A. writes:

I’m having such a hard time deciding between 2 middle names for our new little one.

We already have a daughter: Bethany Grace and our newest little lady will be named Matilda.

We have narrowed the middle names down to 2: Eve and Pearl

I’m just so stuck. I have always loved Eve and my great grandmother’s name was Eva so I just always thought I would use it if we ever had another girl.

However, more recently, I discovered Pearl. Pearl also has family significance as my grandmother’s name is Peggy which means Pearl and hubby’s grandmother’s name Rita also means Pearl.

Hubby wants Pearl. I like Pearl but I was stuck on Eve for such a long time that I just can’t decide. Initially, I was still leaning towards Eve as that has been a favourite for so long but the more I look at Pearl the more it grows on me and since hubby has made a firm decision and I’m still stuck in limbo, I find myself considering Pearl more and more.

I guess I’d generally like to know what you and your readers like best and which combination goes best with our other daughter’s name. I always think Bethany Grace is such a pretty name, I want Matilda’s name to be just as pretty. I often use both our daughter’s names when speaking to her (ie Bethie Grace) and I have tried the same for Matilda using both options: Tilly Eve and Tilly Pearl… agrhh! I just don’t know which way to go!

Tilly is due early February! I’m getting anxious about not having decided before the big day!

Thanks so much for your help!

The upside of this type of dilemma is that you love BOTH options, and so whichever one you choose, you will love it. The downside is that no matter which one you choose, you’ll be letting go of an option you love. We had a similar dilemma with my youngest’s middle name: three great choices, all of which we loved, all of which had some significance. I remember lying awake agonizing over it. If it’s any comfort, at this point I look back at and I STILL think that ANY of the three names would have been great—and also, in retrospect the decision seems less crucial.

Might you have more children? I’d find it soothing to think that there still could be a chance to use the other name later on.

If you can’t decide which of the two options is prettier, I think that means you think they’re equally pretty, and so that can be taken out of both sides of the equation. If you can’t decide if you prefer Tilly Eve or Tilly Pearl, I think that means you think they work equally well, and so that too can be taken out of both sides of the equation. Were you close to your great-grandmother Eva? Are your grandmothers’ names Margaret/Marguerite, or are Peggy/Rita their given names? If you barely knew your great-grandmother and the given names are Rita and Peggy, the honor connections seem equal as well.

All that remains is preference: you’d prefer Eve, and your husband would prefer Pearl. If neither one of you wants to give up their choice, it may be necessary to abandon both names and look for something new you can agree on. Since you’d like the sisters’ names to coordinate, I might look for middle names similar to Grace:

Matilda Jane; Bethie Grace and Tilly Jane
Matilda Jo; Bethie Grace and Tilly Jo
Matilda Joy; Bethie Grace and Tilly Joy
Matilda June; Bethie Grace and Tilly June
Matilda Rose; Bethie Grace and Tilly Rose

I think my own preference between Matilda Pearl and Matilda Eve would be Matilda Eve. The name Matilda is a very recent revival, and so is Pearl; the Ev- sound is fully in style, and so I like the way Eve would give her a more current name to coordinate with Bethany Grace. Let’s have a poll to see what everyone else thinks:

[yop_poll id=”45″]

Name update! A. writes:

Thank you for posting my baby name dilemma back in January when we were deciding on a middle name for Matilda (Eve or Pearl).

Well, our princess is here now and we decided on Matilda Pearl!

I had pretty much swayed more towards Pearl by the time my question was posted but it was so lovely to have it reaffirmed by so many of your readers. Now that she’s here we have had lots of compliments on her name and as you said, because I loved both options, I would love whatever I chose and I do!

Thank you again for your help.

Christine writes:

Please help! My husband and I are expecting our second daughter in March and having a tough time deciding on a name!

My husbands name is Stephen Paul (he is a junior) and I am Christine Agafia (middle name from Russian GG). Our last name is Carsons with a P.

My daughters name is Sydney Paige, her initials SPP are the same as my husbands, which he thinks is really cool. Sydney was named the moment we found out she was a girl! I had loved the name for a long time after working with someone who I respected and admired! Also love her name for the nicknames, SPP, Syd, Syd vicous (my husbands music reference).

Which brings us to baby girl # 2. We cannot decide on anything! She will be the final addition to our family so we are good with doing another S name or not.
Here is our very short list:

Scarlett Posey -Posey is family name from my husbands side and also spells SPP
Charlotte James – James from my father however have concerns that Charlotte is too popular
Shay
Katherine “Kate” – have loved this name for a long time however had a friend name her daughter this recently, I feel its out but husband disagrees
Caroline – also loved name however cousin just named her daughter this a few weeks ago and this name is definitely out!

So our list is basically Scarlett, Charlotte and Shay. I’m leaning towards Scarlett but fear that the name is too dramatic and that Charlotte is too popular. We are also looking for a good nickname name, which is another reason I struggle with Scarlett.

