{"id":16282,"date":"2023-04-21T08:13:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T12:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=16282"},"modified":"2023-04-21T08:13:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T12:13:37","slug":"baby-name-game-laura-to-lauren-names","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2023\/04\/21\/baby-name-game-laura-to-lauren-names\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Name Game: Laura-to-Lauren Names"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a little bit of a JOURNEY of a story, but what happened was that I had the quote “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” in my head, and I wanted to find out who wrote it; I was imagining perhaps Robert Burns. It turns out it was written by Julian of Norwich<\/a> in the 1300s; I might have encountered it in a poem by T.S. Elliot, although that poem eliminates the repetition of the first phrase, which I think is one of the most gripping parts of the quote, so perhaps I encountered it elsewhere. Apparently churches sometimes quote it; it does have an Ecclesiastes sort of sound.<\/p>\n

The part of the Wikipedia article that is relevant to this post is the part where it says historians are not sure if Julian was the writer’s given name or a pseudonym—but it goes on to say that Julian was indeed used as a name for girls in the Middle Ages, so it’s realistic to think it could have been her actual name.<\/p>\n

Currently, in the United States, the name Julian is only a little bit used as a name for girls: according to the Social Security Administration<\/a>, in 2021 it was used for 30 new baby girls. For comparison, there were also 30 new baby girls that year given each of these names: Belladonna, Erza, Liam, Mars, Nile, Rin, Sable, and Waylon. It’s not common. That same year, there were 7629 new baby boys named Julian. This is a name I would stop short of saying was used “exclusively for boys”—but I would probably say it’s used ALMOST exclusively for boys.<\/p>\n

I am reluctant to suggest we start using it more for girls, though Julian of Norwich makes it a fun honor name. But the idea that Julian is basically Julia but with an -n, so why SHOULDN’T it be for girls, makes me think of the name Lauren, which was somewhere between the exclusively-for-girls Laura and the exclusively-for-boys Laurence. The -n takes a soft and feminine -a name and firms it up a bit. Alyssa is soft and feminine; Allison is firmed up a bit.<\/p>\n

I wondered if we could do that to other names. This is not a task in my area of strengths (I immediately tried to make Anna into Annan and Ada into, oh, Aiden), but I know we have those among us who are great at this kind of thing.<\/p>\n

Some names feel like they transform into something less name-like when we add -n: Alecia turns to Alecian, which sounds like someone is from the country of Alecia. Victoria turns to Victorian, which again sounds descriptive rather than name-like. Viola is now a violin.<\/p>\n

Some transform into familiar existent names: Ella to Ellen. Mira to Mirren. Linda to Linden. Kara to Karen.<\/p>\n

Some names just transform into names used more often for boys, the way Julia does. Stella turns to Stellan. Nola turns to Nolan. Cora turns to Corin. Myra turns to Myron.<\/p>\n

Some transform into words: Portia turns to portion; Paula to pollen; Marcia to Martian; Patricia to patrician; Becca turns to beckon. Though actually I feel like Beccan\/Beckyn is cute and usable despite the word-name aspect.<\/p>\n

But what about Tessa to Tessan? It takes some work to adjust to it, but Laura to Lauren probably felt odd at first, too. Ava to Aven? Lila to Lilan\/Lylan? Sarah to Saren? Bella to Bellyn\/Bellen? Myla to Mylen? Nora\/Cora\/Flora should be similar to Laura: Noran, Corin, Florin. I wonder if the method would work best for updating names that feel out of style right now. Tamara to Tamaran\/Tamaryn. Lisa to Lisan\/Liesen. Monica to Monican\/Moniken\/Monnikyn. Sheila to Sheilan. Erica to Eriken. Melissa to Melissyn.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t HAVE to be -a endings. Kathy to Kathyn\/Cathen. Joyce to Joycen. Jess to Jessen. Holly to Hollyn. Tracy to Tracen.<\/p>\n

Well, as I say, this kind of thing is not one of my strengths, but I wondered if it would be fun for others to take a crack at it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a little bit of a JOURNEY of a story, but what happened was that I had the quote “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well” in my head, and I wanted to find out who wrote it; I was imagining perhaps Robert Burns. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-4eC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16282"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16285,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16282\/revisions\/16285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}