The Art of Naming

March 27th is considered National Joe Day! From a "cup of Joe", to Sloppy Joes to the Average Joe; from Joe DiMaggio, to Joe Jonas, to Joe Biden, there are a ton of Joes to celebrate! So today we will take a closer look at Joseph, Josephine, Joe and other similar names. According to Behind the Name , Joseph comes from From Ioseph , the Latin form of the Greek Ιωσηφ ( Ioseph ), which was from the Hebrew name יוֹסֵף ( Yosef ) meaning "he will add". Since it his Hebrew in origin, of course it is a biblical name. In the Old Testament, Joseph was the son of Jacob and Rachel. Joseph is one of those names that translate well across a variety of languages and cultures around the world: Yousef, Youssef, Yusef, Yusuf (Arabic) Youcef (Arabic (Maghrebi)) Hovsep (Armenian) Yusif (Azerbaijani) Joseba (Basque) Ioseph, Ioses (Biblical Greek) Yosef (Biblical Hebrew) Ioseph (Biblical Latin) Jusuf (Bosnian) Yosif (Bulgarian) Josep (Catalan) Ghjaseppu (Co

If you are searching for a less-than-common name for a boy, this list has plenty of interesting and wearable options. We previously explored similar names from A-M.  The list below continues with the letters N-Z. If you're willing, choose 5 names from this list and pair them with a middle name of your choice to create an interesting sibling set! Post the results in the comment section below. Nash Nemo Nero Nico Niles Noam Noble Nova Nye Oberon Odin Olivander Orion Oslo Otto Ozias Pace Pasqual Pavel Pearce Penn Peregrine Philo Pippin Ptolemy Quade Quarry Quest Quill Quimby Quixley Rafael Ragnar Rasmus Remi Revere Rocco Rockwell Rolf Rune Sanders Sayer Severin Skandar Slater Soren Stark Stellan Sutton Tate Tavish Teague Thanos Thayer Theoden Thorsten Tobias Tomas Tyrion Ulrich Ulysses Upton Urban Usher Uziah Valentin Valor Vance Viggo Vulcan Ward Weston Whittier Wilder Wim Wolfe Wray Xanthus Xerxes

As we reach the end of the month of August, let's take a moment to look at the related Aug-/Ag- names that could be used on a person today. Generally, these names all come from the Latin augere meaning "to increase", but other meanings came to include "great" and "venerable". Augustus was a title that Octavian, the first Roman emperor, was given. He was the adopted son of Julius Caesar. There are many options available for both boys and girls. Some are more popular than others, but these are mostly rather uncommon here in the US.  Are there any that you would use? By Unknown Till Niermann (Own work)  [ GFDL , CC-BY-SA-3.0  or CC BY-SA 2.5 ], via Wikimedia Commons Agostina   (Italian form of Augustinus - feminine - zero births on record for 2015 in US) Agostino   (Italian form of Augustinus - masculine - 5 births on record for 2015) Ágúst (Icelandic form of Augustus - masculine - zero births in 2015) Agust (Swedish form of August - masculi

Have you ever met someone with a double-barreled first name? Two first names strung together by a hyphen? It happens often enough to be a thing, but yet it is still somewhat rare depending on where you live. There could be a number of reasons why parents would opt for a hyphenated name. Perhaps they couldn't narrow down their favorites and decided to use them all. Perhaps they'd like to honor two people in one name. Or maybe they just like how the two names sound together. Hyphenated names do get used often, even here in the US, however none of them have managed to get enough births per year to rank all that high. The majority of the names on this list have less than 20 births per year. Since the SSA's data doesn't account for any hyphens and writes it all as one name, it is impossible to know how these names are truly intended to be written. Perhaps the name was meant to be written as one, or maybe the child received two first names rather than a first and a middle

Our final featured name for this alphabetical name series is the female name Zoey. Did you get a chance to view the final list of The Very Best Z Names for Boys and Girls earlier this week? The name Zoey is actually a variant of Zoe. Interestingly, while Zoe has been in use in the US since before 1880, Zoey has only been around since 1967. Despite that, Zoey is the more popular spelling today. Both names are currently ranking within the Top 40 though. Zoey joined the Top 1000 chart in 1995 and entered the Top 100 in 2008. Now, as of 2014, Zoey is the 22nd most popular name in the country with over 7,300 female births. Zoe peaked quicker, entering the Top 1000 in 1983. By 2000, Zoe was the 82nd most popular girl name. Even though Zoey has surpassed Zoe, Zoe still ranks at #32 in 2014 with over 5,800 births. After breaking down those American popularity statistics, which name do you prefer? If you're not sure, let's take a closer look at the names. Zoe is a Greek na

Have you ever really taken a look at the names in the United State's Social Security Administration's Top 1000 most popular names chart? I mean, have you  really  looked at it?  I decided to fish a little bit and I found a ton of Arabic names swimming right at me. Had I  really  never noticed these names before? Sure, I'm not an ethnic match for any of them but not all of them stand out as foreign. Just take a look at the female names! Many of them aren't obviously Arabic and they are no doubt being used on girls of a variety of races all across the country. For example, the highest ranking name is Layla at #29 and it has so many variants that are very fashionable today such as Lyla, Laila, Lila, Leila and Lilah which all rank within the Top 1000.  Then there's the Aaliyah sisters with a similar story. Let's start with the male names. There are four spellings of Muhammad and also variants like Ahmad that rank in the Top 1000. Somehow, though, the masculine n

