Nancy writes:
I can’t stop reading your blog. I am four weeks from my due date without any sort of naming yet figured out, and could use all the help I can get.
A quote from an earlier post stuck me:
“A first baby’s name can cause extra anxiety because you’re also choosing your whole naming PHILOSOPHY.”
This summed up our problem naming – we’re not sure even what direction to head in, let alone specific names. For background, my parents named all five of their children with family names (my middle name is after an old family friend, but that’s the only exception in ten total names). We also have a tradition of naming the second son after the father, so if we do have two boys (a fairly big if, but we’d like to have a big family – four is the plan right now) the second one would be Philip. For reference, I’m Nancy – named after a great aunt.
My husband’s family doesn’t use family names, and he is less certain they need to be included. I would like to at least have a family name as a middle name.
With his surname (something like Stinson), we’ve felt that all names that end in -en, -an, -on, or -in are out, as they end up to rhyme-y. (For example my father’s name, Gavin probably wouldn’t work). Names that end in S are also not great, but I think workable (a possibility is Wallace Stinson, after my brother).
Another question is how soon is too soon to have a namesake? I like two of my sibling’s names, Sophie and Wallace, but they are both under thirty. I like the idea that then they have a sort of godfather/mother like position in my child’s life, but maybe it’s too much.
Away from family names, I also like some more modern names, like Wilder (for a boy) and August (for a girl). We also were considering the name Cedar (for a girl). We come from a woodsy place, so nature themed names are not uncommon.
The crux of the problem then, is that if we go with a modern or unique name, do the rest of our potential children need names that match? If we stick with family names for the first, are we stuck with family names forever?
Names we’ve considered (with relation to the baby):
Girls:
Margaret (great aunt)
Sophie (aunt)
August
Cedarand Joanne (maternal grandmother) for a middle name
Boys:
Elliot
Paul (paternal grandfather)
Louis or Lewis
Wallace (uncle)
Crawford (great great grandfather, but also used recently for a first cousin of mine)
WilderThanks for your help!
(As an aside, if this post is too long – once I started there was so much to say! – I’d love to get your or your reader’s opinion on my first question: How soon is too soon to have a namesake? In other words, can I name my baby after my brother and/or sister?)
At first I was going to say there was no such thing as too soon to use a namesake name, but then I took it to the extreme of “Well, what about naming the baby after the baby’s cousin born two years earlier?,” and I could see how that might involve additional issues. So instead I’ll say this: there is a period of time when using someone’s name could instead be mistakenly perceived as “stealing the name” (as it could seem in the example of naming after a cousin two years older), but that once that period has passed, it’s a wonderful option as a namesake name, and not too soon to use it. It might help to imagine your own aunts and uncles, and whether it would have felt weird for you and your siblings to share any of their names. I think the only reason it isn’t done more often is that it’s common for names from one generation ago to sound dated or boring by the time the next batch of babies comes along; the names of great-grandparents tend to be coming back into style and so are more likely to be chosen as honor names.
You’re also asking about whether sibling names need to match. The short answer is no, they don’t. The longer answer involves many factors, but I’d say it primarily boils down to your preferences. How much coordination would you LIKE to have? When you imagine your future family, do you feel fine with sisters named Cedar and Margaret, or does that not sit well with you? Would it bother you to have some children with family names and some without, or would that be fine?
In my own family, I found I was quite concerned about coordination at the beginning, and then less so later on. My first two children have first names that are very well coordinated, and each has a middle name that is a great-grandfather’s first name. This left me agitated when expecting the third child (which turned out instead to be the third and fourth children): Did we have to find another first name that coordinated as well as the first two did? but what if we don’t like any of those names? what if they’re getting so coordinated it’s starting to get confusing? Did we have to use another great-grandparent name for the middle name, or did it have to be a family name, or would it be wrong to use a non-honor middle name, or WHAT?
