Hi Swistle!

I’ve been reading through your posts for a while since I named my daughter back in 2022, I enjoyed reading through all your posts. I was hoping you’d help my family out now we’re having our own name dilemma!
Well we’re now in July expecting a little boy into our family, little brother to Cyanna Scarlett. Our last name is very similar to Tomlinson. We’ve been on a total mess when trying to find boys names we both like and agree on! We adore Cy’s name! It feels like the perfect, pretty girls name. It has sweet nicknames and is such a happy name! However we can’t find any of the qualities we’re looking for in a boys name. We have agreed on a boys name we both liked but found that the automatic nickname would be ‘Kai’ and I’d definitely get mixed up having a Cy and Kai! This boys name was Makaio. I’ve been clueless for ideas, my husband’s favourite right now is Ziggy. But it just seems too happy and I’m not sure if it would really work on an adult. His middle name will most likely be August as we’ve decided we both like the name August, just not set on it as a first name!
If he were to have been a girl, he would have been Milani or Marsaili and in the case we have another baby and they are a girl then they will probably take either of these names! We’re not quite sure how many children we plan to have, but we will probably only have one more child if we were to have another at all!
Thank you so much for your time and consideration! We really do appreciate it.
Emi 💗

Oh, Makaio does seem perfect! The happy rhythm, the happy -o, the nickname potential! I wonder if you could call him Mack or Mackie instead. I wouldn’t have thought of Mackie except that a friend’s child goes by that, and now it sounds very natural to me. And maybe Cy and Kai WOULDN’T trip you up!

This is going to be a delightfully subjective category, and I am very much looking forward to the comments section, but in the meantime here are some more boy names that feel happy and/or fun to me:

Alfie
Angelo
Angus
Archie
Barnaby
Baxter
Brecken
Bridger
Briggs
Broderick
Crockett
Crosby
Darcy
Decker
Ezekiel/Zeke
Felix
Finnegan
Fletcher
Gideon
Hatcher
Jacoby
Jennings
Keaton
Keegan
Murphy
Padgett
Peregrine
Phineas
Quincy
Roderick
Roger (with the adorable nickname Hodge)
Rooney
Rufus
Shepherd/Shepard
Sullivan
Terrence

I would mention Kipling, but an earlier post has killed that name for me. I think Harvey would be terrific, but now Weinstein is back in the news again. And I would mention Indigo, but it seems like too much color with Cyanna and Scarlett—or is it? Would you want to make a full-on theme of it? Indigo Grey? Indigo Jet? But that would leave you with a difficult theme if you did have a third child.

Gus and Auggie both feel like a very happy nicknames to me, if it changes your mind at all about using the name August as a first name.

Name update:

Hello again!
Thank you to everyone, we really did look at and read through every single comment and consider every suggestion given; and from the bottom of our hearts thank you! We really appreciate the time people took out of their day to suggest a name for our little boy.
We ended up going to the hospital with three names, Shepherd, Makaio and Murphy. But after meeting him on July 11th we ended up naming him Shepherd, Shepherd Finley. We were sure his middle name would be August, though while talking to one of the midwife’s and her telling us that she thought Finley would suit him very well we ended up choosing that as his middle name over August. Cyanna is just as in love with his name as we are and has been referring to him as ‘Sheppie’ which we think is adorable!

Hi Swistle!

I am a long-time reader, first-time name-help-seeker. We have two kids, @lice and H@rvey. My older child @lice is five years old and has been pretty insistent about not being a girl since age three. We have been following @lice’s lead and using she/her pronouns but always saying “kid” instead of “girl,” etc. It was never clear to me if @lice is trans or nonbinary or something else, but over the weekend he finally told us that he is a boy and wants to use he/him pronouns. I am fully supportive of this, although I am terrified given the political climate in our state and the fact that gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth has recently been completely outlawed. Buuuuut let’s ignore that for now and turn to the fun things: (non-)baby names!

I love the name @lice and am so very sad to see it (probably) go. I am not sure if @lice even knows that his first name is traditionally feminine, but we are going to have that conversation soon. If he were, say, a pre-teen, I would let him choose whatever he wanted as a new name (assuming he wants a new name), but I am somewhat worried that at this age we would end up with a preschooler named “Spiderman.” If he were assigned male at birth, he would have been H@rvey, although having two of them in our house seems needlessly confusing now.

What should we put on the short-list of options to present to him? Ideally I would like suggestions in the same style as @lice and H@rvey. Maybe keep the same first initial? Maybe not? His middle name is R@do (rhymes with Play-Doh), which is his late great-grandmother’s name but rare enough to pass as male or gender-neutral or whatever. I like Alex too, since it’s pretty close to @lice and adds an “X,” which is kind of fun. Something somewhat gender neutral might cover more bases as his identity evolves over time. Do you or your readers have any other suggestions?

Thanks!
J@k

I might offer him Al or Rado or A.R. or maybe Alex/Alix, to see if he wants to use any of those, and wait on any further re-namings until he is older and more able to lead/direct the process. In fact, my first thought was to continue calling him @lice for the time being, and follow his lead on the renaming as you have followed his lead on pronouns; but my second thought was that it does seem like it would be nice to get something less Girl in place before gradeschool begins, if only to reduce the amount of time you have to spend discussing it with people who don’t need to know, and aren’t even asking to know, but have merely tripped over the combination of a currently-used-for-girls name plus he/him pronouns.

I lean toward choosing a nickname that comes from his given names for now, rather than coming up with something new. This is, again, to follow his lead, and to avoid jumping the gun, and to reduce the total number of name changes. On the other hand, I admit it also appeals to me to think of temporarily/informally renaming him Ellis: very, very close in sound to @lice, yet worlds apart in style—and a nice fit with H@rvey. Alfie appeals similarly, though is a bigger jump in sound; very nice with H@rvey, though.

Name update:

Dear Swistle,

Thank you for publishing my letter. The help and encouragement from you and your readers was enormously reassuring and validating during a sort of difficult transition in my family. We broached the name subject at dinner one evening and suggested Al (a shortened version of my dad’s name too), Alex, and Rado. He immediately chose Rado and then said, “I’ll be the only ‘R’ in my class!” I have been surprised and delighted by how much confidence and just… a sense of right-ness with the world that the new name has brought him. Happy Mother’s Day to you and your readers, and thank you for being part of the village that supports me to be the best mom I can be for these lovely little creatures.

❤️ Jak

Hello, dear Swistle!

