Names and anagrams

An anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging all of the letters of another word or phrase. It’s neat when you look at the new words that can come from looking at names. For example, the letters in ‘Elvis’ can be rearranged to ‘Lives’. It can be spooky, when you see there might be some hidden relevance to the rearranged letters. You’ve probably seen that the letters in Clint Eastwood’s name can be rearranged to form ‘Old West Action’. And, Charlize Theron is an anagram for Razor Leech Thin.

You might be reading a story and realize that the author has made a character name from an anagram! Tom Riddle, from the Harry Potter series is a recent example. Try making anagrams out of some of the names of your friends or favorite celebrities.

You might surprise yourself with the results! You might also create an anagram from your own name and your job or hobby. You could work with something like ‘Joe Smith rock climbing.’ One of the possibilities is ‘Climber Sitcom Jig Honk’. Maybe, Joe should try another hobby!

There are even online tools that can help you to create anagrams. You might learn more about the story behind your name by working with anagrams! Give it a try. Check out the tools at http://wordsmith.org/ and have fun!

The Importance of naming a child

What does a name say about the namer? A divorce case was in the news recently, that involved a young girl with an unfortunate name. The girl, aged 9, was made a ward of the court until she could change her name. In his ruling, the judge said: "The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgement which this child's parents have shown in choosing this name. It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and a handicap, unnecessarily. She fears being mocked and teased, and in that she has a greater level of insight than either of her parents."

Now, of course we don’t have the whole picture. There might have been many other issues that came up in the proceedings. But, something must have alerted the judge for the parents to have had their parental rights challenged. Yet, raising a child is about being a responsible parent.

Naming the child is part of your responsibility as parent. Naming conveys your love and belief in your child, and in yourself. In the process of naming a child you are welcoming a new person into the world. Your world! Although we don’t necessarily understand the significance of names, many other other cultures do. In these cultures there are still ceremonies performed to give children a name. These ceremonies are a way to honor the child and welcome him/her into the community. Some of them even include methods for naming the child.

Names for Pirates

When I started this blog, it was to find out how people choose their names, but I didn't bargain on finding this method!

Just for fun, check out this website, and discover your hidden pirate name:
http://www.piratequiz.com/

Name choice expert -- Laura Wattenberg

Here is an interesting approach. Laura Wattenberg has come up with The Baby Name Wizard, available as a book on Amazon.com. She is also keeping a blog at http://www.babynamewizard.com/.

Interesting approach -- she helps you narrow down on just the right baby name, based on meaning and sound of the name, including how it sounds with the names of the baby's siblings.

She is also interested in naming trends, based on the names celebrities use for their children.
For instance, she talks about the new names appearing since the Brangelina's choice of Knox. She is seeing more 'o's and 'x's appearing in baby names.

Go figure!

Top 10 boys' names in Canada in 2007

And here are the boys:

1. Aidan (Aiden)
2. Ethan
3. Jacob (and variations)
4. Noah
5. Lucas
6. Logan
7. Liam
8. Owen
9. Joshua
10. Matthew

Top 10 girls' names in Canada in 2007

Here we go:

1. Emma
2. Sophia (Sofia)
3. Olivia
4. Emily
5. Ava
6. Hailey (and many other spelling variations)
7. Abigail (and variations)
8. Madison (and variations)
9. Hannah (Hanna)
10. Isabella (Izabella)

Naming goals change over time

Our Saturday newspaper had an article about baby names this week.
It postulated that our goals for naming have changed since our parents', and especially, our grandparents' time.

"It used to be that a very large percentage of parents wanted a good, solid, ordinary name for their child," says Laura Wattenberg, a noted name researcher, "but today, parents treat ordinary as a dirty word."

John, Susan, Catherine, and Robert used to be the names of choice; now we have Apple (Gwyneth Paltrow's child), Knox (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's child), and Sunday (new daughter of Nicole Kidman).
Cate Blanchet just named her new son Ignatius, which could fit in either list, depending on your time frame!

Interesting choices, but still better than Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii!