C. writes:

We could use some help in the eleventh hour!
I am due any day–tomorrow–but think baby girl might hold out for another week or more. We are trying to decide whether to use my last name for her middle name (I didn’t change my name upon marriage. It is very similar to the word “martini”) or a more classic sounding middle name. Last name would be husband’s name: something very similar to Noyes (pronounced moist with no “t”).

Given the recent post I read on the Louise who didn’t like her name and is aiming for a mid-twenties change, I am worried about our daughter not having a second option in case she doesn’t dig her first name. However, it also could be really nice for her to be able to identify with me and my side of the family. I am pretty against the following: 1) going by a middle name (I do, and don’t want to inflict that upon her) 2) using four names (my husband does–including both a middle traditional type name and his mother’s maiden name. She didn’t change her name either) 3) using a hypen for our last names; I think it works great for some, but our names together aren’t great and creates a mouthful.

For whatever reason the debate about whether to include my name ends up feeling like: do we give her a more feminine sounding middle name fallback? or help her to be more in touch with her feminine roots? Perhaps this is the exploration of my “feminist” beliefs. I recognize that this is a bit absurd because my last name is my father’s. I grew up with my mom (a product of the 60s in the South wishing that she had not changed her name).

Of course in addition to all this, we are having some pre-birth naming jitters. Phoebe has been the first name forerunner for quite some time–we love that it is traditional without being crazy popular. Perhaps as the equivalent of marriage cold feet, we can’t help feeling like there is some name we are missing. We would love your insight regarding mother surname usage and or/any name suggestions that might help us to feel a little more a-ha and a little less blah. Here are some options we’ve had on our list based on the information above:

Phoebe Elizabeth (my aunt’s first name) Noyes
Phoebe Martini Noyes
Juliet Posey (grandmother’s maiden name) Noyes
Elizabeth Martini Noyes nn Libby
Juliet Martini Noyes
(Obviously Phoebe Posey Noyes is out given the “PP” problem you have oft explored)

If your surname were literally Martini, I would consider its alcoholic drink association a major factor—so I will hasten to remind the readers that the name is not actually Martini but instead a surname-sounding surname with a pleasant sound.

While I do think it’s nice to have a middle name to fall back on if the first name doesn’t work out, only a small percentage of people actually do choose to go by something other than their first names—and then not all of those people choose to go by their middle names. I think this falls into the category of There Is No Such Thing as Choosing a Name That Works for Every Possibility. I do think it’s wise to take those other possibilities into account, and I do think “having another name to fall back on” is a point in favor of a first-name-type name in the middle-name position—but I don’t think you have to weigh those too heavily, considering the relatively low likelihood of them being issues.

Another thing we can’t know ahead of time whether she is the kind of girl who would find it pleasing to have her mother’s surname as a middle name, or whether she is the kind of girl who would find it pleasing to have another standard girl name there, or whether she is the kind of girl who would first feel one way and then end up feeling the other way. Since we can’t know, we can try to guess based on what we think most women would feel, or based on what we ourselves would feel—-but again, this falls into a category of unknowability: you’ll have to choose what you prefer to give her, based only in part on your guesses about what she’d prefer to have.

And which WOULD you prefer? That is, for a moment let’s set aside the issue of what SHE would prefer, because we have no idea. Which would YOU prefer? When you picture writing her name thousands of times on thousands of pieces of paperwork, which name do you think you would feel happiest to be writing?

You haven’t mentioned if you’re planning other children, but that’s something I would want to take into account. Are you seeing this as a one-time thing, where you use your surname as a family middle name for the first child but then you won’t continue that for each subsequent child? Or does this set the pattern, so that deciding to use your surname as a middle name means that you will do the same for all children?

