Category Archives: Sibsets in the News

Saturday Sibset: Russell Crowe’s Rush to Start a Family

03 Saturday Sep 2011

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Russell Crowe is a New Zealand-born Australian actor who began his career on Australian soaps, and he won the Australian Film Industry Best Actor Award for his role in Romper Stomper in 1992. In 1997 he gained the attention of Hollywood when he took a leading part in LA Confidential, and since then has starred in movies such as The Insider, Gladiator, Cinderella Man, and A Beautiful Mind.

He also has a less-publicised but doggedly determined career as a rock singer. An enthusiastic sports fan who follows team sports in Australia, the UK, the US and Canada, he is also the owner of the South Sydney Rabbitohs team in the National Rugby League.

Russell Crowe is married to former actress and current singer-songwriter, Danielle Spencer, who he met in 1990 when they both had roles in the Australian film, The Crossing. In an interview, Danielle revealed that their relationship was slow to get going, and that they remained friends for several years before romance eventually bloomed. Neither was Danielle in any hurry to settle down, and they didn’t get married until April 2003.

Danielle wasn’t sure whether she wanted children or not, and says that she could have kept procrastinating about it, but Russell was already certain that he wanted children, and according to his wife, once he gets an idea in his head, he’s pretty tenacious. Danielle says:

“I fell pregnant on our honeymoon, and the decision was made for me”.

Russell and Danielle’s son Charles Spencer Crowe (called Charlie) was born in December 2003, showing that Russell didn’t have to wait too long at all after his wedding to have the family he wanted. And in July 2006, Charlie was joined by his younger brother, Tennyson Spencer Crowe, so Danielle must have been well and truly talked into the having kids lark by then.

Tennyson Crowe is named after English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Oddly enough, Lord Tennyson has a connection with Australia, because his son Hallam became the second Governor-General of Australia. He was popular with Australians, who were impressed with his modest manner and frugal ways (his predecessor had been considered a spendthrift), and there are several places in Australia named after him. His wife Audrey was also well-liked. The English surname Tennyson simply means “son of Tenney”; Tenney is a medieval form of the name Denis.

Alfred Tennyson’s older brother was called Charles Tennyson Turner; he was also a poet, and the two were very close. Charles married the sister of Alfred’s wife, so they were brothers-in-law as well as brothers, fellow-poets, and close friends. If you’re wondering why they have different surnames, Charles changed his surname to Turner when he inherited the property of his uncle, the Rev. Samuel Turner.

Even though Charles is such a well-known name, and Tennyson a rare one, somehow this sibset really works. The connections within the Tennyson family and the connection with Australia makes this very meaningful, with echoes of an earlier pair of brothers speaking to us.

(Story from babycenter.com, photo from exposay.com; picture shows the Crowe family April 12 2010, when Russell was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame)

Saturday Sibset: The De-Stressed Family

27 Saturday Aug 2011

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Prevention magazine recently had a story about people who had successfully made their lives less stressful, and more fulfilling. One of them was Julija McDowell, who is originally from Canada, and married to an Australian man named Nicholas.

Julija and Nicholas used to live in San Francisco, where they both worked as animators for George Lucas’ company, Industrial Light and Magic. Highly-paid and highly-stressed, they worked 60-100 hours a week.

When Julija became pregnant with their first child in 2004, she decided to leave her job to concentrate entirely on motherhood. Enjoying the less stressful world of parenting, she kept an online diary of what her children did every day, and from this started an online company to give parents ideas for play and interaction with their children.

A year ago, the McDowell family moved to Sydney, and found relocating to Australia a wonderful opportunity to make their lives less stressful. Now both of them are self-employed and work from home, and because the family is always together, has formed a much closer bond.

They have got rid of their television set to give themselves more quality time, and Julija finds simple family pleasures such as eating dinner each evening, or walking her son to school through Sydney Harbour National Park every morning, very relaxing.

These are the names of the McDowell children:

Dragan is aged six. The name Dragon is one in their extended family, and the similar-sounding Dragan is a Slavic name that means “precious”. (For some reason, Julija thinks it also means “traveller”; something which I haven’t been able to figure out). Dragan seems like a way to honour extended family, Julija’s Slavic background, and also choose a name with a very lovely meaning.

Avanyu is aged four. They chose her name before she was even conceived! The McDowells wanted another “monster” name for their next child to match their “dragon” son. They decided on a monster from Native American culture. Avanyu is a Tewa deity, a feathered sea-serpent who is the guardian of water amongst the tribes of the American South-West.

