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Waltzing More Than Matilda

~ Names with an Australian Bias of Democratic Temper

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Category Archives: Your Questions Answered

Names from the TV Show “Cleverman”

09 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ Comments Off on Names from the TV Show “Cleverman”

Tags

Australian Aboriginal names, mythological names, names from Cleverman, names from television

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Carmen writes in to say that she is a fan of the Australian fantasy TV series Cleverman on the ABC, which stars Hunter Page-Lochard in the title role. The TV series takes several themes from Australian Indigenous culture and blends them with current ideas in Australian society and politics. The “clever man” is a shaman in Australian Aboriginal culture, and in the show he becomes an Indigenous superhero with mystical powers.

Carmen would be interested in seeing a blog post on the names of the characters in the show, and she also wonders whether there will be any increase in the use of baby names from an Indigenous Australian background because of the show’s influence.

I wonder too, and whether we will even find out, as there is so little data gathering in Australia. Cleverman screens in the US as well, so we’ll see if there’s any impact there.

HUMAN CHARACTERS

Koen West: The titular Cleverman. Koen is a Dutch name, a form of Conrad, as well as an Irish surname sometimes used as a first name. It also brings to mind the Jewish surname Cohen, used for the priestly line, and perhaps also the Zen riddle called the koan. It feels both cross-cultural and religious (Koen West has both white and Aboriginal family members).

Waruu West (Koen’s half-brother): Waruu means “crow” in the Gamilaraay language from New South Wales and southern Queensland. In Aboriginal myth, Crow is one of the ancestor spirits.

Nerida West (Waruu’s wife): Nerida means “water lily” in an Aboriginal language; a reasonably familiar name in Australia.

Alinta West (Waruu and Nerida’s daughter): Alinta means “flame” in the Kaurna language from South Australia and has been used in a previous TV show.

Linda West (Waruu’s mother, Koen’s adoptive mother)

James “Jimmy” West (Koen and Waruu’s uncle): The previous Cleverman before he chose Koen as his successor.

Jarrod Slade

Dr Charlotte Cleary (Jarrod’s wife)

Blair Finch (male, Koen’s friend)

Ash Kerry (Blair’s girlfriend)

Belinda Frosche

Geoff Matthews

Jane O’Grady

Virgil (female)

Frankie (female)

Rowena

Ludo

Taki

Eve

Max

HAIRYPEOPLE

The hairypeople are inspired by Aboriginal legends from the north-east of New South Wales: in some stories they are dwarfish and in others giants; they have been used as bogeyman figures.

In the Cleverman universe, hairypeople are humanoid, but with DNA sufficiently different to make them a separate species. However they share cultural similarities with Australian Aborigines, including language, relationship to the land, and the Dreamtime. They are long-lived, strong, fast, and tough, and notable for the thick hair which grows all over their bodies. They have unusually bright blue eyes and long hard fingernails that can cut through flesh.

In the TV series, hairypeople remained hidden from humans for 80 000 years, only emerging a few months before the story begins. After discovering they exist, the Australian government regards them as subhuman and enacts laws to keep them contained. Some hairypeople choose to pass as human by shaving off their hair and wearing coloured contact lenses.

Names of Hairypeople Characters

Araluen (female): Araluen is a small town in the Southern Tablelands region of New South Wales. Its name means “water lily” in the local language, as there were once many billabongs covered in lilies in the area.

Boondee (male, Araluen’s husband): A boondee is a heavy-headed club in the Euahlayi language from the Lightning Ridge area of far northern New South Wales and south-west Queensland.

Djukara (male, Araluen and Boondee’s son)

Latani (female, Djukara’s sister): A Polynesian name used on the Australian island Norfolk Island. It may be deliberately multicultural, as Latani wishes for hairypeople and humans to live in harmony. It sounds similar to tarni, meaning “waves, surf” in the Kaurna language of South Australia.

Jyra (female, Latani’s sister)

Harry (male): Because Harry sounds a little like hairy?

Maliyan (male): Maliyan means “wedge-tailed eagle” in the Gamilaraay language. In the show Maliyan is violent, suitable for someone named after a bird of prey.

Mungo (male): Lake Mungo is a dry lake in south-west New South Wales, famous as a site where the oldest examples of Australian human remains have been found. The lake is named after a Scottish saint, whose name probably means “dog lord” in British.

Kulya (male): Kulya is a native vegetable similar to sweet potato grown in Western Australia.

Lena (female): Lena is a word for “water” in the Palwa language from Tasmania.

SPIRITS

Kora (a woman from the spirit world): Kora means “companion” in the Awabakal language from the mid-north coast of New South Wales.

POLL RESULTS
62% of people thought that the TV show Cleverman might influence people to choose an indigenous Australian name for their baby. 53% thought the influence would probably be small, while 9% thought it could have a significant impact. Meanwhile, 29% of people thought it probably wouldn’t make any real difference to the names people choose, and 9% didn’t believe a single TV show could influence people’s choices.

79% of people reported that the names they had chosen for their own children, or were considering using, had been influenced by a TV show in some way. 26% had a name on their name list that they had seen on a TV show, 23% had noticed a change in the style of names they liked after watching a particular TV show, 16% had discovered that a name they chose or considered had become well known after being featured in a TV show, and 14% had named at least one of their children after a TV character. The remaining 21% said that no TV show had influenced their name choices or preferences in any way.

The Girls Called Max and Mason, or, Why are Celebrities Giving Their Daughters Masculine Names?

21 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

celebrity baby names, historical records, Name Candy, name meaning, name trends, nicknames, Roman names, unisex names

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A blog reader has written in to say that she has heard of yet another celebrity couple giving their daughter a masculine name – Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, who call their baby girl Max. She is curious why parents choose obviously male names for their daughters when there are so many other options, and wants to know what I think.

Oh poor old celebrities and their baby names – if they aren’t using their psychic powers to steal our favourite baby names and make them popular, they’re either choosing crazy names for their children which will scar them for life, or giving their daughters boys’ names.

In this case, you will perhaps be relieved to know that the straw which has broken your particular camel’s back is not quite accurate. Mark Zuckerberg’s daughter is named Maxima, the feminine form of the Roman name Maximus, meaning, “greatest”. They call her Max, which is the most obvious nickname. My aunt has a former colleague, now retired, named Maxine, and she is also called Max or Maxie as an affectionate nickname, so it’s not a new idea.

Although it must seem that tons of celebrities are giving their daughters boyish or unisex names, this isn’t really correct. If you look through the celebrity baby names at Name Candy, there are plenty of girls with names like Elsie, Georgia, Jane, Mia, and Scarlett.

In fact, celebrity baby names don’t look that much different from anyone else’s. There are popular names, vintage names, nature names, modern names, created names, unisex names, and the occasional very unusual name – much like any suburban daycare centre with a reasonably diverse clientele.

I think one of the things that concerns parents is the idea that if a big enough celebrity chooses a “masculine” name for their daughter, the name will “go girl” and become unusable for boys – hence goodbye Max and James as possible choices for their future sons.

I am happy to say that there is little evidence that this takes place in any significant way. In 2013, Kristen Bell named her daughter Lincoln. In that same year, there were 61 baby girls named Lincoln and 4024 boys. Last year, there was a “Kristen effect” with 127 girls named Lincoln compared to 4785 boys.

So Lincoln rose much more steeply for girls, but there were overall many more boys given the name than the previous year. Although the name has increased feminine usage, there is no evidence that the name has become “feminine”, as Lincoln is a Top 100 boys name in the US, and has been rising every year for the past five years. Kristen Bell’s daughter did not stop it rising again.

And if we go further back in time to see what happens on a longer-term basis, Kelsey Grammer named a daughter Spencer in 1983, and another of his daughters Mason in 2001. Both Spencer and Mason continued rising for boys, Spencer reaching the US Top 100 in the 1990s and Mason reaching the Top 10 in 2011.

In fact I can’t find even one example of a celebrity changing the usage of a name from masculine to feminine through their particular name choice. Maxwell, Arlo, Owen, and Casper have been given as names to celebrity baby girls, and Maxwell, Arlo, Owen, and Casper continue to be overwhelmingly more common for boys.

It’s nice to know that parents of boys are not so foolish and easily panicked that they will immediately abandon all their name plans based on the actions of one celebrity. I’m not sure why we have the belief that they will, as nobody seems to think that parents of daughters will abandon a more “feminine” name choice once a celebrity chooses it for their son.

