24 Sunday Jan 2016
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names, Name Data
≈ Comments Off on Most Common Australian Celebrity Baby Names of 2015
GIRLS FIRST NAMES
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BOYS FIRST NAMES
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Unusual Celebrity Baby Names
Girls: Avalon, Bo, Egypt, Essena, Giselle, Harvie, Imaan, Ripley, Scout, Sia, Sunday, and Zylah
Boys: Barclay, Blayden, Iliesa, Jerry, Leezak, Makua, Marlon, McLean, Montgomery, Otto, Percy, Rafi, Rocket, Solal, and Zion
GIRLS MIDDLE NAMES
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BOYS MIDDLE NAMES
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Unusual Celebrity Middle Names
Girls: Adenil, Blue, Merivale, and Napier
Boys: Arrow, Fileborn, Hawthorn, Winiata, and Zot
04 Sunday Dec 2011
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names
Tags
celebrity baby names, celebrity sibsets, english names, famous namesakes, honouring, nature names, vocabulary names
Kasey Chambers has impeccably authentic country music roots. When she was only a few weeks old, her father, guitarist Bill Chambers, and her mother Diane took her and her two-year-old brother Nash to the Nullarbor Plain. It was meant to be a working holiday shooting foxes and rabbits, but the holiday lasted for ten years. Kasey grew up wandering the desert with her nomadic parents. They slept in the open air, or in the back of the family Landcruiser; each night under the stars, Bill would sing country songs to them around the campfire.
When the ten year “holiday” came to an end, the Chambers family moved to a fishing village in South Australia so that Bill and Diane could resume their interrupted music careers, and Kasey and Nash could attend school with children their own age. Back in civilisation, with mod cons like radio and TV, Kasey discovered Top 40 music and was soon rocking out to Mötley Crüe and Metallica – but those formative years spent listening to her dad sing songs by Hank Williams and the Carter Family left their mark on her.
Bill and Diane began playing in pubs and clubs again and before long they became a group, as first Kasey, and then Nash, joined their parents on stage. They called themselves The Dead Ringer Band, as Nash and Kasey resembled their parents so closely. During her teens, Kasey not only gained experience as a performer, but also began writing songs. Nash built his own studio so that he could produce the band’s albums (he is now a full-time music producer). The Dead Ringer Band put out seven albums, won three ARIAs, two MOs and seven Golden Guitars during the 1990s.
After Bill and Diane separated, the band took a long break. When EMI tried to sign them and found the band were no longer together, they were happy to sign Kasey as a solo artist instead. She and Diane took a trip to Africa, and there she wrote many of the songs for her first album, The Captain. The Captain was recorded on Norfolk Island, her mother’s new home, with her dad playing guitar and her brother producing. The album went double platinum, and Kasey went on to win ARIAs for Best Country Album and Best Female Artist. On the back of her success, she toured the US as a support act to Lucinda Williams, and supported Emmylou Harris on her Australian tour.
The Captain was a good start to Kasey’s solo career, but her next album, Barricades and Brick Walls, made her a country pop star. Not only did the album go seven times platinum, but her single “Not Pretty Enough” went double platinum. She is the only Australian country artist to have a #1 single and a #1 album in the charts at the same time. She won ARIAs for Album of the Year, Best Country Album and Best Female Artist.
In 2005 Kasey married singer-songwriter Shane Nicholson; they met in the early 2000s when Kasey’s brother Nash produced Shane’s critically-acclaimed album It’s a Movie, for which Kasey and Shane performed a duet. In 2007, Kasey and Shane welcomed their first child together, Arlo Ray – he is named after folk musician Arlo Guthrie, and Ray is the name of Shane’s father.
Kasey already had a four-year-old son from a previous relationship to actor Cori Hopper, and although Cori may not have been the perfect partner for her, they were compatible enough as baby-namers to both come up with the name Talon for their son independently. Kasey is a fan of songwriter Fred Eaglesmith, and Cori was a supporter of the West Coast Eagles football team, so Talon made sense to both of them. Talon was declared one of the worst celebrity baby names in a Brisbane newspaper, and an elderly woman told her the name was “horrible” – luckily Kasey just found this hilarious.
To continue the family tradition, Talon Hopper is already writing his own songs, and has his own band, called The Little Hillbillies, of which Arlo is also a member. Others in the band are Nash’s children Eden, Béla and Skye, and Bill Chamber’s kids from his new relationship, called Tyler and Jake. Rounding it out is Townes Werchon, the son of Kasey’s best friends Worm and Bernadette. The band has brought out an album called Little Kasey Chambers, Poppa Bill and The Little Hillbillies. Kasey says it is a “politically incorrect” children’s album (I think that means it has songs about poo on it). The album was nominated for the ARIA for Best Children’s Album in 2010, but lost to The Wiggles’ Let’s Eat! I hope that wasn’t about poo, anyway.
And now Kasey and Shane have added their baby girl, Poet Poppin, to this big crazy musical extended family. I am just so happy to have Miss Poet Poppin Nicholson as my last celebrity baby name profile for the year, because she is a name-blogger’s dream. She’s exactly what people want from a celebrity baby name – something original, slightly outrageous, fun, fresh and lyrical.
Poet because she is the daughter of two songwriters, and Poppin was chosen by her big brothers – because she kept “poppin’ around” in Kasey’s womb before she was born. Add another celebrity trend to the mix: baby names chosen by their siblings. If all the digits on both my hands were thumbs, I still wouldn’t have enough to give as many thumbs up as I’d like.
This year Kasey won the International Songwriting Competition’s Grand Prize for “Beautiful Mess”, a song she wrote for her children:
She says, “I was at home babysitting a friend’s one-year-old son along with my two boys. It was one of those chaotic days with kids running around and having lots of fun while this song was coming out. And that’s what it felt like that day – a beautiful mess. That’s what parenting constantly feels like. It’s specifically written for Arlo and Talon, who are the most important things in my entire life. I love them, and I have an outlet to show them that through songs.”
That’s kind of how I see Kasey’s naming style: it’s kind of a mess, but boy, it’s just beautiful.
(Photo from Shane Nicholson’s website).
30 Sunday Oct 2011
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names
Chrissie Swan is an example of one of those few people that you can point to and say that reality television was a force for good in their life. Without exaggeration, you can say that reality television has changed her life for the better. Without reality television, Chrissie would not be a celebrity, and although she may well have had babies otherwise, they would not now be covered in an article on celebrity baby names.
