Royal Baby | 32 Swedish Forward Baby Names!

Hello!

I am back for another baby name post, and today I am focusing on the Swedish Royal family. King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia’s son, Prince Carl Philip and his wife Princess Sofia will welcome their third little bundle of joy sometime in the next few weeks. When I was busy coming up with these posts, I wasn’t necessarily paying any attention on what season these babies would arrive, so there is a small chance that by the time this post does publish, the new Prince or Princess has already made its welcome to the royal house.

Back in 2016, I wrote a post just like this one for their second child, Prince Gabriel, and although the only part I got right was the letter “G” it, obviously, hasn’t stopped me from making any other name guesses of the future generations. During that time, I was thinking it would be a boy, mainly because both of the Prince’s sisters have had boys during their second pregnancies, however, with this one, I am definitely leaning into the color pink, so I tried to think of well beloved names on both sides of the family tree and hoped I was correct on more than one element.

For this post, I will be doing what I’ve done on my previous baby posts and picking out four names listed in the banner below, and including a middle name that could work with it too. I will also be giving you a little background on each name, plus my reasons behind my decision.

Birgitta Sofie

The name Birgitta is well beloved in the royal house of Bernadotte, as it is the first name of Prince Carl Philip’s great aunt Princess Birgitta of Sweden, Princess of Hohenzollern. If they do decide to use a name that is a bit popular among the public of Sweden, Birgitta or maybe even shortening it to Britta could be absolutely gorgeous for a modern day Swedish princess!

If they do end up having a daughter, I can see the name Sofia being apart of the full name but not a first. I’ve been wrong before and it was my main thought behind using Sofie as a middle and/or nickname! I feel this combination fits both the French and Swedish styles that you normally see throughout the rest of the royal family, and it works as Bridget Sophie too!

Kristina Madeleine Victoria

The name Christina in general is a big symbol of the Swedish monarchy. Just because they use the first letter “K” instead of a “C” is just basically moving on with the times, as Christina has an older quality while Kristina has a modern flair considering it is different compared to the king’s older sister Princess Christina, Mrs. Magnuson. There have been many other princesses with the name up and down history, but nothing is more amazing and possibly infamous than Queen Christina in the 17th Century.

I have to say, I don’t normally include multiple middle names in these posts, but with thinking about continuing a tradition, the royal Swedes are known to name their children after close family members and it would be an sweet way of the Prince to name this little girl after his own sisters: the Crown Princess and the Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland!

Isabelle Maria

Isabelle or Isabel is a beautiful and very French way of the name Elizabeth or Elisabeth. Although, Elizabeth has been used in the past for both first and middle names, I just don’t think it will appear on this baby. I don’t have anything against it–my middle name is Elizabeth!–it unfortunately has the same look as Christina, this past tense feel of it just turns me off but I do love for Isabelle because it just has this elegant but loose magic that the other lacks at the moment.
As far as the middle name pairing, I think it works great with any variation of the name Mary. Personally, I love Maria because I’ve never been a huge fan of the same letter either beginning or ending, but the main reason why I believe it will feature somewhere is because it is the name of Princess Sofia’s mother. She is also my inspiration for Britta as her middle is actually Britt. I really would love it to see The Princess’s family recognized too!

Signe Alexandra

I am actually a fan of Swedish names, and the moment I found Signe, I was hooked immediately! So, it is pronounced as “cig-knee” and can be spelled as ‘Signe’ or ‘Signy’ and could also be used as a sweet nickname for the rougher ‘Sigurd’ maybe. I like to think of it as the Swedish cousin of Australia’s own “Sydney” and I’m not even sorry about it either!

Honestly, between Birgitta, Kristina and Signe, they are all common names in Scandinavia, and I would really love it if the current royal family used more of their country’s baby names. I think it is time to fully allow their home grown names to shine out forward for the whole world to see finally its authentically and uniqueness.

My outlook on boy names is somewhat different than what I would think will happen, mainly because they’ve already had a nice thing going with using Alexander and Gabriel as first names. and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. What I really mean is, those names are like ‘normal, everyday’ type of names to the general public. I mean, I’m an American and this a different royal family then what most people know about, so despite the fact that I would like to see a traditional Swedish name up front, I can understand wanting to give the child a simple name that reflects both the royal family and what the future holds for this little prince.

