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Names Spotted at Home and Abroad: Winter Edition

02 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by in Names Spotted at Home and Abroad

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A new trend at the moment is for a baby’s christening gown to be modelled on its mother’s wedding dress (hands up anyone who thinks it’s weird for a baby to wear a wedding dress). Mum Annie [pictured] loved her pink tulle and silk wedding dress so much that it seemed the obvious choice for a mini-me christening gown for her seven-month old daughter – and at $1200 a pop, dress designers are happy to replicate their creations in teeny-tiny mode. I know people are interested in what names the wealthy and fashionable choose for their children, and Annie’s daughter is named Pierra – which looks like a feminine form of Pierre, although it also looks like Sierra with a P.

I featured Sassafras on the blog as a girls name last year, but admit to feeling a bit doubtful at the time because I’d only ever seen the name used once – in a birth notice four or five years ago. Was it too out there to suggest as a baby name? Then after seeing a Sass Winnie in a birth announcement in August, regular commenter Sophia said that she knew a little girl named Sassafras, nn Sass. I idly asked an interstate friend over the phone if she knew a Sassafras (not thinking she would) – answer: yes, there’s a Sassafras at her son’s primary school. Now I see a toddler named Sassafras in the local paper from Bellingen on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. If nothing else, my mind has been eased about including Sassafras. It’s clearly less daring, and a lot less rare, than I thought.

A baby boy from Queensland was born very unexpectedly while his mother was taking a nap. He was born in July, on the night of the NRL State of Origin decider between Queensland and New South Wales, just as his father had left for the game. He was named Benji, after his dad’s favourite NRL player, Benji Marshall, from the Wests Tigers, who has recently changed codes and countries and gone to rugby union in New Zealand. I have noticed a lot of baby boys named Benji in the past year or so, and wonder how many of them were named after Benji Marshall – and if the numbers will dry up now that he has gone.

This website has photos of twins from around the world. WARNING: MAJOR CUTENESS ALERT! Name nerd theory states that twin names must not be “matchy”, but here’s proof tons of parents think the matchier the better. Here we have Zoe and Chloe, Jaqi and Jaqari, Xander and Xavier, Evan and Ivan, Jake and Jimi, Ruby and Rose, Jack and Daniel. I did like Reef and Eden, and Gwendoline and Jasper.

This mother of a gorgeous baby boy has the name Oriana, a medieval literary name which may mean “sunrise” or “gold”, or possibly something else. The name might remind you of the famous cruise liners, or more recently, the Bratz doll. It’s certainly a stunning name which seems very usable, with Ariana and Aurelia so fashionable at present. Oriana has a heartbreaking struggle ahead of her, so we wish a speedy recovery to her son Luca.

A story on postnatal depression, and how worryingly few people take it seriously enough, interviewed a mum, now recovered from her PND, named Cybele. Cybele is a Phrygian mother goddess whose ancient Near Eastern name possibly means “mountain”, to suggest “born from stone, born from the earth”. It is said SIB-uh-lee. I think that’s a gorgeous name, and with Sybilla so trendy, seems like a great choice for parents who want something a bit different.

Lavington Fisher of South Australia recently passed his 100th birthday, and looks absolutely amazing for his age. Lavington is a surname from place names in England meaning “Lafa’s people”; the Anglo-Saxon name Lafa may be understood as “survivor, treasure, heirloom, remnant”. Lavington is a good name for someone who has lived for more than a century! There is a place in New South Wales called Lavington, named after the English towns. It reminds me of both lavender, and lamington cakes.

The Great Australian Bake Off on Channel Nine included a contestant in her twenties named Bliss. I’ve noticed quite a few people on name forums who love the idea of Bliss, but worry that it won’t seem “name-like” enough. Having seen Bliss on a real person, I can assure them it doesn’t seem much different to Joy as a name. The trouble is that to me Bliss always seemed like a very flakey name, and the real life Bliss was actually quite ditzy and flakey, so it was rather annoying to have my name prejudice confirmed so readily.

The winner of the show was named Nancy, and I was delighted to see this name on an intelligent, attractive engineering student. I featured this name on the blog, and was pleased how well Nancy works as a young person’s name (apart from on girl detective Nancy Drew, who must be getting on a bit by now). It’s such a smart, spunky name.

Abby from Appellation Mountain did a Nameberry post about some interesting names from her family history. Most of the names from my family tree aren’t too exciting. However, when I looked way, way, way, way back, I did find a Hercules in the 17th century, a great-uncle many times over. Now I wouldn’t name a son Hercules, but it could be usable as a middle name. The thing is, is a connection from the 17th century, not even a direct ancestor, too much of a stretch as a “family name”? At what point does a name from your family tree cease to become a family name (considering that all people are related to each other at some point)?

