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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2016 18:06:11 GMT
I love Tan-Dog -- perfect for his beach persona. A little known fact is that Tod and I share the same (quite beautiful) first name, although it wasn't terribly popular by the time we were born, having fallen from the high popularity it had in the 1910s & 20s. I got those statistics from the US Social Security site, so they may not be accurate for South Africa. My name was popular in the decade I was born, and now does not even appear on lists. It dates me as much as Bertha (my ggrandmother) or Myrtle. Lucretia ran in my family for a long time. One of my great aunts was called Velma.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 23, 2016 18:45:03 GMT
Admit it ~ you secretly yearn to have been called Lucretia. Velma is super old-fashioned. I also have a great aunt by marriage named Velma. Another g-auntxmarriage was named Venus.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2016 21:23:53 GMT
Venus is cool. Venus is classical. I know a Venus. I could even deal with Lucretia as it's been around forever and you could just call me "Lucy". But Velma is unforgiveable.
My parents told me their criteria for choosing a name simply came down to: can it be turned into a nickname? If not, that's it. I'm lucky. I barely escaped being called Juliet.
Re: gendered names. I dated a Kelly for a while. He was a bastard.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 22, 2016 7:32:40 GMT
I found a report about 25 American names that have completely gone out of style after being extremely popular in the middle of the 20th century.
Girls:
Cathy Cheryl Kay Debra Jill Maureen Roberta Lynda Dolores Marcia Dianne Jeanne Glenda Wanda Janis Sheryl Sue Marsha Rhonda Gail Vickie Phyllis
Boys:
Jackie Bill Leslie
The lower on the list, the more the name has disappeared. I suppose the fact that there are far more female names on the list than male names would indicate that the names for girls are more subject to popular trends at the time of birth.
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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 22, 2016 8:29:39 GMT
They strike me as very Englishy names. My father was a Leslie.
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 22, 2016 16:40:36 GMT
I saw that list, too. It's based on which names were registered (or not) during a given time period. It would appear that in the mid-fifties far too many people decided to give their children nicknames, not real names. Thus Catherine might still be popular, whereas Cathy has, with good reason, faded away as an official given name. Ditto Sue and Vickie, which are nickname derivatives of real names. Debra, Lynda, Janis, Marcia, and Sheryl are all alternate spellings and probably less common than the original spellings of those names, although Cheryl seems to have fallen by the wayside as well.
Leslie does seem old-fashioned now and also very Englishy, as Mick says. Jackie and Bill are again, nicknames for real names.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2016 1:41:33 GMT
I have been encountering some very unusual, unique and I think cool names given to children in my neighborhood. Some of them are ethnic but I can't recall nor do I know the spelling of so...
My favorite one though, and I really adore this little girl, is named Verity.
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Post by chexbres on Nov 23, 2016 20:31:30 GMT
My father's mother's name was La Birda.
I hired a cook who named her twins Oranjello (oh RAHN jello) and Lemonjello (leh MOHN jello) because that's what she loved to eat when she was pregnant. This is a true story. But they called them OJ and LJ for short.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2016 16:23:56 GMT
My father's mother's name was La Birda. I hired a cook who named her twins Oranjello (oh RAHN jello) and Lemonjello (leh MOHN jello) because that's what she loved to eat when she was pregnant. This is a true story. But they called them OJ and LJ for short. Oh, I love La Birda. At first glance I misread Lemonjello as Limoncello!!!!
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 13, 2019 5:16:35 GMT
The top three names for girls in France last year were Emma, Jade and Louise. For boys they were Gabriel, Raphael and Léo.
It was duly noted that 1211 boys were named Kyllian after the World Cup champion. And 1169 girls were named Aya after the Franco-Malian pop star Aya Nakamura.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 13, 2019 17:05:04 GMT
Three years later and only Jules has been ousted.
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Post by bjd on Aug 14, 2019 12:17:32 GMT
The 7 year-old next door is called Kylian although I don't think his parents are football fans. Apparently it's a Breton name, although they are not Breton either. They have a 17 day old boy now called Axel. Some names seem to stay popular for years, others seem to flame out fast so you can pinpoint the year the kid was born. I particularly dislike names that sound invented or are misspelled so that the parents can think they are doing something original.
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Post by whatagain on Aug 15, 2019 15:29:18 GMT
Un Flemish country foreign names are more used. There is a trend to use Scandinavian (or perceived as such) names. I know if a 'Ibe ' and a ´Las ´. Sounds strange to me. But I prefer it to Jaap that you can hear in NL. Pronounced ´Yaaaaaaappp'.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 15, 2019 15:42:57 GMT
You made me look up the most popular names in Belgium for 2018.
