Comfortable Disorientation

A little funny thing

Yesterday Laura posted about sibling sets. This was in response to discussion in her comments about whether or not it's a good idea for parents to choose matching or complementary names for siblings. Reading it, I was reminded me of something funny that I experience occasionally - one of those things that feels odd for a second but is forgotten as soon as the moment passes.

My brother is called Richard. As far back as I can remember our names have been connected (I'm older by 2.5 years).

Helen and Richard

or more acurately...

Helenenrichard

It's hardwired and instinctive to the point of reflex.

Whenever I'm introduced to someone called Richard, I get momentarily thrown by simultaneous jolts of familiarity and awkwardness. Hearing our names in quick succession is weird because the person in front of me is not my brother. I feel an inappropriate level of intimacy and connectedness with whoever it is simply because (in my mind) our names go together. At almost at the same time, I realise this is inappropriate and recoil in embarrassment.

Not entirely sure why I'm sharing this.

The 2006 name of the year

Laura Watternburg has decided that Shiloh is the name which best defines 2006. She feels the Jolie-Pitt offspring has redefined the name's social meaning (previously used as a boy's name and associated with a civil war battleground).  Of Angelina, Laura says:

If there were a baby naming hall of fame Angelina Jolie would be a charter member. She chooses extremely unusual names: Maddox, Zahara and Shiloh. But while other celebrities earn snickers for their unconventional choices, nobody's laughing at the Jolie kids. Angelina is like that friend who shows up for a party wearing colors you never would have imagined putting together and maybe don't even like, but dang she looks good.

So it's out with Katrina (defining name of 2005) and in with Shiloh.

Onomastics

Onomastics = the study of proper names and their origins.

Something new I learnt today.

Street & house names

I spent some of my childhood living in a street called Frietuna Road. It's a bit of a strange name and sounds rather unappetising. But knowing that the name had been picked out of the Doomsday Book made me like it a lot more. I didn't need to know what the Doomsday Book was to think it sounded important, dramatic and historically exciting.

We later moved to a village and a newly built house that had been given the working title of Plot 2. I don't know how much deliberation it took, but my parents chose a fantastic name. A name that sounded warm & homely and knitted together an association with the land the house was built on and a word with geographical significance for our family.

After I left home, my parents moved again. Their new house had a pleasant sounding but tautological name. I've always wondered whether or not the previous owners that chose the name realised the tautology, but decided to go with it because it simply sounded nice.

Just like people's names, street & house titles are often a product of all sorts of historical and personal whims. Origins Info provides a tool with which to explore UK addresses with. Unfortunately it's a bit rubbish, particularly when my point of comparison is the marvelous baby name voyager. But Richard Webber's paper The Naming of British Streets (downloads when you click Explanation: Research & Approach) whets my appetite to learn more about the quirks and patterns of Britain's addresses.

Great names

I love hearing about unusual and quirky names. Admittedly some I find worthy of a small eyebrow raise but I try hard not to get sniffy about them. Some unusual names are just too wonderful to be true – especially when someone embodies their title either by how they are or what they do. Here are a few of my favourites:

Thornton Mustard: I narrowly missed an opportunity to meet this guy once. He’s a specialist in organoleptics. How fabulous that his name evokes two contrasting tastes?

Stryker McGuire: he writes for the Newsweek London bureau, I don’t know him but it’s such a brilliant name for a world news journalist.

April Flowers: a delightfully sunny, breezy lady who works in hospitality.

I’m sure there’s some other great ones I’ve come across - I like names a lot but I’m useless at remembering them…

Human Branding

I'm obsessed with names.  Perhaps it's because all around me appear to be sprogging.

I love the idea that anyone who becomes a parent has the massive responsibility of branding another life.  I'm fascinated by the names people choose, and even more so by the process of trying to work out the hopes and aspirations behind their choices.

I love this blog by Laura Wattenberg.  It's full of insightful gems derived from the US baby name stats.  I love her fairness and delight in demonstrating often counter-intuitive trends.  For example, celebrities are no more likely than the rest of us to give their children weird and wonderful names; choosing nicknames as given names is arguably more old fashioned than choosing the longer version.

There's a cool baby name voyager too where you can track the popularity of different names going back to the 1880's.