Some nice, anonymous mother with a penchant for normal, properly-spelled, old-fashioned names has a baby name list up at babynames.com, and of course, all the yuppie-lemming voters have voted down every one of her sensible, lovely suggestions.
Would you, my dear readers, go give her some thumbs-up votes and give a grand hurrah for the Alices and Marys of the world? You just click the first circle next to the green thumbs-up. There’s no annoying registration or anything.
Now THAT’s a woman with some taste! I liked almost every single one of her ideas.
And I’m in the market for names, so I doubly appreciated the list. Let me tell you: once you’ve named FIVE children and used up your very most favorite names in all the world, the task gets exponentially harder. It gives me a new appreciation for George Foreman.
A couple of her names were kind of icky (Ophelia is our joke name, especially when paired with our last names and Aubrey is NOT a boy’s name anymore) but the rest were sensibile, pretty names. I voted a big thumbs-up for most of her choices.
We’re right out of names. OUT.
Well, I voted for Aubrey because that’s my Pappaw’s middle name but I might use it for a girl middle name. I love the name Ambrose for some reason.
I voted for all the boy names involving “Ambrose.” That is too cool. Also, how anybody who has reads Cold Comfort Farm could dislike the name “Flora” is beyond me.
Has READ. I is an English major! I has a Master’s Degree!
Can’t type worth poopie, though.
I wanted to e-mail that woman and say, “Look, you have lovely taste in names. Do not pay any attention to the feedback from the poll. Your children will enjoy their lovely, reasonably spelled names when they are in first grade with ten kids named something like McBrynnamyn. Good luck.”
Uh Rebecca, I think the rather large cop friend of ours would be rather saddened to know that Aubrey is no longer a boy’s name, he rather likes his name.
I am terribly fond of old-fashioned names but do not know how you could vote against any name some stranger has chosen.
BTW, Az the Husband has a terrific name (caught your post earlier) named one of my babies that!
Some of them were a bit granny-ish, I have to admit, but some were lovely! I wanted to suggest other combinations, though - what about Flora Amabel or Imogen Beatrice?
Glad to help. I actually knew people with some of those names. Ambrose, in particular, was a popular one where I grew up.
Some names are just classics. My teenage daughter has a good friend named Audrey- really how could you go wrong? When I was a nanny, I watched a little girl named Claire- I still love that name…
I went and voted. I am all for traditional names with traditional spellings. I want my kid to be able to buy all the little personalized stuff that kids get. My sister never could because she had a traditional name with an unusual spelling. That and I am boring.
Those are LOVELY names. I voted down “jack” because it seems to me that there are at least three Jacks on every playground these days. I wish I had thought of Asher when naming the boys. It’s truly beautiful.
But, this is from a woman who, if she had girls, would have named them Eleanor Rose and Lillian Grace.
Am I horrible for voting against Alice, just in case this girl lives in my town and her kid would be in my baby’s class? Yes? Shoot.
Flora was both of our grandmother’s name and we were so close to using it. Flora Marianne, so that we would have a set of Dashwood sisters.
As someone named Alice with daughters named Lucy and Elaine, I just had to affirm most of her lovely baby name choices. However, the Flora Claribel combo I just could not get behind because I kept conjuring up the image of a cow with a garland of flowers around its neck.
I voted and liked most of her names. There were a few iffy offerings which did not deserve a thumbs-up. Like Alice above, I couldn’t endorse Claribel.
I was surprised to see Beatrix and gave that one a big happy thumbs up—even if it was only used in a middle name.
If she had Claribel Beatrix as a choice, I’d be in full on crisis mode right now.
I liked a lot of those.
And I loved Cold Comfort Farm.
@ Suz: My Eleanora was supposed to be Eleanor Rose, but my husband has an irrational hatred of flower names. And virtue names. She ended up with my mother’s middle name, so it’s fine, but still…I wanted the Rose.
i LOVE some of these….and i heart the name Aubrey…but for a girl
Oh my, how refreshing after browsing the lists of Top 100 Names for 2007 (would the name Nevaeh PLEASE just go away? And how can five different spellings of Jaden all rank in the top fifty?).
I didn’t love all of the names but I loved most of them, and I was glad to see Imogen, Mary, Helena and Violet all on the list, plus Charles, Lucas and John. So classic! So timeless!
I found it amusing that the few names to actually get some green thumbs were the Lilas and Olivers, both of which are pretty trendy now, though not trendy enough that people have taken to misspelling them.
Aubrey WAS a boy’s name, at one point. But now it has moved irrevocably to the girl’s camp and it would just be mean to give a little boy baby that name now, in 2008.
I voted for and against her list of names. Some rock, some are eh. I voted for all the boy names except Asher as a first name. I just don’t love it.
As an elementary school teacher who has taught Caitlin, Kaitlyn, Kaitlynne, Kelsey, Kelsy, Kelsey, Mackenzie, Mackennzie and Mackinlie, I plan to name any child I have something old fashioned and typically spelled.
I have an Eleanor Rose. Love that name! Also a Molly Elizabeth and a Garrett James.
Love the sound of old names. Flora and Asher are beautiful!