I was chatting to some friends about the surge in popularity for retro names from the 1900s to the 1930s, such as Olive, Hazel and Florence. The general consensus was that they were over it – it’s been done to death, and so, so boring. They thought to have an interesting retro name now, you had to turn to the 1940s and ’50s – something like Linda or Valerie would seem much more hip. What staggered me is that Olive has only has just started to become popular, while Hazel and Florence aren’t even in the Top 100 yet! Yet they are already “boring”. At this rate, we will have revisited all the name trends of the 20th century by the next decade.

Why Your Child Will Hate Their Name

22 Sunday Sep 2013

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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)

Upper Class Baby Names

18 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by in Your Questions Answered

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Class, baby names, and judgement thereof seems to be a topic under discussion everywhere at the moment. BRW magazine told us how to name our babies like a rich person, Wendy Harmer set high, perhaps unattainable standards for baby names, an American blogger told us how names are done in Old Blighty’s class system, and a random Devonian reality television contestant decided nobody’s baby names were good enough, not even hers. Perhaps the royal baby is the catalyst for all this reflection – he didn’t escape the scrutiny either; the reality TV contestant decided he had a “dog name”.

And then I checked my search engine stats this week, and found that someone had Googled what baby names do upper class australians use.

Strictly speaking, Australia doesn’t have an upper class, because we don’t have a hereditary aristocracy. It’s usual to consider the richest people of a country the de facto upper class, but when we talk of someone being “upper class”, it has connotations of more than mere possession of a large disposable income. Some of the richest families in Australia are from traditionally working class or middle class backgrounds – they’re just regular people with vast fortunes.

While Australia does have a class system, it’s a flattened-out one, with fewer social divisions, and a large middle ground. Class is more fluid and less structured here than some other places. Of course, that doesn’t mean we are free of all status markers and snobbery – including name snobbery.

So if we don’t have an upper class, do we have upper class baby names? I don’t think so, because any particular name is used by a wider variety of people than you might suppose. Although in our imaginations, poor people have children named Jaidyn and Tayylah, and rich people send Agatha and Lucius off to St Barnaby’s or the Kindergarten of Higher Consciousness, in real life it is a lot less stereotypical.

When you register your baby name, the registry doesn’t ask for your family tree or your bank balance. They won’t ever say, Look, I think Peregrine is out of your price range. Might I suggest something more affordable, like Cooper? All names are equal, because they cost the same amount to register. No matter how humble your circumstances, you can give your baby any name you want – elegant, serious, trendy, sassy, bold, or eye-raising.

And because all names are equal, they won’t make any difference to your own social position, or to your child’s. A poverty-stricken family won’t receive an invitation to join the Yacht Club just because their daughter is named Agatha, and a Jaidyn born into wealth will have just as privileged a life as if his name had been Lucius, and will be just as welcome at St Barnaby’s.

Although some people fret that their baby’s name needs to sound like a doctor, a judge, a professor, or a prime minister for them to succeed, in real life surgeons are named Kellee, chief justices are named Wayne, academics are named Tiffany and Brandy, and prime ministers are named Kevin. Not only does your name not indicate where you came from, it doesn’t indicate where you are going either.

However, it’s fair to say that some names have an upper class image. I don’t think Australia is significantly different from other English-speaking countries when it comes to what names may be perceived as upper class.

Names Which May Be Seen as Upper Class

Please note: This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a few ideas as to what I think sounds “upper class”, what others may perceive as upper class, or that I have noticed upper-middle class people choosing. I am not recommending these styles of name, or suggesting you use them.

  • Classic English-style names eg Thomas and Lucy
  • Anglo-Saxon type names eg Alfred and Edith
  • Names from European royalty eg Leopold and Adelaide
  • Latin and Latinate names eg Rufus and Aurelia; Hugo and Miranda
  • Classical names eg Leander and Hermione
  • Retro names eg Arthur and Florence
  • So old-fashioned that they’re hip eg Reginald and Gertrude
  • Vintage-style nicknames as full names eg Monty and Lottie
  • Names that have remained in use while never becoming popular eg Theodore and Susannah
  • Uncommon Scottish-style names for boys eg Cormac and Fergus
  • Uncommon flower names for girls eg Dahlia and Saffron
  • Historical surname names for boys eg Forbes and Monash
  • Whimsical names eg Huckleberry and Tuppence (while putting the whimsical name in the middle is the prudently middle class thing to do)
  • Fashionable “arty” names eg Ziggy and Coco (strike me as more aspirational middle class for some reason)
  • Literary names eg Caspian and Evangeline (these definitely seem middle class, as the middle class is keenest on reading)

How Middle to Upper-Middle Class Australian People Tend to Judge Names

Please note: I am not suggesting you follow any of this advice. It is for information only.

