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Baby, Where Did You Get That Name?

31 Sunday Jan 2016

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On January 6 Selene Garton and Brendan Winter, from southern Queensland, welcomed their son in alarming circumstances. He arrived unexpectedly at home with no time to get to a hospital, and was a breech birth, being born feet first. They rang 000, and during a 17 minute phone call, the emergency medical dispatcher gave them soothing instructions on how to deliver the baby until the paramedics arrived. Selene and Brendan have named their son Izaya Gnarly to indicate the “gnarly” start he had in life, but he will be called Gnarly. I think if you want to give your child a very unusual name, that’s a good way to do it – put it in the middle, and then call them by their middle name.

When Kylee and Robbie Wieczorek from central Queensland knew that they were expecting a baby boy, they involved their seven-year-old son Owen in the name choosing process. Owen suggested the fairly awesome Thor Captain America Ironman, but his parents just laughed in a “kids say the darnedest things” sort of way. However, the name stuck, and once the baby arrived, Thor seemed both strong and different, so Owen’s choice prevailed. They dispensed with the suggested middle names, and Thor’s middle name is Cecil, after his great-grandfather. Owen may not mind that his middle name suggestions were ignored, as he is adoring having a baby brother.

Parker Bowman, aged 4, also loves being a big brother to his baby sister, Lennon Adelaide [pictured]. Their mum Marette Kiernan heard someone call out to their child Lennon on a beach in Florida, and decided she liked the name, while Adelaide is after Marette’s grandmother (dad Andrew hated the name Lennon at first, but seems to have come around). Parker has given his sister a cute nickname: Lemonade.

Natalie and Samuel from Terrigal have a baby boy named Iver, named after their favourite band, Bon Iver. They looked the name up and read it was a Scandinavian boy’s name meaning “archer” (which is said AYV-er). However, the American band’s name is French for “good winter”, and the Iver (winter) part is said ee-VAIR. I’m not sure whether Iver’s name is said the Scandinavian way, the French way, or like Ivor.

More unexpected honouring: Sarah and Jarrad Cook from Geelong wanted to name their son after their favourite AFL footballer, Daniel Menzel. Daniel wasn’t distinctive enough, so their baby son is named Menzel, and he has already met his famous namesake. Menzel is a German surname which is a pet form of Menz, short for names such as Herman and Clemens. You might recall the difficulties John Travolta had with the name of the actress Idina Menzel, from Frozen. Let’s hope no one similarly mangles Menzel’s name.

And another name honouring a sporting hero: Cassie and Kris Pyper from Kurnell in Sydney named their son Maximus John John, after the Hawaiian surfer John John Florence, because Kris is a keen surfer himself. Florence’s name is actually just John, but his mother called him John John after John F. Kennedy Jr, the son of JFK. Aptly, John John Florence is renowned for surfing the huge waves of the Banzai Pipeline often just called the Pipe), so there’s a connection with the Pyper surname.

Dimity and Michael Hand from Sydney’s northern beaches have a baby girl named Zaelia. Dimity picked out the name Zaelia when she was a little girl, because her childhood best friend had a wonderful grandmother named Zaelia. Dimity thinks that Zaelia is derived from Azalea and means “little flower”, but it’s actually a Latin American pet form of Rosalia. However, that still gives it a flowery meaning. Dimity also believes Zaelia isn’t influenced by trends, although it’s right on trend because of Zali and Zalia.

Ina and Dave Mills from the Northern Beaches welcomed their third child late last year. They already had a daughter named Ruby and a son named Roki, and hadn’t picked out a name before the birth. However, there was a painting of a caravan called Ruby and Rosie just outside the delivery room, and they took that as a sign, so their daughter is named Rosie Bea. Why Bea? Because she was meant to be, of course!

Carmen and Adrian Longmuir from Gladstone welcomed their sixth child last year and named him Tyz, said to rhyme with rise. Adrian chose the name because Tyz will be their last child, and he “ties up” the family nicely. The meaning has special poignancy because Tyz’s brother Kash passed away a year before.

Quinn and Ivy Palmer from Adelaide may look like twins, but these baby girls are actually triplets – their sister, the smallest triplet, died while still in the womb. Parents Emma-May and Jim named the third triplet Aurora, because she is their “Sleeping Beauty”.

Famous Name: Ariel

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

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As we head towards Christmas holidays and hot weather, you might be planning to put The Little Mermaid on for the kids, or take them to the beach so they can swim like fish. I know lots of people (big and small) who love the spirited redhead Ariel from the Disney film, so I am covering the name as a summery choice.

Name Information
Ariel is a Hebrew name that means “lion of God”. Although it mentioned in the Old Testament as the name of several men, it is best known as a designation for the city of Jerusalem, and was also used in reference to the altar of the city’s temple (in this context, perhaps best understand as “hearth of God”).

