Names that Rock the V

from bobnewell.net

I don’t think I can call to mind a single relative of mine who has a name with the letter v making up a part of it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not seeing the letter more frequently of late. It’s actually surprising just how many instances I’ve seen names contained the letter v of late, however, there’s certainly nothing wrong with this; I strongly associated the letter with the phrase V for Victory.

Indeed, the idea for this post really started to brew after reading this post and that post over at Midwinter Names whilst I was trying to catch up with all the posts I’ve missed due to recent business. Both posts contain a list of names popular in Sweden, and I couldn’t help but notice that dozens of them contain our new favourite letter:

• Alva
• Elvira
• Lova
• Lovisa
• Nova
• Olivia
• Tuva
• Vera

• Alvin
• Arvid
• Edvin
• Gustav
• Kevin
• Ludvig
• Melvin
• Oliver
• Viggo
• Viktor
• Vincent

Coincidence? Possibly, but it may be the sign of bigger things nevertheless, especially if you couple those names with some of the other names I’ve seen in the past week or two elsewhere:

Avril/Venus

The month of April is here and both Elea and Cristina made mention of it in a dedicated post. Avril is, of course, the French for April, whilst the Goddess Venus is strongly associated with the month, not just the tennis player.

Covey

British celebs Konnie Huq and Charlie Brooker welcomed a son named Covey recently. Now, that is one name I never expected them to use, although I did wonder about whether or not they’d use a C/K- name of relative disuse as Konnie and Charlie‘s birth names are Kanak and Charlton, respectively – not exactly day-today names.

Genevieve

This name recently won March Madness over at Appellation Mountain alongside Arthur, she was also recently mentioned in an article as a name in consideration by Robbie Williams for his daughter due in September; the legitimacy of the claim remains to be seen. I can hear a sound similarity to Jennifer, but whether she hit the dizzing heights of popularity that Jennifer once enjoyed remains to be seen.

Pavel

A Russian tennis star by the name of Anastasia Myskina welcomed a son called Pavel at the beginning of March – but I only heard of his birth the other day. My first thought was Ivan Pavlov, he of Pavlov’s Dogs fame, and then the Stark Trek character Pavel Chekov. The name Pavel is an international variant of Paul.

Ravi

I caught my sister watching a new Disney show this week called Jessie, and one of the main characters is an Indian lad named Ravi. I think that Ravi would make for an interesting, international alternative to the popular David.

Suvi

Recently mentioned over at Marginamia in her fourth installement of her delightful series regarding Finnish names. I’ve long held a love for both Suvi, meaning summer, and Lumi, meaning snow.

Vincent

Surprisingly a popular topic of late: he’s been mentioned on eponymia, Waltzing and Baby Names From Yesteryear within the past fortnight. Now, that really is a spooky coincidence.

Virginia

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli recently welcomed a daughter named Virginia, which was one of the names put forward in Upswing’s Guess the Unfairly Dated Name Challenge; I guessed Vera.

Has anyone else seen any interesting v-filled names recently? Or have I been the only lucky one?

Name Spot of the Week: Game Show Blitz

Simmy (l) and James (r), from James May's Man Lab, from tinypic.com

I found myself humming Little April Shower from Bambi earlier on today, and that got me thinking: April or Avril? Or maybe even Aprella? There were four voice actors for Bambi in his film, of which the ones for baby, young and adolescent Bambi were called Bobby, Donnie and Hardie.

I’ve rediscovered the TV channel Challenge this week, and have been busy gobbling up up the classic game show reruns. Earlier on today I caught an episode of Family Fortunes featuring a family of elderly ladies named Joan, Dorothy, Enid, Margaret and Ella. To the modern eye, Ella looks almost out-of-place, but in fairness Ella was at #97 in 1904.

Classic Who Wants To Be A Millionaire threw up an Ingram – who went on to win the top prize. He has a son called Isaac ‘Zac’, whilst the player beforehand used his friend Olaf for Phone A Friend.

Million Pound Drop also restarted up again this week – huzzah! Akbar and Lynne won 25k, whilst Craig and Seve won 100k. Seve was half-spanish and he reminds me of the man called Simmy who turned up in James May’s Man Lab series from a few weeks ago. I can only speculate that Simmy is short for Simon. Back to Million Pound Drop and there was also a pair called Jono and Liam, and another pairing called Kenneth and Whitney who went out on their first question.

I’ve also started to get into this series of Masterchef: The Professionals, whilst includes a male named Perry – and another one named Ash. Speaking of Ash, 3-letter names rock, and I’m not just saying that because Lou fits this category. I’m also saying this because I couldn’t help but notice a buzz developing around these names of late, especially over at Elea’s little corner of the internet. They’re certainly more intriguing than Ann or Rob, and the collection mentioned over the past week by my peers is nothing short of fascinating:

Roa, from Eponymia’s post on Names From Jordan.

Zed and Ovo, from Bewitching Names’ post of Names From Cirque du Soleil

Ada and Azo from Baby Names From Yesteryear’s post on Lord Byron.

Bell, Pax, Paz, Eir, Joy, Gil, Lux, Luz, Ora, Ori, Uri, Nur and Xue from British Baby Names’ Advent Calendar series.

Icy and Ivy from Midwinter Names’ post on Wintery Names.

Ava and Jem from Waltzing More Than Matilda’s post on Names From Stories on Midwives

Asa and Roy from Names 4 Real’s most recent post of Birth Annoucements.

Zeb and Zef from Appellation Mountain’s post on Z- Names for Lads.

Dot from Nook of Names post on Rune Names.

Wim and Kit from Marginamia’s post on Names from The Glow.

Name Spot of the Week: London

The Olympic Rings at St. Pancras station, London. I found out last week that I managed to get two tickets in the 2012 draw 🙂

As you probably know by now, I spent all weekend in London, and it’s quite easily my most favourite place on Earth. But maybe that’s because I always meet the nice people in London. Either way, it made for some interesting name spotting:

Abdullahmani

Avril

Baxter

Bertram

Guinevere

Huw

Jenson

Lynden (Male)

Nell

Opal

Pancras (I travelled through St. Pancras station, one day I will look him up)

Vera

A few days ago I saw Ben Fogle’s announcement that he’d welcomed his second child, a little girl named Iona. Such a lovely name, and she joins elder brother Ludo. Personally, I always think of Ludo Decker, Til Schweiger’s character in the german film: Keinohrhasen, when I hear Ludo.

The aim of my London trip was to go and see All’s Well that Ends Well at Shakespeare’s Globe, and I came away with a love of the name Parolles, a character in the play.

Whilst in London, I made time to finally go through the Cabinet War Rooms, which in itself was a treasure trove of names:

Clarita ‘Clara’

Clement

Clementine (known as Clemmie)

Hastings

Kingsley

Leonie

Magnolia

Olive

Randolph

Winston

And whilst I remember, the picture in a recent  post is not Embankment, it’s Bank. Specifically the central line station at Bank. It’s nice to have that issue cleared up.