Robyn writes:
Up until a month or so ago we’d had the perfect girl’s name picked out for our baby (we don’t actually know if we are having a girl yet but we’ve already had four girls so the smart money is on a girl!). We’d picked the name Sophia Anne and loved it. Sophia has family significance and goes well with our other daughters’ names however recently a little friend at school also named Sophia has been bullying my daughter and that name does not have good associations for her so we need to change it. Please help!
Our living daughters are Rebecca Elizabeth and Emily Karen. We also lost two baby girls named Stephanie and Anna. Our surname starts with a K sounds, so K and C names are a little too alliterative. We want to keep Anne as the middle name (after a dearly loved aunt who didn’t have children of her own). We like names that the child won’t be constantly asked how to spell and that are pretty/feminine sounding.
I wonder if you’d like the name Fiona. It has a similar rhythm and it has the same “oh” and “fee” and “ah” sounds as the name Sophia. It’s pretty, it’s feminine, it’s good with the sibling names and it works with the middle name Anne.
Here are a few others to consider:
Angela Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Angela
Audrey Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Audrey
Julia Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Julia
Laura Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Laura
I realize I have a lot of A-ending names with the A-starting middle name, and that not everyone will like that. I like the sound of it, and because you chose Sophia Anne I’m guessing you do too. Let’s put a poll to the right to see what everyone else thinks. [Poll closed; see below.]
Poll results (268 votes total):
Fiona: 95 votes, roughly 35%
Angela: 8 votes, roughly 3%
Audrey: 74 votes, roughly 28%
Julia: 68 votes, roughly 25%
Laura: 23 votes, roughly 9%
Name update 05-15-2009! Robyn writes:
I’m sorry its taken me so long to update. To be honest I’m a little embarrassed and feel bad because after all that deliberation we’ve named our baby girl (born April 9th) ….. Sophia! The little girl named Sophia who was being a bully to my older daughter has moved interstate and simultaneously there was another little girl named Sophie that Bec became friends with and she told me one day how much she liked the name Sophia! WELL, I just about fell over and after a quick chat to Paul we were back to having Sophia as the favourite name. Before that we had a few contenders….our favourite of your ideas was Julia. Somewhat bizarrely we had a change on the middle name though. Paul really liked the name Grace and I thought that sounded good with Sophia but as I said before we were keen to honour our Aunt (who was actually named Judith Anne but “Judith” isn’t very pretty which is why we were going wtih Anne). Anyway the compromise was that Sophie (we’re using Sophie or Sophia) has two middle names: Grace Judith. I figure the Judith isn’t so bad when she has two pretty names to balance it and using Aunty Judy’s actual name is better than her middle name. I’m so sorry to have wasted your time but really appreciated your input and the input of the people who commented/voted – thank you!
I love both Fiona and Audrey.
My future daughter’s name will be Sophia (unless I too end up meeting a terrible child who ruins it for me… but I really hope not! It was my boyfriend’s beloved Grandmother’s name, so we want to honour her and use it).
Three other names I personally love (just because since we both like Sophia maybe we have similar interests?)…
Isabella (or Isabelle)
Natalia (or Natalie)
Adriana (or Adrienne)
(I gave some alternate spellings there, because I like both forms, so I thought I’d offer both up, I was first offering forms that I thought were similar enough to Sophia’s style).
What about Olivia? That’s the name my cousin chose when deciding between Sophia and several other names.
Olivia Anne
Cecilia Anne
Sadie Anne
I voted for Julia Anne. It’s a very pretty combo, and works the best with Rebecca and Emily. (It also fits nicely with Stephanie and Anna.)
Fiona is pretty, but doesn’t seem to flow with Anne or the other sisters’ names.
ANgela ANNe is a little too repetitive for my tastes.
Laura is lovely, but I don’t care for it with Anne.
Therefore… dun-dun-dun-dah… Julia Anne would be great! :)
I know a family that has girls named Rebecca and Emily in it! Their other children are named Sarah Ann, Christine, Angelina and Daniel :)
Out of the choices Swistle listed I love Audrey.
I thought Julia went the best with your other daughters’ names, but if you like Fiona, I think it’s great.
I voted Julia because, like the others said, I think it fits the best with the others. Plus, we’re expecting our own Julia imminently so I obviously think it’s a great name. My only hesitation is the middle name – JAK isn’t really my favorite initial combo, and Julia Anne K. sounds a bit like “Julia and K.” But doesn’t matter much. I also like the suggestion of Natalie. Fits better with Anne too.
Would Sophie/ Sophy/ Sofia be too close?
I’ll go also for Julia Anne, good combination for me.
Julia and Fiona are very nice, and I liked the suggestions above for Natalie and Isabelle (especially because Isabelle ends differently than the other two names, so they are all unique but three syllabils).
