Monthly Favorites | Baby Names

Hello!

This is my final post of the week and In my act to bring something different to my blog this month, I thought about putting together a collection of my favorite baby names since the start of 2022.

If you have been on here a while, you might know I have a HUGE obsession with names; I’ve done a lot of things in the past, but my favorite thing is discussing what could be the next royal baby’s names. I’ve been wrong on Prince Louis of Cambridge, his cousin Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, and Prince Gabriel of Sweden, but I somewhat right for both Princess Eugenie’s son August Brooksbank and Prince Gabriel’s little brother Prince Julian of Sweden!

I love doing those types of posts, but I mainly create them to have fun, so with that, I thought I could come up with something that you as a reader might enjoy, but I would love to look back on to see what has changed in the future.

In 2019, I made up a Pinterest board that would help me keep track of all the names I came across each month, and I attempt to list my ultimate favorites on my name accounts on Facebook and Instagram at the end of the year. I have surprised myself quite a bit, but that’s kind of the point though. For this post, I will be including ALL of the names I’ve been into from January to March, as I say this, I could forget a few just before I publish the post in general. but everybody should be ready and updated for you today.


January

Girls: Anne, Agnes, Arden, Amaryllis, Audra, Betty, Caroline, Cecilia, Chantal, Frances, Freya, Hannelore, Hedy, Henrietta, Hermione, Honor, Iris, Juniper, Lavinia, Leta, Lynlie, Maud, Monaco, Rue, Skylynn, Sophie, Taryn, Victoria, Wilhelmina, Winifred, Wren, Yuna, Zita

Boys: Adolphus, Athelstan, Barclays, Bridgemont, Dempsey, Ford, Isaiah, Joachim, Jon, Kade, Khair, Kohl, Lancaster, Ludo, Odin, Santos, Sherwood, Somerset, Ralph, Winston

Unisex: Asa, Denali, Shiloh, Joss, Lennox

February

Girls: Abigail, Adelaide, Amy, Andie, Ashlyn, Atlas, Arizona, Brielle, Brookline, Brynn, Bubbles, Carlyn, Colbie, Claudia, Daphne, Deirdre, Eleonore, Ethel, Fiona, Freya, Gertrude, Halla, Hannelore, Honor, Imogen, Isla, Ira, Ivy, Jane, Jessamine, Jo, Julissa, Kendall, Kiernan, Kira, Kyla, Laney, Leni, Letha, Liselle, Lovelyn, Mako, Mary, Mayim, Moira, Nercissa, Ocea, Oceanne, Orna, Ottilie, Remy, Riverlyn, Roseline, Runa, Salome, Sierra, Sophia, Soraya, Story, Suki, Verena, Yuna,

Boys: Aiden, Alfred, Alonso, Asher, Braylin, Brexson, Byron, Cameron, Caspian, Gregory, Hayden, Hunter, Falcon, Jaxon, Ledger, Leonidas, Mark, Maverick, Mosaic, Nevada, Neville, Nikos, Orlando, Ptolemy, Ryan, Spade, Spencer, Taurien

Unisex: Albany, Ashton, Eiffel, Emerson, Linwood, Noel, Sayre, Vesper

March

Girls: Adelaide, Alessia, Aoife, Astra, Avril, Beatrice, Catherine, Catriona, Cecilia, Clover, Davina, Dorothy, Edda, Edie, Eliza, Eloise, Ethel, Eydis, Freyja, Gwyneth, Hervor, Ida, Imogen, Ingrid, Kassandra, Katya, Ksenia, Libby, Lilian, Lilias, Lille, Loralei, Lotte, Lydia, Madeleine, Maeve, Magdalene, Mailin, Matilda, Millicent, Mimi, Moira, Noelle, Odessa, Oona, Parisa, Philippa, Posie, Primrose, Savannah, Soleil, Sophia, Sybil, Sybilla, Thea, Violet, Wylla, Yrsa

