Tag Archives: honouring

Saturday Celebrity Sibset: Australian-European Influence – Richard Roxburgh and Silvia Colloca

24 Saturday Mar 2012

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Richard Roxburgh is considered one of Australia’s finest actors. He grew up in the country town of Albury in New South Wales as the youngest of six brothers and sisters, the children of John and Mary. He fell in love with acting at the age of 15, playing the lead role in Death of a Salesman to an enchantress named Meryl, but studied economics at university. Richard got as far as applying for an office job before he came to his senses and entered the National Institute of Dramatic Art.

He has won awards for his television roles, and been critically acclaimed for his stage work, particularly as Hamlet. Richard has appeared in several Hollywood blockbusters, where he often seems to be cast as a villain, such as a henchman in Mission Impossible II, and the Duke of Monroth in Moulin Rouge.

He is the only actor who has played, on screen, Sherlock Holmes (in The Hound of the Baskervilles), Holmes’ nemesis, Professor Moriarty (in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), and Count Dracula (in Van Helsing). Orson Welles also managed it, but on radio.

Richard says that he has been attracted to European people and culture since childhood, so it’s no surprise that he married the beautiful Italian actress Silvia Colloca, who played one of the brides of Dracula in Van Helsing. The couple were married in Tuscany in 2004.

Silvia is from Milan, and the youngest of three siblings; her sister is Alessandra, her brother is Giammarco, and they are the children of Loredana and Mario. She trained as a mezzo-soprano at the prestigious Music Academy of Milan, and sang in musical theatre and opera. Van Helsing was her first major movie role; since then she has done more movies, often ones where she again appears as a vampire with a Romanian accent. She has also appeared in Australian film and TV, including the hit drama series, Packed to the Rafters.

Richard and Silvia have two children:

Raphael Jack Domenico “Raffi” (born 2007)

Miro Gianni David (born 2010)

Richard and Silvia live in Sydney and London, consider Italy their home, and are bringing their sons up to be completely bilingual, and equally Italian and Australian. Fittingly, the names of their children are a mixture of names common in both countries.

Raphael (especially with the nickname Raffi) is hugely fashionable here, so they chose a name that doesn’t stand out. Jack is almost stereotypically Aussie, and may honour Richard’s father, John.

Miro has a Slavic name; interesting as they met on a film shot on location in the Czech Republic. However, Richard was drawn to Slavic immigrants as a schoolboy, and became conversant in Yugoslav. Miro is also a word from an Australian Aboriginal language, but they may not have known that. Miro sounds a little like both Richard’s mother Mary, and Silvia’s father, Mario. With the rise of Mira as a name in vogue, the masculine form Miro seems a perfect match with Raphael.

Thank you to Siobhan for suggesting the Roxburgh family as a Celebrity Sibset.

Famous Names: Sebastian and Jenson

21 Wednesday Mar 2012

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The Australian Grand Prix was held in Melbourne on the weekend, and before the event there was plenty of buzz in the media around German Sebastian Vettel, and British Jenson Button. These glamorous visitors from Europe always get a lot of attention, for both are handsome and charming; Vettel amusing and slightly mysterious, Button affable and quietly confident. In the end, Button opened the F1 season with a victory, winning comfortably against Vettel with a 2.2 second margin. It is his third Australian Grand Prix victory. (Picture has Vettel on the left in black).

I thought we’d take a look at the names of both these Formula One champions, because Sebastian and Jenson are Googled often to reach my blog, and so far I haven’t added any requested boys names to the Featured Names list, while I’ve been quite conscientious about adding the girls.

Sebastian is from the Latin name Sebastianus, which means “from Sebaste”. There were several places called Sebaste, because it is the Greek form of Augusta, named in honour of the Emperor Augustus. His adopted name meant “great, majestic, venerable”. There are towns in modern-day Turkey and Palestine with this name (or a version of it), still with ancient Roman ruins which can be visited.