Once upon a time, Chrissie was a real estate copywriter in Melbourne, when she decided to apply as a contestant for the third series of Channel 10’s Big Brother. Her friends were all fans of the show, and she thought it would be funny to think of them watching in bewilderment as she entered the Big Brother House. The producers said they chose Chrissie for her “intelligence, wit, integrity, and intriguing sense of the absurd”.
The producers showed they were on the money, as Chrissie proved popular with both the other Housemates, and the public. She won great support for standing up to the show’s “villain”: arrogant, boastful and slightly corrupt ex-policeman, Ben Archbold, and by doing so, proved that she wasn’t just a nice person, she also had the strength of character to not allow herself to be bullied. (In case you were wondering, Ben Archbold is now a high-profile criminal lawyer, so don’t worry, Chrissie’s feistiness didn’t mentally destroy him or anything).
Much to her surprise, Chrissie was released on Day 86 (July 21 2003) as the runner-up to Regina “Reggie” Bird; it was the first time a woman had won the show, and the first time a woman was runner-up (it was the only series where both winner and runner-up were female).
Chrissie attempted to return to her normal life, but found it impossible to continue as a real estate copywriter – she was too famous. Instead of showing her around their houses for 10 minutes so that she could go away and describe them alluringly, people wanted her to tell them all the inside goss on Big Brother, look at the family photo albums, and talk to their aunty on the phone. Her attractive personality meant that people saw her as a friend, and a visitor to their home rather than as a professional; and as a good friend, they expected her to stay for at least 2 hours. Her business was in tatters.
Three days after leaving the Big Brother House, she was offered a job in breakfast radio on the Sunshine Coast, and moved to Queensland in September. She worked hard at learning how to be a good presenter, and in 2005, she and her co-hosts won the Best On-Air Team from ACRA, since the ratings for their slot were almost double that of any other station on the coast. When she moved back to Melbourne, Chrissie got a job doing breakfast radio at Vega in Melbourne, until she and her co-hosts got the sack during Vega’s (now Classic Rock 91.5) notorious cost-cutting exercise.
In a clear case of one door opening as another closes, last year Chrissie was offered the chance to co-host a new morning chat show on Channel 10 called The Circle. It was a gamble having an all-female panel on a television show, especially as The Catch Up, an attempt to copy US show The View, was axed from a rival channel after just a few months.
Not surprisingly, Chrissie was nervous about her gig on a new show in an untried format that everyone said seemed awfully risky. But she and her co-hosts rose to the challenge, and the show became a success. The premise of the show was that the women would never be bitchy or create staged conflict; it would be four women having a chat together like friends, and anyone who came on their show would join this circle of friends, and the audience would also be made to feel as they were friends with everyone as well.
It was so entertaining being a guest on The Circle that some celebrities were willing to pay their own way to be on the show. Chrissie got to meet stars like Jerry Hall and Elmo; she cooked with psychic John Edward and cuddled Meatloaf; she sang Stop in the Name of Love with a Supreme and Total Eclipse of the Heart with Bonnie Tyler; and she felt up Kim Kardashian’s bottom. Lily Tomlin refused to give interviews when she came to Australia, but insisted on guest-hosting on The Circle, because she had heard about it in America and wanted to be part of the fun (nobody touched her bottom though).
Chrissie gained such popularity with her audience that in April, she was nominated for three Logie Awards – Most Popular New Female Talent, Most Popular Presenter, and the Gold Logie, given to the most popular TV personality overall. While Chrissie’s head was spinning at this unexpected news, pundits on social media and talkback radio questioned how this “nobody” from a show with only 70 000 viewers could have been nominated for the top award, and darkly hinted that the voting must have been rigged.
Long-time media presenter Eddie Maguire used his breakfast show on Triple M to attack Chrissie, suggesting that people might have voted for her, in the same way that children will vote for “the dumb kid” as class captain in order to irritate the teacher. Chrissie stood up against this onslaught as she stood up to Ben Archbold, and refused to buckle to the bullies.
Chrissie’s fans were quick to defend her, saying that they had nominated her because she was intelligent, funny, warm, genuine and compassionate. People who had never voted for the Logies before said they had to this time, because at last here was someone on TV who brightened each day with their sunny smile; someone fresh and natural and honest; someone that ordinary Australians could relate to. In fact, her fans felt that Chrissie was their BFF, and you always stick up for your friends, right?
In the end, Chrissie won the Logie for Most Popular New Female Talent, and Karl Stefanovic from breakfast TV show, Today, won Most Popular Presenter and the Gold Logie – which started up the whole voting debate again, but that’s another story.
Chrissie met her partner Chris Saville through Big Brother; he was part of the crew, and because she calls him “The Chippy”, I’m guessing he was one of the set builders. Chrissie and Chris had a son named Leo in November 2008, and Chrissie, who has always been a big girl, gained 55 kg (121 lb) during her pregnancy.
Hoping to become pregnant again, she had a very public campaign to shed the extra kilos through healthy diet and exercise which won her even greater public sympathy, and the resulting weight loss had the desired effect – she got pregnant almost immediately. During her second pregnancy she stuck to her eating plan, and was happy to report that she only gained 4 or 5 kg (around 10 lb), and was back to her pre-pregnancy weight within a few weeks of giving birth.
Chrissie and Chris named their second son Kit, which as a male name is usually taken as a pet form of Christopher – very appropriate for the child of a Chris and a Chrissie. A famous Australian Kit is Arnold Christopher “Kit” Denton, the novelist who wrote The Breaker, about Breaker Morant, and the father of comedian and television presenter Andrew Denton. Baby rabbits are called kits, which makes it seem very cuddly. Chrissie’s surname of Swan is used as the middle name for both her sons; a charming modern custom which gives Kit Swan Saville a double animal name.
I must confess that I’ve never really liked the name Kit, but you know how sometimes you don’t like a name much, and then a good friend uses it for their child? And then you see it on a real baby, and gradually like it more and more, and eventually you end up liking it heaps. That’s how it was for me – once I saw it on baby Kit and got a real feel for it, it seemed like the perfect name for him. It’s so cute and chipper, and a brilliant match with Leo – two three-letter names that both refer to animals. I love it! A thoroughly converted thumbs up!
(Photo from Woman’s Day website).
Chrissie gets to know Kim Kardashian a little better on The Circle:
25 Sunday Sep 2011
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names
Tags
celebrity baby names, english names, famous namesakes, French names, honouring, name popularity, nicknames, popular names, vocabulary names
Cathy Freeman’s daughter was one of the most anticipated babies to be born this year, because Cathy is not only one of our greatest athletes, but also one of our most loved. Australia has been blessed with more than its fair share of fast runners, but Cathy did more than run fast – she has that charisma that draws people to her, and a smile that can light up, not just a room, but an entire stadium.
