Appellation Mountain

Humbled and thrilled and blessed beyond measure

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You’re all amazing!! Grace Patton is one lucky lady to have so many wonderful readers who are willing to click over to another blog to leave their thoughts and comments about naming a new little baby, and that new little baby is so lucky to already be so loved and anticipated. You’ve all made my whole week, and Grace’s too I hope.

Some quick little housekeeping-type things:

  • I love every single email I’ve gotten asking for thoughts or suggestions for babies on the way! My answer is always — yes yes yes! I can’t tell you how much joy I get out of sitting down with my name books and my handwritten spreadsheets in order to tackle a name challenge — only a name lover could understand.
  • Though I always try to email back with my ideas within a week, I’m a wee bit backed up with all your wonderful requests, which only means that it might take me up to a month to get back to you. But get back to you I will! With a “report” exactly like the consultations I post here on the blog (in fact, those posts are the responses I’d already emailed to the family, revised/edited just a little to make them appropriate for here).
  • However, I only post consultations on Monday, so my Mondays are all filled up now until almost the middle of August. So great right?!!! You’ll love reading them all, as every single family who has emailed me has just the most amazing, beautiful taste in names. However — I always love for the families to get feedback from readers as well, since, despite my best efforts, it’s more likely than not that I won’t exactly hit the mark, and you all provide such great and thoughtful suggestions. But having Mondays booked up until mid-August means some of you may not be able to have your consultation posted before your due date. Which may not be a problem at all for some of you — maybe you’d rather it not be public! And that’s perfectly fine, there’s no requirement of public posting. When I email you back with my ideas/suggestions, that’s when I’ll ask you (1) if it’s okay if I post it, (2) what privacy controls you’d like, if any (like only an initial for your last name, that kind of thing), and (3) what date I’ve assigned to you for the public post if you’d like it.
  • With each of the emails, be assured I am taking into account the order in which the emails have been received as well as the due dates. In general, first come first served, but if there’s a very-soon due date — and I have gotten a couple — those will get bumped up as much as I think is fair and reasonable.
  • Please don’t let any of this stop any of you from emailing me! I’d much rather have a lot than none. And I can certainly work with any name emergency any of you might have. (Again, something only a name lover could understand.)

Finally, amidst all the Patton excitement is that I had a second article up at Nameberry on Monday! Check it out: Good-Intention Baby Naming. I’m still blown away that they’ve allowed me the opportunity to have a little of my name writing posted (all thanks to Abby at Appellation Mountain!). I’ve also added a new tab up above called “Nameberry articles,” with both my articles listed and linked to. I could just die typing that right now. 🙂

So basically, the moral of the entire story is: God is good. So so good. This blog has blessed me in more ways than you know, and I hope you’ve all felt blessed by it too. ❤

Ohmygoodness

sanctanomina Uncategorized ,

I can’t even tell you the exciting things that have happened in the last two weeks.

First, I responded to a tweet by Abby from Appellation Mountain asking for ideas for a little girl named after Grandpa Charles but not Charlotte and I suggested Charis and Abby replied to my tweet and said she loved the idea.

What???

I was so excited that I retweeted her reply to my tweet (or however you’d say all that) and then a little while later I checked my email and … Abby from Appellation Mountain emailed to let me know she liked my blog.

What????

I was a little (a lot) hyperventilatey over just those things and THEN Abby asked me if I’d like her to introduce me to Linda at Nameberry with the idea of maybe writing an article over there.

What???

So I said Yes please! and she made the email introductions and Linda said she was interested in some of my ideas, so I fleshed out one of the ideas (which was actually Abby’s idea, yet another thing to be grateful to her for!) and …

DRUMROLL …

It’s up on Nameberry’s Berry Juice section today!!!

What???

Go check it out! How to Name a Large Family by Kate at Sancta Nomina (that’s me!) 🙂 🙂 🙂

my_nameberry_article_homepage-03.23.15 - Copy

Updated to add the screen grab from Nameberry’s homepage — I like how they introduced the article. 🙂

Mash-up names

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I was reading last night a tiny bit about Bl. John Piamarta, who I’d never heard of before. I was immediately drawn to his last name, Piamarta, as I assumed that it was a mash-up of Pia (the feminine of Pius, Latin for “pious”) and Marta (a form of Martha). I don’t know if it is, but even if that’s not the origin of Bl. John’s last name, one could decide to make such a combo a first name for a girl, and what a pretty name it would be. (I’ve always loved the idea of Pia, but I think it take some thick skin for a child to have that name today, because of what else it sounds like. Adding it onto another name is a nice way to get around that though, I think.)

Bl. John Piamarta made me think of other mash-up names I’ve heard. The first that came to mind was Maristela, which I had not heard of until someone suggested it for Simcha. I of course was familiar with Stella, and Stella Maris, but what a lovely way to reconfigure the name with Maristela! (Or Maristella.)

I’ve also always loved the name Maite, which is a contraction of Maria Teresa. Gorgeous on its own, or as a nickname for Maria Teresa. Maricruz was a character on the TV show Prison Break.

I had a hard time finding a listing of more like that. A search for “contraction baby names,” which is how Maite was described (a contraction of Maria and Teresa) gave me info on labor contractions. Try again! A search for “mash-up names” resulted in an article about Bettylou and Maryjane-type names — but I didn’t mean two separate names connected with no change (which, yes, is what Piamarta is, but still). I tried “compound names” and came up with a really fun article about contracting a longer name down to a shorter, like Anastasia–>Asia, which is really fun for nicknames and a technique I myself have suggested, but it’s not two names contracted together.

It would be fun to make some up, like … John Paul–>Jopa. Okay, maybe not. Maristella and Maricruz sound so reverent to me, probably because the elements aren’t so hidden, so it’s easy to see what names they came from. So then maybe I’m being crazy, because we have so many beautiful names like that already.

What mash-up/combo names are you familiar with? What are your favorites?