Wendy Franklin Michelle Barack Sophia Malcolm Maria Meredith Huyana Jonah Le’Anda Dweezil Ava Ahmet Emuukha Diva Thin Muffin Pegeen Apple Camera Kal-el Sugar chardonnay Dobbin Augie Mayumi Aedan Parseley Parrish Justis Elias Ramon Jordan Erik Sydney Amalya Liberty Moon Unit Adelaide R O Y Robin Ethan Isabella Emma Michael Chloe Olivia William Sophia Mia Graham Joshua Emily Daniel Paul Florence Jayden Abigail Noah Anthony Ian Clare O’Reilly Blanche Grant Donna Catherine

From Mary to Mashaya, what goes into the making of a moniker?

name that

baby!| by Wendy Ponte

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Wendy Franklin Michelle Barack Sophia Malcolm Maria Meredith Huyana Jonah Le’Anda Dweezil Ava Ahmet Emuukha Diva Thin Muffin Pegeen Apple Camera Kal-el Sugar chardonnay Dobbin Augie Mayumi Aedan Parseley Parrish Justis Elias Ramon Jordan Erik Sydney Amalya Liberty Moon Unit Adelaide R O Y Robin Ethan Isabella Emma Michael Chloe Olivia William Sophia Mia Graham Joshua Emily Daniel Paul Florence Jayden Abigail Noah Anthony Ian Clare O’Reilly Blanche Grant Donna Catherine

There are few things as personal as your first name, and most parents spend a lot of time and energy choosing it: They want to find the name that’s just right for their new baby. My parents, for example, ignored their Portuguese and Dutch heritages and went British. My brothers are named Meredith (Welsh) and Malcolm (Scottish). My own distinctly English name, Wendy, was not made up by author J. M. Barrie, as legend has it—“Wendy” appears in US records as early as 1828.1 (But my mother did adore Barrie’s Peter Pan.)

These days it seems as if the choice of name is all your own, and in many ways that is more true now than ever, at least in the US. However, naming is still influenced by culture, tradition, history, and family preferences, though now those influences may be more a subplot than the riveting main story.

N a m i N g T r a d i T i o N s i N H i s T o ryIn past eras, naming a child was easier because there were fewer acceptable choices.

Although there have always been exceptions, in the past, naming was not an area in which people expressed their creativity; instead, tradition ruled. Many cultures, including those of England, Ireland, and the Netherlands, even had a template for how to choose a baby’s name. This example, from Scotland, is one of many such naming patterns:

First son is named for the father’s father.Second son is named for the mother’s father.Third son is named for the father’s grandfather, paternal.Fourth son is named for the mother’s grandfather, maternal.Fifth son is named for the father’s grandfather, maternal.Sixth son is named for the mother’s grandfather, paternal.Seventh through tenth sons are named for the father’s great-grandfathers.First daughter is named for the mother’s motherSecond daughter is named for the father’s mother.2

And so on. Children’s names invariably reflected what was going on in any given period. The example

above says much about the importance—or lack thereof—of individual identity and expression.

Sometimes, the influence of politics and current events on names has been blatant. Naming children after the President used to be a tradition in the US, though this seems to have fallen away in modern times, perhaps as a result of political cynicism. According to Social Security records, for example, in 1933 the 33rd most popular boy’s name was Franklin (for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose first term began in that year).3 Recently, a bit of that tradition reappeared when, following the 2008 Pres-idential election, newborns named Barack, Obama, and Michelle frequently appeared in news stories.

NamiNg Tr adiTioNs arouNd THe WorldExamining different naming traditions is like tasting a rich, exotic stew with many different flavors.

In the Philippines, not many people have fewer than five names, according to Sophia Romero, novelist and author of the blog “Shiksa from Manila” (http://shiksa frommanila.blogspot.com), who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has seven names: Maria Dulce Sophia Valeriana Garcia Romero Schwartz. In the strongly Catholic Philippines, the names of most children, male and female alike, include Maria. A Filipino child’s second name is his or her given name, the one for everyday use, and at least one name is that of the saint on whose day the child was born. Romero’s given name, Dulce, comes from the Feast Day of the Most Sweet Name of the Virgin Mary (dulce means sweet in Spanish). The third name honors someone in the family, the fourth name is the mother’s maiden name, and the last name is the father’s surname. Sometimes, according to Romero, the number of names a person has becomes almost competitive. “I have a girlfriend with 11 names,” she says. “As a child, I always wished I could top that.”4

The Diné (Navajo) consider a person’s name to be so precious that it is used only in special ceremonies; traditionally, Diné children were referred to as “son” or “daughter” in everyday life.5 The Miwok, of what is now northern California, often named their children for an event involving water that happened the day of the

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These days, with names, anything goes—the options can make your head spin. To home in on the names you like best, consider these cues for inspiration:• Place names, such as Savannah, Saratoga, Montana, or Brooklyn.

