Author Archives: Swistle

Our Favorite Baby Names Starting with I

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Here is the game we are playing:

We are going to pretend that we are naming a baby and that the name MUST start with a certain letter, and so we will need one name starting with that letter for a boy and one name starting with that letter for a girl, or else one name that would work for either, EVEN IF we don’t like any of the names that start with that letter enough to Actually In Real Life choose them. It is just a game where we place artificial restrictions on reality in order to create the kind of tension that makes games fun—like when you have to choose what foods you’d eat if you could only eat three foods for the rest of your life: the fun is in thinking it over AS IF it were a real forced decision, while KNOWING it is not. There is a baby! It MUST be given a name with a particular letter! That is the game.

After that basic concept, we can decide our own sub-rules, based on what makes the game fun and not stressful. Some examples:

• I’m not planning to play that the name has to fit with the names of my other children or with the surname, though this would be an option for anyone who would LIKE to play it that way; I think I will have more fun if I pretend it is a stand-alone baby and that the surname is not an issue, though I may change my mind as we go. (And if I narrow it down to a few options and can’t decide, I might use siblings/surname as a tie-breaker.)

• It is also fine to narrow it down to a few finalists without getting to The One Name.

• The boy name and girl name don’t have to work TOGETHER: we are only naming ONE baby, so you’d only use one or the other. But you MAY play that the names have to work together, if that’s more fun.

• It is fine to wave aside issues such as a friend who already used that name, a famous person with the name, etc., if that makes it more fun and less stressful to choose. This is just pretend, so you can pretend that those things aren’t issues if you want to. (Or you can let the issues stand as they are in real life, if THAT is more fun.)

• We can also all make our own decisions about whether the names have to be ones we think we’d ACTUALLY USE in that hypothetical scenario, or just our FAVORITE names starting with that letter, regardless of whether we think the names are practical; I am not sure which way I will play it, and I likely won’t be consistent.

• If you already have a child with a name starting with the letter we’re working on, you get to pick again from all the names that remain; you don’t have to choose your child’s name as your favorite just because it WAS your favorite: this is a FRESH baby, and you wouldn’t give it the same name as your existing child. (If you would normally prefer not to repeat an initial within a sibling group, you can just pretend that’s NOT a preference for the sake of the game.)

• You can do as much or as little explanation as you like in your comment: you can just list the names you chose, or you can explain your process/preferences/reasoning/runners-up, or whatever is most fun.

 

Today’s letter is I. For a girl, I already have Ivy and Imogen on my list. I also like Isabel/Isobel and Iris. I would choose Ivy, ignoring my concerns about Poison Ivy playground taunting.

For a boy, I already know: Ian, which I couldn’t choose in real life but am delighted to choose for the game. (I also like Ike, Isaac, Ivan, Ira.)

 

Now you! If you want to! Only if it’s fun and not stressful! Feel free to adjust the game-play to be fun and not stressful!

Our Favorite Baby Names Starting with J

76 Replies

Here is the game we are playing:

We are going to pretend that we are naming a baby and that the name MUST start with a certain letter, and so we will need one name starting with that letter for a boy and one name starting with that letter for a girl, or else one name that would work for either, EVEN IF we don’t like any of the names that start with that letter enough to Actually In Real Life choose them. It is just a game where we place artificial restrictions on reality in order to create the kind of tension that makes games fun—like when you have to choose what foods you’d eat if you could only eat three foods for the rest of your life: the fun is in thinking it over AS IF it were a real forced decision, while KNOWING it is not. There is a baby! It MUST be given a name with a particular letter! That is the game.

After that basic concept, we can decide our own sub-rules, based on what makes the game fun and not stressful. Some examples:

• I’m not planning to play that the name has to fit with the names of my other children or with the surname, though this would be an option for anyone who would LIKE to play it that way; I think I will have more fun if I pretend it is a stand-alone baby and that the surname is not an issue, though I may change my mind as we go. (And if I narrow it down to a few options and can’t decide, I might use siblings/surname as a tie-breaker.)

• It is also fine to narrow it down to a few finalists without getting to The One Name.

• The boy name and girl name don’t have to work TOGETHER: we are only naming ONE baby, so you’d only use one or the other. But you MAY play that the names have to work together, if that’s more fun.

• It is fine to wave aside issues such as a friend who already used that name, a famous person with the name, etc., if that makes it more fun and less stressful to choose. This is just pretend, so you can pretend that those things aren’t issues if you want to. (Or you can let the issues stand as they are in real life, if THAT is more fun.)

• We can also all make our own decisions about whether the names have to be ones we think we’d ACTUALLY USE in that hypothetical scenario, or just our FAVORITE names starting with that letter, regardless of whether we think the names are practical; I am not sure which way I will play it, and I likely won’t be consistent.

