No Cavities Club
(It's not celebrities [yet], but this is where people seem to be putting such lists...)
We were at the dentist today, and the playroom has a bulletin board with photos of grinning kids, labeled with given names, under the heading of No Cavities Club. I'm horrible at judging ages from pictures, but I don't think any of them were older than 13ish, or younger than 3ish. I've labeled the gender on a few, but there weren't really any surprises there.
Oliver & Annabelle
Joe
Madison (g), Sadie (g), Bodie (b), Laney (g)
Callie & Jamie (g)
Lilah & Rhys
Owen
Julia
Peyton (g)
Chase
Amanda & Jaclyn
Celia & Michael
Ethan
Megan
Justen
Anya & Maia
Rylee & Kassidy
Jacob & Ethan
Monica
Rowan (b) & Kyla
Audrey & Allison
Alek, Ben, Olivia
Maddie
Mariska
Dylan
Mason
Connor & Andrew
Luke
Logan
William
Jade
Alexa
Ian x2
Kathleen
John & Emily
Molly, Sean, Kevin
Tristan & Jade
Nathan & Nicholas
The ones that surprise me at least a little: Kathleen, Kevin, Jaclyn, and two different girls named Jade. I also wonder how horribly Mariska's family mispronounces it, and whether they're actually Hungarian, or just liked the name.
The other thing that struck me is just how few repeats there are. 59 kids, 56 names. (Two each of Ethan, Ian, and Jade.) In my day, 60 kids would've shared maybe 30 names, I think.
Thu, 07/19/2012 - 12:43pm
Replies
So Jade is a Hungarian name? I normally see it as an American name, based off the name of the mineral jade.
No, I was talking about Mariska by that part of the paragraph. Sorry it wasn't clear!
Oops!
Well, I've heard Mariska in a pretty standard American Anglicization a few times, with the short I and the retroflex R, stress on the second syllable. It's a matter of taste if that's good or bad.
Interesting list!
Kevin and 2 Ian's probably surprised me the most. Oh and Kathleen too :)
I do really like Mariska but I worry that I'd horribly butcher the pronunciation too. I have always heard it as Mar-ISH-ka but I"m not convinced that is correct. What is the correct Hungarian pronunciation?
The part that's most bothersome about the Americanized pronunciation is the stress. Hungarian ALWAYS (and I do mean always: absolutely no exceptions whatsoever) stresses the FIRST syllable of a word. Have I mentioned always? As a rough approximation, MAR-ish-kah would be acceptable. IPA is something like ['mɑ riʃ kɑ].
Actually, that probaly isn't too far off then. Most of the time I hear it with pretty much equal stress on the first and middle syllable. Plus, I know a few Marissa/Marisa's and they stress the first syllable so it wouldn't be that hard to get it 'correct'.