5 Awesome Double L Names

These kinds of posts are one of my favourites, even though it’s always hard to whittle down the names to the final five. This time around we’re looking at some names that have two of the letter ls in them, which is a wide open category so in the first instance I threw out the usual suspects, i.e. Lily ; Ellie ; Isabella.

1. Laurel

I have a close friend with this name and she is fiercely proud of it, and this has very much endeared the name Laurel to me. The name is ultimately a floral one, inspired by the laurel tree. The name of the laurel tree comes from the latin word, laurus.

There was an ancient practice, originating in ancient games occuring in Delphi, involving weaving bay leaves into crowns to place upon the heads of victors. This imagery was alluded to during the 2004 Summer Olympics when medal winners were presented with crowns made of olive branches.

The name Laurel sits in the 2012 England&Wales list at #1809, with only 7 girls given the name.

2. Molly

For me, there’s something very endearing about the name Molly, perhaps due to the Harry Potter character, Molly Weasley.

It also related to one of my all-time favourite words: mollycoddled, which means to treat someone in an overprotective way. Of course, when you look into the origins of the word, it doesn’t give us many reasons to like the name Molly:

• the word originate from two parts circa the 19th century, the first being molly, which has a dual meaning of girl/prostitute.
• the second, coddle, is older (suggested from as far back as the 16th century), most probably deriving as a dialect version of the now-obolete word caudle, which meant hot drink.

The name Molly is a mainstay favourite in England&Wales, having consistently ranked within the Top 50 since 1996, although she sadly seems to be tailing off at the moment, having fallen from a peak of #15 in 2001 to #46 in 2011 but, happily, she rose 7 places in the 2012 list, so she will be sticking around for a while longer.

The name Molly still has one over the name she originates from, given that Mary is now sitting down at #241. That’s a long way from her glory days, although Mary was last in the #1 spot in 1914, which is nigh on a century ago now. Sound-alike Polly sits just behind at #250 in the 2012 England&Wales data.

3. Camille

In some circles in the UK, the name Camilla still doesn’t carry much weight given the current Duchess of Cornwall. All the controversy surrounding Camilla is mostly before my time though, which is actually a long time ago now given I’ve recently hit the two decades mark.

I have a soft spot for Camille though, specifically the French pronunciation of the name: kah-mee. That rather negates the purpose of the list, given that the ls are actually silent, but most people in the English-speaking world will say them.

Of the two, Camilla is the more popular, sitting at #639 with 65 girls givne the name, compared with Camille’s ranking of #887, with 42 girls given the name.

4. Lila

One of my closest friends has this name, proving this name ages better than you might think given she is also almost 20. Growing up with Lila, I know she often had trouble with people pronouncing her name wrong: most teachers went for lee-lah, rather than lie-lah. And to be fair to the teachers, this was an honest mistake – especially when you consider that the German word for purple is Lila, and they use the former pronunciation.

Lila as a name could derive as an offshoot of Lily, or even Leila. It also has origins as an Indian name, which derives from Sanskrit and means past-time, play.

The name ranks at #265 with 188 girls given the name in 2012.

5.  Romilly

She may not look it, but Romilly is a prolific place name, with several towns in France called Romilly, plus another place in England, and then another district in Wales. It’s also a surname in both countries. Despite this, it’s origins are rather mystifying, and it’s usage as a first name is less common than you might think, ranking in England&Wales in 2012 at #934 with 39 girls given the name. It shares a rank with the likes of Patricia, Peggy and Paisley.

The possibilities for the origins of the name includes her deriving from the Latin name Romulus, which means of Rome. It could also come from the Old English word romen, meaning to roam.

The pronunciation is of note, since it’s usually given as ‘RAH-mi-lee’, whereas I’ve always pronounced it ‘ ROH-mi-lee’

Molly

Without a doubt, one of my favourite words in the English lexicon is mollycoddled. So delightful bizarre a word, yet I adore it so.

