Naming nitty gritty

More about names from Billie Letts

sanctanomina Naming nitty gritty

I posted a little the other day from Where the Heart Is, by Billie Letts, and there’s another passage from it that I thought you’d all enjoy:

“… Two months had passed since Willy Jack had dumped her — and she had done nothing. She hadn’t looked for a place to live, hadn’t figured out how to make a living. She hadn’t even picked out a name for her baby.

Then she remembered a list of names she had started on the day she and Willy Jack left Tellico Plains. She pulled the spiral notebook out of her beach bag and flipped to the back. The list was still there — one page for girls, one for boys. Felicia, Brook, Ashley. Novalee made a face as she read them. Rafe, Thorne, Hutch, Sloan. Names she had taken from soap operas. Blain, Asa, Dimitri. Moses Whitecotton had told her to find a strong name, but the names on her list weren’t strong. They just sounded silly.”

(Also: Willy Jack. Fantastic name for his mostly despicable character.)

(I have a hard time hating the name Novalee though, I love the character too much.)

A birth story, and the importance of giving your baby a good name

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Mandi at A Blog About Miscarriage has just posted the most wonderful birth story! Her little David is one of our own — I was honored to do a consultation for her while she was pregnant, and to offer nickname ideas for the little man once he arrived — and his birth story is amazing. Suffice it to say, I now know how the mess from a car birth is cleaned up! 😮 I’m also so moved by the healing God allowed Mandi to experience through David’s birth. He is so good, and knows exactly what we need. ❤

Speaking of births, I read Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts over the Thanksgiving weekend, and loved this bit about baby naming:

 

“Name’s important,” [Moses] said. “Keeps track of who you are.”

“I guess so.”

“That’s right. Name’s an important thing. You picked a name for your baby yet?”

“Not, but I got some I’m thinking about.”

“Well, take your time. Can’t rush a thing like that. Name’s too important to hurry.”

…

“You know,” she said as she popped the Life Saver into her mouth. “I’ve been thinking about Wendi, with an i, or maybe Candy, if it’s a girl.”

“Get your baby a name that means something. A sturdy name. Strong name. Name that’s gonna withstand a lot of bad times. A lot of hurt.”

I know we all totally get it. The names of our faith absolutely help us know who to turn to in the bad times.

I hope Advent has started in a wonderful and blessed way for you all!

Crazy Catholic Names Lady

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It’s so funny how deep into one’s own perspective a person can get, right? (By “person” I mean “me.”) The other night I was talking to another mom at basketball practice, and she brought up her girls’ names (honest! She brought them up, not me!), and was telling me how she and her husband chose them. Their names are Em!l!a and S!3nna (alt characters used for privacy) and of course you know me, I was all heart eyes because Em!l!a is Jp2’s mom’s name and S!3nna (one n but I’ve seen people do two even for the Siena saints) is St. Catherine and St. Bernardine and I was just sighing happily, only to discover that their theme was actually not Catholicky Catholic, but rather “Italian.”

Ah. Right. Not everyone scours all available resources having to do with saints and various ways to honor them (their mother’s name! their place of birth/death/ministry!) when naming a baby. Note to self. 😉

Dealing with hard-to-handle saints’ names

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Our reader Charlotte, who blogs at To Harriet Louise, commented thusly on the Caroline/Charlotte post: “This comment about Clare/Caroline made me smile because I’ve started reading Lives of the Saints, and just today I was thinking, “I think the only way I’d be able to use some of these names is if I used some of the same letters or just scrambled them around!””

And I said: “Oh do share! What were some of your ideas?”

And she went ahead and wrote a whole post! Rethinking Saints’ Names. Charlotte’s got a lot of great ideas for names like Aelred and Porphyry — !! I think her approach is a great one for dealing with those kinds of names — I just can’t see a little Porphyry today, great as the saint may be. And when the intention is to honor the saint, and to call him or her to mind in the saying of one’s child’s name, I really think this idea is totally legitimate.

Have any of you given your child a name in honor of a particular saint, but the name you chose wasn’t the same as the saint’s name, and wasn’t a variant, but was something more like what we’re talking about here — using sounds or letters from the name, or a portion of the name? (I know one of you honored St. Polycarp with a little Polly, which is just like voila! So great!)

My 9yo named his paper bird Primary

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Isn’t that a great title? Sounds like the title of a mothering memoir …

Anyway, it says just what happened: My 9yo came home from school yesterday with a paper bird he’d made in art class (he LOVES art class), and as he was swooping it around he said, “His name is Primary.”

“Primary??” my 7yo burst out. “That’s a girl’s name!”

