Of interest:

"The word "India" is a Western transliteration of the Sanskrit word "Sindhu," meaning "body of water." It specifically refers to what we know today as the Indus river, though the word could be used for any large body of water.

India became popular as a first name in the age of British imperialism, often to show support for the colonisation of the subcontinent."

"Historically the usage of this name dates to the British Raj, when colonial officers began to give it to their daughters. Recent usage is probably more likely to reference a parent's experience traveling in or perhaps family heritage from India - but it is worth being aware that the colonial associations may make some people uncomfortable."

I'd bet that both girls' mothers are super pissed off that their snowflakes' names aren't unique after all.

How very Gone With the Wind of them.

Alanis Morissette would like to thank them.

There are a lot of black girls named Asia in my area. I'm not a big fan of place names, although it turns out my son's name (Brighton) is also a place, which I didn't know.

A famous English place at that! BunnyGirl

Place names don't bother me as much as thing (object) names. Apple, Blue, Lexus, Bacardi.

Poor South Americans have a tendency to name their kids with American names but spell them bizarrely.

Aka: Jeorche wachintont (George Washington)

Hitler is also used.

No I'm not kidding.

Just ran this one by my seventeen-year-old. She went down the list of schoolmates she's known, to include: Precious Diamond, King, Queen, China, Asia, Aphrodite, and others.

I don't suppose Uzbekistan or Tajikistan had too many takers, either.

My child knew a kid named Brighton Earlee Lastname

How about Messiah as a name for a kid?

Tennessee judge Lu Ann Ballew didn't like it one bit. She took it upon herself to rename a 7-month-old boy because she found his name offensive to Christians.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0819-abcarian-messiah-20130819,0,6232746.story

Well I still want to name a kid Little Bobby Tables if I were to have one.

My daughter has a Saber in her kindergarten class. Mind you this is an all-girls school. I wonder if her parents were thinking of the weapon or the tiger.

Amy, did your friend mention if these girls actually ARE Indian? There was an Asia in my major in college. She was actually half-Asian.

Two years ago, when my daughter was a toddler, my boss and another colleague had daughters. Both were given the same name as my daughter. I don't care; it's a good name.

Parents now give their kids names they consider "unique" or sound neat rather than names with meaning or tradition.

Hence we wind up with millions of Madisons, Mackenzies, and Dylans. Oh well. The once-popular girls' name Ethyl? It came from the name of the company that develped the gasoline additive. Go figure.

Ethyl? Maybe you've heard of my girl: Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether?
I've heard she's a blast!
/enough

A girl in another kindergarten class has this "gem" of a moniker: Jewelz. Yes. With a "z."

I think I have that app.

"Ethel" is actually an Old English name.

"Ethel (also æthel) is an Old English word meaning 'noble'. It is frequently attested as the first element in Anglo-Saxon names, both masculine and feminine, e.g. Æthelburg, Æthelflæd, Æthelthryth (Audrey)..."
Cognate to the Germanic "Adela" and "Adele".

I try not to make assumptions about what people are naming their kids. My kid's name sounds like I was trying to be unique, but it's actually my grandmother's name.

""Ethel" is actually an Old English name."

I was vaguely aware of that, but I think the spelling "Ethyl", with the 'y', comes from the chemistry term. The Ethyl Corporation adopted that name as a shorthand form for the chemistry name "tetraethyl lead", because they wanted consumers to remember the name of the gasoline additive and encourage them to ask their gas station operators about it. This was back when gasoline wasn't a commodity item; there were big differences between brands and you had to know something about what you were buying.

The 'ethyl' with a 'y' comes from Greek:

"ethyl -- 1838, modeled on German äthyl (Liebig), from Greek aither (see ether) + -yl. Ethyl alcohol, under other names, was widely used in medicine by 13c."

How very Gone With the Wind of them.

Posted by: NicoleK at August 19, 2013 11:07 AM
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Exactly. We shouldn't assume that any name is a new, silly invention when it can be very old in one way or another.

Another example is "Zander," which is an old German-Jewish personal name - and the name of a sports writer who's now in his 90s - but I also know at least one famous conductor who has it as a last name.