What's in a name? A lot, actually. (Photo courtsey of sxc.com)
By Amy L. Hatch
Choosing a name for your baby is just the first of many responsibilities a new parent faces, but it sure is one of the biggest.
After all, a name sticks with you for the rest of your life. Sometimes your name can set you up for success: Just look at the number of presidents (JFK, Ronald Wilson Reagan, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Milhous Nixon) whose middle names were the maiden names of their mothers.
Names are our calling cards, our first impressions, the foundation of our identity. They speak to our heritage, our cultural identity … and our location?
True fact: The top 10 names given to new babies varies by region. So what are Chambana moms (and dads) naming their progeny?
According to the Web site Our 365, the top 10 girl names at Carle Foundation Hospital are:
- Isabella
- Olivia
- Sophia
- Elizabeth
- Lillian
- Sarah
- Alexa
- Samantha
- Jade
- Cadence
And top 10 names for boys are:
- Ethan
- Benjamin
- Wyatt
- Jack
- Jordan
- Isaac
- Liam
- Ian
- Miles
- Logan
In Decatur, Abigail and Jacob take top honors, while our friends in Bloomington-Normal prefer Jacob for boys but agree that Isabella is the perfect handle for girl babies.
Julie Wurth of the News-Gazette recently praised the name we chose for our daughter, Emmeline, in her column. When we decided on it more than five years ago, reactions were decidedly mixed — people loved it or hated it.
Our son’s name — Henry — was the 77th most popular name in Illinois in 2007, the year prior to his birth, according to The Baby Name Wizard, and Emmeline didn’t rank at all. Henry is less popular in Maine (88) but is apparently very hip in Minnesota (31).
That site also reveals the top baby names of the last decade: Emily and Jacob.
How did you chose your child’s name, and is it on our local list of hot monikers?
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I was sure Henry was going to be #1 in Chambana. It seems like everyone on this site has a kid named Henry:) -H
Mario Antonio; son of Marco Antonio. We were lazy and just changed one letter of dad’s name. I’m sure Mario doesn’t rank at all. Now we have another boy on the way and no clue — what goes with Mario (and don’t say “luigi”)?
When you are expecting your fourth boys you suddenly find that you 1) have already used up all previous fav. boy names and 2) get permission to go outside the box a little. Although his brothers all end with en or an, we went with Atticus. I think that although the baby name wizard deemed it not on the radar yet, it will gain in popularity with parents that have a heck of a lot of boys to name.
I think it’s much more difficult to come up with unique names for boys. There just aren’t that many. My daughters are split — one has a very unique name, the other a very common name. Each name has a special and meaningful story to us – so that’s what matters to me.
Erin — Have you checked out the web site nymbler.com? Might help you out.
We have twin daughters, and their middle names are after their grandmothers. My husband has always loved the name Sarah and wanted to name his first daughter that, so that was one first name which was a no-brainer. That only left us with the other first name to choose, and we wanted something that flowed with Sarah but didn’t rhyme, and it also had to sound good with her designated middle name. We decided on Abigail (Abby for short), so we have Abigail Carol and Sarah Margaret. Both first names are fairly popular, but that’s OK with us.
My husband plays saxophone, and wanted our child to have a musical name. This is not easy, since most musical names we could come up with are feminine. In the end, we named our son Jazz. It’s definately unique; I’m yet to meet another Jazz.
We picked Tessa from a baby name book in 1998 (she’s 11). It’s not and, according to the web site, has never been in the Top 100 in Illinois. We occasionally run into another Tessa, but not often.
Ok, I have to admit that two my kid’s names are on the top 10
When we had our first child in 2001, we decided to ONLY use names in our combined family tree. It was very easy at first with William Robert the 4th (Will for short). My husband is Rob, his father is Bill, and his father’s father was Bob (those two names seem to have almost INFINITE nickname possibilities
Our next came in 2003 and we named her Mary Auguste. I know that Mary was once very popular, but it is harder to find it now. But I did have a grandmother comment on her name, “Why in the world would you name your daughter such a horridly common name??” What a comment!?! Auguste is after my g-g-grandmother because I admired all that she did for her family as a German immigrant.
In 2005 we named our 3rd child, Elizabeth Jean after my g-grandmother. And in 2008 we named out 4th child, Lillian Delsie, Delsie is after my husband’s 89 year old grandmother. You won’t find Delsie on any top 1000 names
Naming in the family tree has been a fun adventure, if we don’t like any of the names we know… it just means we need to research more and go back in time
We are also split. Our youngest has a top 10 name, Olivia, our oldest has never been in the nation’s top 10, Amelie.
Funny enough our Amelie shares her name with a friend at her fairly small school…they spell it differently…and it’s really fun to have two girls with such unique names being friends. We’ve even met the other Amalie’s neighbors and friends all becuase they hear us talking to our Amelie as we are out and about town.
On the other hand, Olivia has yet to run into another Olivia in her 3 daycare rooms…go figure
We have three boys ages 6, 3, and 1. Their names are Jacob Matthew, Jackson Philip and Jude Edward………i love their names and wouldnt change a thing!!!!!!