Category: Meanings of Baby Names
Their new daughter will need surgery shortly after birth. Time to find a strong name with the right meaning to encourage their little fighter!
Kristen writes:
We recently found out we were having our third girl and we were absolutely thrilled. Of course, I immediately dug up the master list we used for the last two, Daphne Evangeline and Adele Emmanuelle. We knew we wanted Elizabeth for a middle, but other than that we were at a total loss.
My husband jokingly calls our naming style “Old British Ladies”, but it seems we’re not the only ones with that taste. The remaining names on our list that we loved three years ago have either shot up the popularity charts (Hazel, Isla) or sound too similar to our daughters’ names (Elodie, Mabel).
But then we got some news that put name confusion on the back burner. Turns out our little lady has a hole in her heart. We’ve met with specialists and they’re optimistic, so we are too. In the meantime, we are back to hunting for the perfect name. Our search has definitely acquired some new parameters now. We’d like to give her a name that is inspiring, encouraging, the perfect name for a little fighter. We don’t know what the future holds, but we know that our daughter is already strong. But every name we’ve found with a meaning we like doesn’t seem to work. I love the idea of “strong protection,” but Walburga isn’t really doing it for us.
We’re hoping that the fresh eyes of naming expert can give us a few options.
The Name Sage replies:
Here at Nameberry, we spend most of our time breaking down the latest baby name trends and serving up some of the freshest selections for your newborn. But what about the business of naming itself? That’s a little discipline called onomastics, or the study of names, a fancy-looking word from the Greek root for, you guessed it, “name.”
On our blogs, we’re usually discussing given or personal names. A technical term for that is anthroponym, or “human name” in Greek. They range from the traditional Michael and Mary to the more modern Kendall or Kulture. The inspiration for our anthroponyms are many and varied. It could be a toponym, or “place name,” such as Memphis or Milan. It could be a hydronym (the name of a body of water) such as Thames, an oronym (the name of a mountain) such as Sierra, or a geonym (the name of a geographical feature) such as Cliff.
By Linda Rosenkrantz
We looked at some great options for summertime girls, now it’s the boys’ turn. Here are 20+ relevant baby name options related to the season, the sun and the sea.
APOLLO—The powerful name of the Greek god of the sun is currently heating up in the US, especially since it was chosen by Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale for their son. Fictional Apollos have appeared in the Rocky films, in the Percy Jackson books and in video games. The space program reference is another definite plus. Apollo is currently at its highest ever–#535 nationally and 267 on Nameberry. The Latinized Phoebus is a more unusual possibility.
By Linda Rosenkrantz
We’ve just celebrated the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, signaling the start of summer, with its more leisurely rhythm of sun, surf and sandy beaches. Are you expecting a summertime daughter and still seeking her name? Maybe one that reflects the season of her birth, but doesn’t shout it out? Here we’ve compiled a list of over two dozen more subtle choices, potential baby names that you may not have considered.
AINE—Pronounced AWN-ya, this is one of the most popular girls’ names in Ireland and comes onto this list via its role as an early Celtic goddess of summer—as well as queen of the fairies. And if we can learn to pronounce Saoirse, Aine should be a piece of Irish potato cake. It’s in the Top 100 in Ireland and the Top 1000 on Nameberry.
The Social Security Administration’s 2017 baby name data is now in, charting the Top 1000 names on its card applications for newborns dating back to 1880. They also help track our ever-changing tastes and trends in baby names.
One of those trends suggests that we’re increasingly enamored with some lovely—and sometimes unlikely—girl names ending with -ley and and its variants. So move over Ashley. Everly has arrived.
