More on Names

I do find the Madison’s annoying. Also, have you noticed around 1989, Ariel became quite popular? I guess people like naming their kids after mermaids.
Today, Rosey Posey asked me “Mommy, what kind of name is Beyonce?” All I could do is shrug and say “I don’t know Baby, I don’t know.”

13 comments

  1. About the Madisons.
    I have a niece named Madison. She has just started 1st grade. I always call her “Former-President-James” 🙂
    …Madisons…they are everywhere!

  2. My criteria: if a proposed name is a name of a well-known town in Texas, it isn’t appropriate as a name for a child. The possible exception being Nacogdoches 😉

  3. Gregg,
    I highly agree. Melanie’s family has this trend of naming children after cities, so there’s a Denver, an Austin, a Houston. I could live with El Paso, though. El Paso Keilholtz has a nice ring. Not quite as nice as Aardvaark Keilholtz, but nice.
    I have no problem with naming children after California Cities (not counting Industry, Anaheim, etc.), though. San Miguel, San Diego, San Francisco de Assis, very well. Spanish forms of good Catlick names are fine in my book.

  4. Again, one of the few times you will hear one of my children’s real life names, and not their Hobbit name, but one of my boys is Francisco. We call him Cisco for short. You would be amazed at how many people get it wrong even after you say “Fran-sis-kow-you know, like the city?”
    But back to place names, I am not a fan of “Cheyenne” or “Dakota” either.

  5. I have actually met children named “Sierra” and “Paris.” I guess “Tyler,” another name I’ve heard, would also be verboten under the no-Texas-cities rule.

  6. Hmmm. Cheyenne, Dakota, and Paris all fall under my “don’t name children after vanquished people rule.” Call it insufferable Romanitas, but what’s next? Volsci and Keltoi? Of course if it weren’t for Paris, our great ancestor Aeneas would have died in Turkey, and I am grateful to be an Italian and not a Turk, so maybe Paris is OK.
    Francisco is obviously one of my favorite names. Favorite Saint, favorite City, the name of the fantastic Conventual Franciscan priest who baptised Amalia, and, of course, my favorite Caudillo, the savior of Spain. He can also be a Paco or Pancho or even Pacho later on, so there are good nicknames with that name.
    I also have a no Anglo names rule, so Tyler is immediately ruled out there, along with Abigail, Beowulf, Harold, and even Anglo versions of good Latin names. If we have a Josephus he will be Jose or Josef.

  7. My theory of the Madison phenomenon is that it’s an intersection of three things – Darryl Hannah, the common (in every sense) tendency to invent trendy variations of normal names, in this case Madeleine, and a predilection amongst “Big Chill” types for place names which either suggest Romance or recall one’s youth. I shouldn’t be surprised to find that “Provence” and “Venice” are getting to be used as well. I’m only thankful that Jason, Scott, and Eric have died down, as well as Jennifer and Whitney and Brittany. (Funny, you never hear of girls named Normandy.) I patiently await the natural decline by saturation of Kayley and its unnumbered variants.

  8. My aforementioned animus is primarily directed against Austin, Tyler, Dallas and Houston — the most prominent of the towns in Texas names.
    I think Francisco is an absolutely terrific name, particularly given the negative cultural connotations common to Francis as a name in contermporary America.

  9. I think Francisco is an absolutely terrific name, particularly given the negative cultural connotations common to Francis as a name in contermporary America.
    Thank you for the compliment. We like St. Francis and were tossed up as to which version to pick. My dh is Hispanic and I am half Italian. Francisco won out over Francesco because my MIL was giving us much flack for not giving our previous children Spanish names. And more importantly, we liked it. LOL.

  10. I hope that when Kayley settles down, it takes Caitlin, Kaytlynn, etc along with it.
    Didn’t Jennifer get really popular after some movie (“Love Story” or something like that) made it popular? I think it really got popular around 1970. A full 25% of the people in my freshman dorm were named Jennifer — and my dorm had both men and womens’ halls! My mom once told me that she had wanted to name me Jennifer but that my dad’s choice prevailed. I am so thankful.
    I’m glad that some traditional names, like Hannah and Emily, are coming back, but why in such faddish numbers?
    Gregg — so when will “Lubbock” take off as the next Texas name?

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