Ida’s Notebook: Personalized Journal for Ida
Ida's Notebook puts her name front and center, written in flowing script across a soft watercolor apple blossom design.
- 160 lined pages
- 6" x 9" paperback
- Watercolor apple blossom cover with "Ida's Notebook" on the front
- Printed and shipped by Amazon
Ida: meaning and origin
Ida is an old Germanic name. Behind the Name derives it from the element id, possibly meaning “work, labor”, and Wikipedia gives the sense as “industrious” or “prosperous”. Behind the Name says the Normans brought Ida to England, where it died out in the Middle Ages before being strongly revived in the 19th century, partly through the heroine of Tennyson’s poem The Princess (1847). It is also, by coincidence, the name of the mountain on Crete where Greek myth says Zeus was born.
Nicknames and variants
Ida is short already, but Behind the Name lists Idella and Idelle as English variants, Iida as the Finnish form, and Idalia as an old Germanic relative. Wikipedia says Ida is also used as an anglicization of the Irish name Íde. Idella makes a pretty nickname in reverse.
Famous people named Ida
Journalist Ida B. Wells documented lynching in the 1890s, helped found the NAACP, and was honored with a posthumous Pulitzer Prize special citation in 2020. Ida Tarbell’s The History of the Standard Oil Company (1904) is called a masterpiece of investigative journalism and helped break up the Standard Oil monopoly. And actress and filmmaker Ida Lupino became the first woman to direct a film noir, The Hitch-Hiker (1953).
Is Ida a popular name?
Ida was a Victorian superstar. US Social Security data has it at 7th in the 1880s and 21st in the 1890s, then steadily falling, though the actual numbers kept growing: more than 35,000 American girls were named Ida in the 1920s, when it ranked 79th. Wikipedia says it last appeared in the US top 1000 in 1986. Wikipedia says it has recently been a top-20 name in Denmark and Norway, so it sounds fresh again.
Ida trivia
Gilbert and Sullivan wrote an opera called Princess Ida. Wikipedia says it opened at the Savoy Theatre in January 1884 and tells of a princess who founds a women’s university; it was their eighth operatic collaboration, and the next one was The Mikado. It was based on Tennyson’s The Princess, the poem that helped revive the name.
Gift ideas that suit an Ida
- For a journalist. Interview notes, in honor of Ida B. Wells and Ida Tarbell.
- For a filmmaker. Shot lists, for a name shared with Ida Lupino.
- For a hard worker. A planner for a name that may mean work.
- For a new baby. Ida is a Nordic favorite with Victorian charm.
How Ida can use it
Any Ida, of any age. The 6" x 9" size is roomy enough for proper writing and small enough for a handbag or school bag. With 160 plain lined pages there’s no fixed layout, so it can be a diary, a gratitude journal, a study notebook, a recipe book or a home for to-do lists. Notebooks tend to multiply in drawers, but one with her name on the front is instantly hers.
The little things that make it hers
There’s something about seeing your own name in print. It makes a notebook feel like it belongs to you, which is a good reason to fill it. It also means Ida can pick hers out of a pile in a second, at school, at work or on the kitchen counter.
Frequently asked questions
How big is Ida’s Notebook? About the size of a trade paperback book: 6 x 9 inches (15.2 x 22.9 cm), 160 lined pages.
Where do I buy it? It’s sold on Amazon in the US, Australia and the UK. Amazon prints and ships each copy and handles delivery and returns.
Do you have other names? Yes, the same apple blossom design comes in hundreds of girls’ names. Start at all name notebooks or our personalized name notebooks guide.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Ida's Notebook is published by Black Stag Publishing.