Neveah

"Of the last couple of generations, Nevaeh is certainly the most remarkable phenomenon in baby names," said Cleveland Kent Evans, president of the American Name Society and a professor of psychology at Bellevue University in Nebraska.

The surge of Nevaeh can be traced to a single event: the appearance of a Christian rock star, Sonny Sandoval of P.O.D., on MTV in 2000 with his baby daughter, Nevaeh. "Heaven spelled backwards," he said.

I'm definitely not a fan of this name trend but found it interesting to learn that having a name with a final "ah" sound is currently fashionable. Who knew?

Tima

TIMA 

(pronounced Tee-mah)

We instantly thought of the name Tima when we got back home from the shelter with our new kitty. Her name at the time was Bootsie, because of her white boots and gloves, but neither Nick nor I liked the sound of it. She's a very sweet, tiny calico with a lot of blonde and large beautiful green eyes so as soon as I got a nice good look at her it came to me - she looks exactly like Tima! The Japanese animation Metropolis is one of my favorites and in it Tima is a robotic double of the deceased daughter of the main villain who has no idea that she she's a robot or that she was made to be placed on the seat of world power. Tima really does look just like her if you have a good imagination like me! 

While searching for the origin or meaning of the name I found this:

Tima is a Yanomamo Indian (Brazil) name meaning "one who comes from above", in either the physical or metaphysical sense. The original Tima was a beautiful child, very sweet and loved by all.

It's so appropriate to the character, I think - the writers must have known the origin of the name when they decided on it. I love the meaning and definitely think it applies to my Tima.

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Another thing I stumbled on while researching the origins of Tima's name was an interesting article about the psychological and social repercussions of having an unusual first name. You named her what? by Waheeda Harris asks the question - does having an unconventional make you feel unique or like a freak? After what seems like countless studies on the subject the trend seems to be that a non-traditional name will get you a lot of teasing and misery in your early years followed by a reason to be proud and stand apart later on in life - so I guess the answer is both. What I found the most interesting was this:

Dr. Evans says the key for many children is knowing the story behind their name. “Having an explanation will insulate you from teasing and anchor your personality. If you can explain the origins of your name, it helps deflect the negative.”

Christine's story (and Cristina's!)

CHRISTY and MEGHAN

My mom decided to call me Christy because while she was in early labor she read a (really bad) book by Catherine Marshall (a writer of Christian fiction) called Christy. So my name is Christine, but I've always gone by Christy. My sister is named after a character in the book The Thornbirds
(Meghan), and I was allowed, at the age of 3, to pick her middle name (Amy).

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It's so funny how both of these sisters are named after characters in awful books their mom read and liked! Also interesting is that Christy was allowed to pick her younger sister's middle name. My parents let my brother pick my first name (at the age of 9, not 3!) although it was sort of a last minute thing. He was sure I'd come out a boy so he had already picked out Carlos ahead of time. When I came out a girl he was scrambling for something and came up with Anna and Cristina. I'm not sure how Cristina won out, but I'm glad it did. I wonder if this is a common phenomena, having older siblings pick out younger siblings names? 

Lucia and Isaac

My friend Jerry is about to have his third child and recently posted a bulletin on MySpace asking for help with name suggestions. I found that to be such an intriguing and uniquely modern option; having this forum where you can discuss name possibilities and get everyone's creative input and ideas. So, I asked him about the bulletin idea and whether it was successful as well as the name stories behind his first two children. Here's PART 1 of his responses. 

When I ask Jerry about the process of choosing his children's names he says, "It is a strange and beautiful process. The right name just clicks instantly." 

ISAAC ALEISTER

Isaac in Hebrew means "Laughter" and the story is, I believe, that Ruth laughed when the angel told her she would bear a child...at her age. That child of Abraham was Isaac. You know my appreciation for the Qabala and all. Isaac assumed his namesake as a behavioral trait very early-only. A few months into his life and he was laughing his ass off and is still laughing his ass off. His middle name is Aleister...I couldn't resist as I like the way it sounds and the derivation from Alexander is interesting. He is Isaac the Great! Not to sound pretentious, but the kid is a genius. He can operate multiple programs (music player and game) on a PC and successfully navigate through the paint program to match his color recognitions and presentations as he states, "now I do green, click/click, TADA!" and the screen turns green. Then he shuts it down properly, all at 1 year 8 months old AND no one showed him how to use the computer ever.

LUCIA SOPHIE

The first name derives from Lucifer, the Illuminated One, the Angel of Light and implies enlightenment or illumination. Sophia is translated to mean wisdom. For me, she is my Light and Wisdom. She cured me of many bad habits and destructive behaviors. She truly is a happy baby girl that loves her Daddy - the battery of slobbery kisses I get daily is almost unbearable. Like the sound of the name itself, she is truly beautiful...especially when she is scarfing down her peaches and throwing unwanted portions of cheerios on the floor.

Coincidence? Fate? Destiny!

Diana's story was included in issue #1 and it's one of my favorites. I had to cut out a bit to make it fit but edited it in a way to emphasize the coincidence of being named the same as the Saint attributed to her birthday without her mother even knowing it! I absolutely love coincidences and wondering their significance in the grand scheme. And, I love how she mentions this because it reminds me of my own mother's name story. Diana is Nick's mom and she is much younger than my mom but she's just as catholic and it's interesting to see how common being named after a Saint was in the past. Can you imagine anyone now-a-days looking up a Saint's feast day to name their child after them? Naming babies has come a long way since then and it seems to be used by most today as either a way to be different, a way to honor a family member, or as some sort of status symbol. I wonder if Catholics our age are still looking to the Saints for name inspiration or if that's a long forgotten tradition.

