Swistle,
Curious to your thoughts on what makes a name “cool” or “hip”. My current conundrum is the name William vs Phillip.
I have always loved William, nicknamed Will, it has been “my” baby name since high school. As we all know, it is extremely popular- I currently work with four people who have children with some variant of it. (Counting Liam.) The name Phillip has recently entered my top name list, which I love. However, I HATE the nickname Phil. Seems odd, right, because Will/Phil are just a slight difference. What are your thoughts on to why? Is it all the cycle of current names? Do you think Phil will grow on me, and others? Another example I thought of was Teddy/Freddy. Teddy seems normal on a baby and I’m not sure I would expect a Freddy. Rob/bob, the list could go on.
What are your and your readers’ thoughts?
Isn’t that an interesting phenomenon? For example, I have the name Evan on my own list, but Devan and Bevan and Kevin and Evanie and Devany wouldn’t make the first cut. I frequently try to sell people on the name John, but not on Don or Lon or Ron.
I think it’s that the stylishness of a name depends partly on the actual sounds (so that, for example, Ella and Bella and Annabella and Isabella are all in style together), and partly on the image of the particular names (so that, to continue the example, we’re nevertheless not seeing much of Louella and Prunella and Cinderella). I think that’s why a fashionable name and an unfashionable name can sound surprisingly similar: we all still like the actual sound, but the image of the name has become dad-like, or we’re all just tired of it for now. What strikes us as “freshness” can be a new sound, but it can also be a similar sound with a fresh image: for example, Jason leading to Jayden and Mason. Someone who loves the name Aiden may very well also love the names Hayden and Caden—or may very well NOT, depending on whether it’s the image or the sound (or both) they like about the name.
The names Phil and Bill drifted out of style; Will has that same sound people used to like so much in Phil/Bill, but with a fresh new feeling to it and less of an association with our friends’ dads. I think it’s likely it will continue the cycle: as the boys named Will grow up and become dads and then grandfathers, that name in its turn will feel like a dad/grampa name; we’ll be so familiar with it, it’ll hardly hit our ears anymore, let alone feel special. Then a few people will say, “We’re naming him William—but we’re calling him Bill.” And a few other people will come upon a vintage classic in their family tree: Philip! And everyone else will say “Bill! Philip! Phil! We hadn’t even CONSIDERED those names but suddenly we LOVE them!” And so on, round and round, generation after generation. I suppose even Billy and Willy and Bobby have a good chance of coming back, though it feels hard to believe right now.
Whether Phil will grow on you/others for a baby born today is another issue: even when a name is almost guaranteed to come back into style, that doesn’t mean we’ll like it if it’s brought back before its time. I remember feeling very sorry for a co-worker named Charlotte: such an ugly name! SHAR. LUTT. And now look at the name: almost certain to be in the Top 10 next year, and doesn’t seem ugly at all. That’s the surprising thing to me: that a name can seem objectively ugly when it’s out of style—and then not seem ugly at all anymore when it comes back into style, and it can be hard to even remember why it seemed that way. It just wasn’t time yet when my co-worker’s parents gave her the name, but it’s time now.
Also, just because a nickname hasn’t come back into style doesn’t mean the full name can’t be used. Willy and Billy aren’t in style, but William still is; not many little girls are going by Beth but Elizabeth is still used; Jim and Jimmy are on hold for now, but James is still popular. So if you love Philip, I think you can use Philip even if you don’t love the nickname Phil. I do generally advise against using a name with a nickname the parents HATE, since the child might very well choose to use that nickname later on (my example is my friend Liz, whose parents HATED the name Liz and only named her Elizabeth to get the nickname Beth), but in general this is a great time for people who don’t want to use nicknames, and I suspect most people would call him Philip. Or you could call him Pip, which I think is beyond adorable for a baby/toddler.
I concur you can probably avoid the nickname and I like Phillip, too. It seems like a versatile sort of name that could fit different personalities.
So I have a father in law named Phillip, so we won’t be using it as a name, but I do feel like it’s an underused classic and is ripe for a comeback…AND I know a little 4 month old Philip and that makes it appear even more charming on a child.
When my FIL was in first grade he wanted a nickname like all the other little boys in the 50’s. So he asked his mom if Phillip had a nickname and she told him it was “Flip”. He though that sounded good, so he signed that name on his school papers the next day. However, only having heard the nickname he spelled it “Phlip” and got points off on his paper for “not knowing how to spell his name” and that was the end of his nickname dreams ;)
That is an awesome story. Too cute!