You mention that your surname is actually your father’s, and while I understand the gist of this argument and I think it’s good to keep it in mind, for myself I do think of “my father’s” surname as my own: I was born with it, and it belongs to me just as much as it ever belonged to him—and just as much as it would belong to me in a matriarchal system where it was “my mother’s” surname. Also, I think it’s different in your case because the surname in question is also CURRENTLY your surname. That is, it is your daughter’s mother’s surname RIGHT NOW, and will be as she is growing up. She’s not going to be thinking, “I have my grandfather’s surname as my middle name,” she will be thinking, “I have my mother’s surname as my middle name and then my father’s surname as my last name.” Furthermore, that arrangement will make sense to everyone who knows your family, and will even help to alleviate some of the minor hassles of a parent having a different surname from his or her child’s: schools and doctors and so forth will look on the paperwork and see a situation that makes sense to them. Which is not to say that we should set things up to make sense to the people who deal with our paperwork, but rather to say that it’s one point in favor of the idea.

I also like your idea of giving her as a middle name the first name of another woman in your family (or a surname such as Posey, which works as a first name). This ties her to your side of the family while giving her a middle name she could fall back on if she wanted to.

I’m assuming you’ve already ruled out options such as giving the girl children your surname and the boy children your husband’s surname or vice versa, or alternating back and forth between your surname and his, or in fact giving them all your surname—so I will mention that only in passing.

There are two other possibilities that occur to me:

1. You could give her your own first or middle name as her middle name. This ties her to you without using a surname you might think of as your father’s, while also giving her a standard feminine first name as her middle name, and while also releasing you from a feeling of obligation to do the same for all future children. Downside: she’d be unlikely to consider this a fall-back option if she didn’t want to use her first name.

2. You could give her your mother’s original surname as her middle name. This ties your daughter to your side of the family, and has appeal if it was your mother who reared you and if her use of your father’s surname was regretted. I suppose we could say that it was actually your mother’s FATHER’S surname, but in a patriarchal society that’s the potential spin we’re stuck with if we want to use family surnames.

I think it’s a good idea to keep in mind that she will be tied to your side of the family no matter what name you give her. Names are a nice way to symbolically communicate family connections, but they’re only symbols: the real connections happen separately. She will identify with you and your side of the family because they’re half of her extended family, whether or not she has a name from that side.

If you would like to know what I think I personally would choose in your shoes, I think I would give her my own surname as her middle name, and I would do the same for all subsequent children. I would already be unhappy to be the only one in my household family with a different surname, and so I would want my surname represented in my children’s names as well. (However, I would be sad to give up the fun of choosing a middle name, which is why in real life we went your husband’s parents’ route of giving them my original surname as a second middle name.)

Name update! C. writes:

Hi, Swistle!
I wanted to provide an update on my October post. Your timing was perfect. I started having contractions the day after I emailed you. My husband and I ended up sitting in the hospital just after the birth reading your great comments and those of the readers. What excellent points everyone made–they helped us in our final discussion. Although I still have moments when I wish that I had gone with four names, I overall feel good about the decision to go with Phoebe Elizabeth Noyes, no inclusion of my surname. I appreciate your comments about not knowing what kind of girl we will have and what she may or may not like about her name. We do hope to have other kids and I can feel okay about none of them going by my surname as we find other ways to honor my family (like with Elizabeth– my aunt’s name). I am grateful to you and all who responded, thank you! I am attaching a pic of baby Phoebe!

T. writes:

I’ve been reading your site forever and never thought I would be writing for advice, but here I am. I am 20 weeks pregnant with our first child, and we are not learning the sex. Our surname sounds like Campton but with an “o” instead of the “a”. We are actually very similar in terms of naming style–we each made a long list of favorite names and used the overlapping names as our short list. For a boy we have narrowed to August “Gus” or Felix, and the middle name will likely be my husband’s name (Miles) or his grandfather’s name (George). It’s the girl’s name with which we are struggling. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to name my little girl after my grandmother who helped raise me. Her name is Clara Colleen Co____, and she is called Coco by everyone in her life who doesn’t refer to her as “mom”. We even call her Coco instead of grandma, granny, etc. I’ve always thought our girl would be Clara and my husband was totally on board–we’ve been together since high school and he loves my grandma, and he also liked the name (despite the climbing popularity).

The problem came when I was discussing names one day with her. I didn’t tell her about my plan but we were talking about her name and she said she never really liked the name Clara because it was “weird” to her when she was young, and that she chose to use her middle name (that’s how her nickname came about). I don’t feel like it’s very honoring at this point to use the name my grandma doesn’t like, so on to problem number two: I actually like the name Colleen, but my family is from the rural south and everyone pronounces it with a long “o”–Cole-een. I’m not a fan of that pronunciation at all.

