The Baby Name Wizard

Name for an orange tabby male:

Aslan - as in the lion from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Article for Name nerds:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080812/ap_on_fe_st/odd_sweden_children_s_names

easier link: http://tiny.cc/oZRGW

Glad I wasn't born in Sweden... since my name is also the name of a fast food restaurant, guess my parents would have had to choice something else. ;)

Glad some of you like Marius! I would pronounce it neither as in bear or bar, but that's because I'm English! More like apple, as said by an English person, if you can imagine that vowel.

Eo, I hadn't thought of Marius Petipa! I was actually thinking of a rather hunky and talented cellist with that name, whose recital I attended when I was a little girl. :)

laura, i love your blog! ever since i started reading your commentary on name trends i've sounded so much smarter at parties! ;)

I just linked to you on my blog here.

and I was hoping I could get you to comment on this naming trend i talked about here, about immigrants' children being named directly after pop culture characters, or children even needing to name themselves.

do you have access to any information about trends like this, especially since 1965?

I adore Thaddeus! I can't believe I forgot that one. Also quite like Marius--especially if he's a hunky cellist ;).

I'm also drawn to the -s girls names, too, but my husband wasn't so keen and therefore they didn't make the shortlist. I'm especially partial to Glynis, Gladys and Mavis.

I've only ever heard Joachim pronounced Wah-keem here in Canada, but perhaps that's just the folks I hang out with. I like both it and Reuben. They strike me as both strong, manly, yet sensitive names.

Cathy- Graydeus! Ha! I love it. Imagine all creative spellings if the -s really took off: -eus, -ius, -yus, -ious, etc.

My 14-year-old nephew's name is Reuben. I love it. And as far as I'm aware, he's NEVER been called Ruby or Reub or Ben. If we call him anything for short, it's Roo. Or if I'm feeling especially affectionate, Roo-roo.

On the topic of trendy names ending in -n, and the supposed future-trend of names ending in -s, how about Calvin Broadus? Wait, that's rapper Snoop Dogg's birth name.

Calvin, Declan, Lachlan - all solid names, all end in -n, wonder why they're not more popular in the US now?

re: Owen - it may sound Celtic, but the 3 Owens I know were all born to Jewish American families in 2006.

re: Grady - aside from ENs on this blog, the only one I know of was born last year to a very WASP-y law school classmate of mine.

re: Hazen - isn't that what fraternities aren't supposed to do?

Caedus, maybe not- but Caius is pretty cool. Plus, it's a "formal" version of the skyrocketing Kai:)

Owen- according to the gov't of ontario, Owen was the 10th most popular name in this province in 2006 (the only year available), compared to #58 in the US- so, it is much more prevalent here than in the US at the moment. The same name can read quite differently in different circumstances- if Owen has a brother named Cooper or Noah, it fits the "trendy" category, whereas a brother named Gareth or Rhys would make me think welsh. Same with Aidan- it's equally natural to hear it with Cooper, Ben, etc or Fergus or even Bede (if you're into Northumbrian history)- but the former highlight the trendy side, the later the Gaelic/ecclesiastical component. Trendy and awesome aren't mutually exclusive in any case!

I'd pronounce Joachim as wah-KEEM (or wah-KIM)too.

latter, not later.

Kate, my friend pronounces it JO-uh-keem. I think - it's either that or JO-uh-kim. I think the former though. I guess you can tell I am not that close to her, I talk to her mostly on email and see the baby in pictures!

Eo, I love the name Carys, although I know that is Welsh.

I also think the 4th child of that great sibling set was Gladys.

My aunt is a 1951 Megan, well ahead of it's time, though it is easily and I think nearly always shortened to Meg. I remember my grandparents making a comment about what an unusual choice it was at the time. Being and '86er and having a friend named Megan it was eyeopening at the age of about 14 to think of the name as unusual.

An American family I know of that is going through the process of adopting internationally has decided to name their little boy (already born, but not yet in the US) "Clayson".

I figured that name tied in well with this discussion of adding -n suffixes to boys' names. Seems like a mix of Clayton & Grayson to me.

My favourite ending for boys names is -iel. So far have had baby son Daniel, next son was Judah Ariel and if I ever had another son (no plans) then Gabriel would be front runner.

Reuben - lovely name, very trendy in London. we considered it for Judah but it had a slight old man feel about it for me, and I didn't like Rube or Ruby possibilities (preferred Jude or - gulp - Judy. Which has never happened!)