The name became well known because of Saint Sebastian, a 3rd century Roman soldier originally from southern France. Skilled at converting people, according to legend he was shot through with arrows, yet did not die, so had to be martyred twice. He became popular in the Middle Ages because he was said to protect people from the plague, and also began to be depicted as a beautiful, semi-nude young man. (In early pictures, he looks like an ordinary bearded fully-clothed saint).

The name was popular amongst Continental royalty and nobility, and still retains a slightly upper-class image. Sebastian is Viola’s twin brother in Shakespeare’s gender-switching romantic comedy, Twelfth Night. Lord Sebastian Flyte is one of the main characters in Evelyn Waugh’s novel, Brideshead Revisited; beautiful and rather fey, the TV series and film makes it clear Sebastian is homosexual, although this is left ambiguous in the novel. Indeed, Saint Sebastian himself is considered a gay icon (for pretty flimsy reasons), and the name was a code for homosexuality; Oscar Wilde’s pseudonym was Sebastian Melmoth. So far, so androgynous.

However, the name got a watery overhaul when the name Sebastian was given to a Jamaican lobster in the Disney film, The Little Mermaid. Sebastian is a court composer, and a good friend and adviser to Ariel, the mermaid of the title. A Rastafarian who can lay down a reggae beat, he has given the name a new level of cool. The choice of his name seems like a deliberate reference to another famous composer: Johann Sebastian Bach. Incidentally, Sebastian is the lobster’s surname – his first name is Horatio (maybe after the American composer, Horatio Parker).

Sebastian first entered the charts in the 1960s and began steadily climbing, to become Top 100 by the 2000s. At #38 it still seems to be gaining in popularity – an elegant name that belongs to many people’s favourite Disney character.

Jenson is a lot more straightforward. It’s a surname which is basically a form of Johnson, being based on the name Jens, a short form of Johannes. According to Lou at Mer de Noms (rather a Jenson Button fan), the name Jenson has edged itself into the UK Top 100, and its growing popularity can be attributed almost solely to Mr Button himself. As to how he got his name, he was named after a family friend, Erling Jensen (father of F1 driver Steven Jensen). The spelling was altered so that it didn’t reference Jensen Motors, who made British sports cars until the 1970s.

It’s an attractive name, and one I think we’d be using in spades if Jenson Button was Australian. As it is, it’s one many parents are at least putting on their lists, although my personal feeling is that Jensen is slightly more popular, thanks to handsome American actor Jensen Ackles, from Supernatural. As I’ve said before, with female Jennifer become less popular, it gives male names starting with Jen- more of a chance.

When I try to decide which name I like best, Sebastian or Jenson, I find myself in private debate. If I take the side of Sebastian, it seems more sophisticated than Jenson, complex and multi-syllabled, romantic and princely. On the other hand, if I take the side of Jenson, it seems more laddish and chipper, down-to-earth and unpretentious, with oodles of cheeky British charm.

So I am content to say these are both very nice names, and I won’t force them to compete against each other in some Baby Name Grand Prix. When it comes to nicknames for them, I think of Seb and Bastian, and Jens and Sonny, respectively.

Saturday Celebrity Sibset: The Rockers – Brody Dalle and Josh Homme

03 Saturday Mar 2012

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This is yet another celebrity baby from 2011 I didn’t see, so made it a Celebrity Sibset instead.

Brody Dalle is a punk rocker who is originally from Melbourne. Her parents named her Bree, and she picked the unisex name Brody for herself as a teenager. Apparently as a child she was called Breezy Wheezy by her family because she had asthma, which rather ruined the name Bree for her.

She has used the middle names Leslie and Joanna Alice; I’m not sure if either of them are her original middle name/s. She has managed an impressive seven surnames during her life, and it’s unclear what the original surname was. She went by Pucilowski, Mayer and Robinson just as a teenager. Eventually she chose Dalle in reference to Béatrice Dalle, her favourite actress. Béatrice Dalle is best known for the film Betty Blue.