Her sporting achievements are well-known and add up to a stellar career. She began running aged five, won her first gold medal at the age of eight in Brisbane, and was encouraged by her family to pursue her dream of becoming an Olympic athlete. She won her first international gold medal for the women’s relay at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland, 1990; this made her not only the first Aboriginal gold medal winner at a Commonwealth Games, but also the youngest, as she was only 16. To commemorate her achievement, she was awarded Young Australian of the Year in 1990. In her acceptance speech, she said that she ran for all Australians, but particularly for Aboriginal Australians, whom she hoped to inspire to reach their own goals.
Cathy’s childhood dream came true in 1992, when she became the first Aboriginal Australian to compete at an Olympics Games, in Barcelona. She won double gold at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and in 1996 received her first Olympic medal when she won silver in the 400 metres in Atlanta. Three subsequent Grand Prix victories and her taking first place at the 1997 World Track and Field Championships in Athens confirmed her status as world champion over 400 metres. In 1998, she received the Australian of the Year Award for her athletic achievements. To date, she is the only person who has ever been awarded both Young Australian of the Year and Australian of the Year.
The 2000 Olympics in Sydney were expected to be the jewel in her crown, and she was chosen to light the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony. Cathy didn’t disappoint, as she won her first Olympic gold medal for the 400 metres, and after the race, did her victory lap carrying both the Australian and Aboriginal flags as a symbol of national reconciliation. This had to gain the special permission of the International Olympic Committee, because although the Aboriginal flag is officially recognised in Australia, it isn’t a national flag, and isn’t recognised by the IOC. Cathy later explained that the carrying of both flags was the culmination of a promise that she had made to herself when she was 16, and just beginning her international career.
Further honours came her way: she received the Olympic Order, the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, the Laureus Sportswoman of the Year Award, and the Order of Australia Medal all in the same year, 2001. After her retirement, she devoted herself to many charitable causes, most notably the Cathy Freeman Foundation, which encourages indigenous children to stay in school and succeed academically.
Catherine Astrid Salome Freeman had become not just an athlete, not just an Olympian, not just a gold medallist, but also a spokesperson, a community leader, a role model, an icon, an inspiration, a star. Her success was beyond the wildest dreams of the little girl who had won primary school sports day races in Queensland.
A couple of years ago I watched an episode of genealogy show, Who Do You Think You Are?, featuring Cathy Freeman. She already knew that her grandfather, Frank Fisher, was a famous rugby league player from an Aboriginal mission, known for being a fast sprinter and a fierce competitor on the field, but was surprised to find her great-grandfather, Frank Fisher senior, served in World War I as a member of the Light Horse. She discovered that she had both English and Chinese ancestry on her mother’s side, and that her mother’s family had been sent to a Palm Island penal settlement for being too independent. They were to remain there for four generations – a place so strictly controlled that Cathy’s mother Cecelia was not allowed to visit family members for Christmas; this was in 1963.
As Cathy read the documents connected with her family history, she shed tears of rage and frustration on behalf of her ancestors. She said that if she had known all this when she was an athlete, she would have run even faster, and her running would have been fuelled by anger. Cathy has a tattoo on one bicep that reads Cos I’m Free, and she realised that her freedom was a historically recent thing.
Despite her magnificent public success, her private life was filled with drama, turmoil and even scandal. But as Cathy explained in an interview: “I might be a champion athlete but that doesn’t make me a champion person. Why shouldn’t my personal life be just as difficult and troublesome as any other woman’s? God, the mistakes I have made and the tears I’ve shed . . . Apart from a certain God-given talent I firmly believe the reason I achieved so much is that running was my escape from a chaotic personal life. Athletics was my refuge, something I could lose myself in.”
Fortunately, her chaotic love life got a lot happier and more stable when she met fund manager James Murch at a charity ball – a man that Cathy describes as “fantastic, fabulous, sexy, beautiful, gorgeous”, and also her best friend. In April 2009, Cathy and James were married in a Ba’hai wedding ceremony that included traditional indigenous elements. They were very open about wanting children as soon as possible, and said they were willing to adopt if necessary.
Cathy dropped a hint that she might be pregnant in September last year, during a ceremony to mark the tenth anniversary of the Sydney Olympic Games. She made a comment about her memory living on through her “unborn children and their children”. After she was questioned what she meant by that, her thought was, “Oh dear, what have I said?”. Pictures of her looking plumper, and a suddenly cancelled charity run across Sydney Harbour Bridge only fuelled speculation.
The pregnancy was officially announced in February, and it was also revealed that pregnancy had triggered gestational diabetes, which is said to run in Cathy’s family, and which Aboriginal women have a higher risk of getting. She had to inject herself with insulin four times a day, and after always being so fit and healthy, it was hard for her to adjust to the idea of her body failing her. In fact, in photos taken during the last few months of her pregnancy, Cathy looks noticeably tired and unwell, although she was able to continue going to the gym.
Her daughter Ruby Anne Susie was born on July 8, and we are told that the delivery went smoothly and both mother and baby were healthy. On July 11, she posted photos of Ruby on her website, and said on Twitter that she was recovering well and loving being a new mum. By the end of July, she was back at work promoting children’s sport.
Ruby was the #1 name last year in Victoria, where the Murch family live, and Cathy and James may well have picked it simply because they love it. However, this pretty gemstone has historically been often used as a name in the indigenous community, and there are several famous Aboriginal women called Ruby, including singer-songwriter, Ruby Hunter; political activist Ruby Langford Ginibi; and Ruby Hammond, the first Aboriginal woman political candidate in South Australia.
I think the middle name Anne may be in tribute to Cathy’s older sister, Anne-Marie, who was born with severe cerebral palsy and spent most of her life in a home for the disabled. Cathy always said that she had to run so fast because Anne-Marie couldn’t move her hands and feet at all, and that Anne-Marie has been a constant inspiration in her life – not just the wind beneath her wings, but a tornado. Anne-Marie died when Cathy was sixteen. The second middle name, Susie, is after James’ mother, who sadly passed away before she could ever meet Cathy.
I must confess that I admire Cathy Freeman a great deal, and basically I would have loved any name she chose for her daughter. I think Ruby Anne Susie is a bright, smiley, sunshiney name that’s cute as a button and also honours loved ones – two completely biased thumbs up!