Orange kitty names:

Cheeto (in the vein of food/cheddar)
Tigger

How could I forget "Carys", KRC? That's a great one-- I like the alternate spelling, "Cerys", also pronounced with a hard "c". And you made me think of that other Welsh "ending-in-s" gem, "Eirlys", which means "snowdrop".

"Caedus"? Hmmm--- interesting. Reminds me of my adored "Cadfael". Our local PBS station is re-running the stellar Cadfael series based on the books by Ellis Peters, about an eleventh/twelfth century Welsh monk who solves mysteries. Both the books and the TV series are replete with the most ravishing medieval names. If you want to see some here's a link to the wikipedia article that mentions a lot of them:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadfael

Favorites: Empress Maud, Brother Haluin, Hugh Beringar, a Welsh girl named Richildis, Sister Magdalen (formerly Avice of Thornbury,) Gilbert Prestcote, Godith, (woman's name), St. Giles, St. Winifred.

Oh, and Cadfael's son, Olivier de Bretagne. (Cadfael didn't break his vows-- he didn't become a monk until he was older-- before that he was a soldier and Crusader. He had Olivier by a Syrian woman, Mariam of Antioch, I think.)

And "Abbot Radulfus". Or is it Radulphus?

Re: Richildis, how is this pronounced? Miriam?

I keep saying rih-kill-dis in my head, but that might be totally wrong.

Keren,
Do you like Ezekiel?

Joachim - I would say Yo-ah-kim

The name Marius immediately recalled the noted English actor, Marius Goring. I didn't see much of his theatre and film work but I well remember him as the composer in the ballet movie, The Red Shoes.

The question of whether Marius has an "a" like bear or bar really threw me and I had to sit here saying them out loud to figure out how it could sound like either one. To me it is more like the "ah" in hat (hopefully that example transcends accent).

I am very conscious of that vowel sound because very few American/Canadian people outside of Montreal get the "a" vowel of my name the way I want it to be. Think of the sound made when immitating someone yelling in fear: ahhhh. Like that, only shorter.

I hate it when my Ontarian friends make nicknames or puns with my name (Kar) making it sound like "Care" because that doesn't feel like me at all. And coming from Toronto, my boyfriend can't say my name the way I like it either.

So when I eventually have children, in addition to finding names without objectionable nicknames, I'm also going to be concerned with avoiding pronunciations that I find objectionable - as if choosing a name isn't hard enough. Primarily this means no names with an emphasized "ah" sound, because that's the one that drives me crazy.

Not that I would pick any of these names, but for example to me,

Aaron ≠ Erin, Harry ≠ Hairy, Barry ≠ Berry, Aria ≠ Area.

Some people don't care how others pronounce their names. I am not one of those people.

***
And sorry... I can't in good conscience expose my dad's middle name. Let's just say that it is a made-up five-letter name, beginning in F and ending in Y, that will never, ever be popular. Ever.

I am SO with you, Karyn, on the Aaron/Erin, Harry/Hairy, Barry/Berry, Aria/Area thing, though it's only limited regions in the US who distinguish between each of those names.

I have a good friend named Erin, who has many times been told she has the female equivalent of the name Aaron. It drives her insane.

She tells folks: "say elephant, say emma, say enemy....now say Erin --- same sound!" She makes me laugh. I agree with her, though, and that's precisely why I dropped the name Aaron from our list - a name I love, but not something I could deal with hearing regularly either.

And about your father's middle name - WOW! LOL at your "never, ever be popular. Ever." --- GOT IT! :-)

PS, Karyn, I've asked folks who do *not* distinguish between Carrie & Kerry, for example, why it is that they *do* distinguish between Callie & Kelly, but I've never really gotten an answer. For them, changing the "L's" to "R's" seems to change the sounds of the 'a' and 'e' in each name, which I have a hard time understanding. The sounds stay consistant for me when I say them, regardless of which consonants are placed in the middle of the names. The short a (as in apple) in Carrie & Callie sound alike, but definitely don't sound like the short e in Kerry & Kelly.

I've learned that it's a completely regional thing, and in meeting more people lately, I've learned that while those in the US (outside of the Northeast) often don't distinguish between Hairy & Harry, many (most) in England & Canada do.

Oh, good call about the Carrie/Kerry! That drives me crazy, too. (Although some may say that I'm already there...) Another one is when people say "marry" the same way as they would "Mary". Grrr.

I'm pretty sure that the French influence in Montreal plays a big role in why Quebecers say the "ah" noise the way they do.

Amy3, what good instincts you have. At least, I think so, because "rih-kill-dis" is exactly how I guessed it is pronounced! Please discourse, Miriam...