Boys: Archibald, Aldrich, Alastair, Atlas, Bruno, Calder, Cord, Elias, Ewen, Ezra, Fox, Finn, Gilbert, Hudson, James Jameson, Jasper, Leif, Levi, Loki, Mikey, Nolan, Pluto, Reginald, Rhys, Ryker, Riley, Rory, Silas, Sullivan, Thaddeus, Tobias, Willoughby

Unisex: Daisuke, Namir, Raleigh, Ronan


As you might’ve noticed as you read each name, a lot were inspired by my recent reads. I’ve always loved the various styles authors will name their own characters. A lot are inspired the different eras in history, such as Vikings and their Norse mythology. I’ve finished two books that discuss many parts of their religion, so you have popular names like Odin, Freya/Freyja, Loki but then you have the main characters and even though you are writing about a fictional person, you still want them to have a name that readers can recognize as part of that group, and you get a mismatch of names you might know about and the rest are basically made up, like Halla, Taurein, Rollo, Revna, Runa, Hervor, Eydis, Asta, Calder, and Leif.

There is another group you should have noticed, and they are my Irish/Gaelic/Scottish style of names. I usually keep a nice array of names in the back of my mind of these types, but since March is about spring and of course, St. Patrick’s Day, my usual bag is suddenly larger as we continue on to the next month.

I love the traditional Gaelic names that can be difficult to pronounce for most people. I’ve been interested in everything Irish since 2014, so I’m happy to say I can say several names with ease now. I do have some trouble with others, but it is a slow process and I work on it every day Some of my favorite names of that language are Aoife, (Eva) Ewen, Imogen, Maeve, (Mae-vv) Moira, Oona, (On-na) Ronan, Willoughby (Will-o-be).

I hope you have enjoyed this post. I would like to do this again, keeping with the three months, so you can see how everything changes with the others. I also keep record of all of the name combinations I make from various name games on social media, so if you would like to see what I create with each month, let me know and I can update this post with the names of January through March.

Are you obsessed with names too? If you are, what styles are you most drawn to on a daily basis? Do you keep a list of favorites in a notebook or in your phone throughout the year(s)?

snowflake

Best & Worst In Film | 2015-16

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Howdy!

I hope you are not tired about me discussing movies with you guys! I sort of wanted to do this post last month but I just wasn’t happy with it so I trashed it. I was talking to my fellow blogger Shona and she had mentioned on Twitter, that she was going to list the movies she watched in 2016  so, she kind of talked me back into publishing this post! If you’re just as much as a movie junkie, you should check out her post too!

It is actually a lot harder to talk about all of the movies I watched in 2016 without including the ones that came out in 2015 that I had seen at the same time! I think that list was larger – I watched a total of 25 films while I only had 11 that were released in 2016! I didn’t just have a good year of movies, I also watched different documentaries starting from Living With Lincoln and Packed In a Trunk to Finding Vivian Maier. They were all very educational and inspiring!

To make things easier on myself, the draft of how I originally wanted to write this post wasn’t deleted yet so I used it as a guide as I even included how I wanted to rate them! Sometimes I can be very clever like that! I also have divided them up into groups so it would be easier to read!

My love/hate relationship with drama films!

If anybody knows me well enough, I am purely an action based kind of girl so to watch nine films in the drama category is just crazy! Of course, we have to talk about the four films that I loved wholeheartedly and they were The Danish Girl, Woman In Gold, Brooklyn, and The Age Of Adaline. These made me feel so many emotions while I silently watched them. I still think about these films on a weekly basis!

Let’s talk the surprises of the bunch!

I’ve one to be very picky about the movies I want to see and I’ll explain that in a minute, but I had three films that weren’t on my list at first but I kind of fell in love with them after I saw them. They were Criminal, The Last Witch Hunter, Ricki and the Flash, Suicide Squad, and Fantastic Four. These were all action/adventure, (except for the one drama film) which as I said I love, but I didn’t think I would enjoy them! Criminal was a film that I hadn’t heard about and it came out last January I think, but I’m not a fan of Kevin Costner either so that might’ve been why; whereas with Fantastic Four there was a lot of chatter about it, mostly because it’s a reboot of the movies that came out in 2005 and 2007. A lot of people didn’t like it, and I have a theory of why; the way it was presented, it basically gave you a lot more background information and the action-y scenes were so short. I actually gave this a 5/10 rating in my first post but it’s a close six now!