In Jewish, Christian and Gnostic mysticism, Ariel is also the name of an angel. It is something of a mystery where the name came from, but it may be influenced by the archangel Uriel, or the Zoroastrian destructive spirit Ahriman. In several sources, Ariel is shown as an angel with power over Hell, and for this reason John Milton makes him one of the rebel angels who fight on Satan’s side in Paradise Lost.

Another image of Ariel is that it is the name for the Creator God, and in mysticism was often depicted as a lion-headed deity with power over the Earth. Others call him the Spirit of Air, the Angel of the Waters, or Wielder of Fire.

You can see the attraction of Ariel for writers: he is morally ambiguous, and has enormous yet extremely vague powers. In Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, Ariel is a spirit of the air under the control of the magician Prospero. It is not clear whether he is a good sprite, but because he refused to work for an evil sorceress, he is at least not demonic. The angel Ariel may have been as inspiration, or perhaps Shakespeare chose the name because it is similar to the word aerial, meaning “of the air”.

It is through Ariel’s magical agency, by the command of Prospero, that the action of the play progresses and reaches its conclusion. Because of this, it is very easy to see him as a metaphor for creativity – artists are all Prosperos, who work magic by bringing under their control that elusive and puckish spirit of inspiration.

In Alexander Pope’s poem The Rape of the Lock, Ariel is the guardian sylph of the heroine: a spirit of air who watches over young maidens. Pope edited the works of Shakespeare, and must have taken the name from The Tempest. Percy Bysshe Shelley identified Ariel as a symbol of the poet, and his songs with poetry. Poor poets – enslaved by the Prospero of their own creative genius!

T.S. Eliot published The Ariel Poems, and Sylvia Plath has a collection titled Ariel. In Plath’s case, although Ariel was literally a horse she rode, the poem Ariel is about her identity as a poet, and she takes the Shelley-approved “tortured soul oppressed by own genius” line. Although the Ariel of the poem is a stallion, Plath refers to herself as “God’s lioness”, feminising the meaning of the name.

The name of the mermaid Ariel in the Disney film is inspired by the ending of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson. Although it does not form part of the movie’s plot, the original little mermaid becomes one of the Daughters of Air who may gain a human soul after 300 years of good deeds, and gain entrance to heaven. Like Ariel in The Tempest, the mermaid becomes a spirit of the air – but one whose goodness is quite obvious.

In the Old Testament, Ariel is a man’s name, with its feminine form transliterated as Ariela, Ariella, or Arielle. However, you can see quite a bit of gender ambiguity in the name. Even in the Old Testament, it was used to denote the city of Jerusalem and the temple altar, which already begins to disassociate it from its original context.

Then as the name of an angel it begins to seem further removed from being strictly male, since angels cannot have gender, and once Shakespeare used it for a spirit of the air, this trend continued.

The role of Ariel in The Tempest was almost always taken by female actors from the 1600s until the 1930s; since then it has been played by both men and women, but often with an androgynous slant. This must have made a difference to how people saw the name, and the connection with poetry heightens its feminine image.

Famous men named Ariel include former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon; Brazilian model Ariel Donida; writer and activist Ariel Dorfman; American music-producer Ariel Rechtshaid who has worked with big names like Adele and Madonna; and American film-maker Ariel “Rel” Schulman, best known for the Catfish documentary and TV series.

Famous women named Ariel include American actress Ariel Winter, from Modern Family; American model Ariel Meredith, and Australian actress Ariel Kaplan, who is on Neighbours. Russian-born American historian Ariel Durant, the wife and writing partner of historian Will Durant, was born Chaya Kaufman (Ada or Ida her English name), but was called Ariel as a pet name, and eventually she changed it legally.

Ariel has been used as a male name in Europe since at least the 16th century. It didn’t come into common use in the English-speaking world until the 18th century, when The Tempest became a theatre staple: it was used for both sexes, but much more often given to boys. By the 19th century, it was fairly evenly unisex.

Ariel has been on the US Top 1000 for boys since the late 1960s, shortly after the posthumous publication of Sylvia Plath’s Ariel. It has been on the US Top 100 for girls since the late 1970s, just after Ariel Durant and her husband won the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It made the Top 100 for girls in 1990, a year after The Little Mermaid, and peaked for both sexes in 1991, a year after The Little Mermaid was released on video. It reached #361 for boys, and #66 for girls. Currently it is #133 for girls and #738 for boys, and last year made small gains for both sexes.

In the UK, Ariel shows up in the data as a name for both boys and girls, although it has performed more consistently as a male name. Last year there were 32 girls and 20 boys named Ariel, and the name is rising for both sexes, but more steeply as a boy’s name. Ariel is popular for boys in Israel and Latin America.