(Photo from Cathy’s Freeman’s website)
21 Sunday Aug 2011
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names
Tags
Finnish names, name combinations, name history, name meaning, nicknames, Old Norse names, popular names, scandinavian names, Viking names
Lydia Lassila is an Australian Olympic freestyle skier, who has competed in three Winter Olympics and won gold in the aerials at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver last year.
Winning gold came just five years after she ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament and underwent a radical knee reconstruction. In case you are not familiar with the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), rupturing the ACL sometimes spells the end of an elite athlete’s career. By the time their knee recovers from surgery, they are too old or out of condition to get back their previous level of fitness and skill.
However, Lydia was young, still in her early twenties, and determined to make a full recovery to competition fitness. So swift was her return that she was able to compete in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. During the second round of the aerials competition, her knee collapsed on impact after a difficult landing. She was just one jump away from the gold medal when her knee gave way. Onlookers still remember her spine-chilling screams of agony.
Lydia vowed that she would return to ski-ing when her knee recovered again. She took inspiration from her team mates Jacqui Cooper and Alisa Camplin, who had both made come-backs after similar knee injuries. As well as her physical rehabilitation, she gained motivation from internationally renowned sports psychologist Dr Barbara Meyer.
Her time away from competition gave her the opportunity to marry her Finnish boyfriend, Lauri Lassila, a former professional freestyle ski-er whose career highlight was winning silver at the Freestyle World Championships in 1999. Lydia and Lauri were married in a Scandinavian castle in mid-2007. Before her marriage, Lydia’s surname was Ierodiaconou; her mother is Italian and her father Greek-Cypriot.
Sixteen months after re-injuring her knee, Lydia made her come-back at the World Cup in China, where she won silver, and won her first World Cup title the following year. As world number 1, the pressure was on her to succeed at the 2010 Winter Olympics, and the beaming Lydia was soon dubbed “golden girl” for winning her medal.
She immediately took a year-long break from competition – this time so she and Lauri could start a family. Everything went to plan, and Lydia says she had a dream pregnancy, with no morning sickness, where she felt extremely healthy, and was able to exercise every day.
On Sunday May 8, which this year was the date of Mother’s Day, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, with his dad’s blonde hair and blue eyes. He caused his happy parents some consternation, because they had elected not to find out the sex so it would be a surprise; however for some reason they were convinced they were having a girl! This is the second celebrity couple this year to be sure they were having a girl but had a boy; the first was Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom. Lydia and Lauri had a nice long list of girl’s names, but no names for boys picked out.
In the end, they chose a thoroughly Scandinavian name for the blonde baby who Lydia calls her “little Viking”.
Kai is a boy’s name commonly used in Finland, where it means “probably”. This may be a case of an existing name coinciding with a word in a modern language, because Kai could be a short form of Caius, or Kaiser, or Nicolaas, or any number of names. It’s one of those useful and simple names that occur in many different cultures and languages, and all of them ascribe a positive meaning to it, so it’s a truly international name that can travel anywhere. It’s currently #85 in Lydia’s home state of Victoria, and February 16 is the name day for Kai in Finland.
Erik is even more recognisable as a Scandinavian name. It’s derived from the Old Norse name Eiríkr, and the first element ei either means “single, alone”, or “ever, eternal”. The second element ríkr either means “ruler, prince”, or “powerful, rich”. It’s therefore interpreted to mean “only ruler”, “eternal ruler”, “eternal power”, or something along those lines.
It’s a name that has been heavily used in the royal houses of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the most famous to us being Eiríkr Thorvaldsson, commonly known as Erik the Red. Exiled for three years from his home in Iceland after committing a few murders when neighbourhood disputes got slightly heated, Erik spent the time productively by exploring a little-known land mass to the west.
Showing good sales tactics, he decided to call this country “Greenland” in order to suggest it was rich and fertile; much as modern-day land developers name estates built on reclaimed swamp Gumnut Rise, to suggest it was once a hillside covered with trees, rather than the more accurate Muddy Flatland. To be fair, Greenland is green in bits, at certain times of the year.
When he returned home to Iceland, he spent the winter telling everyone about this fantastic place Greenland, to such good effect that he was able to persuade many people to become the first settlers in the new land. Whether it was quite as good as the brochures or not, the colonies eventually thrived, and Erik became head chieftain of Greenland, enjoying a wealth and respect he hadn’t attained in Iceland.
Erik remained a follower of Norse paganism all his life, but his son Leif Erikson was a convert to Christianity, and the first Viking to explore a country called Vinland, thought to be part of the west coast of Canada. Erik decided at the last moment not to accompany his children on the expedition to Vinland due to a bad omen that occurred on the way (falling off his horse), so he remained safely at home, where he shortly afterwards died in an epidemic brought over by some immigrants from Iceland. Maybe that’s what the omen was trying to tell him about, or perhaps it just means that when your time’s up, it’s up, whether you go or stay.
You may also know this name from Terry Jones’ movie Erik the Viking, starring Tim Robbins. It’s a Pythonesque satire on Viking life, and has nothing to do with Erik the Red, but it does help remind us that Erik is a Viking name.
I won’t pretend Kai and Erik are my favourite names ever (not that I don’t like them), but I am completely loving this name combination. It’s a fantastic way to give Kai a Finnish name that is also popular in Australia and doesn’t sound in the least out of place. I also think Kai Lassila just sounds perfect. A big thumbs up from me!
17 Sunday Jul 2011
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names
Tara Moss was a 22-year old model from Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, when she arrived in Australia in 1996 with her husband, Martin Legge. According to Moss, she was on a modelling assignment to Australia and just fell in love with the people and the lifestyle. According to the gossip writers, her husband’s problems with the Canadian IRS were also a factor in their decision to remain in Australia. She has held dual Australian and Canadian citizenship since 2002.
Tara had always wanted to be an author, ever since she penned Stephen-King type stories to thrill her pals at the age of 10. She gained a diploma from the Australian College of Journalism in 1997, and the next year won the Scarlett Stiletto Young Writer’s Award for her story, Psycho Magnet. Her debut novel, Fetish, was written when she was 23, and published in 1999. It went on to win the Sassy Award for Best Novel that year, and was shortlisted for the 2000 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Novel.
The protagonist of the story is a Canadian model, who is tall, blonde and beautiful. However, modelling is just a way for her to pay her fees so she can gain a degree in forensic psychology. While on a modelling assignment in Sydney, she finds herself caught up in a terrifying hunt for a serial killer who is targeting beautiful models who wear nice shoes.
