Laura writes:

I am due May 20th 2011 and I do not know the sex of the baby yet. I’m doing okay with girl names but having no luck at all with boys. My husband and I have plain traditional names, Laura and Joshuah. We have an odd last name that I just don’t worry about when naming a child because there is no helping it sound less funny. Our 1st child is named Cambria Rogue. We are looking for some unique but not to strange. Something almost romantic and masculine. Josh is into music I’m into art and we are very open minded but just haven’t run into something we both like for a boy. Our list is very small so far Josh like the name Bentley (I’m not a huge fan) and I liked Adare (Josh isn’t a fan) and that’s where it stops. The only thing I think we are avoiding is the letter J. Any ideas?

One of my favorite “romantic and masculine” names is Everest. It’s exotic but familiar. One of my friend Mairzy’s favorites is Sterling: again, exotic yet familiar. Other possibilities:

Aidric
Alistair
August
Claude
Corbin
Cormac
Dario
Dashiell
Declan
Desmond
Donnelly
Edmund
Everett
Finian
Gabriel
Greyson
Heath
Hugo
Kiefer
Lachlan
Maverick
Orion
Pierce
Rafael
Redford
Rohan
Roman
Sebastian
Stefan
Theodore
Wyatt

Some of these might work particularly well as a middle name: Maverick, for example, would be a good pair with your daughter’s middle name Rogue.

[Update in comments section.]

Kelly writes:

We have 3 children born within 22 months of eachother…
twin boys: Joseph Isaiah and Benjamin Michael
girl: Gracie Belle

Need both a boy and girl name for a future sibling. Nothing starting with M. We like biblical names and southern sounding names (but the following are NOT an option: Micah, Jonathan, Jared, Noah, Claire, Molly). Projected due date in May.

For a boy, I suggest Isaac: Joseph, Benjamin, Gracie, and Isaac. Maybe Isaac Matthew.

Or Daniel: Joseph, Benjamin, Gracie, and Daniel. Maybe Daniel Elias.

For a girl, I suggest Cora: Joseph, Benjamin, Gracie, and Cora. Maybe Cora Mae.

Or Ruby: Joseph, Benjamin, Gracie, and Ruby. Maybe Ruby Mae.

Name update! Kelly writes:

We decided on Levi Nathanael…..so, all 3 boys are named after the sons of Jacob in the Bible.

Tamara writes:

My husband and I are expecting our 3rd and final child in just 3 weeks and we still don’t have a short list of names. I discovered your blog just a week ago and really like your suggestions.

Ethan has my grandfathers first name as his middle name and Audrey has my grandmothers middle name as her middle name. We will find a family name to fit whatever first name we come up with, but names like Maxwell, Campbell, Louisa, Laura, Rosina, Lindsay and Gordon are among the possibilities.

I really love the strength in our other children’s names and that they have meanings. I think they fit those two personalities really well. I should also mention that we are Australian’s and don’t want a name that screams of another place or one that is really popular. Ethan is in his late teens and when he was born the name was very uncommon here and now it polls in the top 3 boys names every year. Audrey is also not very commonly used here, not since the 50’s anyway. Ethan and Audrey also have no real possibility of a great nick name so they get Eth and Auds… which we really don’t like and so many of the names on our list don’t have nice shortened forms.

Our “girls” list currently reads like this:

Violet
Harriet
Scarlett
Eleanor
Louisa
Patience

Violet is the one for me, but my husband is not feeling it. He doesn’t like the fact that it ends in T and reminds him of the word violence. So many of the names we love end with a T… I think that has been a major factor in us not being able to settle on anything. We also really like the name Ivy but as we are IVF patents it seems a bit weird!

Our boys list currently reads like this:

Elliot
Maxwell
Oliver
Quinn
Nelson
Austen/Austin
Lawson
Liam
Edgar or Edwin
Aiden
Lloyd
Owen

I just don’t love any of them. Audrey was going to be Maxwell if she was a boy, but friends have recently used it in naming their son and we’ve gone off it a bit. My husband really likes Liam and Austin. I feel like Austin is a bit too soft or something… can’t quite put my finger on it.

HELP????

Name update! Tamara writes:

You were kind enough to post my plea for help way back in April, so it’s been almost 4 months since our beautiful little girl came into the world. We went into the labour ward with 2 boys names and 2 girls names and didn’t settle on THE name until after we had called home to our other children and their anxious grandparents.

After many tears due to the realization that my husband would not come round to Violet, I asked him to sit down and watch ‘Gigantic’ staring Zooey Deschanel with me. I felt that while we loved the name Harriet it wasn’t our favourite only for the fact that we don’t know, have ever met, or haven’t even come across a Harriet in popular culture. We needed a positive association with the name, so we watched the movie together and although that Harriet is mostly called Happy throughout the film it did the trick and it became OUR front runner. DH allowed me to use a name from my family as middle name as I did with our other two. So Harriet Louisa Taylor has my grandfather’s mother’s and sister’s name… both Louisa’s known affectionately as Lou. We haven’t attached a nick name to her yet… although I do love Happy…. we’ll just wait and see who she is. She arrived 5 days late and weighed in at 3940gms and was 51cm long. She has a lovely dusting of red hair like her daddy. We adore her and her name.