Felix Johann

The name Felix already has a big following among fellow royal families, as there is one in Denmark and Luxembourg, so I think it’s only right for it to appear in Sweden. Felix is also big in households all over Scandinavia, so it would be a perfect fit all around I think! It has that likeable but traditional quality that I thought could work great with Alexander and Gabriel. Personally, my favorite part of it is, it’s masculine and short and these are two big factors for couples right now.

When I was trying to figure out a middle, I was instantly pulled into pairing it with longer and strong Scandi names like Oscar, Nicholas, and Johann. There are a wide array of names that could work great with Felix but I think we will have to see what .happens because this is where I have the most trouble are with male middle names!

Theodore Harald

Now with Theodore or Teodor as both spellings are common in Sweden, I feel more confident with this name to be on the Top 5 since it is an universal type of name. Despite the fact that people enjoy shorter names–a lot like the sweet quality that Theodore instantly brings to a child. Some couples love it for the cutesy flair on little boys and the amount of strength it will bring to him as he continues to get older, as it adds some seriousness for a man.

Again, middle names are difficult to decide on, but I thought about how close the Swedish family is to other monarchs on their borders, and with all of the health concerns on King Harald V of Norway, I think it would be really nice thing is to name their little guy Harald in tribute to the king. The Crown Princess has done that with her daughter and heiress, is named Princess Estelle Silvia Ewa Mary.; the last name Mary is for her godmother, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, so it can happen and has been lovely additions to the next generation.

Folke Philip

When I worked on my guesses for Prince Gabriel, I was hoping the name Folke would see the limelight because I think it is so neat! I’m still not 100% sure on how to pronounce it yet but I would still like it to be somewhere in his name. The same goes with Philip too, it would be really nice to allow their third son a chance to bear the name “Philip” like his father, but I would still like ‘Folke’ to be up front though!

Gustaf Viktor

Out of all of the names I listed above in my banner, the one name that I am sure will make an appearance is “Gustaf”. Why? Well, it is the second name of the current King of Sweden. Despite the fact that almost all of the king’s grandsons has the name “Carl” in their full names, it’s only Princess Madeleine’s son Prince Nicolas that actually has “Gustaf” instead!

Now originally, I had picked the name “Kristian” for the possible middle, and I was really proud for remembering it but just before I was going to talk about my decision there, I thought about naming in tribute for both the Norwegian and Swedish kings, we are forgetting, the royal family has four little princes as of right now and none of them are named after the Crown Princess yet. I thought this was an interesting aspect to keep in mind as I was comfortable with adding “Victoria” on the girl side, but what about creating a “Victor” in the lineup as well? I do think this would be a great combination too because it honors a current and future sequence of events that will be visible in this child’s lifetime.

So, what do you think of the combos I’ve listed in this post? Do you think any will be on this child’s full name? If you have any guesses that you want to share with me, please tell me in the comments!

What I Love About Afternoon Tea!

Hello!

Last October, when I stayed at my mom’s work while she recovered from her second surgery, my nana and I got to have a lot of fun together and one of the things we both got to enjoy was a theme dinner there at the nursing home.

Gail who works in the activities department explained to us that they try to have four different themes in a year. She and the other girls decorate the different dining rooms and they plan with the chefs of a meal that would go with that particular theme. The one I got to enjoy was “Serenade At The Seven Seas” or something like that. I liked it. I also loved trying the different courses, but the other ladies were a bit mixed though!

The theme was called “My Fair Lady” and I guess the ladies in the activities department decorated the dinning rooms and made feathered hats or “bonnets” for the female residents! She took pictures and even wrote out the menu of what they served to the residents! I was going to use the one she made, but it had some spelling mistakes so I just redid it – later I realized I could have spelling mistakes on mine! Funny how they works!

They also had a little tea party too!

According to Gail, in the film a couple of characters host a party and they decided to recreate that with the residents, so they decorated the large activity room with very pretty and colorful table clothes and had these beautiful centerpieces in the middle of them. They looked very vintage but yet modern too! They also made the ladies hats with feathers and ribbons in crafts. My nana really loved that, but as you can see apparently so did Alex!

In 2016, I actually wanted to have an afternoon tea themed birthday party. I had so many ideas that I wanted to do. I wanted to decorate my grandparent’s kitchen table with different fabrics, and since my birthday is like the day after Halloween, I knew my nana had a large black table liner and I thought if we put that on the table itself and laid out a red runner in the middle that way it wouldn’t look too dark and gloomy for the party!

