Bird Names

[StellaAlpina]

Not for an actual baby though . I'm writing a short story and would quite like the main (female) character to have a bird name.

So far I can only think of Robin, or the surnames Sparrow and Nightingale

Wren

Linnet, Jay

Or the surname Starling or Nightingale or Skylark.

Maybe Maggie (as in Magpie)

Mavis is an old name for the song thrush.

Phoenix or jazz it up as Phoenyx

Other bird related surnames

Swan
Finch
Drake

I love Starling (dp will have none of it though..)

Raven

Kestral?

Titty? Sorry couldn't resist.

Sparrow? Dove?

Swallow

Surname Swift is lovely.

And swifts are such amazing birds. They never stop flying on their migration from Africa to Europe, they even sleep in the air.

Flamingo.

Albatross

Peregrine

Ptarmigan

Or more sensibly:

Wren
Jay
Sparrow

Martin (as in house)

Merle means blackbird.

Lark

Swan as a surname

Not to go with Lark as a first name though!

Raven
Lark
Phoenix
Dove
Kestrel
Linnet

Thanks all :) I especially like Wren and Merle or Swift as a surname. Nice and birdlike without doing that thing where you give all your characters ridiculously fancy names.

Paloma?

Tweety Pie?

Surnames:Finch, Wren, Sparrow, Starling, Swift, Dove, Swan, Drake, Eagle/Eagling, Gosling, Dunlin, Jay, Crow, Rook, Martin, Wagtail,

First names: Serin, Linnet, Jay, Martin, Piper,

Sylvia. Not an actual bird, but a genus of bird from the family sylvidae.

Really depends what your book character's like, and who your readership is.

To those of a certain age Linnet has very strong resonances to Linnet in The Children of Green Knowe, and (somewhat less as it apparently got republished with a different title) Linnets and Valerians.

I was going to suggest T?i for someone bright-eyed, intelligent, cheerful and inquisitive (in NZ white population it's a fairly common nickname, particularly of little beady-eyed old ladies in their 90s; and a legitimate M?ori name, though I know so little about Te Reo M?ori that I wouldn't recommend using it without checking the cultural implcations first).

I've always wanted to name kids after seabirds like fulmars, mollymawks and albatrosses - they have such glorious competence and freedom. However none of them have particularly nicely evocative names in English. You could try Toroa, which is albatross in M?ori... gives you the glorious freedom and avoids the automatic reference to Coleridge.

For a less attractive character of spectacular competence, how about Sparrowhawk?