Today's guest namer is my six-year-old daughter, who spent a recent morning hard at work planning a fantasy novel about "centrises." A centris, she explained, is half woman and half pegasus. When I checked in with her she was developing a complete chart of the centris population, with columns for "name," "spirit," "parent" and "leader." For example:
Name: Fironnah (pronounced fye-RAHN-a)
Spirit: Fire
Parent: Liyliah (LYE-lee-ah)
Leader: Niara (nee-AH-ra)
Our young author gave her permission for me to write about the names. Indeed, she sat down beside me and offered suggestions as I typed this, drawing my attention to particular nuances of her nomenclature. She definitely has her finger on the pulse of certain name styles. The extra h at the end is a hot trend in names like Lilah, Myah, Janiyah and Nevaeh. And speaking of Nevaeh (heaven backwards)...that leader centris Niara? Her spirit is Rain, and her name was created from "a rain" backwards. My daughter explained, "I wanted to make it 'rain' backwards, but 'Niar' sounded too much like a boy's name."
Some thoughts that came to mind:
- Long names with endings like -iah do sound like they come from a fantasy world. This even holds true when you are six years old and most of your fantasy reading has been in the Dickensian namescape of Harry Potter (or prosaic name worlds like the "My Secret Unicorn" books -- think Lauren and Michael). Oh, and fantasy heroines are not androgynous. They're magestically feminine.
- The name Nevaeh sounds exactly like a magical heroine of a fantasy novel.
- The name Nevaeh was inevitable. It's only surprising that it took so long.
- Positive words that sound good backwards are exceptionally rare.
Before I go on, I should acknowledge that Nevaeh is probably the most stylistically divisive name in the English-speaking world. Many parents find it a creative, lovely gift of a name; others find it not merely unappealing but noxious. For the purposes of this discussion, let's take the name on its own terms as a kind of loving secret code.
20,000 American girls have been named Nevaeh since the name's debut in 2001. A large number of them surely have little siblings by now. Yet Nevaeh has not sparked a new genre -- no other backwards names have entered the lexicon.
Imagine that you named your first daughter Nevaeh, and that she revels in the knowledge of its hidden message. With daughter #2 on the way, don't you want to give that new child the same kind of gift? I'm certain that many, many parents have tried, inverting every inspiring word they could think of but ending up with the sad likes of Legna and Dehsirehc. Most probably ended up with a compromise, perhaps turning to less subtle meaning names like Destiny or Genesis. Is there a better answer? Suppose we expand our horizons from reversals to anagrams? Galen sounds a whole lot better than Legna, after all.
I invited my young fantasy author and her sister to join in the anagram quest. We poured out our Bananagrams tiles on the kitchen table and started forming some inspiring words. Ladies and gentlemen, it's harder than it looks. Sutter (truest) may be passable; Pacee (peace) and Sepira (praise) doubtful; Evilbee and La'Crime...well. Occasionally my husband would pass by with encouragement. "You know, Volley is an anagram of lovely," he offered. "Thanks for sharing," I replied.
Here's the Wattenberg family's very, very short list of siblings for Nevaeh. Can you do better at turning fantasy into reality?
Galen (angel)
Delia (ideal)
Sutter (truest)
Tanis (saint)
译文:
梦想与现实间的鸿沟
今天的请来的客人是我六岁大的小女儿，整个早上她都在积极认真地构思一篇关于“螯针”的科幻小说。她解释，螯针一半是女人，一半是飞马。当我去看她的进展状况时，发现她已经将螯针中的人物完整地勾勒出一份表来，纵列分别写着的“姓名”、“属性”、“父母”以及“首领”等等。
姓名：Fironnah(发音为 fye-RAHN-a）
属性：火
父母：Liyliah（发音为 LYE-lee-ah）
首领：Niara （发音为 nee-AH-ra)
我们的小作家答应和我一起取名字。随后在我打这篇文章时，她就真的坐在我的边上不时得给出她的建议。她让我注意到了她与众不同的命名法。她把握了时尚的命脉，知道如何取一个时尚的名字：在名字的末尾加一个h那是时尚潮流，就比如Lilah, Myah, Janiyah and Nevaeh。提到Nevaeh（就是将heaven倒过来拼写），那个螯针中的首领，因为她的属性是雨，所以她的名字就是来源于"a rain"的倒序。女儿解释说，“我原本只想用'rain'的倒序，但是'Niar'听上去更像是个男孩子的名字。”
女儿的话让我开始思绪连篇：
的确，以-iah结尾的长名字听上去像来自于一个美好又虚幻的世界。的确如此，当还是一个六岁的孩子时，你所读的大部分神话故事都是类似于哈利波特那样的名字而已，（或者像是“我的神秘麒麟”书中的散文似的名字，像Lauren和Michael）。当然神话故事中的女主角并不是雌雄同体的，相反她们更优雅，更具有女人味。
-Nevaeh这个名字听上去的确很像神话小说中的某一个具有超能力的女主角。
-像Navaeh这样倒序而来的名字是必然要出现的，只是让我惊讶的是竟然直到现在才有这样的名字。
-如果一个很正面的词倒过来还是一样能读上去顺耳，这样的词几乎是很很少见的。
在我继续我的话题之前，我不得不承认就文体而言，Navaeh也许是英语世界中最有争议的一个名字。
有很多家长觉得这个名字是他们能够送给孩子的富有创造性，很可爱的礼物；然而，有些家长不仅不觉得这个名字有什么吸引之处，甚至觉得这个名字百害而无一利。为了能继续讨论这个话题，我们就单单把这个名字看作是一种爱的密码。
自从2001年，Navaeh这个名字首次出现后，如今已经有22000美国女孩名为Navaeh了。他们中的大部分应该都已经有了兄弟姐妹，然而还没有能与Navaeh相匹敌的名字横空出世--因为没有其他能够倒序的名字能拥有像Navaeh一样的影响力成为一个在字典中可以查到的名字。
设想如果你将你的第一个女儿取名为Navaeh，并且她因为名字的内在含义而沾沾自喜。然而你却怀有了第二个女儿，难道你不想给她同样有意义的名字作为礼物吗？我敢肯定成千上万的家长都曾尝试过，他们把每一个能够想到的，有意义的单词倒过来拼写，然而因为只能得到类似Legna和Dehsirehc这样的名字，最后都以失望结尾。大多数家长也许会退而求其次，从而取一些稍逊一筹的名字，类似Destiny和Genesis。没有更好的答案了吗?也许我们可以拓宽我们的思路，摒弃用将单词倒过来拼写的方法，而是采用任意颠倒字母顺序的方法。毫无疑问Galen听上去都比Legna要好的多。
我邀请了我年幼的神话作家还有她的姐姐加入这个“颠倒字母取名字”的行列。我们把香蕉字母包里的字母片都在倒在厨房的桌子上，开始试着拼一些有然人耳目一新的名字。女士们，先生们，这一项任务远比看上去的难。Sutter(是truest字母颠倒而来的）也许还算可以；然而Pacee（是Peace字母颠倒而来的）还有Sepire（是Praise颠倒而来的）这两个名字就会让人怀疑是否是一个好名字；Evilbee和La'Crime...还算凑合吧。有时丈夫从我身边经过时，会鼓励我，给我一些建议说：“你知道，Volley来源于lovely。”我也会回答他：“谢谢你的建议。”
这里有一张很短很短的表格，是Wattenberg一家所列的可以与Navaeh平分秋色的名字。或许你还能想出更多能将美好与现实相连接的名字。
Galen（Angel）
Delia（Ideal）
Sutter (truest)
Tanis (saint)