Family Tree Alternatives

Usually when people ask for alternatives of other names, they tend to look at similar-sounding names. However, in this post we’re delving into names related to popular names and picking out some intriguing possibilities for alternative names.

1. Harry and Amelia

Harry was born as a nickname for Henry, and these days is living it large in the #1 spot. Another offshoot of Henry is the Scottish variant Hendry.

Whilst choices were plentiful for Harry, the pool of potential names is smaller for Amelia and basically revolves around the same letter combinations, e.g. Amalia, Amélie etc. Perhaps the best bet is Emelia.

2. Oliver and Olivia

There are plenty of weird and wonderful international variants of Oliver, but I’m rather partial to Noll, which is an old medieval diminutive for the name.

Oliver and Olivia are interrelated, and my favourite other female name in the family tree is almost certainly Olivette.

3. Jack and Lily

There were quite literally a bazillion choices for both names here; in terms of Jack I’m thinking either the Welsh Ianto, or the French Yannick. The name Ianto is a diminutive, like Jack, of Ifan which is the Welsh form of John. As for Yannick, he comes from Yann which is the Breton form of John.

However, a last minute acknowledgement must go to the name Manech: he’s the Basque form of Jean, and Jean is of course the French form of John.

Then we have Lily, and my initial thought was the Scottish form of Lilian: Lillias or Lileas. Or go psuedo-chemistry with Lilium.

4. Alfie and Jessica

The complete opposite of the above pair of names, in that both Alfie and Jessica have few options. Alfie is, of course, a nickname for Alfred, and my best suggestion is Avery: a medieval form of Alfred.

Jessica is a toughie for the simple reason that she has few cousins, however Iscah is an intriguing possibility, being a possible source of the name Jessica.

5. Charlie and Emily

Charlie is a nickname for Charles, and in France they have Charlot. Anyone familiar with the French language will note that the t is silent, thus the name does not sound like Charlotte, more like SHAR-lo.

With Emily we encounter the same problems as with Amelia; there is a tenuous link between Emily and the Welsh name Emlyn, but alas, Emlyn is technically a male name. Best suggestion is likely to be either Emmy, Émilienne or Aemilia.

6. Thomas and Sophie

The Welsh short form for Thomas is Twm (said something like tuwm), or alternatively there is the Scottish variant Tavish.

As for Sophie, in Scandinavia they use Vivi as a nickname for Sofia.

7. Jacob and Ruby

There are, again, a plethora of options to choose from here, but I’m opting for the short’n’sweet option with Jeb.

Being a word name makes Ruby difficult, but the French for Ruby is Rubis and the German is Rubin.

8. James and Grace

For James, I would opt for Jem, which is an old and now rarely used nickname for James.

Ditto Ruby when it comes to Grace; once more turning to French we have both Grâce and Joliesse as translations. The former isn’t so practical, given that the French pronounce it to sound more like grass than grace.

9. Joshua and Ava

We’re venturing into the Arab world for Joshua, with the name Isa; the Arabic form of Jesus.

As for Ava, Chava is undoubtedly a wonderful suggestion – being the Hebrew form of Eve – but she’s mostly reserved to parts of the world not inflicted with the word chav. There is also the option of Hungarian name Évike.

10. William and Isabella

With William, I’m thinking maybe the German and Dutch dimiutive, Wim. Aside from him, we also have the option of Wiley, or even the Dutch Pim.

As for Isabella, being related to Elizabeth gives us plenty of options. As for the ones vaguely similar to Isabella, we have the German name Ilsa, which is a diminutive of Elisabeth.

Santa Special

Santa Train, via flickr

I’ve spent all weekend handing out presents to excitable small children, and what has to be the biggest pack of Brownies I’ve ever come across in my life. This all adds up to the need for an extra special post to give me a chance to share with you as many names as my poor mind can remember.

That said, this post does comes with the warning that, whilst I know their rough ages due for present-selecting purposes, I can only hazard a guess at the spellings of their names. This is by no means a complete list, rather, a collection of the ones I remembered, and for the sake of simplicity, yes there were many multiples of many of these names, but I’ve forgone this since I can’t give exact numbers on how frequent each names was used, but, the ones I saw time and time again?