I mentioned to you on Twitter this past fall that I was bereft to not have a baby boy to name Alfred, because I’d just met a three year old named Alfred and was completely charmed. My ovaries said, “What’s that? You’d like another baby? We can arrange for that!” My husband Kevin and I were QUITE surprised to find out we’re expecting again—we definitely thought we were done—but we are also delighted. And now to choose a name for this little one before she arrives in June! Normally I love thinking about and discussing baby names, but I’ve had a lot of other stressors going on this pregnancy and haven’t spent a lot of time on it since I was really early in my pregnancy. I’m hoping your and your readers’ thoughts might help me get excited about the naming process.

Surname is four syllables. It starts with Mc- and ends with -ery. It’s a similar rhythm to McAllister, but that -ee ending makes a lot of names sound sing-song-y.

We are having a girl, so Alfred is out. Here are the sibling names (there are a lot of them):

—Emeline Anne (Last syllable with a long I sound, rhymes with Caroline as opposed to Pauline. Goes by Emmy.)
—Samuel Albert (Sam or Sammy)
—Lucy Eleanor (miscarried girl)
—Theodore Peter (Theo)
—Quinn Enoch (miscarried, sex unknown)
—Grace Elizabeth (miscarried girl)
—Poppy James (miscarried, sex unknown)
—Benjamin Charles (Ben or Benji)

So the living siblings are Emmy, Sam, Theo, and Benji on a day-to-day basis. I feel quite married to a long name with a nickname, because there are FOUR other kids in the family with this precedent.

All eight of my other children have honor names for their middle names.
We definitely sacrificed the flow of some of the names (or chose less than ideal initials) for the chance to honor loved ones. For this baby, we are leaning towards honoring my husband’s grandmother. Her name is Evenelle (spelled a little differently, but changed for the sake of not being so Google-able). Her parents, who immigrated to the US, apparently made up this name to sound like an American name. She generally goes by Evie (Eh-vee, as opposed to Eve-ee). Depending on the flow with the first name I’m open to either Evenelle or Evie. However, my son Theo has his heart set on naming the baby Joy, so we’re also considering that for a middle name. (Side question: would it be weird to give this baby two middle names if none of the siblings have two middle names?)

I’ve thought about naming this baby Elizabeth Eleanor both in honor of her two miscarried sisters and in honor of the family members for whom I originally chose the names, but I’m not sure how that would feel for my newest daughter as she grows up. When I think about if I would like to be named after two miscarried siblings, now as an adult I could appreciate it, but I don’t know that I’d have understood as a child. I do LOVE both of these names and my husband is on board with this idea, but I’m leaning towards scrapping it. I’d be interested in your thoughts and your readers’ thoughts, though. If we DID do this I love the wealth of nickname options with Elizabeth. I’m leaning towards Lizzy or Izzy.

Okay, beyond Elizabeth Eleanor, here is my list so far:
—Margaret (Maisie or Meg)
—Anneliese (Annie)
—Louisa (Lulu…almost certainly too close to Lucy, whom we talk about by name with some regularity)
—Alice (I suppose we could call her Allie for short, but I love Alice as is, so potential issue of no nickname)
—Katherine (Kate)
—Amelia (Millie…is Amelia too close to Emeline?)
—Rose (I love Rosalie but it is very singsong-y with our last name. Maybe scrap a long version and just go with Rose? I’m sure that whatever her formal name is we’d call her Rosie.)
—Birdie (I’m swooning over this as a nickname, but am not sure what long name to use to get to it. Bridget? Kevin hates it so it’s probably out, though I have time to work on him.)

Part of me feels meh about this whole list (except for Birdie) and wants to venture into a very different style…Imogen! Lark! Juniper! Pearl! But I don’t think I truly want to do that.

My favorite on my “real” list is probably Margaret (I love the alliteration with our surname). Kevin likes Katherine best. Katherine has been on our list for every pregnancy and feels extremely boring to me this time around…probably because I’ve considered it 8 other times. And as if choosing a name with one’s spouse isn’t hard enough, Emmy is 12 and very invested in the name. Emmy likes Anneliese best (from my list…of her own choosing she likes Veronica and Victoria, in case you’re interested in a data point on what names 12-year-olds like). I love Felicity but it doesn’t go well with our surname.

Okay! I am open to suggestions! I would love your thoughts!

Love, Ellen

When I got to the part about using the names of miscarried siblings as honor names for this baby, my hand flew to cover my mouth. I vote no, and I vote it while making earnest, sustained eye contact.

I can’t easily explain my strength of feeling on this. One of my daily rituals is checking the obituaries, and so I know it used to be very common for a family to reuse the name of a child who had died. I don’t know what the motivation was, at the time: was it because they still wanted to name a child after dear Uncle Thomas? was it in honor of the child who had died? And I don’t know how the kids who were given the names felt about it. But I do know it used to be common. It’s just: it’s not common now. In the context of Now rather than Then, it gives a feeling I would describe as “my hand flew to cover my mouth.”

It would feel different to me if you had intended to use those honor names for other babies, but had miscarried and had not used the names after all. Then the names Elizabeth and Eleanor could still be after the original honorees. But the babies were named, and their names are listed in the sibling group; those names have been used by other siblings and are no longer available to be used by the new baby, any more than the names Emeline and Anne are available.

It would also feel different to me if you had a family tradition of, for example, using Eleanor as the middle name for all of your daughters. Or if some of your other children had been named after their siblings. But neither of those is the case here. I strongly advise you to consider all sibling names Taken and Unavailable.

I think it would be fine to give this baby two middle names, though it’s not a pattern-break I’d want to do at this point, and I think your firstborn might be peeved if you used her brother’s name preferences and not hers! When I was pregnant with the twins, Rob (age 6 at the time) vigorously wanted to give one of the babies the middle name Plum, and we did consider it, and I did think it would have been a fun/cute story, but we didn’t end up doing it, and Rob no longer even remembers wanting this. Joy is a much harder name to resist than Plum, but I think my plan would be the same: if there was another middle name I would otherwise have used, I would go ahead and use that, and encourage the child to use the name Joy as their own special name for the baby.

I find I am very much hoping Evenelle will be the version that goes best with the first name and surname. Evie is nice, but it’s a common current nickname; Evenelle feels special, and I suspect you would enjoy it every single time you filled out paperwork.

From your list of first-name options, my top favorite with a sister named Emeline is Anneliese. The two names are parallel enough to give me a little thrill, but the sounds are quite different. Anneliese Evenelle is majestic.

Amelia would be too similar to Emeline for me. I realize that may seem at odds with my feelings about Anneliese.

My second favorite from your list is Margaret. I like the alliteration too, and all the nickname options.

I’ve heard Birdie used for Bridget but also for Bernadette, Roberta, Bertha, Alberta, and Bernice. These won’t work with sibling names and/or your surname, but in case others have landed here looking for more options, it seems like it would also work well for Ember, Emberley, Emberlyn, Liberty, Kimber. But I think it can also come from calling a nice little baby girl your little birdy. I think it could be sweet as a pet name for Margaret, and this could tie in nicely to you telling Theo he can call her Joy: different family members might have different nicknames for her, and that’s delightful.