I agree that Philip is great – and you can probably easily avoid Phil. As far as Philip being out of style at present, I just thought I’d point out that on The Office a couple of years ago both Jim/Pam and Angela named their babies Philip – after a bit of arguing about name-napping!
I LOVE the name Philip/Phillip. I think it’s classy, masculine, and strong without being over-used.
I don’t really like the name Phil, but I think it could evolve as a nickname once it’s attached to a little boy or a teenager. Or it could be one of those nicknames that’s used quite a bit but never written down on school papers and such. My siblings and I called our sister “Mags” quite a bit, but she was only ever “Maggie” written down (or Margaret.)
I get what you mean about similar sounds but widely different feelings, and I think this is especially common on nicknames. For example, I love the name Fredrick, but really don’t like the name Fred. I do think Philip is coming back, even if Phil doesn’t though.
Or, as I tell myself, by the time your son decided he wants to be Phil, you won’t be thinking much about the name anymore, so much as the lovely boy who you love, who wants to be called something else.
Yes, I know exactly where you are coming from here!
I love the name Philip too, but don’t like Phil at all, so used it as my son’s middle name instead.
Pip is a great nickname though!
All the best!
I have a 13-year old daughter (with an old-fashioned name…Irene) and we play a game together. I’ll mention a name and ask her if she thinks that is a kid, a parent or a grandparent. I find it highly entertaining! And, of course, her take on names is not mine. Hence the movement from cool to not cool, or the reverse.
I love the name Irene!
That is so funny. I was named Elizabeth, in large part because my dad LOVED the nickname Liz. Guess what I can’t stand? Oh well…
Like Kim C, I used Philip as a middle name for my son. It’s a very handsome name in full.
I also get what you mean!
On that note, I do love Philip. I feel like it has almost hit that fresh-sounding name. I think part of it maybe is that William has already hit the grandfather stage so it has reached that “fresh” feeling. Most dads named William go by Bill, which i think is why Bill is still on the “I don’t want my kid named Bill” path.
Philip is at the end of the dad-stage, almost moving into grandpa stage. A lot of dads that I know go by Phil, which is why I’m still not on board with Phil BUT do like Philip. Does any of that make sense?? Haha
I think you could totally use Philip. I think our kids generation don’t automatically go to nicknames like the last couple generations did. So a Philip could just be a Philip and that would be fine. Plus Flip or Pip are cute too. Good luck!
Writing from Switzerland where we came to help our daughter with the birth of her second son. While here I’m avidly following the Swiss naming trends in Bern, the capital–made easy by the posting of each birth by the local hospitals.
Just in the past week, baby boys have been named: Jim, Bob, Bill, Tim, Ben, & Phil. Girls: Linda, Susan, Lyn, Lisa, Lou……I see this trend as similar to US parents searching for names that are unusual, and choosing names from other cultures/countries without understanding (or perhaps caring) that such choices aren’t in fact currently popular in those other places. It seems to me that it is often either more liberal/alternative parents or parents that have traveled/lived internationally choosing these out-of-style-in-the-US names, while the more conservative do often still choose traditional Swiss names. I don’t have a full enough grasp of how (or even if) European naming trends in turn influence naming trends in Gt. Britain (Nameberry), which in turn influence US naming trends, but I do find it fascinating that in Gt. Britain it’s all about “cute” names such as Alfie & Bertie & Susie, while here & in Germany, it’s all about short, clipped, nicknames.
Philip (usually spelled Philipp) is a very popular choice here–top 20, and was one of our daughter’s top contenders. Had she made this choice, he would have been called Phil. Like the query poster, I, too, love Philip but hate the nickname Phil. Likewise, another of our daughter’s finalists was William, but only if called Bill. (I bit my tongue & was supportive……..tried to remind myself that on the playground, he’d fit right in). I agree with Kelsey D. that Philip is quite likely right on the verge of becoming popular again in the US. It seems the likely successor to William…..
(For the curious: our new grandson was named Miles Alexander. Big brother is John Forrest. With the exception of Alexander, these names are very exotic here & necessitate “how & why” conversations).
Congrats on your new grandson!
