Loulou…

from rouskadetiolles.fr

Remember how I mentioned the names of John Torode’s kids a few weeks ago in our weekly Sibset post? Well, at the time I claimed his youngest child was called Lulu – and it seems that I was half right. You see, I read an article by the man himself quite by chance a few days ago and he spelled her name Loulou. Loulou! Like Lou, but twice the fun – I’m almost jealous.

This got me thinking, as most things in my life do, about other names which have the quirky characteristic of containing mine. One of my favourite films growing up was The Jungle Book which featured a character called Baloo. Staying with films we have Leeloo from Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element – whose name went on to dominate the French popularity charts in a different guise: Lilou.

Those two examples only scratch the surface. Delving deeper we get to Blue – now famed after Beyonce and Jay-Z gave it to their daughter born in January, whilst Geri Halliwell has a daughter named Bluebell.

Moving over to names starting with Lou, let’s start with royalty. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge recently became owners of a dog named Lupo – whilst actress Hilary Duff welcomed a son named Luca only the other day.

Lupo is an interesting choice and it’s Italian for wolf. A few years ago VW manufactured a car called Lupo, with the last one rolling off the production line in 2005. Interestingly, it was replaced by a car named Fox.

As for Luca, the first critical point to make is that you can legitimately give this name to either your daughter or son – it’s not just a male-only name. Yes, Luca is the Italian and Portuguese version of Luke, but at the same time the name is also the Croatian and Hungarian version of Lucia.

Speaking of Lucia, there’s a new kid on the block with her posse of names and that is the one which started it all off – Lux. From this Latin word for light we get many names, and many offshoots of such names (my favourite, aside from Lucy, is the Welsh Lleulu). Some parents are now opting to return to using simply Lux – and I’ve seen it used on both boys and girls. A comedian by the name of Eddie Perfect recently welcomed a daughter named Lottie Lux, sister for Kitty. Back in June 2011, footballer Andrew Embley welcomed a son named Lux Edward, brother for Autumn Claire.

Both Luke and Lucas are in the Top 100 in England&Wales, but neither Lucian nor Lucius are. It’s worth noting though that the first two names mean man from Lucania, whereas the latter two mean light; aside from them, we also have Lumina which means light.

The opposite of the light is dark, and that’s my strenuous link to Luna – a name which means moon. Sometimes the French will spell this name as Louna, which is a respelling I find myself fond of.

Going back to Eastern Europe, we have Lubomír from the Czech Republic which has the wonderful meaning of peace and light. A name Lubomír always reminds me of the French Ludovic – often shortened to Ludo as Ben Fogle does with his young Ludo – which means famed warrior. From Germany we get Leuthar, or Luther, which means people’s army and this is a name which has passed into English-speaking usage. I’m sure I’m also seen a similar name along the lines of Luthos before.

Now, we’ve mentioned plenty of names beginning with Lou, but there are a few more names which contained a lou sound.

The first I want to mention is Tallulah, a rather fun in sound name and certainly less controversial than the similar name Delilah. Whilst the meaning is uncertain, there are some waterfalls in Georgia named Tallulah. There’s a similar looking Irish name – Talulla – which means princess.

Then we have Mélusine, a name from European folklore. The tale goes that Melusine was a water fairy who transformed into a serpent from the waist below every Saturday.

A male name that merits a mention is Pluto which was until recently the name of a planet; he means wealth. Then we have another popular French name to finish off the list: Elouan. He comes as the name of an obscure saint, recorded in Cornwall as being Elven or Elvan. In Cornish, elven means spark.

All that said, I still believe that the name Lou rocks more than any of these names, personal preference and all.