I think Imogen would work well and wouldn’t be a big style jump. Nicknames Genna or Midge or Immy (similar to Izzy), or Idgie like in Fried Green Tomatoes; and it sounds a little like Joy. But it seems very close to Benjamin.

I wonder if you’d like Genevieve; it was high on my own list. I worried she’d be called Genny/Jenny, but that’s starting to sound good to me again. There’s also Evie or Vivi or or Gigi (probably not with Benji) or Ginny (maybe also not with Benji) or Neevie. Genevieve Evenelle has a lot of repeated sounds; I might be swayed into thinking about suggesting Genevieve Joy? It’s so delightful.

Or Minerva/Minnie. A little similar to Veronica.

And because you like Margaret and Millie, I bring you one of the names most dear to my heart: Millicent. Millicent/Millie. Just give it time to simmer.

Name update:

Hello, dear Swistle!

I am writing to update you on my baby’s name, which you were kind enough to post about at the end of March.

I appreciated reading everyone’s thoughts on using the middle names of the baby’s miscarried sisters. In the time between sending my email and your post I’d had a good chat with a friend about it, and I came to the conclusion that without knowing the baby’s personality it wasn’t a good decision. Maybe she’ll be a happy-go-lucky person who wouldn’t be bothered at all (or maybe she’d have really liked the connection to her sisters!), but maybe she’ll be a very sensitive child who feels things deeply and the names would have felt like a weight. So! Even before I read your thoughts I’d decided to regretfully let Elizabeth Eleanor go and keep looking. (A special thank you to the commenters who offered such kind words of sympathy for our losses and shared their own stories of lost babies and subsequent naming decisions—I appreciated it very much.)

Everyone’s positive comments about Evenelle made me feel much more confident in using it as a middle name. And thank you to everyone who was looking out for Emmy and the disparity of considering Theo’s favorite name Joy and not her names. The reason for this is because I’d told her I thought it best for her to save her very favorite names for her own children or pets someday and she was VERY on board with the idea of saving them.

Okay, with all of that background out of way, introducing our daughter Margaret Evenelle. I’m pretty sure we’ll call her Maisie, but we love the wealth of nickname options and we’ll see how it shakes out in the coming weeks. Thank you again to you and your readers!

I feel bad sending this email as I know you must be busy, however I’m so clueless after months of fighting it I’ve given in and decided to ask for help with our little girls name.

We’re expecting our first little girl in April, and as exited as we are about her she has been the hardest to name so far. Our other two are Oswald Jude ‘Ozzy’ and Reuben Hugh ‘Reu’, their names were so easy to decide but now we can’t even settle on something while I’m 8 months pregnant!

The List I liked, but he vetoed…

Hermione
Sarah-Kate
Caroline
Scarlett
Matilda

The Names he liked, I said no to…

Alice
Clara
Mercedes
Simone
Story

The only name we both can agree of right now is Liliana, but neither of us truly love it to the point we want to use it! As we’re both quite firm in her middle name being Lavender!
We had a boys name all set out (William Atlas Bailey) but we’re expecting a girl so it’s no use. We’re saying this is our last, but we’ve said that after every baby so it’s not guaranteed!

Thank you so much for your consideration!
Em x

I notice the repeated sounds in the other two children’s names: oswalD juDe and then reUben hUgh. I wonder if it would be at all fun, just as a little game or exercise, to see if we can find a first name for your daughter that repeats one or more of the sounds from her middle name Lavender.

Ada Lavender
Adelaide Lavender
Aveline Lavender
Belinda Lavender
Claudia Lavender
Cordelia Lavender
Danica Lavender
Eleanor Lavender
Eliza Lavender
Elodie Lavender
Eve Lavender
Even Lavender
Evelina Lavender
Esther Lavender
Flannery Lavender
Florence Lavender
Geneva Lavender
Genevieve Lavender
Gwendolyn Lavender
Landry Lavender
Larissa Lavender
Linnea Lavender
Lois Lavender
Louisa Lavender
Lydia Lavender
Maeve Lavender
Marilla Lavender
Melody Lavender
Minerva Lavender
Miranda Lavender
Nadia Lavender
Sylvia Lavender
Valentina Lavender
Vera Lavender
Verity Lavender
Veronica Lavender
Victoria Lavender
Vivian Lavender

If I could ask each of you to reconsider a veto, I’d ask you to reconsider Clara, and I’d ask your husband to reconsider Matilda. Clara Lavender! Matilda Lavender!

Name update:

Thank you so much for these suggestions! They definitely have not gone unappreciated, as for our baby girl she was born on March 22nd. She weighed 7lbs 1oz and was born at 36+6, and she’s such a healthy baby girl. Ozzy and Reu are really exited to now have their baby sister. You gave us some really gorgeous suggestions and from your gorgeous list we found a name we both really love, our sweet baby girl Elodie Lavender has been born.
Thank you so much we all really appreciate it!
Em x

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

Hi Swistle!

It’s crazy to think that I started reading this blog when I was expecting my first, and now I’m catching up to you with five kids. How time flies! We are due in April and our last name sounds like Carrot with an M.

Our daughters are Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, and Cl@ire. And baby 5 is a girl!

I think somewhere half-spoken in my mind, I had been thinking that it would be fun to mix it up this time: daydreaming about learning how to do a cute little boy haircut and… Well, anyway, I could still totally learn how to give cute haircuts.

I think what I need to get excited about little girl 5 is a great name. But it’s a catch-22, Swistle; I need a great name to help me get jazzed about twenty more weeks of pregnancy and a new baby, but I’m just so blah about naming this time around. Every name on our list has already been rejected before. What I really need is for someone else to help me look at names afresh, (which, isn’t that what so many of us write in to ask?)

In the early days of baby naming, I had a lot of angst about naming because my husband and I both cared about names, but our styles seemed very different, (see previous letters here and here). In the end, we’ve settled on a naming compromise: we take turns naming the baby with full veto/suggestion power from the other person. This has worked pretty well for us!

He loves saint names out of the top 1000, and he chose Avil@ (sounds like Avalon) and Ze1ie (rhymes with Ellie). I like what I jokingly call Hollywood Pirate names: Will, Rose, Theo, Jack, Hope, Kate. Short, familiar, and snappy. I also like names like Anneliese, Vivian, Genevieve. I chose R0se and Cl@ire for my names.

We love nicknames, and use them interchangeably with our daughter’s names: Avi, Rosie, Ze1ie-Lou (from middle name Louise), Clara/Coco.

