Tag Archive for 'irish baby names'

Next Weeks’ Names: July 5 to July 11

Ferris Wheel (Photo: Yali Shi)

Ferris Wheel (Photo: Yali Shi)

 

 

 

It’s always interesting to see what famous folks were born on certain days – it’s fun trivia, but it can give you some baby name inspiration, too.

 

Here’s my list of Next Weeks’ Names – everyone from princesses to football players to a U.S. President:

 

 

July 5

1670 – Dorothea Sophie of the Palatinate – Duchess of Parma

1755 – Sarah Siddons – British actress

1810 – P.T. Barnum – Circus magnate (The P.T. stands for PHINEAS TAYLOR)

1902 – Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. – American diplomat

1912 – Mack David – American lyricist

1939 – Booker Edgerson – American football player

1950 – Huey Lewis – American musician

1951 – Goose Gossage – American baseball player

1960 – Pruitt Taylor Vince – American actor

1963 – Edie Falco – American actress

1968 – Kenji Ito – Japanese composer

1973 – Róisín Murphy – Irish musician

1975 – Amélie Mauresmo – French tennis player

1984 – Danay Garcia – Cuban actress

 

 

July 6

1747 – John Paul Jones – American naval commander

1781 – Sir Stamford Raffles – British statesman

1782 – Maria Louisa of Spain – Queen of Etruria

1796 – Nicholas I – Tsar of Russia

1868 – Princess Victoria – British royal family

1878 – Eino Leino – Finnish poet

1900 – Frederica Sagor Maas – American playwright

1907 – Frida Kahlo – Mexican painter

1927 – Janet Leigh – American actress

1931 – Della Reese – American singer

1939 – Jet Harris – English bass guitarist

1951 – Geoffrey Rush – Australian actor

1954 – Allyce Beasley – American actress

1987—Caroline Trentini – Brazilian model

 

 

July 7

1207 – Elisabeth of Hungary – Catholic saint

1746 – Guiseppe Piazzi – Italian astronomer

1843 – Camillo Golgi – Italian physician and Nobel laureate

1887 – Marc Chagall – Russian painter

1891 – Virginia Rappe – Silent film actress

1906 – Satchel Paige – American baseball player

1908 – Revilo P. Oliver – American professor  ***Revilo = Oliver backwards***

1915 – Margaret Abigail Walker Alexander – African-American novelist and poet

1921 – Ezzard Charles – American boxer

1922 – Pierre Cardin – French fashion designer

1927 – Doc Severinsen – American composer and musician

1940 – Ringo Starr – member of The Beatles

1942 – Carmen Duncan – Australian actress

1952 – Mando Guerrero – Mexican professional wrestler

1963 – Vonda Shepard – American singer

1968 – Jorja Fox – American actress

1969 – Sylke Otto – German luger

1969 – Cree Summer – American voice actress

1970 – Robia LaMorte – American actress and dancer

1980 – Kaisa Jouhki – Indonesian singer

1983 – Ciara Newell – Irish singer

 

 

July 8

1593 – Artemisia Gentileschi – Italian painter

1792 – Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen – Queen of Bavaria

1851 – Arthur Evans – English archaeologist

1867 – Käthe Kollwitz – German artist

1898 – Melville Ruick – American actor

1908 – Nelson Rockefeller – U.S. Vice President

1923 – Harrison Dillard – American athlete

1926 – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross – Swiss psychiatrist

1945 – Micheline Calmy-Rey – Swiss politician

1948 – Raffi – Canadian children’s entertainer

1949 – Wolfgang Puck – Austrian celebrity chef

1951 – Anjelica Huston – American actress

1952 – Jack Lambert – American football player

1974 – Zhanna Friske – Russian actress and singer

1977 – Milo Ventimiglia

1998 – Jaden Smith – American actor

 

 

July 9

1964 – Ann Radcliffe – English writer

1786 – Sophie Hélène Béatrix – Princess of France

1879 – Ottorino Respighi – Italian composer

1901 – Dame Barbara Cartland – English composer

1911 – Mervyn Peake – British writer and illustrator

1927 – Red Kelly – Canadian ice hockey player

1929 – Lee Hazlewood – American country singer

1933 – Oliver Sacks – British neurologist and author

1936 – June Jordan – American poet, writer and teacher

1942 – Edy Williams – American actress

1955 – Lindsey Graham – American politician

1968 – Lars Gyllenhaal – Swedish author

1974—Sian Berry – British politician

1986 – Kiely Williams – American singer and actress

1995 – Georgie Henley – English actress

 

 

July 10

1682 – Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg – German Lutheran missionary

