Hi Swistle,

When I was pregnant with my first child and contemplating names, we decided on a name for a boy that was unique and not popular. I ended up having a girl and love her name.

A year after my daughter was born, I started a friendship with another woman who was pregnant. When discussing names, I brought up my boy pick and she didn’t say anything about it. She recently gave birth and named her son the exact same name that I have saved for a boy. To make things more complicated, she recently found out that her son has special needs.

Now, I’m pregnant with my second child and am contemplating using the name if I have a boy. How should I proceed if I want to use the name for a son?

Thanks.

In your shoes, here would be my concern: That the other woman might not remember the earlier conversation, and that she would therefore think I had stolen the name idea from her. And she genuinely might not remember you mentioning it, and could have come up with it a different way. If I could send you back in time, I might have you react as soon as she told you the child’s name: “Oh! The same as our boy-name pick! How wonderful! Obviously I love that name and think you have great taste!”

If I were you, I would discuss it with her again when it comes up naturally, so that you can gauge her reaction. Like, if she knows you are pregnant, it is likely she checks in about how your pregnancy is going, whether you’ve thought of names, etc; the next time it comes up, you could say your boy name pick is still _____, the same as it was for your first pregnancy, and then move smoothly on to discussing girl-name possibilities. People vary tremendously in how they feel about duplicate names within their social circles, so this conversation can give you some useful information about what is at stake here.

But if you think your contemplation may lead you to choose a different name, or if you plan on finding out the sex of the baby before the birth, then I might not bring it up yet: no sense causing potential strife/stress when it may not be necessary, especially if she may be a little overwhelmed right now with other concerns.

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Dear Swistle,

I’ve been following your blog for years and now that my spouse and I are expecting our first and (probably) only child in January, I finally have something to write to you about! We have already chosen a name that we love and my question has more to do with how to clearly and concisely announce our intentions for name/nickname usage and preference in a birth announcement.

The name that we have chosen is Meredith Price Smith. Price is my middle name and my mother’s last name, Smith is my husband’s last name, and Meredith was my husband’s grandmother’s first name.

While I do like the name Meredith in general, it isn’t a name that I would have chosen if I were having this baby alone. My family does not have a tradition of honor names (if anything we avoid them, especially first names) but honor names are a HUGE DEAL in my spouse’s family and I’m happy to participate. What makes the name Meredith even sweeter for me is that so far, my spouse’s father’s side of the family has been honored with names on multiple occasions, both boys and girls, but my lovely mother in law’s family has not been honored once. Her mother (the original Meredith) died when she was quite young and by all accounts was a wonderful woman that I am happy to name our child after.

My question is this: although I enjoy the name Meredith for all of the previously mentioned reasons, we are hoping that our baby will be exclusively called Eddie (pronounced like the nn for Edward) on a day to day basis with Meredith being reserved for things like passport applications and graduation ceremonies. My spouse and I both love this nickname and understand that there may be the occasional raised eyebrow or mix-up. We are fine with this. I don’t mind if someone, especially someone from my spouse’s family, calls the baby by their full name, but I am hoping that in general it will be understood that her name for most intents and purposes is Eddie. We plan to gently remind people that we speak to in person that the baby’s name is Eddie, yes like Edward, but short for Meredith, etc. if they default to Meredith. The prospect of these reminders doesn’t bother us at all.

I feel that the best way of sharing these intentions right from the start is with the birth announcement, both in print via the mail and on Facebook and other social media platforms. I want to avoid being overly direct (ex: “We are going to call the baby Eddie” or “Please call her Eddie”) but I want to be as clear as possible while still sharing their full name.

My first thought is something like this:

Meredith (Eddie) Price Smith was born on XX at XX weighing XX, etc.

or

Meredith “Eddie” Price Smith was born on XX at XX weighing XX, etc.

or

Meredith Price Smith (Eddie) was born on XX at XX weighing XX, etc.

Is this too ambiguous given that Eddie is not a common nickname for Meredith and may even be perceived as a second middle name or additional last name? My spouse and I have different last names and it’s possible that a distant relative or friend would assume that “Eddie” was my last name if they didn’t know me well.

Another thought is to do the announcement something like this:

Meredith Price Smith was born on XX at XX weighing XX. Eddie is doing well and is enjoying a short rest in the hospital before heading home, etc.

Does this make it clear enough that Eddie is even the baby? I can imagine some of my older relatives seeing this and thinking, “Who the heck is Eddie and why is he in the hospital with them?!” The Facebook comments alone would be a headache to say the least.

What are your thoughts on this? What is the clearest way to explain that we would like to use an unusual nickname as their primary day-to-day name without being too direct or throwing off the style of the announcement? We mostly want to avoid confusion and concern on the part of our family and friends and are less concerned about having our objectively unique naming choice strictly honored.

Thanks for your help!
The Smith Family

I don’t think you should avoid being direct. Given how many emails we get from parents struggling to get relatives/friends to use even a mainstream chosen nickname, or to use the full name instead of a nickname, I think the birth announcement is your perfect opportunity to make things very, very clear to everyone right at the start. This may also help reduce the number of times you have to carefully and repeatedly explain the whole thing to people in the early days when you might rather be spending your time enjoying your new baby and/or managing to achieve a shower.

