Hello Swistle! I’ve read your blog for a long time and am so excited to finally be able to write. We’re expecting a baby girl in spring, our first, and all the possibilities have me feeling somewhat deer-in-the-headlights. Our last name starts with a V and is Greek. My taste runs towards simple, classic girl names, generally on the shorter side.

I adore the name Lucy, called Lulu, but my 4-year-old niece is frequently called Lulu, among other nicknames. The actual name is very different (think, like, Niloufar nn Lulu) but we live close to my SIL and plan for the cousins to spend a lot of time together. Would it be cute to have two Lulus? Or would it be confusing, or will SIL feel like I’m stealing an aspect of her name?

Here are the other names on our shortlist:
Molly (feels a teensy bit more nickname than name, but husband doesn’t like Mary and other long forms seem too contrived.)
Iris (initials would be IV so we could call her Ivy. Or are IV initials a problem? I don’t feel like there’s much potential for teasing there: ha ha, you’re named after a…universal medical device…? Wow, your parents must really like the number four?)
Frances (nn Frankie/Cissy)
Adela (husband’s frontrunner. I like it but am not jazzed by any of the nicknames.)
Virginia (nn Ginny)

Names I like but can’t use:

Vera (sounds a bit like Mila Miller with the surname. I actually sort of like the combo, but wouldn’t want to do it to a child)
Anne/Annie (husband thinks it’s too plain)
Esme (pronounced es-may. I love it but don’t like the Twilight connection, and can’t quite bring myself to hand her a lifetime of correcting spelling/pronunciation)
Faye (husband thinks it’s too short)
Charlotte (adore the nickname Lottie, and it’s a total “I liked them before they were famous!” situation, but now that the name is so popular it’s a definite turn-off)
Blythe (husband thinks it sounds too religious, despite that…not really being a thing? I guess he associates it with virtue names like Faith and Mercy)

If we had a boy, his name would probably be Benjamin (Benji) or Miles.

For the middle name, we were thinking either his mother’s name (Eirini) or my mother’s name (Colleen). Since the Greek tradition is to name babies after their grandparents, I like the little tie-in to his heritage. But I also love the name May and think it would make a cute middle if she ends up being born in May (due date is right on the borderline). Or Bellamy? It was my great-grandmother’s maiden name, and I will shamelessly admit to having zero attachment to this great-grandmother (or even, you know, ever having seen a photo of her) but loving the name. Iris Bellamy. Lucy Bellamy. I’m also tempted to go fully self-indulgent and give her something totally out there like Odyssey or Snow, since middle names come up so infrequently anyway.

I’ve thought about names for so long, but now that I’m faced with naming an actual baby, nothing seems to just click! I’d love some suggestions and input from you and your readers.

Thanks so much,
Sam

It is hard to know how your sister-in-law would feel about you duplicating the nickname. Some people have an attitude of “The more the merrier!” when it comes to their children’s names, and others use words such as “copying” and “stealing.” If your sister-in-law is married to one of your siblings, I would start by consulting with that sibling; if instead she is your husband’s sister, I would start by consulting with him, and perhaps asking him to consult with her. Well, but with this caveat: if you ask, then I think you should go with what the sister-in-law says. That is, one possible route is to NOT consult with her, and to go ahead and use Lucy/Lulu, and chance the consequences; but if you go the route of asking her ahead of time, and she says it would bother her, then I think using the name anyway would cause a huge issue.

Another option, if you plan to have more children, is to save the name Lucy/Lulu for a future child: a bigger age gap can make it a lesser issue. Also, it gives you another, less-pressurey way to ask: you can say, after the first baby is born and named, “One of the names we were considering was Lucy/Lulu,” and see how the sister-in-law reacts. Relief? Disappointment? Give her some time to get used to the idea, and then perhaps bring it up again and see what she says.

I think at this point Molly is a stand-alone non-nickname given name: we have done posts here where we have discovered that even among name enthusiasts, a large number of people are unaware of the Mary/Molly/Polly connection—or they are aware of it, but they don’t expect to encounter it anymore. I am in that latter group: I know Molly and Polly were once nicknames for Mary, but if I encounter a Molly or a Polly, I assume it’s the given name and not a nickname for Mary. Because it appeals to you to do something alliterative such as Vera V., but you don’t necessarily want to assume a child would find it as appealing, I wonder if you would like to alliterate the first and middle? Something like Molly May V., or Molly Bellamy V.

You have seen me mention this many times before, and now it is your turn to have it mentioned to you: I suggest thinking ahead to future sibling-name combinations. Molly and Lulu would be a lot of L sounds. Cissy and Lucy would be a lot of C/S/Y sounds. Iris and Frances both end in -s; would that be okay, or would you want to choose only one or the other? Would using Ginny rule out a later Benji? Adela is quite a different style than Lucy and Molly and Ginny, though I think it goes nicely with Iris. Which seems more like your kids: Adela and Iris, or Lucy and Molly? I see a fair number of nickname options in your list; would it bother you to have some kids with names/nicknames and some with only names, or is that a non-issue? How do you feel about repeated initials? Would using Molly rule out using Miles later?

