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Apostrophes in Baby Names for National Punctuation Day
| 24 September 2008 | Filed under Baby Names |
In honor of National Punctuation Day, I thought I’d talk a bit about apostrophes.
In English, the apostrophe is commonly used to mark omissions and form possessives. In names, the apostrophe can be used…
- To indicate a glottal stop (Toa’ale, Hau’oli),
- When the origin of the name is a surname (O’Brien, D’Angelo), or
- For decoration (God’iss, Domi’nique).
The apostrophes in some names do mark omissions (i.e. Cam’ron instead of Cameron), but I consider these apostrophes more decorative than anything else.
Am I missing any other big reason an apostrophe might be used in a name?
#3 isn’t really something I would advocate.
mothers and fathers name put togather eg Tr’Moy
Sometimes the apostrophe is used because the writer didn’t know how to type a letter with an accent mark. I noticed this especially in precomputer days: Rene’e for Renée and so forth.
@Diane – That’s true, though (as you mention) I think I’ve only ever seen that in older documents.