Category Archives: Blog News

E-Book: International Baby Names for Australian Parents

05 Sunday Jan 2014

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For a long time I’ve been aware that many Australian parents, as in other countries, are hoping to find a baby name which is little used, yet isn’t considered weird or bizarre either. I wondered how I could help parents find such names – what information might prove useful to them? 

It was easy to know what names are unusual in Australia: I could look through the data and find names that have never ranked here. A much harder task was to decide which of these names were not weird, and still usable.

Eventually, it occurred to me that if a name that was rare here was familiar or popular in other countries, it simply couldn’t be said to be a “bizarre” name. So I began searching for names which ranked overseas, but had never charted in Australia.

I added another “safety measure” to my list: they had to be names I had seen recently used for Australian babies. The only names I would accept were those I had personally seen in Australian use for babies born within the past five years.

No names I had heard of from friends or acquaintances; no names of elderly relatives or people I’d been to school with. They were names I had seen on babies and toddlers in real life, in birth notices, and in newspaper and magazine stories.

It was meant to be a blog entry, and as the list grew I thought it could be an entire blog series. By the end, I realised I’d written a short book.

There are 200 names, and each name has its own entry for meaning, history, famous namesakes, fictional namesakes and celebrity baby names, with an emphasis on Australian examples. Each entry also gives overseas rankings for the name. 

I’m making it available as a PDF document for sale at $1.99 through PayPal. Feel like buying it right now? Press this button! It will be sent to the e-mail address associated with your PayPal account.

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I’ve also found that writing baby name books is quite addictive, and I’m currently working on something slightly more ambitious. Stay tuned!

Article in New Issue of Matilda Magazine

02 Tuesday Apr 2013

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Cover of Matilda Magazine 2nd IssueKate and Sarah have a new issue of Matilda magazine out. They are having a few problems with their website at present, but the second issue of Matilda looks great. There’s sage advice from Abby at Appellation Mountain, some wonderful surname names from Brooke at Baby Name Pondering, name interviews, names from Jane Austen from Kelli at The Name Freak, Easter ideas, and more.

I have an article in it titled Beyond Liv and Zeke: One Syllable Names. It looks at some of the one syllable names that don’t make the Top 1000 in the United States, such as Bo, Nox, Haze and Jinx. I had a lot of fun scouring the US data to find some gems … and some curiosities.

Thanks Kate and Sarah for another fantastic issue!

Happy Second Birthday, Waltzing More Than Matilda!

13 Wednesday Feb 2013

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2nd-birthdayMy blog turns two years old today. I have to admit, I didn’t think very deeply about what I was doing when I started the blog, and didn’t know any more about blogging than what I’d read in a few articles with titles like Any Idiot Can Blog, or Get Blogging, Stupid! I had finished one part of my life and hadn’t started on the next bit, so a blog seemed like a good idea at the time.

When my account came up for renewal at the end of the first twelve months, I didn’t think twice about it. Of course I had to continue the blog; I’d only been doing it for a year, and felt I had barely started. When I received my second renewal notice at the end of last year, for the first time I actually sat down and asked myself if I wanted to keep going. I pondered deeply for over a month, and some days I seriously considered cancelling my account.

At last I decided that the blog was still growing, and I still had a lot to learn, so for the first time I made a conscious choice to continue Waltzing More Than Matilda. It’s taken me two years, but I have finally begun to think about what I’m doing. It will be interesting to see if this makes any difference!

Thank You, Thank You, to You and You and You

No blogger is an island, and many thanks go to these people for their help and support.

