Halloween Baby Names

Would you name your baby boy “Dragon”?  No?  What about giving your baby girl a name that means “to suffer”?  Would you believe that both of these names made it onto Social Security’s list of the Top 1000 Halloween baby names for 2009?

• Drake, which was number 230 on the list of the Top 1000,  is derived from draca, a Latin word meaning “dragon.”
• Patience, which made it to number 747, comes from the English word for patience.  Sadly, the word patience comes to us from a Latin word, patientia, which means “to suffer.”

Spooky Boy’s Names:

• Carey: the name derives from the Irish word for “dark” or “black” but the name has association with an Irish phrase which means “descendant of the dark one.” This could just mean “descendant  of a brunette” but it sounds somewhat sinister…
• Cerberus: derived from a Greek word meaning “demon of the pit.” In Greek mythology, Cerberus was the three-headed dog which guarded the entrance to Hades. It’s hard to decide which is worse: a demon, or a dog with three heads!
• Cormac:  the name is comprised of the Gaelic words corb meaning “defilement” and mac meaning “son.” Do you want to give your baby a name meaning “son of defilement”?  Really?
• Damien and its variant spelling Damon: these are very popular names; ranked as 127 and 519, in the Top 1000 names for 2009. Contrary to popular opinion, the names do not derive from a Latin word meaning “demon.”  In fact, the names derives from a Greek word meaning  “to tame or subdue”…often used a euphemism for killing!
• Diablito: Taken from Spanish, the name means “little devil.”
• Job: the name Job is from Hebrew and means ” oppressed, hated.”
• Rudolph: the name derives from  Hrodulf, which was an Old German name, and  means “wolf.”

Spooky Girl’s Names:

• Antigone: the name sounds classical, and is Greek in origin, but derives from Greek words meaning “against” and “birth.”  If the meaning doesn’t give you the shivers, consider the legend of Antigone who came to a bad end, by being sealed alive in a cave.
• Arachne: the name derives from the Greek word for “spider.”
• Barbara: Barbara is a strange name, literally. The name comes from the Greek word barbarous which means ” strange, foreign.”
• Hel : the name of the daughter of Loki, in Norse mythology. (Hel, if you’re not up on your Norse mythology, was Goddess of the underworld.) The English word ‘hell’ was derived from the name Hel.
• Lilith: Of Assyrian origin, the meaning of the name Lilith is “of the night,” which sounds beautiful. Unfortunately, Lilith was a demon in ancient Assyrian folklore and the name probably didn’t sound so beautiful to the ancient Assyrians!
• Sidony:  Sidony is the feminine form of the name Sidonisus, which means a “person from Sidon,”  an ancient Phoenician city.” Sometime around the Middle Ages, the name also became associated with the Greek word sindon, which is another name for a shroud.  The name Sidony subsequently fell out of favor, probably by the time the Middle Ages were over.
• Thana: a classical, pretty name, which is the feminine form of the name Thanatos. The name Thana becomes less pretty when you learn that thanatos means “death” in Greek.

What to do, if you’ve already given your baby a spooky name?  Don’t worry about it!  People will come to associate that name with your wonderful baby… not with some ancient Greek or Assyrian meaning!