Taikaro is aged 2. They looked for another “monster” name so that they could continue their name theme, but found it harder than they imagined, as none seemed to suit their son. In the end, Nicholas’ mother showed them a list of old family names from the McDowells, and they chose Taikaro from the list. Nicholas’ great-great-great grandfather married a Maori princess from the Taikaro tribe; the name apparently means “the lost coast”, and if so, the tribal name would have been locational. I checked the Maori dictionary, and according to that, the phrase can mean something like “the elusive coast”, perhaps suggesting it was a good place to hide or hard to find, or even “the scooped-out coastline”, which would refer to its appearance.

The McDowells have chosen unusual and creative names for their children from a variety of cultures, and from their family histories. It also shows one of the perils of choosing a “theme” for your family – you might successfully come up with two names that go together perfectly, but that third name that fits the theme, suits the child, and is also loved by the parents can prove elusive!

(Story from Yahoo Lifestyle; photo from socialmoms.net)

Saturday Sibset: Tara Brown and Sons

30 Saturday Jul 2011

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Tara Brown has been a TV journalist at Channel 9 for almost twenty years, and since 2001 has been a reporter on 60 Minutes, where she has proved a skilful and sensitive interviewer. The first person she ever interviewed for the show was actor Mel Gibson.

For twelve years she has been married to John McAvoy, the head of factual programming at Channel 9, and in October 2008, she and John welcomed their first child, Jack Cooper. Tara was unsure at the time whether she would return to work, but she must have decided that motherhood and journalism weren’t incompatible, because she was soon back on our television screens.

As she was already in her forties when she had her first baby, Tara and John did not expect to have any more children, but they always hoped.

In April last year, Tara was on the road covering a tour of rock band Powderfinger. Already fatigued from covering a flood in Queensland, the usually calm Tara began feeling uncharacteristically irritable and tired. Then she began suffering from constant nausea. Was she exhausted? Was she stressed? Did she have a virus? Was she just sick of being around Powderfinger?

When she got home, she took a pregnancy test and discovered that she was expecting another baby. She was shocked but also delighted, feeling very lucky.

Her second son, Tom Oliver, was born in December last year at Sydney’s North Shore Private Hospital. He was 53 cm long and weighed 3.35 kg. Days overdue, he was induced, and labour was so quick that Tara says there was literally no time to administer any pain relief.

Tara stresses that although Tom wasn’t planned, he was very, very much wanted; just as much wanted as Jack, who she describes herself as being “madly in love” with.

This is the second celebrity sibset I’ve featured, and it’s another one where the oldest child is called Jack! I do find the combination of Jack and Tom rather cute – it’s a nicknamey sibset straight out of a child’s storybook.

(Story and picture from nine.msn, June 29 2011; full story in the July issue of Women’s Weekly).

Midweek Sibset: The Frugal Family

20 Wednesday Jul 2011

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It’s been reported in the news a lot recently that Australians, after years of going crazy on credit, have finally started saving money.

Morning television show, Sunrise, featured a story July 15  on a Brisbane family who went on a “financial fast”. Worried by their spiralling credit card debt, Michelle Taylor and her husband, John Tweedy, decided not to use their credit card for a year, and only spent money on essential items, such as food and health needs. During that year they didn’t buy anything new, and by the end of the 12 months, had saved $12 000, which they plan to spend on a backyard swimming pool in order to enjoy more family time together.

Michelle and John have picked our rather interesting names for their three daughters. Lily, aged 12; Scotia, aged 9; and Sappho, aged 3.

While we’re all familiar with popular Lily, the names Scotia and Sappho are more unusual.

Scotia, pronounced SKOH-sha, is the Latin name for Scotland; probably best known from the name of the Canadian province Nova Scotia (Latin for “New Scotland”). It comes from the name that the Romans gave a particular Gaelic tribe who emigrated from Ireland to Scotland, the Scoti. It’s not known what the name means, but “renegade, breakaway, outcast” has been one suggestion. Another is that it comes from the Greek word for “darkness”.

Sappho, pronounced SAFF-oh, is the name of a famous lyric poet from Ancient Greece, born on the island of Lesbos. Most of her poetry has been lost, but it was greatly admired during her own time, and enough survives that her reputation as a brilliant poet continues. She wrote many poems to gods and goddesses for religious purposes, and also wedding poems and love poems which still manage to stun us with their clarity and passion. It’s possible that her name comes from the Greek for “sapphire”.

I find all three names rather beautiful in their different ways, and think this sibset sounds great. Scotia and Sappho both start with the same letter and have a strong OH sound in them, and I think Lily is just one of those names that sounds good with almost any type of sibset.

Whether you want something that sounds old-fashioned (Arthur, Lily and Constance), classic (Henry, Charles and Lily), modern (Lily, Sierra, Jett and Chase), nature-themed (River, Lily and Autumn), cutesy (Beau, Lily, Bella and Toby), or offbeat (Cosette, Blaze, Lily and Phadra), Lily just seems to naturally mix and match. She’s the Universal Sibling.

