ANSTHRLD - Name submission

Teceangl tierna at agora.rdrop.com
Thu Mar 29 23:24:02 PST 2001


> I will actually suggest that someone check Kolatch.  He's actually
> sometimes useful in pointing out that a name is modern.  I'd also
> suggest Hanks and Hodges and Yonge.  I'm dead serious.  They sometimes
> do too, and Yonge can be a good starting point for research if
> you don't know where / when a name is from.

I don't have Kolatch, but my collection of Awful Baby Names Books includes:
Hanks & Hodges (not always so awful, but never used for docs)
The New Age Baby Name Book
American Given Names (actually helpful when dealing with newly coined names)
A Saint for Your Name
Welsh First Names for Children (no author, looks like a bucketshop publication)
Multicultural Baby Names
Baby Names from Around the World
What to Name Your Baby
Name Your Baby (Lareina Rule)
Baby Names for the New Century
The Celebrity Baby Name Book
Beyond Jennifer and Jason
Celtic Names for Children
Celtic Baby Names
The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames
and a slough of assorted other stuff including a dozen or so "X001 names for
baby" types and the grocery store checkout counter pamphlets.

They're my final, desperate stop when faced with a name someone insists they
should have but hasn't a clue where it comes from.  So when I say I've checked
my "really awful baby names books", I mean it.  :)

BTW, the most telling info I could find having anything even remotely
resembling Lorene comes from _American Given Names_ by George R. Stewart,
who has this entry:

   Lorraine, Loraine, Lorane <female> The origin is uncertain, but may be
   from the french province, used as a given name by Romantic poets to
   whom the euphonic quality of the l-r-n structure would have been highly
   appealing.
   Its connections are American, and it shows an occasional example as early
   as 1820.  The first spellings were Loraine.  The double-r spelling became
   predominant in the twentieth century, possibly because Alsace-Lorraine
   became well known in connection with the wars of 1870-71 and 1914-18.  (The
   province itself is from a French version of the name of its ninth-century
   ruler, Lothaire.)
   Possibly stimulated by the "Alsace-Lorraine problem," Lorraine grew more
   popular toward the end of the nineteenth century.  In Smith's list of
   1941 it is 26, borne by more than half a million American women.  Since
   then its popularity has falled off sharply, but it still remains viable,
   sometimes with the Loraine spelling.
   The thoroughly American nature of the name is shown by its failure to
   appear in such exhaustive British lists as those of Yonge (1863) and
   Withycombe (1945).
   Not to be altogether rejected is the possibility of a name manufactured
   from Laura and Anne.

- teceangl
-- 
In response to radio announcer with tangled tongue:
                  "He washed his mouth and can't do a thing with it."
						     - SJK  8-28-96  04:23
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