You can follow the adventures of this tall, blonde and beautiful Canadian ex-model through four more thrillers with snappy one-word titles, and all of them have ended up on the best-sellers list and gained reviews that describe them as “smart and sexy” and compare the author to Patricia Cornwell. Last year she branched into Gothic thrillers with The Blood Countess, about a naive small-town girl who works on a New York fashion magazine where everything turns spooky. It’s been described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets The Devil Wears Prada.
Tara takes her writing career extremely seriously, and in the process of researching her novels has been set on fire, choked unconscious, taken polygraph tests, used weapons, and conducted surveillance. She’s toured morgues, prisons, law courts, The FBI Academy at Quantico, and the Hare Psychopathy Lab. She’s a certified private investigator, has passed a firearms test with the LAPD, has a race car driving license, a motorcycle license, and a snake handling certificate (for her pet python, Thing).
As a result of this attention to detail and professional attitude, her career has been successful and even illustrious. A confident, intelligent and unpretentious speaker with a pleasantly deep voice and light accent, she often appears on TV for interviews and opinion pieces. She is a popular guest at literary festivals, has hosted televison series on criminals and crime writing, and reviews other people’s novels. She is the first writer to have a star on the Australia Walk of Fame.
Her private life has been much as you’d expect for a tall, blonde and beautiful ex-model whose beauty and glamour has never waned. She shrugged off the embarassing first husband by the end of 1996 and began dating a well-known actor. She has been romantically linked to wealthy businessmen, multimillionaires, heirs to fortunes, and high-profile athletes and performers. She managed to squeeze in a two-year marriage to a film producer who’s a good friend of Hugh Jackman.
Obviously she was never going to have any problems attracting men, but according to an interview I watched on TV a year or two ago, she said she kept attracting the wrong type of man – wealthy older men who wanted a trophy wife. Not interested in being kept as a display item, she did what any modern single woman would do, and signed up with an online dating site in 2007. (In fact, the story I saw was about how great online dating is for older people).
Well, you can guess what happens when you put up a photo of yourself looking tall, blonde, beautiful and glamorous, and write on your profile you’re an ex-model who is now a famous author. The dating site removes your profile at once, because obviously it’s a fake! Uh yeah … Tara Moss is on our dating site – like, as if!
Now what happens next becomes a bit of a mystery. I distinctly recall Tara saying in the TV interview that she got her agent to contact the dating service, and they confirmed it really was Tara Moss, and her profile was returned to the dating site, where, in the fullness of time, she met her future husband.
However, in this article, Tara is quoted as saying that it was only in the two days before the website removed her profile that she managed to make contact with her future husband, and they began to get to know each other just as she was “booted off”. And in this article, Tara says that her future husband is an old friend that she’d met many years ago through literary circles, and that their relationship had evolved naturally out of their long friendship.
However, whatever the truth, somehow or other Tara met Dr. Berndt Sellheim, an Australian poet and philosophy professor at the University of Technology, Sydney. In February 2009 they got engaged at dawn on the Pont Neuf Bridge in Paris; the city where Dr. Sellheim received his Ph.D. In December that year, they were married at a Margaret River winery, where Tara looked stunning in a scarlet dress and antique jewellery.
On February 22 this year, Tara and Berndt welcomed their first child, a daughter named Sapphira Jane who weighed 3.3 kg. Rather than selling her baby pictures to a magazine, Tara released a photo of she and Berndt cuddling their new daughter on her own website. She describes motherhood as “a blissful experience”.
“I am very content,” she said. “I can’t say how she has changed my life but she has changed everything. My life is bigger; it is full of more joy on so many levels. [Motherhood] is beautiful.”
Sapphira is a name from the Greek, meaning “sapphire”; it’s pronounced suh-FEE-ruh. Apparently, Sapphira Sellheim-Moss received her name because of her blue eyes. In the New Testament, Sapphira is an early Christian who is struck dead by the Holy Spirit for lying – a story I always felt didn’t show the Holy Spirit in a very good light, and no doubt the Holy Spirit took the blame for a harsh justice handed out by humans. It’s a chilling story of crime and punishment oddly suitable for the name of a crime-writer’s daughter.
I think this is a beautiful name – glittering, poetic, evocative, literary, and slightly eccentric. Brought down to earth and given substance by the classic, sensible middle name Jane, it takes on an almost aristocratic feel.
You would expect two writers to devise a great baby name, and Tara and Berndt have come up with a cracker. Two enthusiastic thumbs up from me!
12 Sunday Jun 2011
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names
Tags
celebrity baby names, created names, famous namesakes, fictional namesakes, Gaelic names, germanic names, honouring, Irish names, Italian names, locational names, Old English names, surname names, unisex names
Toni Collette is that rare creature – a born actress. At the age of 11 she faked appendicitis so convincingly that doctors performed surgery on her, even though medical tests all showed there was nothing wrong. She has a face which effortlessly transmits emotion to an audience, and the instinctive ability to inhabit a character so completely that few people actually know what Toni looks like in real life. (Much prettier than on camera, is the general verdict).
Born and raised in working class Blacktown, Sydney, she dropped out of the National Institute of the Dramatic Arts to work in film and theatre. At 21 she stole our hearts as the plump, naïve, ABBA-loving Muriel Heslop from Porpoise Spit, in P.J. Hogan’s cult film Muriel’s Wedding, and was then catapulted into the world of Hollywood, Broadway, fame, wealth and awards. She went on to star in films such as The Sixth Sense, About a Boy, and Little Miss Sunshine, and since 2009 has played the title role in the Spielberg-produced TV show, The United States of Tara.
In 2002, she met Dave Galafassi, the drummer for Sydney indie band Gelbison, at a barbeque. She describes him as “balanced, patient, and beautiful,” and says she knew straight away that he was “the one”. In January 2003, Toni and Dave were married at her country house in south-coast Broughton, near Berry. They had a Buddhist ceremony which lasted an entire weekend, and featured dancing monks, vegetarian banquets, and a fireworks display.
Their first child, Sage Florence, was born in Sydney on January 9 2008. When she announced her pregnancy the previous July, Toni noted, “It is strange that in the last three films I’ve done [my character has] been pregnant. I’m just like, what is the universe trying to tell me?”
In October last year, Toni and Dave announced they were happy to be expecting a second child, and Arlo Robert Galafassi arrived this Good Friday, April 22. Arlo made it “the greatest Friday”, was the statement from Toni and Dave. Like his sister, he was born in Sydney, where Toni was filming Mental with P.J. Hogan.
