Winifred is a beautiful name that should make a comeback.
Are there any names you feel have been unfairly consigned to oblivion?
15 responses to “Name Comeback”
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This … person may have polluted the name for the time being (being plas with Hitler will generally do that).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifred_Wagner
I can think of more neglected Polish names I like than English ones.
for women: Pelagia, Leokadia, Jowita, Danuta, Leontyna
for men: Polikarp, Dobromir, Święopełk (also great in its Czech version – Svatopluk)
Hungarian has some great names to, a personal favorite being Zsolt (pronounced жольт)
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Ah, I had no idea about Winifred. Is that the reason the name has died out?
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I would have guessed that the inevitable shortening to “Winnie” has done more to eliminate the name from consideration, particularly since the “Winnie” most people know is Winnie the Pooh. I suspect that few people have any other association with the name.
My parents had second thoughts about my name because it was shared by a musician who had a reputation as a Nazi collaborator. My parents got around that objection by altering the spelling slightly and giving the name a resolutely American pronunciation. When the question has come up “Why do you spell/pronounce your first name in this slightly unusual way?” I give that explanation and generally get a baffled, “Who?” Although on one occasion–it was, of all things, my high school basketball coach–the explanation prompted an impassioned defense of the musician in question who, he insisted, had been falsely maligned. About 10 years after I was named, though, my name became an unexpectedly popular one, with many variant spellings and pronunciations. NO one now ever told (as I was as a kid) “wow, that’s an unusual name!”
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OK, this is simply cruel. 🙂 I will now spend the next 5 hours trying to guess the name and failing miserably because I know nothing about musicians.
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I’m thinking….
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf? (who would make the connection? and already used in English)
Tiana Lemnitz? (apparently an enthusiastic nazi despite the beautiful voice but too obscure?)
Kirsten Flagstad? (a likely candidate, her husband was a collaborator but she probably wasn’t, name can be americanized more easily)
Zarah Leander? (also pretty obscure)
hmmmm
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Tiana is a pretty name and the Nazi associations didn’t prevent Disney from using it for their attempt to create an African-American Disney princess. Too bad the movie sucked. Maybe the name would have taken off if Tiana hadn’t spend most of the movie as a frog, and if the alternative to “princess” was something more appealing to the imagination than “managing a restaurant”…
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OK, what can be more appealing than managing a restaurant? There is always food around. I always dreamt of having my own restaurant but that wouldn’t work because I’d eat all the food myself.
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Oh, sorry! Didn’t mean to be coy: Kirsten Flagstad.
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I want to bring back the use of Lucifer as a first name for purely selfish reasons.
That way when someone asks me about the devil I know, I can say, “YES, I know him, he’s THAT GUY …” 🙂
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Also, I’d like to bring back the use of Lazarus as an honorific in naming certain highly successful members of the medical profession, for many similar selfish reasons. 🙂
Similar other lovely names include Cressida and my favourite, Jocasta … [evil snicker]
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Considered calling youngest daughter Diana, but it just felt unlucky. So she’s Estelle.
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Estelle is a beautiful name!
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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