• If you already have a child with a name starting with the letter we’re working on, you get to pick again from all the names that remain; you don’t have to choose your child’s name as your favorite just because it WAS your favorite: this is a FRESH baby, and you wouldn’t give it the same name as your existing child. (If you would normally prefer not to repeat an initial within a sibling group, you can just pretend that’s NOT a preference for the sake of the game.)

• You can do as much or as little explanation as you like in your comment: you can just list the names you chose, or you can explain your process/preferences/reasoning/runners-up, or whatever is most fun.

 

Today’s letter is J. I already have two J names on my girl list: Jane and Josephine. I also like Jillian/Jill, Jean, Joan, Jocelyn, Joy. I would choose Josephine.

I already have J names on my boy list, too: John, Joel, James, Jonathan. I would choose Joel.

 

Now you! If you want to! Only if it’s fun and not stressful! Feel free to adjust the game-play to be fun and not stressful!

Soliciting Name Updates

10 Replies

It is a little difficult to turn one’s mind to baby names when there was a violent coup attempt in the U.S. last week and may be more to come. We will be gentle with ourselves, and not have high expectations.

In the meantime, if you had a question answered here and have an update to send in, this would be a great time to do it. If I get more than one, I’ll draw them out a bit and post one a day so we’ll all still know we’re here.

(If, however, writing a name update right now is too difficult to turn your mind to when there was a violent coup attempt in the U.S. last week and may be more to come, trust that we FULLY UNDERSTAND.)

Baby Girl Shuffler Doctor, Sister to August (Gus)

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Hi,

Happy New Year!

I really enjoy your blog and hoping you can help with the impasse my husband and I are at naming our baby girl who is due in April 2021. Our son’s first name is August (nickname Gus) and middle name is Roland (family name) and both children’s last name is both mine and my husband’s (non-hyphenated). I would say his last name sounds like Doctor and mine is like Shuffler except with an E instead of the U, so combined surname sounds like “Shuffler Doctor”. For this combo -er/-or problem we avoid any names with those sounds or any names that also sound like last names.

Our problem is that I always wanted to name a daughter Aurelia (nickname Lia) and my husband hates it. Basically, I find myself comparing all other names to to and being disappointed because it is both exactly what I want and goes great with our son’s name (both classic Latin names). Last time we couldn’t decide on a name for our son until 2-3 days after he was born because I was so indecisive so we are trying to avoid that situation again.

In general, I like names that are a bit different but not too out there. I like a name that’s at least two syllables and has a 1-2 solid nickname options and I like a vowel sound at the end of the name; I like fairly girly names as well. My husband tends to like shorter names (which I think we could incorporate easily as middle name) but otherwise any trend in his preferences is lost on me. He does generally like French names but I want to avoid anything that’s too hard to spell or pronounce in English. Both of our lists are below.

My list
Aurelia
Celia
Elisa(betta)
Rosalie
Cecilia
Ophelia
Laurel
Magnolia
Interested in a name with Ginny as nickname but haven’t even able to figure one out that I like as full name (ruled out Virginia)

Husband’s list
Abigail
Colette
Norah
Zoe
Willow
Claire
Margot

This is our last child and, if helpful, our unused short list names last time for our son were Jonah and Henri.

Thank you!

Susan

 

The first step is a hard one, and it is to fully let go of the name Aurelia. It makes your task so much harder if you are trying to find a name you like as much as that name, when such a name might not exist, and when the comparison is irrelevant anyway. Your task now is to find a name you like best out of all the names that are not Aurelia. One potentially helpful exercise is to imagine you ALREADY USED the name Aurelia for an earlier daughter, so it is Really Truly Out of the Running.

(I say all this even though it has happened here TIME AND TIME AGAIN that someone writes in that they have One Perfect Favorite Name But Husband Hates It, and then the follow up is “Thanks for all your help! We named her The One Perfect Name Husband Hated! No further explanation, byeeeeeee!!” Still: best to assume for now that Aurelia Will Not Be the Name.)

If it helps at all to let go: I find Aurelia Shuffler Doctor quite challenging to say. Not to the extent that I would try to talk you out of it if the two of you fervently agreed on Aurelia and were writing to ask if you could still use it with the surname, but enough that I feel some relief at not having to say it after finishing this paragraph. I think it’s all the R and L sounds: I find Laurel and Rosalie and Claire similarly tiring to say with the surname. And the Aur- is kind of like the -er/-or sound we’re trying to avoid.

It’s hard to be sure from seven names, but my guess is that your husband’s style is Top 50 Names + French Names. The French names on his list don’t seem any more challenging to say/spell than Aurelia or Elisabetta, so that seems okay so far.