Boys: Arthur, Noah, Adam, Louis, Liam Girls: Emma, Olivia, Louise, Mila, Alice
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Post by whatagain on Aug 15, 2019 16:54:04 GMT
I would take a bet Noah Liam and Mila are to be found in Flanders. Not heard much over here.
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Post by rikita on Aug 23, 2019 12:35:35 GMT
i just recently found out that there is no official most popular names list in germany, the ones you find are based on polls done by various websites etc. - and i checked two different websites for last year, their top ten were almost completely different ...
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 23, 2019 15:59:57 GMT
What is amusing about reading these popular name lists from various countries is how they upend our stereotypes.
A neophyte novelist would probably reflexively assign much more "typical" names to characters from those countries.
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Post by rikita on Aug 23, 2019 18:13:40 GMT
i suppose when you can't come up with a name for a character, it can be a good idea to google the top ten lists of the country in question for the year/decade they are born ...
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 23, 2019 18:34:44 GMT
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Post by lagatta on Aug 23, 2019 21:09:01 GMT
No idea, but wonder why Sophie and Sofie are viewed as the same name, and Marie/Maria as different ones. Not to mention the Mehmets, Mamadous, Abdous and other national renditions of the Prophet's name.
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Post by rikita on Aug 23, 2019 22:22:14 GMT
don't know - their study seems a bit wider, as they differentiate by region and all, but i don't know enough babies to even guess if it is accurate. all i know is, different websites give different lists - like compare to this one or this one - there are similarities, but they aren't the same ... no idea which one is most accurate ... most of the babies i know have different names ... as for Marie and Maria vs. Sophie and Sofie - the latter two are pronounced exactly the same in German, while the first two are pronounced different. They "feel" like different names to me, too (i know people of each name, so i guess there are also different associations) but with Sophie and Sofie, unless i see the name written, i wouldn't even know how they are spelled ... on the other hand, for Marie and Maria, even the number of syllables is different ("mah-ree" and "mah-ree-yah")
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 24, 2019 1:37:47 GMT
No idea, but wonder why Sophie and Sofie are viewed as the same name, and Marie/Maria as different ones. Not to mention the Mehmets, Mamadous, Abdous and other national renditions of the Prophet's name. Well, for those two girl names, Rikita's explanation is sound. But the various renditions of the Prophet's name are for all practical purposes different names, in the same way that Anne/Hannah or John/Ian are different names, for instance.
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Post by lagatta on Aug 24, 2019 6:55:08 GMT
Yes, and Abdou was an error on my part - "slave" or "servant" of God. He was among the early followers of Islam, not another name for the Prophet, or of God.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jan 24, 2020 12:33:43 GMT
The city of Paris just published a list of the most popular names in 2019 for babies born in the city:
Girls: 1. Louise 2. Jeanne 3. Alice 4. Emma 5. Chloé 6. Alma 7. Anna 8. Charlotte 9. Adèle 10. Joséphine
Boys: 1. Gabriel 2. Adam 3. Arthur 4. Raphaël 5. Louis 6. Mohamed 7. Victor 8. Léon 9. Paul 10. Isaac
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Post by kerouac2 on Jan 17, 2021 17:12:03 GMT
Here are the Paris names for 2020:
Girls: 1. Louise 2. Alice 3. Alma 4. Léa 5. Emma 6. Chloé 7. Jeanne 8. Anna 9. Rose 10. Lina
Boys: 1. Gabriel 2. Adam 3. Raphaël 4. Louis 5. Arthur 6. Victor 7. Mohamed 8. Joseph 9. Isaac 10. Léo
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Post by bjd on Jan 17, 2021 17:51:35 GMT
I have a new granddaughter, 10 days old. Her name is not on the list, not too common but not too strange: Aurore. I was hoping for something a bit more classical, but it's alright.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 17, 2021 19:59:10 GMT
Oh, that is lovely, Bjd, both the name and of course the new baby. Congratulations! I have only seen a picture of one of your granddaughters as a little baby, but it remains in my memory as the prettiest baby I ever saw.
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Post by bjd on Jan 17, 2021 20:01:15 GMT
Time flies, Bixa. She just turned 9 last week! They are of course all lovely. It's true though that the first one was really cute -- when she was small, people would always stop to admire her.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 17, 2021 20:11:57 GMT
Never would I have guessed it was that long ago! Their loveliness is of course beyond question.
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Post by questa on Jan 19, 2021 11:20:37 GMT
A Muslim family moved into my clinic area. Both parents were doctors and had worked in difficult regions around the world, but had a great sense of humour. Following the custom of naming boys after the Prophet, they had Mohammed 7 yrs, Mahomed 5 yrs and Mohomet 3 yrs. I always got them confused, just like now.
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