Roses and Cellar Doors

If you're anything like me, you consider Raymond a "grandpa name" (and I'm not trying to be mean; it is literally my grand...

Aubrey  (AW-bree, English)) Alberico  (al-BEHR-ee-koh, Italian) Auberon  (OH-behr-on, French)--Also spelled  Oberon . Avery  (AY-ver-ee...

Clara/Klara  (KLEHR-ah, KLAH-rah) Claire  (KLEHR, French) Chiara  (KYAH-rah, Italian) Clarisse  (klah-REES, French) Emma  (EM-mah) ...

Sweet, classical Sarah . Thanks to the Biblical matriarch (and probably her meaning as well--"princess"), she's been common fo...

Poor confused Bridget . To some, she's an underused classic; to others, inescapably 70s'; and to many, quintessential Irish. One of ...

Benedict  (BEN-eh-dikt, English) Bengt  (BENGT, Swedish) Benito  (ben-EE-toh, Italian) Bennett  (BEN-net, English) Benoit  (ben-WAH, ...

Quite frequently, I come across a name with a couple interesting variants, but not enough to dedicate an entire post to. I've been stori...

Oh, that tricky 'th'. Agatha  is mostly recognizable from language to language, but that last syllable sure is variable. With only ...

Oh, Henry ; handsome Henry . His usage may have waned for a few decades, but he's never fallen out of the top 150. With dozens of namesa...

Guy  is a bit odd. Most people today consider it a slang term rather than a name, and that's not completely unreasonable, since it's...

Peter  is an interesting case. While some names have only a few forms and are spelled the same in several languages ( Andrew , Matthew , and...

Derek  has had an interesting journey. A staple 80s boy-name, it's got a surprising amount of history--and undergone some interesting ch...

Christian is an interesting case. Originally used for both males and females, in the last 100 years or so, it's become almost completely...

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

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...

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

Elijah  is a name I looked up on a whim, and was amazed by the diversity of its variants. It's another Biblical name, but unlike most cl...

Well, I did my favorite girl-name family not too long ago, so now I'm going to do my favorite set of boy-name variants. Louis  probably ...

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

George . It's one of those names where the consensus is split pretty evenly--some think it's purely boring, stodgy old-man, and some...