Finding time to read isn't always easy with kids—and so I'm just now getting around to reading The Fault in Our Stars, John Green's masterful story about the romance between two kids who just happen to have cancer. (I'm not yet done, so no spoilers, please!) If you haven't read it, do—it's the kind of book I love, where writer's skill is so deft that he could write several chapters about assembling IKEA furniture, and you'd be willing to go along for the ride. And the movie, which opens in theaters on Friday, looks like a winner as well.
And if you've read the book, you know it only takes a few paragraphs before you fall in love with Hazel Grace, the "miracle" girl who survived a cancer that wrecked her lungs, forcing her to walk around trailing an oxygen tank that pipes better air through a cannula under her nose. And it seems that people have fallen back in love with the name Hazel as well.
Hazel is a nature name, for the tree that gives us hazelnuts, and it's also a color—a green-flecked brown eye hue. It reached its first peak in popularity back in the early 1900s, then bottomed out from the 1970s to the early 2000s. But like many other turn-of-the-20th-century faves (think Adeline and Clara), this is making a big comeback. It's a favorite of celebrities—Julia Roberts picked it first, followed recently by Emily Blunt and John Krasinski. And it's currently the 157th most popular name for girls here in the U.S. My guess is that with the movie release and the passionate fan base surrounding The Fault in Our Stars, this name is definitely on a popularity trajectory that should bring it into the top 100 within the next year or two.
John Green chose well pairing Hazel with the sweet middle name Grace. If you don't want to seem like you're copying, consider pairing Hazel with June, James (yes, it works for girls!), Claire, Plum or May/Mae.
What do you think of the name Hazel? Would you consider a nature-based name for your baby?
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