Isn’t that funny? I might’ve thought the reaction would be, “Primary’s not a name!” So I was thinking about why he would think it was a girl’s name … I immediately thought it looked like a mashup of Primrose and Rosemary, which made me kind of love it. But my 9yo insisted the bird’s a boy, and Primary’s a boy’s name, and I can see that too — it was kinda reminding me of Peter and Pope because of its similarity to primacy. All of which is hilarious, this wondering whether Primary is a boy’s name or a girl’s name, because there’s some truth to the idea that Primary is not a name in that I’ve never seen it used as one … but also that it is a name, now that it’s been bestowed as one. Who here will be adding Primary to their baby name list? 😉

P.S. This same boy also named his stuffed lion Bandaids when he was tiny. So Bandaids is now also a name. 😛

Patron saints for Caroline and Charlotte

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One of the question I’ve gotten the most frequently by readers over the past few months is whether there’s any saintly connection for the names Caroline and Charlotte. If I’d had my druthers about me I would have tried to post about this last week on the actual feast day, but since I feel like I rarely have my druthers about me (!), I don’t usually have it together for feast days and holy days in the sense of posting name-appropriate posts for those days.

So the feast day I’m referring to is for my very favorite patron saint for the Charles names, of which Caroline and Charlotte (and Karoline, Karolina, Carolina, Carla, Karla, Carol(e), Karol(e), Carlotta, and Carly) are a part, being feminine variants of Charles: our great St. John Paul II, whose pre-papal name was Karol, which is the Polish for Charles. I know loads of little ones named in his honor in this way.

I do think C/Karoline/a and Charlotte are the most popular ways for girls to be named after JP2 right now, but our reader skimac left this in a comment last week:

“I was looking at usage/popularity stats on ourbabynamer.com for Karol and Karole. The Karol variation existed alongside the significantly more popular Carol/Carole during it’s midcentury heyday. Carol was almost 200% more popular at peak, then both fell out of favor overall, but look at the blips in the stats in 2005 (the year JPII died). Karol reached its all time high of 315 (previous high for year was 257 in 1958). Following 2 years still elevated in comparison to previous 3 decades and Karole variation back on chart (5 baby girls) for first time in a dozen years. Then another jump in 2012 which was the year following his beatification. Wonder if this year, when stats are released, we will see a bump again since it is it would be a year following his canonization in [April] 2014? Definitely reflects the John Paul II effect in Catholic naming.”

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I was surprised to see this, since I think the general perception of Carol(e) and Karol(e) are that they’re still a little dated … but then skimac also shared that blogger/author/apologist/BigCatholicGuy Taylor Marshall and his wife had their eighth baby last week, on JP2’s feast day!, and gave her Carol as one of her middle names. So! Carol(e) and Karol(e) are certainly viable options.

There are other patron saints available for Caroline and Charlotte though, which is perhaps particularly helpful for those who already have a little John Paul running around. There are a bunch of Saints and Blesseds Charles — my personal faves are St. Charles Borromeo and St. Charles Garnier, and even Charlemagne — yes, THE Charlemagne (which translates as Charles the Great) — is a Blessed. If you preferred a female patron, there are also Bl. Karolina Kózka, Bl. Theresa Gerhardinger, born Caroline (and also known as Bl. Caroline Gerhardinger or Bl. Karolina Gerhardinger), Bl. Charlotte Davy, and Bl. Charlotte Lucas (Pride and Prejudice fans, take note!).

What are your favorite patrons for Caroline and Charlotte?

T(h)erese/a in honor of Patricia?

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This is really kind of weird, but sort of recently I came across at least two different places online where I saw Theresa or Teresa or Therese (I can’t remember which) listed as an honor name for Patricia (I know that it’s at least two, because if I saw it just once I would have assumed it was just some weird thing … but two means more than one person consider it to be so, which I find baffling). One of them might even have been someone saying they couldn’t use Theresa for a daughter because there’s already a Patricia in the family. But in the last couple of weeks I have googled and googled various terms trying to find the posts (I think one was at the Baby Name Wizard, and I don’t remember where the other one was — maybe Swistle?) because I wanted to post about it here, and I canNOT find any mention of it anywhere! So you’ll all just have to humor me for a moment and assume my memory is correct — have any of you heard of this? T(h)erese/a for Patricia?

I’ve thought a lot about it because my first reaction was wha??? so I really tried to see how it could be, and then I realized it’s not that far off, for these reasons:

— Tricia/Trish and Theresa have really similar sounds

— I have a friend with a sister named Patricia and he’s always said it pah-TREE-shah (big emphasis on the TREE) whereas I have only known it to be pah-TRIH-sha, short i. But, if pah-TREE-shah is more common than I realize, then TREE-shah and teh-REE-sah are really very similar

— My mom always calls her Theresa friend TREESE — rhymes with Reese — like a contraction of Theresa and drop the a. Or like how some people say Therese (teh-REZ and teh-REESE are both acceptable). TREESE and Trish (especially in a pah-TREE-shah scenario) are also very similar.