I never knew where the name Arlo came from, and after doing a little digging, I found out that nobody else really knows either! Behind the Name lists it as “meaning uncertain”, but notes that it may come from the fictional place name Arlo Hill in Sir Edmund Spenser’s 1590 poem, The Faerie Queen. It is theorised that Spenser created the name from the Irish place name Aherlow, which is Gaelic for “between two hills”. Wikipedia says that it is either a variation of the English surname Harlow, a variant of Harley or Arlene, or an Italian variant of Carlo. It seems to be a name which originated in America.
Toni Collette has confirmed that her son Arlo was named after the folksinger Arlo Guthrie, son of Woody Guthrie, of whom she and Dave are fans. The middle name Robert is after Toni’s father, Bob.
Toni Collette is very popular in Australia – an amazing feat in a country which enjoys despising its famous people. I think it’s because Toni has always seemed like a hard working actress, rather than a glamorous celebrity. She has lived all over the world, but chose to make her home in her native Sydney instead of relocating to Hollywood. Despite the Buddhism, meditation and astrology, she is always described as “down-to-earth”. Although she has had her share of personal problems, such as eating disorders and panic attacks, she doesn’t hawk them around the chat show circuit, or bring out tearfully brave books on “My Battle With X”. In fact, she’d rather not talk about them. She went to therapy, she got over it. End of story. She doesn’t analyse things, yap about herself, or witter on Twitter, and she seems to have a perpetually sunny attitude and toothy grin. You have to admit, that’s pretty refreshing.
Everyone appears to be completely enamored with her baby name choices as well – nearly every article on baby Arlo is followed by enthusiastic comments praising Arlo as a gorgeous name. Many people were quick to point out that they too, had a little Arlo (one female), and a couple said their Arlo was inspired by the character Arlo Glass on TV show 24. Clearly it’s a name doing well at the moment, and no doubt climbing up the charts. Just as Toni Collette manages to be the celebrity who seems like she could be just like you if talent hadn’t driven her determinedly in another direction, she’s won further esteem by choosing a baby name that’s just what everyone else would have chosen.
I don’t know if I’m quite so in love with the name Arlo; I’m not a huge fan of either folk music or 24, and I must confess I have a perverse side to me that quickly goes off names greeted with universal acclaim. However, I think it’s great with the middle name Robert, a brilliant match with sister Sage, and Arlo Galafassi just sounds wonderful. I also find myself intrigued by the possible connection to Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen. As context is everything, I hereby award Arlo Robert Galafassi a thumbs up!
Further Reading:
See the entry on Arlo at Appellation Mountain for more information on the name.
Check out Mer de Noms’ blog entry on The Faerie Queen for more Spenserian names.
08 Sunday May 2011
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names
Tags
celebrity baby names, Danish names, French names, germanic names, Greek names, Greenlandic names, honouring, Latin names, royal baby names
We are still recovering from the royal wedding of Prince William to Catherine Middleton (now the Duchess of Cambridge), but it only seems a few years since Australia had the excitement of seeing Mary Elizabeth Donaldson from Hobart marry Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark. I don’t think we’ve got over the thrill of that yet, and the birth of the royal twins this year has been greeted with great interest and enthusiasm.
The unlikely relationship began on September 16 2000, when Frederik was visiting Sydney with the Danish sailing team during the Summer Olympics. He and Mary met at the Slip Inn Bar, where he was enjoying a casual beer and pizza night with his royal cousins; Mary was one of the locals who had been invited to join the party through friends of friends. There must have been something about Mary, because Prince Frederik introduced himself to her at once, and they immediately bonded over sport and horses.
When the media eventually learned of this first meeting, they played up the “prince meets commoner” angle to the hilt, and the fact that the Crown Prince had hit on someone working in real estate down the pub just seemed so beautifully down-to-earth. The media made it sound as if any attractive girl with an office job and a bit of luck could become royalty. The Slip Inn now advertises itself as being fit for royalty, and apparently is still popular with mid-twenties semi-sophisticates who hang around the bar sipping cocktails in slightly desperate hopes of meeting a prince of their own. It seems unlikely that lightning will strike twice though.
Mary and Frederik were able to keep their long-distance relationship secret for over a year, until the Danish press named her as the prince’s girlfriend in November 2001. The following month, Mary moved to Paris where she was able to visit Frederik, and in 2002 she went to live in Denmark permanently. During their courtship, the women’s magazines were bristling with excitement at the prospect of an Australian-born Danish princess, and when the couple became officially engaged in October 2003, they went into hyperdrive. It all culminated in the glorious royal wedding on May 14 2004, upon which the magazines exploded in a paroxysm of frenzied delirium and the Australian public went slightly ga-ga. It was seen as a modern-day fairytale – a simple Tasmanian girl meeting her European Prince Charming and moving into her own palace.
After the thrill of the wedding, there were royal children to look forward to. Mary and Frederik obliged by producing first Prince Christian Valdemar Henri John on October 15 2005, and then Princess Isabella Henrietta Ingrid Margrethe on April 21 2007. Christian of course is Frederik’s heir, while Isabella was the first princess to be born in the Danish royal family since 1946.
In August 2010, it was announced that Mary was pregnant with twins, and on January 8 2011, she gave birth to a baby boy at 10:30 am, and then a girl 26 minutes later. By tradition, the names of royal babies are not made public until their christening ceremony, so we all had a few months to speculate what the names might be. As they were born on Elvis Presley’s birthday, Prince Frederik joked that the boy would be called Elvis, but did suggest that they might slip an Australian name in there somewhere.
Guessing the royal baby names became a national idle pastime for both countries, and some suggestions were Banjo and Matilda, Frederik and Marie, Christopher and Mathilda, and William and Mathilde. A Danish poll found Sophie, Adelaide, Caroline, Louise, Charlotte, Astrid and Alexandrine were popular choices for the baby princess, and Magnus, Erik, Harald, Sven, Knud, Axel and Christoffer for the little prince. Australians tended to make silly suggestions like Shane and Kylie, or Serenity and Grayson (not all of them were joking, I’m afraid).
At last the twins’ christening day arrived on April 14 and the long wait was over. It was revealed that Frederik and Mary’s twin son was called Prince Vincent Frederik Minik Alexander, and their twin daughter Princess Josephine Sophia Ivalo Mathilda. It seems that all the guesses that Matilda/Mathilda/Mathilde would be included were on the money, Sophia was much like the Dane’s popular choice Sophie, Alexandrine turned out to be Alexander instead, and Frederik being included was a bit of a no-brainer.