In Victoria in 2012, Ariel was almost equally given to both sexes – 11 girls and 12 boys. However that may not be typical, because in South Australia in 2013 there were 2 girls named Ariel and no boys, and in Tasmania in 2010, 1 girl Ariel and no boys.

In Australia, the spelling Arielle seems more common for girls, in contrast to the UK, where numbers of female Ariels and Arielles are roughly even, and the US, where Ariel is a much more common girl’s name than Arielle. It’s possible that some Australian parents feel that Ariel, even if not strictly a boy’s name, does not seem quite feminine either.

Strong and attractive, with a wonderful meaning, Ariel is on trend for names with a strong AR sound, and you would think should be rising, along with fashionable choices like Arlo and Aria. Although suitable for both sexes, some parents may prefer the feminised spelling Arielle for a girl, which helps disassociate it from its mermaid namesake. Pronunciation is an issue, as people say this name AR-ee-el, AH-ree-el, and AIR-ee-el (the third one makes me think of TV antennas). Possible nicknames include Ari, Arik, Elle, Ellie, and Rel/Relle.

You might be wondering why I’m covering Ariel at the end of the year – shouldn’t I be doing Noel, or Joy, or something equally festive? The reason is because of the poet T.S. Eliot, who I mentioned as the author of the Ariel Poems.

Ariel was a series of illustrated poetry pamphlets from Faber and Faber, named after the airy sprite from The Tempest (perhaps they were suggesting they were putting their poets to work, as Prospero made the enslaved Ariel toil for him). Put out at the end of the year, they were sold as fancy Christmas cards.

In line with the theme, Eliot wrote poems for Ariel on the subject of Christmas, including The Journey of the Magi. Later they were collected as The Ariel Poems, and another added: The Cultivation of Christmas Trees.

So I’m suggesting Ariel as an unexpected name for the Christmas season, tied to its literary namesake, and connected to the beauty and magic of poetry – didn’t someone once say that every baby is a poem? They are certainly our most wondrous creations.

POLL RESULTS
As a girl’s name, Ariel received an approval rating of 46%. 30% of people were put off the name because of the connection to the Disney movie, but 28% thought Ariel was either pretty or beautiful. Only one person thought Ariel was too masculine for a girl.

As a boy’s name, Ariel received a lower approval rating of 28%. 35% of people thought the Disney film made the name seem too feminine for a boy, and 22% preferred the name Ari. 9% of people thought Ariel was only suitable for Jewish and Hispanic boys. However, 8% of people thought Ariel was a handsome name for a boy.

69% of people thought Ariel was more suitable as a name for girls, and 18% said it was equally suitable for both sexes. 13% saw it as more suitable for boys.

(Picture shows Ariel from The Little Mermaid)

Famous Name: Cinderella

06 Wednesday May 2015

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With a brand new baby girl in the British royal family, there’s a very princessy atmosphere at the moment. Looking back at my recent blog entries, I think I must have tuned into this vibe in some spooky sort of way, because this year I have already covered the names of three fairytale princesses who have featured in Disney films – Rapunzel, Aurora, and Melody.

While everyone’s in a princess-themed mood, I thought I’d cover one more, since we went to see the recent Disney film Cinderella in the school holidays a couple of weeks ago. It starred Australian film star Cate Blanchett as the elegantly wicked stepmother, Lady Tremaine, and Lily James in the title role. It’s a faithful old-school rendering of the fairytale, the 1950s animated version brought to life.

The story of Cinderella has deep roots, because an ancient Greek story tells of a Greco-Egyptian slave girl named Rhodopis (“rosy cheeks”). While she was bathing, an eagle snatched one of her sandals, flew to the city of Memphis, and dropped it into the lap of the king. The king, impressed by the beautiful shape of the sandal and the strangeness of the occurrence, sent his men in all directions to find the sandal’s owner, and when she had been located, Rhodopis was brought to the city to become his queen. This is the oldest known version of the Cinderella tale.

Rhodopis was a real person, a beautiful Thracian courtesan from the 6th century BC who was a fellow slave to the fable teller Aesop. Later she was taken to Egypt and freed for an enormous sum by the brother of the poet Sappho, who had fallen in love with her. Alas for romance, Sappho wrote a poem accusing Rhodopis of stealing from her brother – she calls her Doricha, which might have been her real name, and Rhodopis her professional name.

There are parallels to the Cinderella story in several cultures, where a good, hard-working girl is oppressed by her stepmother and at least one step-sister or half-sister. In China she is Ye Xian (“leaf edge”), in Indonesia and Malaysia she is Bawang Putih (“garlic”), in Vietnam she is Tam (“broken rice”), and in Korea she is Kongji (“sweet wisdom”). It is also reminiscent of the legend of the British queen Cordelia, and her horrible sisters.