DIANA

My first name is Diana and my birthday is June 9th. My mom says that she just wanted to call me that because she liked the name and it was a different way to name me after St. Anna. Well, being Catholic, it is appropriate to be named for a saint rather than the Roman or Greek Goddesses. To the Romans I am Diana, to the Greeks I am Athena. To both I am sister to Apollo and protectress of virgins as well as goddess of the moon and hunt. Two languages, same name. In some ways, those meanings applied to my life before I was even old enough to understand it. A few years back I ran across an article covering the life of an Italian woman who became St. Diana. She lived in the 13th century during the time of St. Dominic and was a devoted follower of his. She lived up to the aspirations of the goddesses by fighting her family to remain a nun. My mother didn't know that the two names are the same in the different tongues. Nor did she know that there was a St. Diana. All saints have a day of the year in which to be remembered, even if they share it with others. Her feast day? June 9th. 

Coincidence? FATE? Destiny! 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Did you know that Wikipedia has entries of descriptions and strange trivia for practically every first name there is? I was googling my first name to see what I could find out about its meaning beyond the whole Christian aspect and saw that Wikipedia has an entry for my name that includes a list of some famous people (although no one I'd ever heard of except that Cristina lady on Univision) and the description below. Curious, I looked up Nick and then Nicholas next and found so much more! All sorts of cool stuff, like this great list below of variations on his name. Different names have different amounts and types of information listed. Look yours up and see what you find!

CRISTINA

Cristina may refer to:

Cristina, a municipality (pop. 548) in the Spanish province of Badajoz
Cristina, a genus of harvestmen (daddy long-legs), eight-legged invertebrate animals

NICK

Variations for males include:

Albanian: Nikolla, Nikollë, Kola
Basque: Nikola
Bulgarian: Никола (Nikola), Николай (Nikolai)
Croatian: Niko, Nikola, Nikša
Czech: Mikula, Mikoláš, Mikuláš, Nikola
Danish: Claus, Klaus, Niels, Nikolaus, Nikolaj, Nilaus, Nis
Dutch: Klaas, Nico, Nicolaas, Niek, Nikolaas
English: Nic, Nick, Nickolas, Nicky, Nik, Nicolas, Nikolas
Esperanto: Nichjo, Nikolao
Estonian: Nigul
Finnish: Launo, Niilo, Niklas, Niko
French: Nicolas, Nico
Frisian (West): Klaes
Galician: Nicolau
Georgian: Nikoloz
German: Claus, Claas, Klaas, Klaus, Klas, Nickolaus, Nicolas, Nicolaus, Niklaus, Nikolaus, Niklas, Nico, Niko
Greek: Νικόλαος (Nicolaos), Νικόλας (Nikolas), Νίκος (Nikos)
Hungarian: Miklós, Nikola
Irish: Nioclás
Italian: Niccolò, Nico, Nicola, Nicolò, Nicolai
Latvian: Nikolajs, Niks
Lithuanian: Mikalojus
Macedonian: Nikola, Kole, Nikolce (Pronounced Nik-col-che)
Norwegian: Nils
Polish: Mikołaj
Portuguese: Nicolau

Brooks

My friend Susan is in town visiting from South Carolina this week. Susan and I went to school together for two years, 8th & 9th grade, and have stayed in touch all these years since. I remember she was the very first person who talked to me that 8th grade year when no one else would. I was attending a new school after just having moved from Massachusetts to Florida and I didn't know a soul. She's here visiting with her family and while searching through old emails last week from the original call for entries for issue #1 I found her son Brooks' name story. 

BROOKS

Brooks was named after my maternal grandmother. When Jeff and I got married we filled out one of those keepsake wedding books that has a family tree in it. When we filled it out, Jeff and I mentioned that we liked the name Brooks, which was my grandmother's maiden name. She was Lucille Brooks Dykes (Dykes was my mother's maiden name). My grandmother passed away when my mom was in the 3rd grade. I didn't know either of her parents and thought it a fitting tribute. We wanted a family name and a name that wasn't as plain as Jeff and Susan. Brooks' middle name is Ryan after Jeff's middle name. We wanted to be fair and pull from both families.

Also, my parents always told the story about my brother's name, he was going to be a David Alan instead of a John Perry Greene, IV since my great grandfather wasn't alive. My mom's OB came in and guilt tripped her about not giving their first born son part of his father's name, so he was renamed John Alan. I heard this story in my head when Brooks was born, so we gave Brooks Jeff's middle name so he could have part of his dad's name. My dad also points out, since we are a baseball family that there was a Brooks Robinson who played for Baltimore. So when he tells people Brooks, he says, you know like Brooks Robinson.

Here is way more information...we wanted to use Wesley too. Wesley was my brother who passed away before I was born. John Alan named his son James Wesley. James is after my mom's brother and Wesley after our brother. I don't know what it is but I guess John Allen and I have a way with naming our children after dead relatives, I guess to honor them and keep their memory alive.