Thank you very much for time and consideration in help with naming our daughter!

I would be inclined to give your second daughter the same initials as yours, especially since: (1) your first daughter has her father’s initials; (2) your first daughter uses her initials as one of her nicknames; (3) both girls have their father’s surname; (4) there’s a C-name already high on your list. Charlotte Avril, Charlotte Amelia, Charlotte Anne, etc. I might lean toward a less frilly middle name, to better coordinate with the name Sydney Page: Charlotte Avery, Charlotte Alex, Charlotte Aubrey, etc.

The name Charlotte is popular, yes, but it’s not out of hand: it was given to .39% of U.S. baby girls in 2012, which is fewer than 1 girl out of 250. Statistically, that means approximately one girl named Charlotte for every twenty classrooms (assuming twenty-five kids in a class, approximately half girls)—though of course names can vary considerably from one region to another, so that one school will not have a single Charlotte in the whole building and another school will have twenty times the national average and a Charlotte in each classroom. The name Charlotte also has great nickname flexibility if she wants/needs it: Charlie, Lottie, Cap or Cappy from her initials. And I like that Sydney and Charlotte could both be considered place names.

I also think Sydney and Scarlett are well-coordinated. Looking at your nickname list for Sydney, I suspect you would find that nicknames came naturally for a Scarlett as well. Lettie would be my favorite nickname for Scarlett: I like the contrast between the extreme sass of Scarlett and the pioneer sweetness of Lettie. Or a Scarlett could certainly be nicknamed Red or Rosie, or O’Hara. I might also look for a middle name that would increase your nickname options. For example, Scarlett Louise would give you Lettie Lou. Or any middle name other than P would give you the option to call her by her initials. Or if you named her Scarlett Posey, you could add Posey and Posey-pie to the list of nicknames. And so on.

Sydney and Shay seem well-coordinated as well, though they look very similar to me when I see them typed next to each other like that. And you’re looking for a good nickname name, and the name Shay doesn’t meet that preference—though there are always nicknames like Shay-shay, Shayla, Shaylina, Shay-bay, and so on. The middle-name strategy would work here, too: For example, Shay Katherine could be called Shay Kate or Shay Kay or S.K. or SKP or Skip (from the initials).

Name update! Christine writes:

Thank you so much for all of the excellent suggestions! My husband and I loved and appreciated all of the input and considered all of the options….

Charlotte .James Carsons (with a P) was born on March 24, 2014

A. writes:

I need your help! I know you recently addressed “rhyming names” in the Caroline Divine letter, but what about names that have a repeating series of sounds or letters? Not strictly a last-part-of-the-name-kind-of-rhymes stretch, but an all-out repeat between first and last name?

(It made me sad to see something as lovely as Caroline Divine come up as a question because I knew it meant you probably wouldn’t be able to answer my letter, and unfortunately that response doesn’t help with my own dilemma.)

Our last name sounds like Bestest, without the B, and we’re expecting a baby boy around the end of May.

The name my husband and I both love is West.

My husband thinks that West Bestest is just fine, that the rhyme and repeated letters shouldn’t be an issue. Aside from the fact that it sounds like it could be a place in Texas (not where we live), I’m just not convinced. I fear the double -est is just too much. I love the name West, but I don’t know that I can bring myself to pair it with our surname. I also don’t know if I can resist it either, because I love the name so much.

I grew up with a sort-of rhyming name and it didn’t bother me at all, but then, it wasn’t the same series of letters repeated in the same order from my first name to my last. It was a near-rhyme that hardly called any attention to itself, not the showstopper that it seems to me that West Bestest would be.

My husband thinks that because our surname has an extra syllable over West, it’s similar to something like Jack Acker, which doesn’t bother me much at all and sounds just fine. But it just doesn’t seem the same to me.

My husband also thinks that since people usually mispronounce our last name as Besties instead of Bestest, it will lessen any impact of the repeated sounds. He thinks it will be most commonly pronounced as “West Besties” instead of “West Bestest,” even though it’s incorrect.

We kind of like Weston with the nickname West, but far, far less than we love West on its own. Our feeling for Weston is lukewarm, at best. And it’s popularity is a deterrent; we prefer something outside of the top 1000 (though we would be okay with something around the 500s or lower) but Weston is firmly in the top 200 and continuing to gain in popularity.

Our style preference is for something short and masculine that isn’t prone to obvious nicknames or has a common nickname we can accept. We think of our style as “cowboy names.”

Because we love West so much, we haven’t had much luck coming up with other choices:
* Huck – like it, but don’t know if we can deal with the “bad word” rhyme
* Rock, nn Rocky – just okay
* Lucky – too much like a dog’s name

I know most people don’t like rhyming names and a poll would certainly tell me not to use it. But what I really need is a voice of reason. Is West Bestest just too out there? Can you help?