The earliest of the modern European Cinderella stories comes from Giambattista Basile in 1684, set in Naples. The heroine is a princess named Zezolla, whose governess persuades her to murder her hated stepmother and beg her father to make the governess step-mama instead. All seems well until the governess sends for her hitherto-unknown six daughters from her previous marriage, who force Zezolla to work as their kitchen slave. Familiar touches are a fairy benefactress, and a lost slipper which brings about marriage to the king.

The stepsisters rename Zezolla as Gatta Cenerentola, with Gatta meaning “cat” to indicate she is as lowly as an animal, while Cenerentola means “little ashes” to describe her dirty, stained appearance (you could loosely translate it as Little Ash-cat). The name Zezolla may be from the common Italian place name Zolla, meaning “mound of earth”; in support of my theory, several of the stepsisters have names based on Italian places.

When Charles Perrault adapted the story into French in 1697, he dropped the cat part and translated Cenerentola as Cendrillon, as this can also be understood as “little ashes”. (Cendrillon is the younger stepsister’s name for the heroine; the older and meaner one calls her Culcendron, meaning “ash bum”, as she was forced to sit in the ashes and get a dirty bottom).

Perrault added a fairy godmother, pumpkin, and glass slippers to the story, but the biggest change he made was to Cendrillon’s personality. While Zezolla was a cunning murderess, Cendrillon was humble, patient, and sweet-tempered, so the happy ending seems like a reward for her virtue. Perrault’s fairytale is seen as the classic Cinderella story, and was the basis for the 1950 Disney film.

The Brothers Grimm adapted the story into German in 1812, naming the heroine Aschenputtel. It’s difficult to translate, but can be understood as “ash slut, ash wench”. In this darker story, the father joins in the abuse, and doesn’t acknowledge Aschenputtel as his own daughter, but rather his first wife’s child from her previous marriage, so she has a stepfather and stepmother both! The stepsisters are punished with blindness and mutiliation, rather than the forgiveness bestowed upon them in other versions.

It is striking that the heroine’s real name is never given, except in the Italian version, where it seems to be a bit of a joke. Modern adaptations of the story often say that her name is Ella (in the 2015 film it’s short for Eleanor), and Cinderella can therefore be understood as “Ella of the cinders”. Only in the 1950 Disney film is Cinderella the heroine’s actual name, chosen by her parents.

Perrault’s Cendrillon was first translated into English in 1729 by Robert Samber, and immediately became a classic. Cendrillon was Anglicised to Cinderilla, and changed to Cinderella in subsequent editions. Cinderella looks like a reasonably faithful English version of Cendrillon, but the meaning changes subtly during the translation process, as it now looks as if it means “little cinders” rather than “little ashes”.

This makes the name rather more attractive, because cinders are solid, rather than dusty like ashes, and do not have the same connotations of humiliation (“sackcloth and ashes”). Ashes symbolise death, but cinders are the embers of a fire, smouldering hot coals suggesting love and life waiting to be rekindled. I’ve often heard people suggest Ember as a girl’s name with beautiful symbolism, so Cinderella cannot be said to have a bad meaning.

Cinderella has been used as a personal name since the 18th century, and was most common overall in the 19th century. It has been most popular in the United States, and currently there are more than a thousand adults in the US named Cinderella. It peaked in the US in 1951 at 23 baby girls, the year after the Disney film was released. I have found quite a few women named Cinderella in Australian records, and remarkably, nearly always as a first name, not in the middle.

Cinderella is a rare name, closely connected to the fairytale, and given wide public recognition by the Disney films. Although Cinderella is a sweet character who combines a kind heart with great resilience, and has all her dreams come true, the name and story are troubling in many ways. Cinderella was abused and victimised by her family, and her name is one created by bullies to further humiliate and degrade her.

However, it would be a rather fun middle name, and even as a first name is easily shortened to Cindy, Indie, or Ella. And remember what the Disney song said: Cinderella, you’re as lovely as your name!

POLL RESULTS
Cinderella received an approval rating of 28%. 33% of people thought the name Cinderella was tacky and ridiculous, while 28% believed it would lead to teasing and jokes. However, 9% of people thought that nicknames such as Ella made the name seem more usable. 4% of people were bothered that in the story, the name Cinderella was given to be hurtful and humiliating.

Famous Name: Aurora

25 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Name in the News
On March 17, a rare aurora australis was seen over New Zealand and Australia, swirling across the late night skies in patterns of red, green, blue, and purple. Aurora australis is also known as the Southern Lights, the southern hemisphere equivalent of the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights.

An aurora event occurs when rapidly moving particles that originated from the sun come in and strike the upper atmosphere, more than 100 kilometres above the earth. The energy from the particles striking molecules in the atmosphere are released as light, and the colours that you see depend on which molecules are struck – green and red come from oxygen, while blue and purple are from nitrogen.

