Most of us, as kids, lived in a world colored by crayons, and for those of us fascinated by words and names, those assigned to the different hues in the big 64-crayon Crayola box were particularly evocative.  I can still remember, as a little girl,  being intrigued by such mysterious names as Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber.

These memories were reawakened by a communique from our inspired creative contributor Nephele, when she wrote:

“Perhaps one of the fondest childhood memories shared by many of us is that of opening up a fresh box of crayons.  What a joy to the senses it was to experience that clean scent of wax and the beautiful sight of those colorful rows of pointed tips awaiting one’s creative process.  Adding to the delight was the fact that one’s crayons bore wonderful individual names on their wrappers, such as “Periwinkle” and “Cadet Blue.”  With such names, how could a child not help but personify her crayon friends?

‘Crayola’ was synonymous with ‘crayon’  in my childhood days, as it pretty much is today.  The bonus for today’s children is that the Crayola company now includes, along with English, both French and Spanish language versions of their crayon names on the wrappers of each crayon–providing even more name choices for one’s crayon companions!”

Here is Nephele’s list of crayon names which might also make pleasing names, with a few additions by Nameberry:

ALMENDRA (Spanish, “Almond“)

CERISE

CERULEAN

FERN

FUCHSIA (more…)

When the mother of all hipster mommy bloggers, Heather Armstrong aka Dooce, named her second daughter Marlo, all I could think was…..Marlo? Really?  You’d have to work hard to find a less hipsterish name, and Dooce herself has said she was inspired to choose the name by its original bearer, That Girl actress and Free to Be You and Me author Marlo Thomas, not exactly a hipster icon.

So I was thinking about how true hipsters would by definition search for names that were not pegged as hipster, when I came across a nameberry forum launched by the ever-brilliant Susan Chesney, called Outhip the Hipsters.

“What names are even more edgy and nerdy-cool than the Hipster List?,” Susan writes in the introduction to her thread.  Rule #1, says Susan: The names on the Outhip the Hipsters list cannot be on the Hipsters list or be enthusiastically endorsed on Nameberry.

Over the next 50 posts, dozens of the nameberry resident geniuses added their own entries to the Outhip the Hipsters list.  I’ve reclassified many of the name suggestions below, plus added some of my own.

Here, names that may Outhip the Hipsters:

RISING HIPSTER NAMES

The choices below are rising quickly through the hipster ranks and may soon be so hip they’re not hip anymore.

girls

Agatha

Dorothy

Freya

Fuchsia

Gwen

Louise

Magdalene

Mildred

Muriel

Pauline

Ramona

Roxanne

Ruth

(more…)

It doesn’t seem fair.  Why have some perfectly good names become permanently tainted by their links to a particular fictional character while others haven’t?  How come Olivia is OK despite her porcine persona, all Oscars aren’t considered grouches, and even Dexter’s popularity seems to be rising in spite of his avocation on TV as a serial killer, while Jemima and Jethro, Elmo and Eloise remain somewhat stigmatized?  I say let’s take another look at some of these names and see if we can’t get them out of quarantine.

The first place to look is on Sesame Street.  Seems that once a name is tagged to a  fuzzy multi-colored Muppets, it becomes his exclusively.  Here are some reasons why they shouldn’t have to be:

 ELMO–A lively O-ending saint’s name, Elmo is the patron saint of sailors, and the legendary St. Elmo’s fire is a bright glow that sometimes appears on ships during thunderstorms, as well as being the name of a seminal 1980’s Brat Pack film.

GROVER–A fine upstanding Presidential and nature-ish (originally given to someone living near a grove) surname crying out to be considered for its own spunky self.

KERMIT–Enough with the ‘It isn’t easy being green’  froggy references.  Instead think of its relation to the well-liked Dermot, Kermit evolving from the Irish surname MacDermot, or son of Dermot.   And Teddy Roosevelt used it for his son

And a couple of others with kiddie references:

ELOISE– Long associated with the imperious little 6-year-old who ruled the Plaza Hotel, Eloise is the most likely on this list to redeem herself, what with the growing popularity of similar names like Eloisa and Elodie.

LINUS–No, using this name does not condemn your baby boy to clinging to his security blanket for life a la the Peanuts character.  Linus has considerable grown-up charm and some interesting associations: in Greek mythology he was the inventor of rhythm and melody who taught music to Hercules, and a distinguished modern namesake is Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel prizes.  And, believe it or not, cinema characters named Linus have been  played by Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Matt Damon and Harrison Ford. (more…)

Guest blogger Jennifer Maselli finds herself nursing Baby Name Fever, and the only (elusive) cure is the perfect name.

Since finding out that our third and final child – due this fall – is a girl, I have become afflicted with something I like to call “Baby Name Fever.” I’ve been hit with The Fever before, but never quite this hard. Because this will be our last baby, I feel an urgency, a great pressure, to find the right name for her.

It’s made me a little crazy.

I’ve started carrying baby name books around with me wherever I go so that I can look up names whenever they pop into my head.

“But officer, I wasn’t talking on my cell phone. I was looking up “Keturah” in this baby name book.”

“Step out of the car, ma’am.”

“But I need to know what it means!”

I spend hours trolling the Internet, reading all the name blogs and boards, obsessively digging through the Social Security website and the London Telegraph baby announcements.

“Mommy, when are you going to get off the computer? I’m hungry.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“You said that 3 hours ago!”

I’ve begged my friends to please release their reserved baby names back into the general population so that I can use them.

“I know Frances was your dead grandmother’s name, but do you mind if I use it?”

(more…)

A few years ago I met a couple named Anoush and Harout, (who, predictably, had a last name ending in ian, the Armenian patronymic meaning ’son of”) and was immediately intrigued by the rich sounds of their names.  That, plus the lingering memory of the characters in William Saroyan’s My Name is Aram–Arak, Dikran, Jorgi, Garro–piqued my interest in Armenian names.  It’s an ethnicity that has made few inroads into mainstream American nomenclature, but, while most of these names are destined to remain confined to the Armenian community, there are definitely some candidates eligible for wider circulation.

Many of these names date back to antiquity, some coming from the Bible (eg. Sahak for Isaac) or relating to nature (Shoushan, meaning lily), and there are a number that are close cousins to more familiar appellations, such as Hanna, Rouben, Ester, Yulia–variations with their own distinctive charm.  (And note that since Armenia does not use the Latin alphabet but has a 36-letter alphabet of its own, transliterations bring about wide variations in spellings.)

Here, some of the most appealing Armenian choices:

GIRLS

ANNIG, ANI

ANOUSH (means sweet)

ARAX, ARAXI, ARAXIA, ARAXIE

ASTINE

CAROUN

(more…)