Brody began her career in punk at the age of thirteen, and at sixteen she met Tim Armstrong, the vocalist for punk rock band Rancid at a music festival. They began a relationship, although Tim was more than thirteen years her senior. They married when Brody turned 18, and she moved to Los Angeles with her husband, where she founded the band The Distillers. Brody and Tim divorced six years later.

In 2007, Brody married Josh Homme, lead singer from rock band Queens of the Stone Age, and founded the indie rock band Spinnerette; the couple live in Palm Springs, California.

Josh also has an interesting name – he was named after the town he was born in, Joshua Tree, in the Mojave Desert of California. He pronounces his Norwegian surname to rhyme with Tommy, although the Norwegian pronunciation is to rhyme with puma. He has adopted the pseudonym Carlo von Sexron for some of his work, and his nicknames include King Baby Duck, J. Ho, Joe’s Hoe, and the Ginger Elvis.

Brody and Josh have two children, and as they have enjoyed re-naming themselves so much, it’s interesting to see what names they would choose for their children.

Camille Harley Joan was born in 2006. Camille is named after Josh’s grandmother, and Josh collects motorcycles, which probably explains Harley. Although Joan looks like Brody’s middle name Joanna, it also reminds me of rock queen Joan Jett, who must have had some influence on Dalle herself. However, for all I know it’s another family name.

Orrin Ryder was born in 2011. Rumour has it that just as Camille is named after Josh’s grandma, Orrin is named for his grandfather, but I can’t confirm that. Josh has both his grandmother’s and grandfather’s nicknames tattooed on his knuckles – CAM and CAP – so it does have some symmetry. It’s hard not to connect the name Ryder with Josh’s motorcycle hobby as well.

Being called after a family member seems cosy and non-punk, although being named after Dad’s tattoos and motorbikes gives them a bit more of a rock edge.

I wonder if Camille and Orrin will follow the family tradition of giving new names to themselves, and what names they will choose?

Celebrity Baby News: Eddie Perfect and Lucy Cochran

25 Saturday Feb 2012

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Comedian Eddie Perfect, and his wife, Lucy Cochran, welcomed their second daughter on February 21. Her name is Lottie Lux, and she was born at 3 pm in Melbourne, weighing 3.94 kg (8 pounds 11 ounces). Lottie joins big sister Kitty, aged 18 months. Eddie jokes that as a father of only daughters, he will soon come to resemble Mr Bennett from Pride and Prejudice.

Eddie is a comedian and musician who has appeared on television for many years, as well as in his stage shows. He has written a satirical musical about cricketer Shane Warne which won multiple awards, and was named Best Entertainer in the Bulletin‘s 100 Brightest Australians for his caustic lyrics, impeccable timing and boy-next-door looks. He currently plays Mick Holland on the Channel 10 series Offspring; Eddie’s fellow cast member Kat Stewart welcomed her own baby, Archie, last month.

Lucy is a strategic planner with advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi. She and Eddie met in 2006, and were married last year.

Lottie Perfect’s middle name seems a definite nod to her mother, and as we had a celebrity baby called Lux Edward last year, the name Lux seems to be in unisex territory.

(In case you were wondering, Perfect is Eddie’s real name and not a stage name).

Famous Name: Beyoncé

21 Saturday Jan 2012

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Pop diva Beyoncé has been in the news a lot recently, since the birth of her first child, Blue Ivy Carter. However, her name has hit the headlines for a different reason, after inspiring an Australian taxonomist to name a horse fly after her.

Bryan Lessard, from the CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra, named the fly Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae because it has a prominent golden lower abdomen. To Bryan, who admits to being something of a fan, the unique dense gold hairs on the fly reminded him of Beyoncé’s flashy golden stage outfits.

