Friday is here and it’s time to welcome our new baby naming contest winners! Following in the last winners’ unconventional footsteps – Kylen and Henri, let us introduce the triumphs of this week: Izak Storm and Paisley Julianna!
As usual, the parents are more than welcome to tell us more about their inspiration and the pronunciation.
The pronunciation might be a bit of a challenge specifically with the baby boy’s name. Izak is the variant of Isaac used in Slavic languages, such as Czech or Polish, and the pronunciation in these languages would be EE-zahk. One wonders, though, whether Izak in this case isn’t just another ‘creative’ spelling variant with the classic English pronunciation IE-zek. Other than the spelling, Isaac is an old Hebrew name which means ‘one who brings laughter’. It first appeared in the Bible and the most famous bearer until today remains Sir Isaac Newton, a 17th century English mathematician and physicist.
Paisley is a rather old name, whose popularity skyrocketed only recently. It originates in Old English and means ‘from the glade’; some sources also mention its origin in Greek and the meaning ‘basilica’. Initially, Paisley was the name of a town in Scotland. In the 19th century it was the center of weaving industry and it gave its name to the Paisley shawl and Paisley pattern. Until today there are various places around the world that bear the same name and it is also a frequent surname. It can be used as both feminine and masculine given names, but right now it is definitely more popular for girls.
Looks like this week we took the path of being original, sort of trying to revive old names in a unique way. But seriously, when is this spelling mishmash going to end? Everybody does it these days, nobody knows how to pronounce it correctly and guess what, it’s no longer original…
If you think differently, dear moms and soon-to-be moms, feel free to express your opinions in our comment section!