This is another in our series of excerpts from our new book, Beyond Ava & Aiden.

Oh no! Ever since you watched your big sister’s copy of Grease so many times the tape broke, you’ve always known that you would name your first daughter Olivia. But now that the time has almost arrived, you find that thousands of other mothers got there first, and Olivia is among the most popular girls’ names in the country. What to do?

Well, you have two options. You can stick with your lifelong love despite the perils of superpopularity (three Olivias in each class), or you can look for a worthy substitute, a name that relates to your first choice in style or sound or ethnicity. To help you in the process, here is a selection of possible substitutes, all at least a shade more creative and crisp than the well-used original.

Girls

Instead of — Consider

ALEXIS — ALBANY, ALICE, ALESSIA

AVA — ADA, AVALON, AVERY

BRIANNA — BREE, BRYONY, BRONTË

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The news has just leaked out that in the September issue of Archie Comics, after more than 65 years of boomeranging back and forth between sweet blonde Betty and sultry brunette Veronica, perennial teenager Archie Andrews has finally made his pick, and he’s about to propose to….Veronica!  Personality and character aside, we all know the real reason behind his choice—it’s because VERONICA HAS THE BETTER NAME!

Newspaper funny pages and comic books have always offered a rich variety of girls’ names. In the early days there were lots of sassy career gals–reporters, aviatrixes and secretaries with names like Fritzi and Mitzi, Tessie the Typist, Tillie the Toiler, and Nellie the Nurse. Some of these early career girl names still retain their spunk:

DIXIE
DORA
ELLA
ETTA
FRITZI
GINGER
KATY
KITTY
LIBBY
LULU
MARGIE
MARGO
MILLY
MIN
MITZIE
NELLIE
NINA
PATSY
POLLY
SUZIE
TESS
TESSIE
TILLIE

The comics have also always featured more exotic heroines–adventuresses and temptresses with mysterious, sometimes bizarre names like:

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Today being Canada Day–which is roughly equivalent to the US Independence Day–it seems like a good opportunity to browse through the bilingual Canadian name bank and see what we can find–actually,  more unusual–even exotic– names than you might expect. For instance, in the French colonies known as Acadia, there are such boys’ names as:

ALPHE

CALIXTE

ELZEAR

EMELIEN

LEONIDE

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Visitors to the Flower Fairy Names nameberry message boards have recently been treated to personalized anagrams of their names by Nephele, who’s turned ordinary appellations into charming, creative names worthy of flower fairies and elves. Here, she writes about the Flower Fairy legacy and names.

It’s certainly no news to names enthusiasts that flowers and herbs can be a great source for inspired baby-naming. Familiar flower names such as Jasmine, Lily, and Rose are perennial favorites. Less familiar flower names such as Celandine and Tansy also make lovely choices.

Such names inspired poet and artist, Cicely Mary Barker (1895-1973) for her classic series of little books titled The Flower Fairies.  Barker illustrated, with accompanying poems, the beloved flowers of her English countryside and gardens, personifying them as fanciful fairy-children.

It is Cicely Mary Barker who has inspired me to bring my anagramming craft to Nameberry, to see what sort of “Flower Fairy Names” we might discover among some of our forum members here.

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Summer is one of the nicest times of year to have a baby, the warm weather and slow pace making it that much easier to relax into new motherhood (and, from your baby’s point of view, into life!)  Here, some names that summon the season:

SUMMER — As a seasonal name, Summer may not be your top choice.  It’s feeling a tad shopworn after coming close to cracking the Top 100 in 1977; it’s been above number 200 for the past fifteen years.  Autumn is more popular but Winter is cooler.

Summer also has three excellent months names that include several usable variations.  These are:

JUNE – JUNE, the hip middle name du jour, was out of favor for many years but now is back in a big way.  The name, and the month, are derived from JUNO, the Roman

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