Vanessa (name) name became more and more popular and was the 7th most popular name for girls in the 1990s. In the following years its popularity dropped and the name is ranked in 42nd place for the decade 2000–2009. Vanessa (name) Vanessa is a feminine given name, especially popular in the United States, Germany and Brazil. It was invented by the Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift for Esther Vanhomrigh, whom Swift had met in 1708 and whom he tutored. The name was created by taking "Van" from Vanhomrigh's last name and adding "Essa", a pet form of Esther. In 1726 the name Vanessa
There Should Have Been Castles There Should Have Been Castles There Should have been Castles is a 1980 romantic comedy novel by Herman Raucher. It is a roman a clef, with Raucher acknowledging that the male and female main characters are based on him and his wife, to whom he had been married for twenty years at the time of the book's publication. It is the 1950s. Ben Webber is a cocky but disillusioned young man who has spent the last few years of his life waiting for a neighborhood girl—in his eyes, the epitome of lost virtue and beauty—to reach the age of consent