Happy Valentine’s Day, dear Berries!

And beyond celebrating Valentine’s Day baby names, let’s get expansive and salute the whole wide-ranging rise of its initial letter, ‘V.’

If consonants can be said to have personalities, then it wasn’t so long ago that the letter V was seen as more venerable—even fusty– than vivacious. Velma, Vera and Verna; Vernon, Victor and Vincent, all made our original ‘So Far Out They’ll Always Be Out’ list.  But as Pam and I have learned all too well since then—never say the words never or always.

The changes have been gradual since we wrote that, but there were two celebrity events that had a significant effect on V-baby names:  the naming of Violet Affleck in 2005, and then of one of the Jolie-Pitt twins Vivienne three years later.  Now there are a myriad of V-starting names popping both in and out of the celebrisphere.

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