My husband and I have talked about different options for a girl including: 1. Find another name starting with C or Co since our surname starts with Co and call her “Coco”–he likes Colette and I like Corinne, but we don’t LOVE either., 2. Use our favorite girl name (Sylvie, but we also love Mabel) and use Colleen as an honor name in the middle spot. I’m not sold on this idea because of the pronunciation issue. I would want to introduce her with a short “o” sound in Colleen, but I know I would have to be quiet around my family and let them pronounce it the way they always have so as not to hurt feelings/seem pretentious. 3. Scrap the honor name altogether and use Sylvie or Mabel with another middle name that we like. 4. Use Sylvie or Mabel with Clara in the middle spot. I feel like I don’t have a great option in terms of the honor name, but it’s hard to think of letting that go since I’ve wanted to honor her for so long (my husband and I agreed on using the honor middle from his side if the baby is a boy, or on the next child if this one is a girl). HELP!

I suggest an additional option: 5. Have another talk with your grandmother. It doesn’t sound to me as if she’s necessarily saying she doesn’t like her name—it could just be she didn’t like it when she was younger and was telling you that story. My friend’s mother always hated her unstylish, weird name—which is Isabel. She may still hate it now, but my guess is that she feels better about it now that public opinion has done a complete flip. Your grandmother, too, may be telling a story about her name that no longer applies: it’s the story of how she came to go by her middle name, and not necessarily the story of how she still feels now, or how she would feel about the name on a darling little namesake. (My guess is that there is nothing better than a beloved baby for changing someone’s mind about a name.)

I’d also suggest reading the post Baby Boy Harris. In that post, the situation was far more severe: the woman’s father volunteered during her pregnancy that he’d “never forgive her” if they used his name for their baby—which was exactly what they were secretly planning to do. She was very upset, since she loved his name AND loved him, which is a very nice combination for an honor name. She talked with him again, and he was completely sheepish about the whole thing and was thrilled that they wanted to use his name. I think it’s common for people to say silly things, especially if it’s in the back of their minds that they kind of WOULD love a little namesake but they don’t want to presume, and they want to communicate that they’d understand if you didn’t like their names enough to use them.

My guess (and this is the kind of guess I’d be willing to put money on) is that your grandmother would be completely thrilled if you used her name, and that she was just thinking about baby names and talking idly about them. My guess is that even if she still does think of her name as being kind of weird, that if you told her you’d always wanted to name your daughter after her she would be very happy about that. It doesn’t sound to me as if her feelings are anywhere near as strong as the father who deliberately said not to use his name—and look how nicely that turned out.

But if you talk to her and against all my expectations she sincerely doesn’t want you to use her name, then I suggest using Coco as the middle name, since it’s the name your grandmother probably most identifies with. Sylvie Coco lets you use your top-choice girl name plus honor your grandmother with the middle name. Sylvia Coco has a somewhat better flow to my ear (and she could still go by the nickname Sylvie), but I probably wouldn’t let that decide things if I significantly preferred Sylvie, especially if she’ll mostly be known as Sylvie Campton.

Name update! T. writes:

Hi! Just wanted to send an update and thank you to you and your readers for your input on naming our baby. Our baby GIRL was born on February 3rd…3 weeks early! We decided to go with our overall favorite name, and put the honor name in the middle, and after much back and forth stuck with Clara. My grandma was pleased as punch with her new little namesake. Here is a picture of our sweet Sylvie Clara:

Louise writes:

I’m not sure if you’ll answer my question as mine isn’t a baby name one, but as all the babies that people name eventually grow up and have to use the chosen name on a daily basis I thought my predicament might be an interesting one.

