By Isadora Vega of  Bewitching Names

One bit of naming advice that I see thrown around a lot is that once the baby is born no one will be able to imagine him or her with any other name than the one that was given to him. That children will always “grow” into their names even if there are times when they dislike it.

Yeah, well, that didn’t happen with me. And it wasn’t a disaster.

You’ve probably guessed that Isadora Vega is not my given name. I’ve been going by nicknames and aliases all my life, so that at one point or another my friends will ask me what my full name is. I remember when I told one of my best friends my real name, and her reaction was similar to everyone else’s:

Read More

Nature names can mean a lot of different things, as our all-inclusive nature baby names list demonstrates.

There are flower names, long used for girls but newly in style now.  These include familiar choices like Rose and Lily along with fashionable exotic blooms such as Dahlia and Magnolia.

Then on the botanical side, there are newer tree names, spice names, and fruit names, from Oak to Sage to Banana.

Read More

By Donna Davenport

When I was a child, I had seven children…or so I believed. They may not have actually walked or talked,  but I loved them unconditionally in spite of these limitations. Some of you international Berries may not know what I’m talking about, but you American Berries who were children of the ‘80s and ‘90s understand what I mean when I say that my Cabbage Patch Kids were my babies. This American line of dolls has been going strong since the late 1970s, each one coming with a unique set of features, clothing, and best of all, birth certificates, complete with first names, middle names, and birth dates. They were, as the legend goes, born in a magical cabbage patch presumably located in some supernatural corner of America that is birthing plastic-headed, soft-bodied babies to this very day.

Read More

This week for her Nameberry 9 newsiest names, Appellation Mountain‘s Abby Sandel highlights some names that so unusual, they really off the grid!

Jacob and Sophia might still be on top of the US rankings, but any name nerd knows this for sure: names change.

Sometimes the changes are subtle.  In the late 1800s, Sallie was more popular than Sally.  In the 1950s, Kerry, Jimmie, and Lester were ordinary names for little boys, and their sisters were called Toni, Yolanda, and Marlene.

It’s easy to focus on the big stories – the headline-grabbing rise of Messiah and King, for example – but I like this quote from last week’s Oxford Dictionaries blog:

… it makes sense that we constantly adapt and expand our vocabulary to account for new concepts, events, inventions, etc. For example, we may invent new words, give existing words new meanings, or borrow words from other languages.

Read More

It was an intriguing question posed over on the forums: What would your children be named, if your partner had complete control?

In my case, my husband would have chosen names from his family tree….very very sleepy names.

Our daughter would be named Molly instead of Rory — Molly Rose. Or maybe Rose Elizabeth, after my husband’s grandmother and mother.

One of our sons would probably have been John and the other one Edward, called Ned. I’m guessing John Richard and Edward Victor. All serviceable choices but…..yawn.

Of course, turn the tables and my husband would say my unedited choices would be unacceptably outrageous. Flora, Otis, and Penn, maybe. Sounds fantastic to me.

Read More