It’s his turn to choose a name, but he also seems surprisingly uninterested in the task this time around and he keeps asking me for suggestions. The only part I’m excited about is using my name Gabrielle as the middle name. We used my husband’s name Michael for Cl@ire’s middle name, (at my insistence because I just loved it and wanted to honor him,) and I am feeling that same excitement for using my name this time.

His suggestions:

Hildegard (vetoed. Hildie is a cute nickname, but the name seems harsh to me.)

Anastasia (but we both like the nickname Ah-na, which honors my Grandma. So far everyone we’ve tested it on says Annastasia and Anna; it feels like an uphill battle. The full name seems very long to me.)

Blaise (This has been our boy name for 9 years, but I just don’t know for a girl)

 

My suggestions he vetoed:

Vivian

Sylvie

Anneliese (name of his cousin)

Hope (name of his mom’s cat)

 

Our list so far:

Genevieve (He said maybe and likes the nickname Evie. Not great with middle Gabrielle.)

 

Hmm, well, I don’t know. Can I admit to you? Secretly, I feel like you may not choose this letter because the names are too “boring”. Recently the Swistle name posts that got me excited were for names far outside my usual naming style: this one was awesome, and I thought about possible names for ages! This recent one was fun too. Am I having a midlife naming-style crisis and need to name this kid Oak or Maverick? Or should we name her Genevieve and that is still exciting? Help me, Swistle, before I go crazy overthinking this.

Thank you!!

Gabrielle

I suggest Mathilda, which includes the nickname Hildie as well as Tilda, Tilly, Mattie, etc. It’s a saint name, and it’s alliterative with the surname in a way I find it pleasing to say. Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Mathilda.

Belina. I found it in the Saints section of The Baby Name Wizard, so I am suggesting it without knowing the story of this or any of the other saints; I don’t know if that part matters to the selection. Belina strikes me as distinctive and unusual but accessible; my one hesitation is about whether it could be too similar to Ze1ie, but for myself I come down on the side of no. Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Belina. Nicknames and pet names absolutely abound: Bella, Belle/Bel, Lina, Lee, Bee, Bina, just so many fun sound combinations to make.

I wanted to suggest Annika (I have an Annika in my circle, and although people will sometimes GUESS ANN-nika, once they HEAR ON-nika it seems to click into place for them), but it seems too similar to Avil@.

Blaise, for me, does not pass the “Would I want this name for myself?” test—especially if I had four sisters all with highly feminine names. I think it would accidentally communicate that you were hoping for a boy. I find, in fact, that even seeing it on the list is giving me a surprisingly strong feeling of indignation. It makes me want to pointedly offer counter-suggestions such as Felicity (lucky) and Evangeline (good news) and Beatrix (blessed).

Bonus: Felicity and Beatrix are both saint names, so I do suggest them, earnestly as well as pointedly; I love them both, and will give them their own spaces below so they don’t get lost in the “Swistle says no to Blaise” section:

Felicity. Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Felicity.

Beatrix. Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Beatrix.

Oh, WINIFRED is a saint name?? You know I am not going to miss the opportunity to suggest that favorite! Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Winifred!! …I see I also discovered this while answering a previous letter, and then forgot. This is one of the glories of aging: fun fresh surprises, again and again!

I like Genevieve a lot, and this is subjective but I really like it with the middle name Gabrielle. I think it’s intriguing the way the G initials match but are pronounced differently, and it gives you the nickname G.G./Gigi, which is especially nice if Evie seems too close to Avi. There’s also Ginny.

Name update:

Hi Swistle!
I enjoyed reading all your suggestions so much. Amazing how it can make the process of baby naming appealing again! We had pretty much decided on the nickname Evie by the time baby was born, but it still took us some time to decide between Genevieve and Evangeline (thanks for the suggestion!) as the first name. Her uncle had also suggested the name Wren, which wasn’t quite our style for a first name, but was fun to add as a middle. In the end, we named her Genevieve Anastasia Wren, and we mostly call her Evie (or Evie-Wren.) Evie is a peaceful baby, which is just the best for a fifth child. Thanks for helping us name her!

P.S. Although we didn’t end up with Gabrielle as a middle name, she did end up with my initials, which still makes me feel like we have a special connection.

Hello Swistle!

I am sure you hear this all the time, but as someone obsessed with names for years I never thought I would be in the position of not being able to figure out a name! But here we, most very definitely, are.

My husband and I are expecting our first baby, a boy, in early April. Getting pregnant was difficult, and we hope to have another baby or two but definitely no guarantee. We are a bilingual Spanish/English family, and baby will have two last names. Both last names start with M, and sound something like Molina Maplepines (except the second last name is actually Portuguese and looks more like a name like Guimaraes, but Maplepines has the same sound and flow). I know you normally don’t weigh in on non-English names, but we live in the Midwest US and baby will spend so much of his time in an English environment that that is my greatest concern. Plus all the names we are considering are familiar to exclusive English-speakers.

If the baby had been a girl we only had Alma and Liana on our list, two favorites of mine that my husband seemed to be okay with as well.

Our preferences: my husband prefers biblical, old fashioned Spanish names. I like somewhat more international, more timely (or trendy), short names (given the really long last names). I would also prefer to avoid M names, alliteration is cute, but alliteration x3 is a lot (I think? Or no?).

My husband’s list (short version, also suggested names like Roberto and Ezequiel):
Mateo
Abram
Tomas
Diego

My list:
Felix
Gael
Tiago

Possible compromise names:
Emilio
Elias

Essentially neither of us seems willing to go with the other’s names. I find Abram and Tomas too old fashioned, Mateo too popular plus the M issue (and a newborn cousin named Matias), Diego is okay. My husband doesn’t like Felix because of Felix the Cat, Tiago because it sounds like “te hago” in Spanish, and Gael he just doesn’t love (and does make the fair point that it has some of the greatest potential to be mispronounced).

Emilio feels long to me, and we actually both probably like Emiliano more, but 5 syllables is just so much (the last names are each 3 syllables). We also have Amelias on both sides of our family, and I worry that Emilio is too close. We could possibly call him Milo or Lio if it ends up being confusing, but we both prefer names without nicknames.

As for Elias my husband strongly prefers the Spanish pronunciation (eh-LEE-as vs ee-LIE-as), I am okay with either/both. Elias was the name of my husband’s grandfather, which in some ways is sweet (my husband was close to him before he passed away unfortunately very young) but also we are not considering ANY family names otherwise for any other boy in the future or a girl. I don’t love using one family name from my husband’s side and never using another family name, but there are none I want to use either.

Help! Please! Either with opinions on the name options we have, or other suggestions, or sage wisdom on choosing a name in general. My mother-in-law, who generally is a sweet and helpful person, constantly asks if we have chosen a name and the pressure is rising (just today she said we “need” to have picked a name by our baby shower, to which I said I made no promises!)