The outcome of all that agitating is that neither of the twins’ first names are the same style as their older brothers’ first names, though the styles are compatible. AND, one twin has a family first name and a middle name that’s an honor name but not a family honor name; and the other has a middle name that doesn’t honor anyone. So! We just took that mold and broke it right up. And I admit I was worried about it at the time, and so I am even gladder to report that it has so far caused no noticeable problems. No one has said to us, “Wait—so four of the kids have honor middle names and one doesn’t?” or “Wait—so you gave your FOURTH child a family name as a first name, but NONE of the other kids have family first names?” These issues turn out not to come up much in conversation, or even to be of much interest to anyone outside our immediate family. And although some kids have more honor names than others, when we tell them their Naming Stories we have stories to tell about every single name, honor or not, and there hasn’t been any “Nyah, nyah, I’m named for a great-grandfather I never met and you’re NOT!” or the like.
Where was I? Oh, yes: my overall point is that it’s up to you and your husband, and that I encourage you not to get too agitated about making the names come out the same. But my own personal preference is to keep the first names in compatible styles: for example, I wouldn’t advise having sisters named Margaret and Cedar, and would instead lean toward either the Margaret and Sophie direction OR the Cedar and August direction.
The possible future son named Philip adds a little complication, doesn’t it? Since you don’t know if you’ll have a second son, it’s hard to know how much to let the tradition influence your choices. How important is this tradition to you? How many generations has it been in effect? How set are you and your husband on going with it, if you do have a second son? Would you be willing to modify it in any way, such as using the name as a middle name instead of as a first name? These are the sorts of questions I’d consider when choosing how to proceed.
If you go the Cedar and August route for girls and then use Wilder for a first son, the name Philip now stands out rather vividly; it’s definitely an easy situation to explain (“It’s a family tradition to name the second son after the father”), but it could make it seem as if you don’t like Philip’s name and only used it because you had to. And of course you could instead have Cedar, August, Wilder, and then another GIRL. It feels a little frustrating to imagine carefully planning for a Philip by naming your first three children Margaret, Sophie, and Louis—and then having another girl. That would, however, be my own inclination: if I were absolutely decided that I’d use Philip for a second boy, and if I were planning a number of children where a second boy was statistically likely, and if I had two favorite name styles and one of them was compatible with the name Philip and the other style wasn’t, then I would use that as my helpful deciding factor for using one style over the other. Then I would consider my second-favorite style as middle names.
I guess the strategy I’d suggest is this: First, discuss the “second son named Philip” idea, and decide if you’re going to do that or not, and if you’re willing to modify that or not, and whether it would bother you if his name was the only name in the group that didn’t coordinate with the others. If, for example, you don’t want brothers named Wilder and Philip, but you ARE willing to modify the naming tradition and make Philip a middle name, this lets you consider Wilder Elliot and Crawford Philip.
Second, discuss how you two feel in general about the coordination of first names: try out some combinations (“Sophie, Wilder, Cedar, Philip,” “Elliot, Philip, Cedar, Paul,” “Louis, Cedar, Philip, August”) and see what feels right to you and what doesn’t.
Third, based on those decisions, choose the basic style of the first names. Are you going to go with coordination (Margaret, Wallace, Sophie, Philip; or Cedar, August, Crawford, Wilder), or a happy assortment (this is where you choose names from different styles, but avoiding three of one style and one stand-out), or one style for the girls and a second style for the boys?
Fourth, pick your favorite boy and girl names of this style for this baby.
Fifth, make a list of middle names: family names, names that don’t work as first names in the chosen style, any other names you might want to use. Pick the middle names you like best with your two favorite names.
With a larger family especially, I wouldn’t worry about making all the names coordinate perfectly: if your first baby ends up with a family first name and a nature middle name, for example, that doesn’t mean all the rest of the children have to have family first names and nature middle names. In fact, I might deliberately make the second child’s name a different kind of pairing, to keep from feeling stuck with a pattern or creating family expectations (“They used this name and that name, so I must be next!”). What I think works well is trying to balance the naming stories: if one child has “Oh, we chose your first name after Aunt Sophie, and your middle name we just LOVED and it reminded us of this beautiful area of the country,” and your second child has “Your first name we just LOVED as soon as we heard it and knew we HAD to use it, and your middle name is after your great-grandfather,” then I think everyone will be happy and no one will feel slighted. I think it’s more of a problem when one child has two names of huge and interesting significance and the second child gets a shrug and a “Huh? Oh, I think we just found it in a name book? or something? I don’t really remember.” And among those of us who love names, I doubt that is ever a problem.