• Alfie
• Ben
• Hayden
• Henry
• Lucy
• Isabella
• Joshua
• Ruby

Before unleashing the lists on you, it is worth noting that the children could’ve easily been introducing themselves by their nickname, not their fullname.

Babies

Alfie	James	Olly
Eloise	Nina	Polly
Evie	Meggie	Ruby
Isabella	Maggie	Susanna

1-2

Ace	Cameron	George	Lucy
Aiden	Casper	Hannah	Maisie
Alfie	Charlie	Harry	Nancy
Amy	Che	Henry	Niamh
Archie	Chelsea	Holly	Phoebe
Baxter	Debbie	Isabella	Sally
Bea	Ebony	Isla	Sally
Bella	Eddy	Jack	Sean
Ben	Edward	Jenny	Stanley
Billy	Effie	Liam	Teddy
Bobby	Evan	Lila	Thisbe
Callum	Evie	Lola	William

3-5

Abby	Esther	Jason	Oliver
Abigail	Ethan	Joel	Olivia
Alfie	Eve	Jordan	Olly
Alice	Ewan	Joshua	Oscar
Amelia	Faith	Kian	Owen
Ben	Felix	Lenny	Penny
Bess	Fergus	Leon	Poppy
Betty	Gabby	Lily	Poppy
Bruno	Gabriella	Lola	Ralphie
Cameron	George	Lolly	Riley (m)
Cleo	Hamish	Lucy	Rosie
Coco	Hannah	Luke	Samuel
Daniel	Imogen	Maggie	Summer
Darcy	Isabella	Martha	Summer
Eleanor	Isla	Molly	Tammy
Elise	Jack	Niamh	Tommy
Emily	James	Nora	William

6-8

Alex	Freddie	Joshua	Reuben
Archie	Georgia	Kai	Sam
Ben	Geraldine	Kiefer	Scarlett
Cameron	Greta	Leo	Sophie
Charlie	Hannah	Lexie	Stacy
Charlotte	Harriet	Libby	Summer
Chloe	Hayden	Lily	Teddy
Connor	Isabella	Lucy	Theo
Delphine	Jessica	Margaret	Thomas
Eliza	Jessie	Molly	Verity
Elliott	Jimmy	Noah	Victoria
Elliott	Jimmy	Owen	Wendy
Emily	Joe	Perry	Willa
Erin	Jools	Petra	William
George	Joseph	Rebecca	Zeke

9-10

Bea	Jack	Molly
Becky	Jake	Sarah
Ben	Jessica	Stanley
Erin	Matthew	Thomas
Felicia	Noah	William

10+

Charlotte	Joel	Charlotte
Emily	Joshua	Quinn
Emmy	Matthew	Rowan
Frank	Melody	Winnie
Hattie	Niall	Zach
James	Noor

Weekend Post: The Name the Advert Took

Claud from the Renault Mégane advert, from carpages.co.uk

I’ve spent all day running up an down a Great Central Railway train giving out gifts with Santa Claus. That means I have now seen a small sample of what names the kind people of the East Midlands are giving to their offspring. Something someone mentioned to me was that they named their 10 week old daughter Nina because there are too many Clover adverts on the TV at the moment – something I never noticed myself. Clover is a brand of margarine here in the UK, and the recent We All Love Clover ad campaign was ripped to shreds by my peers for featuring people getting rather emotional about some margarine:

Their current advertising campaign is about the greatness of being in the middle. Despite this mother’s concerns, I still maintain Clover is a fantastic choice nevertheless. It’s also worth noting that the name of another brand of margarine here is called Flora.

So, we may hate them, but there’s always that occasional gem you need to look out for when it comes the adverts. Whilst the Clover advert doesn’t feature a named character, the product bears a name that a child could. It’s a thin line really between over and under exposure names get from companies desperate to flog their goods.