Thank you!!

For STARTERS, we (and by “we” I mean “your husband”) are going to lovingly inform your sweet and helpful mother-in-law that the name will not be chosen in time for the baby shower. Maybe it WILL be chosen by then! But let’s all assume it won’t be, and/or that you would prefer to time the baby-name announcement differently. Maybe you were not even planning to share the name until after the baby was born, which would be a pretty normal plan! Maybe you don’t feel like locking down the name for SURE-sure until it is time to fill out the birth certificate, which is ALSO a pretty normal plan!

No doubt she is thinking of people who want to personalize gifts with the baby’s name, and that is delightful, but those people will need to make other plans, as they would need to do for MANY baby showers at which the name has not yet been chosen/announced and/or the sex of the baby is not known/announced. They can give you a wrapped letter at the shower, telling you what they will be giving you after the baby is born/named; they can give you an unpersonalized version of something and add the personalization later; they can give you something different at the shower and give you the personalized item as a baby gift after the baby is born; they can scrap their entire plan for a personalized gift and do something else; etc. They have options that do not involve you rushing to commit to a name before you need to / are ready to.

Now that we have made ourselves a little breathing room, let’s look at the options. I was about to stand here and tell you that the name Mateo wasn’t particularly popular, and then I checked the Social Security Administration and I see it was #11 in 2022. I did the same thing awhile back with the name Luna: “What? It’s not THAT popular. …Oh.” This is why it is a good idea to use a good shake of salt when hearing baby-name opinions from grandparents-to-be: they tend to be OUT OF THE LOOP, baby-name-wise.

Because you’d like to have more children, I’ll mention my usual caution about making sure the name you choose this time doesn’t rule out other names on your list. Would Abram or Emilio rule out Alma for you? Would Elias rule out Liana for you? That sort of thing.

I was all set to champion Elias until I saw that your husband wants to pronounce it eh-LEE-as. This feels like an endless uphill struggle. The mispronunciations may be relentless. I am imagining if I wanted Robert’s name pronounced ro-BEAR, or Henry’s name pronounced on-REE, and immediately I feel exhausted. Plus, I agree with your reasoning about family names, particularly about family-name inequality.

I do think your husband should try to get over Felix the cat. That’s a reference that’s barely relevant to my generation (I’m vaguely culturally aware of the cartoon from 60-100 years ago depending on incarnation, but I’ve never seen it), let alone to current parents and children. And the name Felix is increasingly in use, which will increasingly dilute the association. Old people may remark on it, the way they will remark on any name they haven’t yet realized is current (“Mateo? Now THAT’S an unusual name!”), and they can be ignored until they’ve had a chance to adjust.

Though here I am one paragraph later, uncertain about Diego because of the TV shows Dora the Explorer and Go, Diego, Go. To be fair, those shows were recent enough to have been watched at the time of broadcast by children who are still children today, and the DVDs are still regularly checked out at the library where I work.

I would encourage you to toss out “length” as a preference, if possible. One of my children has a name that is so long it gave me serious doubt (twelve syllables), and it is absolutely a non-issue. No one even says neutral things such as “Wow, that’s a lot of name!” Nothing. Not a peep. No one cares. And even if they HAD said “Wow, that’s a lot of name!,” it would have been the smallest of small deals. “Yes,” I would have said, smiling, and likely the conversation would have ended right there. The other person would not have gone home to their family that night saying “Let me tell you about the LONG NAME I encountered today!” (And if they had–because I actually DO report interesting name encounters to my family–THAT TOO would be the smallest of small deals.) Choose the name you love and REJOICE in its glorious longness! …Though if you prefer to avoid nicknames, that does seem like a reason to avoid a five-syllable name.

I have two names from the lists I’d like to champion:

1. Felix. Shortish, and easy to spell and pronounce. Felix Molina Maplepines. Felix and Liana; Felix and Alma.

2. Tomas. I think that you would get the occasional person trying to pronounce it like Thomas, but that it would be more typical for people to get it right: the spelling is a huge clue/reminder. There is a Stefan in my children’s school, and people might try STEFF-fun and stef-FAHN, but they don’t generally try STEVE-ven. Tomas Molina Maplepines. Tomas and Liana; Tomas and Alma.

Name update:

Thank you, all, for all your contributions and suggestions! I read your response, Swistle, and every comment many times. So many great suggestions, many of which would have been contenders if they weren’t taken by close family or friends (Luca! Andres! Rafael! Oscar!).

In the end Eli@s Abr@m joined us on April 8th, although technically he wasn’t named until the next day. The turning point with the name Eli@s was my husband realizing that while he was more familiar with the Spanish pronunciation he didn’t actually mind the English pronunciation, and was fine with using either. We also discussed how his own name is pronounced differently in English and Spanish, and how he has always used the standard pronunciation in each language and never minded. Diego and Emilio/Emiliano did remain options until the last minute, and while I do think Eli@s could have been an Emilio I am content with our choice. So far we normally use the Spanish pronunciation even when we are speaking English at home, but out and about (at the doctor’s office and places like that) we use the English pronunciation. We will see how things develop, but I am sure they will work out.

Thank you all so much!

Dear Swistle,

I have been a huge fan for years, and I’m super excited to reach out to you! My husband and I are expecting our first baby in mid-January, gender unknown. Our surname is Garrett-with-a-B, my name is Chelsea-with-a-K, and my husband is called L3wis. We’d like to avoid names beginning with K & L, and names ending in -ee and -s sounds. For a girl, we have a long list of names we like and can see ourselves using: Beatrix, Annabelle, Juliet and Adelaide top the list to name but a few. We like the idea of two middle names as well. However, if we have a boy, we are in trouble! First middle name will 100% be Peter, so that eliminates first names ending in most -r/-a sounds, as the pairings lack flow. The second middle name is not decided yet. I like Wilfred (my favourite of all time! – husband hates it!), Robin, Ernest, Quentin & Ralph. My husband likes Arthur, Julian, Axel, and names with a Roman origin – think Augustus & Aurelian. We can’t use Alfred, Rupert, George, William or Leonard. Our crossover list consists of Felix, Hector & Frank, but none of these feel like the one; my husband isn’t sure if we can carry off some of these names. I would describe our style as classic, vintage, Shakespearan – we aren’t drawn to modern names, nicknames as first names or surnames as first names. I like the idea of a name that is easy to spell, and is familiar, but neither very popular or very rare. Nothing feels perfect; and I’m finding it difficult to create a cohesive sibling set with our girl names, overall I think our boy name style is a bit more conservative than our girl choices. We would like to have at least one, if not two more children in the future. Hopefully you can help us!

I wonder if you would like Frederick for a boy. Maybe something like Frederick Peter ______ Garrett-with-a-B.