The list of The Very Best I Names for Boys and Girls offered plenty of interesting choices.  This week is the boys turn for a featured name and the options were hard to choose from. In the end, Ignatius was the victor. The name Ignatius comes from the Roman family name Egnatius . Originally, Egnatius had an unknown meaning from the ancient Etruscan origin. As time went on, the spelling was altered so it would be similar to the Latin word ignis which means "fire". Because of this, the Etruscan Egnatius became the Latin Ignatius and inherited itself a meaning. There were several saints named Ignatius. The most well-known St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) was the founder of the Jesuits. Interestingly, his birth name was Íñigo which is sometimes regarded as a form of Ignatius, but it is probably just because of its association with this saint.  (Inigo was also one of our featured I names that I nearly chose. It is Spanish but comes from the name Eneko which is deriv

Since tomorrow is Valentine's Day, I chose to feature the lovely name Valentina today! What else would have been more appropriate? This feminine name comes from the Roman Valentinus or Valens meaning "strong, vigorous, healthy" in Latin. Already this name has a great meaning! What about namesakes? The masculine Valentine was a 3rd century saint and martyr whose feast day corresponded with a fertility festival, thus forever linking Valentine's day with love. A modern day bearer of the name Valentina is that of Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. You may know her as the first woman to ever visit outer space in 1963. There is also Valentina Cortese, an Oscar-nominated actress, and a few celebrity children with the name. In the US, Valentina is doing very well in the popularity department. It first appeared on record in 1897 but it wasn't regularly used until about 1910. It wasn't until 1994 that it entered the Top 1000. Now in 2013, there were 2,5

Original post: 2/6/15 Revision: 5/14/17 The latest article featuring The Very Best B Names for Boys and Girls had such a great collection that it was difficult to choose just one. In the end, today's featured name is Bridget. Anglicized from the Irish name Brighid, Bridget means "exalted one".  It has also been suggested that Brighid could be derived from the Irish brigh  meaning "strength". Other spellings include Brigid, Bridgette, Brigit, and Bedelia . Variations in other languages include the Danish Britta , the Dutch Brigitta, the Finnish Riitta , the French Brigitte, the Italian Brigida , the Manx Breeshey , the Polish Brygida, and the Welsh Ffraid among many others.  Were you aware that Bridget was so internationally used? In Irish mythology, there was a goddess of fire, poetry and wisdom named Bridget or Brigid. It was also the name of Saint Brigid in the 5th century, a patron saint of Ireland.  This saint was so esteemed in Irela

Did you pick your favorite male A name from the previous post about The Very Best A Names for Boys and Girls? I did. And I will be featuring it right now.  Alistair is the anglicized form of the name Alasdair which is the Scottish version of Alexander . See the similarities between the three names?  There are other brother-names drawn from Alexander like the Arabic Iskandar , the Finnish Aleksanteri , the Irish Alastar , the Russian Aleksandr and the Ukrainian Oleksander among many others.  Alexander itself comes from the Greek Alexandros which means "defender of men". Of course, Alexander is a Greek mythology name (another name for the hero Paris) and a biblical name (found in the New Testament). The most famous bearer in history was Alexander the Great. It has also been used by kings of Scotland, Poland and Yugoslavia, emperors of Russia and eight popes.  However, the English Alistair doesn't have any big namesakes. There are many modern people

Say you're looking for a long name for your baby boy and you can't think of much beyond Alexander or Maximilian. Fear not! Let this be your handy resource for long boy names! Every name on this list is 4 syllables long or more. There are definitely plenty of interesting, unusual choices and some international ideas borrowed from origins around the world. Which of these names are your favorites? Can you think of any that could be added? Share your favorites in the comment section below! Abelardo                     Adalberto Agapito Aleczander Alejandro Aleksander Alessandro Alexander Alexandro Alexzander Amadeo Amadeus Ambrosio Anacleto Ananias Aniceto Antonino Antonio Apolinar Archimedes Aristides Arsenio Bartholomew Bartolomé Bartolomeo Calogero Candelario Casimiro Catarino Cayetano Celestino Cipriano Ciriaco Constantino Constantinos Cornelius Damarion Deangelo Demetrius Dionisio Domitilo Dumisani Ebenezer          

This edition of World-Wide Wednesday focuses on the baby names of Scandinavia. This includes the three kingdoms of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. These three countries are also categorized as Nordic countries along with Finland, Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe islands. There is plenty of overlapping influence between the countries that sometimes is translated into their baby names. Most baby name sites group all of these together as one overall "origin" called Scandinavian names. In general, surnames, or "heritable family names", weren't used often in Scandinavia until rather recently in comparison with some other countries. In Denmark, an act was passed in 1526 that made families of nobility have to begin using a heritable name. High class people followed suit during the next few centuries and finally everyone else did later. They followed a patronymic naming tradition that gave the father's name to the children with the suffix "-sen" added to t