Adding a B- and a -t helps to effectively disguise the surname for privacy purposes, but it also adds strong consonant sounds that make it more difficult to assess the situation. When I was saying this over and over to myself, West Bestest, West Bestest, West Bestest, I was thinking, “Well, I would not do it. But it will not be the end of the world if they use it. Think of all the kids who are named John Johnson or whatever, and that’s completely on purpose.” But then I took the B- and -t off, and I got Wes/West Testes, which is a word I’d prefer not to create if your name is frequently mispronounced to rhyme with besties. If I pronounce the surname correctly, I get Wes Tess Tess.

It isn’t a doubled sound, it’s a tripled sound. If the name were West Jamieston, West Preston, even West Lester, we would not have the situation we have here, which is ES ES-ES. The equivalent is not Jack Acker, but Jax Acksack, or Herb Erber, or Grant Antan, or Mark Arkar. There are two echoes, not one—and the surname is made entirely of echoing sounds, with no other sounds to break up the repeat.

As with the Caroline Divine post, I think the fact that most people would assume the names wouldn’t rhyme will increase the pronunciation problems. People will say to themselves, “Well, it just can’t be Wes Tess Tess. I’ll try West Test Tees to be safe.”

Because you say you already know a poll would be against it, I’m not sure what you’re asking. Are you asking if you can go ahead and do it anyway, knowing most people will think it’s a tongue-tangling showstopper? Yes, you can go ahead and do it anyway. I’m advising against it, and you’re already guessing a poll would be against it (my guess is the same), but you two are the ones who get to decide what’s best for your child’s name.

But if I were you, I would add this name to the list of names every parent has: names we love that we can’t use because of our surname, or because the other parent hates the name, or because it’s also the name of someone famously awful, or because it’s also a curse word in the country half our family comes from, or because it’s the name of someone at the office the other parent has always suspected us of having a crush on, or because it’s the name of our sister’s father-in-law, husband, and son.

From here I’d advise you not to look for a name you like as much as West, since such a name might not exist; instead, look for the name you like best of all the remaining names.

Name update! A. writes:

Boy, were my pregnancy hormones out of control when I wrote you back in January!  Rereading my letter now, I wonder what in the world I was thinking!   Not only did I have the answer my own question before I ever pressed send, but I had also convinced myself that we were having a boy.  I loved the lists of “cowboy names” that everyone came up with, but when we found out we were actually having a girl, we had to rethink everything.  Late last week, we welcomed a sweet little girl, whom we named Indie V!olet.

Thara writes:

I am due in April with our second child. We have decided not to find out the gender so it will be a surprise at the birth. This means we have to have names prepared for both a girl and a boy. My husband and I both have unusual names -Dax & Thara (like Sarah with a “Th”) our sons name is Simeon Dax. Surname is German, Reinitz (like “rye” & “knits”)

Here is our problem…we can’t decide on a girls name! The ones we like right now are Jocelyn Lee (after our mothers) but we can’t agree on the spelling. He wants Josalin and I like Jocelyn so we are at an impasse. We also like Felicity Ann and are considering Eleanor. We would really like to use my name since it is a 3rd generation family name but can’t find a suitable middle name that sounds good and that we like enough for her to go by (two Thara’s in one house would be confusing!)

We love the fact that our names are not very common and want to stay away from popular/cutesy names but don’t want something totally off the wall either. What the name means is also a big factor especially if it doesn’t have a significant namesake/meaning for us personally. We also don’t want anything that is widely considered unisex ie Jordan, Madison etc.

If the baby is a boy his name will most likely be George Truman (family names we love!) & go by his middle name but we also like the name Silas so we are considering that one too.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!
Thanks!

When I see the spelling Josalin, my brain links it to Rosa and Rosalind and I want to pronounce it with a long-O and a Z-sound: JOE-zah-lin instead of JOSS-sah-lin. With time and practice I would learn the pronunciation, but I would personally avoid an unnecessarily difficult spelling unless there’s a particular reason to use it (if, for example, that’s the way the honoree’s name is spelled, although even then I might opt to change at this point to a standard spelling)—especially since overall you seem to like traditional spellings.

I like Thara Felicity: the family name, and then a name from your list (with a great meaning) that you like well enough for her to go by. If I were the village namer and you came to me to have your baby assigned a name, that’s probably the one I’d choose. Or would you want to use Thara as the middle name, to avoid confusion? Felicity Thara Reinitz is nice, or Jocelyn Thara Reinitz.

George Truman is great, or I like Truman George if you’re planning to call him Truman either way. Simeon and Silas are quite compatible in style, but both “Silas Reinitz” and “Simeon and Silas” seem very heavy on the S-sound to me.

Name update! Thara writes:

I wrote to you to ask advice about our baby’s name. At the time we didn’t know it was a girl but here she is…Felicity Ann! We love her and her name :)