Over the course of the last two years, I’ve actually wondered what I’d serve to this tea party if I ever had one! Since I read so many of my fellow blogger friends going to afternoon tea at different hotels or just plainly at home with their family members and/or close friends., I’ve been able to figure out what all is served, and I’ve grown to love the three teared stand of food that is laid out on the table. The first thing they give you is your tea. However, I’m like the 1% that doesn’t like coffee or tea, so I’m more interested in finding a good lemonade recipe. My mom actually made a homemade strawberry lemonade last year, where she let the strawberries sit out in the juice overnight to allow the flavors to marinate together. I’m kind of partial to anything raspberry, so whenever I see a “raspberry lemonade” on a menu at a restaurant, I instantly order it! So I’d rather have a raspberry lemonade instead.

As much as I’ve gathered, you usually start with the sandwiches, they are usually placed on the bottom and bigger tear. The traditional flavors are egg salad, smoked salmon and cumber all cut in small bites so they look more dainty, and they always have the crusts cut off! Now I look on Pinterest for other ideas to make this a little bit more casual, so I am curious about creating a sandwich or two as some kind of wrap or pinwheel–using the traditional plain tortilla or having a variation of spinach or whole wheat!

On the second tear you had the scones, which apparently in the states we say the word completely wrong! I’d explain on how it’s really pronounced but I don’t even know how to describe it, so I apologize there.

I have actually seen quite a few of my favorite chefs make scones on their television programs, so I already know of some different kinds I’d like to try out. I also know that when you’re making them for the first time, they’re suppose to be crumbly, so there’s nothing wrong with them, that’s just how they’re meant to be! Ree Drummond created the Maple Oat Nut Scones after not being able to visit a Starbucks where she lives; they look really good! The way she described them on her show The Pioneer Woman they taste like a biscuit type of pancake, because it has a strong taste of maple syrup! However, I think I would have to keep the coffee out of it! And then there’s a Cheddar and Dill Scone recipe from Ina Garten, she’s made this with both cheddar and a Stilton, which is like a stronger blue cheese! She’s very inspired by French food and had a gourmet food store back in the day, so she’s figured out different ways to make a good savory scone!

Now the real question is what would I do about the clotted cream and jam that they serve alongside the scones itself? I know we don’t have the traditional clotted cream or nobody makes it to that level as the British, so the next best choice to have would either be mascarpone or cream cheese! Personally, I’ve never been in jam or perseveres, so I wouldn’t necessarily put it out as an option if it was only me, but if I had a group of people, I’d probably get a small jar of strawberry or blueberry jam, but for those who want to be really adventurous they can try out the marmalade. You know, I love the smell of that stuff because it’s like oranges, but I have never tried it before and if it was put out there on the table, I probably would like to try a small dab of it.

As far as the top layer of the stand, my thoughts have differed, sometimes I think a very casual take on decorative cupcakes would work out very nicely! You could make minis so they’d fit on the tear better. However if you wanted to add a fun twist to them, like stuffing them, it wouldn’t necessarily work on the tiny ones. I’ve noticed I keep looking into French pastries. You’d think I’ve been watching too much Ina Garten lately! So the possibility of having macrons, which is something that is on my food bucket list (yes, I do have one those! I actually need to work on that soon!) and there’s the tarts or tarlets you can make, like the Mini Raspberry Tarts that Julia Baker made on her TV show! These were so cute and seemed really easy to make! If you’re a chocoholic, in which I sort of am, you need a couple of good chocolate desserts too! Truffles would be a good idea, as you can just eat it in one bite! You could dip strawberries in chocolate or make little pote de creme (puddings!) in mason jars too.

There doesn’t seem like there’s a right or wrong way to create your own afternoon tea! If you’re interested in learning and seeing what is actually served at the teas in the United Kingdom, I have compiled a list of favorite blog posts for you! I hope you have enjoyed this post!

A Candy Shop Afternoon Tea at Conrad St. James – Lux Life | Love Is In The Air at Langham London’s Valentine’s Afternoon Tea – Fresh And Fearless | Afternoon Tea at Mr. Fogg’s Gin Parlour – Little Miss Katy | Afternoon Tea at Rockcliffe Hall – This Northern Gal | Sweet Treats: Glam Rock Afternoon Tea at K West Hotel & Spa – AbsolutelyLucy

Have you ever attended an afternoon tea before? If you have, what was it about it that you loved the most? For those of you who haven’t, have you ever been tempted to create one yourself? Let me know in the comments!

Book Review: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Everybody loves a good conspiracy. 