The rare fly was collected in 1981, the same year Beyoncé was born, from eucalypt forests in the Atherton Tablelands of Queensland.

I’m not sure whether this is the most flattering thing that’s ever happened to Beyoncé, but I love that it shows scientists are just normal people who listen to R&B in their labs while they work, and find themselves as captivated by a gold frock as the next person. And perhaps are human enough to want to see their names in the gossip magazines, and maybe even get a personal response from their idol (she hasn’t made one).

BEYONCE

Beyoncé’s name is as unique as the horse fly, being created especially for her. Her mother Tina’s maiden name is Beyincé, a Creole surname from Louisiana. When she discovered that the Beyincé name was dying out, Tina decided to call her daughter Beyoncé, her own version of the surname. Apparently Tina’s parents were not impressed at first, because “that’s a last name”.

Beyincé is a form of the French surname Boyancé, related to the Old French word for “wood”. It’s an equivalent of English surnames such as Woodward or Forrester.

While the names of celebrities often become popular baby names (think Scarlett and Ashton, for example), Beyoncé’s name remains in very rare use. It belongs so completely to herself, and no other.

DESTINY

Destiny’s Child was the successful girl group of which Beyoncé was a founding member, prior to her embarking on her solo career.

The English word destiny comes from French, and ultimately from the Latin destino, the source of the word destination, meaning “appoint, establish”. It comes from an ancient root meaning “to stand, to place” (also the source of the word obstinate). Destiny is used as a synonym for the word fate, although technically fate is the divine agency or power which brings about the predetermined future events which are our destiny.

Destiny has been used as a girl’s name since the 19th century, and originated in the United States. It has been on the US Top 1000 since 1975, and reached the Top 100 in 1994, leaving it in 2012. It is currently #203.

In the UK, Destiny peaked in 2001 at #211 , and is currently #412. It is also in use in The Netherlands, and is a fairly uncommon name in Australia, although certainly not unknown.

Apart from Destiny’s Child, the name may remind you of Destiny Cyrus, the birth name of actress and singer Miley Cyrus (born just after the name reached the Top 100). It’s a slightly dated virtue name which still has a spiritual or philosophical feel to it, but also suggests the strength to forge your own path in life, to make your own destiny.

POLL RESULTS

Beyoncé gained an approval rating of 15% from the public. Only one person liked the name Beyoncé, while 68% thought it was terrible.

Destiny did rather better, with an approval rating of 32%. However, once again only one person liked the name, and 48% thought it was terrible.

 

Famous Name: Elvis

14 Saturday Jan 2012

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This article was first published on January 14 2012, and substantially revised and re-posted on September 14 2016.

Famous Festival
On January 11, the 20th annual Elvis Festival kicked off in the country town of Parkes, west of Sydney – an annual celebration of Elvis Presley’s life and music. For five days in the second week of January, the population of Parkes is swelled by Elvis impersonators, women with big hair, and people wearing blue suede shoes. There are parades, contests, dancing, singing, hip swivelling, and a mass renewal of wedding vows performed by a celebrant in an Elvis costume.

The festival began in 1992, when a small group of local Elvis fans decided to hold a festival on the day of the star’s birthday, January 8.  The next year the festival attracted 200 people from around the country; by 2005 they came in their thousands, by 2007 it had been extended to five days, and now there are more than a hundred events, and the town’s population of 10 000 more than doubles during the Elvis Festival.

The townspeople were originally lukewarm on the Elvis Festival idea. Parkes is the proud owner of an observatory, which has at times assisted NASA on space missions (as fictionalised in the movie The Dish), and had always seen itself as devoted to science and research. An Elvis Festival seemed a bit frivolous.

However by now Parkes has fully embraced the festival, and the whole town gets into the fun by dressing up and decorating the buildings. It’s one of the mayor’s roles to dress as an Elvis impersonator and meet the train from Sydney, where all the similarly-attired fans have travelled together.

