Names In Spotlight: Portuguese Names

I decided to do a little article about portuguese names, for those of you who don't know, I'm half portuguese and I'm currently living in Portugal with some of my family. Now I've been to Portugal many times, but it's interesting to be back and stay here for a while, and also with my newish found love of baby names. I started to pay attention to portuguese names, and how they differ to american names in general.

In Portugal, when you name your baby, it's taken seriously. This means, no wacky names, certainly no trendy stuff for you to find (trendy names here are usually just normal names that are picking up a lot of popularity). Also, surnames remain surnames, and there are no unisex names - the rare exceptions are nicknames. However, you can give your son a female name if its used in the middle spot, and vice-versa for girls. For example, I know a boy named Afonso Lara (Lara, after his mother), and a girl named Marta Diogo. Usually you'll find many boys with the middle name Maria, and some girls with the middle name João (the equivalent of John). There are a lot of names with male and female spellings, so you'll have Ivo for boys, Iva for girls, Joaquim for boys, Joaquina for girls, André for boys, Andreia for girls, therefore there isn't a big demand to "steal" names. As a general rule "-o" and "-im" endings are masculine, and "-a" endings are feminine. There are some masculine names ending in "-a", but not too many, and they're mostly of foreign origin. There are even less female names ending in "-o". "E" endings are used widely by both genders, and while there are more male names ending in consonants than female, no particular consonant is more masculine than feminine, besides the already mentioned "-im" ending.

Name In Spotlight: Blue

Well, I had to post something. It's the name everyone is talking about this week, for one simple reason: it's the name pop singer Beyonce and her fiancé, rapper Jay-Z, bestowed upon their newborn daughter: Blue Ivy Carter. Surprisingly safe amongst all the wacky celeb baby names that we've learned about.

Colors as given names are very rare, however Blue has been picking up some steam as a name for a while, especially amongst celebrities. Last year we had Alicia Silverstone's son Bear Blu, which caused a lot of controversy, and the first one that I can think about was Cher's son Elijah Blue (who is now in his 30s).

Celebrity Baby Names of 2011 - Review

2011 was an interesting year for celeb baby names, although not as much as previous years. Maybe Hollywood is turning the crazy down, which might be positive for the babies themselves, but for us who like to see how far they can go, it certainly isn't as much fun.

Like last year, I'll review some celeb baby names given throughout the year, for sons and daughters, with my opinions on each name. I'll then give my picks on the best and worst names of the year.

BOYS:

Flynn - Probably the trendiest name around, although still uncommon (not for long I think). Regardless of whether it becomes uber trendy, I happen to adore this name, so I definitely encourage more parents to use it. It's fresh and has a certain edge that Finn simply doesn't. Another great choice would be Wynn.

Robert Ford - Dont like. At all. Robert has always been one of those names I've never liked, borderline hating it, and I still don't see it's appeal on baby boys these days, I think it's quite dated. Ford is trying too hard to be cool, but it's just ugly.

Morocco Elijah - I gues any country can be a name, but I'd rather be a country than a nationality (will get to that later...) Elijah is a name that I do like, even though it's uber popular. I'd probably go with Elisha, similar but not as overused.

Koa Thomas - Love the name Koa. So unexpected, and could be a great alternative to the saturated Noah. It's definitely a cool name, fresh, sticks in your head. It has the almost obligatory classic but ultimately boring middle name, in this case Thomas. As long as those are in the middle spot I don't mind, it's when the spunky unique names are wasted in the middle with a first name like Jacob, Michael or John that sets me off. Overall thumbs up.