Baby Names

[Sammish]

8 hours ago, matrips said:

I like my grandmother’s name - Regina Estelle.  Estelle means star, and one nickname is Essie, which is I think is cute.  Aside from a few elderly ladies, I don’t think I ever hear it as a name. 

I can not hear the name Regina without immediately thinking of Regina Phalange. 

[Scarlett]

10 hours ago, matrips said:

I like my grandmother’s name - Regina Estelle.  Estelle means star, and one nickname is Essie, which is I think is cute.  Aside from a few elderly ladies, I don’t think I ever hear it as a name. 

My mom had a first cousin named Estelle.  It is indeed an old time name. I think that cousin would be well over 100 were she alive.

[Murphy101]

On 10/8/2019 at 6:16 PM, hjffkj said:

Ophelia certainly fits with my other children's names. But so does Beatrix. Violet is probably the one that fits the least but it still goes well enough.

I like Ophelia and we came very close to using Xanthia, nickname Thia, for our youngest.

How about Boudicea? 

 

 

 

[Murphy101]

Other names ...

Pippin or Piper

Nessa

Ligeia (Edgar Allen Poe & The Odyessy)

Hemera (Greek goddess born to Nyx)

Daire (Irish mythology but you’ll always be correcting pronunciation. It’s Daw-ra!)

 

 

[Guest]

*whispers in your ear* Ophelia.. 

I love it. It feels to me like that is the name she wants! 😄

[Katy]

4 minutes ago, Quill said:

*whispers in your ear* Ophelia.. 

I love it. It feels to me like that is the name she wants! 😄

 

Oohh, I like it: https://nameberry.com/babyname/Ophelia

[Murphy101]

20 hours ago, Arctic Mama said:

It’s pretty!  I’m leaning toward something like Aria or Odette right now, myself.  

Ophelia has a nice roll to it if Penelope is just too popular.  Antiope, al la Shakespeare and Greek mythology, is another similarly pretty name that is rarely used too!

I don’t know if it’s indicative of rising popularity, but there’s 3 Aria girls in our weekly preschool story time. But there’s also a girl Felix and a boy Madison, and a Kilo whose gender I haven’t been able to figure in 3 months because of parental social experimenting ... soooo I have no idea if our preschool story time is a good test sample for names in general. 🤷‍♀️

[Kanin]

I once taught a Serafina. The name fit her perfectly! I've also seen it spelled Seraphina.

I came across the name Petra years ago, and it's stuck with me 🙂 

[JustEm]

On 10/19/2019 at 11:29 AM, Arctic Mama said:

Weird!  That name has been on my list forever and I’ve never seen it in person.  But I have a Lilah and only knew of one when I named her and now it’s everywhere 😞

I assume the pronunciation is the same as Arya from game of Thrones. If so, that name has become incredibly popular since the show. One of my closest had a 5 year old with that name.

[JustEm]

On 10/18/2019 at 9:53 AM, Murphy101 said:

 

How about Boudicea? 

 

 

 

How do you pronounce that?

[JustEm]

1 minute ago, Arctic Mama said:

Oh brother, I’ve never seen an episode of GoT so that wouldn’t have occurred to me.  It’s the Italian musical form, which I’ve liked since I heard one as a child.  Boooooo.

 

Sorry, I do hate when that happens. Penelope became popular because a Kardashian named their daughter that. I was so sad when it happened.

[Scarlett]

That is the thing with names.  You never know if the one you pick will suddenly sore in popularity.  

I am still rooting for another Violet for the boards.   Or Isabella.  I also love Isabella.  

[Frances]

29 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

That is the thing with names.  You never know if the one you pick will suddenly sore in popularity.  

I am still rooting for another Violet for the boards.   Or Isabella.  I also love Isabella.  

I have such positive associations with the name Violet. One of my parents closest friends was named that, but went by Vi. And she was such a lovely person. Virginia is also a very common older women’s name in the Midwest where I grew up. My mom has three close friends with the name, all wonderful women. And I love almost any name that starts with a vowel, so I definitely like Isabella. Esther is another older one I really like.