Hang on. Is Garrett-with-a-B your husband’s surname? Would your surname work as a second middle? Although, I will say that that’s what Paul and I did, and I have been increasingly unhappy over the years with the feeling that I accepted a small handful of dry crumbs. Husband gets his family’s surname for all the children, even though he is not particular close with his family, but I “get to” have my own family name as the SECOND middle name, in the throw-away, often-doesn’t-fit-on-forms position. Cool. I hear it once per school graduation, while his surname is in the open air simply constantly.

Well, what if instead you get to use one of the names your husband hates in the middle-name position? Frederick Peter Wilfred might not work because of the repeated -fred-, but let’s say we were dealing with Felix: Felix Peter Wilfred Garrett-with-a-B.

I’d also like to ask about the origin of Peter. Is that a name from you / your side of the family / your preferences, or is it from your husband / your husband’s side of the family / your husband’s preferences? If it’s another name from your husband’s side, we need to look very seriously at creating balance with the first name and the second middle name. If it’s from your side, it’s a good start. And if, instead, Garrett-with-a-B is YOUR family surname and Peter is from your side/preferences, then we need to make the same effort to include names from your husband and his preferences: maybe his family surname as the second middle, maybe a name from his list that you dislike as the second middle, etc.

I think Franklin/Frank is a pretty great name, and I think a kid could carry it. That’s the one that stands out to me from your shared list. Franklin Peter Wilfred Garrett-with-a-B.

I wouldn’t worry too much about finding a style match between your boy-name choices and girl-name choices: it’s so common for parents to have different styles there; and also, your lists seem compatible to me. I would keep an eye out for names that eliminate other names (for example, using Julian for a boy could rule out using Juliet for a future girl; maybe you wouldn’t want to have a Felix and a Beatrix; etc.), and I would look out for CLASHES—but, for example, a sibling group of Beatrix, Franklin, and Juliet works perfectly well, as does a sibling group of Annabelle, Felix, and Adelaide, so I think you’re starting from a good position.

Your preferences about not repeating either the beginning sounds OR the ending sounds of your own names makes me wonder how you feel about duplicating initials/endings within the sibling group. If you are strongly opposed, it is a good idea to think ahead of time about which name from each group you like best: Juliet or Julian? Annabelle or Adelaide or Arthur or Axel? Beatrix or Felix? It may seem like an obvious thing to consider, but it’s not something I myself thought through sufficiently: I realized that if I chose Robert it would rule out Russell, but I neglected to consider it would also rule out Rose and Ruth and Albert.

I wonder if you would like the name Conrad. I’ve been noticing it cropping up here and there. Conrad Peter Quentin Garrett-with-a-B.

Or Desmond. Desmond Garrett-with-a-B. Desmond Peter Wilfred Garrett-with-a-B.

Or Crispin. It has the merry sound of Robin. Crispin Peter Earnest Garrett-with-a-B. (I’m deliberately using a different spelling of Earnest here, just for playing around.)

Aidric. I’m not sure if it’s too many snappy sounds with the surname. Aidric Garrett-with-a-B. Aidric Peter Wilfred Garrett-with-a-B.

Edmund. Edmund Garrett-with-a-B. Edmund Peter Quentin Garrett-with-a-B.

Hugo. Hugo Garrett-with-a-B. Hugo Peter Wilfred Garrett-with-a-B.

Warren. Warren Garrett-with-a-B. Warren Peter Ernest Garrett-with-a-B.

Victor. Victor Garrett-with-a-B. Victor Peter Quentin Garrett-with-a-B. I know you mentioned avoiding names ending in R, but I’m not sure the flow with middle names will be that much of an issue. Do you come from a family that uses them often? That is, do you have reason to think people will frequently call your child “Victor Peter”? Or will the middle names show up in the birth announcements and then not again until high school graduation?

Marcus. Marcus Garrett-with-a-B. Marcus Peter Wilfred Garrett-with-a-B. I know we’re avoiding -s endings, but I’m slightly ignoring that preference, especially in favor of one of the few ancient-Roman names I think works beautifully today.

I’m a little surprised your husband isn’t on board with Quentin. That seems almost more like it should be on his list rather than yours. Let me just put in a word for it to see if he’ll reconsider it, because I think it hits a lot of the preferences. Quentin Garrett-with-a-B. Quentin Peter Wilfred Garrett-with-a-B. Quentin, Beatrix, and Juliet. Quentin, Annabelle, and Felix. Quentin, Adelaide, and Beatrix.

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

Hope you are well, I have a name update for you!
We ended up having a little boy, which was a shock as I was certain I was having a girl.
It took us a while to settle on the name, as we were still unsure. My husband decided to look up the feast days of the saints who are celebrated on the day our son was born. (I’d like to add we aren’t particularly religious – we were just looking for inspiration). Lo and behold, January 14th was St Felix’s day – and this was one of the few names we could agree on. This was the sign/coincidence we needed to confirm that our son was a Felix!

Here is Felix Peter Alfred:

P.S. I’m still holding out hope for Wilfred if we have another son in the future!

Dear Swistle,

I love your column and your commitment to balance between parents in naming! My partner and I feel similarly, and that’s an area where we could really use your help.

We are due with our first and almost certainly only child, a girl, in March. We were trying to conceive for a while and have developed a relatively stable shortlist, though now that this is actually happening, we’re wondering if we should open it up to new possibilities and conversely, how we will ever narrow it down. Any ideas for names to add or cut would be appreciated!

We are using my partner’s surname, which is Beach (but spelled like the tree). We decided to go with it for a variety of reasons, and I have 51% say in the first name as part of the deal. We’d also like to use a middle name from my family to help balance things out. But that’s where it gets tricky – there are “dynamics” in my family that mean many potential choices could result in hurt feelings/drama/guilt. The fact that this will be our only child increases the pressure. My last name doesn’t work well as a middle, and I never liked my middle name much. Any ideas on ways to balance the name without using a family name? Is that even possible?

One other note on honour names – a couple of names on our shortlist are family names, and if we use one of those, we’ll probably give our daughter a middle name that is hers alone.

On to the shortlist:

Mary: a family name on both sides (non-contentious). We love that it’s so recognizable but not very common, at least for babies. Only concern is that it might be too plain? We get a lot of underwhelmed reactions.

Alice: my maternal grandmother – another non-contentious honour name. So versatile. By far the most common (#11 nationwide, #44 in our province) which is the main drawback. Also, I think the name is very nice and checks a lot of boxes, but it doesn’t grab me the way some of the others do.

