The Art of Naming

In light of my most recent list of names, today's Name of the Day is a feminine virtue name: Verity. This name is Latin meaning "truth." If you know some Latin-based languages, you would recognize the root of the word. Verdad in Spanish, Vrai or Vérité in French, Vero or Verità in Italian, etc, which are also sometimes used as names. Or you could always straight-up go with the name "True" if you wanted. However, of all these, I think Verity has the prettiest sound, especially if you live in an English-speaking country. (If you have Latin roots, by all means, use one of the options above.) The name Verity is one of the virtue names that originated with the Puritans in the 17th century. They put such value and importance on the meaning of names that they began giving these virtue words as names. Other popular ones are Grace, Hope, Joy and Faith. However, I like to find the more unusual ones. While Verity currently ranks at #360 in England/Wales, it is rarel...

Virtue names are usually accredited to the Puritans for their earliest, most-frequent usage. However, names that had powerful and important meanings were also popular with Ancient Greeks and Romans. Around 1590, the Puritan movement developed as a sect of the Church of England. They began using the names of saints and martyrs instead of virtue names by order of the Catholic Church. Then the Puritans fled to America to escape religious persecution. It was then that they freely used their virtue names, as well as phrase names and scriptural names such as "Fight the good fight of Faith" as a name. While these long phrase names didn't catch on, many of the virtue names did and are still in use today. Here is a list of both popular and not-so-popular virtue names for boys and girls: Girls:  Amity Charity Clarity Clemency Comfort Constance Faith Felicity Fidelity Grace Honor Hope Joy Mercy Merritt Modesty Patience Prudence Remember Sage Serenity Since...

Today's Name of the Day is the boy name Everett. This is an English variation of the German name Eberhard meaning "brave as a wild boar." This is a name that is quickly climbing back up the popularity charts. If you go by rank alone, Everett was at its peak in 1906 with a ranking of #81. In 2012 it ranked at #214 which is up from #534 in 2005. If you go by the number of babies born each year, there are two notable peaks in usage. The first is in 1912 when the name shot up with 424 births more than the previous year. Then it really spiked, averaging 1,500 or more babies every year from 1914 until the early 1930s. Then it started to decline until it started gaining momentum again in the mid 2000s. Its new highest peak is in 2012 when there were 1,724 boys named Everett. Source This name has cute nickname options such as Ever or Rhett. I believe Everett's rise in popularity in the past few years is because of similar trendy girl names Eva and Ava and their...

There are so many different classifications of names. Of course you know about the most obvious ones like Classic names or "Yoonik" (Misspelled) Names. What are some of the newish classifications or trends? Here are two that I've heard about recently: Liquid Names These names were first classified over on The Baby Name Wizard by blogger Laura Wattenberg . She defined these as names that flow smoothly. Many, if not most of these names have every sound drawn out (long vowels) they don't require much mouth movement such as Aliya or Eliana. These names tend to have three or more syllables and there are fewer consonant sounds than syllables. Letters allowed to be used in this trend include L, R, N, Y and H.  Some examples: Aaliyah Arianna Liliana Alaina Eliana Aria Elena Aurora Alana Aniyah Ariel Alina Elaina Liana Anaya Is this a trend that you like or is it just too smooth? Some people like more crunch to their names. Raindrop Names   In additi...

Today's Name of the Day is Helena. This name is the Latin form of the name Helen, which has a ton of history. Most notably, there is Helen of Troy who was the daughter of Zeus and Leda in Greek mythology. She was kidnapped by Paris and was the cause of the great Trojan War. And a more modern example was Helen Keller who overcame being blind and deaf. While Helen is a strong name, I prefer the girlier Helena. I like to pronounce it Hel-AY-na as opposed to Hel-EN-ah, but both are pretty! This Latin name means "bright, shining one" which is a lovely meaning. Helena was used for two characters in Shakespeare's works, one in "All's Well That Ends Well" and one in "A Midsummer's Night Dream."  Another Helena was a 4th-century saint who was the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine. The name Helena translates well around the world. In 2012, it ranked at #560 in the US, #328 in England/Wales, #194 in France and #243 in the Netherlands. I...

Today's blog post analyzed the name Elizabeth, so I thought I would go a bit more "classic" than usual with the "Name of the Day.'  I chose the handsome Frederick. German meaning "peaceful ruler," Frederick is one of those old-fashioned, classic names that nearly disappeared for a while; (how many Freds do you know?)  Today, some parents are liking its solid history and classic charm and are reviving it! Of course it hasn't really disappeared. Frederick has comfortably been hanging out in the 300-500 range of the US Top 1000 chart for the past couple decades! It was last in the top 100 in 1957. Its largest popularity spikes occurred around 1914 and again around 1946. It was most popular in 1951 with a total of 4,982 baby boys born with the name Frederick.  It was even rarely but consistently used for girls between 1908 and 1993! Since the male popularity spikes, the name has fallen back down to respectable levels. In 2012, there were...

Baby Profile by Vera Kratochvil When pondering classic and even regal names, there is one that almost always comes to mind: Elizabeth. This perpetually popular name surely has a good reason for remaining as such! But what is that reason? Beyond its elegance and beauty, Elizabeth tends to flow very well with many names. This is one of the reasons that it has remained within the Top 30 every single year since 1880. But why does it pair so well? Elizabeth is used for both a first and middle name. People love Elizabeth as a first name because of how versatile the nicknames are, ranging from Ellie to Liz to Betsy to Beth, and many many more in between. In this instance, we shall investigate why Elizabeth works so well as a middle name. Many people clump it in with all the other "filler" or "connector" middle names that simply fill an empty spot between the first and last names, such as Anne, Grace, Marie, Claire, etc. However, many argue that Elizabeth doesn'...