The names of places that have meaning for you and/or your partner are a great place to look. Some parents choose a name for where their child was conceived.

• Research your genealogy to discover family names you hadn’t known about. Don’t forget to consider surnames as well as first names.

• Name your child for characteristics you admire and would want him or her to have, such as Grace, Faisal (Arabic for decisive), or Saoirse (Irish for freedom).

• Consider such objects as flowers, jewels, or astronomical or geologi-cal features: Sapphire, Seren (Welsh for star), Lily, River, Falcon, etc.

• Look at baby-naming books, such as the most recent edition of Janet Schwegel’s The Baby Name Countdown: 140,000 Popular and Unusual Baby Names (Da Capo Press, 2008).

• If you’re looking for names from a specific cultural tradition or language, check out Best Exotic Baby Names: New, Historical, Ancient & Mystical, by Allison Jones (Neoteric Publications, 2008).

• To come up with something new, try combining your name with your partner’s name, or with the names of your best friends.

• Want a name that no one has ever used before? Go to the Name-o-Tron 3000 (www.namenerds.com/uucn/generator.html ) , tell the Name-o-Tron which you’re looking for—a name for a boy or a girl—and click on “Get me a name!” How about Pilisa or Haleece for a girl—or, for a boy, Milis or Nolar? (As this site warns, “Some of these names may be more suited for a Klingon than a human.”)

—We n d y Po n t e

finding just the right name for your baby

The Diné (Navajo) consider a person’s name to be so precious that it is used only in special ceremonies;

traditionally, Diné children were referred to as “son” or “daughter” in everyday life.

In Germany, by law, a first name cannot be derogatory, absurd,

or offensive, and must accord with the child’s gender.

A Hawaiian child can have more than one name, and traditional Hawaiian names were generally unisex.

child’s birth, such as Huyana (Falling Rain).6

The folklore of some Jewish communities of Ashkenazic descent holds that it’s bad luck to name a child for a living rel-ative—a custom that has been followed for centuries, although it is not Jewish law. Sephardic Jews, on the other hand, com-monly name children after living relatives whom they wish to honor, such as a grandparent.

Depending on whether an English-speaking Jewish family is Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform, a child will be given a Hebrew first name, or one Hebrew and one secular name, or the English translation of a Hebrew name, such as Jonah (for Yonah).

If you are of Hawaiian descent, your name, or inoa, is your most valued possession.7 It is believed that before a child is born, an ancestral god will send the child’s inoa to a fam-ily member—whether in a dream, or via signs or symbols. A Hawaiian child can have more than one name, and traditional Hawaiian names were generally unisex.8

Mormons, culturally conservative in most areas, are known for being creative with names, often combining them to cre-ate a new, unique name. For example, a girl might be named Le’Anda after both of her parents, Lewis and Amanda.9

In some countries, the government takes a keen interest in the naming of children. When, in 2002, a Turkish couple liv-ing in Germany tried to name their child “Osama bin Laden,” they were referred to the courts for a judgment.10 In Germany,

by law, a first name cannot be derogatory, absurd, or offensive, and must accord with the child’s gender, according to German tradition.11 Non-Germans living in Germany when their child is born may need to be able to prove that the name they have chosen for a child would be acceptable in their home country.

W h at ’ s i n a n a m e ?Naming is a tremendous responsibility—or, at least, it feels that way to most of us. This is reflected in the huge number of studies done on the significance of names, much of it confus-ingly contradictory. According to author Jeanine Cox, many of today’s adults were given more traditional names because of a flawed but well-publicized study that showed that children with “popular” names did better in school.12

One 2004 study showed that people whose résumés bore “white-sounding” names received 50 percent more callbacks than those whose names “sounded” African-American.13 Another study, done in 2005, attempted to find out whether Americans want more homogeneity, as reflected in naming choices, and concluded that they do not.14 In fact, many studies have been conducted on aspects of names, with varying results. The only conclusion one can reliably reach about these studies is that the topic seems to be of keen interest to almost everyone.