It’s a very strange phenomenon, but once Ryan Reynolds calls his daughter James, or Mila Kunis chooses the name Wyatt for her little girl, hand-wringing articles appear saying that this will create serious issues for parents expecting a baby boy, as the name James or Wyatt will now be “ruined” for boys by even ONE well-known girl with the name (and not well-known for her own achievements, but just for having famous parents).

Yet Liv Tyler can name her son Sailor (198 girls 23 boys), both Chris Hemsworth and Shakira can name their sons Sasha (535 girls, 20 boys), and Alicia Keys can have a little boy named Genesis (4144 girls, 63 boys), and nobody seems too concerned at all. There is no widespread fear that Sailor, Genesis, and Sasha will “go boy” , or cause undue angst among parents of girls.

It’s telling, and rather horrible, that we believe just one girl can taint a name with her hideous femininity, like the proverbial bad apple in a barrel, while boys can be named safely and with impunity whatever we desire, and the name will remain clean and fresh. Like so many myths of female impurity (such as menstruating women making food spoil), this one is simply not true.

It might seem like a new trend for girls to be given “masculine” names, but if you look through the records, there are tens of thousands of women named James. In the 18th century, there were many girls named Maxwell, especially in Scotland and on the Scottish border. In the 19th century, there were women named Arlo. None of this caused civilisation to fall, nor has it stopped these names being predominalty masculine today.

Of course sometimes names do swap gender – Lauren and Piper were once masculine names, while Christian and Emmett were once female. I guess that begs the question: just what exactly makes a name feminine or masculine, when gender usage can be fluid and changing?

Maybe the answer is that each of us, whether rich and famous or poor and obscure, is free to decide for ourselves. Perhaps even more shocking, our decision might not even make very much difference.

Thank you to Clare for asking for this issue to be covered on Waltzing More Than Matilda.

POLL RESULTS
34% of people were strongly against celebrities giving their daughters “masculine” names, with 2% feeling seriously angered, worried, or stressed about it. 23% of people were in favour of it, with 21% thinking it was fantastic, and believing we should all be allowed to choose whatever names we liked. 42% of people weren’t concerned about it, with 22% not caring since it was none of their business, and 20% believing the issue had been blown out of proportion. One person said that they were not aware of this issue.

The poll was very even on whether people would change their mind about a potential baby name if a celebrity chose it for a child of the opposite sex. 51% of people said no, while 16% said yes, and 33% said maybe. That means around half of all people would at least think about changing their minds about a name on their name list if a celebrity chose it for an opposite sex child. That’s despite more than 40% of people not being concerned about the names that celebrities choose, so the numbers don’t quite add up there!

(Photo shows the Zuckerberg family with some light bedtime reading for their daughter Max)

Strange Searches and Intriguing Inquries: The Weird Ways People Wind Up On My Blog

23 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Australian slang terms, baby name regret, celebrity baby names, Facebook, famous namesakes, Google Maps, royal baby names, stripper names, unisex names, web searches

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It’s time for another silly season look at the odd, thought-provoking, and just plain barmy search terms used to get to the blog. Some are autocorrections gone wrong, others are typos or the vagaries of Google Translate, but there seem to be some genuinely confused people wandering around the Internet. I’ve tidied searches up with some basic punctuation for easier reading, and corrected spelling errors unless they provided some amusement.

AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE

Is Australia a country?
Yes. So glad that’s cleared up.

W.A. is the best f*** the rest Australia Australia map
If you put this into Google Maps (with the asterisks filled out in full), it suggests you see a therapist. At least it did for me.

Bongs Baby Search
Contest winners: Bud and Mary-Jane.

Jewish roots of Australian Aboriginal tribes
The lost tribes of Israel didn’t get that lost.

Australian Aborigines are the true Indians from India [searched for many times]
That’s going to make the land rights issue a whole lot more complicated.

Did Abel Tasman change his name to Tasman because he discovered Tasmania?
Yes, then Captain Cook changed his name to Cook after discovering the Cook Islands.

Did Abel Tasman have a daughter named Tasmania/Did Abel Tasman name Tasmania after his daughter? [searched for many times]
No, Tasmania Tasman sounds really awkward.

Why do Australians add the word “did” after a girl’s name, as in Katie-did?
We do what now?

FAMOUS FOLK

Prince William’s baby should be called Prince Alfred Edmund William [several months after Prince George’s birth]
It’s probably time to let go. Maybe they’ll listen to you next time.

What is Hank Marvin’s home address?
Stalker.

How is Wendy Harmer married?
Um … legally?

Pictures of Liz Ellis and her son Evelyn Audrey
I can understand thinking Evelyn might be a boy – but Evelyn Audrey?

Was the actress Grace Kelly related to the bushranger Ned Kelly?
I would guess, not closely.

Was Banjo Paterson a Templar?
No, a solicitor and tax reformist, which sounds slightly less exciting.

My civil partner’s name is Rupert Grint and mine is Danny Driscoll – what surname do we use?
I’m more interested to discover the actor Rupert Grint is in a civil partnership with a fictional gangster from Only Fools and Horses. The mind is boggling.

Was Liberace gay?
Yes, and to anticipate your next question, bears go to the lavatory in the woods.

NAME-O-RAMA

I regret naming my son Hamish, and call him James instead
I’m not kidding, somebody Googles a variant of this question about sixty times a week. Either there’s a whole bunch of Hamishes called James, or someone needs to get a new hobby.

Tomboy baby names like Rose, Lily, Daisy, Violet
Flipping heck, those are tomboy names?

Common names in rare use
That’s the Holy Grail of baby naming right there.

The truth about calling your son Ryder
The truth is, his name will be Ryder.

Do people look at your kid’s names funny?
No – but now we’re all interested to know what yours are called.

How to convince girls named Naomi to go out with you
I think it’s basically the same method as for girls with other names.

“Worst name ever” – Ian
Forget Hitler, Satan, or Laxative, Ian is the worst baby name in history!

Is Mary and Matilda the same name in Sweden?
No, and in no other country either.

Oliver cannot marry Olivia
Why ever not?

HORRID HISTORY

The origin of death
Someone died, and it caught on.

Medieval newspaper article of the battle of Hastings
They don’t seem to have produced one – just a tapestry. Slack!

What was the dress code for Arabs and Hebrews during the Biblical era?
Smart casual.

Why are English monarchs ugly?
Gosh, that’s jolly rude.

LOOPY LITERATURE

Children’s book with hippo eating more humans than sharks
Should be required bedtime reading for every four-year-old.

Romeo, Dan, Juliet
The little known Shakespearean love triangle.

Some good frictionless stories of Shakespeare
Because nobody wants stories that give you chafing.

Was Frankenstein’s wife’s name unisex?
Only if you consider Elizabeth a unisex name.

The poetry of Ben Jo Peterson
He just never had the fame of Banjo Paterson.

STRANGE SCIENCE

Blonde women love autumn
So brunetttes must love spring, redheads love winter, and bald people love summer.

600 year old dead body gave birth to baby, and the baby stayed alive about 72 hours
Eww. I’m pretty sure this didn’t happen.

Miserable heavenly body discovered
The science news we never hear about.

Budgies sound like they’re talking Welsh
Ours just make chirpy noises.

Cicadas are all homosexual
I think the cicada population would be a lot lower by now if that was true.

SPIRITUAL STUMPERS

What are some signs the American occult have used musicians and football players?
Minimal, if any.

99% accurate psychic – free
Even ones that are 38% accurate aren’t free.

Mythical Christmas sweater for Catholic children made by their mother
My mother never made me one, probably because it was 110 in the shade at Christmas.

“The holy Christmas dwarf”
The Yuletide yarn we never hear about.

I sense souls who are licensed to answer
This sounds a bit like a movie I saw.

Can a baby be born with 2 souls?
That’s very deep, which is another way of saying I have no idea.

INFORMATION, PLEASE

Baby Ruby, Adelaide. Cash only.
I hope you’ve been arrested by now.

Velvet painting of a whale and a dolphin getting it on
The art news we never hear about.

Where can I buy German animated Easter cards which are baby announcements?
There’s clearly a market for German-speakers who happen to have their baby at Easter, and want to announce that fact in animated greeting card form. Please consider developing this exciting business concept.

How to announce baby’s birth in Australia slang?
Strewth cobbers, we’ve dropped a sprog, so it’s my shout.

