from dvdsinside.com
Yesterday we talked about some of my favourite names inside the England&Wales Top 100, so now for a complete change of tune. Today we’re talking about a selection of less-than-usual names I’ve come across these past few days.
Soren – The name I intended to cover yesterday seems a fitting way to start today’s post. I covered the name Sora as a name of the week not too long ago, and I recently stumbled across the name Soren twice in one day. It seemed a sign at the time.
Now, in Nortern Europe this name is seen as Sören in Sweden and Germany, whilst he’s Søren in Norway and Denmark. The former is simply a cultural variation of the latter, whilst the latter himself in the Danish form of Severinus. If you thought we’d go a post without mentioning Harry Potter, you were wrong (ironically, Harry was the first name in yesterday’s post). The name Severinus, or Severus, means stern, serious or strict. It’s Italian and Spanish offshoot is Severo, whilst the Finnish prefer Severi and the Frenchies opt for Séverin. There’s several other relations which can be found here. One that did catch my eye is Sévèrine – the French feminine form which seems oddly appealing in a French accent.
That means, therefore, that Soren isn’t technically related to the name Sora, which means sky in Japanese.
Papaya – A recent addition to the crop of British celeb babies, born to Alicia Douvall late last year. It’s the name of the fruit of a Papaya tree, so in a way it’s like the 21st century version of Peaches. Which reminds me, the original Peaches [Geldof] recently announced that she plans to name her unborn son Astala. It rather reminded me of the name of musician Pete Doherty’s son: Astile.
Paprika – I used to watch this kids show called Blues Clues as a child, where many characters were household items. ‘Lo and behold, the salt and pepper shakers (Mr Salt and Mrs Pepper) had a daughter named Paprika, who was a Paprika shaker. The happy couple also had another ‘child’ named Cinnamon, who was a boy. If you think this is confusing, I used to think that Blue the dog was male, because blue is a boy’s colour, so the character must be a boy. There was a another dog named Magenta, who clearly must be a girl because pink is a girls colour. Turns out both were female dogs, and Periwinkle the cat was a boy and there’s also his friend Plum the parrot which I think must be male, too, but I remain unsure. Either way, this all added up to a very confused me.
Callisto – The name derives from Greek and means most beautiful. She was a fair maiden in Greek mythology, and was a favourite of Artemis. After attracting the attention of Zeus, he then transformed her into a bear to protect her from the wrath of Hera. She was later placed amongst the constellations in Ursa Major – which is also known as the Great Bear. Similar name Calliope also exists in Greek mythology, being the name of one of the muses. Her name means beautiful face. A lesser known name from Greek mythology is Callirhoe, which means beautiful stream. Two daughters of river Gods from Greek mythology wore this name.
Mer de Noms 