It gave me chills!

I don’t know about you, but I love watching movies while lying in bed or on the couch with a blanket. When you watch as many movies as I do, a blanket is something that keeps me relaxed so I don’t tense up my back throughout watching it. However, the one bad thing about having a blanket on top of you while watching an action film is that you can hot,very quickly. At least I do whenever I watch one!

However, getting the chills afterwards can be the good thing! The films that about killed me (in a good way) were Triple 9, London Has Fallen, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Furious 7, Insurgent, Hitmam: Agent 47, X-Men: Apocalypse and Mockingjay Part 2. That’s a nice list in general, isn’t it? All were good in their own ways! I can’t say anything else about them!

Out of ten, you are under five!

Can we all agree that cringing throughout a film is considered a bad thing?

I could be honest and discuss the three films that were under the five rating on my first post, but I can’t. There’s only one that just sucked and I wish I hadn’t watched it. I’ll explain a little bit, back in 2014 a film called Pompeii  and it wasn’t included in the post I had made up of movies I wanted to see that year, because I thought I would hate it.

I honestly can’t watch any type of film that has some historical references in it. That’s why there are a lot of classics like Braveheart and Troy that I cannot get myself to watch no matter how hard my dad tries!

When I watched Pompeii though, I don’t know what happened. I ended up loving the crap out of it. I was more worried about if the characters would get the chance to escape the eruption and I think that’s why I sort of ignored it at first because the main character always gets away and the girl and they live happily ever after. The fact that my expectations were wrong made me happy! It’s turned into one of my top five favorite films ever!

Not all movies can get so lucky though, when a family friend brought down Gods Of Egypt after it was released on DVD, I was still pretty hesitant about watching it at all. I didn’t include it in the coming soon post I put up last January, but I still wanted to give it a shot because I thought it would surprise me like Pompeii did just two years before. I was wrong – it was awful! Well, if you’re only looking at the action sequences it’s not that bad, but since I’m like this big Ancient Egypt fan since I was like 8 years old. I’ve seen about every special on both History and Smithsonian channels plus read so many books and magazines articles about the mummification process, their afterlife, and Pharaohs! If you need any information about anything in those categories, I’m your go-to girl!

So when I watched this, I remembered the angst I felt while watching the Tut special on Spike that premiered like two years prior! Whoever thought of putting Gerard Butler as an Egyptian God was a completely idiot! The whole cast about pissed me off! You have Danish actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau playing the God Horus?!?! Oh my god! Sorry, can’t do it anymore!

What do you think were the best and/or worse movies that came out in 2016? Or 2015?

snowflake

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Movies I Want To See In 2016 | First Half

movies

One of the things I mostly get excited for is the new movies that are coming out! I usually never go out to the theaters or anything, but it’s the build-up of these new films and your favorite actors/actresses playing these characters that really excite me! After 2014’s flop of new movies I had seen, I really wanted to watch as many as I could in 2015, plus any specials like Flesh And Bone on Starz and documentaries like Sinatra: All Or Nothing and Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck on HBO. I was pretty proud on what I allowed myself to watch and be dedicated for a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to watch all of the movies I looked forward to seeing in 2015. I still like to hold out and maybe they’ll turn up on some of our movie channels. I finally got to watch The Avengers: Age Of Ultorn on Starz. They premiered it on January 22nd! I’m hoping Starz or HBO airs Age Of Adaline so I don’t have to ask anybody to rent it out for me. What am I doing? This post is supposed to be about the films coming out this year! Since I loved doing these posts last year, I’ve decided to separate them out in equal parts. This will be for the ones being released in January to June 2016!