You can see a video of the family here – just click this link and then press play when the video comes up.

 

Midweek Sibset: Sunshine Coast Sibsets

13 Wednesday Jul 2011

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This week in the news is some name information from family history website Genes Reunited. By examing their database, they found there were only 1000 unique names in the public records (meaning first name and surname combinations).

It also looked at a few celebrity baby names to see how common they were.

The name Apple (as in Martin) has appeared on censuses in 1861, 1871 and 1911. The name Sunday (as in Kidman Urban) has been used 305 times between 1837 and 2005. Suri (as in Cruise) has been found 67 times between 1891 and 2005.

I found the story rather frustrating, as it didn’t say what records Genes Reunited had access to, or how far they went back, or even which countries they were in. Is this just Australian records? If so, why are they using the names of American and British celebrities to test their “uniqueness”? If there were 1000 unique names, why couldn’t they have listed at least a few of the more interesting ones for us?

It got even more frustrating when it told us that Bob Geldof’s daughter Fifi Trixiebelle was the only “unique” celebrity baby name. Obviously Fifi is not unique at all, and if they were counting first name-middle name combinations, why didn’t they do that with Apple Martin, Sunday Kidman Urban and Suri Cruise?

Even more silly was when it implied Fifi Trixiebelle’s sisters, Peaches and Pixie, also had “unique” names. For a start, Pixie is Little Pixie’s middle name, and Pixie is so far from being unique that I know three people with that name.

They also listed the “top 10 names of all time”, without telling us how far back they were counting from (surely not literally from the beginning of time), or from which countries they were getting data from (I can tell it’s not worldwide). However, this is the list:

Male: John, William, Thomas, James, George, Robert, Charles, Joseph, Henry, David

Female: Mary, Elizabeth, Sarah, Ann, Margaret, Jane, Alice, Hannah, Emma, Ellen

I couldn’t help feeling there were an awful lot of information missing and a heap of “apples to oranges” comparisons being made. We so rarely get news relating to baby name data, and when we do get some, it’s so garbled as to be almost useless. Grrr.

Apparently feeling the story was lacking some local colour, the article mentioned two sibsets from the Sunshine Coast area.

The first one is a family from Maleny, who this year decided to change their surname from Crossman to the more positive Love. They then gave themselves groovy extra middle names to suit their new surname. Dad Ben and mum Shumbi became Benjamin Funky Love and Shumbi Arka Real Love. Their 13-year-old daughter Sabiah is now Sabiah O’Hara Faery Love, and 5-year old Lola-Jae has become Lola-Jae Lucy Juicy Love. The exuberantly-named Love family are currently on a two-year trip around the world.

They were contrasted with a more sedate Twin Waters couple, Darren and Yokoh Geitz, who chose Asher and Austin for their sons, aged 4 and 2 months respectively.

(Story from The Sunshine Coast Daily, July 10 2011; picture of Shumbi Love and children from The Sunshine Coast Daily, January 25 2011)

Midweek Sibset: The Gender-Neutral Sibset

06 Wednesday Jul 2011

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There has been an international brouhaha over the decision by Canadian couple Kathy Witterick and David Stocker not to reveal the sex of their baby, Storm. As brother Jazz enjoys wearing pink dresses and pigtails, Kathy and David decided it would be better if their child’s sex remained private to their family to avoid any more societal gender issues.

This story got plenty of media time in Australia, as in other countries, and mostly people were very much against the idea of raising a “genderless baby”. This opinion piece in the The Age says that the parents are selfishly putting their own ideological agenda before their child’s welfare, while more forthright articles suggested the parents’ idea was just absurd.

However, Emma Jane in The Australian was one of those who took a more sympathetic view. She believes that gender stereotyping of babies and toddlers has reached a ridiculous level, where even new-born infants are dressed in either pink frills or solid workmanlike blue.

She dressed her daughter Alice in boy’s clothes and gender-neutral primary colours as a baby, which was declared to be “child abuse” by a concerned onlooker. Now 4 years old, Alice can make her own choices, which, it turns out, means a wardrobe full of pink and girly outfits.

Sydney couple Jay Black and Scott Collins are supporters of Witterick and Stocker’s choice to raise a “genderless child”. (I think Jay and Scott are a female-male couple). Jay and Scott are trying to raise their sons, Poe, 4, and Ilo, 22 months, without gender stereotypes. Their boys have ambiguous haircuts, play with dolls, and are supported if they choose to wear skirts and dresses.

In line with this lack of gender demarcation, Poe and Ilo have been given unusual unisex names.