Aurora events sometimes happen when large solar flares and explosions of material come off the sun, which is what occurred this week, setting off a geomagnetic storm. An aurora australis is usually best viewed from Antarctica, but moderate ones can be seen from Tasmania. However, this week’s aurora was so bright that it was visible as far north as Canberra, and Goulburn and Kiama in New South Wales, while even in Brisbane there was a red tinge to the sky.

In Aboriginal mythology, the aurora australis was often seen as fire in the sky, and conjectured to be bushfires in the spirit world, campfires glowing in the land of the dead, or fires lit by evil spirits. It seems to have been generally seen as an ill omen, or a sign of a god’s displeasure. In south-west Queensland, where aurorae are uncommon and less spectacular, it was thought that the spirits were able to transmit messages through an aurora, allowing communication with the ancestors.

Rare, awe-inspiring, and staggeringly beautiful, an aurora is a celestial phenomenon not to be missed. Little wonder that in the past it was seen as something mysterious and otherworldly.

Name Information
Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn, and her name literally means “dawn, sunrise, daybreak”. She is the equivalent of the Greek goddess Eos, and the Hindu goddess Ushas. The name comes from an ancient root meaning “shining one”, and is related to the English word east, as well as the Latin aurum, meaning “gold”. It has connotations of springtime, and the new year – all symbols of rebirth and new beginnings.

In Roman mythology, Aurora renews herself each morning and flies across the sky to announce the arrival of the sun, her brother. She often appears in poetry (Virgil describes her as having a “saffron bed”), and her beauty and desirability are such an important part of her image that it is thought she must originally have been a goddess of love, with the different aspects of dawn and eroticism becoming separated into Aurora and Venus.

One of her key myths involves her love affair with a Trojan prince named Tithonus. Wanting to be with Tithonus for all eternity, she asked Jupiter to make him immortal. He granted her request, but because Aurora did not ask for him to remain eternally youthful, he was doomed to be old forever. Aurora saved him from this fate by turning him into a grasshopper.

Although you may read of the goddess Aurora in Tennyson and Shakespeare, see paintings of her, and even hear of her from Bjork, the name is probably best known from the 1959 Disney film Sleeping Beauty, where the comatose princess is called Aurora. In the movie, the king and queen choose the name because their daughter has “filled their lives with sunshine”.

In Charles Perrault’s version of the fairy tale, the Sleeping Beauty was not given a name, but she bears the Prince two children named L’Aurore (“the dawn”) and Le Jour (“the day”). Tchaikovsky’s ballet gives the daughter’s name to the mother, so the Sleeping Beauty is called Princess Aurora, and Disney followed this, as well as the TV series Once Upon a Time. (In the German version of the tale, she is called Briar Rose, which Disney used as Aurora’s code name, and in the earliest Italian one, Talia, who had children named Sun and Moon).

Aurora has been used as a name since the 17th century, and from the beginning was an international choice, showing up in records in England, Italy, and Scandinavia, and by the following century was used in countries all over the world, but especially in Europe.

Currently, Aurora is popular in Norway and most popular in Italy, where it is #3. In the United States, Aurora has been almost constantly on the Top 1000, and is now #145. It has been rising steadily since 1995 – the same year that Disney’s Sleeping Beauty was re-released in cinemas. In England/Wales, Aurora has been on the charts since 2011, and is rising steeply at #257. Amongst English-speaking countries, Aurora is most popular in New Zealand, where it has been Top 100 since 2013 and was #77 last year.

In Australia, Aurora is around the mid-100s, so has a similar popularity to that in the US. As it is rising in other countries, it is most likely rising here too. Around the world, Aurora is often given as a name in scientific contexts, and in Australia it is well known as an energy company. Aurora Point on Macquarie Island is named after the SY Aurora used on Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic expedition, with the yacht itself named after the aurora australis.

Aurora is an internationally recognised name with a poetic meaning and many attractive associations – an alluring dawn goddess, a sunshiney fairy tale princess, an iridiscent light in the heavens. It’s elegant and enchanting, rich and frothy, a name that seems to shimmer with colour, shot through with the rosy pink and gold of daybreak. One drawback is that it not particularly easy to say, which is why Auroras nearly always seem to have a nickname, such as Aura, Auri, Rora, Rory, Ro, or Roo, adding a cute or tomboyish option to a flouncingly feminine name.

POLL RESULTS
Aurora received a decent approval rating of 66%. 21% of people saw the name Aurora as pretty or beautiful, but 16% found it too difficult to pronounce.

(Picture is of Aurora australis seen over the Forth River in Tasmania; photo taken by Julie Head and published in The Advocate).

Famous Name: Rapunzel

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

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Name in the News
March 12 marked the start of the Leukaemia Foundation’s World’s Greatest Shave. One of the participants this year was librarian Nicolette Suttor, from the National Library in Canberra, whose hair hadn’t been cut for a decade, and which hung to her knees.

