Baby name story: Cyclone Cape Dove Four Bells

The Waipa in the late 19th century
The Waipa (late 19th century)

In November of 1878, a baby boy was born aboard the New Zealand ship Waipa, which was under the command of Capt. John Gorn at the time.

The baby, “born in a cyclone at four bells off Cape Dove,” ended up with the name Cyclone Cape Dove Four Bells Gorn Bendall.

The 1924 book I’m using as a source claims that the ship’s name was also part of the list, but the baby’s baptism record doesn’t include the word “Waipa.”

(The Waipa, by the way, was owned and operated by the New Zealand Shipping Company, which had a policy requiring ships crossing the Pacific to make a stop at the Pitcairn Islands — which is where Thursday October Christian was born.)

Source: Brett, Henry. White Wings: Fifty Years of Sail in the New Zealand Trade, 1850 to 1900. Vol. 1. Auckland, NZ: The Brett Printing Company Limited, 1924, p. 263.

Image: Adapted from View of the crew in the bow of the sailing ship Waipa at Port Chalmers

Baby name story: Pawan-deep

airplane

On the morning of August 27, 2008, a woman aboard a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Adelaide went into labor. Paramjit Kaur gave birth to a baby boy over Northwest Territory, and the plane made an emergency landing at Darwin airport.

A day later, Paramjit and her husband, Jagtar Jaswal, announced that they’d decided to name the baby Pawan-deep Jaswal

His parents said Pawan-deep meant “ocean and air”, in reference to his unusual place of birth.

The name Pawan comes from Sanskrit and does indeed mean “wind.” But Deep (also spelled Dip) typically refers to a “lamp” or a “light,” as in the names Amandeep and Jagdeep, so I’m not sure where the definition “ocean” is coming from. (Maybe the parents spelled it d-e-e-p to coincide with the English word, making it a sort of poetic reference to the ocean?)

Source: Cunningham, Matt. “Miracle baby named after ocean and air.” NT News 29 Aug. 2008.

Image: Adapted from Air Canada Boeing 777-333ER by MarcusObal under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Baby name story: Olympia Lightning

Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt

In May, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt — the eight-time Olympic gold medalist widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time — and his girlfriend, Kasi Bennett, welcomed a baby girl.

Her name?

Olympia Lightning Bolt.

(“Lightning Bolt” is dad’s nickname.)

Update, Jun. 2021: The couple recently welcomed two more babies — twin boys! Their names are Saint Leo and Thunder. (“Saint Leo” comes from Usain Bolt’s middle name, St. Leo.)

Sources: Usain Bolt – Wikipedia, Usain Bolt – IAAF, first Usain Bolt tweet (7/7/2020), second Usain Bolt tweet (6/20/2021)

Image: Adapted from Usain Bolt, Anniversary Games, London 2013 by J. Brichto under CC BY-SA 3.0.