Name update! Nancy writes:
Baby Stinson finally arrived last week! We were 90% sure of our name choice for a boy (Paul Crawford) but, of course, Baby Stinson turned out to be Baby Girl Stinson. We had a long list of possible names, but somehow naming a real live living being was much more daunting then naming a potential being in my belly. So it took us a couple days.
Ultimately, we went with family names. Sophie Joanne (after my sister and husband’s mother) had been on our list from the beginning, and then when my husband’s sister was visiting she suggested the name Sophie out of the blue (without knowing we were already considering it). I did call my sister Sophie to check that it would be ok with her first. It may cause some confusion, but it felt better to name the baby after someone then simply pick a name because we liked the sounds (we came very close to choosing Hazel Margret, with no family connection to Hazel).
Long story short, she is Sophie Joanne Stinson! And we are very happy to have her by any name.
Thanks for your all your help,
Nancy
A thought about the too-soon-to-use-an-honor-name question. If the honoree is of childbearing age and likely to be having (and naming) children in the future, I would check with them in case they were planning on using their name on their child. I generally don’t agree in “saving” names, but do think a person should get a first shot at using their own name to name a generation of cousins.
Also, my family was all honor names (of living people) and my husband ‘s was not. It was very important to me to continue that tradition at first. But now, four years later, it became more difficult than it was worth.
If you have 4 children, will you end up honoring 3 of your siblings, and leave one out? Because while I know no one is guaranteed a naming honor, hurt feelings are legitimate and do happen.
(One of the reasons we didn’t use honor names of people living–bc of our families there was the potential to hurt too many feelings)
Personally, I very much prefer names to *coordinate* — not MATCH, but coordinate.
But, at the same time, I think this is one of those things when you can’t/don’t want to plan too far ahead as you never know what you will get (i.e. that second son may never come). I think in a way you have to take the “one at a time” approach and name each as it comes with what you like best at the time. Then for the next ones, what you like best will probably be influence by what you’ve named the first one and it will all work out.
As for naming after siblings.. personally I feel MEH about this. My SIL has always said she is naming her first son after her brother (i.e. my SO). I always thinking to myself (1) ok thats really weird to name a kid after your brother (2) what if SO would like a junior?? I don’t dwell on it because of course people can pick whatever name they want, but I guess if it comes down to it we will have an Dad/Uncle D, a Son D, and a Cousin D – all within a 10 mile radius.
I think there are definitely ways to coordinate older/family names with unique/modern names. They can have something else in commoon – number of letters/syllables/initials.
You could research and convert some older family names into more unique newer names to coordinate better (or the opposite).
Margaret Margo
Waldhar Wilder
Philip Fielding (? that’s a stretch, but both are “Phil/Fiel” so it kind of works imo) or just Filip which LOOKS more modern
Cedana/Cecilia/Celine Cedar
Also I think names like Sophie and Gavin are great middle ground for you, as they are after relatives, but really are still popular now.
In regards to honor names, I agree with Phancymama that it would be considerate to run it by your sibling first. Not necessarily asking permission, but just testing the water. I would think they would be thrilled.
On another note, I would say you are in a great position to use all your favorites. You could use one style as firsts and the other as middles. IE: Margaret Cedar, Sophie August, Wallace Crawford, and Phillip Wilder or reverse.
I think sibling names don’t necessarily have to “match.” It’s nice when they don’t clash, but it definitely doesn’t mean you shouldn’t choose the names you love regardless of how they sound/look when lined up next to each other.
My son’s middle name is the same as my brother’s first name. My brother was 18 at the time and he was pleased as punch. Obviously I don’t think it’s too soon for an honor name… but having it in the middle avoids any familial confusion and also eliminates any (potential) problems of him one day wanting to name a kid after himself.
Unless it really bugs you, I’d go with the happy assortment – it leaves Phillip as a future option, but doesn’t paint you into a corner for all the other children to accommodate.