From context I am making the assumption that the children will be receiving their father’s family surname. If that is the case, and if you decide to also follow the Greek tradition of using grandparent names (in this case, as middles), I strongly urge you to use YOUR parents’ names, to help balance the name a little. Father’s surname + father’s cultural naming traditions + father’s parents’ names is severely weighted toward the father’s side. If you DID decide to use husband’s surname + husband’s cultural naming traditions + husband’s parents’ names, I would expect nothing less than for you to get 100% full say on the first name, up to and including choosing a name your husband was meh about—and even then, it would not be anything like a fair division.

Another option would be to use various family surnames from your side as middle names: Bellamy, yes, and your own family surname if that would work nicely, and any other family surnames you like. FILL the birth certificates of all your children with representatives from your family tree! Make it so the one repeated family surname from your husband’s side feels SKIMPY!

Okay, let’s look at first names! I like Molly, especially if you are thinking Lucy and Ginny and Frankie. That’s a spirited bunch. I would add Polly as another to consider. If the name I see in your email address is your own family name, I lovvvvvvvve the idea of it as the middle name with Polly. Absolutely smashing. But it would also work nicely as a middle for a future Miles or Benjamin.

I also like Amalia with the nickname Molly, and wonder if Amalia would be similar to Adela for your husband. Though I think for me, having to keep explaining that it’s Amalia not Amelia would be more than I would want to take on.

I think I.V. initials are fine; it does seem difficult to find an inroad for teasing. I am in fact drawn to the idea of naming her Ivy and her initials would be I.V.; that has a charming little flair to it. I think I would enjoy the fun of that, if it were my name; it gives me a fizzy happy feeling. The name Iris is already so similar to Ivy (long-I, two syllables, blatantly botanical) that it feels confusing to use the nickname Ivy with it.

Frances/Frankie is adorable, I think, and I like that she has good nickname options depending on what sort of person she feels herself to be: she can go with Frannie, Frankie, Frank, Cissy, or she could even punch it up and go by Francesca.

I have loved the name Ginny ever since reading a book in elementary school with a protagonist named Ginny. I wonder if the given name Virginia would still lead to teasing at this point in the timeline. DO people still go tee-hee over the word virgin, or are we past that? And then there is that silly catchy Billy Joel song that still plays pretty regularly on the radio. I wonder if you would like Genevieve or Geneva or Imogen.

Adela stops me in part because I am unsure of the pronunciation/emphasis. Is it like the singer Adele, but with an -ah added to the end, like ah-DELL-ah? I suppose it must be: it’s not likely to be, say, ADDLE-ah or addle-LAH. Okay, I can picture it now: sort of the rhythm of Isabella, but without the Is-, and with a D instead of the B. Yes, that’s nice. I think my main concern is the absolute mountain of Addies currently on the market. This is going to vary regionally, of course, so it may not pertain to your area, but in our school system we have so many Addies and Maddies that they can’t even use surname initials (too many repeats) and are instead known as, for example, Art Maddie, Green Addie, Maddie-who-dates-Ellie, Maddie-who-dates-Aidan, Theater Addie, my-friend-Melissa’s-Maddie, etc. Would it work to use the nickname Della, or is that too large a percentage of the original name?

This makes me think of Delia and Dahlia as possible options. I encountered a Delia in the wild and it made a very pleasing impression. Her mom at one point called her “Deels,” which isn’t the kind of nickname you’d write on a homework paper, but sounded very cute when said aloud.

If you enjoy some alliteration but Vera is too much of it with the surname, I wonder if you would like other V names. Violet/Lettie (similar to the Lottie you liked with Charlotte), Vivian/Vivi. Verity probably isn’t going to fly if your husband doesn’t like virtue names; I love Victoria and Veronica but I’m not keen on the nicknames.

If you like Anne/Annie but they’re too plain for your husband, there are SO MANY delightful longer forms that can then be nicknamed Anne/Annie. Annabel, of course—that’s one of my own top favorites; for awhile it looked as if it were going to gets super common, but then it backed off. I wonder if Annabel would be a nice combination of Adela and Anne/Annie? Or Annika. Annalise/Anneliese. Gianna. Liana. Lillian/Lilianne/Lilyanna. Hey: what about Lilianne, nicknames Lili and Annie? Lili is similar to Lulu but doesn’t step on toes.

I wonder if you would like other names with the -oo- sound of Lucy/Lulu. Julia/Jules. Juliet/Jules. Ruth/Ruthie/Rudy. At some point, Gertrude/Trudy is going to come back; is it getting to be time? Same with Judith, maybe with the nickname Jude instead of Judy this time around. Susanna/Annie. June/Junie. Juniper/Junie. Ruby, but no nicknames come to mind; maybe it would work to combine it with the middle name to make a nickname, like Ruby Bell.

While looking for more like Lucy/Lulu, I found Mabel. It feels like it combines May and Adela, and has some of the feel of Lulu.

I do sometimes wish I’d gone more Odyssey/Snow for my kids’ middle names. I didn’t have the nerve at the time. When I reconsider it now, I still prefer the names we chose, so I guess what I slightly regret is that I didn’t prefer the more whimsical/fun options. When my kids were younger, we were friends with a family whose kids had middle names that were very similar to Sparkle, Galaxy, and Flower, and I spent some time wishing I’d had more FUN with our kids’ names.