The Art of Naming

The male Dutch name that I featured this week, Diederick, is relatively rare. The female name that I'm about to share is actually ranking pretty well in the Netherlands! Madelief is the name. It is pronounced mad-uh-LEEF and it's actually rather adorable! I think this could catch on in lieu of the more popular "Maddie" names like Madeline and Madison if more people knew about it. It would fit in well with other unusual Mad- names like Madigan and Madeleva as well as male choices like Maddox and Madden. It also goes hand in hand with botanical names that are gaining popularity today. The best part is that this adorable name comes from the Dutch word madeliefje which means "daisy". So it's actually an obscure nature name! I say that it is obscure because, well, it is. It may rank at #126 in the Netherlands, but here in the USA, Madelief is non-existent. There have never been at least 5 girls given this name in a single year. Anyone who has this nam

Featured Dutch Names: Diederick  & Madelief This month for our World-Wide Wednesday segment, we will be examining Dutch baby names. These are classified as names that are mostly found in the Netherlands as well as the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium known as Flanders. Like many other countries, parents in  present-day Netherlands are attracted to internationally loved names like Emma and Luca: names that are a bit more anglicized and less traditionally Dutch. While some things tend to change over time, there are still plenty of traditional names being given to Dutch babies. This article will focus on the interesting traditional choices available and how they were used in the past. However, many of these names are difficult for non-Dutch speakers to pronounce. First, let's start with naming traditions. Like many other countries in the past, Dutch families tended to use and reuse the same few names over many generations. Patronymic names were big. According to DutchGenea

The male name Diederick is the Dutch form of the Germanic name Theodoric. Both mean "ruler of the people". Theodoric is completely different than the similar sounding Greek name Theodore which means "gift of God". There was a Theodoric the Great in the 6th-century who became the ruler of Italy. He was also called Theodoricus but the original Gothic version of the name may have been Þiudreiks which is where Diederick comes from. Pronounced DEE-də-rik, this cool and unusual Dutch name has some equally cool counterparts in other languages like Theoderich, Derek, Derrick, Dirk, Thierry, Tiede, Dierk, Dietrich, Thilo, Tielo and Tudor. However, as a baby name in the USA, Diederick is unexplored territory. There are zero births on record since records were first kept in 1880. Since the Social Security Administration does not report births for a name unless there was at least 5 in one year, it's possible that there have been a few boys named Diederick born in