Increasingly, and especially in the US, parents choosing a baby’s name seem to no longer feel as influenced by what oth-ers think. Modern celebrities have a history of being more

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adventurous in this area, which perhaps accounts in part for the broader range of first names in use today. The late Frank Zappa caused a stir in 1967 when he named his first daughter Moon Unit. Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple, tennis pro Arthur Ashe named his daughter Camera (for the profession of her mother, Jeanne Moutoussamy, a pho-tographer), and Nicolas Cage named his son Kal-el, the name of an infant born on the planet Krypton, before he was sent to Earth and became Clark Kent/Superman.

In some ways, this opening of the name floodgates has made the decision only more complicated for parents—there are so many possibilities.

An informal survey of my own friends and acquaintances revealed an amazing range of names among today’s school-age children, including Sugar, Char-donnay, Aedan (a girl), Augie, Dobbin, Parseley, Parrish, Liberty, and Justis!

C h o o s i n g a n a m eBlogger Sophia Romero, who was born in the Philippines and now lives in Brooklyn, wanted to honor her own ethnic background as well as that of her husband, Daniel Schwartz, who is American and Jewish. “We also both wanted to carry on the tradition of nam-ing our children in an honorific way,” she said. Both of their children have multiple names that honor deceased family members on both sides, as well as names that come from both families’ ethnic traditions. They named their son, now 19, Elias Ramon (her grandfather’s name) Sydney (Daniel’s grandfather’s name) Romero Schwartz; and their daughter, now 14, Amalya (Hebrew for handmaid of God) Mayumi (Tagalog for gentle) Jordan (chosen simply because they liked it) Romero Schwartz.

“We liked that the kids had various names to choose from as well,” says Romero. Just as those born in the Philip-pines do, when Romero’s kids get older, they can choose which name they prefer to be addressed by.

Karin Larson, of Minneapolis, Min-nesota, and her husband, Doug Erick-son, both have Scandinavian forebears. She grew up in a strongly Swedish town near Chicago, and his family, of Norwegian descent, grew up in Min-nesota, which has a large population of people of Scandinavian ancestry, and where such first names as Anders, Jens, Thoren, and Kaj are common. Larson’s choice of names, particularly for her first son, was also strongly influenced by what their kids’ last name would be. It was important to her that her own last name be passed on, something her husband did not feel so strongly about. Wanting, however, to include Doug’s family name somewhere in their son’s name, they chose Erik. Thus they used the root name of Doug’s surname, Erickson, and further honored their common Scandinavian heritage by spelling it Erik, not Eric or Erick.

In naming my own daughter I wanted to honor my Portuguese heritage, and so called her Adelaide. Although the name was originally German and French, and means “of the nobility,” it has been pop-ular in Portugal for several generations. More important, it was the name of my grandmother, who loved me with all of her noble heart.

The factors that influence a choice of name are extremely varied, and both subtle and obvious. Here are some guidelines to consider:• Take your time. You can wait to actu-

ally see your child before making a final decision. Neither Sophia Romero nor Karin Larson had chosen names for their sons prior to their births.

• Use visualization—imagine yourself talking to your baby and using the names you’re considering.

• Make sure the names you’re consid-ering will go well with your child’s last name.

• Beware of too much feedback. Advice can be difficult to deal with when you’re already going through

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• Look at baby-naming books, such as the most recent edition of Janet Schwegel’s The Baby Name Countdown: 140,000 Popular and Unusual Baby Names (Da Capo Press, 2008).

• If you’re looking for names from a specific cultural tradition or language, check out Best Exotic Baby Names: New, Historical, Ancient & Mystical, by Allison Jones (Neoteric Publications, 2008).

• To come up with something new, try combining your name with your partner’s name, or with the names of your best friends.

• Want a name that no one has ever used before? Go to the Name-o-Tron 3000 (www.namenerds.com/uucn/generator.html ) , tell the Name-o-Tron which you’re looking for—a name for a boy or a girl—and click on “Get me a name!” How about Pilisa or Haleece for a girl—or, for a boy, Milis or Nolar? (As this site warns, “Some of these names may be more suited for a Klingon than a human.”)

