Name quotes #116: Joan, Algernon, Quintana

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From a recent Palladium-Time article about 19th-century medical doctor Algernon Sidney Coe:

Born on a farm on Sept. 18, 1828, in Norway, New York, Algernon Sidney Coe defied all expectations to become a respected and admired physician in Oswego City.

Coe, the son of Ira Coe, a War of 1812 veteran, and Elizabeth Norton, was named after Algernon Sidney who was executed in 1683 in England for his outspoken views on freedom of speech. Sidney was considered a martyr by American thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

From the 2015 essay “What’s in a Necronym?” by Jeannie Vanasco:

I remember the day I first learned about her. I was eight. My father was in his chair, holding a small white box. As my mother explained that he had a dead daughter named Jeanne, pronounced the same as my name, “without an i,” he opened the box and looked away. Inside was a medal Jeanne had received from a church “for being a good person,” my mother said. My father said nothing. I said nothing. I stared at the medal.

[…]

Parsed from the Greek, necronym literally translates as “death name.” It usually means a name shared with a dead sibling. Until the late nineteenth century, necronyms were not uncommon among Americans and Europeans. If a child died in infancy, his or her name was often given to the next child, a natural consequence of high birth rates and high infant mortality rates.

[Another necronym: Notwithstanding Griswold, born in 1764, was named for her deceased older sister.]

From the Thomas Alva Edison, Jr. page of the Thomas Edison National Historical Park website:

Thomas Alva, Junior, was born on January 10, 1876. Since his sister Marion was nicknamed “Dot,” he was nicknamed “Dash.”

[…]

After selling the use of his name to advertise “quack” medicines and dubious inventions, his father asked Tom Junior to change his name. This he did, briefly going by the name of Thomas Willard.

[The nicknames “Dot” and “Dash” are references to Morse Code.]

From a PBS NewsHour interview with a man named Normandy Villa, Jr.:

To understand what’s going on here, you should know two things: first, even though the family comes from Colombia, Normandy is named after one of the more important moments in American history:

NORMANDY VILLA: “The Battle of Normandy in France, in 1941 was the beginning of the liberation of Europe, and my grandfather saw that as such a powerful moment in history, that he wanted to have his family carry a name that referred to a new dawn. And so, the first born in the family received the name Normandy.”

From an NPR review of Joan Didion’s book Blue Nights (2011):

Just after they adopted Quintana Roo (they’d seen the name on a map of Mexico, liked it, and chosen it) the writer says she acted as if she’d gotten a doll to dress up, not a real baby.

Name quotes #115: Keyden, Yizhar, Aleta

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To kick off the new year, let’s check out a new batch of name quotes!

From an article in The Catholic Standard about students at a Maryland high school (found via Abby):

Keyvar Smith-Herold of the class of 2022 at DeMatha Catholic High School smiled as he explained the inspiration for his name, noting that his father Vincent Smith works as a locksmith.

“That’s why ‘Key’ is in our names,” he said, shedding light on the origin of his first name and that of his twin sister, Keydra, and also their older brother Keyden, a 2018 DeMatha graduate.

From the book The Gender Challenge of Hebrew (2015) by Malka Muchnik:

Most Hebrew proper names, especially those used in recent decades, consist of existing words and therefore have specific meanings. This fact helps us see the ideas associated with male or female names, and serves as evidence of what is expected of them.

(The author listed several female names associated with flowers and gemstones — such as Rekefet, meaning “cyclamen,” and Bareket, meaning “agate” — then continued…)

Even more suggestive are female names denoting personal qualities, such as Yaffa (‘pretty’), Tova (‘good’), Aliza (‘joyful’), Adina (‘delicate’), Ahuva (‘beloved’), Metuka (‘sweet’) and Tmima (‘innocent’).

[…]

As opposed to them, we find male names which have the form of a future verb, and from this we can infer the expectations from them: Yakim (‘he will establish’), Yarim (‘he will raise’), Yaniv (‘he will produce’), Yariv (‘he will fight’), Yiftax (‘he will open’), Yig’al (‘he will redeem’), Yisgav (‘he will be great’) and Yizhar (‘he will shine’).

A name story from the recent Washington Post article “Playing the name game” by John Kelly:

Aleta Embrey’s older brother loves to say that her name came from the funny papers. And it did, specifically “Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur,” which still runs in The Washington Post.

“Queen Aleta of the Misty Isles is a major figure in the comic strip,” Aleta wrote. “My dad liked the name.”

It is a lovely name, much better than being named, say, “Olive Oyl.”

Name quotes #114: Eilat, Chelsea, Skylen

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Here’s a batch of quotes for the final month of 2022!

From a late 2021 opinion piece, “Every Jewish name tells a Jewish story,” in the Jerusalem Post:

After the 1967 Six Day War, Israelis created names that were lovely and filled with hope. Tal, Elizur, Sharona were born. And names of cities and towns became first names – Sinai, Golan, Eilat are a few. The ’67 war was a watershed for hope in Israel and it was reflected in these new names.

