February Baby Berries: Finn Boaz and Flavia Betty Lucille
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 February baby names chosen by our Berries:
Girls
Eleanor Wilde, sister of Daniel Amos
“We’ll call her Nell or possibly Nellie for short.”
Emilia Maisie Louise, sister of Ethan, Kaleb and Olivia
“We plan on calling her Emi Mae”
“Flavia was chosen to honor a late great-grandmother from way back in Italy who very courageously and romantically abandoned her wealth, status and countess title to be with the man she fell in love with, perhaps the best decision she ever made! I have always loved this story and thought it was the perfect way to honor my Italian roots and family. I had a moment of clarity for middle names where I decided to honor my favorite female comedians as I’m an amateur stand-up comedian myself. The comedic artists who’ve inspired me all through my life and I have always loved most are Betty White and Lucille Ball.“ –
Gwendolyn Violet, sister of Annabel Winter
Mabel Marguerite Poppy, sister of Marvin. Max, Eulalie and Flora
Mabel came about as a personally contracted form of one of my longtime favorite names: Mirabelle that with time ended up more appealing and increasingly more loved by me and my husband. Poppy was chosen because poppies are my favorite flowers, I also love how colorful, bright and joyous Poppy sounds. Marguerite is probably the name with the most personal significance we have ever chosen for any of our children…It honors our French heritage, shortens to the underrated nicknames Peg and Peggy that we adore and Marguerite especially brings to mind the school and parish husband and I attended as children and where we met: St. Margaret’s which I have only happy memories of…also where my husband and I got married years later.“
Meadow Marybeth, twin of Bram Oliver and sister of Wilder Seamus
Penelope Hazel Terese, twin sister of Violet Cecilia Kate
“Theodora as a name emerged after she was born. I liked Theda, but my husband wasn’t sold. He’s always been sold on Thea. Those options both come from Theodora…Best of all, at least in our eyes, Theodora Elizabeth brings us to Tess, which seems to have been her name all along.”
Tulsi Juniper, sister of Fletcher, Morgan and Judah
Violet Cecilia Kate, twin of Penelope Hazel Terese
Winter Lorelei, sister of Foster Grey
Boys
Bram Oliver, twin of Meadow Marybeth and brother of Wilder Seamus
“Bram is a way to honor their late great-grandfather, whose name was Abraham. Oliver is just a name that has such a sweet kind of feeling about it.”
Finn Boaz, brother of Daniel Isaac and Rory Josiah
“Although Finn is probably the original Irish spelling, Fionn is now more widely used as the Gaelic spelling. In Ulster we pronounce both as a single syllable although elsewhere in Ireland Fionn has two syllables so we decided to spell it Finn to make the pronunciation clear. All the boys’ middle names are OT names picked for their meaning. In the Bible Boaz is a man of wealth and power yet is compassionate and protects and watches out for women and foreigners. He takes his family responsibilities seriously and is a man of integrity. Qualities I hope Finn grows up to have too.”
Ignacio Luz, brother of Maximilian, Aurelio, Ines, Teresa and Olimpia
Ignacio comes from the Latin word ‘ignis,” which means “fire.” It’s a name that brings to mind strength, warmth and also bravery which my husband and I loved. We think Luz complements Ignacio very well in terms of meaning and significance since he’s our rainbow baby and the joy and light after a period of great sadness and loss for our family. So far the kids are calling him Iggy.”
Ivor Jude Nicholas, brother of Penelope Grace and Alister James
“We fell in love with the name Ivor after seeing the old British cartoon “Ivor the Engine.” Jude is after my husband’s grandpa’s middle name “Jud” and biblically James and Jude are brothers so it seemed fitting.”
Lorian Cloud
“His first name and middle name come from two of my husband’s favorite video games—_Dark Souls 3 _and Final Fantasy VII, respectively. I loved Lorian immediately but I must admit that Cloud really grew on me over time.”
“We wanted a strong and uncommon name with German origins but something that still sounded familiar.”
Samuel Jonathan, brother of Arthur, Lucas, Hugo, Edmund and Quentin
“He joins five older brothers whose names all contain a –u-, and so we figured his had to as well.”