—We n d y Po n t e

The Diné (Navajo) consider a person’s name to be so precious that it is used only in special ceremonies;

traditionally, Diné children were referred to as “son” or “daughter” in everyday life.

In Germany, by law, a first name cannot be derogatory, absurd,

or offensive, and must accord with the child’s gender.

A Hawaiian child can have more than one name, and traditional Hawaiian names were generally unisex.

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so many changes as you prepare for your baby’s arrival. For this reason, some parents decide to keep secret the names they’ve chosen until after the baby’s birth.

• In trying to satisfy the wishes of rela-tives, remember the power of the middle name(s).

• Before you even begin to list specific names, talk with your partner and try to agree on what type and quality of name you both like. Agree ahead of time about how much or how little you’ll discuss your naming process with family and friends.Most important, trust your gut. In the

end, no matter what cultural or traditional influences you choose to honor, and no matter what anyone else thinks, your child’s name needs to have that indefinable some-thing. Will that name influence who your child becomes—or will your child’s future actions make his or her name famous? Only time will tell, but one thing’s for sure: Whether it comes from your heritage, your favorite vacation spot, or a favorite charac-

iceland:the power of tradition“Icelanders are very down to Earth,” claims one of the Iceland Tourist Board’s brochures. “In fact, they don’t use ‘Mr.’ or ‘Mrs.’ when address-ing each other. Everyone in Iceland goes by their first name—the CEO of a large corpora-tion, your math teacher, even the President!”

This Icelandic custom may be an offshoot of a traditional Norse naming pattern. If you’re an Icelander, your last name will be a combination of your father’s first name and a suffix: sson if you are male, sdottir if you are female. If your name is, say, Anna Rikhardsdottir, that means that your father’s name was Rikhard. If you have a brother, his surname will be Rikhardsson. Your mother will have a completely different last name. In fact, it’s often the case that every member of an Icelandic family has a different last name.

How to find someone in an Icelandic phone directory? Look under the first name, of course!

—W. P.

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ter in a musical, over time your baby’s name will become inextricably intertwined with who, in this world, he or she is at heart.NOTES1. Family Search, results for: Wendy Gram: www.familysearch.org/eng/search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=/eng/search/ancestorsearchresults.asp.2. RootsWeb, Ancestry.com, “Scottish Naming Patterns”: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scottish/ScottishNamingPatterns.html.3. Social Security Online, “Popular Baby Names: Popular Names by Birth Year, Popularity in 1933”; www.socialsecurity.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi.4. Personal communication (7 January 2010).5. Sweet Grass Traditions, “Native American Naming Traditions,” http://sweetgrasstraditions.tripod.com/customs.html.6. Jeanine Cox, The Perfect Baby Name: A Proven Plan for Choosing a Name You’ll Love (New York: Sterling Pub-lishing, 2004), 28.7. Ibid.: 29.8. Mary Kawena Pukui, E. W. Haertig, and Catherine A. Lee, Nānā I Ke Kumu (Look to the Source), Vol. I (Hono-lulu, HI: Hui Hanai, 1983), 94. 9. See Note 6: 30.10. “Couple Try to Name Baby bin Laden,” CNN.com/World (5 September 2002): http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/09/05/germany.osama/index.html.11. Knud Bielefeld, “First Names Germany: Information on German First Names—German Law on First Names” (2010): www.� rstnamesgermany.com/the-german-law-on-� rst-names/.12. See Note 6: 9.13. Marianne Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan, “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimina-tion,” American Economic Review 94, no. 4 (September 2004): 991–1013; http://economics.uchicago.edu/download/_DISCRIMINATION.pdf.14. Richard Woodward, “Do Americans Desire Homo-geneity? Evidence from Names from 1900–2000,” Eco-nomics Bulletin 4, no. 9 (2005): www.economicsbulletin.com/2005/volume4/EB-05D10041A.pdf.

For a humorous take on baby nam-ing, go to www.mothering.com/links and � nd the Web exclusive, “Baby Naming 101,” by Melissa Scholes Young.

Wendy Ponte is a freelance writer who lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her � ancé, Christopher; her daughter, Ade-laide (14); and her

soon-to-be stepdaughters, Mariah (16) and Ariana (11).

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