If what you want to end up with is a traditional birth announcement you can frame, I might suggest making the birth announcement simple/standard (I would put the nickname as you do in your first two examples, but in quotes AND parentheses), and including a separate piece of paper with the whole explanation. (Or I wonder if some services would allow you to put text on the BACK of the announcement, so the front would be traditional and the back would lay out the whole story?) But otherwise, I wouldn’t worry about throwing off the style of the announcement, and my inclination would be to instead lean way into the whole thing. This is the kind of thing I am imagining:

HELLO, BABY!
Meredith (“Eddie”) Price Smith
birth date, birth time
birth weight, birth length
We’re calling her Eddie!
Yes, just like the nickname for Edward!
We’re only using Meredith for passport applications and graduation ceremonies and this birth announcement!
We did want you to know her legal given name for the record, but from now on we’re all going to call her Eddie!

One reason I suggest this approach is this: I think a fair amount of stubbornness and the related annoying behaviors (such as exaggerated incredulity and/or pretending not to be able to remember the nickname) come from Not Getting It. People know it’s rude to challenge parents about their name choices, so when they don’t understand what’s going on, they divert confusion into resistance. Having it all laid out for them makes them less likely to even want to resist—but if they DO want to resist, it makes it impossible for them to pretend they’re not doing it on purpose.

On the other hand, you say you don’t at all mind the prospect of lots of corrections/explanations. And what you’ve asked for is something clear but also CONCISE, which my sample above certainly is not. And also, when I was proof-reading later on, and I came to my first example, I wasn’t sure I liked it as much as I did when I was feeling the full impact of my second cup of coffee. And so for all those reasons, I might instead do it like this:

HELLO, BABY!
Meredith (“Eddie”) Price Smith
birth date, birth time
birth weight, birth length
[Mother’s name] and Baby Eddie are doing well!

And then as you speak to each person, you are ready with your prepared cheerful explanation. I do think you’ll have to do many more corrections of people deferring to the name Meredith, but I am charmed by your willingness to do so.

It might further help to include a few more pictures of the baby (which would be delightful ANYWAY, even if we weren’t trying to solve anything here), each one carefully labeled: “Eddie wearing her hat!” “Eddie and her daddy!” etc.

Dear Swistle,

My husband and I currently have 4 children, and while I’m not pregnant yet, we’re actively trying for #5. If we’re blessed with a girl her name will most likely be Eleanor. Our current daughters are Evelyn, Annabel, and Amelia.

We don’t shy away from popular names (clearly), but I have to LOVE the name. Girl names are very easy for us to love. Evelyn was named years before she was born, even before my husband and I got married! I’ve loved Annabel since I was young and Amelia was my husband’s second favorite girl name. We joke that if we have 20 girls we would love every single name!

My son’s name is David. We didn’t have a name for him while I was pregnant and he didn’t get named until he was 24 hours old. (He’s Child #3. Had he been a girl he would have been Amelia.) He’s named for my husband’s father. The name was never on my list. In my hormonal state I agreed when my husband countered every name I gave him with, “but what about David?” After seeing the tears of joy in my father-in-laws eyes when my husband introduced them, there was no going back. It took me 6 months to get used to the name. He’s now 3 and while it’s his name, I still don’t love it.

On to my question. One of my favorite boy names is Matthew. I just love the way it sounds and enjoy the nn Matt. It would be the perfect name, but it’s my husband’s name, my brother’s name, and David’s middle name. Would it be too weird to also have another Matthew? He wouldn’t be a Junior because he wouldn’t have my husband’s full name. The middle name would be either Henry or William, neither of which are options for first names. Would he be a II?

The boy name we had for Amelia was Elijah. I still like it, but when I mention it to the two oldest their response is, “but that’s a girl name!”

Thanks a bunch!
Rachel

I have three things to say.

First is that I was going along thinking that was not too many Matthews, and then I reached a tipping point and thought no, that’s too many Matthews. The tipping point happened when you mentioned that it is also the middle name of the child whose first name you had to struggle to like, and whose first name you still don’t love. I think he should get to have Matthew, and not have to share the only part of his name you love with his younger brother. (If you did use Matthew DifferentMiddle, he would not be a II: II, like Junior, is used only if all the names are exactly the same.)

Second is that the children are wrong, and Elijah is a boy name. We can make this a teaching moment for them. “What? No: while some names do change in usage over time, and so we don’t usually say that a name is ‘a boy name’ or ‘a girl name,’ Elijah has been used almost exclusively for boys for thousands of years. You may be thinking of similar-sounding names used for girls, such as Eliza.”

Third is that with any future babies, your husband may NEVER AGAIN do his “But what about ____?” name-pushing/countering technique, ESPECIALLY not right after you’ve given birth. I’m serious: NEVER AGAIN. I will come over there and deal with him myself if need be. That was a jerk strategy, and the fact that it worked may encourage him to try it again. Furthermore, I vote that if you have another boy, the name is your choice and, ideally, consists of two names that bring tears of joy on YOUR side of the family this time.