I just sent this in to the listserver of the American Name Society:

"X Æ A-12" is the name that Elon Musk and the Canadian musician Grimes have chosen for their baby:

Etymology
L.A.Times
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/ ( Read more... )

From Smithsonian Magazine
Meet Roxie Laybourne, the Feather Detective Who Changed Aviation
A new Sidedoor episode tells the story of Roxy Laybourne, a Smithsonian scientist who pioneered the field of forensic ornithology

By Haleema Shah
( Read more... )

I just posted this to the American Name Society list:

On another mailing list I subscribe to, there was a thread about duplicate names: names repeated in different branches of the same family, names appearing multiple times in small groups of unrelated people, etc. One person, writing about a peculiar cross-duplication in a relative's family, ( Read more... )

Here's a blog about, yup, bad baby names. More precisely, horrible names of real people. (And more precisely in a different direction, it's a category subset of a blog called Not Without My Handbag.) Its latest entry is from February 1, 2012, but horrible names are almost timeless. ("Almost" because this year's supercraze is next year's "That's so ( Read more... )

Sent this evening to Don and Alleen Nilsen, long active in the American Name Society:

While wasting this evening in scholarly games
I referenced your paper on wizardly names.
A question on Quora, about "suffix '-rix'",
brought me up with a start at language's tricks.
"No such!" I exclaimed, setting forthwith to shuffle
through Google and Wiki to calm the ( Read more... )

(hat-tip to Batman)


( Read more... )

Recently posted to the American Name Society listserver:

Hello, in Holland I came across a news item about a man with a weird name being arrested (drunk and under the influence of drugs). It's in the news everywhere because of his name, it says.
His name is: Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop.

Anyone familiar with the (hi)story?

Greetings,
Leendert ( Read more... )

Parents name child after ‘Skyrim’ character
By Chris Morris | Plugged In - 10 hours ago

Here's a good way to ensure your kid gets his lunch money stolen on a regular basis.


( Read more... )

Onomaturgy vs. Onomastics: An Introduction to the Namecraft of Ursula K. Le Guin
Author: Robinson, Christopher
Source: Names: A Journal of Onomastics, Volume 59, Number 3, September 2011, pp. 129-138(10)
Publisher: Maney Publishing

Abstract: Where literary onomastics focuses on names in the context of a narrative, literary onomaturgy focuses on ( Read more... )

I've just come across the Oxford Concise Dictionary of First Names (ISBN 978-0-19-866259-4). There are lots of dictionaries of names and baby-name lists on the shelves and on the Web, but many of them are not fully reliable. Oxford University Press is about as reliable a source of language reference materials as you can get (IMHO).

The description ( Read more... )