Need a Victorian style cursed wedding dress
Wanting to get your marriage off on the right foot, huh?

Groan grunt growl grumpy grumble exercises
Yep that’s how I sound when I exercise.

Old English movie in which a magical necklace converts heroin
What does the necklace convert the heroin into – tea and scones?

What is the movie name where the woman had a daughter and she got married and she died of cancer after giving birth to a little boy?
One of the classic chick flick plots. The other two are: Boy and girl fall in love then one dies of cancer, and Female friends discover cancer is a catalyst for bonding, empowerment.

SEX SELLS

Intercourse while waltzing
That never happened in any of my dance classes. I feel ripped off.

Lucy is a stripper at Players on the Gold Coast. What’s her real name?
If Lucy is her stripper name, I’m guessing her real name is Destinee Bunny-Starr.

How can I find strippers ‘n’ escorts in Emerald area, Qld?
Yellow Pages.

Australian girls named Lola – they have sexy hips, Facebook page?
I don’t think either can be guaranteed.

WHAT ARE THEY ON ABOUT?

Any Madison eating girls? Far angry sex with boy.

Quick Siobhan, your knickers, your mother is coming

What means: Australian bond named Dingo?

Aboriginal name meaning “aupprice shock”

List agent Greek names that is not used in space, less than 16 characters

You Asked About … The Weekly Birth Announcements

19 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Baby Name Pondering, Babynameobsessed, birth notices, Bonds Baby Search, British Baby Names, Clare's Name News, Facebook, For Real Baby Names, middle names, name combinations, sibsets, The Art of Naming, twin sets, Twitter, unisex names

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I’ve been publishing the Birth Announcements category every Friday for almost three years now, and by now I’ve received quite a few questions about them. Here’s the answers to them, plus the answers to questions you haven’t asked, but you might have wondered.

Why do you publish the Birth Announcements?
I read birth notices for my own interest every week, and have done so for several years. Like any collector, I felt like sharing my finds.

What benefits do you imagine other people would receive from reading the Birth Announcements?
Australia doesn’t have much name data past the Top 100, so it’s a way to show the variety of baby names being used by real people, right now. And there’s no data on middle names at all. People might also see names, or name combinations, they admire and consider using themselves. Or they might just be interested generally.

Where do you get the names from?
The bulk of them are from birth notices in newspapers – I read 22 different newspapers for the birth notices, many of them from regional areas. Brooke from Baby Name Pondering contributes names from the Herald Sun, so that’s 23 papers. I also scan hospital announcements – many newspapers publish photographs of babies born in their local hospital that week or month. There’s also baby competitions, such as Bonds Baby Search, stories about new babies in newspapers and magazines, parenting and photography blogs, and even a few babies that readers have seen in real life.

How do you choose the names – do you just pick your favourite names each week?
No, I definitely don’t just pick names that I really like; that would be very boring and repetitive (not to mention a fairly short list). I try to get a good variety of names, and although there’s no set way of choosing names, I generally look out for:

* unusual, rare, and unique names (especially ones that are new to me)
* daring and darling middle names
* popular names matched with eye-catching middles
* names I have featured on the blog (especially the more unusual ones, to show people do use them)
* interesting and appealing twin sets and multiples
* sibsets that seem well-matched, or strangely-matched
* intriguing sibling names (if a name seems ho-hum, check its brother or sister …)
* names from a diversity of cultures (even if that isn’t always obvious from the name)
* unisex names for both genders
* names that aren’t popular, but are on trend
* hip and fashionable names
* names that show up again and again, as a heads-up how well-used they are
* names that are particularly Australian, especially patriotic ones
* names that somehow seem very typical of their time and place
* name combinations that I think will be crowd-pleasers and appeal to other people
* potentially controversial names that I think will get a strong reaction from other people
* and yes – my own personal favourites!

How do you choose the headline names?
I generally look for two names which seem to go together in some way, usually that are in a similar style (like Odette and Raphaelle), or have a connecting theme (like Elvis and Memphis). Names which can easily be matched with a picture are favourites of mine, hence the amount of vocabulary names like Rose, River, Robin, and Rain.

How do you choose the profile pictures?
It’s varied over time. At the moment, I try to find a picture suggested by the headline names in some way, and if that isn’t possible, I might choose one related to the season (like a snowman for winter), or look for ones of children and young people that somehow remind me of the names. For example, last Friday the names were Brinley and Saige, who I could imagine as surfers.

Is it hard to find enough interesting names each week?
No, I usually have too many names, and have to hold some over for the following week. It can be hard to find an equal number of boy and girl names – some weeks it feels as if all the boys have really cool names, and all the girls are named Charlotte Anne and Emily Louise, and then the next week it will be the girls with exciting names, and the boys all called William Thomas and Lachlan James. But I figure that helps give a chance for the more “normal” names to shine.

Any other difficulties?
It can be hard to make sure the names that week aren’t too much alike. Girls names especially seem to be very similar to each other, so that I will have a Mae, a Maeve, a Maya, a Mia, and a Mila all in one week, not to mention six names with Grace as the middle name. In these cases, I will also hold names over for another week.

Are you getting bored with doing this?
Nope.

Shouldn’t you publish all the names you see in a week, instead of filtering them for us?
Hm, interesting suggestion. To me it seems as if 100+ names will just blend in with one another, but my final Birth Announcement for the year will have all the names from  that week, so you can see what it would look like.

Do you publish any of the names so that people can make fun of them?
Definitely not, and I’d be disappointed if people used them as an opportunity to be mean: these aren’t Hollywood celebrities; they’re basically our friends and neighbours. I deliberately don’t tend to choose names that are often targets of name bullying, such as common names with outrageous spellings (apart from anything else, I don’t find them interesting). Having said that, I can never resist a name or name combination which strikes me as comical; I love them.

I don’t remember publishing my child’s name on the Internet – where did you see it?
I don’t make a note of where I see every name, but I will do my best to track it down for you.

You spelled my child’s name incorrectly!
I am but human. Let me know, and I will edit the post.

I don’t want my child’s name published on your blog
Oh dear. Are you sure? It will make me very sad, but I can remove it.

Are you stalking me, or my children?
No, really I’m not. Look at all the newspapers and blogs I have to read – I don’t have time to stalk individual families for their names. I know it looks suspicious that half the kids from your mother’s group were in one set of announcements, or your daughter’s name was in a set of announcements with your kids’s school as the profile picture for it, or your first child’s name was published 18 months ago, and now I just published your second child’s name as well. It’s just that it’s a small world, and you go to a hip mother’s group, and you live in a small town with not many photo opportunities, and you have great taste so both your kids ended up on the blog. I promise these are all by chance, and not by design.

I saw a fantastic name in the Birth Announcements and used it for my baby!
Yay!

What happens if I see a name or a sibset that I think is the bee’s knees?
Leave a comment to that effect (either on the blog itself, Twitter or Facebook), and eventually they will get voted on so we can see which names everyone likes the most.

Aren’t the name polls just a popularity contest?
Like most things in life, yes. I wouldn’t take it too seriously – we’re not voting on the Nobel Prizes here.

Don’t you think there’s too many names to vote on for most of the polls?
Yes. Next year there will be a monthly poll, which hopefully will make them more manageable. In the beginning, I worried not enough people would nominate names, but due to Sarah’s example at For Real Baby Names, I’m now confident enough to nominate names myself if nobody else bothers.

I have developed an addiction to birth notices, and your weekly round up is no longer enough for me – I need more birth announcements!
Completely understandable. Ebony at Babynameobsessed publishes birth notices from Western Australia, then there’s Elea at British Baby Names, who has weekly birth notices from the UK, plus historical birth notices from The Times. Kara at The Art of Naming has birth notices, I think from her local area, and Clare’s Name News provides links to several European blogs that have birth notices from non-English speaking countries. Then of course there’s the motherlode – For Real Baby Names, where Sarah posts names from birth notices several times a week. Plenty of places to get your fix!

What Happens If You Don’t Register Your Baby’s Name?

14 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Australian Human Rights Commission, birth certificate, birth registration, birth registries, legal issues, Unicef

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Recently I answered a Name Assistance problem, where the mother was worried that her baby might arrive early, and she was therefore running out of time to find a name for her daughter. I reassured her that as Australians have 60 days to register a baby’s name after its birth, there was no need to panic.