Bernice: this was my favourite, and my partner wasn’t that keen, and I more or less talked myself out of it. But now suddenly it’s become my partner’s top choice and I’m not sure if I can get back on board! I love the nickname options (Bernie, Bebe). I can’t decide if it’s great or too much with the last name. And is it unpopular for a reason? Too clunky?

Sylvia: the forest is meaningful to us, and it’s a pretty name. My partner has cooled on it, feeling it might be too much in grandma (rather than great-grandma) territory.

Linnea: lovely name, and meaningful to us for the botanical connection. Concerns: might be mispronounced, is just a little outside our usual name style, and might be too pretty?

Cecily: We like that it’s light but also serious-sounding. Concerns: a little hard to say, and the meaning “blind” is not super appealing.

Agnes: one of my partner’s favourites. I like it, but I dislike the nickname Aggie, and I don’t love “chaste” as a meaning.

Considered but rejected: Dorothy, Veronica, Helena, Cora, Estelle.

Boy names we liked: Laurence nn Laurie, Alistair, Ansel, James, Norbert, Jasper.

We are in Canada, which I hope is close enough to the US in naming climate that you will feel able to help. The only significant difference I can see, for our purposes, is the higher popularity of the name Alice here. Oh, and also that Bernie probably has a milder Sanders connotation in Canada!

Thank you so much for considering this (long) letter! We promise to write with an update if chosen.

R0semarie (R0sie) and Patr1ck

Well, let’s see, you’ve already considered some of my favorite ideas for bringing more balance to a name: using your own surname, using your own middle name, using family names from your side of the family. And you have already agreed that you will have more say in the first name; 1% more of the say seems…slim, considering the 100% sacrifice of your surname and 100% use of his, but I am just going to take 51% to mean it’s up to you, and that you will actually use that edge instead of choosing the name the two of you would have agreed on anyway even without the deal, and that way we’re all happy.

I will mention some ideas that you have likely already considered, but maybe you haven’t! And even if you have, perhaps they will be useful to someone else who is going through the same situation. One idea is to use your own first name. Men do this absolutely constantly; women, much less often. And your first name gives a lot of options to fit with a variety of first names, depending on to what extent each option feels like Your Name: R0se, R0sie, R0semarie, maybe variations such as R0salie and R0semary. My favorite would be to use R0semarie, but not if that doesn’t feel like Your Name—like, if that’s your Only When I’m in Trouble name. In that case I’d be more inclined to use R0sie. But I’ll note that men named James who have always gone by Jim or Jamie still tend to name their sons James, not Jim or Jamie.

Another idea is to use names that are meaningful to you in other ways than family names. Did you love Anne of Green Gables as a child (Anne, Cordelia, Marilla)? Little Women (Josephine, Margaret, Elizabeth, Amy)? Five Children and It (Anthea, Jane)? All of a Kind Family (Ella, Henrietta, Sarah, Charlotte, Gertrude)? The Five Little Peppers (Mary/Polly, Sophronia/Phronsie)? Are there books and movies you consider your all-time favorites? Do you have favorite scientists, politicians, actors, authors, poets?

Let’s look now at the first names. The three that align most with my OWN tastes (which is not the question here) are Sylvia, Linnea, and Cecily. I went to school with a Linnea (the lynn-NAY-ah pronunciation), and found her name endlessly pleasing to say; it was on my own baby-name list for each pregnancy. I don’t think Sylvia is too grandma; I think it’s well ready to come back into style—and considering how similar it is to the very popular Olivia, I’m surprised it isn’t more common already. I think it has a lovely sound: light/silvery but grounded/solid. I agree with your assessment of Cecily, and I don’t find the meaning to be an issue.

In fact, let’s do a little side-paragraph on the meaning of Cecily. I’m looking in The Oxford Dictionary of First Names, which says nothing about that meaning under Cecily. But under Cecil, it says that Cecil is a surname name, and that the Cecils were Welsh; it then adds: “In the Middle Ages Cecil was occasionally used as an English form of Latin Caecilius (an old Roman family name derived from the byname Caecus ‘blind’).” Are you following this? I had to re-read it like a dozen times, and I had to look up the word byname, which apparently means nickname and/or early surname (like from when surnames were used to distinguish between two people with the same name, like Isaac the Baker and Isaac the Bearded). But what I’m getting here is that the name Cecil is a Welsh surname that does not mean blind or have anything to do with blindness. But “in the Middle Ages,” people “occasionally” said they were using Cecil or Cecilia as a form of the Latin name Caecilius. And that Caecilius is a surname that came from some ancestor being called Isaac the blind, and the word for blind was caecus. This feels like a lot of big leaps to get to the idea that the name Cecily means blind. Nevertheless, Saint Cecilia in the Catholic tradition is considered the saint of the blind, so that perhaps locks it in for many. [Edited to add: This tidbit about Saint Cecilia is apparently not true. This is where I got the (mis)information: https://stmatthewmonroe.org/st-cecilia.]

Well. I wonder if you would like Celeste?

I’m not going to go on a similar journey for Agnes, because it’s a name your partner is more in favor of than you are, and I am glad to see those names but am not considering them strong contenders. I will say that other books list the meaning of Agnes as more like pure/holy/lamb (agnus is Latin for lamb).

I think the name Mary is similar to the name John, in that it seems so very ordinary and plain on paper, but springs to life with freshness on an actual child. There was one single Mary in school with my kids, and when I first heard her name I thought “MARY!!” with amazement, hearing it as if for the first time as a name rather than as almost a name stand-in. It feels saturated because of its many previous generations of popularity—but in this current generation of babies, it is rare and surprising. It is much higher in the Social Security Administration‘s rankings than I’d expect (#136 in 2022), and I have wondered if that is regional (i.e., in some areas of the U.S., there is a Mary per household), or if it is due to a large number of children being given the name but then going by a different name. I would be interested to hear other people’s experiences with the name in their region.

I am intrigued by the name Bernice. It has been off my radar. I remember a Bernice on the TV show Designing Women. (That used to be one of my favorite shows. I wonder if it holds up to modern re-watching?) Other than that, I’m not sure I’ve encountered any. I think Bernie or Birdy would be adorable nicknames. Bernice makes me think of the names Beatrice and Beatrix and Bernadette.

Alice, Bernice, and Agnes all merge a bit with the surname, creating a “speech” sound. This is not any sort of deal-breaker, but it’s the kind of thing I like to think about ahead of time.

Because you like Alice and Cecily, and because you like name meanings, I suggest the name Felicity. It means happy/lucky.

Because you like Laurence for a boy, I wonder if you would like Florence?

And because it came to mind while I was writing the post, I suggest the name Harriet. I feel it shares vibes with Agnes and Alice and Bernice and Sylvia.