Dirty Grandpa (January 22nd) starring Robert De Niro, Zac Efron, and Julienne Hough

I don’t know how my sister would be so lucky to get a Zac Efron movie to come out on her birthday, but oh well! I saw a picture advertising this new film on Facebook. Julienne Hough had posted a picture and a little bit about her character. It wasn’t until like two days later that I found the trailer while on YouTube and I realized how bad I wanted to see this! I think it’s going to be very strange Robert De Niro playing such a flirt with Zac Efron, but that’s just me!

The Choice (February 5th) starring Benjamin Walker and Teresa Palmer

I’ll be honest, I watched the trailer for this and I was really turned off by the concept of this story. Maybe it’s because I don’t believe in love at first sight. I think I’ve also watched my fair share of Nicholas Sparks inspired films that I’m just over it. I just want to watch it because it has Teresa Palmer in it!

Deadpool (February 12th) starring Ryan Renyolds and Morena Baccarin

Everybody has had this movie on their lists since the beginning of last year. I’m still confused though, I thought Deadpool was a villain. I mean has anybody else seen Wolverine: Origins before? He and Wolverine have at it towards the end… I think this film will be a mixture of funny and lots of action, which I love the most!

Fun fact: If I watch this, it’ll be my first movie I’ve watched with Ryan Reynolds in it! 

Triple 9 (February 26th) starring Aaron Paul, Woody Harrelson, Norman Reedmus, and Kate Winslet

This is another movie I found by chance. I kind of fell in love with the trailer because it’s not about superheros or romance, it’s that “real” action and story line to it. I just want to see a movie with Norman Reedmus in it. I just want to see this guy act without all of the zombies, don’t judge me! It does look really good though!

Zootopia (March 4th) starring Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman

You can thank my friend Brittany for putting the trailer of this one on my Facebook the other day, I hadn’t even heard of it and of course now I want to see it! It just looks so cute! I’m not a big fan of sloths, but this trailer just cracked me up! I would be acting the same way that little bunny Judy was if somebody talked to me that slow!

Allegiant (March 18th) starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Miles Teller

I’ve officially caught up on these movies! Thank god! I’m really curious about the next stage of the storyline for Four and Tris. I want to know about what’s outside of the Wall and what are Evelyn’s intentions now that Jeannie is gone. I’m hoping this answers some questions for me, but I am super excited for the next installment to come out!

Superman vs. Batman: Dawn of Justice (March 25th) starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Even Peters, and Gal Gadot

I feel like I should have ended this list right here, because my excitement for this sucker is bigger than anything else! I honestly haven’t watched Man Of Steel since the end of 2014 because it effected me so much but I am really looking forward to seeing this purely because I want to see Ben Affleck prove EVERYBODY wrong as his role as Batman. Plus, Gal Gadot is playing “Wonder Woman” YES PLEASE! ♥

The Huntsman: Winters War (April 22nd) starring Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Emily Blunt, and Jessica Chastain

This is another one that has me all confused but apparently not enough that I didn’t leave it off the list! I have to say I loved Snow White and The Huntsman a lot! Mostly because of Charlize Theron playing this dark, evil character. Now I got two of them: Charlize and Emily Blunt. Two of my woman crushes in one movie, and on top of that you got Chris Hemsworth back playing the Huntsman. We finally get to see his character before he was sent off to find Snow White and what happened to his wife in the process. I don’t know if it’s a pre-squeal or not, I’m just excited!

Captain America: Civil War (May 6th) starring Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Mackie, and Scarlett Johannson

Time for a little Captain America/Iron Man action! I’m so freaking excited to see this movie! I’ll be wearing my Captain America shirt with pride the opening weekend. I can’t say anything else about this one!

X-Men: Apocalypse (May 27th) starring  James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender,  and Jennifer Lawrence

I’m really curious about this installment of the X-Men series! We finally get to see some of our favorites as younger/trying to learn to control their powers like Storm and Jean! I’m really stoked about the fact that Jubilee is being featured in the movie! When I was younger, I used to watch the cartoon episodes on Boomarang and she was my favorite character outside of Charles and Storm!  