I couldn’t agree more about checking with the sibling first to see if they are considering using the name themselves. I think Wallace is a great name. If your brother has no immediate plans to have children, he may tell you to go ahead and use it and later wish he could use it himself. That’s why i think the middle name is such a great option. We used my sister’s middle name for our daughter’s middle name, even though i LOVE her first name (and her!) and really wanted to use the first name. We are very close with my sister, and I was worried it would be too confusing with two Marys in the family. This is the same reason I didn’t name my daughter GiGi, which is the “Grandparent” name my mother uses. I loved the idea of honoring my mother, but i thought it would be confusing to all of the cousins and everyone to have a grandmother GiGi and granddaughter GiGi. I’d be curious to know if anyone has had issues or problems with two people named the same thing within the family. I think that helps answer the question of how soon is too soon to use an honor name.
I was named after my maternal Grandmom and she was alive for the first 37 years of my life. There was no naming confusion (like with companies or people) but there were times when I felt like my name was borrowed, and not really mine.
And I admit that a few times (very few, in general I’m pleased with it) I kinda resented the fact that my identity was wrapped up in my mom’s desire to please and honor her mother. It felt like I was used for two other people’s wishes. So, there’s the downside.
I don’t think it’s too soon for an honor name. I do agree with the previous posters in that I’d run it by my sibling first, or only use the honor name in the middle position, just to make sure you don’t steal a name they are planning on re-using for their own kids some day.
I will add that namesakes for many families don’t have to be the EXACT name. It’s perfectly OK to put your own spin on honor names and it doesn’t take away from the honor at all. All it means is that the person is important to you, but maybe their exact name wasn’t quite your style or seemed dated or perhaps conflicted in some other way. Thinking outside the box might also help you negotiate the challenge of style. If you decide you prefer names that are more nature inspired, then why not name your daughter Magnolia after aunt Margaret? I think the same thing could work with Philip also. Since it is your husband’s name and he doesn’t seem committed to the tradition, perhaps you could decide now that the 2nd child will be named after him, regardless if it’s a boy or girl. This could open you up to the possibility of Philippa/Pippa or even Poppy for a girl (and I’m sure there are other boy options as well). This would also allow you to continue the tradition even if you don’t end up with 2 boys.
And I don’t think that kids names have to match or even coordinate in style. People are only known as part of a sibset for a short time of their lives. Once they become adults, very few people are going to even know what their siblings are named. My preference is to use baby names that are the same style, but I also realize it’s not a big deal if they aren’t. And I know some people who prefer to use very eclectic sibling names so that every kid gets something special & unique. As long as you have a good story for the names, it’s unlikely to cause problems.
Finally, I wanted to point out that Wallace Stinson sounds a lot like Wallis Simpson. She was the wife of Prince Edward. She was also the reason he decided to abdicate the throne. I don’t think this makes the name you are considering unusable, but it might be something to look into/be aware of before using the name Wallace.
We were going to name our second son after my husband’s brother (his name is Owen), but we thought twice about it and didn’t, thinking Owen might want to have a junior or something like that someday. When we told him years later about it, he was like, “Aw, shucks!” because he thought having a nephew named after him would have been really, really neat.
I think I might go with the style you prefer overall– Wilder for a boy, August or Cedar for a girl and then use family names for middles. And if you have a second son, you can either go with Phillip to stick more closely to the tradition OR use Phillip as a middle to more closely match his sibling(s) names.
So I’m thinking something like this:
August Sophie (or maybe Sophia, which I think flows better)
Cedar Margaret
Wilder Paul
Crawford Phillip or Phillip Crawford or Phillip Wallace
OK. SO Swistle addressed all of your questions and potential issues and how to address those potential issues so perfectly, that I will just refer to her!! haha… But yes, I think you should choose a general style that you both like. Is there one name that you would be really upset if you didn’t choose for any of your now/future children? If so, what is it? What is that style leaning towards? Does it lean towards Cedar or Sophie? This can maybe help you guys go in one direction or another.
Personally, my favourites from your list are:
Wallace – don’t hear this very often and it’s quite refreshing.
Crawford. I think this is a good “Middle-Man” between your styles. So for example, if you went with Crawford this time around (if you have a boy) and then choose to go with Philip with your potential second son, the two names go together well enough for siblings. If you choose to go with Crawford and Wilder, I think they also are similarly styled, I wouldn’t really think “wow… those are different styles for siblings”. Whereas, if you went with Wilder now, and then had a Margaret and then a Philip… I would say that Wilder was the outlier.
