Imma Be

Emma has been replaced by Isabella as the most popular girl's name.

I love Isabella as a girl's name. Isabella Rossellini is one of my
favorite names to roll around in my mouth. But Isabella should
not be a popular (or common) name. What are these parents
thinking?

Emma is such a good and plain name. Anybody can carry that
name around. There are very few women who have the beauty
and sweet, ineffable "lightness" of feminine being to carry a name
like Isabella (which means "My God is a Vow," incidentally).

When my children were young, I sent them to a private
Montessori school where there was this precious Chinese girl
named Isabella. I thought Isabella was the oddest name for an
Asian girl but little Isabella embodied that name in every
sense of the name.

This will not be true of every poor Isabella burdened with this
currently hot name.

~(no)rave!