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (June 3rd) starring Megan Fox, Will Arnett, and Stephan Arnell

The first film was amazingly good, like I’m being serious! It was also the movie my sister and I went to see in theaters. I’m pretty sure this was my choice because if Blondie had chosen it would have been a scary movie and I would have killed it even before the ending! Before this, I hadn’t been out to the movies since 2012. We weren’t raised on X-Men, TMNT, etc growing up. So we weren’t familiar with the franchise as everybody else.

Since we enjoyed the first film so much we’re actually looking forward to this next installment. I’m pretty sure we’ll be adding Brandon into our movie date, but that’s okay with me because he’s the one who sent the trailer to me! I didn’t even know that it was out yet. He sent it to me with a caption saying “The Flash is in it!” And you all think I’m superhero obsessed!!

Finding Dory (June 17th) starring Ellen DeGenres, Diane Keaton, and Ty Burrell

I loved Finding Nemo so much!! It’s such a cute, sad movie. I’ve seen those theories all over Facebook about the backstory of Nemo’s dad and Dory, but nonetheless it’s still adorable! Now that Dory’s getting her own movie, I’m a bit in the middle as I doubt it’ll stand up to Finding Nemo’s success but you never know!

Independence Day: Resurgence (June 24th) starring Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch, and Liam Hemsworth

This is also another film I’m feeling iffy about as I grew up with the original. My mom tried to save herself from what happened when I watched Men In Black the first time. Let’s just say between the both of them, I was not a fan of aliens. I still cringe at certain scenes in both films! I am glad that Jeff and Judd are back in the reboot, but would it better with Will Smith? Absolutely! Can I settle for Liam Hemsworth instead? Why did I just ask myself that question when I already know the answer? 😀

What are some of the movies you’re looking forward to seeing in the first six months of 2016?

snowflake

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Song Review: “Propaganda” by DJ Snake

So before we start this off, I just wanted to include this tweet that I posted the day before NYE because I couldn’t contain myself once I heard this song that we’re about to discuss! You should have seen my face when I saw who had favorite the tweet. I was also thanking God that there were no spelling errors in that tweet too!

Anyways, if you’re familiar with my reviews then you know how much I love instrumentals. I seriously can’t get enough and I wish DJs made more of them honestly! Certain songs sound good without words, sometimes you just have to let the beat speak for itself. And with that being said, this sucker is fucking good! Sorry there’s no other way to describe my love for this track without using the “F” word in the same sentence.

Let’s be totally honest, anything that DJ Snake releases is great! I wasn’t really feeling “Middle” at first, but now I’m starting to like it. I always look forward to new DJ Snake music. I mean, I should’ve listened to it when he put it out on his SoundCloud instead of waiting until it was on Spotify, but I just decided to hold out for a bit longer. I mean, I love it so it really doesn’t matter where/how I listened to it! I don’t think my views on it would have changed. It sounds like a true DJ Snake track: crazy sound and makes you want to move. It could be an awesome song to add to your workout playlist just a little heads up!

So what do you think of “Propaganda?” Do you think DJ Snake will finally release a full album or EP for us this year?

 

snowflake

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Summary | Best Of 2015

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Hey guys!

Can you believe it that after tomorrow it will be the first day of 2016? I find it a bit weird that we all started off wondering how 2015 could turn out to be, how much of the movie Back To The Future would come true. Thankfully the way teenagers wear their clothes didn’t become a trend as the movie had pictured it, but then again the fact that the Chicago Cubs made it into the playoffs really surprised the crap out of everybody, old and young. The prophecy of the team winning the World Series looked to be sincere and then they lost, but hey! They still played their best in years and managed to get themselves that far is an accomplishment in my book!

Between everything in the world taken offensive by almost everybody aggravates me to the core. There was not one thing that hit the internet that somebody didn’t take offense to and spoke their peace about it. And then you had the dress debate; what was it: black and blue or gold and white? I remember everybody just exploding on my social medias over what they were seeing. I saw black and blue and Blondie saw gold and white, I remember looking at her like “what the hell?!” It just didn’t make sense but after a couple of days, it all went away.