Thank you readers for your input and wisdom. You did help me work through some of my issues. Thank you Swistle for this amazingly supportive and warm environment.

Adey writes:

We are expecting Baby Reid #3 on May 16th and are keeping the gender a surprise this time around. We have agreed on girl names but I am really struggling with the boy names!

First off, we already have 2 children.
Nolana Emmanuelle will be 3 in April (her name is pronounced “No-Lawn-ah” not “No-LAN-ah”) and we call her Lana (“Lawn-ah”) 95% of the time.
Our son Carson Roderick was born in June of this past year so it was quite the surprise to learn that I was pregnant again 2 months later! Seeing as they will all be so close in age I really want to make sure their names flow well together.

My husband and I both agreed on the names for our first 2 kids. Nolana was a compromise seeing as my husband really wanted to name her Lana but I felt it was too short, so when I saw Nolana in my 100,000 baby name book I knew it was perfect. I am surprised however at how many people pronounce it wrong. Even people we have now known for over a year still manage to say is incorrectly despite us constantly saying her name, so we have tried to avoid names that would get pronounced incorrectly since. Emmanuelle means “God with us” which I loved, plus it had 4 syllables. I think longer middle names sound better with our last name. With Carson it took us months to agree on his name but I am so happy we did and the name suits him so well! Roderick is my husband’s middle name.

So now onto Baby #3.

The one, and ONLY, name my husband will even consider is Lincoln. He is so in love with this name that it surprises me because in 3 pregnancies now he has only ever picked up a baby name book once. It was always me suggesting names and he did the vetoing (like so many other spouses I read about on here!). He has begged for this name to be used in the previous 2 children but I managed to avoid it and since this baby is our last he knows it’s now or never to use it.

I feel stuck because I don’t hate the name Lincoln, but I don’t love it either. We agreed on Xavier for a middle name and I DO think that Lincoln Xavier sounds great – but again, I don’t get that “Love it!” feeling. BUT, I do like the idea of being able to tell this baby that “Daddy named you!”

I feel guilty because this baby is so close to my last pregnancy I haven’t even wanted to pick up a baby name book because I just did it a few months ago! We prefer uncommon names (preferably not even the top 100 although Carson was the exception!)

I guess my questions are the following:

1) What are your thoughts on Lincoln Xavier?
2) Does it flow with our other children’s names?
3) Is it okay to pick a name I don’t love, but don’t hate either?

I would love to hear your input!

 
1. I think Lincoln Xavier read is a fantastic name.

2. I think it goes very well with Nolana and Carson.

3. I do think it’s okay to choose a name you like but don’t love, and I think the most likely thing is that once it’s on the baby it will grow on you until you DO love it—but there is, of course, also the risk that it won’t.

This is a crossroads for you. If you continue to like-but-not-love the name Lincoln, your husband will put all of his naming energies into convincing you to use it. If you want him to divert that energy to finding new possibilities, I think it will require you saying to him that the name Lincoln is out of the running as a first name, and that he needs to help you find something else. The tendency is for the parent who wants a particular name to think of it as the other parent’s responsibility to find a name that’s “better,” but that responsibility belongs to both parents.

If you decide you’re not willing to use Lincoln as a first name, one possibility is using it as a middle name. It’s not what your husband wants, but if having it as the first name is not what YOU want, it at least rescues the name from “never getting to use it at all.” But of course that still leaves us the problem of the first name.

It’s hard to know what to suggest. I think maybe “names that are in some way or another similar to Lincoln”:

Aidric
Atticus
Beckham
Deacon
Felix
Finnegan
Fletcher
Forrest
Frederick
Gideon
Langston
Lennox
Malcolm
Quentin
Shepard
Sterling
Sullivan
Tillman
Truman

(I had Anderson, Edison, Harrison, Jefferson, Lawson, and Wilson on there, too, but thought you might not want both sons to have a -son ending.)

Name update! Adey writes:

I am thrilled to announce that our newest little bundle, Lincoln Xavier Reid, finally arrived on May 19th @ 3:33pm weighing 8lbs 8oz and 20″ long. I cannot thank your readers enough for helping us make our final decision. Hearing so many positive things about the name Lincoln made it possible for me to allow my husband to name the baby what he had wanted! After reading through the list of Swistle’s suggestions I couldn’t help but think that none of the other names suited him and that perhaps he actually was a little Lincoln all along! Nolana and Carson are adjusting very smoothly to having another baby in the house and although we are extremely busy with 3 kids under 37 months, I can’t help but think that God knew exactly what he was doing. I love our little family!!

Thanks again for all your help.