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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Washington State berry Katy is a mother to three girls with meaningful names and spirited nicknames, a tradition she’d like to continue with her fourth child.  Can this berry find a name that fits her criteria and her sibset? Here is what she says:

“My husband Colin and I are expecting baby #4! We have 3 daughters, 6 year-old twins Isobel Rose & Liv Michaela, and a 3 year-old Zoie Grace. Isobel‘s name means pledged to God, Zoie and Liv‘s names mean life.

We don’t know the gender of the baby yet, but we’ve been searching for a name that has a meaning similar to Isobel‘s. We want to stay consistent. So far we’ve come up with Jack, Matthias, & Theodore (our favorite) for a little boy and for a little girl we found Elliot (our favorite), Libby, & Thea.

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Nameberry commemorates Earth Day with this guest blog contributed by Elisabeth Wilborn, creator of one of our absolute favorite blogs, You Can’t Call It “It” .  Elisabeth, a writer, artist, and mom,  lives in Brooklyn, New York

April 22 has rolled around, and we remind ourselves yet again to care for the Earth– lest it forget to care for us. If you’d like your child to be ever mindful of the planet, consider sourcing his or her name from Earth gods and goddesses, from the Earth’s bounty itself, or from one of the great conservationists (with conveniently attractive surnames, no?).

Happy day!  Be good, and enjoy it.

EMBLEMS OF THE EARTH

GIRLS

Anona- Roman goddess of the harvest

Avani- Sanskrit, “earth”

Ceres- Ancient Roman, “to grow”,Roman goddess of agriculture

Demeter- Greek, “earth mother”, Greek goddess of agriculture

Flora- Roman goddess of flowers

Francis- Italian saint reknowned for his connection to animals

Gaia- Greek, “earth”, and the goddess of the earth

Georgia, Georgina, Georgianna- Greek, “farmer”

Kun- Chinese, “earth”

Luna- Roman goddess of the moon

Perpetua- Latin, “continuous”

Terra- Latin, “earth”

Vita- Latin for “life”

Zoe- Greek, “life”

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