As the Tree Grows

     The family tree is growing: I'm going to be an aunt! My sister, Sarah, and her husband, Ryan, are going to have a baby.  I'm excited to become an aunt and I'm also very excited to talk about names.

     It's still a little early, but I love names! There's already one name picked out: if the baby is a boy, his middle name will be Thomas. This is our paternal Grandfather's name, Ryan's middle name and his mother's maiden hame.

     I decided to go through our family tree and find more names of genealogical significance. These are names that I like or sorta-like, and which are not names of living people. These might not be the best choices of all possible names, but are just the best names in our family tree (in my opinion).  Also, I don't like super-popular names, so I've excluded some names I really like because they're so popular right now.

Boys	Girls
Milo - The name of Ryan's Great- Great Grandfather Anderson - A popular middle name           on our side of the family        Tucker - The city our dad grew           up in      Alexander - The surname of our  Great-Great Grandmother	Leila - Our Great-Great  Grandmother Margaret - Commonly found on both  sides of the family Dora - Our 3x Great Grandmother's name, also our Great-Grandmother, LeDora Caroline - Our family has deep roots in both South and North Carolina

     And just for the heck of it, here are some genealogically based names that I would not recommend:

Permelia

Honorias

Armistead

Delmus

Cranberry

Name Your Kids Already!

This is the 1880s Census enumeration of my Sprouse Ancestors. The family of William Washington and Nancy K (Armstrong) Sprouse were living in Abbeville, Abbeville, South Carolina in 1880. This page shows only their children, with the couple listed on the previous page. And the names of two of their children? Babe. As in, unnamed babies. I know that it's not that unusual to have not named a child immediately, but I personally find it unusual to have two unnamed daughters of different ages, neither of which are infants.

The eldest of the unnamed girls was my Great-Great Grandmother, Nina Frances Spouse. I'm curious as to how she made it to the age of two without a name. Could the couple not pick a name? Was she was named after someone? The name Nina (Nine-uh) doesn't appear previously in the family that I can find, though there were tons of Franceses. What was the general length of time that children went without names during this time period?

I'll probably never know specifically why Nina wasn't "Nina" for over two years, but it's an interesting mystery to ponder.

Choosing a Surname

One non-genealogy blog that I follow is The Baby Name Wizard blog, by Laura Wattenburg at BabyNameWizard.com. In a recent series of posts, she's discussed who gets to pick a baby's name. She feels that choosing a baby's name is a very important aspect of the baby's identity and doesn't agree with the argument of "the man gets the surname so the woman should get the first name."

She then goes into detail about how the surname isn't a given anyway. Parents have option on the surname as well. Check it out.

Names and Numbers

I love names - there's so much history and personality involved. I thought I'd look through my data and see what some naming themes are in my family.

1. Main locations of family members:

Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Germany

2. Most popular surname:

Craft (120), White (80), Belk (54), Quattlebaum (52), Farr (48), Powell (48), Smith (48), Albea (47),

3. Most popular male f/m names:

John (94), William (81), James (75), George (49), Charles (31), Robert (28), David (25)

4. Most popular female f/m names:

Mary (79), Ann(a/ie) (59), Elizabeth (43), Sara(h) (40), Frances (35), Martha (31), Nancy (25)

5. Most unique male f/m name:

Quitman

6. Most unique female f/m name:

Homerzel

Celebrate!

March 1-7 is Celebrate Your Name Week!

Honestly, I've never felt any particular fondness for my first name: Valerie. I don't necessarily dislike it, but I'm not crazy about it either. My family has never abbreviated it to Val or called me by a nickname. The closest I've come to that is the Southern Pronunciation: Val'rie.

I prefer my middle name a bit more: Reneé. Who doesn't love an accent (even if I've never seen it over that particular e in anyone else's name). But it never felt like "my" name and, aside from about a month in late elementary school, I never made an effort to go by it.

I was named for my mother's High School art teacher and a friend's sister. My sister was named for our Grandmother's and I always thought that there was more substance to her name.

According to the Baby Name Wizard, Valerie is "borrowed from the French, Valerie is from the Latin Valerius, an old Roman family name derived from valere (to be strong, healthy)." Reneé is the "feminine form of the French Rene, from the Late Latin Renātus, which is a direct derivative of renātus (reborn, born again)."

Some other facts:

• According to the US Census Bureau°, 0.149% of US residents have the first name 'Valerie' (http://www.isthisyour.name)
• Valerie was most popular in the 1960, ranked #69 (NameVoyager)
• Valerie was ranked 127th in 2007 (WikiName)