Category: Nature, Place and Word Names
On April 22nd, we observe Earth Day, celebrating—and fighting for the protection of—our wild and wonderful world. Nature has, no doubt, inspired many a majestic name, like Maple, River, or Meadow. But other potential baby names are less obvious, hiding nature in their roots. Here’s a mix from sea to sky and A to Z:
This week’s news includes names from this year’s biggest movies, inspiration from cities, soccer players and mythical heroes, and the perennial question: when to reveal the name?
Names from the movies: Solo and Shuri
If you’re a movie-goer, you might have already clocked some great names in cinemas this year. To refresh your memory, here’s a lovely long list of stand-out character names from recent and coming-soon films.
Some of them seem optimistic. In all the years the world has loved Star Wars, neither Han nor Solo has ever seen much use. Will another sequel really change that?
But others could be ones to watch. Carlyle (from The Greatest Showman) and Reynolds (Phantom Thread) are both underused surnames. Mera (Aquaman) and Via (Wonder) are tiny rare names that are showing signs of rising.
Many name-watchers believe that Black Panther will have an impact – but whether parents will feel inspired to use T’Challa, Shuri or a name no one expects, we won’t know until the 2018 statistics come out next year!
March has World Poetry Day and April is Poetry Month, so this seems like a perfect time to turn to the topic of poetic baby names.
Of course one obvious source would be the many wonderful surnames of noted poets, such as Auden, Frost, Lorca, Emerson, Tennyson and Poe.
Another possibility is lyrical words associated with poetry and song, some of which have long been used for babies. These include Melody (now #144), which has been around since the 1940s; Harmony (#191) hit the charts in 1997, and has been heard for characters on several TV shows, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Lyric (#281), used for girls and occasionally for boys by a couple of musical celebs; and the 21st century hit Cadence (#376 now, as high as 199 in 2007).
But what if you’d like something a little more subtly poetic. Here are a few unusual related word names you might consider.
By Linda Rosenkrantz
I have to admit it, when I think of springtime baby names, it’s mostly girls’ options that come to mind—the flowery, feminissima ones in particular. But whoa! Just as many baby boys arrive during that season, and they too rate a name celebrating the period of their birth, and so I’ve put together this list just for them. It’s a mix of names that translate to Spring in different languages, green color names and some nature names, Easter references and even one inspirational spring-born honoree.
By Linda Rosenkrantz
In the short month of February, there was still enough time for some surprising inspiration stories and several interesting and unusual baby names—including two sets of twins:
Meadow Marybeth and Bram Oliver
Penelope Hazel Terese and Violet Cecilia Kate
And there continued to be a proliferation of nature names in first and middle place, and among siblings this month. We spotted 2 Violets, a Poppy a Meadow, a Hazel, 3 Winters, a Juniper, a Flora and a Cloud.
Unusual names included girls called Tulsi and Remy, a boy named Lorian, and cute nickname middle Roz (representing a trendlet).
Here’s the complete list of berrybabies posted on the forums in February.