For me personally, this year wasn’t the best in my opinion. One example, it reminded me how long I’ve been out of school and knowing I missed my five year high school reunion really struck a cord with me, I think this was the downhill of having any hope for a change. I felt stuck a lot more this year, there’s nothing worse than feeling alone and like you can’t change your current situation. I feel I believed a lot more broken promises. What puzzles me though is that I still had hope for a better day, that part never went away and in a way I was happy it stayed right along with me. It kept me looking forward to the next day or day after to see what happens next.

Despite all of the ugly that was going on from within, there was still a lot of good that happened this year too! I feel as though it was a blessing in disguise when it came during the later months of 2015. My best friend Zack was back! It was a sweet evening when my dad had seen him while he was driving around, he asked him if he wanted to take a ride, it was a little surreal to see him standing in the entrance of my room with a great big smile on his face. I didn’t cry this time around and I’ve enjoyed seeing him every once in a while, according my parents everytime they see him out and about, he gives them a big ole hug! He gives the best hugs, he never gives me the wimpy hugs that my own sister gives me! Everybody thinks they’re going to break me and you’re not so stop doing it please!

Speaking of my sister, Blondie had herself a good year. I think that was one of the best things about 2015 and I’ve been trying to tell myself over and over that maybe this was her year to have some happiness since 2014 was a good one for me. She and her boyfriend Brandon went to Hawaii for a whole week, she got to go to a Taylor Swift concert, she became a CNA, moved out of the house, has 3 kittens, and now they are going to adopt a puppy! Just nobody tell my dad though because he doesn’t know it yet! This year brought back another sister that I didn’t think would come back to us. My older sister Nikki reached out to Blondie and my dad again and we’ve all met each other again and it’s been very interesting. I’ll be honest though I’m still quite hesitant because I don’t want to feel rejected like I did four years ago, so I’ve been trying to take things one day at a time. She has to feel comfortable with her surroundings and one day we’ll meet her boyfriend and kids too. Yeah, I’m an aunt!

We had our last batch of litters, Bootsie and her two female kittens from previous litters Wren and Midget gave us plenty of babies to love on this year. In April, they’ll be a year old! My mom unfortunately lost her big baby, our oldest cat Oliver had to be put down in the first month of the new year! Thankfully, Midget gave birth to a solid orange kitten for my mom. I got to name him Otis! Now he lives with my sister because he was too tiny to be living outside in the cold, but she still got her orange kitty though! One of the promises she made my dad was once she got her orange kitten, all 12 cats were fixed in August and they came back with flu and were sneezing and coughing, which went to ChiChi and then we thought dad was going to have a cow because his baby wasn’t feeling good. They’re all doing good now!

I remember at the last of January, my sister found her old digital camera and she gave it to me as a late Christmas present. I was very excited to have one as I no longer had a way to take or upload pictures from my phone. Everybody wondered if I could use a smartphone, I can use one but taking pictures is disastrous, trust me! I had to learn how to use it because I had never used one with my feet before. I actually looked forward to going outside to spend time with the kitties. I discovered I could hold my camera in four different ways! I’ve finally gotten comfortable with lifting it up in the air between both of my feet without dropping it on the floor and turning it sideways to take a picture now! Now I want to get a tripod and see what I can do with that! Maybe you’ll see me on YouTube someday! 😉

My last good thing to include in this post is one of the goals I had for 2015 was to start doing outfits of the day (OOTD) posts on here. I’ve been inspired by all of my blogger friends that I follow. For me though, it wasn’t about the clothes in general. I don’t really like my hands. I can’t move my arms away from my chest and they always block whatever is on my shirts. I’ve always had problems with hating my arms because they’re just there. So I figured if I did these posts I would start to build on my self-esteem a little. Well, it worked, but I didn’t think I would enjoy doing them so much! I’ve gotten to the point where I’m starting to pose more in the pictures. I even think my mom enjoys the fact that I do them too! I actually asked for more clothes for Christmas just so I could model them off on here!

My favorite posts of 2015:

How did your year go? What were some of your good and bad moments? Do you have any advice to help me look forward to the new year and how to keep that motivation?