The origins of the word doesn’t exactly give us a million reasons to love the name Molly: according to Oxford dictionaries the word originates in two parts from circa that 19th century:

• the first, molly, has a dual meaning of girl/prostitute
• the second, coddle, is older from maybe the 16th century, probably deriving as a dialect variant of the now-obsolete word caudle, a word based upon the Latin word caldum meaning hot drink.

The world mollycoddle itself means to treat someone in an overprotective way, for those confused, and indeed lends Molly well to the character of Mrs Weasley in the Harry Potter books. Whether or not J.K. is a fan of the word remains unclear, however.

It could just be that she picked a popular name, as the name Molly is a mainstay favourite in England&Wales, having consistently ranked within the Top 50 since 1996, although she sadly seems to be tailing off at the moment, having fallen from a peak of #15 in 2001 to #46 in 2011. There seems a very real chance she’ll eventually fall outside the Top 50 next year.

The name Molly still has one over the name she originates from, given that Mary is now sitting down at #250. That’s a long way from her glory days, although Mary was last in the #1 spot in 1914, which is nigh on a century ago now. Sound-alike Polly sits just behind at #274.

Molly to me is an unusual name in that she rocks the childish, girly name thing well, but also doubles up as an awesome-hugger mama name with ease.

That’s the Lou way of saying that Molly works well on all ages.

Sea Urchin Trail: Kid Friendly Names

This will be a post of few words, as it is mostly a collection of pictures I snapped on a recent trip to the National Maritime Museum in Liverpool’s Albert Docks. For you see, in one of the exhibitions there included a sea urchin trail for the young ‘uns, wherein there were cute toys in various display cases that you had to find. Since I have a much younger sister, I got away with doing it myself.

Donald the Sunbather

Gussie the Seagull

Lucy the Lobster

Mickey the Monkey

Des the Diver

Shelly the Seahorse

Sammy the Starfish

Robert the Fisherman

Polly the Parrot

Percy the Parrot

Ollie the Octopus

Molly the Mermaid

Wendy the Whale

Anyone else notice, like me, that the majority of names seemed to be nickname-y? It’s only really Donald & Robert that are outliers in this case (yes, Wendy isn’t strictly a nickname, but has been used as one). This trail is aimed at the under-10s, and I did start to wonder what kind of thought went into the naming of the sea urchins, i.e. using kid-friendly names? What exactly are kid-friendly names? Personally, I see them as whatever a child may use themselves for their toys, and I have personally used plenty of names from this list. Other names from my own toy collection include: Alice, Corky, Snowy, Rosie, Kippy, Dobby, Whizz & Russie. Notice how almost all of them end in the ee sound?

What’s for certain is that there was a clear attempt to make the names alliterative, although this was not always the case. I love me a little bit of alliteration, and it seemed to go down well with Sippy.

Want more information on the names above? Of course you do:

Des (no rank), short for Desmond (#1620), which means South Munster.

Donald (#1407), from Gaelic meaning ruler of the world.

Gussie (no rank), nickname for Augusta (no rank) which means great, venerable

Lucy (#21), from the Latin lux, meaning light.

Mickey (#1724), short for Michael (#53), which means who is like God

Molly (#42), originally a nickname for Mary (#213).

Ollie (#63), short for Oliver (#1), which means elf army

Percy (#1407), short for Percival (#3865), which was created in the 12th century by a French poet

Polly (#300), variant of Molly (#42), which is a short form of Mary (#213)

Robert (#90), means bright fame

Sammy (#744), short for Samuel (#14), which means God has heard.

Shelly (#5707), means clearing on a bank. Common nickname for Michelle (#251), also.

Wendy (#2589), means either friend (in the case of J.M. Barrie’s character) or white, blessed, fair (from the Welsh gwen).

Oh, and since we all love a little gawk at the monogrammed tat, here’s a look at some of the names available in the gift shop. I think it’s mostly spot on for names I see everywhere, but what names are you surprised to see? (Fun fact: At a French bowling alley my sister became Hayley since the name Heather doesn’t really exist in the French concious. Another friend, Bethan, became Bella for the same reasons; the French will say Bethan as if the h were silent)

Tat shelf #1

Tat shelf #2

Experimentation&Pronunciation

So today, I’m partaking in a little experimentation, because it’s always fun to change around formats and try new ones, this is an example of the latter. A word of warning: it was a mostly spur of the moment decision to record this video.

