More Old Lady Names

Like I said, I've been away from the blog for a while, but that only means that my collection of old lady names has multiplied exponentially while I was on sabbatical. Seriously. I did the math. (No I didn't.) But I do have a bajillion. I wasn't sure how to choose what to share first, but I started noticing some patterns that I think are interesting. I'll start with two today.

First off, we have what I will call the ENDING IN "A" category. I feel like people back then could choose any number of letters—sometimes at random—and, as long as the combination ended in "a," it was deemed a worthy name for their daughter. (Similar to the "lee" suffix of our time, and the many "Braylee," "Brinley," "McKaylee" creations, perhaps?)


ENDING IN "A"
Elda (I've seen several of these, so this name was not uncommon. But it makes me wonder why "Eld" was something you'd want to feminize with an "a.")
Aina
Verna
Idona (I feel like this one is begging Bart Simpson to use it for a fake name when he calls Moe's Tavern. What would a good last name be?)
Cerelda
Wilda (One word: Wildebeest.)
Coda
Venda
Arcola (Maybe not the best idea to put a popular soft drink in your child's name?)
Erna
Cloma (This is heading dangerously into "sounds like a body part or a disease" territory.)
Varda (I tried to see this one from all sides, but I still say don't name your child anything that rhymes with "lard.")
Ora, Arva, Wilma, Ola, Eda (All of these beauties appeared the same day in the obits. It was a goooooooood day.)


Another collection of names falls into the VISIBLE ROOTS category. These are names that are indeed odd, but I feel like I can see how people possibly arrived at them. Possibly maybe.

VISIBLE ROOTS
Ronella (Maybe it's one of those Dad's name + Mom's name situations? Ron + Ella? Or maybe it's just a feminized version of Ron, which is a terrible idea.)
Royalene (Could be Ronella's cousin, the child of Roy and Alene, or the feminized version of Royal, which, again, didn't turn out very well)
Rinda (A horrible variation of Linda?)
Arvilla (Another feminized version? Of Arville? Why?)


So let's hear it. Which name offends your senses the least, and which makes you recoil and feel like you came down with a terrible case of cloma?

Radio silence

Boy, what has the world come to? I haven't posted anything since late November, and I don't really know why. I didn't intend to let the blog go, truly. But that's a heckuva long time, even for a minimal poster like me. So what have I been doing this whole time? Working, playing, reading Harry Potter to Anna, trying new recipes, having dance parties, thinking about books I'm going to write, going on vacation, and probably too much Netflix, frankly.

But I've still been amassing dozens of Annacdotes and old lady names, so get ready for lots of new additions to those collections. Here's a teaser: Birdice. Like Bernice, but with a cold?

Stay tuned for more real posts in the near future. Or just future. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.