What do these names have in common?
Rev up your name brains, it’s time for another round of Name Connections. This puzzle invites you to look at names in different ways, from spelling to etymology to cultural history to…well, try it and see!
Each group of five names has something in common. Can you guess the connecting themes? Keep in mind, these are lists of names, not people.
- Bob, Hannah, Eve, Elle, Otto
- Ari, Cal, Flo, Ida, Ken [beyond the shared length]
- Diane, Martin, June, Minerva, Dennis
- Piper, Samantha, Adalind, Tabitha, Sabrina
- Aidan, Beatrice, Sierra, Deanna, Ethan
Answers below.
ANSWERS
- Bob, Hannah, Eve, Elle, Otto: all of the names are palindromes, spelled the same forwards and backwards.
- Ari, Cal, Flo, Ida, Ken: the first three letters of U.S. states (Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky)
- Diane, Martin, June, Minerva, Dennis: the names derive from major Greek or Roman gods (Diana, Mars, Juno, Minerva, Dionysus).
- Piper, Samantha, Adalind, Tabitha, Sabrina: each surged in popularity after appearing as a witch character on tv (on Charmed, Bewitched, Grimm, Bewitched, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch respectively).
- Aidan, Beatrice, Sierra, Deanna, Ethan: a sound-out alphabet. The first syllables of the names are pronounced A, B, C, D, E.
Ready for more? Try Name Connections 1
2 Comments
I got 1 right off the bat.
I utterly missed 2. Seems obvious now, of course.
For 3, I saw the god-theme, but kept second-guessing: maybe there was something else?
For 4, I recognized three of them as witches, but I’ve never seen Charmed or Grimm, so wasn’t sure.
For 5, Sierra threw me off completely, because it doesn’t start with the letter that it names. (How do you pronounce Cecil? Would that work better?)
Almost exactly the same for me!
I was pretty confident in the witch names, despite only knowing the same 3 as you.
I was less confident with #3 because I was expecting them to be from all the same source (i.e. Greek OR Roman), so I was confused when it was a mix, plus I didn’t know the sources of the male names
All the rest were completely the same!