Heaven Spelled Backwards

May 26th, 2006

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Words

Heaven Spelled Backwards

Clive Thompson references a New York Times article about the explosion in popularity of the name Nevaeh:

The surge of Nevaeh can be traced to a single event: the appearance of a Christian rock star, Sonny Sandoval of P.O.D., on MTV in 2000 with his baby daughter, Nevaeh. “Heaven spelled backwards,” he said.

It’s now the 70th most popular girl’s name in the US.

Something strikes me as odd about using a term spelled backwards for a name. I can’t think of any good examples, but I have a sense that reverse spellings usually mean the opposite of the word itself. That is, that backwards spellings have negative connotations.

Clive puts it better. He says “last time I checked, wasn’t that supposed to have kinda, y’know, necromonical connotations”.

Comments: 5 Responses so far

jd
May 26th, 2006
7:20 am

there was an american pro skateboarder named Natas who was popular when i was in middle school. all the parents worried about the fact that his name was Satan spelled backwards.

i remember a very funny interview from Thrasher magazine where Natas explains how his mother had really wanted a daughter, a daughter she could name Natasha.

poor Natas had taken the hard end of his mother’s disappointment with his being a boy.

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Dan
May 26th, 2006
8:59 am

Backwards spelling is sometimes just a convienience. In East Texas there are two towns, Reklaw and Sacul. Originally they were Walker and Lucas but when the U.S. finally adopted a uniform postal system (and prior to zip codes) they forbade any two cities or towns in the same state from having the same name. To solve it the two East Texas towns, because they were newer, reversed the spelling of their names.

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