Names List: Jewel and Jewels.

I’m probably marking myself out to be ostracised here, but I feel it’s time I made a name-related confession – that is, I absolutely love the name Jewel for a girl. It’s my ultimate guilty pleasure: discerning namers may turn up their noses and cry, “Unimaginative! Uneducated! Trashy!”, but will that turn me from the beauty of Jewel? Nay, I say. She doesn’t look especially pretty or feminine when written down to the untrained eye (not in an era of Isabellas and Amelias, at least), but I can’t help but find a particular gorgeousness in her. Say her: Jewel. If we strip away the trashy connotations (and there are trashy connotations, but we shan’t go into those here), she’s such a regal-sounding name – so strong, and with such a beautiful meaning. A precious gemstone! How lovely. Sarah Jewel. Jewel Florentine. The combo possibilities are endless. I love Jewel; I really love her.

However – with the aforementioned connotations considered (because we live in an age wherein “pretty word for a treasure” has morphed in the public consciousness to “porn-star name”), Jewel might not be the most useable of names out there, and I’ll admit that. She has been used as a name in the past, of course, for males as well as for females: as a boys’ name Jewel peaked in 1907 (coming #405 on the popularity charts for boys born that year – oh my days), and as a girls’ name she reached her climax in 1904 (reaching spot number #198 – see, she’s not quite the modern-day abomination she’s made out to be!). She continued to be used on baby girls with some regularity until the mid-1970s, although her popularity as a male name died out in the Fifties, and lately there’s been a spike in baby Jewels once again (she was #933 for little girls born in 2010). Perhaps the most famous Jewel is the eponymous singer-songwriter, and the association with her might be strong enough to put some people off – though, honestly, I think the principal reason people are reluctant to touch our pretty little Jewel is the fact that she simply has a reputation for being a “no-class”, “trashy”, “trailer-park” name. Classism is dreadful, isn’t it? And inaccurate. Sigh. Such are the times in which we live.

For those of you who enjoy Jewel’s sound, there are obviously the options of Julie, Julia, Juliet, Jude, Julius, Julian and so on to be considered. If it’s her meaning, however, that has you enraptured, there’s a whole world of names out there, both established and more unusual, that are have precious stones in their etymology. My particular favourites are:

·         Gemma – quite popular in the UK (I have classes with several, aged in their late teens), with Dutch and Italian origins; she means “precious stone”, though less overtly than Jewel does, and I think she’s adorable.

·         Peninnah – feminine; meaning, again, “precious stone”; used in the Bible, and depressingly underused in the English-speaking world at least.

·         Dunstan – male; meaning “dark stone”, so it could be considered jewel-ish at a stretch. In this vein, other “stone” names for boys could fit under Jewel’s banner –Winston (“joy stone”), Torsten (“Thor’s stone”), Stanley (“stone clearing”), Peter (“rock”), etc.

And, of course, if you’re simply looking for a gemstone name, you could always consider:

·         Abalone – abalone (“AH-bah-loh-nee”) sea-snail shells are a source of mother-of-pearl, and isn’t this a pearly little name, if we set the snails aside? Abby could work as a nickname; with Avalon and suchlike climbing the charts I don’t think she’d be too much of a stretch to use.

·         Amber – from the word for orangey-brown fossil resin (to be blunt), and undoubtedly one of the most popular gem-names on this list: it peaked at #13 on the US girls’ popularity charts in the 1980s, and has been used fairly steadily as a female name ever since.

·         Amethyst – derived (oh gracious) from the Greek for “not drunk”, as amethysts were originally believed to protect against drunkenness; could potentially be shortened to Amy.

·         Beryl – a family name for me, Beryl is a gorgeous pale-green gemstone as well as a name that has been used for girls and boys alike over the past century, peaking for both sexes just before the 1920s.

·         Coral – isn’t Coral pretty? She peaked in the 1880s as a female name, and I think she’s ready for a comeback. Neil Gaiman lovers could use her as a short form of Coraline.

·         Diamond – the be-all and end-all of precious stones, so to speak: Diamond is a princess of a name, and because of that I think she’d fit best on a girl (though, as Diamond is also a fairly common English surname, I could potentially see Diamond on a boy – perhaps in the middle name slot?).

