Gretchen,
I like Charlotte, Josephine/Josie, and Rosalie. I would tend to shy away from names whose pronunciations are not apparent from their spellings, or from names that have any possible nicknames you don't like.
I had one of those quintessential crushes on a 7th-grade Justin! 15 years later, I still occasionally check him out on facebook, where he typically depicts himself on a beach somewhere in sunglasses, khakis, and a polo. Still keeping up heartthrob appearances . . .
I must say, I was surprised by the absence of Shoshana/Shoshanna/Shoshanah/Shoshannah. The data supporting this name has always confused me. I know (or know of) a respectable number of Shoshannahs in their mid-30s or younger, but the name has never cracked the top 1000.
Compare to Hadassah, another not-so-common, chiefly Jewish, 3-syllable, ending-in-a girl's name. I feel as though I know fewer Hadassahs than Shoshannahs (of course that's just my personal experience/intuition), and yet Hadassah has appeared in the 900's for the past two years.
When I started reading this post, I thought, "Aha! THAT'S why Shoshannah's rankings don't rival Hadassah's: spelling variants!" But no, Shoshannah was left off this list as well . . .
This name remains a mystery to me; are all my Shoshannah friends and colleagues actually figments of my imagination? The only explanation I can think of is that Shoshannah/Shoshana/Shoshanna/Shoshanah's variants are so equally fragmented as to make no single version popular enough for visibility. hm.
Gretchen, I like Charlotte, Josephine/Josie, and Rosalie. I would tend to shy away from names whose pronunciations are not apparent from their spellings, or from names that have any possible nicknames you don't like.
I had one of those quintessential crushes on a 7th-grade Justin! 15 years later, I still occasionally check him out on facebook, where he typically depicts himself on a beach somewhere in sunglasses, khakis, and a polo. Still keeping up heartthrob appearances . . .
I must say, I was surprised by the absence of Shoshana/Shoshanna/Shoshanah/Shoshannah. The data supporting this name has always confused me. I know (or know of) a respectable number of Shoshannahs in their mid-30s or younger, but the name has never cracked the top 1000. Compare to Hadassah, another not-so-common, chiefly Jewish, 3-syllable, ending-in-a girl's name. I feel as though I know fewer Hadassahs than Shoshannahs (of course that's just my personal experience/intuition), and yet Hadassah has appeared in the 900's for the past two years. When I started reading this post, I thought, "Aha! THAT'S why Shoshannah's rankings don't rival Hadassah's: spelling variants!" But no, Shoshannah was left off this list as well . . . This name remains a mystery to me; are all my Shoshannah friends and colleagues actually figments of my imagination? The only explanation I can think of is that Shoshannah/Shoshana/Shoshanna/Shoshanah's variants are so equally fragmented as to make no single version popular enough for visibility. hm.