S. writes:

I’m hoping you can help us out. After thinking we were all set, serious doubt has set in with only 2 weeks to go and we are in need of advice. My husband and I decided not to discuss baby names with friends and family as we want to choose a name we like and everyone has an opinion and we do not feel the need (and I don’t have the energy) to explain/defend names to everyone. But now here’s where we stand:

My husband and I are having our first child, a girl, in mid-June. After going through long lists of names we feel like we have it narrowed down to two.

My last name is begins with an S and rhymes with Parks and my husband’s last name also begins with S and rhymes with Leevens. We would like for baby to take my last name as her middle name and her dad’s last name as her surname. We won’t do this for every child necessarily, but who knows if we’ll have more than 1 (although we’d like 2 or 3) and so we wanted to get my name in there on the first one.

It actually took us about a week of thinking of baby names to figure out that all the cute A names we like are definitely out! The ones we liked the most were Alexandra (Alex) and Ava.

The two first names that we are considering happen to be S names. That will make baby’s initials SSS and that there will be a lot of S sounds in her name, but I think that’s ok for us.

The two first names we like are Scarlett and Sofia. Here’s the case (as we see it) for each:

Sofia is not only my well-loved, legendary great-grandmother’s name but also a derivative of the name of one of my dearest childhood friends, so it has lots of good feelings associated with it for me. My husband very much likes the name too. Although I know Sofia is enormously popular in the US, we live overseas and are unlikely to return to the US anytime soon. Also my name is quite popular (it was in the top 15 on the social security names list for 20 years – five years before to fifteen years after my birth) among my age group and it hasn’t bothered me all that much.

It is quite possible we’d end up living in Europe at some point in the next decade and it would be nice to have a name that works well in most European languages – which Sofia does. Also Sofia would be easy to say in the SE Asian language of the country where we are currently living – although we do not plan on living here permanently so I do not want this to be the defining factor. This name feels ‘safe’ to me as we have a solid family connection to it and it’s easy to form cute nicknames and it seems to work in other languages.

Scarlett is more daring for us. We both very much like the name and have strong positive feelings towards the name Scarlett – mine for the heroine in Gone with the Wind, my husband because a family that he is very close with has a Scarlett. The name feels bold and a bit different but still familiar. Also my favorite tree is currently in bloom and will be when baby’s born and the flowers are a deep red color.

Negatives for Scarlett include not finding a nn that we like: Lettie, Letta, Carly, Scout, Scar, Scarly, Scarletta, Scassy, Sassy, Star don’t appeal to us. Also it would be really hard to say in the local language, again this wouldn’t be the defining factor in choosing or not choosing the name, but it does mean that a nn would need to be used and it would not be able to have the ‘sc’ letter combination which is unpronounceable here.

If we were in an English speaking country or somewhere that the full name could be pronounced (most of Europe) then I would just use her full name and it would be fine not to have a nickname. Unless the nn from here somehow stuck!

Other short-listed names that we considered were Madeleine, Eve, Catherine, and Lucy. We just kept coming back to Sofia and Scarlett.

If you think the triple S combo (with Ss on the end of the last two names to boot) is just too much, please feel free to suggest other names.

Thanks!

 
For first-time parents, unless they have specified that they’re planning only one child, I have the same advice every time: make your job HARDER now, in order to make it EASIER later.

That is, even though right now it feels so hard to choose even ONE name, this is the time to think ahead to future names as well. If you choose Sofia now, what does that mean for your future children’s names? What if you choose Scarlett? The two names are of very different styles, and it would be helpful to try to figure out which style is more yours.

Also, using a triple initial such as SSS is such a distinctive and noticeable move, will it make you feel locked into doing the same for each subsequent child?

A note on popularity: the spellings Sofia and Sophia combined are given to almost exactly the same percentage of baby girls as were given your first name the year you were born—even though together they rank much higher than your name did. But the name Scarlett is racing to catch up:

(screenshot from SSA.gov)

Look at that! Not even in the Top 1000 until 1992, and since then it’s gone almost to the Top 100! Look particularly at what it’s done since 2003: from 1992 through 2003 it dawdled around in the Very Uncommon ranks and was still a pretty startling choice—but in 2004 it started leaping. I’d expect it to be in the Top 100 when the 2011 rankings come out—though I don’t expect it to go quite as high as Sofia/Sophia.

BUT, all this is just chatting, because in reading your email several times, I think the name you prefer is Sofia. You love the name Scarlett, too, and I think you find it a more exciting choice than the name Sofia—but if I look over your pros and cons for each name, Sofia clearly wins: more pros, fewer cons. Your connections to the name Sofia are strong and meaningful and timeless (a dearly loved grandmother; a dearly loved friend); connections to the name Scarlett are weaker and less meaningful (another family’s child; a character in a book; the color of a plant). Sofia works as an all-over-the-world name; Scarlett doesn’t. You don’t like any of the nicknames for Scarlett, yet would need to have one. The other names on your shortlist (Lucy, Madeline, Eve, Catherine) are mostly of the style of Sofia, not the style of Scarlett.

Thinking ahead to future children, perhaps this daughter could be Sofia _parks _eevens, and the next, if there is a next, something like Lucy Scarlett _eevens: you could still use the name Scarlett, but in the middle name slot where it beautifully parallels a sassy name like _parks, but also where its daringness won’t make it difficult to find sibling names that don’t clash with it.

If it weren’t getting over-the-top, I would suggest using your surname as a second middle name for all the children (which I can say from experience is less hassle than I’d thought), so that you can use BOTH names for this baby: Sofia Scarlett _parks _eevens. This lets you give each child your surname too, but without giving up the fun of choosing a middle name. But the SSSS! Well, I do still think it’s a viable option: having four S’s in a row is indeed a lot of S’s—but when we’re starting at three S’s already, it’s not as big a leap.

But: now that you have read my opinion, how do you feel? Do you think “Whew, yes, Sofia it is!”—or are you thinking, “Oh! Noooooooo! I WANT TO USE SCARLETT!!” This can be a very important decision-making tool: seeing how you feel when the decision seems to be going one way or the other. Using EITHER name will mean giving up the other, so there will be a feeling of loss and regret either way—but in one direction there may be a stronger, more desperate feeling. (For more on this, see also Baby Naming Issue: How to Decide Between Two Finalists.)

I wonder if it would be helpful or unhelpful to have a Sofia/Scarlett poll, over to the right, for doing some of the exercises in that post on deciding between two finalists? Yes, let’s do that. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Name update! S. writes:

Thanks so very much for your suggestions and everyone’s comments. They really helped us a lot. We had so much fun announcing baby SSS’s name to our family – Sofia! She was born healthy and happy in June.

Thanks again!