·         Emerald/Esmaralda – these are both sooo pretty, as anyone who grew up on The Hunchback of Notre Dame is bound to reiterate: Victor Hugo’s Esmeralda’s name is the Spanish form of Emerald. Emeralds are December’s birthstone – and, with the Emily/Emma trend right now, this could be an inventive way to get the nickname Emmy.

·         Garnet – another potentially unisex name, used both for males and females frequently at the turn of the Twentieth Century. A strong name with unmistakable Edwardian charm.

·         Ivory – popularity charts in the US says this has been more consistently a male name than a female name over the last century, but this is undoubtedly another name that could be used for all genders. Just like the substance it describes, Ivory is equal parts stunning and strong.

·         Jade – consistently popular in the English-speaking world as well as further afield (it was #2 for girls born in France in 2009, and was the middle name of the late Amy Winehouse, who was born in England in 1983), and simple without being plain.

·         Jasper – generally given to males; a strong, handsome, well-established name (Evelyn Waugh used it for a character in Brideshead Revisited back in 1945; it’s traditionally assigned to one of the Wise Men who visited Jesus at His birth, and has been used as an English name since the Middle Ages). Variants Gaspard and Casper, to name but two, are less commonplace in the English-speaking world, and are just as striking.

·         Jet – from the fossilised tree-bark, from which the phrase “jet black” originates: a headstrong, spunky little name that I can picture easily on a child born today. A variant spelling with two Ts (Jett, as in Joan; this is also the name of George Lucas’s son) ranked #353 in the US popularity charts for boys born in 2010. Jet/Jett could be a standalone name for any gender, or could be a nickname (Jethro, anyone?).

·         Obsidian – ohhh Obsidian. This name is so handsome. A quick Google search suggests that Obsidian is quite a popular self-renaming choice among male neo-pagans and lifestyle goths –although there is a definite ooky-spooky quality to this name (I’m picturing a Victorian sorcerer, decked out in velvet and gold…yeah). Obsidian comes from volcanoes. A powerful, powerful name.

·         Onyx – again: super ooky-spooky! Derived from the Latin word for “claw”, sacred to Venus and fabulously black, Onyx is a wonderfully gothic gem-name that could work on a child of any gender.

·         Opal – simple, beautiful, refreshing. Ops, the goddess to whom opals may have been sacred in Ancient Rome, was the wife of Saturn – and her festival is called “Opalia”.

·         Pearl – another family name for me, and a classic: Pearl has that vintage flair that’s inspiring so many namers lately. She’s been used both for males and females.

·         Peridot – pronounced either “PER-ih-dot” or “PER-ih-doh”, depending on how fancy you’re feeling; peridot is the birthstone for August.

·         Ruby – another popular gem-name, Ruby really needs no introduction: she’s been used as a name since the Victorian era, and was the seventh most popular name for girls born in the UK in 2010. Pretty, confident and popular: Ruby is the cheerleader of gem-names right now, in the best possible way.

·         Sapphire – September’s birthstone, and not at all unheard of as a given name; I’ve met one or two who went by Saffy.

·         Topaz – November’s birthstone; rarely used, but Topaz could probably work for any gender as a first or middle name (Joseph Topaz as a combo was stuck in my head a few days ago, incidentally), following the quirky-vintage trend (Ava Topaz, anyone?).

Gem names can be wonderfully pretty, and always fun to play around and make combos with – so, even if Jewel is absolutely out of the question where your naming taste is concerned, perhaps you wouldn’t be quite so adverse to a little Peninnah Jade? :) 

Theodate

Oh, the places one comes across the comeliest names! Yesterday morning I was buying flower seeds in a garden centre and couldn’t stop thinking about what an adorable middle name Anemone would make; in my English class last week I daydreamed about twins called Charmian and Iras; just this afternoon I was struck with loveliness while scrolling through a Wikipedia article about – guess what – a serial killer. H. H. Holmes, to be exact. Born in 1861 and executed in 1896, Mr. Holmes led a short and exceptionally bizarre life, over the course of which he acquired a medical degree, stole bodies from a laboratory, built and operated a fully-fledged torture castle, perpetrated Murder Most Foul (up to two hundred counts), and (most importantly) encountered some of the most intriguing names I’ve heard in some time. Born Herman Webster Mudgett, he renamed himself Henry Howard Holmes over the course of his criminal endeavours; he married women named Clara Lovering, Myrta Belknap and Georgiana Yoke, and had an affair with one named Julia Smythe; he had a son named Robert Lovering Mudgett with his first wife, and was himself the son of one Levi Horton Mudgett (the latter of which I can’t help but find adorable, despite the Good Doctor’s father’s being a rather atrocious namesake by all counts. Levi Mudgett! Levi! Mudgett!). All these charmingly nostalgic names considered and appreciated, however, it’s the name shared by the Good Doctor’s mother and daughter that has captured my attention most of all, and which I’ve seen fit to devote this entry to. Yes, gentlefolk: today we are going to be basking in the glory that is – Theodate!