People flock here from all over the globe to come to the self-proclaimed Elvis Capital of the World. It injects millions into the economy of the town, and in 2007 they set a record for the most number of Elvis impersonators in one place.

In 2017 the Festival will celebrate its 25th birthday and the theme will be Viva Las Vegas.

Name Information
Elvis Presley was one of those performers lucky enough to have been given such a distinctive name that he had no need to choose a stage name. He was named for his father Vernon, whose middle name was Elvis.

Elvis is an Anglicisation of the Irish name Ailbhe, said like Alva: the meaning is not known for sure, but may derive from the Gaelic albho, meaning “white” – it is also Anglicised as Albus, the Latin for “white”. The name Ailbhe could be given to either sex, and in Irish legend there is a female warrior and follower of Finn McCool named Ailbhe.

A male example of the name is Saint Ailbhe, nearly always known as Saint Elvis. He was a 6th century bishop venerated as one of the four great patron saints of Ireland. Saint Ailbe’s legend is quite fairy-tale – cast out by his royal father (like Oedipus), he was raised by a she-wolf (like Romulus and Remus), and at the end of his life voyaged by ship to the Otherworld (like King Arthur going to Avalon). There is a Welsh village named St Elvis in the saint’s honour, as he is said to have baptised Saint David, the patron of Wales, in this area.

The English surname Elvis does not seem to be derived from the Irish name, and is probably a variant of the surname Elwes, which comes from the female name Heloise or Eloise.

Elvis has been used as a name since perhaps the 18th century, and in Ireland seems to have been used as a female name, although it wasn’t common (today Ailbhe is a popular name for girls in Ireland). However in England the name was mostly masculine, suggesting that there the surname was the primary influence.

The name Elvis went on to become most commonly used in the United States, and was usually a boy’s name. Despite the feminine origin of the surname, it probably sounded like male names such as Alvis and Alvin, giving it a masculine feel.

In Australian records Elvis was nearly always given to girls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which makes sense considering our strong Irish heritage. It also fit in with turn-of-the-century name trends for girls, such as Alva and Elva. Once Elvis Presley became famous in the 1950s, the name virtually disappeared from records as a girl’s name.

In the US, the name Elvis has charted on and off in the Top 1000 for boys since the late 19th century, becoming more established there around 1910. Before Elvis Presley became famous, its highest peak was #584 in 1919, and it was #900 in 1935, the year Elvis Presley was born.

The name Elvis went off the charts around the time Elvis Presley began his career in 1954, but returned in 1955, so the star did affect the name’s popularity. Elvis peaked in 1957 at #312, the year after Presley released number one hits such as Heartbreak Hotel and made his film debut in Love Me Tender – female fans screamed with excitement non-stop during the movie, even though it had quite a serious plot and a sad ending.

The name Elvis last charted in the US Top 1000 in 2011. Last year in the US there were 180 baby boys given the name Elvis, and numbers are fairly stable.

In the UK, the name Elvis has charted since the 1990s, and the name made the Top 1000 in the early 2000s, peaking at #761 in 2003, and again in 2008 when it made #943. It rose steeply last year, and was back on the Top 1000 at #873.

In Australia, Elvis is not a common name, but I generally see two or three examples of it as a baby name per year – enough to convince me it isn’t a rare name either, and probably has a similar popularity to the UK. A famous Australian with the name is former mixed martial artist Elvis Sinosic.

Elvis has two other musical namesakes. One is British star Elvis Costello, who was born Declan MacManus, and the other is American folk singer Elvis Perkins, the son of actor Anthony Perkins (Elvis Perkins was born the year before Elvis Presley died). Costello’s manager chose the stage name Elvis in reference to Presley, while Anthony Perkins was an Elvis fan.

Elvis, if you forget about its most famous namesake for a moment, sounds like a vintage name ready for revival, complete with fashionable V. And yet it never can be separated from Mr Elvis Aaron Presley. The name will always conjure images of white satin bodysuits covered in rhinestones, brilliantined dark hair, and a heart-stopping smile.