1711 – Princess Amelia – British royal family

1867 – Prince Maximilian of Baden – Chancellor of Germany

1897 – Jack “Legs” Diamond – American bootlegger

1899 – Heiri Suter – Swiss cyclist

1917 – Hugh Alexander – American baseball player

1920 – Owen Chamberlain – American physicist, Nobel prize laureate

1921 – Eunice Kennedy Shriver – American activist

1929 – Winnie Ewing – Scottish politician

1935 – Tura Satana – American actress

1943 – Arthur Ashe – American tennis player

1947 – Arlo Guthrie – American musician
1958 – Fiona Shaw – Irish actress

1964 – Urban Meyer – American football coach

1965 – Princess Alexia – Princess of Greece and Denmark

1976 – Adrian Grenier – American actor

1977 – Gwendoline Yeo – American actress

 

 

July 11

1366 – Anne of Bohemia – consort of Richard II of England

1603 – Kenelm Digby – English privateer

1751 – Caroline Matilda of Wales – Queen consort of Denmark and Norway

1767 – John Quincy Adams – President of the United States

1895 – Dolly Wilde – English socialite

1899 – E. B. White – American writer – E. B. stands for Elwyn Brooks

1913 – Cordwainer Smith – American writer

1920 – Yul Brynner – Russian-born actor

1925 – Nicolai Gedda – Swedish tenor

1931 – Thurston Harris – American singer

1931 – Tab Hunter – American actor

1949 – Liona Boyd – English-born musician

1953 – Mindy Sterling – American actress

1953 – Bramwell Tovey – English-born conductor and composer

1956 – Sela Ward – American actress

1975 – Riona Hazuki – Japanese actress

1984 – Tanith Belbin – Canadian/American ice dancer

1996 – Adelina Sotnikova – Russian figure skater

 

 

SOURCE: One This Day iPhone app

 

There is some great food for thought in these lists. I enlarged my favorites – though narrowing it down to a handful of names was difficult.

 

Revilo P. Oliver is the most interesting name on the list because Revilo is Oliver spelled backwards. What do you think about quirky names like this?

 

Happy naming,

  Amanda

 

 

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BABY NAMES MADE EASY: THE COMPLETE REVERSE-DICTIONARY OF BABY NAMES

 

 

 

Interview with Kojii Helnwein about baby names…and her pain-free birth!

 
I’ve launched my first Notable Names feature - an interview with Kojii Helnwein of Project Runway and Models of the Runway. Kojii told me about how she got her unique name and how she chose her daughter’s name. Plus, she had great tips for soon-to-be-parents. Read it for yourself and leave comments here.
 
More name interviews to come…Stay tuned!

 

 

Subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss any future baby name posts.

 

You can also follow me on TWITTER to get up-to-the-minute celebrity baby name news, interesting names I come across and so much more! I’m @babynameauthor!

 

  Amanda

 

If you have baby name questions for me, email me at amanda@amandabarden.com.

Your question might appear in a future edition of Ask Amanda.

 

 

 

For more information on baby names and their meanings check out

BABY NAMES MADE EASY: THE COMPLETE REVERSE-DICTIONARY OF BABY NAMES

 

 

 

Bram Stoker’s Guide to Baby Naming (just in time for Halloween!)

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I remember being in high school and not being able to put Dracula down. I took it everywhere I went and stayed up late until I’d finished it…and was very sad when I came to the end. You know that feeling when a book is so good that you just don’t want it to be over? That’s how Dracula was for me.

 

Halloween seems like a good time to dust off this classic vampire tale and get some name inspiration.

 

Dracula debuted in 1897. So those of you interested in turn-of-the-century names should enjoy this list. It should also appeal to people interested in Irish names because Bram Stoker was born and raised in Dublin.

 

Here you go:

 

FEMALE CHARACTER NAMES

LUCY Westenra

WILHELMINA “MINA” (Murray) Harker

 

 

MALE CHARACTER NAMES

ABRAHAM Van Helsing

ARTHUR Holmwood

JOHN Seward

JONATHAN Harker

PETER Hawkins

QUINCEY Morris

 

 

LUCY and MINA would be quite stylish names today. Even WILHELMINA has an antique charm to it. It makes sense that these names sound interesting to our ears right now because names take a few generations to sound fresh again after a period of popularity. You can see a pretty steady cycle for the name LUCY here in the US. In 1897 it was the 61st most popular name for girls. It dropped in popularity a little bit each year until the 1970s where it hit a low of 588. Then LUCY started climbing again. In 2008, it was at 112. I suspect it will continue growing in popularity over the next few years and then start to decline again.

 

WILHELMINA was most popular in the US in the 1880s — peaking at 215 in 1884. It actually hasn’t been in the Top 1000 since 1954. Talk about a name ready for a comeback! I remember a Days of Our Lives storyline in the 1990s with a character named WILHELMINA played by Lisa Rinna. The character went by the name Billie. There was also a storyline about a cosmetics company called Princess Wilhelmina. WILHELMINA is a bit of a mouthful, but there are a lot of cute nickname potential here — Billie, Mina, Minnie, Willa, Willie.

