I live in an area with a very large Amish community, and I get the local paper every so often just to scope the names. Along with the birth announcements you also get the lists of science awards, good elementary school attendance etc, so it’s a wealth of names…and they aren’t what most people assume they’d be. About half fall into typical names that are no different from popular english names, the other half are usually super unique. What I have noticed is very little actual use of the old testament names people think of when they hear Amish, and that you normally hear in fiction…I’ve seen no little [name]Silas[/name]'s or [name]Levi[/name]'s yet.
Interesting names culled from last weeks paper
[name]Laverne[/name] (two, both boys)
[name]Glen[/name] (two, in the same grade in elementary)
Sueellen
[name]Mervin[/name] (baby [name]Mervin[/name], whos grandpa was named [name]Jacob[/name])
LaWayne, (who had four siblings with common english names)
Those are just the ones I jotted down, there were other interesting ones I’ve forgotten. Does anyone else live in an area with an unusual or unexpected naming culture?
I live in a very Hispanic area, and there are many names that are common here but aren’t elsewhere. Some examples:
[name]Yesenia[/name] or [name]Jesenia[/name]
[name]Hector[/name]
[name]Oscar[/name]
[name]Yolanda[/name]
[name]Isabel[/name] (for adults)
[name]Renata[/name]
[name]Brenda[/name] (for children)
[name]Marcel/namea
Not too far away from me is a very hipster-y area, and the kid’s names reflect that. I’ve run into multiple kids there with these names:
[name]Dorothy[/name]
[name]Henry[/name]
[name]Oliver[/name]
[name]Leo[/name]
[name]Eliza[/name]
[name]Griffin[/name]
[name]Frances[/name]
[name]Georgia[/name]
A great sibset from my church,
[name]Samuel[/name], [name]Hunter[/name], [name]Titus[/name], and [name]Hannah[/name].
I live in a rural area of Oklahoma where you run into double firsts like [name]Hailey[/name]-[name]Jo[/name] and [name]Andy[/name]-[name]Joe[/name] (girl), and nicknames [name]Bubba[/name] and [name]Sissy[/name] a lot, sibsets that all start with the same letter, and a few made-up sounding names like [name]Daycie[/name], Kolter, and Tybrie, but there are a few remarkable older names- [name]Grady[/name], [name]Alfrieda[/name], [name]Inga[/name], [name]Lena[/name], and [name]Hattie[/name].
[name]James[/name] and [name]Kevin[/name] are family names for everyone around here (including me!).
But, I grew up in south [name]Texas[/name] with a large Hispanic population and names like Yajira “ya-hei-da” nn [name]Heidi[/name], [name]Clemente[/name], [name]Cipriano[/name], [name]Zoila[/name], [name]Xerxes[/name], [name]Jesus[/name], [name]Miguel[/name] and [name]Mariel[/name] “Ma-dEE-el” (twins), [name]Veronica[/name] and [name]Vanessa[/name] (twins), sisters [name]Clarissa[/name] “Clau-dEE-sa” and [name]Melissa[/name], [name]Xavier[/name], [name]Javier[/name], [name]Marissa[/name] “Ma-dEE-sa”, [name]Belen[/name], sisters [name]Nicolette[/name] and [name]Giana[/name], and siblings who pn their last name different like [name]Perez[/name] pn “[name]Pet[/name]-ez” and “[name]Per[/name]-ez”. All these kids, now adults, have named their kids mainly popular “normal” names like [name]Alexander[/name] and [name]Addison[/name], but a few used more unique names like [name]Calista[/name] and [name]Aubrey[/name].