Possible long forms for the nickname Ginny (some of these are more of a stretch than I’d prefer, but I tend to be on the That’s a Stretch end of the spectrum, so I like to include those for people on the That’s Not a Stretch end of the spectrum):

Geneva
Genevieve
Geneva
Georgianna
Gianna
Ginevra
Giovanna
Imogen

I am wondering if you are considering family names for the middle name, to coordinate with your son’s name. I ask partly because in general our culture thinks it’s more important to use family names for boys than for girls, and I like to counteract that notion where I can; but I am MOSTLY asking because it matters for the compromise it looks like we may be headed for: I need to know if the middle name is in play. It SOUNDS like it is, since you mention considering using one of the shorter names your husband likes there. And if so, that is also a possible place for Aurelia: you’d likely have to trade it for your husband having more sway with the first name, but many a couple has found a happy compromise with “MY first choice from YOUR list” as the first name, and “My beloved first choice you aren’t willing to use as a first name but can accept as a middle” as the middle.

Another possible compromise is if your husband has a family name he’d like to use, and you’ve been opposed to it: you might be able to swing “HIS first choice from YOUR list” as the first name, and “His family name you didn’t want to use” as the middle name.

We might also want to poke around a little in how your first child’s name was chosen. Did one parent have more say in choosing? Which side is the family name from? It’s not that these things MUST come out even (and I think in general they just DON’T, for many many valid reasons), but sometimes when a decision is difficult, it can be useful to find more Ways To Decide.

An exercise to try: Which names do you like best from his list? / Which names does he like best from your list? Can you look at those names and think of similar names you like better? For example, let’s say that from your list, his favorites are Rosalie and Magnolia; maybe Rosalie makes him think of Rose and Rosemary and Natalie, all of which he likes; and Magnolia makes him think of Maggie which makes him think of Margaret and Margot, which he likes, and Magnolia also makes him think of Azalea and Ivy and Marigold and Meadow, and he also thinks of Nola—and maybe you don’t really like ANY of those, except well actually you think Azalea and Marigold are pretty good. And then maybe you look at his list, and you like Claire okay but it’s too short/plain, but it reminds you of Clarissa and Clarity, and Clarity reminds you of Felicity; and you also remember an old TV show on which a child was named Emma-Claire and that’s pretty cute even if you don’t like it enough to use it; and Clarabelle isn’t right but it reminds you of Arabella; and something about the Cl- makes you think of Claudia which is amazing with August. And maybe he doesn’t really like ANY of those, except well actually he likes Felicity and Claudia. AND SO ON. You can even tennis the names back and forth: maybe you like the whole vibe of Ivy from his-suggestions-based-on-your-list, but it’s just WAY too short for your tastes, but that gets you both going on botanical names. Or maybe he likes the sound of Claudia from your-suggestions-based-on-his-list, but he doesn’t like the repeating -au- sound with August, but it still gets him interested in names like Lydia and Cordelia.

A similar exercise: discussing what you DO like about names on the other parent’s list. Maybe you like that Abigail is three syllables instead of one or two, and you like the fun initial of Zoe, and you like the way Margot is an interesting combination of cute sound + sophisticated image. Maybe he likes the thought of calling an Elisabetta “Betty,” and he likes the flower reference of Rosalie, and he likes the nickname Maggie AND the flower reference of Magnolia. Maybe then the two of you start questing for long cute sophisticated floral names with cute nicknames and fun initials. OR WHATEVER.

A similar exercise: each parent look at their OWN list and see if they can identify some things they like about those names, and see if any of those pieces can be found in or combined with names on the other parent’s list. For example, you clearly like the -lie/-lia ending. Adding -lia to names on your husband’s list gets us nowhere (except that Margot + -lie/-lia would have made me think of Magnolia), but it might work to search -lie/-lia names and see if there are any your husband likes. And you both have a lot of long-O sounds on your list, so the two of you might look together for more long-O names to consider: Fiona, Noelle, Naomi, Violet, Josephine, Eloise, Gwendolyn, Meadow, Leona, Lois, Rosabelle, Rosamund, Opal, Simone, Ramona, Elodie, Persephone, Cleo, Clover, Antonia (these are just examples of names the exercise might come up with; I’m not checking if they go with the style/surname/sibling or not).

Also, you’ve noted that he seems to like shorter names, and you seem to like longer/frillier ones. Each parent could look at names on their own lists for compromises: you could see if you can find longer/frillier names with shorter nicknames that he could use (Rosalie/Rose, Clarissa/Claire, etc.); he could see if he could find longer/frillier versions of names he likes (Norah to Eleanora, Claire to Clarissa, etc.).

Finally, the two boy-name options (Jonah and Henri) make me think of Josephine and Henrietta.