My parents named me Emily Louise, but always intended to use Louise as they preferred that order with my surname (which sounds like Barvee but with an H). It seems like every second female I meet in their 20s has the middle name Louise (I’m 24), but never as the chosen name. I do not like the name Louise- to me it sounds whiney, with the drawn-out ‘eeze’ sound at the end, and as a child I was teased as Lou sounds like loo (toilet in the UK, where I grew up), though I have gotten over that now and quite like Lou. However, I much prefer Emily, but after 24 years of using Louise do you think it is a good idea to change? The double ‘y’ sound of Emily with with my surname doesn’t sounds so great, though obviously most of the time I’d just be using Emily. I currently work in France, where both names are known and used (though Louise is a much rarer older person’s name, like Joan or Felicity). How would I convince my friends and in particular, my family, to use it? Is it a silly idea to try and change it this late in life, or would I always be known as ‘Emily-who-used-to-be-Louise’?. So should I change it, or learn to like my name? (and if the latter, maybe your commentators can convince me to like it!).

Even if you don’t use my email, let this be a warning to parents to use the child’s legal first name- it’s so frustrating to correct doctors, landlords etc., and explain every time someone asks me what my middle name is!

I think if you would prefer to be called Emily, it will work out just fine to make the switch. There will be a bit of a wearying hurdle to get over (the announcement, the explanations, the corrections, the reminders), plus a few lingering issues (relatives and friends who can’t/won’t change), but that it will work out in the long run. It certainly helps on all levels that Emily is in fact your first name. And I think Emily works fine with your surname.

People who already know and love you (family and good friends) will likely take the longest to adjust, and some of them might never change over. It’ll be a little like the grown men named James who can’t get their relatives and old friends to stop calling them Jimmy. This would be a good thing to imagine in advance and see if you can predict how annoyed you’d be by it: would it drive you crazy, or are you okay with having a subset of people who always call you Louise or Louise-I-mean-Emily-sorry-you’re-just-always-Louise-to-me? I wonder if it would help to go by Emily Louise for awhile. (In fact, I love the sound of that; it might be another possibility to consider for permanent usage.)

I don’t think it’s silly to change it at this stage of life, and in fact, age 24 seems just about perfect: you’re old enough to be fairly confident this is what you want to do, but young enough that you aren’t yet settled in for the long haul. There will still be lots of people you’ll meet who, if you switch now, will have always known you as Emily. Many people change names in similar ways at right around the same age you are now, choosing to go by Liz instead of Beth, or by Elizabeth instead of Beth, or by John instead of whatever nickname was used to tell him apart from his father John and grandfather John. And because Emily is your legal first name already, the explanation is relatively easy.

I do love the name Louise, and would be happy to spend some time telling you how much I love it (I do, I love it, I think it’s completely darling and so fun to say)—but if you don’t love it at 24, I’d say you’ve put in a good effort and can love it as your middle name instead. And I love the name Emily, too: it was high on my list for my daughter’s name.

I’m hoping commenters will have anecdotes about changing their own names in this way (from a middle name to a first name, or from one nickname to a full name or to another nickname) and how it went.

Name update! Louise writes:

Thank you so much for including my question! I was encouraged my the postive response from the commentators, so I changed my name on facebook for a bit and told my family and friends I was thinking of using Emily. Everyone (including my parents), was absolutely fine with it, which really surprised me! However, in the end I realised that though I don’t love my name I feel no connection whatsoever with Emily, and I would miss all the (nice) nicknames that I have that come from Louise. After 24 years of identifying with one name it would feel like becoming a different person to suddenly switch- Emily just doesn’t feel like ‘me’. Forms and the like will continue to be frustrating, but I’ve managed so far. So thank you to you and the lovely commentators who encouraged me to switch, but I am going to stick with Louise, and am determined to learn to like it!

Michelle writes:

I actually wrote to you several months back about girls names, but felt solid on our boy name.
Well, it’s a boy–due any day now and I JUST REALIZED that Charles Preston sounds like Charlton Heston. How did I not hear that before?
Is it the first thing you think of when you hear it?
Is it a deal breaker/bad/odd?
Is not that big a deal and I’m just having a last minute freak-out/naming cold feet?

We are set on Charles and plan to call him Charlie. It’s my father’s name and my wife’s grandfather’s name and we love it.
Preston is the name of a dear friend, but it’s not necessarily ‘after’ him, it was more the combination of an old classic name/something newer that we liked and that we love our friend, so that was an added bonus.

