Planning on naming your baby Jacob or Emily? Be forewarned, those two names topped the US most popular list again last year — Emily for the 11th year running.
The 2007 top baby names list released by the US Social Security Administration for Mother’s Day showed Americans consistent in their love for classical names: Michael, Ethan, Joshua and Daniel topped out the top five on the boys side, while Isabella, Emma, Ava and Madison were favorites for girls.
But the list showed that plenty were striving to be unique, creating wholly new names like Nevaeh — “heaven” spelled backwards — or sometimes just taking extreme orthographical liberty with better-known monikers.
PHOTO: AP
“For reasons likely to puzzle baby name experts around the world, American parents have become infatuated by names, particularly for their sons, that rhyme with the word ‘maiden,’” the SSA said.
It counted 34 such names in the top 1,000 for boys, including homonymic variations Jayden, Jaden, Jaiden, Jaydon, Jadon, Jaeden, Jadyn, Jaydin, Jaidyn and Jaydan.
Despite the freewheeling spellings, spokesman Mark Lassiter said the SSA “would resist any legislative efforts to standardize the spelling of names,” according to an agency statement.
Aside from variants on “heaven,” the SSA pointed to the popularity of philosophical ideals for girls’ names: Destiny (No. 41), Trinity (No. 72), Serenity (No. 126), Harmony (No. 315) and Miracle (No. 461).
Fast-rising names included Danica, now at No. 307, for top female race car driver Danica Patrick, and JaMarcus, No. 743, for football star JaMarcus Russell.(AFP)
想幫小孩取名為雅各或艾蜜莉嗎？先提醒您，這兩個名字去年再度衛冕全美最受歡迎的名字，而且艾蜜莉已經蟬連十一年冠軍了。
美國社會安全局為迎接母親節公佈了二ＯＯ七年嬰兒命名排行榜，結果顯示美國民眾對經典名字的偏好不變，其中排名前五名的男孩名字還包括：麥克、伊森、約書亞和丹尼爾，而伊莎貝拉、艾瑪、艾娃和麥德森也是最受喜愛的女孩名字。
但排行榜也顯示，很多人想給孩子取個特別的名字，他們自創了一些新名字，像是「Nevaeh」（「Heaven（天堂）」的倒寫）；有些則是隨意拼寫大家耳熟能詳的名字。
社會安全局表示：「美國的父母為兒子取名時，尤其喜歡和「maiden」押同韻，這讓全世界的嬰兒命名師感到不解。」
在前一千個最受歡迎的男孩名中，就有三十四個這類同音不同拼法的名字，包括「Jayden」、「Jaden」、「Jaiden」、「Jaydon」、「Jadon」、「Jaeden」、「Jadyn」、「Jaydin」、「Jaidyn」和「Jaydan」。
儘管有這些隨性的拼法，社會安全局發言人馬克．萊錫特在一份聲明中表示，局方「不希望政府立法將姓名拼法標準化」。
除了各種「天堂」的變型名字外，社會安全局也指出一些有哲學意涵的女生名字，如：排名四十一的黛絲特妮（天意）、排名七十二的崔娜蒂（三位一體）、排名一百二十六的薩瑞娜蒂（安詳）、排名三百一十五的哈孟妮（和諧），以及排名四百六十一的米芮蔻（奇蹟）。
排名迅速竄升的名字包括三百零七名的丹妮卡，其名人代表為頂尖女賽車手丹妮卡．派翠克，還有排名七百四十三的賈馬克思，其名人代表為足球明星賈馬克思．羅素。（法新社�翻譯：袁星塵）
In an effort to fight phone scams, British mobile phone company O2 has introduced Daisy, an AI designed to engage phone con artists in time-wasting conversations. Daisy is portrayed as a kindly British granny, exploiting scammers’ tendency to target the elderly. Her voice, based on a real grandmother’s for authenticity, adds to her credibility in the role. “O2” has distributed several dedicated phone numbers online to direct scammers to Daisy instead of actual customers. When Daisy receives a call, she translates the scammers’ spoken words into text and then responds to them accordingly through a text-to-speech system. Remarkably, Daisy
Bilingual Story is a fictionalized account. 雙語故事部分內容純屬虛構。 Emma had reviewed 41 resumes that morning. While the ATS screened out 288 unqualified, she screened for AI slop. She could spot it a mile away. She muttered AI buzzwords like curses under her breath. “Team player.” “Results-driven.” “Stakeholder alignment.” “Leveraging core competencies.” Each resume reeked of AI modeling: a cemetery of cliches, tombstones of personality. AI wasn’t just changing hiring. It was draining the humanity from it. Then she found it: a plain PDF cover letter. No template. No design flourishes. The first line read: “I once tried to automate my
Every May 1, Hawaii comes alive with Lei Day, a festival celebrating the rich culture and spirit of the islands. Initiated in 1927 by the poet Don Blanding, Lei Day began as a tribute to the Hawaiian custom of making and wearing leis. The idea was quickly adopted and officially recognized as a holiday in 1929, and leis have since become a symbol of local pride and cultural preservation. In Hawaiian culture, leis are more than decorative garlands made from flowers, shells or feathers. For Hawaiians, giving a lei is as natural as saying “aloha.” It shows love and
1. 他走出門，左右看一下，就過了馬路。 ˇ He walked outside, looked left and right, and crossed the road. χ He walked outside and looked left and right, crossed the road. 註︰並列連接詞 and 在這句中連接三個述語。一般的結構是 x, y, and z。x and y and z 是加強語氣的結構，x and y, z 則不可以。 2. 他們知道自己的弱點以及如何趕上其他競爭者。 ˇ They saw where their weak points lay and how they could catch up with the other competitors. χ They saw where their weak points lay and how to catch up with the other competitors. 註：and 一般連接同等成分，結構相等的單詞、片語或子句。誤句中 and 的前面是子句，後面是不定詞片語，不能用 and 連接，必須把不定詞片語改為子句，and 前後的結構才相等。 3. 她坐上計程車，直接到機場。 ˇ She took a cab, which took her straight to the airport. ˇ She took a cab and it took her straight
RSS