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Bonus 23: Naming people (and especially babies)
🕑 Added 2019-01-03 12:40:36 +0000 UTCHere's a riddle:
Everyone has one, but I use yours more than I use my own.
What is it?
A name!
Naming a brand-new tiny human is a big linguistic task. They might carry that name for the rest of their life -- or at least for a number of formative years, if they decide to change it when they're older. But a baby can't tell you anything about what kind of name they'd like. So how do you pick a name for someone?
In this 23rd bonus episode, Lauren and Gretchen get enthusiastic about the linguistics of naming people. There are lots of factors to consider: does a name sound old-fashioned or super-trendy? How does the name fit in with the rest of the family and with the cultural context? How might a name get misspoken, misspelled, misheard, or mis-nicknamed? Plus, we share how our parents decided on our names, and other name decision strategies to consider as Lauren prepares to name her upcoming tiny human.
How did you get your name? Have you gotten to name anyone else (like a child or a pet) and if so, how did you decide on their name?
Links:
- Lauren's having a baby: her top 5 nerdy pregnancy announcements
- All of Lauren's other names when she worked in a call centre
- Britain's first baby to be registered with a sign name
- Common names which aren't that common now (Baby Name Wizard)
- Tiger Webb and given names
- Sibling sets: Lauren vs Olivia (Baby Name Wizard)
- Bespoke baby namer is a real job, apparently
You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript is available for this episode as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page.
Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All ThingsLinguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our audio producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producers are A.E. Prevost and Sarah Dopierala, our editorial producer is Emily Gref and our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
Comments
Lingthusiasm
So many Jennifers! I was recently in a conversation with a Jennifer where we were talking about two other Jennifers, I'm so sorry!
Jennifer is the worst for my generation...there were 8 of us in my 3rd grade classroom and 11 in my history class my junior year of highschool (and 3 of us had the same initials!)
Lingthusiasm
Yeah, there is apparently some famous Gretchen in Brazil, right? That's what I've been told when I say my name to Brazilians haha
That Gretchen/Rachel story in Spanish-speaking countries is quite interesting.... I'm from Brazil, and we speak Portuguese, which is a close relative to Spanish, and we do have gretchen as a quite ordinary name here. I wouldn't say there would be a problem with the name Gretchen in Brazil.
