Gender: Feminine
Origin: English
Are you loving Lily? Maybe the popularity has gotten to you. There is this spunky floral moniker that has already reached outrageous popularity in Great Britain. Poppy is a sweet little floral that has been in usage since at least the 19th century. The name may seem a bit too insubstantial for some, hence is why it is sometimes listed as a nickname for such names as Parthenope, Penelope, Persephone, Pippilotta, Philippa, Pomeline and Perpetua.
The associations with the flower are beautiful! Who wouldn’t want to be named for a deep red, eye popping flower (no pun intended). Then again, its symbolisms with death and sleep can be a bit of a turn off for others.
In Ancient Rome and Greece, the poppy was a funerary flower, they were usually placed on graves. The poppy got the association of death and sleep, since opium, (which is extracted from poppy seeds), was such a strong barbiturate. In fact, it was so strong, that the ancients used it as an anesthetic while conducting surgeries. However, Poppy does have the redeeming qualities of being associated with resurrection, since after being put under a death like sleep from opium during an operation, the patients always seemed to awaken as if they had come back to life. Its symbolism for dead soldiers comes from a poem written by John McCrae, entitled in Flanders Fields (1915). McCrae writes how he witnessed his friend perish amidst a field of poppies during WWI, and he compares the field of poppies to all the fallen dead soldiers. The name could be a nice way to honour a relative that has perished in a war.
- # 47 (Scotland, 2010)
- # 52 (Northern Ireland, 2010)
- # 66 (Australia, NSW, 2010)