Even though Elvis is not a rare or unusual name, it’s still something of a bold choice as it’s likely to elicit some strong opinions. But you’ll have to tell the naysayers you’d like a little less conversation about it, because you can’t help falling in love with the name Elvis. It’s a truly royal name because it belongs to the one and only king, baby!

POLL RESULTS
Elvis received an approval rating of 42%. 35% of people thought the name was too closely associated with Elvis Presley, although 9% thought it was either handsome or cute. Only one person thought the name Elvis sounded redneck.

(Picture shows Elvis impersonators at the Parkes Elvis Festival, with the Observatory in the background)

Celebrity Baby News: Penny Wong and Sophie Allouache

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

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The Federal Finance Minister, Penny Wong, and her partner, Sophie Allouache, welcomed their first child on December 11. Their daughter is named Alexandra, which is Sophie’s middle name. Alexandra was born 8 am at Adelaide Women’s and Children’s Hospital weighing 3.23 kg (7 pounds).

Penelope “Penny” Wong is an Australian Labor Party Senator for South Australia and the Federal Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Penny is the first openly gay member of the Australian federal cabinet, and the first born in Asia (she was born in Malaysia, and moved to Australia as a child). Sophie is a public servant, and she and Penny have known other since they were students at Adelaide University.

Senator Wong announced in August that her partner Sophie was pregnant, explaining that they were on an IVF programme and using a donor who was known to them, but who would not be identified for privacy reasons. She will be taking plenty of time off to get to know her new daughter.

Alexandra was born a week after Labor debated the issue of gay marriage at their annual conference – a debate led by Senator Wong. Early next year, the Labor MP Stephen Jones will introduce a private member’s bill to legalise gay marriage. Labor MPs will be allowed a conscience vote but Coalition MPs will not.

However, Penny Wong has stressed that Alexandra’s birth is not a political statement: ”You have a child because you want a family and you want to have the opportunity of raising a child together.”

(Story and photo from The Daily Telegraph and Sydney Morning Herald, December 14 2011)

Celebrity Baby News: Chris and Jane Thompson

08 Thursday Dec 2011

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Sunshine Coast councillor, Chris Thompson, and his wife Jane, welcomed their fourth child and first son on December 2, weighing 3.8 kg. They have named him Matthew Ian, and Matthew arrived on his due date, at 7.50 pm after a brief labour, and shortly before his parents’ sixth wedding anniversary.

Matthew Thompson joins big sisters Seanna, aged 5; Ella, nearly 4; and Mary, aged 21 months. The girls are “smitten” with their “early Christmas present”, and keep “poking and prodding” their new brother. The Thompsons don’t plan on having any more children.

The Thompsons chose the name Matthew because they liked it, and Ian is Councillor Thompson’s father’s name. They considered Thomas, but didn’t like the idea of people calling him Tommy, and also Joseph – but having a Mary and a Joseph in one sibset didn’t seem feasible.

Chris Thompson has been a Councillor since 2004, and holds the portfolio of Financial Management and Business Unit Performance.

(Story and photo from Sunshine Coast Daily, December 8 2011)

Poet Poppin Nicholson: A Daughter for Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson, a Sister for Talon Jordi and Arlo Ray

04 Sunday Dec 2011

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Kasey Chambers has impeccably authentic country music roots. When she was only a few weeks old, her father, guitarist Bill Chambers, and her mother Diane took her and her two-year-old brother Nash to the Nullarbor Plain. It was meant to be a working holiday shooting foxes and rabbits, but the holiday lasted for ten years. Kasey grew up wandering the desert with her nomadic parents. They slept in the open air, or in the back of the family Landcruiser; each night under the stars, Bill would sing country songs to them around the campfire.