I love Augusta for a girl name. (a bit more feminine with the -a at the end)
What about Margo? It is maybe a bit more trendier then Margaret, can still be an honour-name but I feel like it is maybe more in style with some of your other names. I think it fits quite well with Wilder, Wallace, or Crawford.
Good luck and keep us posted!
I used my brother name for my sons middle name. It was also my Dad’s middle name and my grandfathers first name.
But honestly I didn’t want to use my siblings names for first names because those where my parents choices of names and it seemed rather unimaginative to just copy what they did. They had their opportunity to choose names they absolutely loved and I wanted my chance at it.
That said, if Sophie and Wallace are names you would have picked even if your parents hadn’t then I would just check with your siblings before using them. If they don’t mind, go for it.
As for naming children with the same style, I agree with Swistle for the most part that, if you have a story for each child of how their name was chosen with thoughtful consideration and love, it doesn’t matter if they are different styles. The only caveat I have with that is that. I have know names where different styles are mismatched with the children’s personalities… A tomboy, nature loving Eliana with ultra feminine sister names Scout. That didn’t work out as well.
Our naming ‘philosophy’ naturally evolved between baby 1 and baby 2. We had a list of other possibilities for baby 2 to match baby 1’s name, but in the end our tastes changed with the fashions and we chose a still-complimentary name in a slightly different style direction than I’d intended. Naming baby 1 doesn’t tie you down to one style as much as you’d think. So many names belong to a few different naming categories at once, allowing you to tweak your style down the track.
yes this!
It is pretty common to have different styles between the eldest child and the next ones, especially if you use an honor name for the first child. We ended up with this stylistic mismatch in my children because my first child is named for my grandfather- Norman- while my second child has a name we both liked- Isaiah.
We come from a naming tradition that only uses honor names for people who have already died, and neither of us wanted to pluck randomly from the family tree when we didn’t care much about the honoree. As such we ended up with Norman (a name I was not particularly fond of, but because the honor was important used anyway, and now love), but luckily having no other deceased grandparents used a more modern name for our second son. The truth is no one notices at all (or at least no one mentions it), and we can tell Norman about his great grandfather, and Isaiah that we loved his name and its meaning.
Isaiah is from the bible and is actually older than the name Norman..
Maybe she means modern in the sense that Isaiah is fashionable right now, and Norman is not?
Besides that, it’s debatable which name is actually older since Norman was used as a given name in England before the Norman conquest in the 11th century, and Isaiah wasn’t even used in English as a given name until after the Reformation in the 1500s.
Sources are http://www.behindthename.com/name/norman and http://www.behindthename.com/name/isaiah ; sources for Behind the Name are (usually) various editions of The Oxford Dictionary of Names.
Sorry if this comes across as overly pedantic, I just thought the record should be set straight (or straight as possible).
In the behind the names thing, it says Isaiah was in use in the 8th century.. long before the 1500s.
It looks like your style is more unique and your family’s style is more traditional…so I’d mix and match by Margaret August and Phillip Wilder…or else maybe make August into Augusta and Cedar into Cynthia to make it match better.
I just named my new daughter after my sister (in the middle name slot). My sister is 26. I was a little nervous it would be awkward, but it turned out to be wonderful. I’m so glad we did it!
I married into a Mediterranean family and I have to say I found the number of Vincent’s, Carmen’s and Joseph’s confusing. For the first couple of years I kept having to ask which one we were discussing at any given moment. So in my opinion honor naming after siblings is too close. It should skip a generation. I’d do it in the middle name slot, but not the first.
I also note that the convention of naming the second son after the father seems to come from your family. How does your husband feel about using his name in this way? I would say he gets to be the decision maker on this one. Does he want to use it for his first son perhaps(which will make it statistically more likely for you to use it at all) or would he prefer not to use it for any sons?
Once he decides on that it will steer your choice of naming style. I do like the suggestion of Augusta for a girl to bridge the divide between styles.
Me again… Could you look at nature names that are also more traditional as given names?
GIRLS
Ivy
Laurel
Hazel
BOYS
Cliff
Dale
Linden (love this one)
Another one I think of for you is Lorraine nn Raine.