  • They like names that are spelled the more commonly accepted way. People are really fussy about this for some reason, and even slight changes to a name can bring on eye-rolling.
  • Any name that looks or sounds recently “made up” is frowned upon (although it’s fine if it was created a long time ago and therefore has a history behind it).
  • If a name has several variations, the simpler one is usually considered more upper class than the more elaborate eg Isabel rather than Isabella, Alice rather than Alicia, Sophie rather than Sophia.
  • Classic and retro names are usually considered more upper class than modern classics. However, Sophia is a classic name and Sophie is a modern classic, yet Sophie is more upper class than Sophia – so this does have exceptions, or can be overwritten by another rule.
  • Hyphenated names for girls, like Emma-Rose or Ruby-Lee, are often viewed with suspicion. This could be because “double” names are elaborations by their very nature.
  • Masculine or unisex names on girls are generally considered downmarket, while a unisex or feminine-sounding name on a boy often has quite a bit of cachet. So Mackenzie on a girl = thumbs down, Mackenzie on a boy = thumbs up.
  • It is fashionable to show pride in your cultural heritage, so Lorenzo, Agnieszka, Tevita, Silka and Johannes can be more stylish than Laurence, Agnes, David, Cecilia and John.
  • Conversely, many people seem to think that using names from a culture that you don’t have any immediate tie to looks distasteful. I think it’s silly, but it seems to be a widespread idea.
  • One or two middle names are fine, but once you reach three or more middle names (and you’re not royalty), you are considered to have gone beyond the bounds of good taste. It’s a little arbitrary, but it does seem to be the rule.

Names Not Obviously One Class or Another

  • Many names that have been highly popular for a length of time – by their nature, popular names are “of the people”; it’s easier for a name to remain very popular if many groups of people use them. Names like Charlotte, William, Chloe and Lachlan could belong to almost anyone, and do.
  • Hickster names – those that are fashionable-sounding yet slightly countrified, like Mayella and Elroy. Even after reading the birth notices carefully, looking for clues as to which kind of families choose these names, I still don’t know.
  • Uncommon nature names – names like Leaf or Snow are hard to place, I think. I have seen these names on children from absolutely everywhere on the social spectrum.
  • Extremely rare or obscure but genuine names – due to the fact they are almost never heard of, they don’t have any social context to put them into. You may only meet one Harmon in your whole life – so how can you generalise about the name?

What names do you think have an upper class image? And do you think there is any such thing as an upper class name? 

Name News Round Up

13 Monday May 2013

Posted by in Names in the News

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NewsThe papers took a break from berating Australians for their taste in baby names on the day that the US name data was released, and reported that they had found a nation even worse at naming children. If you thought the Australian name list was weird, just wait until you see the American one, this article gloats. Only a few weeks ago, they were telling us that at last normal names were popular again, but now  popular names here are “weird”, but not as weird as in the US. The headline tells us that King and Messiah are the most popular names in the US, which is a blatant lie – of course the most popular names are Jacob and Sophia. Yep, weird old Jacob and Sophia. Tut tut.

Back to berating us. According to this article in the Herald Sun, birth notices display an increasing abundance of ludicrous made up names, or worse still, perfectly normal names that are deliberately misspelt. I read birth notices almost every day, and I haven’t seen an increasing abundance of either. Nine out of ten times when I see a name that looks “made up”, when I do a quick Google check, it turns out to be legitimate name I didn’t know about. I suspect a similar level of ignorance would explain most cases of “made up names”. Also, variant spellings tend to be pretty low key – it’s mostly just Izabellas, Ryleighs and the like. There’s maybe a handful of times per year that the spelling of a name is so unintuitive and confusing that I actually can’t tell what name it is supposed to represent. Hardly an abundance.

More advice on variant spellings from Mark McCrindle, and this time I think it’s probably a valid point. He suggests that with our names now so firmly attached to our digital profile, a variant spelling could mean that your email doesn’t go through, or your Twitter handle is confused with someone else’s because it has been misread. Of course, we don’t know whether email, Twitter and Facebook etc will still exist in the future, or what form they will take if they do, but at least this is a practical issue to think about when deciding how to spell your child’s name.

An article on the Essential Baby website discussed severe baby name anxiety – getting so stressed over what to call your child that you become unable to pick any name at all. That’s the case with Sydney mum Kellie, who is still unable to name her seven-week-old daughter. Kellie’s partner has left her in full control of the naming, but it’s a responsibility she doesn’t want. Interestingly, Kellie blames at least some of her problem on sharing her shortlist before the birth, as the responses of her peers influenced her feelings toward the names she had chosen. If prone to self-doubt and anxiety, over-sharing before the birth may not be a good idea.

