Category: Historic Names
By Abby Sandel, Appellation Mountain
Names from the Middle Ages are fascinating. They’re often quite similar to those parents love today, but tend to be almost entirely overlooked.
Nameberry has long had the Coolator. I would call this the Medievalizer, except that sounds like a torture device.
Instead, this is a list of the 2013 US Top Ten for girls, with suggestions for parents looking for something just a little different – or maybe something that would be right at home in the eleventh century.
The sixth month of the year includes the summer solstice along with the birthdays of lots of fascinating people — big-screen stars, composers and artists, military and sports heroes, and one pioneering pacifist. The month itself has some serious mythological ties, having been named for the goddess of marriage. Here are some of the best names connected to the month of June . One of them may even be perfect for your own little Junebug.
Audie– Audie Leon Murphy was the most honored American military hero of World War II, awarded a total of 37 medals and decorations, including the Medal of Honor for his singlehanded attempt to hold off an infantry company of Germans for an hour in France in 1945. Today, Audie is more commonly used as a nickname for the girls name Audrey– that popular choice which is reminiscent of Old Hollywood glamour was Number 32 for girls last year.
By Linda Rosenkrantz
The holiday we’re celebrating—originally called Decoration Day—was first commemorated in 1868, not long after the end of the Civil War, the bitter, bloody battle between the North and the South that ripped the country apart.
Over the course of the war, more than a thousand soldiers reached the rank of general, six of whom, including Ulysses (born Hiram) S. Grant, went on to become U. S. presidents. And for our purposes, they provide us with a fascinating range of period names.
In addition to the expected profusion of Johns, Jameses, Williams and Thomases, we find many Latinate appellations such as Augustus, Cassius, Marcellus, Gustavus and Theopholus; word names like Strong and Pleasant, and surnames Sullivan, Johnson and Jones.
From this cornucopia of intriguing choices, we pick 15 of the best:
Mythological names from a range of cultures are one of the hottest and most surprising baby name trends of recent years.
From Freya (that’s her in the picture) to Finn, Juno to Orion, ancient god and goddess names have begun populating modern nurseries and playgrounds.
What do you think of this style in general? Do the personas and powers of the mythological figure factor into your liking of the names? And what’s your favorite mythological name or names?
To jog your memory, here are our lists of Mythological Baby Names for Girls and Mythological Names for Boys, along with a separate somewhat different list of Goddess Baby Names.
Which do you like the best?
By Arika Okrent
Arika Okrent is editor-at-large at TheWeek.com and a frequent contributor to Mental Floss. She is the author of In the Land of Invented Languages, a history of the attempt to build a better language. She holds a doctorate in linguistics and a first-level certification in Klingon. Thanks to Arika for permission to reprint this article from The Week.
Like a lot of people, I was entranced recently by this animated map of the most popular baby names for girls by state over the past 52 years. It shows how the country shifted from Mary to Lisa before giving over completely to Jennifer, after which the Jessica/Ashley and Emily/Emma battles eventually resolved into the current dominance of Sophia. The map was created by Reuben Fischer-Baum of Deadspin using baby name data from the Social Security Administration. The SSA website gives the top 1,000 boy and girl names (as reported on social security card applications) for each year from 1880 onward.