Edited October 21, 2019 by Frances

[Frances]

49 minutes ago, hjffkj said:

 

Sorry, I do hate when that happens. Penelope became popular because a Kardashian named their daughter that. I was so sad when it happened.

The same thing happened with us with our son’s name. We’d never heard it before except one day when I was pregnant and listening to a foreign correspondent on NPR. I told it to my husband when he came home, and we immediately agreed. Then shortly after he was born, a celebrity couple named their son the same thing. And now it is everywhere. Exactly the opposite of what we wanted after both of us grew up with exceedingly common names for our generation. We didn’t want unusual or strange, just not very popular. And it’s exactly what we ended up with.

[Scarlett]

3 minutes ago, Frances said:

I have such positive associations with the name Violet. One of my parents closest friends was named that, but went by Vi. And she was such a lovely person. Virginia is also a very common older women’s name in the Midwest where I grew up. My mom has three close friends with the name, all wonderful women. And I love almost any name that starts with a vowel, so I definitely like Isabella. Esther is another older one I really like.

I knew an elderly woman who went by Vi too.  I didn't realize for many years her full name is Violet.  I also love Esther.  It has really grown on me in recent years.  

[JustEm]

28 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

That is the thing with names.  You never know if the one you pick will suddenly sore in popularity.  

I am still rooting for another Violet for the boards.   Or Isabella.  I also love Isabella.  

 

We are currently leaning towards Ophelia being the first name and Violet being the middle name. But we won't actually decide or stop looking up names until she is in my arms. We've had very strong feelings about names prior to the kids' births and with a few of them once I held them I knew the name was wrong. Like before holding our youngest we we're leaning heavily on Benedict. But once I was holding him I said, 'he's not a Benedict. He's a Cillian.' dh felt the same way but didn't want to say it until I had a chance to hold him(he held him 9 hours before I was able to because D's was in the NICU and I just had a C-section.)

[Scarlett]

1 minute ago, hjffkj said:

 

We are currently leaning towards Ophelia being the first name and Violet being the middle name. But we won't actually decide or stop looking up names until she is in my arms. We've had very strong feelings about names prior to the kids' births and with a few of them once I held them I knew the name was wrong. Like before holding our youngest we we're leaning heavily on Benedict. But once I was holding him I said, 'he's not a Benedict. He's a Cillian.' dh felt the same way but didn't want to say it until I had a chance to hold him(he held him 9 hours before I was able to because D's was in the NICU and I just had a C-section.)

OoooH.  I love Ophelia Violet.  What a nice combination.  🙂

And I love Cillian too. 

[Murphy101]

8 hours ago, hjffkj said:

How do you pronounce that?

two acceptable pronunciations
 1)bow di see a

 2)boo dik a

[Katy]

Aria wasn't just a GOT thing, it was also a main character on Pretty Little Liars.

[Guest]

Yeah, with naming my kids, we were always trying to find that sweet spot between not being very popular, but not being so unusual people couldn’t understand it; some succeeded better than others. Our first child’s name never did become super popular, but she is constantly confused with similar names which did become very popular, notably Kayla and Kylie or Kayley. My second never made it into the top ten, but it did come up to around 50th, and it has two accepted spellings, so in reality, probably closer to 25th. It turns out he has to tell people the spelling all the time, because some people double one letter, others don’t. Ironically, one of his housemates has the same name and spelling. So they use nicknames. (Although I will say, his name is perfect for him and I’m glad he is named that, even though I didn’t intend to have a name whose spelling has to be constantly clarified.) When we chose my youngest’s name, it was still around the 50s in popularity, but a couple years after his naming, it soared to the top of the list for boys. It was actually number one or two for my state for a year or two, even though this was when he was already four or five years old. (Again, though, I think his name is right for him and I don’t regret it even though I didn’t ever wish to have that “Mason C, Mason H. and Mason W” thing.) 

My baby that died, we named Lydia Clare. I still think that was a perfect name as far as being pretty but not so popular and different without being weird or unpronounceable. It was also a mercy in the first few years after her death that we didn’t hear that name very often. Now, I feel a secret thrill when I hear someone call their child Lydia. It’s a bittersweet pleasure, hearing that beautiful name applied to a living child.