 

MINA was popular in the 1880s and stayed on the charts until 1944. Then it dropped off entirely until 2002. I can see MINA continuing to increase in popularity because it is short and sweet, has a very feminine ring to it and has that nickname quality that is popular with some parents.

 

The boys’ names are fairly traditional. None of them would sound especially out of place on a playground today. Nor would they have sounded out of place 50 or 100 years ago. QUINCEY is the most unusual of the names (more commonly spelled “Quincy” here in the US). It has never been a “popular” name, but it has also never been so uncommon that it would surprise someone to hear it.

 

What do you think of these names? Any fellow Dracula fans out there? Write and let me know.

 

Subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss any future baby name posts.

 

You can also follow me on TWITTER to get up-to-the-minute celebrity baby name news, interesting names I come across and so much more! I’m @babynameauthor!

 

  Amanda

 

If you have baby name questions for me, email me at amanda@amandabarden.com.

Your question might appear in a future edition of Ask Amanda.

 

 

 

For more information on baby names and their meanings check out

BABY NAMES MADE EASY: THE COMPLETE REVERSE-DICTIONARY OF BABY NAMES

 

 

 

ASK AMANDA: “Watery” Irish Baby Names for Boys

 

 

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Welcome back to ASK AMANDA. Today we have a question all the way from New Zealand!!!

 

Ask Amanda

Q:    I’m looking for a boys’ name with a watery meaning that is either Gaelic or Irish in origin. Do you have any suggestions?   EMMA, Auckland, NZ

 

A:    Glad to see you found my book and website all the way in New Zealand!

 

This is a great question because you’ve hit on two very popular things — Irish names and water meanings. Here’s what I found for you…these are all names that are Gaelic or Irish in origin with “watery” meanings:

 

BRENNAN — “moisture”

CALDER — “violent stream”

HURLEY — “sea tide”

KYLE — “narrow strait”

LOCH — “lake”

MERRIL — “bright sea”

RHINE — “to flow”

ROARKE — “heavy rain shower”

 

I think there are some really good choices here. I’ve always loved the name KYLE — a long time favorite. ROARKE has a cool Irish sound to it. I kind of love the name HURLEY, but it makes me think of the Lost character (which is probably why I kind of love it).

 

Another option is to use the name of an Irish body of water. Here are some cool options that I found for you:

 

ALLEN

BANE

CALLAN

CAREY

CONN

CULLIN

DAN

DUFF

FERGUS

FINN

FOYLE

GILL

GLEN

LEE

MELVIN

ROSS

RYNN

 

Thanks for writing me! I hope you find a name you love. Be sure to let me know what you pick. J

 

Happy naming,

  Amanda

 

If you have baby name questions for me, email me at amanda@amandabarden.com.

Your question might appear in a future edition of Ask Amanda.

 

 

 

For more information on baby names and their meanings check out

BABY NAMES MADE EASY: THE COMPLETE REVERSE-DICTIONARY OF BABY NAMES

 

 

St. Patrick’s Day Baby Name Parade

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I laid out my favorite green sweater so I wouldn’t forget to put it on in the morning and I put together a list of names that pay homage to the holiday and all things Irish. Before I get to that though, a few words on the Baby Name of the DayPATRICK, of course.

Patrick has been a steady favorite over the years, but has never reached uber-popularity, like Jacob. According to the Social Security website, in the last 70 years Patrick has maintained a spot in the top 100 list of names for boys — ranking as high as 32 and as low as 89. These stats make it a good choice for those parents who want a well-known name that isn’t too trendy or overly popular. For those parents who like the idea of Patrick, but want something a little farther off the beaten path, consider the more traditional Irish version Padraic or the stylish French version Patrix.

Ok, on to my list of lucky names…

 

IRISH GIRLS’ NAMES

ERIN

IRELAND

KELLY

CLOVER

RIONA

RHIANNON

GENEVIEVE

KEIRA

 

 

IRISH BOYS’ NAMES

LIAM

AIDEN

FINN

DONOVAN

DUFF

KIERNAN

 

 

IRISH UNISEX NAMES

SHEA

RORY

DEVIN

KEEGAN

MARCH

KERRY

LUCKY

JOSS 

 

 

For more, check out Baby Name Made Easy. It’s full of Irish names and even has an entire chapter devoted to names that mean good fortune and good luck — one of my personal favorite meanings for a name!

 

 

  Amanda

 

If you have baby name questions for me, email me at amanda@amandabarden.com.

Your question might appear in a future edition of Ask Amanda.