the hurricane is on its way, oh you can call it Karla with a K!

[dustthouart]

Baby names follow-up: I did some looking into Damiana and Cosima on the 2011 chart and here's some hilarity for you: among the commenters who expressed a preference, Cosima was viewed as "more normal" than Damiana, but Damiana was given to more baby girls in 2011 than Cosima. Both were very rare, however; Damiana was given to 10 girls, Cosima to 6

Comments

[gemtiger]

I'm going to nitpick here, but I don't know if "6 babies in 1910" and "6 babies in 2011" is a valid comparison. I can see the point you're making - what codes for 'normal' now may not have been so 50 years ago or may not be 50 years from now - but I think 'what makes a name good' boils down to a matter of personal taste, so we might never get to the bottom of it. It's clear to me that you value names with a certain spiritual cachet, names that tie together somehow beyond simple euphony. I, on the other hand.... haven't given this much thought. :P You can rest assured that if I ever have a daughter, she won't be named Cosima, so you don't have to worry about being name-sniped

[dustthouart]

France is actually really fascinating name wise. More so than anywhere else I've looked at, top baby names in France change fast. I don't speak french as you know so it's hard to research as much as I would like. But if you look here: http://www.naissance.fr/prenoms.php you can see how fast names fluctuate, and some go up and down, which is fascinating because names in the US tend to follow more of a regular curve, of whatever slope

[ext_708786]

I hate "novelty" names. Any name that has - effectively - existed for less than...mmm, let's say 100 years, is totally off my list. Modern names are such crap. As are "innovative" spellings. It's easy to be unique without having to make something up that sounds ridiculous (giving surnames or "trade names" as first names, turning boy names into girl names, etc.). My hope is that all our children receive real and traditional names, but ones that are not commonly used anymore. That's the way to go.