  • To Abby at Appellation Mountain, who for another year has sent me more views than any other blog. Abby’s generosity to others is inspiring, and it’s wonderful to see her go from strength to strength.
  • To Linda at Nameberry for giving me the opportunity to contribute my article, Aussie Names – Big there, not here. Thanks also to Angie at Upswing Baby Names, who was kind enough to provide an American perspective on the names I selected.
  • To Kate at Matilda magazine for inviting me to write an article on The Best Baby Name Blogs. Matilda magazine has been a very exciting innovation in the world of baby names.
  • To Michelle Horton from parenting website Babble for including Waltzing More Than Matilda in her article 20 Favorite Blogs for Baby Names. It came as a genuine, but very welcome, surprise to be mentioned alongside such great name blogs.
  • To Cristina at Once Upon a Time Baby Names for interviewing me about my name. Cristina has recently given her blog a complete reboot, and it looks amazing.
  • To Ebony at Babynameobsessed for being my most loyal commenter, and also reblogging several of my blog entries. Ebony is another Aussie name blogger.
  • To Lou at Mer de Noms for reblogging Boys Names of Australian Aboriginal Origin. Even after a big lifestyle change, Lou’s blog is still going strong.
  • To Brooke at Baby Name Ponderings for turning the 2012 Victorian name data into a fantastic spreadsheet. Brooke is another Australian name blogger, with very creative name ideas.
  • To my 140-odd subscribers, and my 50-odd Twitter followers, and to everyone who reads and comments and sends nice e-mails, and just all round makes blogging worth it!

Nerdy Number-Crunching

  • I have almost half a million views. The country which sent me the most views was Australia, which is good – it would be embarrassing to have a blog on Australian baby names that Australians didn’t read!
  • The most views I ever got were on June 21, when thousands of people suddenly all wanted to read about Jude Bolton’s daughter Siarra at the same time for some reason. As a result, this article was my most popular for the year.
  • The article which has gained the most comments is Girls Names of Australian Aboriginal Origin.
  • The most common search term was waltzing more than matilda, so I guess by now people do know about the blog.
  • The name most often searched for was Ruby, which reflects this name’s high popularity.
  • By posting this, I will have brought my number of posts up to 764. I have 23 categories and 618 tags. The most popular category was Name Themes and Lists.
  • There are 196 featured boys names, 192 featured girls names, and 119 featured unisex names, making over 500 names in total. About a hundred additions to the name database were made based on web searches people made to the blog, looking for baby names as familiar as Rose or Archer, and as unexpected as Australia or Zephyr.
  • The photo which was clicked on the most was the christening of Lauren Newton’s baby daughter Lola, which showed the entire Newton family together.
  • The most popular newspaper article linked to was the one announcing the birth of Addison, the son of ABC presenter Virginia Trioli.
  • The most popular website link was to ABC presenter Leigh Sales’ blog, Well Redhead, at The Punch.
  • The most popular document accessed was Australian Celebrity Baby Names 2011.
  • The most popular YouTube video was this one – basically my version of Rickrolling!
  • The blog on my Blog Roll most often clicked is Upswing Baby Names. Angie has a very professional-looking and practical name blog, and I’m glad to see it gaining such well-deserved interest.

Birthday Present

My present to Waltzing More Than Matilda is her own Facebook page. There are two main reasons I got one: (1) I promised myself I would once I got over 100 subscribers and (2) despite having a Twitter account, I get more views via Facebook than Twitter, so it makes sense. It seems much more complicated and scary than Twitter, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it in time.

Many happy returns, Waltzing More Than Matilda, and here’s to another year blogging together!

I Get Interviewed at A Baby Name Per Day

03 Saturday Nov 2012

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Recently I was interviewed by Cristina at A Baby Name Per Day, where my thoughts on names were probed, and my own names profiled.

It was really fun, and in the process I actually got to think about some things I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. One of the hardest questions to answer was what I’d call myself if I wasn’t an Anna … the answer surprised me a little bit.

Thanks so much Cristina, and I hope anyone who is interested in learning more about me, or more about my name, will pop over and have a read of the interview.

Guest Blogging at Nameberry

25 Thursday Oct 2012

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I have a guest post at Nameberry up today, which has been entitled Aussie Names – Big there, not here. It takes a look at what names are common or familiar in Australia, but are little used or unknown in the United States.