Nicolette’s cousin Ben died from leukaemia six years ago, and two years ago, her twin sister Camille shaved off her hair to support the Leukaemia Foundation. This year, Nicolette was amongst the thousands of people who signed up to raise money for the World’s Greatest Shave, and she was supported by colleagues, who performed a modern version of the fairy tale Rapunzel ahead of the charity event, with Nicolette taking the lead role.

Since having her 1.4 metre locks of hair removed and her head shorn, real life fairy tale princess Nicolette has raised more than $5500, and her hair will be used to make wigs for leukaemia patients who have lost their hair.

Name Story and Information
The German fairy tale Rapunzel tells of a poor couple who longed for a child. At last the wife became pregnant, and began to develop cravings for a leafy green vegetable, which in Germany is called rapunzel. She told her husband that if she could not eat the delicious looking rapunzel which grew in their neighbour’s walled garden, she would die.

Her husband was very frightened, because their neighbour was an enchantress from the Black Forest, but he was even more frightened of losing his wife. So he climbed the wall into the garden, and stole the rapunzel. The Enchantress caught him, and after he explained he was only taking it for his pregnant wife, she told him he could have as much as he wanted, but on one condition – when the baby was born, he must give it to her.

The man agreed to this, and when the baby was born, it was a girl which they reluctantly handed over to the Enchantress, who took the baby far away, to her own country. She named the girl Rapunzel, after the vegetable which had delivered the child into her hands, and taught the child to call her Gothel (“godmother”).

Rapunzel grew into the loveliest child under the sun, with long hair like spun gold. When Rapunzel turned twelve, the Enchantress locked her in a tower with no stairs or doors, but a tiny window at the top. When the Enchantress wanted to visit Rapunzel, she would call out, Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair! The girl would throw her long, golden, braided hair out the window, so the Enchantress could climb up.

A couple of years later, a prince rode through the forest, and became enraptured by Rapunzel’s sweet singing. Coupled with the sight of her beautiful, wistful face at the tower window, his heart was touched, and each day he rode out to hear her. The day came when he heard the Enchantress give the signal and climb up, and when the coast was clear, he tried his luck by calling out Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!

Rapunzel at first was frightened when a man climbed into her tower. However, the prince was young and handsome, and Rapunzel soon loved him in return, agreeing to become his wife. They decided that the prince would bring Rapunzel silk so she could make herself a ladder – the simpler escape plan of bringing an actual ladder apparently not occurring to them.

While Rapunzel worked on the ladder, she and the prince got to know each better each evening, and it became obvious how well their relationship had progressed when Rapunzel innocently mentioned to her “Gothel” how tight her clothes were growing. No doubt food cravings would have soon developed.

Furious and betrayed, the Enchantress did the “godmother scorned” routine by cutting off Rapunzel’s braid of hair, and taking her into the desert to wander in misery. (There’s no German deserts, so it’s meant in the sense of a dreary, uninhabited wilderness).

The cruel Enchantress then fixed Rapunzel’s braid of hair to an iron spike, and waited in the tower for the prince. When he called out Rapunzel Rapunzel etc etc, the Enchantress let down the braid, and confronted the prince when he climbed into the tower. Heartbroken at the news that Rapunzel was gone, he threw himself from the tower, where he blinded himself on the thorns which grew below.

For some years, the blind prince wandered through the forest living on roots and berries, crying for his lost love. At last he came across Rapunzel, who had in the meantime given birth to their twins, a boy and a girl. Hearing Rapunzel’s beautiful voice, the prince proved love was blind by knowing at once it was his lost love, and hurled himself into her arms.

The two held each other tenderly, and Rapunzel wept. Luckily she had magical tears, because as they fell into the prince’s eyes, his blindness was cured. Hooray! The family hiked back to the prince’s kingdom, where they all lived happily ever after.

The Brothers Grimm adapted Rapunzel from a German fairy tale, which was based on a French one called Persinette – Persinette is derived from the French word for “parsley”, as this was the vegetable craved by the mother in this story. In turn, this was based on the 17th century Italian tale Petrosinella by Giambattista Basile, which is the earliest known version of the story (Petrosinella is Italian for “parsley”).

Rapunzel is similar to the medieval Persian tale of Rūdāba, where the beautiful Rūdāba, meaning “shining child”, lets down her raven-black tresses so her lover Zal can climb into her tower. However, there are a number of folk tales where girls get locked in towers by their parents, such as Danae in Greek mythology, the princess rescued by Cian in Irish legend, and even Saint Barbara.

