The Art of Naming

Along with dozens of other names , Elsa comes from the name Elizabeth .  Of course, Elizabeth comes from the Greek form of the Hebrew name Elisheva. It means either "my God is an oath", "my God is abundance" or "pledged to God". Elizabeth has been extremely consistent in its popularity over the years, having always been in the Top 30 since 1880. The lovely German Elsa is also very consistent in its popularity since 1880 in the US. Since the release of the wildly successful movie Disney's Frozen in November 2013 featuring a Queen Elsa, the baby name Elsa is expected to leap up the charts in 2014.  Before Frozen, Elsa originally gained popularity as a name among English speakers because of Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin in 1848. Elsa was the name of the heroine in the opera. I chose to feature Elsa as part of Scandinavian week because, while it is mostly used in Germany, it also has usage in the Scandinavian countries, particularly Sw...

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...

Welcome to Scandinavian Week! You may have seen the polls that I made on the sidebar of the blog and maybe you even voted for your favorite Scandinavian names for each gender. After a tie-breaker, the winning male name was Magnus. Magnus is a Late Latin name meaning "Great" but it is heavily used by Scandinavians, particularly those from Sweden, Norway and Denmark.  It became popular in those countries because of the 11th century King Magnus I of Norway. It was said that King Magnus I may have been named after another ruler, Charlemagne, who was also known as Carolus Magnus, or Charles the Great.  Others who bore the name Magnus include a 7th century saint, 6 more kings of Norway, and 3 kings of Sweden. In the middle ages, the name Magnus gained usage in Scotland and Ireland. Manus is an Irish variant of the name. There's also the Finnish variants Manu, Mauno and Maunu, and the Danish Mogens. Interestingly, from Magnus sprang forth the Medieval English name M...

Recently, I was looking over the post I made last year regarding Colonial names . Since tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I thought I'd cover colonial names a bit more. Colonial names are full of history and laced with virtues and biblical associations. Sometimes these names are even comprised of long phrases . You probably won't see many boys named Comfort or girls named Modesty today, and something like The-Peace-of-God or Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith probably won't work well for official documents. This led me to wonder what the most usable, wearable names that were favored in early America might be. With much thought, scrutiny and consideration, I narrowed it down to my top 5 boy names and top 5 girl names that date back to the colonial era but can still sound fresh and usable today. Girls: Charlotte The lovely Charlotte is the French, feminine form of the name Charles which is typically listed as meaning "free man".  Modern parents love this n...

Welcome to my new segment "Get To Know!"  Recently, I've had the opportunity to meet a few fellow name bloggers and I decided it'd be lovely to let you get to know them too. The naming community is such a wonderful place! If you truly love names, it never hurts to follow more bloggers to get your daily name fix.  Today, I had the honor of interviewing Meagan from TulipByAnyName .  She is most known for her work discussing interesting names on her YouTube channel. She is also one of the six  Name Sisters who run a great YouTube channel collectively.  Beyond videos, Meagan also has a successful blog and Instagram account that revolves around names. Most recently, she's become a new contributor to Nameberry's Berry Juice Blog , too! She is involved in lots of exciting name-related projects! Let's take a moment to learn more about her own personal name tastes and experiences with names: 1. What are your first and middle names? My name is Meaga...

This compilation of birth announcements came from a couple hospitals in Indiana, USA. This batch seems to be rather conservative and traditional. There aren't any wacky or odd names that stand out. If you could only name your child one of these names, which would you choose? Girls:  Abigail Rae Adlee Dawn Alisa Ray Allison Renae Alyssa Gale Anna Jean Annabelle Rose Aria Marie Athena Lee Autumn Lynn Avery Kay Bailey Alexis Breanna Lee Cassandra Marie Cora Mae Daisy Faith Delaney Carol-Sue Emory Louise Evelynn Jane Gabriella Pearl Gracie LouAnn Hadley Caroline Harper Rayne Kiara Rose Layla Lyda-Jean Leyla Brianne Irene Madison Faith Maisie Claiborne Mila Jean Molly Suzanne Rebekah Joy Hadessah Reece Addison Saria Jane Savannah Nadine Skylar Rose Mae Sophia Fern Sydney Amara Zoey Kiana-Marie Boys: Benjamin Scott Bryan Manuel Bryce Andrew Caleb Duane Christopher Scott Cooper Andrew Cruz Michael David Samuel Elijah Lewis Elijah Mich...

To complement Tuesday's post regarding the best V names for girls , and last week's post about the best V names for boys , I chose to feature the feminine name Savannah which contains the letter V. Savannah isn't just a city in the state of Georgia, USA. It comes from an English word that indicates a large, grassy plain. Originally, Savannah comes from a Taino (Native American) word zabana. Variants of the name include Zavanna and Savanna. It's a place name and a nature name. Savannah gained usage as a baby name in the 19th century. It has also been on record in the US every year since 1880 but its usage was very minimal until it suddenly boomed in the 1980s. This increase in births-per-year is most likely a result of the 1982 movie "Savannah Smiles". There were only 43 births in 1981, 118 in 1982 and in 1983, there were 434 Savannahs born. That means the name went from ranking in the 1100s to being #466 in just one year. The year 2000 had a record-h...