Marne writes:

Help we can not come up with a name for our fifth child. Our due date is May 7th. We are having a baby girl. Our kids names are: Luciano Vincent, Marin McCabe, Evelyn (Evie) Jean, and Charlotte (Charleigh) Maureen. Marin’s name is the combination of my name, Marne and my husband’s name, Aaron, Evie and Charleigh we fell in love with, and Luciano’s name came from out of the blue.

My husband likes names that are classic and at least two syllables. I was a school teacher so popular names or names of any of my students are out. I don’t like thinking of anyone else when I say the name at least before we name the baby that is. Our last name is Pechota so as you can guess, Dakota is out or anything ending with a!!

Our middle names have always took on a greater meaning for us. Vincent is my Grandfathers middle name, McCabe is my mother n laws maiden name, Jean is my Grandmothers first name and my mothers middle name, and Maureen is my sisters name. We are running out of names but some could be Angela, Marie, Kathleen, Ann, Marian, Patricia (Patti), and Kay are a few suggestions.

The only name that the two of us like is Juliet but I don’t love it.

My husband likes..

Isabella (too popular and our dog’s name is Bella)

Gabriella (I dislike the nickname Gabby)

My husband likes Italian names, classic names, and elegant names.

Names I like…

Theodora (my uncle, who is mentally retarded, name is Theodore we call him Teddy) I like the nickname Teddy for her

Tess ( my husband doesn’t like this as a full name but I can’t come up with a longer version of this except for Contessa which my husband doesn’t like)

I love Irish names, unusual names, and also classic with a twist names

Please give us some good suggestions we need it.

Please help!!!

If you like Gabriella except for the nickname Gabby, you could use Bree or Ellie. I also really like Raffaella: so pretty and underused.

My favorite baby name book mentions that Tess is a nickname for Teresa or Therese.

I wonder if you’d like the name Tamsin? I think it goes so well with your other children’s names, and with your surname.

Or Carys. That has the added benefit of giving you an end-sound you haven’t used yet—though it repeats a first initial, if you’re trying to avoid that. Karis, maybe.

Gwyneth and Gwendolyn both have a sound your husband might like, while being Celtic and unusual for your tastes.

Isla, too, seems to me like it might work for both of you. (I’m trying to avoid names that end in A, but so many do!)

Or Josephine: elegant, classic, cute nickname, new end sound, new first initial.

Or Laurel—so pretty, and I think of it as “classic with a twist” because of how close it is to the name Laura and yet not quite. Lorelei would work too, and you could use the nickname Rory as they did in The Gilmore Girls.

Name update 05-05-2010! Marne writes:

Thank you for your post. We ended up delivering our little bundle of joy on April 30th. She came a week early with such great joy on mommy side. We ended up going in a whole different direction with the name, then when I first posted a long time ago. Her name is Keaton Marie. We gave her the middle name Marie for Aaron’s sisters middle name. We deicded on Keaton because we loved the name, it was original, it had a short story –we both grew up loving the tv show Family Ties, and we thought it sounded well together. Thank you for all of your suggestions and the suggestions of your readers!!