So I guess I can see how this happens, but I’m wondering how prevalent this idea is (if it even exists and I didn’t totally imagine it). Have any of you heard of Theresa or Therese or Teresa as an honor name for Patricia, or even considered a variant?

Updated to add: I did find this obituary for a Patricia who apparently went by Teresa …

Twilight Reimagined

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For a long long time, on all the name boards and name discussions I witnessed/participated in, the Twilight names — by which I mean specifically Edward, Bella, Rosalie, Jasper, Emmett, and Esme — were totally taboo. (I’m not including Jacob, because it was already monster hit on its own merits; other names like Victoria, James, and Sam were already in enough use that the Twilight association is not the overriding one; and Carlisle hasn’t ever been in the top 1000.)

The actual stats show a somewhat different story — Edward was already on a downhill spiral before the first book was released in 2005, and continued so until a small bump right around when the first movie came out in 2010, and then declined again; Bella was already on an upward trajectory but started moving up faster with the release of the books and even more so with the movies.

Rosalie wasn’t even in the top 1000 until the year the buzz for the first movie began, and has made the most dramatic climb; Jasper has been in the 500s or so since at least 2000 but jumped up a bit in conjunction with the movies; Esme made the top 1000 for the first time the year the first movie came out but stayed in the 900s every year since then until 2014 when it moved to #816.

The books and movies definitely helped make most of the these name more accessible to the general population, but that same association tainted the names for parents whose naming sensibilities are, I think, more closely aligned with ours here than not. For myself and many of you, our children’s names are chosen with heavy consideration given to our faith as realized through its holy people and places, its teachings, and its history. For many of the other people I encountered who crossed Edward, Bella, Rosalie, Jasper, Emmett, and Esme off their lists because of Twilight, if their children’s names weren’t chosen with a Catholic sensibility, then it was with a literary or artistic or offbeat or funky sensibility very informed by education or even just plain contrariness. The fact that names like those of the characters were even on their lists to begin with attests to that.

For our purposes, I have found Twilight to be quite a bother. Edward, to me, is St. Edward the Confessor! An amazing saint, a wonderful model and patron for any boy. Rosalie is a Rose- name, one of the many beautiful ways to honor Mother Mary or St. Rosalia (which Rosalie is a variant of). Jasper is one of the Three Wise Men, as I’ve mentioned so many times before. Emmett, Esme, and Bella don’t feel as faith-y, but they could be — there’s a St. Emma (Emmett is a male diminutive of Emma); Esme means “beloved,” which could easily fit into a beautiful name combo having to do with the faith; Bella on its own means “beautiful,” which could be treated the same way as Esme, or it can be a nickname or form of Isabella on its own or as a form of Elizabeth, both of which have their own very saintly connections. I actually love all those names, they are very much my taste.

But for years, to tell anyone you might like the name Rosalie, for example, seemed to automatically mark you as a Twihard — it wouldn’t matter how many times you protested, “No! It’s for Mother Mary! It’s for St. Rosalia!” people would just think vampire.

Finally, finally!, it seems, from what I can tell, that the Twilight names are becoming more acceptable. The association seems to be fading. And then I read Stephenie Meyer Announces New Gender-Swapped ‘Twilight’ Book (posted last week):

“Stephenie Meyer went on Good Morning America on Tuesday to announce she’s releasing a new Twilight book in honor of the 10th anniversary of the original novel. It’s called Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, and it swaps the genders of almost every character in the book.

Bella is now a human named Beau and Edward is a vampire named Edythe. In a foreword to the story, the author explained that there are slight personality changes to the characters. Beau is “more OCD” and “not as angry,” but Meyer said the love story is the same. The book is already available in hardcover and e-book, starting Tuesday.”

Noooooo!!!!

Because Stephenie Meyer has really really good taste in names, so you know whatever she chooses is going to be delectable (at least to my taste). Which means there’s the possibility of a whole new bunch of otherwise awesome names that will have the Twilight taint. In From Bella, Edward and Jacob to Beau, Edythe and Julie: The Full List of Name Changes in New ‘Twilight’ Book, the full list is given (the article itself is pretty interesting from a namiac perspective):

Main characters, most susceptible to being heavily associated with Twilight
Bella (short for Isabella) to Beau (short for Beaufort)
Edward to Edythe
Jacob (or Jake) to Julie (or Jules)
Dr. Carlisle to Dr. Carine
Esme to Earnest
Alice to Archie
Emmett to Eleanor
Rosalie to Royal
Jasper to Jessamine