The vegetable which Rapunzel is named after is Valerianella locusta, otherwise known as lamb’s lettuce or corn salad. The plant will grow in even the most barren of environments, making it a favourite with peasants, and foreshadowing Rapunzel’s own surprising ability to survive in a wilderness. Its German name of rapunzel is derived from the Latin, meaning “valerian root”.

Later versions of the story insist that the rapunzel was actually rampion, a purple bell-like wildflower whose leaves are edible. Perhaps it seemed more palatable for a fairytale heroine to be given a floral name.

The name Rapunzel has been in rare use since the 19th century. I have only been able to find Rapunzels born in the United States, and the name showed up in the data there once – in 1959, when 9 girls were given the name Rapunzel. This was the year after Shirley Temple’s Storybook television series featured the story of Rapunzel, with Carol Lynley in the title role, and Agnes Moorehead as the wicked enchantress.

Despite Rapunzel being the lovely princess in Disney’s charming film Tangled, it hasn’t shown up since, and this would be a very bold choice as a name. Besides the vegetable meaning, the fairy tale shows parents in a poor light, with Rapunzel’s biological parents swapping her for salad in a very short-sighted way, and her adoptive mother being insanely possessive and brutally punishing.

And then there’s the famous tagline, which means that someone named Rapunzel would probably have to hear “let down your hair” on a regular basis, even if they had a bob or a pixie cut.

However, Rapunzel would make an awesome middle name, and even as a first name, nicknames such as Zella and Zellie seem feasible for your little fairy tale princess.

POLL RESULTS
Rapunzel received an approval rating of 33%. 34% of people thought the name Rapunzel would lead to teasing and jokes, but 9% saw it as charming and fantastical.

(Photo shows Nicolette Suttor dressed as Rapunzel)

Waltzing With … Anna

08 Sunday Feb 2015

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Pavlova RM90_01

Famous Namesake
On Thursday February 12, it will be the 134th birthday of the Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova. At a time when the rules of classical ballet were rigidly enforced, the dainty Anna performed in a graceful, romantic style, with less emphasis on precision and acrobatics. The principal artist with the Imperial Ballet and the Ballets Russes, she formed her own company and became the first ballerina to tour as an international star.

It was during one of her tours to Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s that Anna Pavlova would be honoured with the creation of an iconic Australasian dish, and in the process spark a rivalry between the two Trans-Tasman nations, who both claim it as their national dessert.

A pavlova is a meringue cake which has a crisp outer shell, and a soft marshmallow-y filling; a delectable, sweet, melt-in-your-mouth treat which is traditionally smothered in whipped cream and fresh summer fruit. Supposedly, the fragile pavlova was inspired by light-as-air Anna Pavlova, with its meringue casing designed to emulate the soft folds of her white ballet skirt.

Both New Zealand and Australia have some rather dubious stories as to how the pavlova first came to be made and named, but indefatigable research by a New Zealand food historian shows that it definitely originated in New Zealand, with a 1929 recipe being found in a New Zealand magazine. Meanwhile, it didn’t make an appearance in Australia until the early 1930s. So New Zealand gets the honours for inventing the pavlova, although it really does feel as if Australia has embraced the pavlova more heartily – it is a favourite choice to celebrate Australia Day.

I always have a pavlova for my Name Day cake: it not only reflects my name, Anna, but is perfect for a hot summery February Name Day. It’s also very appropriate, because my dad is from New Zealand and my mum born in Australia, so it symbolises the two countries coming together.

Name Information
Anna is the Latinised Greek form of the Hebrew name Hannah, meaning “favour, grace, graciousness”, sometimes translated more freely as “God has favoured me”, or “the grace of God”. The New Testament uses the Greek form Anna, in contrast to the Old Testament Hannah.

The Gospel of Luke tells of Anna the Prophetess, an old widow perhaps more than a century in age, who was very devout, and spent all her time fasting and praying. At the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, celebrated as Candlemas in early February, she immediately recognised the infant Jesus as the redeemer, and gave thanks to God for having been allowed to see Jesus in her lifetime. Despite having a walk-on role in the Gospels, Anna is recognised as a saint.

According to Christian legend, the mother of the Virgin Mary was also named Anna (or Hannah), but she is usually referred to as Saint Anne in order to avoid confusion with Anna the Prophetess. The use of the name Anna was inspired by Saint Anne rather than the aged prophetess.

In classical mythology, Anna was the sister of Dido, Queen of Carthage; she appears in Virgil’s Aeneid. According to the poet Ovid, this Anna was the same being as the Roman goddess Anna Perenna, whose name refers to the “circle of the year” (per annum, in Latin). Her feast day marked the first full moon of the year, and people offered sacrifices so that the year should be successful.

Ovid relates that Anna escaped from Carthage to Italy, where she accidentally drowned and became a river nymph – he translated her name as meaning “perennial stream” (amnis perennis). Ovid says that the goddess was a tiny old woman who baked cakes, and that crude jokes and songs were sung at her festivals. She may have been a mother goddess, and originally Etruscan – if so, her name might be from the Etruscan nanas, meaning “to bear, to beget (a child)”.

