spell, punctuate correctly, and compose intelligent sentences!
Re Katharine/Katherine/Catherine: I was thinking of Henry VIII's wives as possibly being indicative of the traditional spelling, but they're no help: the three with that name were Catherine of Aragon, Kathryn Howard, and Katherine Parr! Would you still consider it creative spelling when spelling hadn't yet been standardized?

I guess I wouldn't consider any of the variations to be creative in the "Madacyn" sense of creative. What I was really looking for is the original spelling. I'm leaning toward Katharine, as it seems closest to the Greek 'katharsis' (meaning "pure", or something ;)), from which I'm fairly sure the name derives.

Question for all you pro's.

Is there any way I can make the name Asher Rew work for a little boy? I am thinking if we find a good middle name and call him by both names it would force more of a pause before the last name, and not flow so much like kangaroo, (or sound like a sneeze as someone recently pointed out).

My husband says it is time to let the name die because of our tricky last name, but I like it so much that I'm not quite ready to.

"Phrisdewith" looks like a variation on "Frideswitha"--not a terribly uncommon Englishwoman's name in the 1500s, 1600s... in various spellings (you see "Frideswide" a lot, for example). There was a St. Frideswitha, in fact! She's supposed to have had an abbey at Oxford in the 7th century.

http://www.britannia.com/history/legend/berks/frideswide01.html

Sarah, I think the biggest problem with the first name/middle name suggestion is that there's a good chance others won't use the middle name when addressing your son. They'll just jump right to the first and last name combo.

That said, it'd be hard for me to say to give it up entirely if it's your favorite name.

Great post, Laura!

Katharine,
I actually knew a girl my age (early 20s) with the name Verily. She claimed that her parents named her that because it was a "Bible name." She cited the many passages in which Jesus says "verily, verily, I say unto you" as evidence of this. I always got a chuckle out of that. I don't know if it's actually true though. She was a character so she could have been pulling our legs.

Sarah, I wish I had a good suggestion for you! I agree with Lainey that it would be hard (perhaps impossible) to get other people to address your son by both first and middle name. It might just be time to give up on Asher, though I know that's hard to do. Have you thought about Ashton? It's certainly a different name, but it flows nicely with Rew, and you could always use Asher as the nn. Asher could also be a nn. for Dashiell. Best of luck with your decision, I really feel for you! One of my all-time favorites is out because of my last name, and another one is out because of my husband's ex... but what can you do? You could still use the name and decide that it's more important to you than the overall flow, but for me, that would be the deal-breaker.

Another alternative to Asher could be Ashford.
Verily as a Bible name reminds me of a Lois Lowry book with a heroine named Parable Ann (nn Rable). I would think of Verily as a cousin to virtue names, since it means "truly".
Am I mistaken, or have I heard that some of Henry VIII's Kathy's have records with different spellings (the same woman, name spelled differently depending on the source consulted)? Maybe it was a dream I had :)

I had a boss who named her son Chancellor (called "Chance") after a brand of boy's shoes. Some thought it was odd, but I like it.

A lot of these names remind me of names from Orson Scott Card's "Alvin Maker" series. Anyone else think that?

Gentry jumped out of that list bc I know a wonderful family in AR whose last name is Gentry. I have thought for several years that it would be a great fn.

In the spirit of one hit wonders combined with adverbials... I once was introduced to brothers whose names were Red and Harry. Sadly, their ln was Heine - pro. liked "your back side". :(

Thank you, Swan Ceylon, you are a scholar! Of course. The Phrisdewith/Frideswitha syndrome reminds me of "Fryniwyd", which seems to be an archaic inversion of sorts "Winnifred".

Don't know why I like these old tongue-twisting names. Also love "Alvilde", as in Alvilde Lees-Milne, the gardening and decorating writer. But unlike the others, I'm thinking Alvilde might have a more recent German origin, and might be pronounced with three syllables?

Gentry was the first name of a Texas girl who transferred to our S.F. Bay Area school in the 80's. So I guess she'd be in her 30's now. I like it, I think it fits into the whole boys name for girls thing and cowpoke, too, but doesn't feel two decades old like Jordan or Cody.