Blog reader Ingrid asked, what happens if you don’t name the baby within 60 days? Would the authorities take your baby away from you, she wondered, or would they name the baby on your behalf?

A very reasonable question! The main things to remember are a) registering a birth is free, so you don’t need to put it off until you can afford it and b) authorities must always register a birth, so no matter how late you are, they are legally obliged to register your child. Don’t ever think that it’s “too late” to register your child’s name, or you’ve “missed the deadline”.

I thought I’d have a look at what penalties are officially in place for those who fail to make the 60-day deadline. This varies from state to state.

* New South Wales does not issue any penalties for a late registration, and they say their role is to support parents during the registration process. However, you may have to provide more forms of identification, and the process can be longer and more complex. For that reason, they recommend you make an effort to reach the deadline promptly.

* In Victoria, the penalty for failing to register a child’s birth within 60 days is $1408 – although in practice it is almost unknown for any penalty to actually be applied. They can issue a court order to insist on a birth registration, or to alter one which is considered invalid or incomplete. Children who have been abandoned and their parents unknown will have their births registered, and a name will be given to the child (so yes, they can name the baby on your behalf, if they can’t find you).

* In Queensland, if you register your child’s birth after the 60 day deadline, you can be charged a $4.50 late fee. Queensland is the only state to charge for registration, and that’s only if you’re past the deadline.

* In South Australia, you can be asked to make a statutory declaration before a Justice of the Peace for a late birth registration.

* In Tasmania, you may be asked to provide extra information and identification, including a letter from the hospital.

* Western Australia says nothing about late registrations. They note that staff will help you with the registration process (as they do in all states and territories).

* In the Australian Capital Territory, you are given a full six months to register a child’s birth. They say nothing about late registrations.

* In the Northern Territory, if you do not register a birth within six months, it will be registered as “Unnamed baby”, and they will complete the registration process on your behalf, with what information they can find. This information will assist you when you register the birth yourself, and apply for the birth certificate.

It should be remembered that failing to register a child’s birth is a serious matter. The Australian Human Rights Commission states that every child has the right to a name, and to have their name registered immediately after birth.

Unicef released a report last year which found that a third of children worldwide do not have their birth registered by their fifth birthday, with the lowest registration rates in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Without birth registration, these children are the first to fall through cracks in the system. They are much less likely to be immunised against diseases, or to gain an education.

They are much more likely to suffer abuse and neglect, to be abducted and trafficked, and to become separated from their families during conflict or natural disaster. Without being able to verify their age with a birth certificate, they may be forced into child labour, treated as an adult in the justice system, conscripted into the armed forces, or be sexually exploited through under-age marriage or prostitution.

You might think that this is something that only happens in developing countries, but unfortunately it is a problem in Australia too. Just this year, a couple from Melbourne pleaded guilty to failing to register their son’s birth, and also pleaded guilty to neglect – neglect so severe that their five-year-old son died from a cut on his foot due to living in filthy conditions. The little boy had never been immunised, was not enrolled in kindergarten, and barely had contact with the outside world.

This is exactly what Unicef is talking about. While failing to register the birth doesn’t necessarily make you a neglectful parent, neglectful parents are less likely to register their child’s birth – and failing to register makes it easier to hide child neglect and abuse. Just as with the statistics from Unicef, this little boy wasn’t immunised or part of the education system. Not that those things are illegal in themselves, but it shows that the patterns identified by Unicef hold true, whether we’re talking about a village in Africa or a suburb in Melbourne.

That was an unusual case, but failure to register children’s births is a significant problem in Australia, leaving thousands of young people bereft of an identity. Many of them are Indigenous, and in rural or remote communities, but some are from non-English speaking backgrounds, homeless, or have parents who are drug affected, mentally ill, or intellectually disabled. Some have their births unregistered altogether, while others have been registered, but do not have a birth certificate – although registration is free, a birth certificate will cost around $45.

In a study conducted by Dr Paula Gerber, associate professor and deputy director of the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law at Monash University, the cost of the birth certificate was often cited as a reason for failing to lodge the paperwork. There could also be problems with literacy and English language skills, a distrust of authority, and the lack of confidence to handle official business. There could be strong feelings of shame stopping people from asking for necessary assistance.

Dr Gerber also believes that changes to the birthing system have played a role. It used to be that when women gave birth in hospital, they spent up to a week there after the birth, with hospital staff on hand to assist them with registration. These days you are discharged from hospital as soon as possible, and as you leave, handed a huge pack of paperwork, which can get lost or damaged.

Some are calling for changes to the registration process, so that birth registration and receiving a birth certificate is automatically done on the basis of hospital admission records. In Africa, birth registration can be done by mobile phone, and mobile birth registries travel regularly through regions: perhaps this could work better than our highly centralised system where forms must be mailed in.

The consequences of not having a birth certificate in the 21st century are dire. You need a birth certificate to enrol in school, and without one cannot apply for a driver’s license or get a bank account. This seriously hampers employment prospects, and if you do manage to find a job, without a tax file number you will be forced to pay tax at the highest possible rate, losing half your pay. Without access to a driver’s license, many young people whose births were never registered resort to driving unlicensed, which eventually leads to their imprisonment for traffic violations.

If you would like to know what it’s like to not have your birth registered, listen to Charmaine Webster, a Queensland woman who was born forty years ago, and has no official identity. She grew up in a family where birthdays were not celebrated, and her birth was never registered, even though those of her four older siblings were. Her older sister cannot remember Charmaine being born, and only remembers her being part of their family from the age of three.

Charmaine lost contact with her parents, who she considers to have been abusive, in her early adulthood, and hasn’t been able to obtain information about her birth from them. In her teens, she was able to work fairly easily by registering for a tax file number at the post office; however, in the last decade laws have changed, and employers are now fined for hiring workers who cannot prove their Australian citizenship. Because Charmaine cannot prove her citizenship with a birth certificate or passport, she cannot get a job.

She began asking help in 2000, when she wanted to get married; in the end a friend who was a Justice of the Peace organised the necessary documents for her. Since then, she has continued searching for answers, with each government department sending her on to another in a fruitless quest. She has become exhausted by the search, and watched her children get their driver’s license and start work while she can’t. She says that without being registered, you officially don’t exist, and when you don’t exist, you live in poverty.

So I think that has answered the question of what happens if you don’t make the 60 day deadline to register your child’s birth. Nothing. You just have to do it as soon as you can, which may be more complicated than if you’d done it straight away. If you haven’t done it by their sixth birthday, your child won’t be able to start school.

And if you neglect or refuse to register your child at all? That has been answered as well. You will have made it impossible for them to get a passport, a bank account or a driver’s license, ruined their prospects of employment, increased their chances of imprisonment, and condemned them to poverty.

They will have no identity, and no citizenship. Furthermore, it won’t be something that they can easily sort out for themselves as an adult without your help – help that they should have been given as soon as they were born. A name is the first gift you give your child, and registering that name is the first human right they receive.

POLLRESULTS
Question: What could be done to make birth registration easier?
Birth certificates should be an automatic part of the registration process – 21%
Birth certificates should be free for everyone – 21%
Mobile birth registries should travel regularly through remote areas – 18%
It should be possible to register a birth online – 14%
Birth registration should be completed before leaving hospital – 12%
Fees for birth certificates should be waived for the disadvantaged – 11%

Only one person thought that the system was fine as it was and didn’t need to be changed, and nobody thought it was a good idea for birth registration via mobile device to be made possible.

Thank you to Ingrid for helping to suggest this post.

(Example birth certificate from Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria)

What Makes a Baby Name Trendy?

03 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Baby Name Explorer, Biblical names, classic names, modern classic names, name data, name popularity, name trends, names from popular culture, popular names, saints names, trendy names

trendy baby

Trendy baby names are a hot topic that’s leaving parents feeling anxious. Parents write in to the blog to say they don’t want a trendy name, or are worried that their favourite baby name might be too trendy.

Yet what exactly is a trendy baby name? Even the authors of articles on trendy baby names disagree on the subject, or are vague as to what “trendy” actually means (many seem to think it just means popular, although parents often say popularity doesn’t bother them, as long as the name isn’t trendy).

We could fall back on that old chestnut, “I know it when I see it”, but I thought we might try for something a little more concrete. So instead we’ll look at the factors which might be linked with a name being considered “trendy”.