His second middle name will be Hughes (my maiden name–which is partly why we want another middle name, b/c since Charles is my dad’s name, without another middle it is just his full name). Last name sounds like LOWSHAY, but starts with an F.

Options as I see them now:
1. Use it. Own it, don’t care.
2. Just use Hughes and don’t have 2 middles and decide who cares that it’s my dad’s name b/c I’m naming my kid after him so I must like the guy.
3. Consider other family names: Wellesly, David, Arthur, Edward, George, Malcolm, Raymond, Robinson, Evans (I really like this but unfortunately Charles Evans Hughes was some famous politician…that feels weird to have same 3 names)
4. Choose something else just because we like it or it sounds good: Reid, Thomas, Leo, William, Samuel, Matthew, Alexander, Nathaniel, Damon, Devin, Owen(but my good friend’s kid’s name is Owen)….
5. Something else?
Clearly, you can see I’m tripping out about this–please help!

I think it’s fine. I didn’t think of a Charlton Heston issue when I read your original letter. When you pointed it out, I thought, “Yeah, I guess it does kind of sound like that” in a doubtful tone of voice. And I gave it a day to think it over, and it still hasn’t ruined the name for me: I still like it, I still think it’s a great choice.

It seems distinct in several ways: the rhythm/syllables especially, but also the different endings of Charles and Charlton, and the way CharlTON HesTON repeated a major sound but Charles Preston doesn’t. So that if someone said to me, “Oh, that sounds like Charlton Heston!,” I think I’d say, “Oh, uh huh, a little!” rather than feeling dismayed. And my guess is it isn’t the sort of thing that’s going to come up very often, unless you’re planning to routinely call him “Charles Preston”—but your first letter says you plan to call him Charlie, so almost everyone will think of him as Charlie Lowshay and won’t even know his middle names. I think it’s more likely to be the sort of thing that makes people think “Charles and Preston go particularly well together but I can’t put a finger on why!”

So I would vote for number one (“own it”), except that I don’t even think there’s anything to own here. It’s not as if your surname is Preston and you’re wondering about the name Charles, or as if you’re naming him Charlton Preston and calling him by both names; instead, maybe it will sound a little bit similar to an actor’s name to some people.

You mentioned in your first letter that the surname is your wife’s, and Hughes is yours. So if I were you, I think Hughes would feel surnamey enough in role that I would also want a middle name. If you decide Preston is ruined for you, then I’d look next at other family/friend names, and after that at just-sound-good names: Everett, maybe, or I think it would be fine to use Owen as the middle name even if it’s a friend’s child’s name.

But my own first choice is to stay the course: Charles Preston doesn’t make me think of Charlton Heston—and even when it’s pointed out to me, it doesn’t bother me. Let’s have a poll to see what everyone else thinks:

[yop_poll id=”29″]

Name update! Michelle writes:

So our little Charlie was born just a couple days after the post about naming him Charles Preston.
In the end, we didn’t end up going with that, and it wasn’t because of the way it sounded (your readers definitely assured me there was no problem with that).  I had been having doubts for months and in the last minute scramble, my wife suggested something (her first real name suggestion the entire pregnancy) that resonated.  It was a name you also suggested in your post: Everett.
I liked that it was close to Evan/Evans (family name), it was an E name (my wife and her sister are both E names) and my wife had suggested it.  The morning she went into labor we went for a walk and talked about it and knew it was right.  It turned out my doubts about Preston were more than cold feet.  It just wasn’t his name and I knew it. His name was Charles Everett.  We’re head over heels for this guy.
Thanks for the help!

