OMG what are we doing to our children?
The US Social Security Admin bods have recently posted the most popular names for newborns and flying up the list was an ancient name with modern fame: Cullen, the surname of one handsome bloodsucker, Edward. Read the article.
As Alison Flood in the Guardian says, we ”have to wonder whether these little Cullens are going to thank their parents when they discover their parents’ inspiration. I know I wouldn’t appreciate being named after a weedy, obsessive vampire”.
Alison Flood continues, ”But it makes me wonder if there are any characters I’d appreciate as a namesake. Scarlett O’Hara is one of my all-time favourite heroines, but I’m not sure I’d lumber a child with her name; ditto Frodo – although Bilbo is quite sweet. And I’m rather fond of Lolita, but thanks to Nabokov, I think I’ll probably give it a miss. Have you been literarily inspired in naming your child, or are there any fictional characters whose names you’d avoid like the plague?”
Believe it or not, my name didn’t come from a love of the Swiss girl and her grandfather story on my mother’s part, but a worry about calling me Heather which might be ryhmed with Blether in Scotland and die Heide is German for Heather . . . I was quite keen on Eleanor for a name while I was pregnant with Ishbel – I was reading a Sharon Penman book at the time.
Any literary influences amongst the group?
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Here’s a bit of fun from the 