Some more about the names covered:

Dolores – 2010 E&W ranking: #3156

A Spanish name taken from the title of the Virgin Mary, it means sorrows. Has been widely used in the English speaking world since the 19th century.

Ralph – 2010 E&W ranking: #258

Of Old Norse origins meaning wolf counsel.

I did check up on this, ‘ralf’ is the American pronunciations, whilst ‘rayf’ is the traditional way to say it in England, although nowadays the name is usually said ‘ralf’.

Imogen – 2010 E&W ranking: #26

A name created by William Shakespeare for his play, Cymbeline, although the name was originally meant to be Innogen. Likely to derive from the Old Irish ingen, which means daughter, girl, maiden.

Bernard – 2010 E&W ranking: #1082

Of Old English origins, meaning hardy bear.

Anthony – 2010 E&W ranking: #148

From the Latin name Antonius, which is likely to be connected to the Latin word ante, which means before. The spelling with the h was likely to be influenced by the Greek word anthos, which means a flower.

Molly – 2010 E&W ranking: #42

An old nickname of Mary, which has evolved to become a name in its own right.

Marley – 2010 E&W ranking: #593

Originally an English surname, meaning pleasent wood, although I have seen it linked to the meaning of weasel.

Harry – 2010 E&W ranking: #3

An old nickname of Henry, which has evolved to become a name in its own right.

Irene

Of Greek origins, meaning peace.

I also looked this one up; this name was originally said with three syllables, but has since adopted a two syllable pronunciation used by most.

Alice – 2010 E&W ranking: #43

From the Old German name Adelheidis, meaning noble.

Lucy – 2010 E&W ranking: #21

Derives from the Latin, lux, meaning light.

Douxy – 2010 E&W ranking: n/a

Most likely from the French word doux, which means sweet. 

Gabriel – 2010 E&W ranking: #78

From Hebrew, meaning strong man of God.

Benjamin – 2010 E&W ranking: #22

From Hebrew, meaning son of the south.

Oh, and the film review I mentioned about half way through can be found here.

Sibset of the Week: The Sandéns

Molly Sandén, from wikipedia.org

Eurovision is almost upon us, and I’m almost excited about the impending three-night extravaganza of poor taste and bad music. It’s almost like a guilty pleasure of mine, and so today’s trio of sisters felt like a good sibset to mention. All three have represented Sweden in the junior version of the Eurovision Song Contest, in 2006, 2007 and 2009, respectively. They all share their second middle name, and the collection of names as a whole are sweet enough.

Their names?

Molly My Marianne

Frida Lina Marianne

Mimmi Linnéa Marianne

I’d love any insight on whether they’re typical Swedish names or not, although I’m pretty sure Linnéa is a popular name up there? As for Mimmi, too cutesy? I don’t think that she’s much different from Maisie, who is in the England&Wales Top 20, but that’s just my opinion. Yours?

Homestyle Names

Nothing is more homely than a good brew, snapped by me in Covent Garden.

Not content with having a gazillion different blogs to read new posts on a regular basis, I’ve recently taken a delve into vlogs as well.

One video that really caught my eye was by littlelunaful, who is a northern lass a few years younger than me. She talked about what she described as homestyle names, defining them as being comforting, familiar, informal and simple. I must say I found myself really liking some of the names she placed in this category. The names she selected for her list included:

Girls:

Bonnie

Celia

Cora

Effie

Kitty

Lottie

Nina

Tilly

Vera

Willa

Boys:

Cal

Clay

Cy

Cyrus

Eli

Grady/Gradie

Leo

Admittedly, I found the male names a more eclectic list than the female one, but it’s a good collection of names nevertheless. Of course, I couldn’t resist coming up with my own ideas of names which one could consider homestyle:

Alice

Connie

Hattie

Molly

Petal

Poppy

Susie

Freddie

George

James/Jamie – Jimmy?

Jools/Jules

Rupert

Sid

Anyone care to suggest others?