Two highlights from a recent study of American Jewish names by Sarah Bunin Benor and Alicia B. Chandler. The first:

Over the decades, American Jews became more and more likely to give their children names of Jewish origin (English or Hebrew Biblical, Modern Hebrew, etc.), with a major uptick after the 1960s. 14% of Jews in the oldest age group have names of Jewish origin, compared to 63% in the youngest group. The top 10 names for Jewish girls and boys in each decade reflect these changes, such as Ellen and Robert in the 1950s, Rebecca and Joshua in the 1970s, and Noa and Ari in the 2010s.

…and the second:

Jews with distinctively Jewish names are much more likely to sometimes use a “Starbucks name” than Jews with names that are not distinctively Jewish. But some Jews with common American names take on a more Jewish name as their Starbucks name, and some have an “Aroma name” for service encounters in Israel.

From a Yahoo News UK article about Chelsea Bottomley and her son Stamford, who were named after the football club and the club’s stadium (respectively):

Named after the London club’s Stamford Bridge stadium, Stamford has cerebral palsy which, according to the NHS, affects movement and coordination — and impaired vision is common for children with the lifelong condition.

[…]

She added: “My mum had named me Chelsea after the club and, when my boy was born, my mum was such a strong support for me that I named him Stamford for her.”

And, finally, a line from a New York Post story about a baby born aboard an airplane in September:

Skylen Kavon-Air Francis, who was named after his airborne arrival, was carried off the plane as everyone clapped and welcomed the new passenger.

Name quotes #113: Oscar, Mackenzie, Miro

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It’s time for another batch of name quotes!

From a recent Daily Mirror article about schoolteachers Lainey Clarke and Ben Hubbard, who live in Buckinghamshire with their newborn…plus two spirits named Dave and Andy:

Dave even helped them when it came to deciding baby names.

“Every name we liked we’d then remember a naughty school kid we’d taught — it was a nightmare,” laughs Ben.

“We did a spirit box session [one person asks questions and another sits blindfolded with headphones on and relays messages from the spirit world] and the word Apollo was spoken. We listened back after he was born and were stunned to find that Dave had named our baby.”

From a Today.com article published earlier this year about like-named twins who married like-named twins:

Identical twins Briana and Brittany, 35, married identical twins Josh [Joshua] and Jeremy Salyers, 37, and now they’re introducing the world to their babies, who are so genetically similar that the cousins are more like brothers.

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The Salyers are parents to Jett, who turned 1 in January, and Jax, who will turn 1 in April, and the cousins share more than the same first initial. Their unique situation makes them genetic brothers.

(Many U.S twins born in the early 2000s were also given similar names.)

From a recent Morley Kert woodworking video, part of a discussion between Morley and a male client named Mackenzie who he’d just met in-person:

Morley: “So I have something I need to tell you.”

Mackenzie: “Oh?”

Morley: “I fully assumed from your name that you were female.”

Mackenzie: “I think a lot of people do. Technically, technically, 52% of Mackenzies are female now. Which is — we’re losing the battle.”

(I’m curious where Mackenzie found that number, because the balance between male and female babies named Mackenzie hasn’t been close to 50% since the mid-1970s.)

Graph of the usage of the baby name Mackenzie in the U.S. since 1880
Usage of the baby name Mackenzie

From a 2008 Jezebel post about about celebrity baby names:

To try to find out if celebrity kids can outrun their ridiculous names, MSNBC turns to Peaches Geldof, the celebutante who, in 2006, claimed, “I hate ridiculous names, My weird name has haunted me all my life.” Apparently, Peaches has made peace with her wacky moniker over the past few years, recently telling a reporter “It haunted me in my youth, but now I like it. I always got teased about it at primary school, being named after a fruit. Now people find it appealing. I like my name. I think it’s sexy and unusual.”

From the 2004 article “A Real Gem: Pop artist Ruby Mazur leads charmed life in LV” in the Las Vegas Sun:

Classic rock is pouring through Mazur’s spacious home, his 250-pound Newfoundland, Zeus, is circling the commotion and the artist’s 16-year-old twin sons, Cezanne and Miro, visiting from Vienna, are glancing over with a smile.

[…]

Now living in the golfing community of Rhodes Ranch, Mazur can sit back and scan his past and future. Two of his children — 18-year-old son Matisse and his daughter, actress and model Monet Mazur — are grown.

[Mazur, whose children are named after four famous artists — just like the Ninja Turtles, coincidentally — designed the cover art for thousands of record albums during the 1970s.]

From a 2015 article about Anglo-Saxon personal names in History Today:

In the century before the Conquest, Scandinavian names had become so common in some areas that, not only had names such as Toki and Gyða been incorporated into the naming stock, but hybrid names had developed, creating truly Anglo-Scandinavian names, like Ælfcytel (combining Old English Ælf-, ‘elf’, and Old Norse -kettill, ‘cauldron’).

[This source also made an appearance in quotes #110.]

A name-change story (contributed by a Texas woman named Melanie) from a recent Washington Post article about changing babies’ names:

We named our second daughter Francisca. We called to tell my parents. My mother, who sounded disappointed, asked, “What was your second choice?” We told her Amelia. Mom told us that Amelia was her mother’s sister’s name. We said that was nice and moved on to calling other relatives. When we called my sister in law and told her we named our daughter Francisca, she said, “That’s funny, I had a dream you named the baby Amelia.” So right then the baby’s name was changed to Amelia.