Going up rapidly in popularity …

This is the one which nearly everyone first thinks of – a name which is going up steeply in popularity, so that its progress through the charts looks like a mountainside or a cliff; even more so, a name which suddenly jumps in popularity in a single year.

This gets some parents so worried that even a modest increase can have them fretting because a name went up seven or eight places, but I think a name has to go up at least twenty places before it really draws attention to itself. Names in this category from last year include Aria, Penelope, Louis, and Nathaniel.

Nathaniel rising

But here’s the good news: often after a huge boost in the charts, a name will settle down and continue rising at a steadier pace, or even stabilise. Names such as Harper, Flynn, Ivy, and Sienna have had a big jump in previous years, but are now just comfortably trundling along.

… only to come down just as rapidly …

This really is a classic sign of a trendy name – it not only goes up the charts steeply, it comes down again at a similar rate, so that its progress through the charts has a cone shape; the skinnier the cone, the less years it was popular, and the more spectacular has been the name’s rise and fall. Kylie‘s cone, for example, looks quite thin.

kylie trendy

The trouble is that this isn’t very helpful for predicting whether a particular name will be trendy. It’s strictly a post mortem technique, so by the time you realise you chose a trendy name, it’s too late – your child is thirty six years old and nobody cares anyway.

Some people fear that any name going up steeply in popularity is sure to come down steeply as well, but this isn’t necessarily the case. For example, imagine you chose the name Jennifer for your daughter in the 1930s. It jumped straight into the Top 100 from nowhere, which seems very alarming, but it remained in the Top 100 for seven more decades. Your little Jenny would have collected her old age pension before her name stopped being popular, and even today Jennifer is only around the 200-300s and fairly stable. It never fell as dramatically as it rose.

Jennifer

For this reason, it seems a bit silly to avoid a name that’s trending upwards. If anything, the message seems to be to jump on a trend as early as possible, because it’s cooler to be a Jennifer born in 1935 than one born in 2000, even though the popularity was around the same in those two years.

… and has reached a certain level of popularity

Even though trendiness and popularity are not the same thing, it’s only once a name becomes reasonably popular that most people start to call it trendy, even if it’s been zooming up the charts for several years. It needs to be used by enough people that it can have those impressive rises in rank, as well as enough visibility to be considered trendy.

So Melva might have a steep rise and descent, but as it never reached the Top 100, it doesn’t get mentioned as a past trendy name. Persistently low usage does help protect a name against a charge of trendiness from most people (not all).

melva

New to the charts

I know many will disagree with this one, but I believe that no matter how rapidly a name is rising, it’s not trendy if it has previously been on the charts. Otherwise you get comments like “Leo is both classic and trendy“. Which is absurd when you think about it – like describing someone as an extremely tiny giant, or a colour as a very pale shade of black – because classic and trendy are opposing terms. I would say Leo is a rising contemporary classic, not a trendy classic.

Leo rising classic

Names that have been on the charts previously and disappeared before returning again are retro names. No matter how much Nathaniel may be zooming up the charts at present, I don’t consider it to be trendy, as it already has a history as a traditional name.

Inspired or boosted by popular culture

Any name that has suddenly got a boost in the charts (or even just in the public consciousness) due to a popular song, movie, TV show, celebrity, or celebrity baby is liable to be labelled “trendy”, whether it’s Elsa, Khaleesi, Penelope, Jagger, George, or Banjo.

I think that’s very unfair, because if you look through the history of naming, people have always named their children after the celebrities and culture of their day. By this standard, familiar names such as William, Eleanor, Alexander, Cordelia, Stanley, Fiona, Eric, and Rosamund have all been “trendy”. In fact, you could include all the Bible names and saints’ names in that group as well, since saints were the celebrities of the Middle Ages, and the Bible everyone’s favourite book.

Fitting in with one or more name trends

Another thing that can get a name labelled trendy, even if it’s in rare use, is if it fits in with current naming trends, especially with multiple trends. So you might claim that Liliana is a trendy name, because it fits in with the trend for L-L names for girls, like Lila, and with the trend for elaborate names for girls, like Isabella.

The trouble is that by this logic, practically every name being used today could be labelled as “trendy” – it’s very difficult to avoid ALL name trends.

This article mentions some of the current baby name trends in Australia: patriotic names, surnames as first names, place names as first names, nicknames as first names, and biblical names. Remove all those, and the choices dwindle significantly. And this isn’t even touching on mythological names, vintage names, unisex names, rare names, uniquely spelled names, literary names, virtue names, nature names, vocabulary names, and boys’ names ending with N.

* * * * * * * * * *

There you have it: six things might get your baby name labelled trendy. And the more categories it fits into, the more likely that it will seem trendy to somebody. So the current most “trendy” name in the Top 100 is Aria – it’s climbing fast, quite popular, new to the charts, inspired by popular culture, and fitting in with current trends, such as the AR sound in names.

Of course, in the 1970s there was a name which rocketed into the Top 100 from nowhere, had never been on the charts before, with use boosted by a popular singer, and whose sound fit in with other popular girls’ names such as Emily and Felicity. That name was Olivia, and although it may have been trendy in 1978, it isn’t any more. Aria could become equally as established, or even a modern classic, so there’s no guarantee that a trendy name will stay trendy.

Olivia

The big question is: what exactly is so terrible about a trendy baby name anyway? We’re always being told to avoid trendy baby names, and rarely are we given a reason. It’s just taken for granted that of course you don’t want to give your child a trendy name, in the same way that of course you don’t want them to put their hand on a hot stove.

About the only thing I can come up is that trendy names tend to become dated, except that a) sometimes they don’t eg William and b) most names date eventually anyway, even classics eg Susan.

And even if your name doesn’t become dated, it isn’t going to make your life especially wonderful. I have a non-trendy classic name which is still reasonably popular, and not only has it failed to provide me with a magically charmed life where nothing ever went wrong, its impact has been minimal at best. Meanwhile, my peers with the trendy names of our generation, such as Jodi and Jason, don’t seem to have had their lives ruined by their names.

* * * * * * * * * *

So there you have it – trendy names are something to be avoided, even though there’s no compelling evidence they’re particularly awful, or that a trendy name will remain trendy; there’s not even any real proof that trendy names actually exist as an objective phenomenon. And the criteria as to what is trendy is so broad that almost any name you can think of can be labelled as such.

Perhaps it’s time to put this baby name bogeyman behind us.

POLL RESULTS
The things that most people thought made a name trendy were:

* destined to fall as quickly as it rose – 23%
* rapidly rising in popularity – 13%
* boosted by popular culture – 12%

26% of people thought a name had to fulfil at least two or more of the stated requirements before being considered trendy, while 7% thought that it had to fulfil all six of the requirements to be a trendy name.

Just 1% of people thought that being new to the charts made a name trendy.

2% of people did not think there was any such thing as a “trendy” name.

(Popularity charts from Baby Names Explorer)

Questions About “Waltzing Matilda” Answered

16 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ Comments Off on Questions About “Waltzing Matilda” Answered

Tags

Australian slang terms, Banjo Paterson, Google, Google searches, names from songs, names of boats, names of businesses, nicknames, Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing More Than Matilda

Down_on_his_luck

When I decided to call my blog Waltzing More Than Matilda, I wasn’t prepared for the number of people who would come here searching to find out more about the name Matilda. Every once in a while, the number of searches builds up to the point where I start feeling guilty that I’ve lured people to my blog under false pretenses, and I answer their questions. These are specifically about Waltzing Matilda.

What are the words to Waltzing Matilda?

That’s a harder question to answer than you might think, because there aren’t any “official” lyrics, and there are a few slightly different versions. You can see Banjo Paterson’s original version here.

Does Waltzing Matilda rhyme?

Yes – it has an ABCB rhyming pattern, so that the second and fourth lines of each stanza are exact rhymes, and all the B lines end with a word that rhymes with bee: eg tree, me, glee, three. Mostly it’s the word me, which several times rhymes with itself.

Name of the guy from Waltzing Matilda/What’s the boy’s name in Waltzing Matilda?

He’s never mentioned by name, but he’s said to be based on a real man named Samuel Hoffmeister, originally from Germany, whose nickname was “Frenchy“. Presumably by the same Australian logic whereby a red-haired man will be nicknamed “Blue“.

There’s a familiar Australian witticism that the jolly swagman’s name must have been Andy: “Andy sang as he watched, Andy waited ’til his billy boiled”. As Banjo Paterson’s real first name was Andrew, perhaps a laboured attempt to put him into the song.