Meanwhile a mother writing in the Messenger Daily News knew exactly what to name her daughter – Lily. It had been her favourite name for years, and she loved it. But she spent most of her pregnancy agonising over the choice, worrying that Lily was too popular a name. As labour began, she committed to Lily because she wanted to be able to tell her daughter her name had been chosen with love. When daughter #2 was expected, the chosen name Harper caused similar prenatal agony as she worried it was too much of a “celebrity name”, but again, she went with her heart. What a lot of unnecessary stress we put ourselves through!

The parents of rugby union player Scott Sio had a different approach to naming their child. A few days after he was born, Scott’s father David played against Scotland for Samoa. It was decided that if Samoa won, the baby would be given a Samoan name – Manu. However, Scotland prevailed, so his name was chosen from the victorious side. Scott Sio says his name story is “kinda cool”.

While rushing around one morning with the TV on in the background, I heard the tail end of a piece on ABC News Breakfast. It seems that viewers had phoned or emailed in with their opinions on names, and it was generally agreed that little boys whose names start with J are always in trouble. One of the presenters has a son named Jack, but he didn’t seem to think Jack was any more trouble than the next child. So there you go – name your son a name starting with J, and the perception may be that he’s a bit of a handful, at least amongst the sort of people who email breakfast TV.

Speaking of name perception, there’s a slightly creepy TV commercial for the Kia Cerato which shows a man on a date when his other girlfriend calls on the car phone requesting a hook-up. She has a phone sexline voice, and her name is Chantelle. A few years ago, there was a survey of 4000 people in Britain, and it transpired that girls named Chantelle were considered the most likely to have sex on a first date or engage in casual sex, which may have influenced the advertising agency’s choice of name for the “other woman”.

Meanwhile I keep getting sent the same chain email about an earlier British survey published by that august research institution, The Sun. Their survey, which had only 1000 respondents, showed that men believed the “easiest” girls were named Kelly, Tanya, Debs, Becky, Steph, Michelle, Tina, Lisa, Carly and Nicky. Women believed that men named Lee, Dave, Andy, Steve, Kevin, Gary, Paul, Darren, Jason and Ben were the most likely to “try something on” on a first date, and were therefore seen as guys to avoid.

Name News Round-Up

30 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Names in the News

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NewsThere seems to be a bit of a theme in the name stories I’ve been reading lately, which taps into a struggle to identify whether a name is “normal” or “unusual”.

Hooray for Normal Names

Every time the popular baby names are released, there is always a collective sigh of relief in the media that finally, normal names are back in style again. This strikes me as asinine, because popular names, by their very nature, are always normal. As most parents choose a name from the Top 100, then by definition Top 100 names are “normal” – common, usual, standard, typical, expected.

Apart from the classics, many of our “normal” names weren’t always so normal. Jayden would have been an extremely unusual choice in the 1940s, and Sienna almost unheard of in the 1900s. Meanwhile, Edna is rarely seen today, but in the 1910s it was the #3 name. No doubt some of our current popular names will be curiosities in one hundred years, while some bizarre name choices of today will have become popular. Yet normal names will always be in fashion.

Urban Name Legends

This journalist claims to know a paediatric nurse who tells her all manner of odd baby names. Abcd is plausible enough, and probably not as a weird as she imagines it is. I can believe in Kevin Ice-T quite easily – a mix of classic name up front, quirky name in the middle, which we’ve seen a fair bit of in birth notices. At Eeyore, I’m beginning to feel slightly dubious (I wonder if they misunderstood a name from another culture, such as Ayor. Or Aurore).

Another one she has heard is a baby just named , as in, a comma. Although she says this isn’t a lie, we know it is because that’s not legal in Australia. Same with Cuntley, which would also not be permitted under Australian law, as it contains an obscenity.

A-a (said Adasha) is interesting, because the urban myth is actually that the name is La-a (Ladasha). I’m not sure whether is this some new variation, or if she simply misheard it. It’s amazing how many people say they “know” someone who has met or heard of a La-a, yet these vast numbers never show up in the official data. It’s also interesting that when journalists had access to every single birth registered in Australia and got snarky about them, they did not mention seeing one La-a – a pretty glaring omission if it existed.

It’s a low point for journalism, but even the media will pass on these idiotic myths, giving them greater credibility for the credulous. Let’s just say I will believe in a La-a when I see one, and I will only tell you about it when I have at least some documented evidence to pass on.

Names with Variant Spellings … Too Risky?

When McCrindle released their version of the Australian Top 100, it came with a warning. Mark McCrindle said that if you chose a variant spelling such as Jaxon or Tayla, you risked being seen as unsophisticated, and that you may even harm your child’s career prospects.

