Rachel writes:

My sister has been following your blog for quite some time. I recently learned that my husband and I are expecting our first child in May. As someone who has always been fascinated by names, I am surprised by how difficult this decision has been. We do not know the gender yet and plan to learn the gender at a family gender reveal party in the coming weeks.

Our last name is Mack, yet some of my favorite names begin with an M (Mason and Macy) though we are trying to avoid alliterative names.

We would love to honor close family members who have since passed on with variations of their names– Carl, Eleanor, and William.

You may notice from our short list that we prefer unique names as opposed to the very common names such as Michael, David, Jennifer, and Katie.

Some of our top names for boys are:

Camden
Caleb
Hudson
Mason
Riley
Gavin
Colton
Anderson
Corbin
Keagan/Keegan

Some of our top names for girls are:

Brynn
Charlotte
Macy
Riley
Elena
Nora
Teagan

Also, I love Addison but wouldn’t use it as a colleague has used that name recently. I wonder what names are similar to Addison…

Many thanks,

I think the first thing we should tackle is the concept of unique/common names. Jennifer and David, for example, are RAMPANT among parents but practically unknown among the wee set. Meanwhile, Mason was the second most common name for U.S. baby boys in 2011.

It can be difficult to make this switch—to think of the common names from our own peer group (Jennifer, Michelle, Jessica, Brian, Jason) as “the Mom and Dad Names.” It can lead to unpleasant shocks: how can it be that when we’d never met one single Charlotte in our whole lives, our daughter is going by Charlotte M. because there are two in her class this year? We’d have been better off if we’d named her Jennifer: there isn’t a single one of those in the entire school (except for half a dozen of the staff)!

Do you have friends with children in daycare or preschool? Those class lists can be very helpful for seeing what people are currently naming babies in your area. Or you can browse The Social Security Administration’s baby name web site, which is great for finding a name’s current standing or for seeing how it’s trending. For example, here’s what Hudson and Addison have been doing recently:

(screen shot from SSA.gov)

(screen shot from SSA.gov)

Next, let’s look for some names similar to Addison. Similarities can be subjective, so there may be some names on this list that won’t seem similar to you at all—but it’s a starting point. And I’m including some that won’t work with your surname (the M ones, just for starters), because this seems like a good reference list for other parents as well:

Abigail
Adeline
Adelyn
Adrienne
Amelie
Aniston
Annabel
Atalie/Adalie
Avery
Cadence
Claudia
Delaney
Ellison
Elodie
Emerson
Evelyn
Gracen
Hadley
Jaiden
Jensen
Jillian
Jocelyn
Kennedy
London
Lydia
Madelyn
Madigan
Madison
McKenna
Meredith
Morgan
Nadia
Natalie
Peyton
Sadie
Sheridan

Your lists look good to me. If it’s mostly hard to PICK something, I suggest leafing through Baby Naming Advice for First-Time Parents to see if any of the advice applies. Sometimes it can help to make little mock groups of sibling names, to see which groups sound more like your family: is it easier to imagine being the parents to Camden, Riley, and Teagan, or to Caleb, Charlotte, and Nora? If you choose Riley for a daughter, does that rule out a very feminine name such as Charlotte for a future daughter? and if so, which style do you prefer?

I notice a lot of -son names on your list: Mason, Hudson, Anderson, Addison. And then I added some more to the like-Addison list. If you plan to have more than one child, and if you would rather not duplicate endings, this is an area where I’d suggest spending some time making sure you’re using your very favorite of the -son names.

Because you like the name Mason and Caleb, I might add Cason. Maybe Cason William Mack.

Instead of Macy, I wonder if you’d like Lacey or Darcy or Lucy?

And as with the -son issue, if you choose Keegan, that rules out Teagan and vice versa. Which would you prefer to use? Or would you want to consider Reagan or Regan for a girl? Elena and Nora are both similar to the honor name Eleanor; would you want to use Eleanor as the name and one/both of those as nicknames?

A baby-naming tactic I use is to make some lists, as you have—but then wait until I know the sex of the baby before getting serious. I find it very clarifying to be dealing with only one set of names, and with a baby who now seems more vivid to me as a little boy or as a little girl. (And then if there is a surprise at delivery, you still have the other list to work with.)

Name update! Rachel writes:

Last year you offered my husband and I great advice as we were choosing a name for Baby Mack. On May 5, 2013, we welcomed our sweet Kensington Elena. I look forward to your future posts. Many thanks,