Are these names new to you too?
I was browsing a list of financial donors to a children's home, knowing that most wealthy donors are elderly, so I'd find some interesting names. I didn't expect to find so many I'd never heard before. Some had Mr. or Ms. preceding the name so I've marked the ambiguous names (to me) male or female. A few more are ambiguous but there's no indication of male or female. Are any of these new to you too?
Zodie
Noelene
Olney (F)
Gentry
Flavius (I've heard this but not outside of ancient Rome)
Caroldine
Emelle (m)
Carlynn (f)
Zaida
Arlice
By Emerald Bee
Mon, 07/09/2012 - 9:54am
Mon, 07/09/2012 - 9:54am
Replies
Fabulous list! I've only heard Olney in the context of the Washington, DC suburb in Maryland. I have heard of a few Gentrys (it's a relatively common surname where I live).
I've seen Noelene, Flavius, Carlynn, and Arlice before. The others are new to me.
Is Arlice male or female?
Male. Compare Arliss. The name is English.
However, I should point out that it was "going girl." If I do a search for Arlices today, obituaries in the USA skew female, and it does hit the "Ardith meets Alice" sweet spot for a female name.
So... Arlice on the list today is probably female. Arlice of 100 years ago was probably male.
Thanks! I was leaning toward male, because it sounds similar to Arlen, but I guess I was thrown off by the visual similarity to Alice.
Zodie and Gentry are gender-ambiguous to me - are they female?
I have no idea about Zodie! I'd guess female because of the -ie ending. I did a facebook search for Gentry and found both males and females with the first name. I'd assume, like others have stated, that maybe it's a family surname used as a unisex name. It seems a little pretentious to me, since the word means "upper-class."
Wow, that's quite a list!
I've never heard of Flavius outside of the historical context.
Gentry is interesting because it is most likely derived from a family surname but it almost feels like a virtue name.
Caroldine and Carlynn feel like a combo name of a past generation. ("We will name her after grandmotheres, Carol and Geraldine", or "We as her parents, want to name her after both of us, Carl and Lynn")
Emelle really feels female to me, possibly because it's only one letter off from the French word for female, "femelle"
Zaida is the only other one that's I've heard of. Along with Zaidie, it really amuses me as a name - a female name, yet - because it's the Yiddish word for Grandfather.
I would've guessed female for Emelle too, if the entry didn't say Mr. Emelle... I did find a nameipedia entry for Emile (m), so maybe it shares origin with that or Emilio.
That's interesting about Zaida being Yiddish for grandfather! I searched other name sites and didn't find any mention of that fact.
That could be because Yiddish is not written with the Roman alphabet, meaning that there are tons of different transliterations floating around for the name. I think that I've probably written it several different ways over the years. Every time I have to write a card to my zaidie, I question how I've spelled it in the past.
Technically, it does not end in the "ie" sound, but rather an "eh", but it's about equally common to hear both endings among English speakers who call their grandparents by the Yiddish names.
Similarly, the word for grandmother, bobbeh/bubbie, etc., has several spellings and pronunciations.
Also, if the name Zaida is pronounced za-EE-da, then the pronunciation really is different, and it is only the orthography that overlaps.
My assumption (perhaps erroneous) is that Zaida is a transliterated version of the Arabic name.
No, I believe that you're correct - but it still amuses me :)
"Gentry" was one of the names my SIL suggested for my oldest nephew. She was surprised that almost none of my (northern Appalachian w roots in the Northeast US) family had ever heard of it; it seems to skew quite Southern (which she is).
My father and I had both heard it before, though, in the context of author Gentry Lee (male, b 1942).