Therefore, it seems apt to look at a few adverts that have which all heavily feature a named character. Clearly, if Cadbury had named it’s characters, it would’ve easily taken a place on the list for its drumming gorilla and eyebrows adverts:

1. Adam and Jane (BT)

From the BT adverts we have Adam and Jane, alongside Jane’s children from a previous relationship, Joe and Lucy, and their new baby, Alfie. The main characters are acted out by a Kris and an Esther. The adverts have been following them now for several years, charting the development of their relationship and their use of BT services at the same time.

Whilst you may think that both name are reasonably well used, Jane has fallen down in recent years, now sitting below the 1000 mark:

Adam: #39, 2088 births

Jane: #1040, 32 births

Adam is the Hebrew word for man, whilst Jane ultimately comes from the same sources as John, meaning Yahweh is gracious. I still doubt that the BT adverts really have any effect over whether we use the names Adam and Jane any more or less – but the writers appeared to have picked up on current name trends by using Alfie for the newborn.

2. Alexandr (Compare The Market)

Comparethemeerkat.com has never been more popular. Fronted by the rather batty meerkat, Alexandr Orlov, he urges you to go the comparethemarket for cheap car insurance, not comparethemeerkat. Here in England&Wales, you’re more likely to meet an Alexander than a Alexandr:

Alexandr: #4678, 3 births

Alexander: #21, 3025 births

Really, using Alexandr may mean you get simples shouted at your little one, but there are two facts to consider:

1. The majority of Alexandr’s (with whatever variation) tend to shorten their name.
2. Alexandr could easily be mistaken for Alexander – it’s your choice to correct them.

3. Nigel (Government Anti-Piracy)

We’ve all been told, knock off Nigel buys knock off DVDs. This one, out of all of these, is probably well remembered given that it came in the form of a catchy song. We all love a catchy tune to hum, and that may be a  hinderance to the name Nigel. That, and the fact that most see Nigel as a middle-aged name. Currently in England&Wales, the name is at:

Nigel: #1344, 18 births

The name Nigel is commonly associated with the Latin word niger, meaning black. It has also been linked with the name Neil, which either means champion or cloud.

4. Pablo (Frank)

I love David Mitchell, who voiced the rather cynical drug awareness advert for Frank: Pablo the Drug Mule dog. Particularly well-known amongst the younger generation, since David Mitchell’s core fan base is as such.

Pablo: #792, 32 births

Pablo is the Spanish form of Paul – which comes from Latin and can either mean small or humble.

5. Claud (Renault Mégane)

This acts as an additional name. In the shortened adverts which were the core ones shown his name is not given, but if you catch the long version, you do find out his name. It follows the pursuits of a frenchman, Claud, as he goes to Gisburn in Lancashire to discover why there is a correlation between fertility and the presence of Renault Méganes in a town. The really long version is quite amusing because of the stick the people of Gisburn give Claud.

‘Money can’t buy you happiness’…’but lack of money certainly causes misery’

Claude: #2629, 7 births (Claud does not rank)

This advert is certainly the least well known of the five, and I’m sure many of you have no idea what I’m talking about. That’s totally fine, even I’m not sure what I’m saying some of the time. My problem with Claud comes from his meaning: he’s a derivation of the Latin name Claudius which means crippled.

Sibset of the Week: The Lowes

Pearl Lowe with eldest daughter Daisy, from media.onsugar.com

Pearl Lowe first entered the public eye in the 1990s as a vocalist for several indie bands, before going solo as simply Pearl. She then turned her attention to design, launching a range of lace curtains and cushions in 2001. This followed in 2006 with clothes.

Clearly then, this is one mama who loves design, and she’s made some pretty stylish picks for her children as well. Like Jo Whiley from two weeks ago, she’s had them over a long period, so I’ll include birth years as well:

Daisy Rebecca (1989)

Alfie (1996)

Frankie (1999)

Betty (2005)

Back in 1996, Alfie was only #119, so had yet to make the jump into the Top 100. Right now I can’t decide whether I love Betty or Betsy more.