What's in a Name?

When it came time to select a name for my baby, I remember feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. It was an overwhelming feeling of pressure combined with exhilaration combined with excitement combined with the possible feelings of future guilt over having picked the worst name I could have possibly chosen. Choosing the name that somebody else will carry for the rest of his or her life can be a daunting task. How will the name of our future child be perceived by others? Will our relatives and friends snicker behind our backs at the "stupid" or "silly" or (insert any derogatory adjective here) name that we find the most beautiful of all names? There are so many reasons for choosing one particular name over another. Perhaps one couple decides to name their child after a deceased relative, or name a newborn son after his father. In my family, our Jewish heritage states that the firstborn child must have a name that begins with the same letter as a deceased family member. Since my mother abandoned the Jewish faith, my name does not follow this rule (but hers does! My mother, Leanne, was named after her deceased grandfather, Leonard.) I met a family the other day whose newborn son, Ptolemy, was given his name because it is a "family" name. The name had been passed down for so long that it was actually expected for new parents to bestow this name on their firstborn sons. This particular family hated the name Ptolemy and called their baby boy "P.T." for short. But for the sake of family harmony, they chose to keep with the tradition, even though they hated the name.

So this brings me back to the actual choosing of the name. Why do we choose the names that we do? Are there proven studies that names can be beneficial or detrimental to our precious little ones? If we give our child a name that he or she grows up hating, or a name that other kids constantly mock, will our child be scarred for life? For my little girl, the last name of her future husband came to mind here. I personally know a woman named Candy. Nice, normal name. She married a man with the last name of Barr......now my friend is known as Candy Barr. Of course, scenarios like this are absolutely impossible to predict since we don't know the last names of our future sons-in-law, but the thought did cross my mind that my little girl's first name might clash with her future last name. This was distressing to me, as it was beyond my control and it began driving me crazy trying to come up with possible (future) last names that might not work with the name I dearly love: Annabelle.

Another consideration for choosing a name is the nickname that might result from the actual given name. Names like Cynthia turn into "Cindy", Robert becomes "Bob", etc. Can we handle the nicknames that stem from the given names? If you love the name Joseph, can you handle everybody calling your little boy "Joey" instead, even though you despise that name? That's something else to consider. I have a friend whose mother absolutely hated the fact that names were shortened into "nicknames", so she gave her daughter the shortest name she could find: Ruth. Monosyllabic, no middle name. No possible chance of this name being shortened into anything.

Another consideration is the popularity of a name at the time of the baby's birth. Do we want our children in a classroom with 8 other kids who have the same name? Or would we prefer that our children be the only one in the state with that particular name. Perhaps even the only one in the country with a particular name? How important is popularity to us? I remember as a child, I was so upset that my name was not one of the more popular ones. I wanted to be one of the 5 Jennifers or 7 Michelles in my class. I'm grateful now that my name is not as common as that, but as a child I assumed that if I had a popular name, I myself would also be popular. Then again, with a unique name, there is no need for a last name. Look at children like Suri. Or Shiloh. How many Suris and Shilohs are out there? After doing the research, I've found that Suri may very well be the only Suri in the country, but Shiloh is becoming more popular among average parents looking to name their children something different and unique. Of course, if a million people name their children Shiloh, then I suppose that cancels out the uniqueness of the name.


Then there are the insane names like "Apple" and "Banjo" and "Moon Unit". I thought hospitals were required to wait until the drugs wore off before they allowed a mother to fill out the birth certificate paperwork. I hope somebody was fired over these gross lapses in judgment.

After considering all these things, it came time for me to make the final decision for the most life-changing event of my life. I have absolutely adored the name "Annabel" since I was a teenager. I first heard of the name in the Edgar Allan Poe poem, "Annabel Lee". I had never heard the name before this, but found the name spectacularly beautiful, and have always associated the name "Annabel" (and any deviation in spelling) with a woman who was loved almost to the point of worship - a woman whose death caused a man to go insane. What an intense, powerful love! Then I met a very good friend who had a sister named Annabel. It was then that I decided I would one day have a daughter named Annabel...but I wasn't too sure I liked the way it was spelled. Even though "Annabel Lee" was a woman loved beyond comprehension, she died in the poem. I didn't like the association between my little girl and a dead one. So I firmly decided that my daughter would not have the middle name "Lee", and I would change the spelling of her first name. My beloved grandmother's name was "Belle", so I changed "Annabel" to "Annabelle" and gave my precious princess a name that I believe is the most beautiful name in the English language.

The popularity of a name is important to me. I did NOT want my little girl to have an extremely popular name, but I'm personally not too fond of the extremely unique names, either. I like traditional names (names that have been around for at least 100 years) and shy away from trendy names that tend to disappear as quickly as they appeared. "Annabelle" fits this category nicely.

I did some research on the name. The Social Security Administration keeps a list of names based on the birth certificates used to apply for social security cards. Every year they post the most popular names in the country. They list the top 1000 baby names for each year, going all the way back to 1880 and running up through the current tax year. I went back and researched "Annabelle" and here is what I came up with:

The name "Annabelle" didn't make to top 1000 list until the year 1995. It is in the top 1000 every year after that, with the various spellings hitting different positions on the list. As of the year 2007, here is the list of Annabelles and where they fall on the list:

Annabelle - #196
Annabella - #568
Anabelle - #733
Annabel - #798
Anabel - #950
Annabell - this is the most popular spelling in Germany, yet this variant did not even make the top 1000 in this country.

When talking specifically about the spelling "Annabelle", here is how it has fared over the years. The name is slowly gaining in popularity, creeping slowly up the list a couple of notches each year. A part of me hopes that this will level off and either stay where it currently is or drop down a little bit lower. Once a name becomes TOO popular, it loses a little bit of its uniqueness, and I am hoping that doesn't happen with this name. Okay, here is the chart for the "Annabelle" variation of this beautiful name, beginning with 1995, when the name first made the list:

1995 - #968
1996 - #924
1997 - #848
1998 - #641
1999 - #501
2000 - #463
2001 - #349
2002 - #331
2003 - #293
2004 - #300
2005 - #238
2006 - #206
2007 - #196

Only time will tell how popular this name will become.