Maude

from eerdmans.com

I mentioned Maisie yesterday and today we’re talking about Maude. Why ever for? Because I know of sisters named Maisie, Maude and Mollie. It certainly seems odd at first that these three names come together as names for three sisters, but if you shake off first impressions and really think about it, there are similarities between the names.

First off, the most obvious link is that all three begin with the letter M, all are 5/6 letters long and all have 1/2 syllables. That may even be why these names ended up together in the first place. It’s also worth noting at this point that the birth order is: Maude, Mollie and Maisie – and it’s not Maude who has the different father, but Maisie. It feels like a good time to mention a few other similar M- names that could sit alongside the existing three:

Mabel; Maddie; Maeve; Magda; Maggie; Mandy; Marcie; Margot; Marie/Maria; Maris; Mavis; Megan; Myrtle

Whilst Maisie and Mollie are relatively popular, the name Maude is only enjoying relative popularity in her extended family: there are currently two forms of Madison in the England&Wales Top 100 and Matilda is also in amongst the top flight as well as her short form of Tilly.

The name Matilda comes from the Germanic name Mathilidis, which means strength in battle. It seems apt therefore that a famed Matilda in British history is Empress Matilda, who spent many year fighing King Stephen for the crown. Matilda was the daughter of Henry I, and indeed was his heir following the death of her only brother, William, in the White Ship disaster of 1120. She was never crowned, however, and it was her cousin Stephen of Blois who is usually named as the King between 1135-1154. Their rivalry for the throne led to many years of unrest and civil war in England now know as The Anarchy.

Matilda herself was sometimes recorded as being name Maude and her mother was Matilda of Scotland, who was actually born as an Edith. The godmother of Matilda of Scotland was Queen Matilda – wife of William the Conqueror, and when Matilda of Scotland was crowned, it was as Matilda. It is widely accepted that the Normans brought the name Matilda to England with them.

The name Maude is a medieval short form of the name Matilda, and for many years the names were interchangeable – such as with the aformentioned Matilda’s often being known as Maude instead.

The name Maude remained popular until circa the 14th century in England, but usually used with the slight variant spelling of Maud. After this time the name died out somewhat, but was revived by the Victorians. It was in this time that Alfred Lord Tennyson penned a collection of poems entitled Maud. Tennyson also helped boost the popular of the name Elaine and Ida, thanks to his writings and he penned also first the name Lynette as an alternative spelling of Luned, which itself is a varient of the Welsh name Eluned.

In terms of popularity, a table is in order for all of the mentioned related names. Here wer’re comparing data from 2005 and 2010, both for England&Wales:

	2005		2010
	Rank	Births	Rank	Births
Maddison	#63	899	#81	734
Madison	#39	1556	#67	926
Maisie	#58	949	#14	2930
Maisy	#157	329	#100	584
Mathilde	#851	33	#1520	19
Matilda	#89	620	#53	1274
Maud	#2247	9	#2589	9
Maude	#3970	4	#5707	3
Mollie	#81	668	#117	490
Molly	#22	2355	#42	1454
Tillie	#516	66	#431	98
Tilly	#95	557	#88	677

A breakdown of the movement of the names works out as such, with the highest climbers/fallers at the top and working down:

Rise		Fall
Rank	Birth	Rank	Birth
Tillie (+85)	Maisie (+1981)	Maude (-1737)	Molly (-901)
Maisy (+57)	Matilda (+654)	Mathilde (-669)	Madison (-630)
Maisie (+44)	Maisy (+255)	Maud (-342)	Mollie (-178)
Matilda (+36)	Tilly (+120)	Mollie (-36)	Maddison (-165)
Tilly (+7)	Tillie (+32)	Madison (-28)	Mathilde (-14)
		Molly (-20)	Maude (-1)
		Maddison (-18)

The name Maud did not change when it came to birth numbers. I normally give both ranking and the number of births to give the full picture of where the name is going – since one of them just doesn’t give the full picture. If you take the case of Maud, from the ranks you may deduce that she’s falling out of popularity given that she fell 342 places between 2005 and 2010 – but the same amount of them were born in each year. It’s only because of the changing number of births each year that Maud received a different ranking in each list. However, observe the table and you’ll see that if the name fell in rank, it also fell in birth number (aside from Maud). So, you could indeed infer from the data that those names on the left-hand side of the table are growing in popularity whilst the ones on the right-hand side are falling in popularity.