This reminded me that when I was a teenager, the advice was that anyone with a tattoo would never get a job – at least, not a “good” job. Today I get served by people with tattoos at most businesses I go to, and my boss (working in a professional-level government position) has a tattoo. It’s hard to predict the future when you assume it will be much like the present.

If variant spellings continue being popular, then they will become so common as to be readily accepted. A future prime minister called Jaxon or Tayla seems just as likely as one called Lucas or Charlotte – after all, perhaps many people would have been surprised in 1950 to be told the Prime Minister of 2010 would be called Julia.

Not So Unusual

When the Daily Mercury in Mackay asked parents to write in to their Facebook page with their children’s unusual names, they received 68 responses. The “unusual” names were ones such as Axl, Caprice, Jakobi, Hudson, Kyan, Denham and Naraya. Although these don’t seem too out there (Typhoon was intriguing), the parents had plenty of people telling them their name choices were unusual. Which makes them unusual enough to suit them.

When most people say they want an unusual name, they don’t want to call their child Faceplant Extractia or Mining-Boom Jazzhands – they just want something that their friends and family haven’t thought of yet. You can’t help wondering what happens when someone else in their community decides on the name Caprice or Axl though … which brings me to the next story.

Stolen Dreams

This article describes the sense of betrayal experienced by Lisa, when her ex-boyfriend Adam married someone else – and had the exact same wedding that Lisa had once dreamed of. Cruelly, Adam and Mrs Adam had also decided on matching Tiffany rings, cocktails at sunset, and a honeymoon in Bora Bora.

Lisa was convinced this was all done as a mockery of her own nuptial dreams, and believed that Adam and his bride had “stolen” her wedding.

Clinical psychologist Amanda Symboluk (whose name must be made up, it’s so perfect for a psychologist) says that Lisa is probably “reading too much into it”, and advises that she (and others in her predicament) shouldn’t “take things personally”.

This reminded me a lot of “baby name stealing” – much as we fondly believe we have chosen a unique name, like Lisa’s dream wedding, it may be more generic than we think. Just as honeymooners tend to gravitate towards Bora Bora rather than Uppsala, parents are more likely to pick the name Scarlett Rose than Lucretia Zixi.

So if you are perturbed to find that someone has already taken that special name you had always dreamed of using, whether it be Odin, Penelope, Dashiell or Juniper, take the advice of Dr. Symboluk – don’t read too much into it, and don’t take it personally.

What Do You Think of Bruno as a Name for an Australian Boy?

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Naming Assistance

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9956cc173a8fbb4051263936560ae_h_largeHelene and her husband are expecting a baby boy in the new year, and have the name Bruno as a front-runner on their shortlist.

For several years they have been living and working in the UK, but they plan to return to Australia in the near future, so they are interested in knowing how the name Bruno will go down in their home country.

The people they know in Britain strongly associate the name Bruno with the character and 2009 movie by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and therefore it makes them wince a little. It also seems to be a reasonably popular name for dogs there, or is considered a “doggie” sort of name.

Helene is wondering what the image of Bruno is in Australia, and if we might see it differently. So I am throwing this question open to anyone who is Australian, or has lived in Australia, or knows lots of Australians, or is hip to Australian name trends.

  • What do you think of the name Bruno?
  • Do you think the name Bruno is cool or uncool?
  • Has enough time gone by that the Baron Cohen character no longer has a significant effect on the image of the name Bruno?
  • What about in six year’s time, when Helene’s son starts school? Is it a name which risks playground teasing in 2019?
  • Is the name Bruno too much of a “dog” name?

Okay, the floor is open – share your thoughts on the name Bruno!

MYTH: A “Weird” Baby Name Can Ruin Your Child’s Life

18 Sunday Nov 2012

Posted by in Baby Name Mythbusters

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This is an idea you cannot help running across if you frequent baby name forums, attend a few parent group meetings, or just read the papers – that the bestowing of a name considered strange or highly unusual upon a child is a cruel thing to do, and has the potential to impact on their life in negative ways.

A short-lived parenting blog at the Herald Sun which was written by Cheryl Critchley asked, Are Weird Names Child Abuse? It might seem a bit extreme to suggest that calling your son Raiyybanzi is the equivalent of hitting him around the head or locking him in his room for three weeks without food, but Cheryl goes to the child psychologists for further information.

According to child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, yes, an unusual name is a form of child abuse, as it will lead to non-stop teasing in the schoolyard. Another psychologist, Dr Janet Hall, said a poor choice of name could lead to the child developing self-esteem problems. A name that others constantly question and mock is a “constant attack on your self-esteem”. It’s all sounding pretty dire for poor little Raiyybanzi.