The first full day I spent at the nursing home back in October, a CNA was pushing me down to my nana’s room for breakfast and we passed the smaller activity room on our way there and I saw this book staring at me and it was semi dark in the room so I was still shocked that I even saw it at all. A little later, my nana and I went exploring and we went in here to check out the rest of the books and I ended up grabbing it on our way out the door. I stayed there eight days and read over 200+ pages!

Now I have watched the movie but I had only seen it once and it’s been a few years since I’ve watched the whole thing. I’ve finally caught up on the other two films, but I didn’t know they were based off of books! One thing that is definitely different from the two is that the movies are out of order of the books. I found that out the hard way! There’s a character in Angels & Demons that comes up in this book too but it’s only a few times, but it can still get kind of confusing at times!

If you don’t know what the book is about, it follows a Harvard symbolist professor Robert Langdon, he is in Paris, France doing a lecture for his newest book and he gets called up in the early morning that he is needed by the French police to help, the curator of the Lourve, Jacques Saunière is dead. When Robert tries to crack the code on Jacques’ body, they are interrupted by a cryptologist Sophie Neveu and she tries to help Robert and French police captain Bezu Fache figure out not only who killed Jacques but why he would basically mutilate his body in such a way.

The second batch of people in the book starts with the story of Silas. A character that I remember wasn’t explained very much in the film. The name “Silas” isn’t his real name, he was given the name by fellow Bishop Aringarosa after he rescues him. Silas is an albino with a troubled past and he wants to help Aringarosa’s cause of the Opus Dei and find the Holy Grail, even if he has to kill the leaders of another secret society the Priory of Sion.

The story itself has a lot of information. And I mean, a LOT of stuff that you need to digest at one time. It does make you question everything that you’ve been taught like if you went to church a lot as a child. It does make you wonder about if there is some truth in the bible, if it’s just made up by people. I’ve always questioned the belief in that, although I do believe in a higher power and I think they do watch over me, but I don’t know if it’s a God. And the possibility of Jesus having a child with Mary Magdelene has fascinated me for years too! It is just interesting to read about the other things that could be true.

If you like conspiracies like me, you will love this book as a whole, but unfortunately I had a lot of cons about it too. I absolutely hated the writing style. The chapters were incredibly small. You’d go back and forth on the different point of views of the many characters, when you’re only given a page and a half on each person and the events that followed. Another thing that gets on your nerves is that the author will include both French and Latin, which is fine, but it’s only later in the chapters that he actually adds some of the translated words at the end. So you literally have no idea what went on with those characters unless you have a dictionary for both languages!

I grabbed the last book of series Inferno, on the last day I was there. I have been thinking about whether or not to go ahead and read it, because there is also another book before it. Yeah, not only did I read book two, I also found out that there’s a third book that I never knew about at all because they haven’t done a movie about it. They were supposed to though. I’m hoping there won’t be much included in The Lost Symbol so I can go ahead and check that out, but I think it’s just best to wait until I can purchase that book and attempt to stay in order here.

Have you read The Da Vinci Code yet? Or possibly watched the movie? What were your thoughts about either one? And let’s not get on the discussion of religion, okay? Let’s be respectful here.

I’m An Onomastic!

Hi 🙂

There is something you can catch me doing on Sundays. No, I don’t lounge around, well maybe sometimes, but most of the time I’m asking for our local newspaper looking at the birth and obituaries sections. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those creepy people who look at who’s died looking for a date. I look up and down the two rows at the beautiful names of children who were born in the last two weeks or so. I can’t quite explain why I do it or how it got started, I’ve just been addicted to asking for the paper on that specific day. I’m not interested in the news articles, just this part.

I wish I could say it was my only outlet but it’s not.

When I started Pinterest back in 2012, I was searching other boards and one day I found a board full of names! I found so many good ones that I didn’t just want to “like” each one so I ended making them a board. And then a couple of years later I made up another (secret) board of names for characters that were stuck in the depths of my mind. Luckily for me, there is actually a big difference between these two boards. One has more modern and classic baby names whereas the second has forgotten and out of the box names.

Here are some examples:

Baby Name Board:

Hazel | Paige | Abigail | Otto | Leon | Lachlan

Character Name Board:

Oryn | Zachari | Leopold | Tarina | Isadora | Annika

After watching so many episodes of Jeopardy, I actually started to see more and more contestants say they’re also obsessed with names as well, but there is actually a name for it. It is onomastics.