Another mythological Anna is the half-sister of King Arthur, usually referred to as Morgause; in many stories she bears Arthur a son, to his downfall. Morgause seems to be a title, meaning “of the Orkneys”, so Anna would have been her personal name.

It may be that she is based on the Irish goddess Anu, sometimes called Ana or Annan. One possibility is that Anu is another name for the mother goddess Danu/Dana, while the war goddess the Morrigan was sometimes called Anand. The British had a winter storm goddess that they referred to as Gentle Annie or Annis, apparently from terror of her hideous powers (this is another link with the name Agnes in Britain). The name is speculated to come from the ancient Celtic anon, meaning “deity, spirit”.

While we’re looking at the name Anna in different cultures, it is worth mentioning that it is also a man’s name, because Anna (or Onna) was an Anglo-Saxon king. One theory is that his name was a nickname for Ethelmund, meaning “noble protection”, or one of the other Ethel- names. Don’t ask me how Anna is short for Ethelmund!

The name Anna has been in common use in the west since the Middle Ages, and has historically been more popular in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, where it was used by the nobility. It was traditional in the Russian royal family, and the 18th century Empress Anna of Russia was a nasty piece of work. Apart from Anna Pavlova, another famous Russian Anna is the beautiful Anna Karenina, title character of the tragic novel by Leo Tolstoy, considered one of the greatest works of fiction ever written.

Anna is a classic name which has never left the charts. It was #208 in the 1900s, and sunk to its lowest level in the 1920s at #353. After that, it began climbing and joined the Top 100 in the 1950s at #89. The rise into popularity may have been influenced by the 1948 film version of Anna Karenina, starring Vivien Leigh, and helped along by the 1956 film The King and I, with Deborah Kerr in the role of Anna. These movies probably helped give Anna a touch of exoticism.

The King and I was based on the Broadway musical of the same name, in turn based on the book Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon, from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens about her experiences as a royal teacher in Bangkok in the 1860s (Anna Leonowens lived for a few years in Western Australia). Anna and the King was made into a TV show in 1972, and although it flopped in the US, had a decent lifespan on Australian television as re-runs, giving the name Anna a fair amount of exposure during the 1970s.

Anna peaked at the start of the 1980s at #34, then gradually sank into the bottom half of the Top 100. It has not shown any signs of serious decline, but remained relatively stable. In 2013, Anna was #64 nationally, #60 in New South Wales, #81 in Victoria, #87 in Queensland, where it rejoined the Top 100 and was one of its fastest-rising names, #47 in Western Australia, and #71 in the Australian Capital Territory. Preliminary results for 2014 suggest Anna may have improved its position, and is one of Victoria’s fastest-rising names of last year.

One of the factors helping the name along must surely be Princess Anna from the 2013 hit Disney film Frozen, the younger sister of “snow queen” Elsa. Anna is an attractive heroine who is brave and hopeful, with a strong, loving heart. I know many little girls – and even some not so little ones – who adore Anna for being sweet and genuine, with an endearing awkwardness. I wonder how many baby Annas have had their name suggested by an older sister?

Anna is still popular and stable after many decades, and even shows signs of a recent boost. It is a popular name all over the world, but tends to be most popular in central and Eastern Europe, and is the #1 name in Austria. Last year blog readers voted Anna their favourite internationally recognisable girls’ name.

I have found Anna a very easy name to wear. It’s a common name never out of use, but has never been highly popular, so I don’t actually know many people with my name, although everyone has heard of it. Nobody has had any problems spelling it (I learned to write my name as a toddler in about a minute!), and everyone can pronounce it to my satisfaction, even those who don’t speak English. The biggest issue is that it sounds similar to other names, such as Hannah and Emma, which can cause a slight hold-up over the phone.

I can’t pretend that Anna is a very exciting name, but for such a short and simple one, I don’t think it is completely boring either. It’s a palindrome, which tickled me as a child, and it has quite an interesting history – it fascinates me that so many Annas from legend have been elderly women, sometimes with quite a dark side! Its “foreignness” made it popular in the mid twentieth century, and even now I think it has a slight touch of European exoticism: Disney chose it for a Scandinavian princess, after all.

POLL RESULT
Anna received a frankly unbelievable approval rating of 100%, making it the highest-rated girls name in the Waltzing With … category, the highest-rated girls name overall, and the highest-rated overall name of 2015. 46% of people loved the name Anna, and nobody disliked or hated it. I have trouble accepting that I have the perfect name, and can’t help thinking that everyone was too polite to say they didn’t like it!

(Picture shows a pavlova; photo from Just LilDaisy)