Marjorie-- (at first I misspelled your name "Majoire", how jauntily Gallic), thanks for reminding me of Marius Goring. Everything about that "Red Shoes" movie is enchanting. Also like the name of its female lead, Moira Shearer. Isn't "Moira" a Scottish form of "Mary"?

Possessing a Great Lakes accent, formed by my proximity to Lake Ontario growing up, I say "Marius" as "MER-ry-us"! That seems to shock a lot of Eastern Seaboarders, I've noticed.

Am just a little bit suspicious of all those effete "ah's", ha.

But then, I've said here before that my favorite accent is of the retro, almost extinct, Jack Benny variety, in which even "drama" is pronounced like "HAM-a". To each his own...

Karyn,
Yep, Mary/Marry/Merry are each pronounced differently :-)

As an aside, I love the name Cara, but I do hesitate to use it, for the reasons you have mentioned.

Oh, so behind. But I must do an about-face. Yet Another Guest and nikki commented so graciously on my diss of Atticus and Holden, and I think I was wrong. As a literature teacher, I should be glad that people cherish names of characters from ANY book, and the ancient Atticus-es really up the snob ante beyond my level anyway.

And, to my chagrin, my daughter is the only child in her preschool class with the same name as another child. They're both Carolines, and will be in the same class for 3 years if all goes as planned. I didn't try to outsmart any trendiness when I named her, as I was just following a family tradition. I should have named her Phyllis, after my grandmother!

Speaking of accents, I would have considered Carrie as a nickname except for the fact that we're out west, where it's pronounced like Kerry and Keri and all those names of the 70s.

How 'bout those underused -ld endings? Donald, Reginald, Gerald, Archibald -- so hideous they're fresh and new.

My captcha phrase is S. Himrod, which I humbly submit to you as a very original boy's name.

Another Amy-Congrats on Edison Owen! Looks like you found the perfect name despite trying LOL!

rjoy-For your cat I like:
Oliver
Rowan
Mandarin-like the orange (nn Manny)

This is tough for me because I never think of "people" names when naming a pet, I always do "quality" names such as my gray cat named Smokey or my dog that was found in a 7-up carton on the side of the road named Pepsi. Seven-up sounded way too weird! Good luck in the long run.

Karyn-Thank you for mentioning Griffin again. I knew somebody had mentioned it a while back but couldn't remember the name for some reason-I only remembered that I had responded by mentioning the Party of Five character. Again, thank you.

And more currently-Yes, hyz is missing. I hope everything is ok.
Re: pronunciation- I think it is very important to choose names based on how they are pronounced where you reside. I love Irish/Welsh/Celtic names but would tend to shy away from them based on the fact that I live in US and many would have problems with them. As far as Erin v. Aaron I DO pronounce them similarly but do not think they are exactly the same. They come out as AIR-in and AIR-on if you can understand that. And Marius would be MARE- EE-us or MAR-EE-us. So the sounds are like the words AIR and CAR. The mouth makes a definitely different shape when saying each one.

As for the vowel issues with Carrie/Kerry, etc., I run into similar issues with my name--Laura. As a native Texan with family going back for generations there, I grew up spelling my name l-a-u-r-a, but pronouncing it/hearing it pronounced l-a-r-a. I then had a college roommate named Lara from California, so people constantly tried to differentiate us by pronouncing our names differently. We claimed that our names were pronounced the same, though. Most people here in the Northwest where I now live say it (to my ears anyway) more as "Lora." To me, Lora and Laura are very different names, as are Lorie and Laurie. I'm completely used to it now, but the previous posts really reminded me of it. And as a native Texan, all of those "ar" sounds are pronounced exactly the same!

ok
i'm one of those mary/marry/merry merger people. do the non-merger people pronounce marry to rhyme with tarry? does merry sound like murray? i feel like i never heard anyone who does not merge these.

luckily i'm not a cot/caught merger person.

Ezekiel? eeek...
I like the -iel bit of it!

I just read Everything Changes by Jonathan Tropper which had a character called Rael, which I loved as a name, but wondered how to pronounce. has anyone come across it? Ra-el or Rayl?

Mary rhymes with Hairy
Marry rhymes with Carry
Merry rhymes with Ferry

Hope that helps. In terms of Erin and Aaron I would say Erin is pronounded eh-rin and Aaron aah-ron with a longer first sound.

Laura I would always say law-rah and Lara just how its spealt. To me they are deffinately different names, considering I went to school with 8 Laura's in my year and only one Lara.