A dim ray of light shone through when an education psychologist named Dr Helen McGrath suggested that while shy children probably won’t appreciate an unusual name, an extroverted one might enjoy the attention that it brings. She noted that unusual names do tend to change people’s perceptions, and even self-perception. However, there was no research which suggested any negative impact, and that factors such as social skills and family relationships were far more important.

The interesting thing is that Cheryl got her inspiration for the article from the names of AFL footballers she had seen in the newspapers – names such as Ayce, Jarryn, Jarrhan, Cheynee and Sharrod. These horrified her, and yet it would seem that Ayce and friends hadn’t had their lives ruined, but embarked on potentially lucrative and rewarding sporting careers. The photo of Ayce used for the article showed him looking cheerful and confident, with his self-esteem firmly intact.

This article was published a few years ago, but journalistic opinion doesn’t seem to have moved forward very much in the meantime. There’s a good reason for that – if you’ve been following the ‘Twas Ever Thus series at Elea’s blog, British Baby Names, you will see that when it comes to getting worked up over “weird” baby names, the media is pretty much churning out the same stuff they produced in the 19th century. Only the names have been changed, as the saying goes.

On Radio National a few months ago, on their popular Life Matters show, presenter Natasha Mitchell had a programme called You’ve Named Your Baby What?!. Generally light-hearted in tone, the show discussed unusual celebrity baby names (Natasha confessed she rather liked Sparrow), old-fashioned names like Mavis and Alfie, little boys just called H, and little girls named Rach’elle.

Guest Mia Freedman, who runs the successful parenting website Mamamia, while not actually accusing anyone of child abuse, opined that a strange name, especially one spelled strangely, could be a “burden” for a child. A burden in so much as they would be constantly questioned about their name – perhaps not damaging to their self-esteem, but a downright nuisance to them nonetheless.

In these sort of shows/articles, everyone is very careful to explain that when they say “unusual names”, they don’t mean names from other cultures, which to our ears may be difficult to pronounce, or sound like rude words, or appear to be on the “wrong” sex. No, these names are a wonderful sign of our diversity, and people should be proud to possess them as part of their culture, and it would be very wrong indeed to poke fun of them.

To my mind, this is the downfall of their argument, because it’s never explained why it’s not a “burden” to be named Caoilfhionn, even though that must surely involve at least as many requests to explain spelling and pronunciation as Rach’elle does. If it’s not such a terrible burden to be named Caoilfhionn, then I don’t see how Rach’elle is any heavier for a child to bear.

And if we as a society should be able to cope with Caoilfhionn, Purushottama, Oluwakanyinsola, Dudel and Phuc as names, then I don’t see why we cannot also cope with Mavis, Alfie, Sparrow, Ayce, Jarryn, Rach’elle and H. For that matter, how could anyone be confused by the spelling of the name H? Surely the strange-names-as-a-burden club should be heaping praise on H for its unburdensome simplicity? However, for some reason that never happens.

Oddly enough, Mia, who has an extremely simple and popular name, says that she needs to often correct people on the spelling and pronunciation of it. And yet, this burden doesn’t seem to have really been much bother, or held her back in life. From this I deduce that almost everyone has to explain their name at some point (“No, it’s John – J-O-H-N, not Jon – J-O-N”), and that it’s just one of those little things you have to deal with.

To befuddle the argument even further, Mia poked mild fun at “cutesy pet names” for children, singling out Jools Oliver for naming her children Poppy, Daisy, Petal and Buddy. Fun fact: Mia’s daughter is named Coco. I know: go figure.

Although these examples are not the most convincing you’ll come across, and don’t even manage to present a cogent argument, there are no lack of studies which purport to reveal the dreadful consequences of giving your child a strange name.

They tell us that your child will do worse at school, be less popular with their classmates, drop out of tertiary education, and have their resumes ignored by prospective employers (although, after doing so badly at school and flunking university, you’d think a boss would have pretty good grounds for ignoring their resume).

Furthermore, they were more likely to be diagnosed as psychotic and to end up in prison – the bitter conclusion to a life of failure and misery. After reading this terribly sad story, which seems like the stuff of nightmare and soap opera, how could a parent be so heartless as to inflict on their child any name other than one selected by the Chamber of Commerce, heads of all major universities, and a panel of psychiatrists?

However, other researchers crunched the numbers and came up with opposing results. It was noted that men with rare names were over-represented in Who’s Who, suggesting that a life of success was just as possible as one of failure for those with less common names. Other researchers noted that many children with uncommon names came from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and that once this was allowed for, there was no difference in academic outcomes that could be attributed to the person’s name.

