Guest blogger Jasmine Almeida has come up with a novel source of baby names: your own wedding day.

Maybe it was the Pearl detailing on my dress, perhaps it was the Lacey accents on my veil. Or it could have been the gorgeous amnesia Rose bouquet I held as I walked down the aisle. But my guess is, it was marrying the love of my life last summer that got me thinking about how many gorgeous names there are in the world of weddings. Being a freelance writer who focuses on weddings, I tend to look at words related to them a lot – and couldn’t help but get inspired by the many beautiful baby name possibilities that spring forth from weddings.

Of course, there are the flower names, to which I’m partial because my own name is Jasmine and one of my puppies is Daisy.  Naming a daughter after the flower you held in your bouquet on your wedding day is a sweet and sentimental reason for choosing a name like Calla, Daisy, Dahlia, Iris, or Lily, or the more general floral names like Flora or Florence.

If you’ve gone wedding dress shopping, you’re probably familiar with the range of stunning designer dresses available. Naming a baby girl after your dress’s designer would be another romantic way of infusing your wedding-day memories into your naming process. A few favorites?  Vera (after legendary gown designer Vera Wang), Paloma, (Paloma Blanca gowns are spectacular) or Priscilla (of Boston, of course).  Monique (lhuillier), Sophia, (Trolli) or Elie (Saab) are all elegant names as well as legendary wedding gown designers.

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Reflecting upon recent hurricanes, Nameberry’s newest intern Deanna Cullen delved into “the eye of the storm,” so to speak, and returned with a flood of information on the hurricane naming process.

Mother Nature gives birth to a whole set of little terrors each hurricane season, so it’s only natural that we have a set of names by which to reprimand them- six sets of names, actually.

You don’t have to be a Weather Channel enthusiast to know that hurricane names are, by design, short, distinctive male and female names, listed in alphabetical order each year . What you may not know, however, is who is responsible for naming the hurricanes and why odd names like Gaston and Virginie made the 2010 list.

Since 1979, there have been six lists in rotation for Atlantic hurricane names, each established and maintained by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

A sanity check for all of you who may have thought “I swear I remember a hurricane with that name before…:” You’re right. Each list is repeated every seventh year, so this year’s list will reappear in 2016.

An exception to the rule. If a storm is so deadly or catastrophic that its continued use would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity, the offending name is stricken from the list and another name is selected by the WMO committee to replace it. Katrina, Floyd, and Ike? All gone.

So how are new names decided upon by the WMO? Just like any proud mother and father, a lot of thought goes into naming a newborn.

The committee takes into consideration the public’s response toward a name.  While a child with a complicated name may become exasperated by teachers’ constant mispronunciation of their names, a complicated hurricane name could have more catastrophic consequences. Thus, hurricane names should be easy to recall and on the shorter side.

The popularity of the first letter in a name is also a factor in the naming process. Current lists exclude Q, U, X, Y, and Z due to the dearth of names starting with those letters (Though hurricane names from 1958 included Udele, Virgy, Xrae, Yurith, and Zorna.)

The committee also considers ethnic names. Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, much like many of our country’s immigrants, have ties with European nations. Thus, the names may be French, Spanish, and English, in lieu of the  major languages bordering the Atlantic Ocean.

Here are some hurricane names that really stand out (and haven’t made it into the Top 1000 in the last ten years), whether their respective hurricanes have been but a blip on the radar or otherwise.

On this year’s list:

• Gaston
• Hermine
• Igor

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Question of the week: How do you feel about your own name?

This is a topic that has been brought up  in the nameberry forums, with opinions ranging from love to how could my parents do this to me?  What we’d like to know now is:

What is it that you like or dislike about your name?  Do you feel that it fits you perfectly or not at all?  Have you ever considered changing it?

Has it affected other people’s impression of you?  Positively or negatively?

Has your feeling about your name changed over time, perhaps as it has become more or less stylish or trendy?

How has your attitude towards your own name affected your approach to naming your own children?  Would you choose something similar in style or popularity or one that’s diametrically different?

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Fiona, aka ‘dreamingfifi,’ the creator of the fantastic Tolkien-based website Merin Essi ar Quenteli, leads us through the complex, magical world of Tolkien-inspired names and beyond, offering some savvy caveats and lists of Elven names that could appeal even to non-fantasy fiction fans.

I’m a linguist and the owner of Merin Essi ar Quenteli!,* a website devoted to providing translations in Tolkien’s languages for Lord of the Rings RPGs (Role Play Games) and fanfiction. Most of the time, I deal with requests for characters’ names, so I find myself dealing with some interesting problems when being asked to make names for real world, our world, children.