Maybe Samantha, Meredith or Genevieve would work too, or, if you weren’t going for three syllabils, Lily or Charlotte. (C name, but doesn’t sound like it).
Personally, I don’t like the first name ending with an A followed with Anne so I would go with a different ending if possible.
I heart the name Fiona!
The name I chose for the child we aren’t having is Julianna…kind of close to the above suggestions…just one more to throw out there! (:-D
I love the name Sophia Anne and probably would go ahead with it inspite of the troublesome girl at school. (That problem needs to be resolved separately, whether or not you name your baby Sophia.) I don’t think that’s reason enough to not use the name you had chosen for your new baby. You referred to Sophia at school as your daughter’s “little friend” and your daughter and this little girl may be friends again soon. (That often seems to happen with little girls.) You mentioned that the name Sophia has family significance and you like it with your other daughters’ names. Particularly because of the family connection, I would go ahead with the name, explaining to your daughter why you chose it and perhaps finding a children’s book or two about a Sophia and reading that to/with your daughter to impress on her that there are more girls named Sophia than just her ‘friend’.
My 13-year-old granddaughter happens to be named Sophia Anne (called both Sophie and Sophia), and I think the name is both sophisticated and darling. (I don’t like any of the suggested names as much as Sophia and thus did not vote.)
PS I just read the other comments. I think Sophia and Anne do sound well together.
Someone also suggested Julianna, which I like too, having a daughter named Julianne (for whom our Sophia got her middle name). However, a Julianna (or Juliana) could become “Julie,” a name my adult daughter Julie says is “dated”. ???
Patricia — I like Julianna (Juliana) as well. I can see why “Julie” has seemed dated… except I feel it’s one that is making a comeback right now. I think Julie is a great little nickname.
I mean, as popular as it is, Sophie/Sophia seemed a bit “dated” for awhile there, and now it’s right back into being popular.
I think for some adults, it’s hard for them to picture their names on children… that’s half the reason I think some names end up getting titled as “dated” or “old-fashioned”; as if the name grew old with the person. But lots of great names are coming back in style which is really neat.
I agree with Patricia. Unless the little demon Sophia is scarring your little girl for life, I wouldn’t rule it out. It’s totally true that one week’s enemy is often next week’s BFF for young girls. As long as you think she’ll get past the bullying and not hold it against her little sister, I don’t see why you shouldn’t use a name you love and has significance.
Otherwise, I love Julia.
Looking at the suggested alternatives to Sophia again, I think only Julia and Laura are similar in stature (history and longtime use of the name) and definitely go best with Rebecca and Emily. Fiona is a contrived name, made up for an author (male, as I recall) who wanted a Scottish sounding pen name — Fiona McLeod. I don’t think of either Angela or Audrey as classic names, as Rebecca, Emily, Sophia, Julia and Laura all are. If not Sophia, then it would be a toss-up for me between Julia and Laura. I like them both, but Sophia sounds both classic and ‘new’ to me.
When my daughter chose the name Sophia/Sophie in 1995, the name wasn’t being used very much and still sounded very old-fashhioned to many poeple, as did the name of Sophie’s next oldest sister Emma in 1989. Now both names are very popular and sound ‘new’!
I have to agree with Patricia and encourage you to use the name you already picked. Thinking about it from a different perspective, why give that mean girl the kind of power to dictate what you name your kid? I say name your girl Sophia despite of the mean girl so you can be defiant! Why should one person – especially a bratty kid – ruin a name?
Ok, I just had an idea. I still maintain you should stick to your guns and use Sophia out of principle, but I just got inspired by some name history.
The discussion of Sophie as a nick name for Sophia got me thinking about nickname vs. full names. Some names that seem like nicknames are historically full names in their own right. Take for example, Lucy. Lucy can be a nickname for Lucille, Lucinda, Lucia, etc., but historically, Lucy was actually a full name first. Going back to Sophie / Sophia, while Sophie can be a nickname for Sophia, it was actually a name in its own right first. Sophie is the French variation of Sophia, just like Julie is the French variation of Julia.
In conclusion, if you just can’t bring yourself to get past the bratty kid connection, I say use Sophie as a full name. Sophie is really not much of a departure plus you don’t run into the “A” run-in issue with Sophie Anne. And speaking of Lucy, that too is a name that is of similar style to your other daughters’ names and is worthy of consideration.
To summarize my long-winded explanation, here are my other suggestions:
Sophie Anne – Rebecca, Emily and Sophie
Lucy Anne – Rebecca, Emily and Lucy
Good luck.
Good suggestions, “Frazzled Mom”. I think either Sophie or Lucy would be compatible with Rebecca and Emily.
As for Sophie being the French form of Sophia, the first Sophie my daughter knew of was a little French girl with that name. She considered using Sophie as her 4th daughter’s given name, but as her three older girls all have given names ending in ‘a’, she decided to use Sophia as the given name, but call the baby Sophie.