F is for Finn

F is for Finn

Girls

Best Lit Name: Fern

I know, here’s where many of you are just going to shake your heads in mild, hopefully fond, disapproval. Fern, which comes from the beloved children’s chestnut Charlotte’s Web, has a “leafy green sensibility,” I write in “Atticus.” I see delicacy, botany, feathery fronds. A landscape architect dude I know of named his baby girl Fern, and that just gave it a green, now boost of (chlorophyll?) juice. It’s also quaint and old-fashioned, and utterly unused in the last 100 years, when it was in the Top 200.
Okay, it’s a tie: Frances is also a stupendous lit name, coming from Frances Hodgson Burnett, not to mention the winsome Francie from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Other marvelous F Lit names: Flannery, Flora (the goddess of flowers and springtime in Roman myths).

Best International Name: Francesca

Drop-dead gorgeous Francesca, Italian, of course, is swooningly beautiful. My spell check is insisting that “swooningly” is not a word, but it is the only word to describe Francesca. Runners up: Finola (Scottish), Fiona (Irish), Freya (Scandinavian, yet popular in England.)

Other F Names I Love:

Faith, Fenella, Felicity. I have a friend who named his daughter Felicity after something one of the founding fathers said. Yes, I have some deep friends. I must ask him that quote of his, so I can post it here for you all, and you can sigh deeply with happiness as I did when I heard it.

Celeb F: Finley. Good job, Lisa Marie Presley, who named one of her twin girls Finley, and the other one Harper. Of course, the aforementioned Harmon-Sehorns (see Emery), blazed this trail with their little Finley Faith. Love it.

BOYS

Best Lit Name: Finn
Best International Name: Also Finn
Best F Name, period: Finn! Finn! Finn!

Obviously, I’ve become carried away. But why not, when you have the perfect name? Finn is literary (Huck Finn), international (as Irish as a jig, and on the Dutch Top Ten!), is charming, energetic, simple, handsome. Recently, a preggers relative said she couldn’t use Finn because her in-laws thought the boy would be made fun of. I wanted to take her in-laws to the baby name woodshed, and show them the what for…! People with no imagination sorely test my sanctification. After all, Finn is rising slowly up the charts—it was 387 in 2007—so it’s not like, weird or anything. Sheesh.

Fergus and Felix are nice, too.

PS: Felicity has a big brother named…can you guess?...Is your heart pounding?...Fionn! Okay, so they added an O for a little more Irish authenticity. This is good stuff, folks.