Swistle,
I’m a big fan of your blog. I’ve always loved baby names. My mom had a baby when I was 13 and I did so much research and reading. Lots of lists and suggestions. An obsession with baby names was born!
But now that I’m pregnant with my first child, due in July, I’m quite overwhelmed. We just found out we’re having a girl, and my husband and I simply can’t agree on THE ONE. We were totally aligned on boy names and had one picked out: Thomas, with my maiden name as the middle. It’s a classic with fun nickname options, sounds good with our surname, and is also a special honor name on my side of the family that hasn’t been used despite my many siblings and cousins. For a girl, we’re lost. We need your help!
Here’s where we’re at. We’re American, and our last name sounds like Keegan without the “K” (I took my husband’s surname and our children will take it as well). We’re drawn to a mix of traditional, vintage, preppy, and “new classic” names. We’re Catholic but not super religious; both pretty Irish, especially my family.
My husband has a one syllable name and didn’t like growing up without nickname options. For that reason, he’s very drawn to more formal, longer names with vintage and/or cute nicknames, and the nickname is a very important part of the conversation to him. I do like that style as well, but we can’t come up with a combo we agree on or that feels right. I’m also very drawn to classic/simple one syllable names, and even with longer names, needing nickname options doesn’t feel as much a “must” for me like it does for him. In fact, my name is almost always shortened, but I never took a nickname.
Names on my list:
Jane
Margaret (but no clear nn winner – will explain)
Frances
Eleanor nn Nora
Anne nn Annie
Georgia
Caroline
Paige
On his list:
Margaret nn Maisie (he LOVES Maisie)
Susannah nn Susie
Patricia nn Piper or Poppy
Hazel
Penelope nn Penny
Jane (but no nn winner in his mind – maybe Junie among family but would still go by Jane)
Frances (maybe if nn Fran or Frannie)
Beatrice nn Birdie
Caroline
Of the above, Margaret, Patricia and Anne would be meaningful honor names. Caroline would be also, but our relative with that name is currently childless and has expressed preference on saving it for their child — if we had her blessing that would be a strong contender. Oddly, it’s one name my husband likes the full name for. She would go by the full “Caroline.”
So, names we like but can’t use: Caroline, Elizabeth, Ellie, Emma, Claire, Charlotte, Catherine, Molly.
Names we’ve talked about for middle names: Celine, Cecilia, Caroline. (All meaningful. Celine and Caroline on my side, Cecilia for both of us.) Also Frances or Patricia.
Margaret feels like it should be the top contender. We’ve talked about Margaret Celine Keegan-no-K, a name that would honor three women on my side of the family that I love and respect very much, but we can’t agree on a nickname. I don’t know if I can get behind Maisie, my husband’s strong preference. It’s a very sweet name, and I like its Scottish/English roots given my heritage, but there’s a bit of a “dog name” association for me. It leans a little too cutesy for my taste, and I don’t know if I could use it for my firstborn daughter, especially if she truly went by that all of the time. Maybe? But I don’t know.
Maisie aside, we don’t want to use Meg, Meggie or Maggie for various reasons related to people we know, and I grew up with a dog named Daisy, so that’s out. I really like Margot and think it sounds great with our surname, but my husband isn’t a big fan and thinks it could be megapopular in the wake of Barbie. I could also be in favor of Mae but my husband vetoed that as well — he just doesn’t like it. Molly would almost definitely be our top choice if it weren’t my husband’s ex’s name; they dated many years and we don’t think it’s worth the eyebrow raising.
Beyond Margaret, I’ve also mulled over Susannah/Susie, another top contender for him, but I feel like it has a Country/Western/Southern vibe that doesn’t feel quite true to our northeast roots. I could see it for a second child, but for some reason it feels random for the first. Sigh. I wish there was a clear winner but I truly don’t know where we’ll land — our taste is close but not quite aligned, and my husband is pretty opinionated and set in his opinions. He doesn’t understand why I can’t get on board with the Maisie idea. And maybe I could? I want to love it — it would make things so much easier for us — but I just don’t. And in general, I have a tendency to be a people pleaser, and I’m worried I’m going to lose sight of what I like and want out of desperation for compromise and a solution.