A big thank you goes to Angie at Upswing Baby Names, who gave me invaluable advice on how some of the names might be perceived in America. Thank you also to Linda at Nameberry for the opportunity to share my thoughts.

Happy First Birthday, Waltzing More Than Matilda!

13 Monday Feb 2012

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My blog is one year old today. If it was a baby, it would be starting to walk and talk by now … and that’s kind of how I see it, that it’s beginning to take a few hesitant steps on its own.

I discovered in the past 12 months that blogs and babies have quite a few things in common. They both go through teething problems, they both keep you up late at night, and when they go quiet, you find yourself leaning over both trying to tell if they are still breathing!

Unfortunately, there’s no $5000 bonus for having a blog, and you can’t get time off work by telling your boss that your blog is unwell and needs your attention. Well, I can’t anyway – maybe you’ll have more luck with that one.

Just like a proud mama with her baby book, I have all the statistics on my growing Matilda, kindly provided for me by WordPress.

All the Dirt

I have just over 70 000 views. I thought that seemed reasonable, and then I saw a blog started around the same time as mine that already has 2.8 million views. It has funny pictures taken from the Internet, mostly cats. Why have I not tried to appeal to these vast numbers of hilarious cat lovers? A great opportunity lost.

I received the most number of views on January 9, when Practical Parenting Magazine linked to my article, You Can’t Call It That. Thank you to Practical Parenting and its readers for their interest.

Most of my views were gained from search engines, especially Google.

The most common search term people used was flynn christopher bloom.

The most common girl’s name that people searched for was Hazel, and the most common boy’s name was Link.

The blog that sent me the most views was Appellation Mountain. Huge thanks to Abby, who is so generous when it comes to supporting other bloggers!

After posting this, I will have made 362 blog entries, so I never quite succeeded at the “Blog Entry a Day” challenge that WordPress suggested I take up when I joined.

My most popular entry is Flynn Christopher Bloom, which Wikipedia provided a link to at the bottom of their article on Miranda Kerr. More thanks are due to Wikipedia, as this was very encouraging for a novice blogger.

I have posted a ridiculous number of photos, somewhere between 400 and 500. The most popular photo that people clicked on was the one I made of Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom, each with baby Flynn. At this point I’m thinking that if I’d done a blog entirely devoted to the Kerr-Bloom family and their offspring, I would basically own the Internet by now.

I have 19 Categories and 244 Tags. The most popular Category is Celebrity Baby News, and the most popular Tag is celebrity baby names.

The most popular link on my Blog Roll is For Real Baby Names. Congratulations Sarah, you’ve obviously come up with a winning blog title that people can’t resist checking out!

The most popular website link is to the Baby Name Explorer from the NSW government.

The most popular news article is on rugby league star Mark Gasnier, and his 2010 marriage to Claudine Bonnechere.

I have 49 people following my blog, and as far as I can work out, have maybe another 50 or so following it in a more casual, commitment-free way.

People have left me almost a thousand comments, not including comments from myself (this is what WordPress says, but I don’t think it can be right; maybe it’s counting pingbacks).

Askismet has protected me from from more than 5 500 spam comments, which unfortunately means thousands of my views came from spammers.

My most loyal commenter is Lou at Mer de Noms, who has left well over 100 comments, meaning that more than 10% of my comments are from Lou. Thanks heaps Lou; I feel like I should give you some kind of award!

I got a surprising amount of fan mail, and hardly any hate mail at all.

My Birthday Presents to Waltzing More Than Matilda

I got her a new theme, as Pilcrow was beginnng to get on my nerves. One of the reasons I chose Chateau is because it is mobile compatible, so if you are out and about, and feeling as if you simply must read my blog for some reason, you can if you have a mobile device handy. (You could before, it just wouldn’t have looked the same).

I have got her a Twitter account. I don’t really know what to do yet, but I’m sure I’ll pick it up in time.

Many happy returns, Waltzing More Than Matilda, and may we enjoy another year of blogging together.