One interesting finding by development psychologist Dr. Martin Ford is that everyone tends to attach a particular image or set of expectations to a name – up and until they confronted with a person with that name. People might say that they think of Berthas as being unattractive, but if shown the photo of a beautiful woman and told she is named Bertha, they rate the photo more or less the same as someone told the lovely woman is called Jacqueline or Christine.

In other words, Shakespeare was clearly on the money in regard to roses smelling just as sweet.

So here we have two competing theories: one is that unusual names are little more than child abuse, will damage self-esteem, prove an unnecessary burden, and be a severe handicap in regards to academic and social success. At worst, they may even send your child mad, or force them into a life of crime.

The other is that names, once attached to a real person, become almost meaningless – that what we are judged on is not our names, but our appearance, voice, grooming, hygiene, mannerisms, personality, social skills, motivations, abilities, intelligence, beliefs, income, education, job, family, friends, hobbies, home, influences, aspirations, and indeed the whole “package” that is ourselves.

I’m not sure I am completely convinced by either side – mostly because I am sceptical as to whether any of them have considered genuinely “weird” names. I feel as if they have looked at unpopular or uncommon names, or names judged to be undesirable by others, but that’s not really the same thing.

I mean come on, how sheltered must your life be to think that Ayce and Rach’elle are weird!

From what can I gather, Dr. Ford’s photo experiment was just using “outdated” names of the time like Hazel and Harriet – not only in no way weird, but by now very much back in fashion.

His original name study was done in 1984, on children who would have been born in the early 1970s. Very rare names of people born in 1972 include Atticus, Briar, Bristol, Coco, Darcey, Denzel, Emmeline, Fallon, Heaven, Jaxon, Jorja, Kourtney, Larkin, Lourdes, Marigold, Reeve, Rosamond, Sonnet, Star, Theodoric, and Wilder.

These names aren’t weird any more – some of them look pretty hip, and others seem unsurprising; a couple are even quite dull. In just forty years, a name can go from Woah, what the heck? to Meh. Maybe the rare names of today, such as Cameo and Twain, will seem equally familiar by the early 2050s.

That’s looking at US data of course, but in Australia we know that just twenty years ago Olive was a strange and awkward name to give a baby, and it is now Top 100 in Victoria, and getting there in New South Wales.

If name-weirdness is dependent on time, it is equally so on space. I know that when I look at some names on the American charts, or in American birth notices, they seem odd to me because names such as Legend, Princess, Race, Tinsley,  and Dutch are rarely or never used in Australia. Likewise, Americans look at Australian-used names like Lachlan, Jacinta, Hamish, Bronte and Zali, and think What the dealio?

A normal name can become weird just by crossing the Pacific; conversely, an American boy named Hamish who moves to Australia will blend in instantly. Fun fact: in the US, 8 baby boys were named Hamish last year.

What an individual person believes is weird seems to be almost entirely subjective. To Cheryl it’s Jarryn. To Natasha it’s Apple. To me it’s Race. To 1972 it’s Coco. To a commenter I saw on Mamamia it’s Felix (in the Top 100). To this journalist it’s Becket. To my mother it’s Madison. To you maybe it’s Hamish. Or Metallica. Or Banjo. Or Justus. Or Crew. Or Dudel.

I genuinely thought that this myth would be either BUSTED or CONFIRMED by the time I finished the blog entry, but not only has it not been answered, the very myth itself seems to be retreating over the horizon the closer we get to it, like heat shimmering on a bitumen road in January.

I am becoming less and less convinced that a weird name will ruin anyone’s life, and moreover, I am becoming less and less certain that weird names even exist, in any useful sense of the word “weird”.

Even Raiyybanzi isn’t that strange once you get used to it – it’s really just a juiced-up Raymond.

Famous Name: Poppy

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Famous Names

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Last week I covered the name Bede for Remembrance Day, partly with the idea that it had “been in my Request file for ages”. When I went to cross if off the list, I found it wasn’t there at all – it seems I imagined it. So today I’m going to make up for it by covering a Remembrance Day name that really has been in my Request file for ages (I double checked!).

It has long been tradition to associate November 11 with poppy flowers. During the First World War, red corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas) were among the first plants to spring up on the battlefields of northern France and Belgium, blooming between the trenches and no man’s lands on the Western Front. In soldier’s folklore, the red of the poppies came from the blood of their fallen comrades soaking the ground, and were perhaps a poignant reminder that life went on regardless.

The sight of poppies on the battlefield at Ypres in 1915 inspired Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, of Canada, to write the poem In Flanders Fields. An American woman named Moina Michael, who worked for the YMCA, read McCrae’s poem just before the Armistice, and was so moved that she wrote a poem in response, and promised to wear a red poppy as a way of keeping faith.