Can “waltzing Matilda” mean to be hung?

No – it means to travel by foot, carrying your belongs on your back. A swagman’s rolled sleeping blanket was his “Matilda”, and to “waltz” your Matilda was to take it on a long walk.

Is “waltzing Matilda” a euphemism?

No, it’s slang.

Is there a Waltzing Matilda Hotel?

Yes, it’s not a particularly unusual name for hotels. Here’s an example.

One or more islands named Waltzing Matilda?

I don’t think there’s even one, let alone more than one.

[Did] Ansett use [the song] Waltzing Matilda?

Yes, Ansett Australia Airlines used the song in their advertisements to mark the centenary of Waltzing Matilda in 1995. They also had a scene from the song painted on their 737s the year before, and the first 737 aircraft they ordered in 1986 was named Waltzing Matilda.

Was there ever a warship named Waltzing Matilda?

No. The Royal Australian Navy usually names its vessels after Australian place names, animals, Aboriginal words, and famous people from history, rather than works of fiction. Besides, the song ends with someone drowning, which hardly seems appropriate for a ship (although it doesn’t seem to have put other people off naming their boats Waltzing Matilda).

A 1950s horror movie which has the song Waltzing Matilda in it?

It’s not strictly a horror movie, but could you be thinking of the 1959 post-apocalyptic film, On the Beach? The song is used to great effect in a particular scene.

Waltzing Matilda – the national disgrace – America owns it

That’s not quite true, but it’s a complicated story. Banjo Paterson sold the rights to Waltzing Matilda to Australian publishing house Angus & Robertson for 5 pounds. Banjo died in 1941, and under Australian copyright law, as in most of the world, once the creator has been dead for 50 years, a creative work is in the public domain, so Waltzing Matilda has been copyright-free here since 1991.

However, in the United States, Waltzing Matilda was falsely copyrighted as an original composition by Carl Fischer Music in 1941. This came as a horrible shock to Australia when they found out in the 1980s, although Carl Fischer Music claimed most of the royalty money went back to Australia, to the Australian music publisher Allans Music (they may have bought the copyright from Angus & Robertson). Since copyright in Australia expired in 1991, Carl Fischer Music obviously didn’t give any money to Australia after that.

A bitter pill for Australians to swallow was that they had to pay a licensing fee to Carl Fischer Music to have Waltzing Matilda played at the closing ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, since it was on American soil. It sounds rather mean and money-grubbing to have charged us for own anthem, probably because it was.

So Waltzing Matilda was never “owned by America”, but only by one American company. And as all good things come to an end, and all bad ones too, eventually copyright ran out in the US, which doesn’t happen until 70 years after the creator’s death, and Waltzing Matilda has been in the public domain worldwide since 2011.

If it was a national disgrace that it occurred, I can’t see that the disgrace is attached to our own nation. We didn’t steal it, and our shonky copyright laws didn’t allow it to happen.

Why isn’t Waltzing Matilda the [Australian] national anthem?

There was a plebiscite to choose a national anthem in 1977, and more than 43% of people voted for Advance Australia Fair, while only around 28% voted for Waltzing Matilda. (Almost 19% voted for God Save the Queen, and less than 10% for Song of Australia).

God Save the Queen is our royal anthem, to be played whenever someone royal shows up. Waltzing Matilda is an unofficial national anthem, and is a particular favourite at sporting events – especially the Olympics and Commonwealth Games.

In any case, it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea to have a national anthem under copyright in another country.

[Is] Waltzing Matilda no longer sung at AFL [Grand Finals]?

I think the 1980s was the only decade where it was sung almost every year; it didn’t start out like that in the 1970s, and seems to have become hit-and-miss in the 1990s. The last person to sing Waltzing Matilda at an AFL Grand Final was probably Guy Sebastian, about ten years ago.

Some people feel outraged that this “great tradition” has been neglected, but their memories have probably made it seem more frequent than it really was. I suspect these people were children and teens during the 1980s, so that they grew up with a general impression of Waltzing Matilda being played each year.

Why did Senator [Bob] Kerrey sing Waltzing Matilda after being elected?

Robert Kerrey was elected to the US Senate for Nebraska in 1989. He didn’t actually sing Waltzing Matilda after his election: he sang And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, written by Australian folk singer Eric Bogle.

The song is written from the point of view of an Australian soldier who loses his legs at the Battle of Gallipoli, and sees the war he participated in as bloody and futile. Because the song was written in 1971, it can be seen as a criticism of the Vietnam War, which was similarly gruesome and pointless.

Senator Kerrey served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War, and lost the lower half of one leg in combat. He suffered some traumatic experiences during the war, and must have identified with the narrator of And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. He also used the first line of the song for the title of his autobiography, When I Was A Young Man.

The song has been frequently covered by folk singers in the UK and the US, and is internationally famous as an anti-war song.

(Painting shown is Down on His Luck, by Frederick McCubbin – 1889)

Choosing Boy Names That Won’t Become Girl Names

01 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

choosing baby names, classic names, famous namesakes, gender-specific names, masculine names, name popularity, name trends, popular names, rare names, surname names, unisex names

tie

boys names that can’t be used for girls

That was the search term someone used to reach the blog some time ago, and ever since I have been wondering how to answer it.

There is no name that can’t be used for girls in Australia, as we don’t have any naming laws in regard to gender. It might be rare to meet a woman named Jeffrey or Andrew, but there’s no prohibition against it.

However, I do think it’s possible to choose a name for your son that is unlikely to be used for many girls. In other words, you can pick out a name which is seen as masculine rather than unisex, and which has a low probability of becoming seen as unisex, or even feminine, in the future.

1. Choose a Classic Name

Classic boys names have the advantage of possessing a long, yet recent, history of being used primarily for boys, which tends to put a masculine stamp on them. When I looked at classic names in Australia, I found that only two of them went from unisex to gender-specific – and both went to the boys (the names were Darcy and Francis).

There are lots of classic names, and they come in all styles, and are at all levels of popularity, so there’s quite a range to choose from. A classic boys name such as William, Arthur, Vincent, Duncan, Leonard, or Frederick would be an extremely safe choice for someone worried about their son’s name being chosen for girls.

2. Choose a Popular Name

When I looked at unisex names from the 2012 Victorian data, it became apparent that names are only truly unisex (used for roughly equal numbers of boys and girls) when they are at a low level of popularity. Once a name becomes popular, it only seems to do so for one gender or another – there are few names which reach the Top 100 for both sexes at once, and when they do, it’s a situation which doesn’t seem to last long.

Therefore, a popular name seems like a safe choice when picking a name to ensure that it has already been chosen for one specific gender over another. And the more popular it is, the safer a choice it probably is, because names that have switched from boy to girl in popularity haven’t peaked any higher than #60 for boys, and most of them didn’t even peak in the Top 100.

So if you’re a bit worried, pick something in the Top 100, like Declan or Hugo, and if you’re very worried, pick a Top 50 name, like Oscar or Sebastian.

3. Choose a Rare Name

A boys name seems to need a reasonable level of familiarity in order to become acceptable for use on girls: at this point, it starts to seem “cute” or “spunky” on a girl. Choosing a male name that is little used even for boys seems like a reasonable insurance policy against it becoming used by girls. So perhaps a name like Benedict or Wolfgang might seem like a good choice.

4. Choose a Name Strongly Associated with a Very Famous Man

Elvis is technically a unisex name, and in the 1920s and ’30s, it was almost entirely used for girls in Australia. But once Elvis Presley appeared on the scene in the 1950s, Elvis was a boy’s name. Other names associated with famous men include Aristotle, Banjo, Barack, Butch, Hannibal, Leonardo, Moses, Muhammad, Napoleon, and Winston.

Just make sure that the man has a high level of recognition, so that most adults would recognise him by his first name alone. If you have to explain who he was, then he’s not famous enough to ensure his name stays masculine.

And surnames don’t count – think of all the girls named Presley or Cassidy!

5. Buy a Time Machine ….

… so you can visit the future and make sure that nobody has used the name for a highly successful character in popular culture, or it doesn’t belong to a hugely famous actress who goes on to win Academy Awards for the next sixty years.

Yes, I’m joking. You can’t predict with any certainty what the future will bring (so why fret about it?). However, I do think if you choose one of the previous four options, you will have done a fair bit towards future-proofing your son’s name.