Vincent was an unusual choice, and came as a surprise to both Danes and Australians, as it is considered a rather old-fashioned name in both countries (I’m sure that will change now). Frederik after his father is a royal custom and was to be expected. The interesting name Minik is North Greenlandic, and honours the country of Greenland as part of the Kingdom of Denmark. I have seen Minik translated as “blubber”, “earwax” and “oil used for sealing skin boats”, but Professor Minik Rosing, who attended the christening, gives an alternative definition of “silent snowfall”. That is a much more attractive meaning, and very appropriate for a baby born in mid-winter. The name is pronounced meen-EEK. Alexander is a popular name in both Denmark and Australia, and has been used in the royal family, and by Mary’s family as well – Alexander is the name of her nephew.
Princess Josephine shares her name with one of her godmothers, an Australian friend of Mary’s called Josephine Rechner. However, I am unable to confirm whether Princess Josephine was named in her honour, or whether it is simply a coincidence. Sophia is another popular name, and has been used in the Danish royal family. Ivalo is a North Greenlandic name which means “tendon”, “thread” or “sinew”; it is pronounced EE-vah-lo. Mathilda has been used in the Danish royal family, and is a nod to Mary’s origins – the Australian name we were promised by Frederik.
From polling and surveying conducted online, the majority of people were approving of Vincent and Josephine as a twinset, with most liking the name Josephine more than the name Vincent. Nearly everyone agreed that they sounded great with siblings Christian and Isabella. People have generally been intrigued by the Greenlandic names, and Danish royal watchers have expressed satisfaction at their inclusion. They are two beautiful and carefully chosen royal names for the Danish royal family, which seem to have come as a pleasant surprise to everyone.
Congratulations to the Crown Prince and Princess on their twins, and happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, everywhere! Whether a royal or a commoner, I hope all mothers are treated like a princess today.
NOTES: Translations of Ivalo and Minik from Wikipedia and Behind the Name; Professor Rosing’s definition of Minik was reported in the Danish press.
If you would like to watch the royal twins being christened, you can see it here:
03 Sunday Apr 2011
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names
Faith Urban is the most surprising celebrity baby of 2011, because until she had actually arrived, we didn’t know of her existence.
Her mother, red-haired Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman, has a well-known history of medical problems related to fertility and childbirth. Married to high-profile American actor Tom Cruise for ten years, Nicole suffered an ectopic pregnancy early in her marriage, and then miscarried soon after her separation from Tom in 2001. During Nicole and Tom’s marriage, they adopted two children – Isabella Jane and Connor Anthony – who still live with their father.
Nicole married New Zealand-born country singer Keith Urban in 2006, after meeting him at a G’day LA event the previous year. (G’day LA is an event where Australian celebrities are honoured in Los Angeles around Australia Day).
In July 2008, Nicole gave birth to their daughter, Sunday Rose, at the age of 41. According to an interview in The Australian Women’s Weekly magazine, she never expected to become pregnant or have a baby, and described Sunday’s birth as a “miracle”. She attributed her pregnancy to the mystical properties of the waters at Kunnunurra in far-north Western Australia, where she swam while making the Baz Luhrman film, Australia. Apparently seven women working on the movie conceived after swimming in the waterfalls, and of the babies subsequently born, six were girls. Sceptics pointed out that Sunday’s birth might have had a little to do with the IVF programme the Urbans were reportedly using, although that doesn’t explain the other six pregnancies.
They chose Sunday Rose’s name with care. Sunday is the day of the week that Nicole and Keith were married on, and Sunday is also the day the week that they consider their “special” day, when they spend time as a couple away from their busy work schedules. Rose is the name of Keith Urban’s late grandmother.
While the public may have assumed that the Urbans’ family was now complete, Keith and Nicole had other plans, but kept them a secret from outsiders. Keith may have dropped a tiny hint when he released his latest album, Get Closer, in November last year.
In the dedication, he wrote: “I continue to be brought to my knees by this love of ours … I am in awe of how this blessed family we are creating stretches and fearlessly opens my vulnerable heart … and I just want to be a better man, for you, and father for our heavenly Sunday Rose and have you go to sleep every night knowing that no one has ever, or will ever, love you as much as I do … and all we need is faith.” (my italics).
If this dedication was intended as a private allusion to their soon-to-be-born baby between he and his wife, it probably indicates that they had already chosen Faith’s name at least six weeks before her birth.
Faith Margaret was born on December 28 2010 at Centennial Women’s Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. On January 17 2011, her birth was announced on Keith Urban’s website:
“Our family is truly blessed, and just so thankful, to have been given the gift of baby Faith Margaret. No words can adequately convey the incredible gratitude that we feel for everyone who was so supportive throughout this process, in particular our gestational carrier”.
When Sunday Rose was born, the media was intrigued by her name and why her parents had chosen it. However, at the news of Faith Margaret’s birth, all anyone could talk about was the method by which she had been born.
They wondered what genetic relation she was to Keith and Nicole (she is their biological child, but carried and delivered by a third party). They wondered who organised the baby’s conception and birth (The Center for Surrogate Parenting, in Los Angeles). They wondered what Faith Margaret had cost them ($150 000, with 20% going to the woman who gave birth to her). They wondered who the surrogate had been (strictly confidential). They wondered why the Urbans used the term “gestational carrier” rather than the usual “surrogate mother” (probably because it’s a term common in the US, where the surrogacy and birth were arranged).
Australia has a long and not-very-proud tradition of criticising Nicole Kidman. Everything from her appearance (too thin, too pale, hair too difficult) to her lifestyle choices (too American, too much Botox, married a Scientologist with a reputation for weirdness). For the past few years, criticism had died down to a low rumble, but Faith Margaret’s birth reignited it as a storm of controversy raged over the method of her birth.
In general, there has been a lot of disapproval directed at the Urbans. Much of it is because paid surrogacy is illegal in Australia. Altruistic surrogacy is permitted in most states, but only medical expenses can be paid to the surrogate. In Nicole Kidman’s home state of New South Wales, recent legislation has been passed that also makes it illegal for residents to procure paid surrogacy overseas. The penalty for breaking the law will be a $100 000 fine and up to two years in prison. The law will not be retrospective, so the Urban family do not need to worry about being charged over Faith’s birth.
Many people have also expressed shock, outrage or even horror at the term “gestational carrier”, which to them seems degrading, too much like legalese, or just plain creepy. Others think it distasteful and unethical for a wealthy movie star to rent another woman’s uterus for her own convenience, and some believe the whole process to be unnatural, and reminiscent of Brave New World. However, there are also many people sympathetic to her desire for another child who feel it is her right to have one by whatever means she chooses, and a few who believe that our surrogacy laws are too strict.