If it were up to me, this is the list I’d be working with:

Celeste R0semarie Beach
Felicity R0semarie Beach
Florence R0semarie Beach
Harriet R0semarie Beach
Linnea R0semarie Beach
Sylvia R0semarie Beach

And the one that is currently my own frontrunner is Sylvia R0semarie Beach. It’s a first name that is on your shared shortlist and has meaning to both of you but you like it a little more than your partner does, which feels like it puts your 1% to good use; and it uses your own first name as the middle name, which gives her a uncontestable family honor name that goes a fair way to balance the weight of your partner’s family surname.

Name update:

Dear Swistle,

Thanks so much to you and your readers for the thoughts and suggestions! It gave us a lot to consider. A funny thing happened as we were testing out the names on our shortlist (we used each for a week): Alice wore so well! It went from unexciting to the top of my list. Once baby arrived on March 21, it still felt right. With my maternal grandmother’s name as first the name was satisfyingly balanced, and we chose a middle we liked for its style and meaning. Alice Esme Beach is now 3 weeks old and a true delight! Thanks again for your help.

R0sie and Patr1ck

Hello!

I really love your site and name advice! We are in the USA, about to have our second boy child. Our last name rhymes with “Gates” but has a different first letter (not hard to guess haha).

Our first son is named Walter Allen “Gates.” Walter was taken from two great grandfathers and Allen is my husband’s middle name.

We’re preparing for baby boy #2 in January of next year. We love family names and honoring family name traditions. We do hope to have more children in the future.

My side of the family began a tradition of giving the second-born son the middle name “Bennett” (my dad’s middle name). We like Bennett and want to continue the tradition. Some options we like include:

Ezra Bennett [G]ates
Alden Bennett [G]ates
James Bennett [G]ates
OR Jim Bennett (I’ll explain this more)

My husband and I both feel strongly about using a first name that honors my husband’s side too, particularly his grandpa. Now I’ll explain the dilemma. Grandpa’s name is Jimmy, goes by Jim. His name isn’t short for James or anything else—it’s literally just Jimmy/Jim!

Problem. I don’t like Jimmy as a stand alone. At all. Jimmy is out (as nickname it’s fine). We don’t like grandpa’s middle name either.

James isn’t my favorite of all names, but we appreciate it as a timeless classic. But it’s NOT grandpa’s name.

Jim is okay—I like its sound, its manliness—and it’s what grandpa goes by—and grandpa is an amazing man, worth naming after. But Jim isn’t a real full name, is it?

The options are, name our son James Bennett and nickname him Jim in honor.
OR, go all in and name him Jim Bennett [G]ates.

Is it weird to just give him the name “Jim?” Is it insufficient as a given first name? I do like the ring of saying “Jim Bennett.”

On the other hand, is James Bennett the safer option? Would our son rather have James to fall back on one day? BUT, is James really even honoring grandpa, since his name isn’t James?? Only the nickname would be after him.

Or should we just forget it and do one of the other names we like paired with Bennett? I’m torn. Need some advice! Thank you!!

It sounds to me as if this is just one of those impossible situations: you would love to honor someone whose name unfortunately does not work for you as an honor name. The choices are: (1) Use the name anyway (i.e., go with Jimmy or Jim) or (2) Don’t use the name (i.e., go with another option from your list). The brain attempts to find a third option, but there is no third option. The two options can then be weighed on a scale: Which do you want more? Which is more important to you?

It is unfortunate that sometimes the people we would MOST love to honor with an honor name are the people who don’t have names we can use. Maybe it’s a name shared by another, problematic family member, or by an ex; maybe it’s a name that’s impossibly terrible with the surname; maybe it’s a name we hate; maybe we run out of children to name before we run out of names we feel a strong need to use; maybe the honor name only works on a girl/boy and we never have a girl/boy. Whatever the reason, this is a familiar situation to many of us: sometimes an honor name just doesn’t work out. Unless it is crucially, crucially important to honor this particular relative over all others, my opinion is that you should let this idea go. There are other ways to honor the people we love.

But if you were saying you LOVED the name Jim, and your only question was could you possibly use it as a given name, I would say sure! It’s not my own style or preference, and I personally wouldn’t want the hassle of a nickname name (“No, actually, it’s just Jen, it’s not short for Jennifer”), but people do it all the time; in fact, there are many parents who deliberately give children nickname names, saying they believe in naming the child what they’ll be called. So that’s what goes on the birth certificate: Charlie or Sam or Addie. And in your case it’s a family name, which makes it considerably easier: some people WILL assume it’s short for James, and then you’ll say “Oh, actually, it’s just Jim: it’s a family name!”

On the other hand, how new is your family’s Bennett tradition? Is there still room to reinterpret it? You could name him Bennett Jimmy or Bennett Jim. And since it sounds as if you’re using your husband’s family surname, this gives a better balance to the name; it’s still heavily weighted to your husband’s side, but it’s better than a first name from a first name on the father’s side, a middle name from a middle name on the mother’s side, and then a surname from the father’s side. But Bennett might be a little much with the surname.

Another option, since you’re planning to have more children, is to save the Jim/Jimmy decision for a future child, when you will not also be trying to use Bennett. If you have freedom of middle name, that gives you room to find a combination that transforms Jim/Jimmy into a completely desirable choice: e.g., maybe when you hear “Jim Ezra” you think “Wait, YES!!! Or maybe there’s another family name that would sound wonderful with Jimmy: you’ll be going through the family tree and you’ll think, “Jimmy _____!! YES!!”

But my own first choice would be to say, “Welp, we really, really wanted to name a child after Grandpa, and it would have been GREAT if we could have—but unfortunately we cannot make Grandpa’s name work for us,” and use another name instead.

Name update:

Swistle,

Thank you (and to all the commenters) for the great name advice! It definitely helped me to re-examine how I felt about our name options! You’ll probably laugh at where I landed after being so conflicted.

Our sweet Jimmy Bennett (G)ates has arrived!

I remembered some advice you gave to others about not restricting yourself so much when it came to names. I let go of whether a name was considered “real” or not. I wasn’t too concerned with balancing my husband’s side with mine—mainly because I have adopted his grandpa completely as my own, and therefore it wasn’t a matter of which side of the family he is on in this case. Grandpa Jim is as precious to me as if he had always been my own. (It’s also just unspoken between my husband and me that I have the last word in name choice. I had to truly be satisfied before the choice was made! Somehow, my opinion of Jimmy slowly changed, and it grew into love hahaha).

Grandpa Jim was so thrilled by the honor name that he was in tears—he was totally surprised. Sharing the news with him is now a dear memory.

We’re loving the name and confident that our little Jim will be happy with his name (and it’s many nn options) as he grows. Older brother Walter also approves. So far baby has been called Jim, Jimmy, Jimbo, Jim Bennett, etc., and it fits him perfectly!

Happy new year from Jim!