It’s not likely anyone will write a blockbuster about a spunky heroine named Leonardo, or that there will be a gorgeous movie actress named William, but even if those things happen, it’s even less likely that those names would be picked for baby girls by the general populace.

So there you go. Four simple steps you can take to make it less likely that anyone will use your son’s name for their daughter.

However, I sense many of you do not like this advice very much. You don’t want a classic name, you don’t want a name in the Top 50, you don’t want a name that’s hardly ever seen, and you definitely don’t want a name tied to someone mega famous.

Like a vast bulk of parents, what you really want is one of those fashionable boys names that are familiar but not popular. Something that seems fresh and new, yet so on trend that it blends in seamlessly with all the other kids in the playground.

However, by choosing something fresh and new, you are by definition taking a risk. You risk Axel  becoming popular, Arlo becoming stale and boring, and Ari becoming more common for girls.

Now I could go on to give further advice, such as to avoid surnames (what if Harland is the next Harper?), or anything which can be shortened to a girly nickname (what if all the Maddoxes become Maddies?), or anything ending in -lee (what if Finley becomes the new Ashley?), or anything which sounds even vaguely like a girl’s name (is Ezra too similar to Eliza?).

But I’m not going to, because

a) it sounds crazy paranoid

b) it would be foolish to avoid using your favourite name based on something which might happen in the future

c) risks make life exciting, colourful and worth living

and

d) I would prefer that femininity isn’t seen as something which taints a name so that males can no longer use it.

If you want a name used almost entirely for boys, that is likely to stay that way for a long while, then you have good options.

But I hope that we can also embrace risk and change and diversity, and live in a more accepting world that doesn’t divide us so sharply into pink or blue – a world where we all have more name choices, rather than less.

Never Out of Season: Different Varieties of Classic Name

27 Sunday Oct 2013

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Abby Sandel, classic names, Laura Wattenberg, name popularity, Nameberry, Nameberry Nine, popular names, The Baby Name Wizard

roberts_springtime

Classic baby names are a perpetual subject for discussion. This week Abby Sandel wondered in her Nameberry Nine column what makes a classic name, and Laura Wattenberg at The Baby Name Wizard shared her “magic formula” for turning classic names into pure gold (unfortunately her mathematical formula doesn’t work in Australia – either we don’t have a big enough population, or enough data, or both).

“Classic baby names” are a popular search term too, but it didn’t seem helpful to just write down a list of classic names. I sorted them into categories, so you can see what kind of classic each classic name is.

I counted as a classic any name which had charted in Australia for a century, never disappeared from the charts for more than a decade at a time, and never did so more than twice. After some experimentation, I found this was the most generous definition I could work with that didn’t become meaningless.

Contemporary Classics

These classics have a very modern feel to them, because they are more popular now than they were a century ago, and didn’t experience a peak of popularity in the middle. Choose one of these, and you get a name that feels both traditional and up to date.

  • Amelia
  • Charlotte
  • Ella
  • Emily
  • Eva
  • Grace
  • Hope
  • Isabella
  • Lily
  • Lucy
  • Sophia
  • Stella
  • Alexander
  • Angus
  • Darcy
  • Harry
  • Jack
  • Lachlan
  • Leo
  • Lewis
  • Marcus
  • Max
  • Oliver
  • Samuel
  • William

Up and Coming Classics

These classics are currently rising in popularity. It’s hard for a classic name to seem surprising or original, but these mostly manage to feel quite fresh. I think these classic names would make stylish choices – they’re names that we’re subconsciously primed to want more of.

  • Adele
  • Alice
  • Amelia
  • Angela
  • Audrey
  • Daisy
  • Elaine
  • Eva
  • Evelyn
  • Gloria
  • Irene
  • Josephine
  • Leah
  • Lillian
  • Rosalie
  • Rose
  • Sophia
  • Stella
  • Victoria
  • Vivienne
  • Arthur
  • Frank
  • John
  • Lawrence
  • Leo
  • Leon
  • Lewis and Louis
  • Patrick
  • Theodore
  • Vincent

Ready Steady Classics

Name nerds often talk about “timeless classics”, and these classic names are truly timeless. Their position has remained relatively stable, and over the course of the last century, they haven’t risen or fallen more than 250 places. I call them the Ready Steady Classics because they are maintaining a steady course, and ready to be used at any time. You can’t go wrong with a Ready Steady – they’re a very safe choice.

  • Angela
  • Annie
  • Catherine and Katherine
  • Christina
  • Claire
  • Elizabeth
  • Esther
  • Georgina
  • Josephine
  • Julia
  • Katie
  • Laura
  • Maria
  • Mary
  • Naomi
  • Rachel
  • Rebecca
  • Rose
  • Sarah
  • Adrian
  • Alexander
  • Andrew
  • Angus
  • Anthony
  • Charles
  • Christopher
  • Daniel
  • David
  • Edward
  • Eric
  • Harry
  • Hugh
  • George
  • Kevin
  • James
  • John
  • Joseph
  • Leon
  • Louis
  • Marcus
  • Mark
  • Martin
  • Matthew
  • Michael
  • Nicholas
  • Patrick
  • Paul
  • Peter
  • Raymond
  • Richard
  • Robert
  • Samuel
  • Stephen
  • Thomas
  • Timothy
  • Vincent
  • William

Underused Classics

These classic names have remained in use, yet haven’t become popular during the past century (the highest any has been is the very bottom of the Top 100). Choose one of these and you get a name which seems “normal”, but also slightly “unusual”. It’s a very attractive quality.

  • Adele
  • Beth
  • Bridget
  • Christina
  • Cecilia
  • Erica
  • Estelle
  • Faith
  • Georgina
  • Greta
  • Helena
  • Hope
  • Leila
  • Louisa
  • Lydia
  • Martha
  • Miriam
  • Rosa
  • Rosalie
  • Teresa and Theresa
  • Vivian and Vivienne
  • Carl
  • Duncan
  • Ivan
  • Leon
  • Lewis and Louis
  • Theodore
  • Wesley

Faded Classics

The Faded Classics have fallen more than 250 places since they peaked in popularity, and are currently at their lowest ebb. Is that any reason to reject these names? Definitely not! A classic never goes out of style, and as many of these names have hit the bottom of their cycle, they may be about to turn things around, and begin climbing in popularity in a decade or two. Some of these classics manage to have a funky vintage feel.

  • Clare
  • Linda
  • Louise
  • Marie
  • Mona
  • Nancy
  • Patricia
  • Ruth
  • Veronica
  • Shirley
  • Susan
  • Albert
  • Brian
  • Dennis
  • Edwin
  • Geoffrey and Jeffrey
  • Keith
  • Laurence
  • Leonard
  • Malcolm
  • Murray
  • Philip and Phillip
  • Roger

Under the Radar Classics

These classic names are not peaking, or rising, or fading, or maintaining a steady course. As a result, they may have escaped your attention. You may even be surprised to find some of these are classics. Don’t overlook them – these are all good names, and one of them may be perfect for you.

  • Alison
  • Amanda
  • Anna
  • Anne
  • Beatrice
  • Caroline
  • Eleanor
  • Ellen
  • Emma
  • Frances
  • Hannah
  • Helen
  • Iris
  • Isabel
  • Jacqueline
  • Jane
  • Joy
  • Joyce
  • Madeline
  • Margaret
  • Monica
  • Natalie
  • Sylvia
  • Valerie
  • Alan and Allan
  • Alfred
  • Bruce
  • Douglas
  • Francis
  • Frederick
  • Henry
  • Ian
  • Kenneth
  • Maxwell
  • Neil
  • Rex
  • Roy
  • Stanley
  • Victor

TRIVIA

  • The most contemporary of the Contemporary Classics are Sophia and Lachlan, who have the largest gap between their current position and their position in the 1910s. Sophia is 315 places higher, while Lachlan has gained 188 places.
  • The most up and coming of the Up and Coming Classics are Rosalie and Frank, who have risen highest in the last few years. Rosalie has risen 638 places since the mid-2000s, while Frank has risen 170 places.
  • The steadiest of the Ready Steady Classics are Elizabeth and James. Elizabeth has remained within 32 places throughout the past century, while James has remained within just 15 places.
  • The most underused of the Underused Classics are Estelle and Wesley. The highest Estelle has ever been is #222, and the highest Wesley has ever been is #165 – both in the 1920s.
  • The most faded of the Faded Classics are Susan and Keith, who have fallen the most from their peak. Susan went from #1 in the 1950s to its current position of 0, while Keith went from #8 in the 1920s to its present position of 0.