At an international YMCA conference in 1918, Moina spoke about the poem and the poppies, and Anna Guérin, the French YMCA secretary, took the idea further by selling poppies to raise money for widows, orphans, and needy veterans and their families.

The poppy soon became widely accepted throughout the allied nations as the flower of remembrance to be worn on Armistice Day, and the Australian Returned Soldiers and Sailors Imperial League (the forerunner to the RSL) first sold poppies for Armistice Day in 1921, with the money going to children’s charities and the League’s own welfare work. Today you can still buy a poppy pin from the RSL to help veterans of war.

At the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, it is customary on Remembrance Day to place a poppy on the Roll of Honour, as a small personal tribute to the memory of a particular person. Another ritual is to lay a single poppy flower on the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier at the Memorial.

Even before World War I, poppies had a long history as symbols of sleep and death – sleep because poppy seeds have since ancient times been used as sedatives, and death because the colour of poppies reminds people of blood, or possibly because if over-prescribed, a poppy-induced sleep may become permanent. Today, poppies are still grown to obtain opium, morphine and codeine for medicinal use, with Australia being one of the major producers of poppy crops.

In Greek myths, poppies were given as offerings for the dead, with the suggestion that they were also a promise of resurrection in the life to come. The symbol of the mother goddess Demeter, she is depicted carrying both sheaves of wheat and poppies, and it has been theorised that the taking of opium was part of her worship in the sacred Mysteries.

These twin symbols of sleep and death were put to good effect in what must be one of the most famous images of poppies in literature and cinema – the field of scarlet poppies in The Wizard of Oz, the poison scent of which sends Dorothy into such a deep sleep that she is in danger of dying from it.

The English word poppy is ultimately derived from Latin, but the meaning is not known for sure; it may be from the word for “to feed”, because as anyone who has munched a poppy seed muffin or a bread roll topped with poppy seeds can tell you, poppies are yummy.

Poppy can be found as an English name as early as the 18th century, and the first examples are male, taken from the surname. This is derived from a German name Poppo or Boppo, used as a pet form of the name Bodebert, meaning “bright messenger”. However, by the 19th century, it was firmly established as a female name and associated with the flower, coming into common use along with other floral names.

Poppy only entered the Australian popularity charts in the 1980s, and in the 1990s was #602. It skyrocketed during the 2000s to reach the Top 100 by 2009, debuting at #69. Last year it was #79, and with such a brief history behind it, it is far too soon to make any predictions about its future.

Poppy is even more popular in the UK, where it has been Top 100 since the 1990s, and is currently in the Top 20. However, it has never been in the US Top 1000 at all. Last year 130 baby girls were named Poppy in the United States.

I think one of my first clues to how differently names are seen in other countries is that I kept reading in name forums from American contributors advising that Poppy might sound adorable on a little girl, but can you imagine a woman in her thirties named Poppy? Um yes, easily – Australian actress Poppy Montgomery must be in her mid-thirties by now. Poppy seems to suit her equally well as it does a toddler.

Another popular Poppy putdown is The name doesn’t sound serious enough, your daughter will never become a businesswoman, doctor or lawyer if you name her Poppy. Oh really? Then how did Poppy King manage to start her own cosmetics company? How did Doctor Poppy Sindhusake become senior lecturer in the school of medicine at the University of Western Sydney? And how did Poppy Matters start her practice in family law? By what occult means did they crash through this poppy-red ceiling to make the grade? Unless such a ceiling does not exist …

Some complain that the name, with its cheeky sound and link to a flaunting red colour, sounds too cute and flippant for a woman’s name – how will she ever be taken seriously, they fret? My own thought is that with its associations to such a solemn day, its death symbolism, and connection to drugs, it’s a jolly good thing that Poppy sounds so cheerful and light-hearted in order to offset what could otherwise seem rather gloomy.

Poppies are colourful, sturdy little flowers that bloom and blow easily in our gardens and the “pop” sound in their name makes us think of pop music, pop art and pop-up books – things that seem bright and lively and youthful. But beneath it is something dark and ancient and powerful. It stands for death, and life rising again, and the blood of heroes, and eternal flame, and rows of crosses in northern France, and keeping the faith. It is a memory in honour of those who died in foreign fields.

Do not underestimate Poppy. She is spunky and sprightly, but also strong and deep and enigmatic. She can survive almost anywhere, and, not content in being merely decorative, is useful too. She can feed the hungry, she can allay pain, she can understand sacred mysteries. Sometimes she can even be dangerous.

She can run her own business, or become a doctor, or lawyer, or politician, or anything else she wants to be. And she will sound fabulous when she is forty!

(Picture is of poppies growing in the Somme, northern France; photo from Keynsham People)