Time for another batch of name quotes!
From the 2000 movie Where the Heart Is, character Lexie (Ashley Judd) talking about her kids’ names:
“I call my kids after snack foods: Brownie, Praline, Cherry and Baby Ruth.”
From an article about “weird” Dominican personal names by Isabelia Herrera:
When my mother was pregnant with me, she and my father read La montaña es algo más que una inmensa estepa verde, Omar Cabezas’ personal account of his time living with Sandinista guerrilla revolutionaries in the Cordillera Isabelia, a mountain range in Nicaragua. Today I choose to do justice to the radical provenance of my name, after years of subjecting myself to mispronunciations, ultracorrections, and the bulldozing erasure that accompanies nicknames. […] Because I’m not Izzy or Isa, I’m Isabelia.
From an article about the Fultz sisters, Americas first identical African-American quadruplets (b. 1946):
“The doctor took it upon himself to name the girls — all of them Mary, followed by the names of the women in the Klenner family. There was Ann, for the doctor’s wife; Louise, his daughter; Alice, his aunt; and Catherine, his great-aunt.
To the delivery nurse, who is black, it didn’t seem strange.
“At that time, you know, it was before integration,” Margaret Ware, 79, recalled recently. “They did us how they wanted. And these were very poor people. He was a sharecropper, Pete [Mr. Fultz] was, and she [Mrs. Fultz] couldn’t read or write.
From an essay by a woman whose in-laws hated her baby’s name:
Charlie was our choice. Not the most “out there” name in the world, but also not too overused or common. I honestly did not see why it was so very controversial. But they hated it. With a passion.
And they weren’t afraid to tell us. At the dinner table. At the restaurant. And even the day before Charlie was born.
[…]
Maybe they didn’t realize how hurtful it might be? Maybe they thought the name was so atrocious that they had to say something or else our kid would live a life of ridicule and pain? I just don’t freaking know.
From an article about Utah setting trends for unique baby names:
While in recent years Utah has garnered attention for spelling names in more unique (or tortuous) ways, Utah has actually been the trendsetter within the United States in naming kids for a century
[…]
For many names, popularity hits Utah typically five or so years before elsewhere in the country. In some cases, like Evan, names are popular only in Utah for decades before they gain national traction.
From an article about tropical cyclone names:
For a tropical cyclone with wind speeds that could reach up to 150 kmph and has forced the evacuation of three lakh people in the Odisha coastline, Titli — meaning butterfly — is a surprisingly delicate name.
(“Titli” was Pakistan’s choice, btw.)
From an article about the Malaysian prime minister’s influence on baby names:
Malaysian Prime Minster Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad is now a source of inspiration for parents looking to name their babies.
The names ‘Tun’ and ‘Mahathir’ are extremely popular, with 4,726 people named Tun and 420 named Mahathir, according to the country’s National Registration Department (NRD).
From an article about having the name Jihad:
“Especially in the Midwest, when they heard my name was Jihad the first thing that appeared to their minds was the image of suicide bombers, and the jihadists that attack the army in Afghanistan or Iraq.”
[Jihad Abdo, one of Syria’s best-known actors], whose most popular TV show had an audience of 50 million, simply couldn’t catch a break in Los Angeles. He suffered through 100 failed auditions and scraped by delivering pizza for Domino’s.
He realised that to keep his career, he would have to lose his name.
[…]
He considered Jude, but settled on the name Jay – simple, innocuous – American.
Things changed overnight, “because Jay for them is a lovely guy – it brings to them Jay Leno or… lovely people – people they are comfortable with. It doesn’t create any ‘sensitivity’, let’s say.”
From an article about a Maine-themed restaurant in Japan:
Yes, this Asian outpost of Maine food and culture is named after that Cabot Cove. The one where the fictitious mystery writer Jessica Fletcher (played by Angela Lansbury from 1984 to 1996 on CBS) solved so many crimes that in 2012 researchers declared if the town were real, it would have the world’s highest murder rate.
It turns out that re-runs of “Murder, She Wrote” – or “Jessica Obasan no Jikenbo,” which translates to “Auntie Jessica’s Case Files” – were also must-see TV in Japan. Kiyoto and Keiko Deguchi, the owners of Cabot Cove restaurant, are big fans.
For more, check out the name quotes category.