Eliza writes:

We are having the toughest time figuring out a name for our second daughter. Our first daughter was easy. We were deciding between Norah and Jayne (my two favorite names) and when she got here there was no doubt in my mind that her name should be Norah. We both agreed on this… with ease… and even agreed to use Jayne (a big family name as well as my middle name) as her middle name. So there inlies our first problem, I used both of my favorite girl names on my first daughter… oops. Our last name is Bradshaw and we live in the USA. So now we have another girl on the way, in 3 weeks in fact, and the only name we WERE both in love with was Lucy, until I realized how popluar it was. I work as a nurse on a post-partum unit and there has been one too many Lucy’s born in the last few months for me to feel comfortable naming my second girl that name. Which is too bad b/c my husband and I both love it so much (but so does everyone else). Is the popularity of name something we should really be concerned about? Or does the love of a name trump popularity? We really love the nick name Lu or Lulu but my husband is opposed to just naming her Lulu even though I think its adorable, he says it sounds silly. So here is a list of some of the other names we are considering:

Lucy – was the top contender
Maggie (not Margaret) – top contender – is Maggie to juvenile sounding when she grows up? Could Margo be the name with Maggie being the official nickname?
Josie (not Josephine)
Phoebe – my husband is concerned about the spelling and how random it is.
Eve (would go by Evey)

Middle name is also a concern. Because our first daughter has a family name/my middle name as her middle name do we need to do a family name for daughter number 2? I don’t want her to feel her name is any less meaninful. The problem is I don’t love any of the family names with the first names we like. They don’t flow like Norah Jayne does to me. Ideas are Lou (not a family name), Clair (not a family name), Rebecca (I have a cousin with the name so its a stretch), Laree (family name), Lucille (family name), Gwen (family name), Lee (family name, although with all our name options it sounds like too many “ee” sounds), Catherine (fam name).

I guess I’m having some mommy guilt, like I used my two favorite names and not to mention a middle name with a lot of meaning on my first daughter and I’m not having the same luck or feelings with Girl number two’s names. Any insight or encouragement would be greatly appreciated. And just for additional feedback, do the names we’ve picked sound good with Norah? Any help would be greatly appreciated as we are getting so close to the due date. Thank you!

Unless we deliberately do otherwise for some reason (as when there is a naming tradition or some other consideration), ALL of us use our favorite name on the first child and a less-favored name on each subsequent child. The only way to avoid that is to give all your children the same name, which was perhaps George Foreman’s motivation when he gave all five of his sons the name George.

And there’s always a gamble with names when you have more than one favorite: if you DON’T use them up on the first child, maybe you’ll lose your chance to use them at all. It’s impossible to know what’s best, though in your case I’d say it was pretty clear you should go for it and get that family name in there. If you’d had only one daughter, you would have kicked yourself for using a name you liked less just to save a name for later.

And finally, once the names belong to your child, you’re bound to love them even more than when you chose them. Comparing other names to the way you feel about the name Norah Jayne now, when the name Norah Jayne has been worn for some time by one of your favorite people in the world, is not fair to all the other names in the world.

So! All of this means, I think, that there is no need for guilt (you have not done anything wrong), and that the goal is not to find a name you like as much as you liked/like the name Norah Jayne. The goal is instead to find the name you like best of all the names that remain. And we are working on a tight deadline, so let’s get on with it.

You both love the name Lucy. Once you’d decided on it, you were attuned to it: every Lucy stood out to you as if in neon lights. But the name itself is not particularly popular: it was #66 in 2012, according to the Social Security Administration—though of course it’s hard to figure out how many girls named Lucia, Lucille, Luciana are also going by Lucy. Nationally, the name Lucy was given to less than one-fifth of one percent of new baby girls. The name Nora/Norah is similar: Nora was #107 last year and Norah was #210, and together those two spellings were given to between one-fifth and one-fourth of one percent of new baby girls; but we don’t know how many girls named Eleanor are also going by Nora(h).

Only you will be able to decide whether your love of a name trumps its popularity. It’s a matter of weighing personal importance: “Would we rather choose this other name that we love less, in exchange for there being fewer girls with this name?” But it doesn’t seem to me that the popularity of the name Lucy is any more of an issue than the popularity of the name Norah. And speaking of gambles, we don’t know what names will do in the future: it would be very frustrating to choose a less-liked name for its lower popularity, and then have it later become more popular than the name Lucy.

You don’t need to do a family name for every child if you don’t want to, or if you run out of names you want to use. Some families have fewer honor names available, and it’s very typical to use those names on a first-come-first-serve basis so that earlier children are more likely to have them than later children. It doesn’t seem like it makes a name more meaningful to force a connection to someone you didn’t want to honor and whose name you don’t particularly like. The real meaning of the name can be that you loved it and wanted to give it to her.

