Baby Names - You're kidding Right???

[hobish]

Today i saw Lean. I am guessing it is pronounced like Lee-Ann. Not knowing drives me crazy.

[violinp]

Today i saw Lean. I am guessing it is pronounced like Lee-Ann. Not knowing drives me crazy.

Or named for the famous director of such epics as Lawrence of Arabia? 

[Martienne]

Meet two other sets of parents at the zoo today whoes sons' had the same name as our.  One even told us there are 4 boys with the name in her son's school.

Henry is making a comback 

I think there's a backlash going on again eweneek spellings and made-up appellations. I am on several message boards for parents of / future parents of twins, and pretty much anytime someone asks opinions on names there overwhelming majority of people giving advice say to go more traditional.

[KenveeB]

The top baby names for the year list just came out -- Sophia has displaced Isabella as #1, but Jacob is holding strong for the boys. Overall, it's a lot of very classic names.

[Shopaholic]

Here's a Yahoo! article about what your baby's name says about you:
http://shine.yahoo.com/team-mom/most-popular-baby-names-jacob-sophia-top-latest-154500678.html

Mostly, what I got from it is that David Bowie's daughter is named Zowie.
I think that counts as a form of musical torture* (as in the other thread).

[Ceallach]

As somebody who has always loved traditional names, I'm gutted when they suddenly become popular again.  I just don't want my kid to share their name with 10 other kids in their class!  I also love biblical names, but there's a crazy number of Noah's and Levi's in the <4 age range now. 

But I will still never, ever, ever go for youneek spelling, no matter what. 

[WolfWay]

Here's a Yahoo! article about what your baby's name says about you:
http://shine.yahoo.com/team-mom/most-popular-baby-names-jacob-sophia-top-latest-154500678.html

Mostly, what I got from it is that David Bowie's daughter is named Zowie.
I think that counts as a form of musical torture* (as in the other thread).

Zowie is a boy and is now working under the name Duncan Jones (He directed the fantastic scifi movie Moon).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Jones

[Anniissa]

Today i saw Lean. I am guessing it is pronounced like Lee-Ann. Not knowing drives me crazy.

Maybe they pronouce it like Sean - which would make it Lawn...

[Shopaholic]

Here's a Yahoo! article about what your baby's name says about you:
http://shine.yahoo.com/team-mom/most-popular-baby-names-jacob-sophia-top-latest-154500678.html

Mostly, what I got from it is that David Bowie's daughter is named Zowie.
I think that counts as a form of musical torture* (as in the other thread).

Zowie is a boy and is now working under the name Duncan Jones (He directed the fantastic scifi movie Moon).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Jones

I was just informed of that, and was going to edit my post - thanks!

[Martienne]

As somebody who has always loved traditional names, I'm gutted when they suddenly become popular again.  I just don't want my kid to share their name with 10 other kids in their class!  I also love biblical names, but there's a crazy number of Noah's and Levi's in the <4 age range now. 

But I will still never, ever, ever go for youneek spelling, no matter what. 

The resurgence in popularity of those names started around the same time I was naming mine. We named our oldest a traditional, Biblical name I had loved since I was a child. I thought it was a bonus that such names weren't 'in' - but when the top ten came out at the end of the year I learned that her name was the number one girl's name for that year!

[Marisol]

The top baby names for the year list just came out -- Sophia has displaced Isabella as #1, but Jacob is holding strong for the boys. Overall, it's a lot of very classic names.

The top 10-20 or so look like normal names (but I think they generally always are normal names), however the top 1000 list on the ssn baby name site as a whole seems to have a LOT of new names I have never seen before.  And a lot of names that I don't think are all that classic. 

I think the overall picture is now all over the place with classic normal names, unique names, and alternatively spelled names.  At least for the girls, I didn't look at the boys.   

Also, the top name is not as popular as the top names of the 70-80s were.  If you look at numbers:

In 2011 you had a total of 21,695 babies born named Sophia.
In 1980 you had a total of 58,379 named Jennifer

That is 2.7 times as many baby Jens as there are baby Sophias.  Parents are diversifying and the top names are no where near as popular as the top names when many of us were born.  Which is nice if you want to give your child a popular name.  It is NOT like naming them Jennifer was for us.   

[Jones]

OK, my confession: My daughter has a ewneek first name, as do I.

We wanted to name her after her dad, but feminize it. I didn't think of it as all that ewneek a name until someone pointed it out around the time she was 3, and ever since it's been a challenge in new classes/churches. I've asked her if she wants to go by her middle name (very common) but she refuses. My name is actually traditional Indian, and spelled in English phonetically, six little letters, but people still manage to mess it up. I give them all a pass except one...she decided my name was actually a nickname for a much longer English name, and insisted on calling me that (until she realized I wouldn't reply to it).

So, when my son was born last year I gave him a regular name that usually hangs around the Top 100 mark. Guess what came in on the top 30 for boys' names in 2011? Sigh. I guess he'll have to have a ewneek nickname to differentiate from the other boys in his class with his name.

[Bethczar]

Today i saw Lean. I am guessing it is pronounced like Lee-Ann. Not knowing drives me crazy.

The other day I saw Lewan as a woman's name. I was wondering if it was pronounced LouAnn.
My neighbor had a friend named Joan, pronounced JoAnn, so who knows?

[Martienne]

For some reason the last couple of posts reminded me of the main character in "Dear Mr. Henshaw". The first-person narrator of the story is a boy named Leigh - a name that for boys is traditionally spelled Lee. I also read a story in the late 80s that had a female protagonist named Brent.

ETA: The point being that their names crossing gender boundaries was a minor plot point at some point in each book.

[snowdragon]

Sharshea  The kid is so young I could not tell if it was a girl or a boy. beautiful, red haired, green eyed little tyke...but Sharshea?