From what I’ve been able to infer, Theodate (“THEE-ǝ-dayt” – like Theodore; rhymes with fate) appears to be an Anglicised form of Deodata, which is itself the feminine form of late Latin name Deodatus, meaning “God has given”. Related names include Adeodatus and Deusdedit, also of Late Roman usage, and French names Déodat and Dieudonné (and its feminised form, Dieudonnée, a perennial favourite of mine). There are several saints named Deodatus (six, in fact) – predictably enough, one might say, with the name’s meaning. It’s a name with a legitimate history, definitely, and it has a meaning with perpetual appeal (related name Dorothy means “gift of God”; Jonathan means “Yahweh has given”; list goes on).

The mother of our friend Mr. Holmes was born Theodate Page Price; her granddaughter, born to Holmes and his second wife Myrta in 1889, was named Lucy Theodate Holmes. Perhaps the most famous Theodate was Theodate Pope Riddle (1867 – 1946), one of the first female Architects in America – who was actually born Effie Pope Riddle, but who renamed herself at age nineteen to honour to grandmother (one Theodate Stackpole). A quick internet search lists quite a few British and American Theodates, most of whom appear to have been born sometime in the Victorian era, although ancestry.co.uk lists an Agnes Theodate (middle name) who died in Essex, England as recently as 1995. However, although I can find Theodore, Theodora, Theodosia and Theo (the latter for both males and females) on the SSA lists of most popular baby names between 1880 and 1889 in the United States, I find no trace of our elusive little Theodate. She is out there, but has apparently never been especially popular – established, but by no means overdone.

If you’re looking for a refined, spunkily feminine name, I really suggest you give some consideration to pretty little Theodate. She’s pleasantly antiquated and has a traditional feel without being especially popular (Catherine, Amelia, Elizabeth) or overtly frilly (Seraphina, Florentina), and she’s really grown on me quite quickly. She could easily make a charming middle name (Lucy Theodate – say what one likes about Herman Webster Mudgett, but I really can’t fault his naming taste), and I can’t imagine it would be too much of a stretch (in an era where Elizabeth, Olivia, Evelyn and Ava are sitting alongside Nevaeh and Madison in the US naming charts) to use her as a first name – not to mention the potential she has to be used as a character name (historical fiction writers, pay heed!). Nicknames could include Theo, Thea and even Tess (and, from there, Tessa/Tessie/etc).

Combo-wise, I’m currently adoring Theodate Anne, Theodate Rebecca and (yes) Lucy Theodate. Namers who appreciate vintage gems with clout (like Agnes, Beatrice, Constance and Clementine, to tackle just the start of the alphabet), Theodate could easily be your perfect match!

Quid Nomen Est Tibi?

Salutations, my dears! I am Luck, and names are an obsession of mine - hence (as those of you who speak Latin may have already inferred), they will be the primary focus of this blog. Most of the names I detail here will be on a particular theme, or will be especially unusual or intriguing to me. Although my personal list of favourite names does include some more popular names (Mary, Sarah, Thomas), I especially adore the rare, the unheard-of and the downright bizarre (Gardenia, Elormie, Banquo, Euphrosyne, Visvaldis, Ahenobarbus). Expect, if not the unexpected, the eclectic most definitely. Naming should be tasteful, of course, but never at all dull.


"Mihi Nomen Est" is the Latin phrase used to announce one's name: mihi nomen est Luck would be (surprise!) my name is Luck. I adore all things Ancient Roman (again, surprise!), so do expect some Roman names to pop up here from time to time.


Please do enjoy my blog, and feel free to contact be if you have any questions, comments, critique or requests for posts or naming advice (you won't be bothering me: I love to discuss names). Mihi nomen est Luck; quid est nomen tibi? ^_^