More minor characters, probably no real risk here
Billy to Bonnie
Jessica to Jeremy
Angela to Allen
Mike to McKayla
Tyler (b) to Taylor (g)
Lauren to Logan
Eric to Erica
Rachel and Rebecca to Adam and Aaron
Ben to Becca
Connor to Colleen
Lee to Leann
Samantha to Sean
Sam to Samantha (also known as Sam)

The bad guys — not main characters, but not minor either
James to Joss
Victoria to Victor
Laurent to Lauren

So I’m most disappointed by Beau (I have a soft spot for it), Edythe (though the spelling is so different from our St. Edith that I’m hoping, since it will only be a book and not a movie, it won’t even seem like the same name), Carine (which was our girl middle name for a while), Eleanor (but it’s so popular already it’ll probably be fine), and Jessamine (a personal fave). I love the Juli- names, but I don’t think Julie will affect the Julia/Julian(n)(e)(a)/Juliet(te) names as much, since it’s been on its way down for a long time, and is currently much less popular than all the other forms. And Victor has been on my list for a long time, and is more distinctive/less traditionally popular than Victoria, so I’m just hoping, as my husband pointed out, that there’s very little chance that this book will take off the way the others did, especially since (as noted) there won’t be any sequels or movies (and indeed the SSA stats showed the bumps in popularity were more associated with the movies than the books).

What do all think? Do you think there’s any risk of a Twilight Reimagined backlash against any of these names? Would it matter to you if there was? Did it matter to you before, with the original books and movies?

I know you’ll all understand …

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I had a funny conversation this past weekend about names — I was talking to a couple older people (older than 70), and I was telling one of them the nickname that one of my boys goes by. “That sounds like a name better suited to a grown man with a cigar hanging out of his mouth!” he said, good naturedly but with the unmistakable tone of what were you thinking? The other person in our conversation, who knows my little guy and his nickname, burst out with, “Yes! He sounds like a stevedore down on the docks!”

I can’t tell you how much I loved both comments! Haha! I know they weren’t meant to wound (we were having a fun conversation up to that point anyway, so I think they were kind of just going with the tone — kind of jokey, kind of roast-y — and besides, I get that older generations have a different taste in names than younger), and the fact that they indeed reveal a little of what they really think of the name (not positive) didn’t matter to me at all because one of the things I love about his nickname is the Old World, little bit fusty feel it has. I’m sure they thought I was crazy when I said, in response to their “man with cigar” and “stevedore on the docks” comments, “Thanks! I love that!” 😀

Gabriel B.

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I’ve been thinking about the first name Gabriel with a last name beginning with B ever since Emily’s consultation — though so many of you liked the idea of Gabriel for her, for Simon’s little brother, there was the strong opinion that the possibility of Gabe B__ — and the resulting sound of Gay B__ — rendered Gabriel unusable (here, here, here).

I hadn’t thought of that possibility when I suggested Gabriel, and I do agree that it’s something to be seriously considered. And it also made me think of two famous men who are Gabriel B., and how one of them is a perfect example of how times change.

First off: the actor Gabriel Byrne. He is so great, I just love him, especially in Little Women. And he’s Irish. (You know me and Irish!) (And, btw, he has a son named Jack Daniel! How funny! And a daughter named Romy Marion, which is striking me as really cool and faith-y all at once.) (Also, he received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland, Galway, which is where I studied abroad. 🙂 ) At least professionally, he’s circumvented the Gay B__ possibility by going by the full Gabriel.

Second, less well known to Americans but a BIG DEAL in Ireland is TV personality Gay Byrne whose given name is … wait for it …

Gabriel Mary Byrne.

Ohmygoodness I could die of happiness over that combo. Gabriel and Mary in one boy’s name? Love love love!

And I love that he too is Irish — because of these two men, Gabriel has always struck me as an Irish name (“Irish” meaning “used with some frequency in Ireland”).

Anyway, he hosted The Late Late Show from 1962 to 1999 (“the world’s longest-running chat show”) and he was “the first person to introduce The Beatles on screen,” among other things. Like I said, a BIG DEAL.

And he’s always gone by Gay. Or, affectionately, Uncle Gay, Gaybo, and Uncle Gaybo. I know this all started in a time when Gay wasn’t fraught with its current meaning, but it’s sort of hilarious how over-the-top his nicknames are, like he just decided to heck with it.

Mr. Byrne is still around — I had the privilege of chatting with him when I represented New York in the Rose of Tralee Festival and he was a judge — and still goes by Gay. It’d be so interesting to hear his thoughts on his name! Especially as times have changed.

Do any of you know a Gabriel B.? How old is he, and has Gabe B__ been a problem?