BOOK CHARACTER NAME OF INTEREST: Prairie

📛Prairie is the lush🌿 name of a character in the children's book📗 Ballad of Lucy Whipple by Karen Cushman — she is a younger sister 👧 of protagonist California Morning🌄 aka Lucy Whipple. 

Prairie as an English word means: "a tract of grassland; meadow. An extensive, level or slightly undulating, mostly treeless tract of land in the Mississippi valley, characterized by a highly fertile soil and originally covered with coarse grasses, and merging into drier plateaus in the west."

📛Nameberry🍒 explains further, Prairie is derived from the Old French word praierie, which ultimately came from the Latin pratum, meaning "meadow." 📛NB🍒 describes Prairie as an, "unspecific place name with a wonderfully wide-open, spacious, western feel." 

📍California and 📍South Dakota are the most Prairies (👶baby girls and women👩) are found.

I had never heard of 📛Prairie used as a first name 😮 until recently — it's so fresh and definitely different — of course I love it. 🥰 Plus it's a really pretty name — I like how it sounds used as a name. 📛Prairie is so rare, it arrived on name charts📊 in ⏪1977 and as of 2024 it is #4434 on the US Top 1000. This 🌎earthy, green name could have potential to rise 📈 in popularity... and I'm rooting for it to. 🤞🏾

⭐FAMOUS & 📝NOTEWORTHY 📛PRAIRIE:

📛Prairie Dawn 💗📺 (muppet character on tv show Sesame Street)

📛Prairie Moon 🌙 💗 (daughter of 🎥 actress Teresa Palmer)

📛Prairie Flower 🌻🎥 (character in the film The Vanishing Tribe)

📛Prairie Johnson 📺 (character on the tv show The OA)

📛Prairie Wheeler 📗 (character in the book Vineland)

📌STATS ON THE NAME 📛Prairie:

https://www.mynamestats.com/First-Names/P/PR/PRAIRIE/index.html

☔📛IRN RATING OF 📛Prairie: 👍 OR 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚/10 

NAME OF THE DAY: January

Being it's the start of January 🎉 I will be discussing the first month of the year name: 📛📅January 

January "the term originated before the year 1000 from Middle English, ultimately deriving from the Latin noun use of Jānuārius, equivalent to Jānus. In ancient Roman culture, Jānus was a god of doorways, beginnings, and the rising and setting of the sun. His name comes from the Latin jānus, meaning 'doorway, archway, arcade.'"

Behind the Name explains that 📅January "briefly charted on the American top 1000 list for girls after it was borne by the protagonist of Jacqueline Susann's novel Once Is Not Enough (1973)." 📛Nameberry🍒 believes it was because of the character 📅January Wayne in Susann's 📘book that boosted baby girls to be named after her in the 1970s.

The second cultural influence that helped spike January as a baby name is — 📅January Jones 🎥 — who played Betty Draper on the wildly successful 2007 📺show Mad Men. The mother-to-be of Jones was inspired by 📅January Wayne's character so much, she named her baby daughter after her. Now Nameberry says, "📅January has joined 📅March, 📅April, 📅June and 📅August as a plausible month name."

📅January's rank on the US Top 1000 name chart 📈 is #749. And as of 2024, "📅January was only used on 11 girls in the US, making it a very rare choice." 

📍North Dakota 🥶 has the most Januarys along with supposedly ☀ sunny 📍California. 

📍Brazil, has the city of Januaria, which is used as a girl's name and means 'January' in Portuguese.

📛📅January 🥇 is just like the month name 📛October to me, one of my favorite names ever. I've loved 🥰 the name 📛📅January since I was in high 🏫school in fact. It's a name I would have loved to have been named 😭 as I was born 👶🏾 (and if I had a daughter and she were born in January, 📛📅January would be my top pick 👌🏾) in January (btw today is my 🎂birthday! 🤗).

📛📅January is a beautiful name with significant history behind the name. I definitely prefer📛📅January more so for a girl 💗 but boys named 📛📅January 💙 are just as cool. 😎 I'm surprised 📛📅January is not a top month baby name by now... 🤔 I hope it will start to rise 📈 on the name charts again. 🤞🏾 Nameberry has hope it will too pointing out: "January was used by Emily Henry in her popular contemporary romance novel, Beach Read, which might inspire parents-to-be in coming years." 

⭐FAMOUS & 📝NOTEWORTHY 📛JANUARYS:

📛January LaVoy 🧼📺 (actress)

📛January Isaac 📺🎥 (actress)

📛January Gessert 👠 / 📺🌟 (model & reality star)

📛January Low 💃🏻 (dancer)

📛January So 👠 (model)

📛January Thompson 🎤 (singer)

📛January Makamba   (politician) 

📛January Suchodolski 🖌 (painter)

♂️Masculine Version of 📛JANUARY:

📛JANUS

💭I love the masculine version of January. It's a very strong 💪 name and I love the meaning 🚪 behind the name. Janus and January could also make a very cute brother/sister name combination, especially for twins. 👦👧

📌STATS ON THE NAME 📛January:

https://www.mynamestats.com/First-Names/J/JA/JANUARY/index.html

☔📛IRN RATING OF 📛January: 👍  OR 💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗/10

BOOK CHARACTER NAME OF INTEREST: Winter

Today is the first day of Winter ❄ so I will talk about the chill(y) name 📛Winter  — which belongs to Winter Santiaga - the winsome, tough and slick main character of the classic urban novel  📘The Coldest Winter Ever by Lisa "Sister Souljah" Williamson.

Winter candidly shares how she was got her name at the very start:

"Winter entered the U.S. Top 1000 in 1978, it was been used as a first name as early as the seventeenth century," Nameberry traces.

"Fresher, brisker and, yes, cooler than Summer or Autumn or Spring, Winter is now a full-fledged female choice," Nameberry praises. 

Winter is the preferred spelling over variant 📛Wynter: "less month, more trendy, more times needing to spell it to people." Nameberry says Winter has risen in popularity significantly over the past few years and is #385 on the Most Popular Baby Names of 2024 list for girls. Winter is #38 on baby name 📃list: 1,081 Feminine Boy Names. Winter also is a surname.📛

📍Montana 🥶 is where most Winters live. 

I love the truly 😎 cool (or rather cold 🥶) name 📛Winter (although it's my third favorite of the season names: 📛Autumn, 📛Summer, 📛Winter & lastly, 📛Spring). I also love the alternative spelling of it: 📛Wynter. I prefer Winter more for a girl but as a boy name works well too (I would spell is however: Wenter). 👍🏾👍🏾

⭐FAMOUS & 📝NOTEWORTHY 📛WINTERS:

📛Winter Blanco [born Kaila Wilkey] 📺 (reality star)

📛Winter [born Kim Min-jeong] 🎤 (singer)

📛Harlow Winter Madden (daughter of 🎵musician Joel Madden & 📺reality star Nicole Richie)

📛Winter Williams (daughter of actress 🎥Gretchen Mol and Tod Williams)

📛Winter Parker (daughter of 💻Facebook co-founder Sean Parker & 🎤singer Alexandra Lenas)

📛Winter Peace 🎤 (singer & rapper )

📌STATS ON THE NAME 📛Winter:

https://www.mynamestats.com/First-Names/W/WI/WINTER/index.html

☔📛IRN RATING OF 📛Winter: 👍 OR 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙/10