What does this say to me? Well, first of all, a five-year comparison may not take in the whole picture of movement. A name can move fast in those years, but most take many years to really grow in favour or fall out of favour. In short though, neither Maud nor Maude are popular by any means, and whilst they may start to become popular it will likely take a few years for her to really rise up the rankings. On the flipside, in the next five years Maisie could easily start to fall – she’s already inside the Top 20 and may have peaked in popularity. I do think Maisie is a future Top 10 name, though.

Seeing the name Maude alongside current favourites such as Maisie makes me reconsider her potential. Whilst writing this post I’ve been think about the combination of Maude Eulalie, now I don’t really suggest combinations as a rule but Maude Eulalie has me tickled. The light, freshness of Eulalie combined with the solid, classic Maude really rather makes me smile.

Sibset of the Week: The Whitehalls

Comedian Jack Whitehall, from static.guim.co.uk

A few weeks ago, I posted all about names from the british comedy scene, and this was one name I felt saddened to let go. He was on the first draft and I had to cut him out at the last minute for various reasons. Either way, Jack Whitehall now gets his very own post as compensation.

Born in London to a Hilary and a Michael, you might expect him and his two siblings to bear rather ordinary name, and to a certain extent, yes they do, but the combination of names they each bear is what makes this a worthy sibset of the week:

Jack Peter Benedict

Molly Louisa

Barnaby William

The Crazy Brits

Let’s indulge ourselves with a litte name spotting in the London Birth Announcements, notable names are in bold, siblings in brackets:

Alexandra Charlotte Ozanne, (Isabelle)

Alice Dhanlaxmi

Amelia Jonquil Angharad

Amélie India Lucy, (William)

Beau Vivienne, (Ada Rose)

Celia Jane Vanessa, (Dougal)

Charlotte Carol Jane, (Oscar)

Darcey Carmen Rose, (Theo)

Ellen Andrea Maria

Florence Iona Emily Peel, (Isla and Willa)

Isla Aris

Henrietta Philippa Rose, (Annelies and Martha)

Iona Kathryn, (Imogen May)

Iris Arabella, (Katinka)

Isla Katherine

Isobelle Susannah

Jemima and Willa, twins

Katinka Alice Belsham, (Bella and Freddie)

Katinka Lily

Liberty Valentina Vaughan

Louisa Jane, Alistair

Mair ‘Polly’ Elisabeth Patricia, (Florence)

Marnie

Martha Maud, (Guy)

Martha Sophie Poppy, (Tilly and Olive)

Mary Beatrice Rose

Mary Constance, (Elsa and George)

Molly Elizabeth Sarah

Molly Juliet

Nancy Rebecca, (Lily)

Nancy Rose

Octavia, (Claudia)

Sadie Francesca

Soma Isis, (Seth and Saul)

Tessa Charlotte Jane, (Isabelle and Eliza)

Tessa Honor Bruce, (Tamsin and Jemima)

Willa Victoria Joanna Rees, (Hamish)

Zinnia Alice Victoria

—

Alasdair James Dudley

Alexander George Walter Halley, (Serena)

Archie Geoffrey

Arthur John Christopher, (Thady)

Caspar Anthony Wallace

Freddie Samuel, (Jack and Georgia)

George Alfred Beresford

George James Sherlock

George Raffles Tyndale

Griffyd Hunter Heber

Hector David

Henry Arthur Bromhead, (Jenkyn)

Henry Leonidas Tiberius, (Mark and Rupert)

James Luigi Wood, (Johnny)

Jasper Florian

Lawrence Happy John Owen, (Minnie Love and Heidi Sunshine)

Luke Christopher Æneas, (Angus, Orlando and Cosmo)

Oscar Gürsel

Oscar Jack Peter, (Kit and Jemima)

Peter Jack, Angus

Raphael Willam, (Isabella Flora and Lochlann James)

Rudy Felix James, (Olly and Chloe)

Tarka Alexander Arthur

Tobias Tarquin

Thomas Douglas Marinho

Wilbur Clement, (Patti Plum)

My favourite sibset? It has to be Lawrence Happy, Minnie Love and Heidi Sunshine.