Because your first daughter has your middle name, one option would be to give your second daughter your first name (or a variation of your first name) as her middle name.

It could also be fun to give all your daughters the middle name Jayne: some families do matching middle names like this, and I think it’s a very appealing idea. Of course, then they could complain that they didn’t get their own names. Really, it’s impossible to please these imaginary future children!

Since Lucille is a family name, you could use it as the first name with the nickname Lucy and get two birds with one stone: it gives her a family name, and the family connection can make popularity matter less. Or depending on how your family views such things, you could use Lucy and say it’s in honor of Lucille.

The name Maggie does seem like a nickname to me, but 1,296 sets of parents disagreed with me in 2012 alone. And since Nora(h) and Lucy could also both be called nickname names (though I see them as stand-alone names at this point), those names should all be compatible. For myself, I would want a more formal version—but we don’t know how your daughter will feel about it. I don’t think of Maggie as a natural nickname for Margo. It’s similar to using Ally as a nickname for Adelaide: the letters allow for it, but it’s not traditional the way Maggie for Margaret is. I also find I don’t like the way “Norah and Margo” sounds when I say it aloud, though I do like the sound of “Norah and Maggie.”

Proofreading this, the name Sadie sprang to my mind. That would be pretty: Sadie Bradshaw; Norah and Sadie.

Josie, too, seems nickname-y to me and I would want a longer form. And almost exactly the same number of parents officially disagree with me on that as disagree with me on Maggie: 1,265 new baby girls were named Josie in 2012. “Nicknaminess” of names can be quite subjective (see also: Sadie).

I would not be particularly concerned about the spelling of Phoebe. The names Chloe and Sophie and Penelope have paved the way for it, I think.

Eve is one of my favorites from your list. I think Eve Bradshaw is a gorgeous name. The name Eva was #86 in 2012, but Eve is much less common at #558.

So if I were narrowing this list, this would be my new version:

Lucy (maybe short for Lucille)
Phoebe
Eve

And here’s how I might put them together with middles (ever since someone pointed out that names that end in an -ee sound make the word “eclair” when paired with the middle name Clare/Claire/Clair, I’ve felt wary of that combination, which is too bad because Clair is very nicely coordinated with Jayne):

Lucy Eliza Bradshaw
Lucy Elizabeth Bradshaw
Lucy Jayne Bradshaw
Lucy Lee Bradshaw
Phoebe Elizabeth Bradshaw
Phoebe Jayne Bradshaw
Phoebe Lucille Bradshaw
Eve Catherine Bradshaw
Eve Elizabeth Bradshaw
Eve Lucille Bradshaw

Because you like Lucy and Lulu and Lou, I wonder if you might like other lu-sound names such as Eloise, Louisa, and Louise. Perhaps those would be a little tongue-tangling with your own name, or perhaps not.

My first choice for you is Lucy. I’m very influenced by this part from your letter: “my husband and I both love it so much.” I like Lucy Eliza. Norah Jayne and Lucy Eliza.

Name update! Eliza writes:

I don’t think I knew naming a baby could be so much fun.  Writing into your blog was so fantastic, I’m so glad I decided to do it last minute, it gave me the confidence I needed this time around.  I loved everything you took the time to analyze and write up for us and the comments and opinions people gave me, it stimulated a whole bunch of conversation with my family and friends.  I feel like it took a village to name our baby but we finally decided on a name!  Our name choosing was expedited when I went into labor a week and a half early but heck, something had to kick me into decision making mode.  The name we chose was Lucy Gwen Bradshaw.  It actually is a little bit of a twist on Tyler’s mother’s name Gwen Lucille.  It was fun to tell her she has an “almost reverse namesake”.  Now both girls carry a special family name within their name.  I also get to use the nickname Lulu which I am super excited about. My husband is very happy with the end result, he’s been rooting for Lucy the whole time, even when I panicked about how many times I had heard it in the last month.  Thank you for helping us name our baby girl and for the encouragement you and your readers gave us to just go with our gut and name her Lucy. We love the name and it seems to suit her perfectly so far.