Also, having spent time in Switzerland, I too was taken aback by their popular baby names. Switzerland has a high number of guest workers and immigrants– I wonder if that contributes to the “dated” feeling as people try to compromise between their home country and Switzerland? As well as the 4 different national languages… Maybe it is much more important to be international/understandable there (and hence the trends don’t move as fast.) the popular names in Germany and Austria seem to align much more with the vintage revival trend I was expecting. (Austrian: http://www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/bevoelkerung/geburten/haeufigste_vornamen/020549.html )
One name I’ve heard only on Swiss women that I really like is Annina… So pretty and so rare elsewhere. I don’t know if it is currently popular for babies, though.
Pip and Flip are great. My grandfather was name Phillip and NEVER went by a nickname.
Also, if you name him Philip with a middle name starting or ending with a k sound, you could have the nn Flick.
I’m in my mid-30s and didn’t know any Phils growing up, but do have several close friends my age named Phil. I actually don’t think Phil sounds that weird for a baby. More like Will or Jack or Max or Charlie than Bill or Don or Jim.
I also have a dog named Phillip nn Pip and I tend to use baby names that are just a little too formal/cutesy for my taste for babies on pets. (Beauregard nn Bobo, Finnegan, nn Finn.) So I definitely think Phillip is completely usable now and wouldn’t be shocked to hear a child using Phil as a nickname.
I think Philip suffers from the “f” sound beginning which is currently not popular or stylish. Francis/Frances and Frederick have had a hard time getting off the ground recently too, not to mention Philippa which I expected to get a bounce from Pippa Middleton– but it didn’t happen (correct me if I’m wrong, not double checking the SSA). I heard Flip recently as a nickname for Philippa/Philip and liked it. Pip is cute too. So is Pippin. I think Philip has potential, it just still feels like a dad name. Like a guy in a suit, or bermuda shorts, with siblings named Linda and Richard and Scott and Debbie. Needs more time!
I know exactly where you are coming from…. we are considering the name Daniel (NN: Danny or Dan) for the baby that we are expecting (if it’s a he), but I don’t like Don or Donny at all. And, for a girl, I’d like to use my grandmother’s name, which is very unusual, and use “Lia” as the nickname… just not sure how much I actually like Lia… but I do like Mia, Lucia, and Lulu, which I find similar.
I love Lia! Been on my list for years!
I loved this post ! My husband is Will (not Bill) and his father (my father-in-law) is Bob. Will’s brother – my brother-in-law, is a jr, and he is Rob.
Bob the dad had Rob the son. Part of this was the standard wanting to differentiate between father and son named Robert, but it’s interested to me as Bob is such a dad-name to me and Rob is a my-age name.
I have similar feelings, except to me Bobby feels more stylish than Rob (or Bob). Same with Billy– it seems edgier and fresher than Will. (But Bill is still impossible to picture on a child.) Maybe it’s the British nickname trend creeping up on me?
Interesting, because I have a son (4yrs) named Robert, who is Robert all the time. It is an honor name for us (my grandfather was Bob), but we couldn’t imagine Rob, Robby, Bob, Bobby, or Bert as nns, and there are a ton of kids like that in his class. He has a William (not will), a Benjamin (not Ben), a Matthew (not Matt) and a Franklin (not Frank). I think we are in a golden age of full names.
My son has a friend named Phillip. They’re in 1st grade. I remember last year my son commented that “Phillip is a weird name”, which made me laugh as it’s such a traditional name & there are a lot of unusual, modern & foreign names at school, which I’d expect him to think were “weird”. I asked him if he calls his friend “Phil” and he said he does sometimes. I asked him if his friend likes that nickname and he said he did. Once your son hits school there is the possibility that his friends will call him Phil and that he’ll want to be called that. Hard to say whether that will bother you or not one day.
I’m wondering if it’s because Phil sounds exactly like the word “fill”, it makes it sound less cool than “Will”. Though Will is also an actually word too, so I guess it shouldn’t matter.
I was amused to see this because I sent you an email a week or so ago about our own name dilemma and had forgotten to send an update, that we’d actually ended up since settling on Philip with the nickname Pip.
I found this interesting as I am in Australia and the trends are different here – I know three Jims two Joes one Ned and two Bills under the age of ten. To my knowledge they all have the full name officially but use the old school nn – around here creative nicknames are frowned upon perhaps seen as a little pretentious or trying too hard? Fwiw I like Philip but always have to pause over the spelling.
I think you should go with Phillip. I have a 3 year old son named William, which has been a fave of mine forever. I have a bad association with the name Will, though. It drives people nuts that my son’s name is William and that he doesn’t go by a nickname. I don’t see why people think every name needs one. Just sayin’.