I am into is where the names originated, like my name: “Meghan” is actually Greek, which shouldn’t had surprised me as much as it did but I thought it was pretty neat though! I tend to love names from different countries like Denmark, France, Ireland, Italian, and Sweden. I also love names that were made up from stories like Shakespeare (despite the fact I can’t read his stories for the life of me!). I had always heard that Mr. Shakespeare is the one who came up with “Jessica” I still don’t know if this is true, and then of course you have mythology! I love the Celtic, Egyptian, and Norse mythology names! I have contemplated about using the names “Seti” and “Ra” in my children’s names!

When I first started looking into the large branches of the British monarchy, I realized they had very long names. One time I saw where they had seven middle names–not counting their first and last names! This person was actually Mary of Teck or later known as Queen Mary who married King George V in the early 1900s. “Mary” is actually her first middle name while her first was “Victoria” but her family called her “May.” As I’ve found the middle names are usually driven from previous family names. Mary would have been a young girl when Queen Victoria was still queen, but I have no idea about the rest.

Where is it in time frame where they start adding onto the names? I haven’t exactly figured this out yet as I’ve just figured out of the century of the War Of The Roses! I’m also curious on how open were they to give their children different names too? I’ve just recently found the name “Susan” while researching a former duchess on Facebook. It was the first one I had seen dating back to the 1500’s.

Now when you look back further their the history books, around the time when you have the Plantagenet and Tudor families where they only had one name. For explain King Henry VIII’s first daughter Princess Mary, is just simply Mary Tudor. Same goes for Queen Elizabeth I, she was just referred to Elizabeth Tudor. If she hadn’t became queen, I think some people would have gotten confused while researching the Tudor dynasty as King Henry VIII also had a younger sisters by the name of Princess Mary and Elizabeth.

For this next part I thought I’d share some of my favorite names and explain that some belong in other categorize too! So maybe if you’re expecting or love names just as much as I do, they will become some of your favorites too!

Classic:  Isabella, Victoria, Eleanor, Anne, Theodora, Cecily, Naomi, Albert, Edgar, George, Louis, Michael, Nicholas, Philip, Richard, Samuel, and Vincent.

French Names: Blanche, Celeste, Camille, Agnes, Alexandrine, Augustine, Bastien, Claude, Emeric, and Ernest.

Irish Names:  Aoife, Bridget, Fiona, Eabha, Moira, Oona, Siobhan Ronan, Declan, Donal, Liam, Mahon, Owen.

Out Of The Box: Piera, Olympia, Wilhelmina, Evanna, Reverie, Atlas, Thompson, Calix, Hugo, Audric, Henrik, and Micah, 

Are you interested in names? What are some of your favorites? I really want to know, so please tell me some in the comments!

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Tune Tuesday | Canada ’17

Hey!

Welcome back to week two and it’s all about Canada!

I am very excited about talking about the variation of Canadian music today! We’ve got a little pop and some electronica in the mix! Also, people seem to think the French language would only appear for week five: France, but if you didn’t know this, but there are a few countries that have French as part of their official language. So you’ll be getting a taste of it in this post too!

First off we have Alessia Cara! I think she is amazing despite the fact when I first heard her song “Here” I figured she would be a one-hit wonder. I know, even I’m furious with myself! Her 2016’s “Know-It-All” has done a very good job lately, cracking out the hit like “Scars To Your Beautiful” at the end of the year that was about self-esteem and accepting who you are. She has such a sweet voice that you do not believe she’s basically 20 years old! I thought she was like 16-17 when I first saw her.

Second act is Shaun Frank. If you don’t listen to a lot of dance music then you’ve probably never heard of Shaun. Unfortunately, I’ve only heard of two or three tracks but they’ve mostly had an interesting, chilled beat with some good vocals! I recently found on YouTube were these live versions of his songs “La La Land” with Delaney Jane and “Let You Get Away” featuring Ashe. I love both of them, but I really wish they would release that version of “Let You Get Away” mostly because of the saxophone. Who knew that was used in the original? Or was it?

My last is a duo by the name of Lydia&Sebastian. They are the ones who mostly sing in French, which is perfectly fine! I actually like it this way, it’s fun! They do have a few songs sung in English, but majority of their music is in French. I don’t know a lot about them, but from the songs that I have heard they have a more chilled out vibe in their music, I would categorize them in the modern adult, they’re not too pop-y in an obnoxious way! They’re really interesting!

How are we liking the artists featured on Tune Tuesday so far? If you have any suggestions for music in 2018’s lineup, let me know!

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