Although Faith’s birth has re-opened the surrogacy debate in Australia, thankfully those issues are outside the scope of this blog, so I don’t need to offer any opinions or suggest any solutions, and can get back to discussing her name.
Nicole Kidman gave a brief interview to E! News Online at the 17th Screen Actors Guild Awards on January 30 2011, where she explained how Faith’s name was chosen.
Her name is Faith because Keith and Nicole needed to maintain their faith throughout the entire pregnancy, and because they never gave up faith that they would have another child together, even though that seemed unlikely because of Nicole’s age and medical history. After Sunday’s birth, Nicole told People magazine that they would have more children if it was part of God’s plan. So Faith’s name refers not only to their personal confidence that they could have another child, but also to the trust they placed in God as part of that process.
The middle name Margaret honours Nicole’s grandmother, who gave birth to her last child at the age of 49. “She’s my inspiration,” says Nicole at the end of the interview. (Keith used the SAG Awards as an opportunity to proudly show off pictures of baby Faith on his mobile phone).
You can see that Faith Margaret’s parents used the same naming formula they used for her sister: vocabulary name with personal meaning + name of relative.
From polling and suveying people online, most baby name enthusiasts thought that Faith was a nice name, and Margaret a lovely classic one. There was less enthusiasm for the combination of the two, with respondents almost evenly divided between people who thought it was a good sensible name, and those who thought it dull and plain. However, almost nobody really disliked it.
I don’t think that Faith Margaret is the prettiest name in the world; to my mind there is something slightly frumpy about it. But I think it is a good name, because it was chosen with a personal meaning in mind, and connected to the name of a beloved or even “inspirational” relative. Both Sunday Rose and Faith Margaret have names with a story attached to them, and that makes them more special than just picking a name that is “cute” or “sounds nice”.
Because of that, I’m giving Faith Margaret Urban thumbs up, and congratulations to her parents, who always knew that you’ve got to have faith.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Information on how the surrogacy was arranged from Adelaide Now 23/1/11
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/nics-150000-bundle-of-joy/story-fn6bqphm-1225992969053
Information on current surrogacy laws in Australia from The Australian 19/1/11
Suggestion that Faith was secretly mentioned on Keith Urban’s latest album from Herald Sun 8/3/11
Interview from E! Online 31/1/11
http://au.eonline.com/uberblog/b223446_Nicole_Kidman_Spills_on__quot_Secret_quot__Baby_No__2.html
27 Sunday Feb 2011
Posted in Celebrity Baby Names
From the moment we knew of his existence, he was the most eagerly-awaited celebrity baby of 2011. How could he not be, with the parents that he had?
Miranda Kerr was our country town girl made good due to her girl-next-door dimpled beauty. A supermodel who wore undies and flogged face cream for a living, and also managed to be intelligent, politically caring and spiritually aware, she won hearts with her down-to-earth personality. Last June she became engaged to Orlando Bloom, a good-looking English movie star who shares her Buddhist ideals and has vague ties with Australia, which seemed eminently suitable.
They married with suspicious haste only a month later, provoking much speculation that the couple were already expecting a baby. By August, it was confirmed that Miranda was pregnant and due in a few months. Baby name obsessives were soon feverishly wondering what name they would choose for it. Would it be an Australian name? An English name? A Hollywood name? A fashion name? A Buddhist name? Or would it be something romantic, literary and Latinate like Miranda and Orlando’s own names?
We all awaited the presence of Johnny Sparrow Legolas or Lotus Pearl Victoria with bated breath.
Baby Bloom entered the world on January 6 2011 and it was a boy! It was a natural birth, and Miranda endeared herself to the female public further by saying that giving birth to a 10 pound baby without drugs is an extremely painful, protracted and difficult process. This was refreshing after uber-model Gisele Bündchen’s smug and unconvincing claim that natural birth “didn’t hurt in the slightest” (cue 99% of mothers all foaming at the mouth simultaneously).
We waited to hear what name they had chosen for him … and waited … and waited. Miranda’s mum explained that they had a long list of names and were still trying to decide which one to use. Even in the midst of our impatience, it seemed touching that despite their beauty, wealth, fame and spiritual enlightenment, the Blooms had the same “heck the baby’s arrived and we still don’t know what to call him” issues shared by many other couples.
On January 19, Miranda revealed the baby’s name to be Flynn on her blog. It was a name that was Australian and Hollywood and fashion world, for it is the surname of Australian actor Erroll Flynn – the star of 1930s/40s swashbuckling derring-do flicks very much like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies that Orlando himself has starred in. Erroll Flynn was born in Tasmania, the state in which Orlando Bloom’s maternal grandparents lived at one time. In addition, another Australian supermodel, Elle McPherson, has named one of her sons Arpad Flynn Alexander.
Just possibly, he was named after a more recent Hollywood connection – Flynn Rider is the (assumed) name of the handsome prince in the Disney animated musical Tangled, which came out about six weeks before Flynn Bloom’s birth. There has been a recent fad for naming girl babies after Disney princesses – could the Blooms be the start of a new trend for calling boys after Disney princes?
The names of the other Disney princes are Ferdinand, Charming, Philip, Eric, Aladdin, John, Shang and Naveen – hmm, maybe it’s the start of a new trend of Disney providing prince names we may actually want to use! Mind you, Flynn Rider’s real name is Eugene – perhaps the Disney princes could all start choosing cool fake names for themselves.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that Flynn Bloom’s middle name became known: Christopher. Miranda explained on Facebook that they had chosen his middle name to honour her first boyfriend, who had been killed in a car accident when he was still a teenager.
Many people will say that naming a baby in honour of an ex is absolutely not on, but I think this is really touching, and clearly Orlando Bloom is far too mature and secure to worry about his son sharing a name with his wife’s dead ex.
I must confess to having a great affection for the name Flynn, which I think is simple, cute and spunky. It’s also just dropped off the Top 100 in Australia, and Miranda and Orlando’s choice could very well bring it back up there again.
However, I’m not sure it really goes that well with the surname Bloom. Both names are one syllable and end with a N/M sound, so they are a little too similar to mesh well, in my opinion. Also, to me the name sounds as if it is saying “in bloom” – although I can’t decide is that is a problem or not! Being in bloom is such a positive thing, after all.
From polling and surveying people at a couple of sites, I get the impression most people think that Flynn Bloom is a bit too short and abrupt, and share my concerns about the awkwardness of the full name, although in general they liked the name Flynn itself.
Overall, I give Flynn Christopher Bloom a thumbs up and a warm welcome to the world. You’re in like Flynn, Baby Bloom!