When I make a name for a character, there is no uncertainty. I already know that the Noldorin Son of an Exile will grow up to lead a battalion of warriors in a brave clash with Morgoth’s troops, and win the love of a fair Doriathrin maiden. I know that his favorite color with be the greenish brown found on fish-scales, because he loves to fish. I know that I will have to give the names in both the Exilic dialect of Quenya and in the Exilic dialect of Sindarin; one version to use with his Exiled parents, the other to use with his Sindarin neighbors.

When naming children… I know the child’s parents are fans of The Lord for the Rings, that the child’s parents think that Elven languages are pretty, and just about nothing (beyond gender) about the child. I have to take into account a completely different set of cultural and phonetic rules, that don’t match and often contradict the Elven rules. Here is a little guide for dealing with these problems, and a list of Elven names (using Tolkien’s languages), for we nerds out there. This guide could also be applied to naming children in any fantasy/sci-fi language out there.

First, three questions you need to ask yourself:

Will you and your spouse still be a fan of that series in 20 years? If you’ve already been a fan for ten years, you probably still will be by the time your kid’s heading off to college. But otherwise, hold off on giving your child a fan-name.

Are you prepared to deal with explaining to all those people who don’t “get it” what your child’s name means? Even with famous, popular series, like The Lord of the Rings, most people won’t be able to recall anything but vague details. Most people (and by most, I mean “the vast majority”) will not care that your child’s name means “the musical rustling of leaves” in the Woodland dialect of early 3^rd age Sindarin, and will start thinking, “poor kid” as soon as they hear the words, “I named him/her in Elvish.”

Are you sure your child will want to have anything to do with your obsessions? Think about it. You aren’t the one who will have to live with this name attached to you for the rest of your life. Your child is. Your child might be one of those majority that doesn’t “get it”.

Not scared away from fantasy names yet? Good! That wasn’t my intention. Let’s move on. There’s a few do/don’t to get out of the way.

Do consult several linguists studying the conlang (constructed language) before ransacking a dictionary. On your own, you could come up with something that sounds cool, but is meaningless garble. You are trying to pay homage to the fandom, so do it right. There are plenty of linguists that are willing, able, and eager to help you out.

Do make certain that the name is pronounceable with little to no practice. Most people aren’t going to have a language coach helping them sound out the name correctly. Choose names that are two-three syllables long, and that don’t have any sounds that English (or your native tongue) doesn’t have. Also, look as the way the name is spelled. How would someone, making assumptions about the pronunciation based on the spelling systems of your language, say the name, and is that acceptable?

Don’t use the name of a famous character. I mean it. Don’t. As a nerd, you probably already know that children can be terribly cruel. Don’t make your kid hate you because you named him/her Frodo or Arwen. If you’re choosing a character’s name, go obscure, like Gildor, Lúthien, Beren, or Ioreth.

In the end, I think that the most tasteful way to give your child a fantasy-name is to choose one that sounds like it could be a normal name that fits into your language and culture, but is your private reference that only the ones who “get it” will notice. With that in mind, I put together a small list of such names from Tolkien’s mythology that would fit in amongst English names. If you would like to find some more, feel free to browse my website. Enjoy!

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In 1963, there were 23,900 baby girls named Lori, the same year that there were 21,191 little Tammys and 11,000 Cindys, not to mention all the Mindys, Mandys, Marcys, and Marnies with the then modern-sounding nicknamey, quasi-unisex, names popular from the mid-fifties and into the next couple of decades.

So is it any wonder that so many of today’s parents have moms and sometimes grandmothers with these vintage nickname names?

But as much as we love those family members, and would like to make them namesakes, would we really want to name our own little girls Mindy or Cindy?  Probably would be  better to seek a related substitute that would still serve to honor them.

Here are a few random update ideas, some that relate fairly directly to the mother name, others that are a bit more of a stretch.

• Candy

                 More obvious: Candace

                 Less obvious: Candida (and yes, we do know its downside) or Dulcie (means sweet)

• Carrie

                More obvious: Caroline

                 Less obvious: Carys

• Cindy

                 More obvious: Lucinda

                 Less obvious: Signy/Signe

• Darci

                 More obvious: Daria

                 Less obvious: Dorothy

• Jamie

                 More obvious: Jamison

                 Less obvious: Jamaica or Jane

• Jody/Jodie

                 More obvious: Josie

                 Less obvious: Josephine

• Joni

                 More obvious: Jolie

                 Less obvious: Joanna

• Kerry

                 More obvious: Keira

                 Less obvious: Kerensa

• Lori

                 More obvious: Laurel or Laura

                 Less obvious: Lorelei

• Mandy

                 More obvious: Amanda

                 Less obvious: Manon

• Marcy

                 More obvious: Marcella

                 Less obvious: Maribel

• Marnie

                More obvious: Marlo/Marlowe

                 Less obvious: Marin

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