Sibset of the Week: The Baxendales

from wikipedia.org

You know that feeling you get when someone tells you that you can’t have something, and you immediately want it? Well, we officially have no kitchen chez moi en ce moment. That means I’m thinking a lot about food at the moment, moreover planning extravagent three-course meals, which clearly can’t be made in a microwave. It seems apt, therefore, to cover this particular family this week.

We’re talking about the children of one Helen Baxendale, who is likely to be best known for her character Emily Waltham in cult-classic TV series Friends. 

She has three children, born between late 1990s and mid-2000s:

Nell Marmalade

Eric Mustard

Vincent Mash

As it so happens, I don’t actually like either mustard or marmalade, but I have been fantasising about making fish pie recently.

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: La Haine

Scene from La Haine, from blogger.com

I’ve been watching a few french films of late, and there was one which really caught my attention. Yesterday I watched a film called La Haine, which is about life in the banlieu – basically the French equivalents of housing estates. In came out in the late 90s, several years before there were quite violent riots in France in 2005 – sparked by the accidental deaths of two teenagers whilst being chased by the police.

A few names from the film which stood out for me were:

Astérix (nickname)

Cassel (surname of one of the actors)

Choukri (actor)

Hubert – The t is silent when the French say this name, and for me that really makes me reconsider the name.

Mathieu (director)

Magimel (surname of one of the actors)

Médard

Rywka  (actress)

Saïd

Vincent ‘Vinz’

Other names vaguely related to the film are:

Cécile – Half sister of Vincent Cassel. He played one of the main characters.

Chanteloupe – The majority of the filming took place in an area called Chanteloupe-les-Vignes.

Deva and Léonie – The name of Vincent Cassel’s daughters. He played one of the main characters.

Makome – His death helped inspire the film.

Elsewhere, the frontman for Spandau Ballet, Gary Kemp, recently welcomed his fourth son: Rex Albert. He joins brothers Finlay Munro, Milo Wolf and Kit Frank.