To commemorate the beginning of a new year, we offer our annual New Year’s blog, together with our thanks for making nameberry such a thriving  community in 2009, and our resolution to make it even better in 2010!

The ringing in of a new year brings with it a sense of fresh beginnings, a new dawn dawning, and bright hopes for the future.  And so with that in mind, and with our warmest wishes to all of you for a great year, we offer some names drawn from a variety of cultures that suggest  those very things–and all of them appropriate for a New Year’s baby.

NAMES THAT MEAN HOPE

AMAL

AMIL

ARRAYAH

ASHA

ESPERANZA

HOPE

NADIA, NADINE

NOZOMI

RAJA

SPERANZA

TARAJA

TIKVAH

VON (more…)

Just a few years ago, it might have been fair to say that Winter was the season least friendly to names, while now it seems to offer the newest choices for the adventurous baby namer.   Why?  Two reasons:  Nicole Richie choosing Winter as one of the middle names for her high-profile little girl Harlow, and January Jones, beauteous star of noteworthy new show Mad Men.

WINTER is the season name that’s seen the least amount of use over the years, yet one that holds the most potential for boys as well as girls.  Variations include WINTERS, WYNTER, and (please don’t) WINTR.  Translations of the seasonal name include the French Hiver (pronounced ee-vair), Italian INVERNO, and in Spanish, INVIERNO.   In Dutch and German, it’s still Winter and and in Swedish, the comical-sounding (to the English speaker’s ear) VINTER.

In mythology, winter was said to be caused by DEMETER in grief over the loss of her daughter PERSEPHONE, consigned forever to the underworld (but rising again as a baby name, with or without the pronunciation of the final long e).

DECEMBER, still a highly unusual month name yet certainly a usable one, means ten.  Other versions you may want to consider: DECIMA, name of the Roman goddess of childbirth; DECEMBRA, DECIMUS, or DECIO.  December’s flower is the narcissus or holly, suggesting the names NARCISSA (difficult at best) and HOLLY (already a bit worn at the edges).  December gem TURQUOISE can work as a name, as can AQUA or its Turkish equivalent FAIRUZA.   Red, however, seems more suitable as December’s color, which leads you to a whole spectrum of great names, from SCARLETT to CRIMSON to RUFUS and RORY.

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Guest blogger JILL BARNETT discovers that yooneek names are more prevalent than she’d realized. And every bit as confusing.

On a beautiful Saturday in July, I found myself where most people would love to be on a beautiful Saturday in July: sitting in a painfully boring continuing education seminar, hopelessly trying to remain awake. The air conditioner must have been set at a brisk 52 degrees, and after catching a glimpse of my now cerulean blue toes, I wondered if my lips had suffered a similar fate. My chattering teeth thankfully prevented me from entirely nodding off, but I was in need of a more cerebral distraction. Desperate for entertainment, I decided to count the goosebumps on my lower left arm, first by twos and then by threes.

As the counting fun began, I happened to glance at a piece of paper in front of the 20-something-year-old woman sitting to my left, and I realized that she had written her name in the upper right hand corner. Ever the name nerd, I simply had to take a peek, and after a lingering glance, I discovered that her name was Mykailah. Figuring it was code for Michaela, I naturally wondered about my other neighbor’s name. Pretending to do some right arm goosebump counting, I quickly looked at her paper, and was pleased to meet Tyffani. Mykailah and Tyffani? Tyffani and Mykailah? I was now the official filling inside of a yooneek name sandwich.

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This blog is adapted from our most recent book, Beyond Ava & Aiden: The Enlightened Guide to Naming Your Baby

When people look for baby names online, they often put in a search for “unique names.” Some of them are trying to find names that are unusual and distinctive, but some really do want to give their child a name that’s truly one-of-a-kind, something that nobody else has.

A recent newspaper story claimed that one of the reasons for this is because modern parents want their child to be “Googleable,” to have a name that’s different enough that it will pop out online. And some parents say they won’t settle on a name until they find out whether its url is available.

Of course, as soon as you give your child a “unique” name, it all but guarantees it won’t be unique anymore since someone will almost inevitably poach it. We were tickled to find, for instance, that someone posted on our website bulletin board that she’d named her son Knox, a name that wasn’t in our or any other baby-naming book –  months before Angelina and Brad chose it for their newborn son, launching it on the track to widespread use.

When we asked visitors to our website to tell us what they’d named their babies, we never expected their answers to provide such a trove of highly unusual – yes, even unique – names. Some of these turn gender on its ear, some twist spellings in different ways, some reintroduce ancient or ethnic names or transform place names or surnames, and some are conjured from parents’ fertile brains.

Now here is where you would ordinarily expect to find a long list of distinctive, never-heard-before names.  But that would be against the spirit of this style.  So you’ll just have to find–or create–one of your own.

For more of our ideas on unusual names, check out Beyond Ava & Aiden: The Enlightened Guide to Naming Your Baby

Guest blogger Susan Chesney writes about the evocative place and nature names of the California desert.

One of my favorite places is the California desert, because in that silent place there are many secrets.  Most people drive through the desert as fast as they can with their windows up, radios blaring, and air conditioners on. They don’t know about the gray-green sagebrush that grows in little clumps away from the highway, and that hidden among the clumps might be a bleached antler, lying in the sand. What if they knew that outside the town of Bishop, there are several hot ditches, natural and soothing hot springs, waiting to be soaked in, free of charge? Or what about this secret: that the desert is unpolluted– there is very little trash and the skies are a deep blue. I love the mirage effect out in the desert. There is a blend of haze and heat that shimmers and is mystical. In the movie “Lawrence of  Arabia”, when asked why he loves the desert, Lawrence replies, “Because it’s clean.”

Among the precious secrets of the California desert is the treasure trove of names that dot the landscape along with the cactus, lizards, and Joshua trees. There are little towns, rivers, lakes, hills, plants, animals and even colors in the desert that can provide inspiration for babies’ names. Some of these names are comfy or even popular like Owen and Joshua. Others are vintage, offbeat and quirky such as Aberdeen and Rosamond. So let’s wander out under the cottonwood trees that grow next to the crick (creek), set up some lawn chairs, and talk about California desert names.

Some place names from the California Desert:

ALABAMA – the Alabamas, hills that are older than the High Sierras

ABERDEEN – Aberdeen trailer park

BERNARDINO – San Bernardino County, goes all the way to the Nevada border

BISHOP – biggest town in the Owens valley

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