How or Who give names a meaning?

I found a website that listed Caden with American origins and indicated that they look at frequency of names registered with the social security administration. The social security administration website actually has its own “baby name” section with frequencies rather than origins.

According to Parent’s Magazine’s list, Caden is English and they mention it showing up in about 1992 (apparently Kevin Costner has a son by this moniker).

Another site said this: The boy’s name Caden \c(a)-den\ is a variant of Cade (Old English, Old French), Cadell (Welsh) and Kaden (Arabic), and the meaning of Caden is “round, lumpish; cask; battle; companion”.

So I guess there is no rhyme or reason to any of the naming sites! LOL

I’ve heard a few people who have named a child Caden (and Cadence). All I know about name beginnings is many of them from the bible, and then english names which mean things like “angelic” or “loyal son”... It’s possible that some names are from other words or languages passed down to us now.

okay, just to clarify, this isn’t all about the name Caden. There are plenty of other names, it’s just the example I used.
Here’s another example Jayden I like the additional info they add “Additional info:

Jayden is a modern creation, perhaps inspired by the nickname Jay and the name Hayden. Some claim relation to the Hebrew name Jadon, but Jadon has no apparent etymological relation to the modern name Jaden/Jayden/etc.”

Many names of biblical origin or in other languages have a clear-cut meaning. For example, the Hebrew Arieh (and some derivatives, like Ari) means lion. Many English names have no meaning, which is what makes things confusing.

GQ – all names are made up by people as are the meanings – I guess that’s obvious…

I think he should be named Declan James Casheroo.

There’s a witticism (which I will botch, I can’t remember the funny way to say it) that kids named for occupations are the least likely to actually work for a living.
Cooper
Sawyer
Thatcher
Hunter
Carver
Tanner
Chandler
Fletcher

I have a great-nephew (grand-nephew?) named Kayden… all the meanings ascribed to various names always struck me as arbitrary, except for obvious ones, like ^^ above, place names, etc.

@hungryhungryhortence I really like that name, it’d actually go well with our extremely Irish last name.

@casheroo: :D

What a person does with his or life is what gives a name it’s meaning. When you have a baby, you need to pick something that has meaning for you, and hopefully, will have meaning for your new son or daughter down the road.

I think many names originally came from ethnic traditions – The Bible, Norse mythology, Celtic languages, etc. – and had meanings ascribed to them because of the original cultural or language connections. Now that there are so many made up or modern names, people ascribe meanings to them in similar ways (language connections) but the connections are more specious. You can probably choose an old-fashioned name with a strong connection or meaning or choose a modern name you like and not worry too much about its etymology.

Love last names for children. Jay gave a few of them…here are others, Wilson, Parker, etc..but, you are wanting names with meaning! ummm, let me see, how about Hutton..not a direct meaning, but comes from the commercial in the 80’s, “When E F Hutton talks, people listen!” A real interesting name is Quay! Quay, an English name meaning a “boatdock!” loll…that was one for a little humor! BTW, there are several people in my area named Quay! Some are males and some females!

Then there are football names that give some meaning…for ex., love the name Eli! Eli Manning plays for the New York Giants!

There is Nathan…Nathan Hale once said, “give me liberty are give me death!” Or, Barack after our President.

Having said all this, here are some great names, not sure if they have any meaning too their names, but love Bennett, Sara Katherine, Jaxon, and just JB!

Casheroo, don’t know if I was much help, but gave it my best shot! Thank you for the invite!

When my daughter was born, we named her Zoe Eden. Zoe was not a particularly popular name at that time, but we liked the sound of it and liked its origin – it’s Greek and means “life”. The Eden part was because we were happy to be living in such a beautiful part of the world. My in-laws were clearly nonplussed by our choice but they got used to it.

I’m assuming you’re talking about the incorrect meanings of names- occasionally a website will list the name Nevaeh as Slavic for “butterfly,” when obviously it is the backwards spelling of Heaven and nothing else. I really don’t have much of an explanation, other than that one person thinks they heard the meaning somewhere, and it gets passed down.

Laura Wattenberg, the author of Baby Name Wizard is (obviously) an expert on baby names. Her webpage- http://babynamewizard.com is full of things that could help answer your questions- she has a name voyager that you can track how long a name has been in the top 1000 within the last 100 years or so in America. Obviously, this won’t tell you how long a name has been used overall, but you’d be surprised with how long some names have been common. You might want to send her an email with these questions- a lot of her blog posts come from questions readers have.