What seems to get lost, perhaps, in some pronunciation discussions, is that pronunciation can legitimately vary according to accent-- the "mergers", as bill says, of the "-ar" sound have a valid way of speaking. Equal to, but not better or worse than others. They are not in need of a modern day Henry Higgins, wincing at their vowels and making corrections!

I'm always interested to hear certain Easterners pronounce "tour" as "tore", rather than "toor", as I say it. But it doesn't make me want to get out my ruler, or anything... Regional accents make life more interesting.

One could make the case that "merger" accents, (i.e. those that don't make big distinctions between merry and Mary) in North America at least, have become the dominant ones, heavily represented as they are in the continent-wide "broadcast-ese" of radio and TV...

Of course, one can have an aesthetic preference for one way of speaking or the other. I enjoy Nebraska accents and other Great Plains accents, Highland Scottish ones, Southern ones, northern New England ones, etc.

Regional accent variation makes life so much more fun :)

It's a pecularity of the the Montreal accent that the vowels in merry and marry are differentiated (thanks to an article in the Globe and Mail many years ago).

My sister and I are bidialectal thanks to several years in England as children- so, while I merge *everything* in my Toronto accent (merry/mary/marry, harry/hairy, cot/caught), spend five minutes with someone from York and they all start to diverge. Which is kind of fun and much more pronounced in my sister, probably given her young age whilst we lived there (she was 6-10).

oh, that was a very bad pun. very bad.

And I forgot- congrats on Edison Owen!

wait....Carrie and Kerry AREN'T pronounced the same? I know a couple Carries, one Keri and one Kerri and I say all of their names the same. I've never been corrected. I also pronouce Hairy, Carry and Ferry so they rhyme, so ET's example of how to pronounce Mary/Merry/Marry doesn't really make sense to me.

I have a bland (to me) mid-atlantic US accent.

I was worried that might happen lol.

Ermm do you say air and are so they sound the same? If not Hairy is H-air-y. Rhymes with Fairy?

Carry would be Cah-ree and Ferry Feh-ree.

Though as has been said there is nothing wrong with an accent that doesn't distinguish between them, this is just for people who were wondering the difference.

I say all of them lie "air". Mary/Merry/Marry I guess to me are all pronounced M-Air-y.

Eo's right--it's just another accent, not a defect. If someone from Pennsylvania or New York says your name to rhyme with words you don't usually rhyme it with, correct them if it bothers you, but otherwise you can just enjoy the wonders of regional variation.

(Of course, I'd argue that Eliza Doolittle didn't NEED a Henry Higgins either--her accent was also just another accent, and the whole point of the Pygmalion story is that she's treated as a plaything by the men, as a guinea pig, without an eye to the consequences of the experiment for her.)

thanks, ET. my friend from Queens matches what you wrote. As an aside, she was talking about someone's post-bac(calaureate) courses and I thought for sure she said post-doc. It sounds to me that the East Coast A is trending toward a more continental pronunciation, while my Great Lakes A is trending toward "ee." On an earlier post I mentioned in how my brand of Cleveland English, Ann and Ian are becoming homophones.

I agree that accents are just different, not better or worse.

And on the other side of the divide: I, as a westerner, always do a double-take when I hear an easterner pronounce Oregon (Are-uh-gone instead of Ore-uh-gun). When I lived on the East coast, I was told that my mother (who was born and raised in Oregon) pronounced the state name wrong!

I think that you are likely to encounter people who pronounce Carrie or Erin both ways, no matter where you're from; if you detest one pronunciation, maybe it's not the name for you!

I greatly enjoy accents & regional differences in speech as well - they're quite endearing.

My question about the dichotomy with certain names was one of genuine interest. Perhaps someone here who does pronouce Carrie & Kerry the same way could explain to me why Callie & Kelly are pronounced differently? Is it "just the way it is"? or does it have something to do with the different consonants in the middle of the names? If the a & e sounds can be differentiated in Callie/Kelly, why not in Carrie/Kerry?

Again, totally genuine question that I've never gotten an answer to, and because I live in a region that does distinguish (does not merge) the letters "a" and "e" in words, I'd really like to have a better understanding of this.

Thanks! :-)

Cathy:

Re: Carrie/Kerry versus Callie/Kelly, I wish I could provide an answer. Like some other posters, I pronounce Carrie and Kerry the same way ("care" + "ee"), but when I think about it, it's completely illogical.

I realized too that as far as I know in my region (western Canada), most names that begin in [consonant]-A-R are like that. For example:

Tara
Clara
Cara
Daryl
Sarah
etc.