When the ten year “holiday” came to an end, the Chambers family moved to a fishing village in South Australia so that Bill and Diane could resume their interrupted music careers, and Kasey and Nash could attend school with children their own age. Back in civilisation, with mod cons like radio and TV, Kasey discovered Top 40 music and was soon rocking out to Mötley Crüe and Metallica – but those formative years spent listening to her dad sing songs by Hank Williams and the Carter Family left their mark on her.

Bill and Diane began playing in pubs and clubs again and before long they became a group, as first Kasey, and then Nash, joined their parents on stage. They called themselves The Dead Ringer Band, as Nash and Kasey resembled their parents so closely. During her teens, Kasey not only gained experience as a performer, but also began writing songs. Nash built his own studio so that he could produce the band’s albums (he is now a full-time music producer). The Dead Ringer Band put out seven albums, won three ARIAs, two MOs and seven Golden Guitars during the 1990s.

After Bill and Diane separated, the band took a long break. When EMI tried to sign them and found the band were no longer together, they were happy to sign Kasey as a solo artist instead. She and Diane took a trip to Africa, and there she wrote many of the songs for her first album, The Captain. The Captain was recorded on Norfolk Island, her mother’s new home, with her dad playing guitar and her brother producing. The album went double platinum, and Kasey went on to win ARIAs for Best Country Album and Best Female Artist. On the back of her success, she toured the US as a support act to Lucinda Williams, and supported Emmylou Harris on her Australian tour.

The Captain was a good start to Kasey’s solo career, but her next album, Barricades and Brick Walls, made her a country pop star. Not only did the album go seven times platinum, but her single “Not Pretty Enough” went double platinum. She is the only Australian country artist to have a #1 single and a #1 album in the charts at the same time. She won ARIAs for Album of the Year, Best Country Album and Best Female Artist.

In 2005 Kasey married singer-songwriter Shane Nicholson; they met in the early 2000s when Kasey’s brother Nash produced Shane’s critically-acclaimed album It’s a Movie, for which Kasey and Shane performed a duet. In 2007, Kasey and Shane welcomed their first child together, Arlo Ray – he is named after folk musician Arlo Guthrie, and Ray is the name of Shane’s father.

Kasey already had a four-year-old son from a previous relationship to actor Cori Hopper, and although Cori may not have been the perfect partner for her, they were compatible enough as baby-namers to both come up with the name Talon for their son independently. Kasey is a fan of songwriter Fred Eaglesmith, and Cori was a supporter of the West Coast Eagles football team, so Talon made sense to both of them. Talon was declared one of the worst celebrity baby names in a Brisbane newspaper, and an elderly woman told her the name was “horrible” – luckily Kasey just found this hilarious.

To continue the family tradition, Talon Hopper is already writing his own songs, and has his own band, called The Little Hillbillies, of which Arlo is also a member. Others in the band are Nash’s children Eden, Béla and Skye, and Bill Chamber’s kids from his new relationship, called Tyler and Jake. Rounding it out is Townes Werchon, the son of Kasey’s best friends Worm and Bernadette. The band has brought out an album called Little Kasey Chambers, Poppa Bill and The Little Hillbillies. Kasey says it is a “politically incorrect” children’s album (I think that means it has songs about poo on it). The album was nominated for the ARIA for Best Children’s Album in 2010, but lost to The Wiggles’ Let’s Eat! I hope that wasn’t about poo, anyway.

And now Kasey and Shane have added their baby girl, Poet Poppin, to this big crazy musical extended family. I am just so happy to have Miss Poet Poppin Nicholson as my last celebrity baby name profile for the year, because she is a name-blogger’s dream. She’s exactly what people want from a celebrity baby name – something original, slightly outrageous, fun, fresh and lyrical.

Poet because she is the daughter of two songwriters, and Poppin was chosen by her big brothers – because she kept “poppin’ around” in Kasey’s womb before she was born. Add another celebrity trend to the mix: baby names chosen by their siblings. If all the digits on both my hands were thumbs, I still wouldn’t have enough to give as many thumbs up as I’d like.

