Roses and Cellar Doors

I feel like there's a good joke in there about pterosaurs, or maybe fingers, but my brain's not being witty enough today. :p A dac...

Despite an iconic namesake, Winnie 's never really caught on in the U.S.  I am, of course, referring to The Wonder Years , not Winnie th...

Spelled the same, usually with slight pronunciation difference: Abigail --English, AB-ih-gayl; German, AH-bee-gile Ada --English, AY-dah;...

I actually had to go and double-check previous posts to make sure I haven't done this one yet. How on earth have I missed Margaret ? A c...

One of the biggest trends in girls' names right now is the unisex name. As a result, a couple (often overlapping) counter-trends have em...

Combined, Isabella  & Isabelle  are easily the most popular girls' name. Chances are many were named to get that to that cool Bella ...

Spelled the same, but (usually) with slight pronunciation difference: Abigail --English, AB-ih-gayl; Abigaíl --Spanish, ah-bee-gah-EEL Ad...

Wow. This was a hard one. I challenged myself to not  use any Katherine-variants on this list. Consequently, this list has a lot less Weste...

Madeline  is an interesting case. Most girls' names are either relatively stable (ex: Elizabeth ), out-of-style after reigning for decad...

With all the names that Nell  is historically short for, it's surprising it's not more popular. The usual suspects include Helen , E...

I admit, I've been putting this one off for a while-- Mary is easily one of the most widespread & translated names of all time! Of...

There were way more boys' names with few/no variants than I thought! Maybe I'm just too cynical where alternate spellings are concer...

Poor Minnie . Once at the top, she was toppled by a certain animated mouse. Of course, the fact that Minnie  was originally short for the c...

Helen  probably brings up conflicting images--first there's Helen of Troy, so beautiful a war was fought over her. And then there's ...

Elizabeth  remains one of our enduring classics. Despite the fact that everyone is almost guaranteed to know at least one (probably more lik...

Fueled by  Isabella 's insane jump to the top, just-plain- Bella followed a few years after. The fact that it coincides with the Italian...

Callie  is another example of a nickname that's become reasonably popular on its own. Originally a nickname for Caroline , I suspect it...

There are about as many different ways to form nicknames as there are cultures. While many nicknames for our most enduring classics seem out...

This is one of my favorite name families! Like Elizabeth , Alice  has some pretty surprising variants--or should I say, is , a surprising va...

Again, not really a "usual" nickname, but the poor nickname of an outdated name. Another example of the archaic R to L shift , Lol...