Poe is a surname, most famous as that of the American Gothic writer, Edgar Allen Poe. His surname is a variant of the early English name Peacock, which began as a nickname for someone who was vain or dandified, or from someone who bred peacocks. In a few cases, it may have come from a house distinguished by the sign of a peacock. Poe Ballantine is an American novelist, while Poe is the stage name of American rock singer Anne Danielewski. Poe is also a raven character in the TV series Ruby Gloom.

Ilo is such a rare name that information on it is scarce, and I have turned to Appellation Mountain to discover that it’s the name of an Estonian goddess dedicated to feasting whose name may mean “pleasure”, and possibly a Nigerian boy’s name meaning “joy”. Sylvia Plath’s teenage diaries rather fervently describe a blonde Estonian refugee called Ilo Pill; he was male, so even in Estonia the name of the goddess seems to have been used for both boys and girls. In addition, Ilo is a lake in North Dakota, USA, and a port town in Peru, so you may take it as a geographic name as well. It’s so neutral that you can’t even tell which country the name is from, or what it means! It can either be pronounced EYE-low, or EE-loh (I believe).

Midweek Sibset: The Very Big Family

29 Wednesday Jun 2011

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When Jeni and Ray got married, Jeni was 19, and didn’t want children. She was dismayed to find that her new husband, who had proposed marriage after 2 weeks of dating, wanted six kids.

Fast-forward 22 years, and Jeni and Ray Bonnell have recently welcomed their new baby, Damian Ronald, into their life. Damian Bonnell was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, on Saturday June 4 2011 at 6.50 am, weighing in at 8 pounds 11 ounces, or just under 4 kg.

Damian is the fifteenth child born to Jeni and Ray, making them the largest nuclear family in Australia.

Jeni describes their family life as “loving” and “happily chaotic”, but much like everyone else’s, just with extra washing to do. Oh, and they drive their own bus. Other than that, it’s a normal routine of school, homework and chores, with church and a roast dinner on Sundays.

Damian’s brothers and sisters are Jesse (21), Brooke (20), Claire (17), Natalie (15), Karl (14), Samuel (12), Cameron (11), Sabrina (9), Timothy (8), Brandon (6), Eve (5), Nate (3), Rachel (2), and Eric (1).

Jesse and Brooke have moved out of home, but you can tell what a close family it is, because both of them bought houses right near their childhood home.

I know name collectors often say they would need to have more than a dozen children to use all their favourite names, so, er – here’s a chance to see what your life would look like if that happened!

When I see other families with lots of children, I’ve noticed that they often stick with an obvious theme to help choose baby names, such as all the names starting with the same letter, or all of them being from the Bible. Sometimes you can see that invention begins to run out, so that the first children have fairly standard names like Andrew and Emily, and then the names get steadily more random, so that the last ones are called Bobo, Hex and Glass or something.

Another naming issue for large families is that almost an entire generation can separate the first-born from the last-born, and if you always choose popular names, you’ll end up with your eldest children being called Darren and Brittany, and your youngest being called Kai and Sienna – total naming mis-match. This is something I see a lot, actually – it’s a dilemma for parents who have children in their early 20s, then have a couple more in their late 30s, because fashions in naming change the meantime.

I think that in general the Bonnells have avoided many of these pitfalls, and they certainly don’t seem to have had any problems running out of ideas for names. Which is a good thing, because the Bonnells say they would love to have more children!

Saturday Sibset: Michael Ennis and Family

25 Saturday Jun 2011

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First cab off the rank for sibsets in the news are the children of Michael Ennis, who is the hooker for National Rugby League team, the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs. Since 2009, he has also been hooker for the New South Wales Blues in the State of Origin series.

This story appeared in the sport section of The Daily Telegraph, dated June 17.

It shows Michael with his three children, all suitably dressed in Blues jerseys – Jack, aged 4; Kobyfox, aged 2; and baby Randy, who is 11 months old.

Michael and his wife Simone have picked interesting, and unexpected, names for their kids as a sibset. Jack is a perennial favourite, and #4 in New South Wales. Randy’s name has never been on the Top 100, and his middle name is Wolfe. Kobyfox seems to be a unique combination of the names Koby and Fox. I wonder if Jack has an animal as his middle name.

The point of the story is that none of the children are old enough to remember the last time New South Wales won State of Origin, way back in 2005. Having lost, then won, games in the series, New South Wales is hoping to win the third and deciding match against Queensland in Brisbane on July 6. Michael, well-known for being a “hands on” father, is planning to fly his whole family to the game, so that hopefully they can watch their dad, and their state team, win Origin for the first time in their young lives.

Let’s hope it’s a Blues win next month, so these kids can finally experience a New South Wales victory!