This year Kasey won the International Songwriting Competition’s Grand Prize for “Beautiful Mess”, a song she wrote for her children:

She says, “I was at home babysitting a friend’s one-year-old son along with my two boys. It was one of those chaotic days with kids running around and having lots of fun while this song was coming out. And that’s what it felt like that day – a beautiful mess. That’s what parenting constantly feels like. It’s specifically written for Arlo and Talon, who are the most important things in my entire life. I love them, and I have an outlet to show them that through songs.”

That’s kind of how I see Kasey’s naming style: it’s kind of a mess, but boy, it’s just beautiful.

(Photo from Shane Nicholson’s website).

Saturday Sibset: Jacinta Tynan and Her Two Boys

15 Saturday Oct 2011

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Jacinta Tynan is a journalist and news presenter who works for Sky News Australia. She is the grand-niece of author John O’Grady, who wrote the best-selling comic classic, They’re a Weird Mob, under the name Nino Culotta; he made rather a career of explaining the Australian culture of his time, with satirical books such as Aussie English and Aussie Etiket.

Jacinta has two young sons: Jasper Jerome Pep, aged 2, and Otis Liam Francis, who was born just a few months ago in May.

Jacinta’s partner is property executive Liam Timms, and he has also managed to get himself on television, appearing on ABC’s science show Catalyst, in a special on the science behind fatherhood. Baby stories so often focus on the mother and neglect fathers that I do recommend clicking this link to watch the show, and if you can’t watch the video, you can read the transcript.

At the end of the show, we get to see Liam’s reactions as his son is being born, and nervousness soon turns to fear, because there are complications, and he is told Jacinta needs an emergency caesarean. While the other dads got to be at the birth of their children, poor Liam was left anxiously pacing the corridor.

In fact, Jasper’s entrance to the world was dramatic all round, because what the show doesn’t tell you is that Jacinta went into labour while she was reading the news! She was in labour for 48 hours, and the baby just refused to come out, until the caesarean was performed as a last resort. Jacinta had done a Calmbirth course, and was meditating throughout, so she coped extremely well. Even though Jasper had been through a gruelling ordeal being born, doctors were amazed at what a calm baby he was, which Jacinta attributes to her meditating twice daily during pregnancy.

On Catalyst, you get to see the end of Liam’s story – he is left alone with Jasper for two hours, and quite clearly falls in love with him at first sight. It was a very touching conclusion, because unlike the other dads, Liam was worried that he wouldn’t be able to summon the “right” emotions or bond with his son, and it just wasn’t a problem at all.

Jacinta was one of the mature-aged mothers who dashed off a huffy opinion piece in the wake of Dr Barry Walters telling her that she was “selfish” to have had her first child at 40, and her second at 41. She feels that she is now the best mother it is possible for her to be, having achieved most of her dreams, and is now ready to devote herself fully to her children.

You would think that Jacinta might have had some sympathy for Dr Walters being vilified in the press, as she too was subjected to much vitriol after publishing an article on how flipping easy parenting is. After being a parent for a whole 9 months, she decided she pretty much knew everything about it, and told us all motherhood was an absolute breeze and everyone should stop complaining about it.

I’m not sure why Jasper Jerome was named Jasper Jerome, but the name Pep is after the boat that Liam and Jacinta met on (Liam is a keen boatie, and according to the Catalyst show, seems to have bought a cradle to take the baby on the boat before anything else).

Otis Liam Francis appears to have been born very quietly, and without all the fanfare of his big brother. He is one of two celebrity babies named Otis this year, and has his dad’s name as one of his middles.

Jasper and Otis seem like a very “American-style” sibset to me, with a touch of the West about it, as well as a touch of Hollywood. It’s handsome, hipster, and old money made cool again.