Babies in the early ’90s

Let’s number-crunch. Courtesy of my sister, I got my hands on the class lists for her year (grade) at school. The names totalled around 150, and when we factor in the sixth form class list, who are two years older, we have a reasonably sized data covering popular baby names for catholics (catholic school) in England in the early 1990s:

British Babies Born Circa 1990-1994

BOYS – ALPHABETICALLY

Aidan +Aiden

Alexander x3 +Alistair +Alisdair

Andrew x2

Ashley x2

Benjamin x2 +Ben

Bryn +Finn

Christopher x2

Connor +Conor

David x4

Hugo +Hugh +Huw

Jack x5

Jacob +Jakub

James x7

John +Jonathan

Joseph x7 +Joe

Joshua x2

Frederick + Freddie

Matthew x2 +Matteaus

Michael x4

Ryan x2

Theodore +Theo

Thomas x7

William x2 +Liam x2

BOYS – NUMERICALLY (3 or more)

Joseph et al = 8

James = 7

Thomas = 7

Daniel = 6

Alexander et al = 5

Jack = 5

Michael = 4

William et al = 4

Benjamin et al = 3

Hugo et al = 3

Matthew et al = 3

GIRLS – ALPHABETICALLY

Alexandra x2 +Alexa

Alice x2 +Alicia

Amy x2

Ana + Anne +Joanne +Leanne +Rhian +Roxanne

Beatrice +Beatrix x2

Cara +Clare +Clara

Caroline +Karolina

Chloe x3

Eleanor x3 +Ellen x2 +Helen x2 +Helena

Elizabeth +Eliza

Emma x2 +Emily

Esther +Esme

Eugenie x2

Frances x2

Hannah x2

Hayley x2

Jennifer x3

Jessica x3

Kathryn +Catherine +Katie x2

Laura x5 +Lauren

Lucy x4

Lily x2 +Lila +Lillian +Lilia

Maria x2 +Marie

Molly +Mollie

Natasha +Sasha x2

Olivia x3

Sarah +Sara

Sophie x3

Vanessa x2

GIRLS – NUMERICALLY (3 or more)

Eleanor et al = 8

Ana et al = 6

Lily et al =5

Kathryn et al = 4

Lucy = 4

Alexandra et al = 3

Beatrice et al = 3

Cara et al = 3

Chloe = 3

Emma et al = 3

Jennifer = 3

Jessica = 3

Natasha et al = 3

Olivia = 3

Philippa = 3

Sophie = 3

MALE/FEMALE

Daniel x6 +Danielle

George x2 +Georgina

Harry +Hattie +Harriet

Phillip +Philippa x3

Valentino +Valentina

THE IRISH GANG

Sean x2 +Shaun +Sian

Sinead +Seamus +Roisin +Bronagh +Lorcan +Ciara x2 +Niall

Patrick x2

THE NOTABLES

The prevalence of Irish names is not taken as uncommon in a catholic school.

Jack was outnumbered by several names: Joseph, James and Thomas. He began his stay at the top of the UK Top 100 list at the end of the decade. Two of the Jacks had the same surname.

Both of the Ashley’s, born when America embraced the name as a female one, were male.

The Eugenie’s were born just after Princess Eugenie, and the Beatrice/trixes born after Princess Eugenie’s sister: Princess Beatrice.

Non of the Lucy’s were a Lucille, Lucienne etc. They were all just Lucy.

The Emma’s outnumbered the Emily.

From personal knowledge:

-None of the Philippa’s in the list shortens their name to Pippa.

-All of the Eleanor’s were nicknamed Ellie.

* In the interests of not boring you all to death with an endless list of data, any name on the class lists which appeared once, without a similar name has been omitted from the data. This accounts for around 30 names out of the roughly estimated 240 names.