I think we need to meet in the middle somehow, or move on from the “Margaret” mayhem altogether and consider different options from our lists or beyond, but I’m not sure what that looks like. I would appreciate any and all ideas or thoughts, from you and your readers!
Many thanks
In spite of my love for the name Margaret, I am going to advise putting it on the Wait list for now. It sounds as if you’re hoping to have more children, so there will likely be time to revisit it—but right now it feels as if it’s getting in your way: it seems as if it OUGHT to be perfect, when it’s not quite, and that’s causing some looping. Additionally, your husband is having some trouble understanding other points of view on the nickname; and it makes me nervous that Meg and Maggie and Daisy all have to be ruled out as nicknames, so how about we make things easier by thinking of Margaret the way we think of Susannah: as a good name to consider for the NEXT daughter.
Or, and I think this would be better by far: another option is to use Margaret, and agree that you can each use whatever nicknames you like best for her, without choosing one official nickname. Then your husband can call her Maisie to his heart’s content, and you can call her whatever you would like to call her, including Margot and Mae and Margaret, and when she’s old enough to write her name on her homework she can choose for herself. I particularly like the idea of you calling her Mae and your husband calling her Maisie, since those seem like they could just be shorter/longer versions of the same nickname.
And here I’d like to make sure all of us–but I am only actually wondering about your husband–realize that eventually the child WILL choose for herself. It’s perfectly reasonable for the parents to choose a preferred nickname and introduce it early to increase the odds of that being the choice—but it’s important to realize that, just as you never used the common shortening of your given name, and just as my coworker Liz overturned her parents’ decision to call her only-Beth-and-NEVER-Liz, a Birdie may chose Bea or Beatrice instead, a Maisie may choose Meg or Margaret instead, a Susie may choose Anna or Susannah instead, and so on. Once the child has been given the name, it’s up to them how to wear it.
I wonder if you two would like Josephine. Nicknames: Josie, Joey, Jo, Posey.
Or Cordelia. I like the nickname Delia, but Cory or Rory or Lia or Cordy would be options.
Georgia, with the nickname Georgie or Gigi.
Winifred, with nicknames Winnie and Freddie.
Matilda, with nicknames such as Mattie and Tilda and Tillie.
Meredith/Merrie.
Minerva/Minnie.
Rosemary, with nicknames Rosie and Romy, or she could go by Mary if she preferred.
Veronica, with nicknames Nica or Vinnie or Ronnie or Vera.
Anneliese, with nicknames Annie or Anna.
I see that you both like Jane, but the nickname issue stops him. I wonder if the two of you would also like the name June, and you could call her Junie, Junebug, Juniper, etc.
Another method is to use the first and middle initials: if, for example, you named her Jane Patricia Keegan-without-the-K, you could call her J.P. as a nickname. I went to college with a girl who went by K.C., and that seemed pretty cool and snappy.
Piper and Poppy are not typically used as nicknames for Patricia, and I think they might be a tough sell. That is, in theory they’re no further a leap than Maisie for Margaret or Jack for John, but in practice there is an enormous difference between “what the public has already become accustomed to” and “what the public has not.” I’ll note that Poppy could be a nickname for Penelope. I think of Piper as a standalone name, but the somewhat similar Pippa can be short for Philippa.
Name update:
Swistle! Hello again. Thank you for responding to my note back in March. I revisited your post and the comments a few times as we continued to deliberate.
Looking back now, it’s interesting to reflect on where we were in the naming process all those months ago and what changed — and didn’t change — leading up to the birth of our daughter. Notably, my husband moved away from the “long, traditional name that needs a nickname” thing. Meanwhile, the overlapping names on our lists stayed largely the same and would become our top contenders.
We landed at the hospital with Jane, Hazel, Frances, and Margaret. When she was born, I felt she was either a Jane or Margaret, but ultimately we kept coming back to the sweet simplicity and versatility of Jane. For the middle, we elected to honor my beloved Nana, Marie. It wasn’t a name combination we talked about until we were at the hospital, but once we said it, it just sounded like… her name. Jane Marie.
We are calling her Jane for now but open to embracing Janie if that seems to suit her better or becomes her preference. To your point, she’ll be able to introduce herself before we know it, and it isn’t our name, it’s hers. We hope she likes it as much as we do!
Thanks again
