Baby Names that Aren't

"Cellar door" ~

. . . apparently the most beautiful combination of words in the English language. There's a bit of disagreement regarding to whom the cellar door meme should be attributed, but apparently it's been coined and re~coined and studied and re~studied by influential writers including fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien and poet/writer/literary critic Edgar Allan Poe. {The repetition of "nevermore" in The Raven is supposedly inspired by admiration for the euphony of "cellar door".} Most recently, in the "On Language" column in the New York Times, Grant Barrett studies the cellar door meme.

:: Cellar door ::

Does it sound beautiful to you? Can you disregard the meaning that our language attributes to these mere sounds?

Phonaesthetics is the study of the inherent beauty OR unpleasantness of the sounds of certain words; euphony, being pleasant, and cacaphony, being unpleasant.

I must confess, I listen in everyday conversation for words that are phonaesthetically pleasing and amuse myself by imagining that these words could function as names for people.

Thinking of such words as names is amusing only because it IS so difficult to dissociate the word from its meaning. However, if I'm successful in thinking of these words as just combinations of various sounds, I can think, "Hmmm. . .this does actually sound like a name!!"

Here is my list of baby names that, well. . .aren't:

Camera

Ecstasy

Calorie

Debris

Celery

Lasagna

Malaria

Memory

Apathy

Vanity

Chlamydia

Witness

Limber

Canister

Mascara

Tendril

Militia

Dijon

Do you have any suggestions for additions to my "could be names if only they didn't mean that" list??

I realize that this is a strange subject, but it's one of many results of my love of language. : )