NOTE: I can’t guarantee I have included every classic name. If you believe one is missing, let me know.

POLL RESULTS

Question: What type of classic name do you like best?
Underused classic – 31%
Up and coming classic – 18%
Under the radar classic – 13%
Contemporary classic – 5%
Ready steady classic – 5%
Faded classics – 3%
None (classics are boring) – 3%
I can’t decide (I love so many) – 22%

(Painting shown is Springtime by the Australian artist Charles Conder – 1888)

Why Your Child Will Hate Their Name

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by A.O. in Your Questions Answered

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

baby name advice, baby name books, choosing baby names, classic names, created names, dated names, Google, honouring, name forums, name image, name popularity, name studies, names from television, popular names, pseudonyms

I-HATE-MY-NAME-815x1024

How can I pick a name my child won’t hate?

That’s the question somebody typed into a search bar, and Google knows how, ended up on my blog. Here’s the kicker: you can’t. There’s no name, no matter how tastefully chosen, that comes with a guarantee that your child won’t one day hate it to bits.

I know people with what I see as very nice names (nicer than mine, in my opinion) who hate them with a bewildering passion, while people who have what I consider very boring or even ugly names are deeply grateful to their parents for choosing them. We all have different tastes.

I do know quite a few people who hate their names, and if you hang out on name forums, you don’t have to look hard to find others who have become disgruntled with their names. While everyone has their own personal quirks, over the years I have noticed a few things they tended to have in common.

These are often not the things that baby name articles warn you about. For example, a popular belief is that a “weird name” is sure to be hated by the bearer, who will be teased in the playground and come to loathe their name, their parents, and probably the whole world.

I haven’t noticed this to be the case, with most owners of unusual names enjoying, or at least coming to terms with them. I have never met anyone with an unusual name who legally changed it to something more mundane, even those who professed to find it a bit of a pain sometimes. At most, they adopted a pseudonym when booking restaurants.

Another piece of advice often handed out is that a “bizarre” name spelling will be such a nuisance that the bearer will undoubtedly wish that their parents had gone with something more traditional. Again, I don’t find that to be generally true. Some people with unusually spelled names loathe them, while others are delighted by them.

I know someone with a very unintuitive name spelling (think Veeruyniiikkarh for Veronica), and she loves that every letter in her name was individually chosen by her mum, with each one having a specific personal meaning. I thought it would be the most tremendous nuisance to have to spell out every time, but she assures me that she doesn’t mind at all. “It makes me feel special that my name gets so much attention”. For her, holding up queues is an ego-massage.

As I can’t tell you how to pick a name your child won’t hate, I thought I would least explain why they may end up hating it.

They hate themselves

Research has shown that people with high self-esteem tend to like their own name, and the higher their sense of self-worth, the more they liked their name. That suggests that people who dislike their own name may suffer from self-esteem issues.

You might assume that someone who dislikes their name would arrogantly think it not good enough for them, but sometimes it seems to be the other way around – they don’t think they are good enough for their names.

“It’s a popular girl name, it’s just not me”; “It’s too pretty for me carry it off”; or the most tragic I heard, “It sounds like the name of a happy normal person”.

To give your child the best chance of liking their name, make sure that they have high self-esteem. Convince them that they are pretty, popular, happy and normal enough for their name.

Their name is going downhill

A lot of parents worry about popularity; nearly always that the name is “too popular” to use, or is going to be too popular in the future.

However, I’ve noticed that the majority of people who dislike their names were given names that were either falling in popularity when they were born, or hitting their peak, so that they had begun falling by the time they started school.

Not only that, but the level of dislike appears to correlate with how steeply the name rose and fell. Names with a very obvious peak and trough, dating them to a particular era, seem to be the most disliked.

It doesn’t necessarily seem to be the most popular names that are disliked so much as those which display this pattern. For example, Sarah was the #1 name of the 1980s, yet I rarely hear Sarahs complain bitterly about their name. Could that be because Sarah is a classic which is still in the Top 40, so we don’t think of it as a “typical 1980s name”?

I don’t often hear anyone identify the trajectory of their name’s popularity as the reason for their dissatisfaction. They all have what appear to be good reasons for their dislike: it’s unattractive, it’s boring, it doesn’t suit them. Yet somehow it seems to be names falling in popularity which are perceived as ugly, boring, and not suiting their owners.

People given names that were already dated and out of style at the time of their birth (“old people” names) usually say that they hated their name as a child, but now they’re grown up, they appreciate it’s different from the usual names of their generation.

That may because such names sometimes begin to come back into fashion when they are adults. For example, someone born in the 1980s named Florence would have had a dated name, as it peaked in the 1900s. But now it is fashionable and rising in popularity – suddenly Florence has a cool name.

I do think popularity is worth considering – but not to cross off a name because it’s hit a particular point in the charts. Of course, you can’t know how a name will perform in the future, but you can at least see how it’s doing now. Has it maintained its position over several decades? Has it suddenly “come out of nowhere”? Is it already falling steeply? This information might help you choose between different names.

They hate the reason you chose their name

If someone really loves their name, I don’t think a bad name story will seriously ruin it for them, but if someone is already lukewarm, a bad one can add insult to injury. The factors that seem to get people’s goats are a perceived randomness, casualness, or lack of thought in the way their name was selected.

When you tell your child how you chose their name, stress how important it was to you and how much you love their name. If you chose their name from a baby name book, or a TV show, for example, make sure they understand that it wasn’t just by chance you chose their name. Whatever it was that made you fall in love with the name, express it. And don’t wait until they’re a moody teen or resentful adult to share the good news – they should know from an early age how special you think their name is.

I know a lot of people who disliked their names, and were even thinking of changing them, until their parents explained how much love and care had gone into choosing it. Teenagers who thought their parents had unimaginatively picked a popular name found that they had been named after a much-loved relative. A “made up” name that seemed “random” was the result of putting together the initials of their parents’ best friends who introduced them. And sometimes just knowing it was a name their parents loved above all others was enough to reconcile someone to a name they had thought ordinary.

The bottom line: everyone wants their name to be meaningful. Show your child that theirs is.

You hate your name

In some cases, disliking names seems to run in the family. Quite a number of women I know who dislike their names tell me that their mother was also unhappy with her own name. This may be from parental modelling. Just as mothers who constantly moan about their flabby thighs tend to have daughters with body image problems, it could be that mothers who dislike their name unconsciously send the message to their children to focus on anything about their name that fails to please.

If you hate your own name, make peace with it. Don’t try to work out your own issues when choosing your child’s name. So many parents seem to think that because they hated being one of a dozen in their class their child’s name must be rare, or because they hated their nickname their child needs a “nickname proof” name.

It’s well intentioned, but the trouble is that you’ve made your child’s name story all about you. When you tell your child how you chose their name, the story shouldn’t include information about how you felt about your name. Don’t use your child’s name as an opportunity to fix the mistakes of the past.

They hate you

In rare but distressing cases, people reject their names because their relationship with their parents irretrievably breaks down. It’s not uncommon for them to change their names in order to signal a complete break from their family background, and it can also be so their parents can’t easily locate them.

I don’t think this is worth worrying about, because if it occurs, their name isn’t really the issue, and is the least of your problems.

POSTSCRIPT: I should add that most of my observations in regard to name dislike relate to women. It isn’t that I don’t know any men who dislike their names – I know a fair few who hated their name enough to legally change it, and I’ve read a lot of articles written by men on how much they dislike their name.

However, women and girls do seem to more openly express their feelings about their names, and it’s possible that they have subtler emotions toward their name, or are more likely to be analytical about them. Perhaps women are more likely to be “fussy” about their names than men. Whatever the reason, it seems to be easier to gather information about their feelings towards their names (at least for me).

POLL RESULTS
79% of people responding to the poll were generally satisfied with their name. 33% liked their name, 19% loved their name, 18% weren’t mad about their name, but could live with it, and 9% said that they used to dislike their name, but had changed their mind and now felt positive towards it.

However, 12% of people did hate their name, while 9% thought that hate was too strong a word to use, but they didn’t really like their names either.

The good news is, most of us have names that we are content with, and around 10% of people who don’t like their name will change their minds.

(Picture from Naver)

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