Perhaps someone else could enlighten us?

Cathy, I pronounce Carrie and Kerry identically and will take a stab at answering your question. I have absolutely no linguistic training, however, so this is just my personal attempt to explain why I say what I say. I can't pronounce Carrie with the same "a" sound that I make saying "Callie." It comes out sounding like I'm saying a "w" instead of two "r"s. And I would argue that there's a slight difference in the way that I pronounce the "e" in Kelly and the "e" in Kerry and "a" in Carrie. The sound in Kelly is more of a schwa, an "eh" sound, whereas the "e" in Kerry sounds like, well, the "a" in carry!

Sorry, I know that's not very articulate. Something about the consonant changes the way I say the vowel.

Several months ago someone from Australia posted a YouTube video of herself pronouncing the words merry, marry, and Mary. It was fascinating. I could easily hear the distinctions but couldn't reproduce them, despite the fact that I speak several languages. I must have a mental block against pronouncing things differently from the way I'm used to doing in English!

i merge Carrie and Kerry. i can unmerge them, to match Carrie with Callie, but i have to strain my mouth and it sounds like another person's voice is coming from me.

Even though few will probably look at this thread anymore now that the new one is up, I just want to clarify that, even more than a name enthusiast, I am a language and accent enthusiast. I *love* the diversity of accents and vocabulary found around the world. However, I like my native-English-speaking friends and acquaintances to pronounce my name the way I pronounce it. And that irritation with people's inability to adjust from "air" to "ahr" has extended to all use of this vowel in names.

If someone says it Care-in and then I say it's Kah-rin and the person can immitate me, then no problem at all. However, when trying to immitate the "ah", most people go to the vowel in "car" instead, overcompensating, and driving me nuts. Hense the preoccupation with the vowel and my refusal to give any child of mine a name with that vowel sound in the stressed syllable.

^it has to do with "r-colored vowels," i think.

I too say Carrie and Kerry the same, Harry and Hairy, Mary/merry/marry, bare and bear ... but not Callie and Kelly. I live in upstate New York, and people who say Carrie and Kerry differently tend to be from downstate -- more the New York City/Long Island area. With them, banana, apple, Carrie, and Aaron are all said with the same a's ... for us upstaters (at least east of Syracuse, in my experience) only apple is said like the downstaters ... all the rest (banana, Carrie, Aaron) are said more like the a in air.

Callie to me has a totally different a than in Carrie. I can say Carrie with a Callie a (and too funny about whoever it was that said trying to do so made it come out like Cawwy -- reminds me of Princess of the Bride and "mawwiage"), but I sound like my Long Island uncle saying it. And I can say Kerry more like Kelly, but again, I sound like I'm from out of town. So clearly, for me, it's a total regional thing.

Karyn -- I'm still reading this thread! I'm definitely a merger of most everything that can be merged apparently (merry/marry/Mary and cot/caught and stalk/stock and on it goes).

So when I see your name I would initially pronounce it Care-in. However, you would correct me and say it's Kah-rin, but then I *would* go to the vowel in /car/, further driving you crazy.

That is, unless the stress is on the last syllable -- kah-RIN -- in which case I think I can do the initial /a/ without having it sound like /car/.

I guess I can't think how I would reproduce the sound you seem to be making without going to /car/.

Re: Carrie vs Callie. I can put the /a/ from Callie into Carrie, but I sound weird doing it. As if I'm absolutely overpronouncing it. I even feel like my mouth is bigger when I say it that way, if that makes sense.

My Torontonian cousins say my name the way I do because their parents are from Montreal and they were raised with the "ah" sound. They got teased by school friends for how they said "carrot" (not kerrit but kahrrit) but appreciated for their non-TO pronunciation of their cousins' names. (Overall, they generally adopted the TO pronunciation for most words.)

When one of these cousins married a guy from California there was a very amusing training session involving the bride-to-be, her soon-to-be husband, and a lovingly placed finger in his ribs, with him saying "KAH-ryn". "TAH-ra". over an over, getting high praise when he got it "right" and a little poke when he reverted to his CA ways.

He thought it was funny, too. I swear.

It's much easier to immitate someone who is giving you feedback than to sit at your computer screen trying to produce the intended sound.

You need someone saying: "Say hat. Say cat. Say ah. Now say Karyn. Again. More relaxed. Don't focus on the vowel, just say it. Good! I knew you could do it! Try again? One more time... Perfect!"

Hey, did that help? ;)