Hello,

I’m due in late fall with my second daughter and my husband and I can’t seem to agree on a name for her. I think part of the problem is the fact that our first daughter’s name was decided upon so easily and has a strong significance for us and this time it feels more difficult and less special. Ann “Annie” was named after someone who supported us through infertility treatment and my middle name is also Ann, so it seemed perfect. Annie’s middle name is my mother’s first, baby #2’s middle name will be my MIL’s first name so we don’t need to do an honor first name. If baby number two would have been a boy, his first name would have been Paul.

Our last name complicates things, for me at least. It sounds like Fight-Iss with a W instead of F. I find that the strong two syllables of the last name don’t flow well with a two syllable first. Names that end in ‘s’ also don’t flow well. This has eliminated some that we’ve liked, including Iris, Lois and Edith.

We have a few names that we do agree on but can’t use for one reason or another based on family strife or people close to us using the name recently:
Ruth (this would be THE name, but we absolutely can not use it)
Mary
June
Opal
Jane (too similar to Ann for me)
Margaret
Julie
Eve (we are worried it is too close to other popular names like Ava and Evelyn)

Names my husband likes that I don’t:
Vera
Sylvia
Mae

Names I like that my husband doesn’t:
Rose (I love this but he thinks it is too frilly, while I find it simple yet elegant. However, it does seem to be quickly gaining popularity where we live)
Sara
Miriam
Hope

Names we both like but aren’t convinced on yet:
Helen (we both like that it sounds strong but for some reason I think it sounds similar to Ann. My family also does not care for it)
Joan “Jo” (we both like the nickname Jo but do not care for longer versions like Josephine or Jolene)
Liza (I’m worried it is too similar to Eliza, which seems popular where we live)

I’d like to find a name that is not in the top 100 and that goes well with our daughter’s. Annie’s name seems so special to me and I never want our future daughter to feel like we settled on her name. We likely won’t have more children so we don’t need to worry about finding additional complimentary names moving forward.

I appreciate any help you can offer!

Oh, I just love Joan. That’s the one that leapt out at me. Ann and Joan, Annie and Jo.

It is not at all uncommon for parents to have trouble finding a name for a second child that seems as special as the name of the first child. Part of this is the obvious explanation that parents would of course tend to use the best, favorite, most-special name first, and so, unavoidably, any subsequent names will be less best, less favorite, less-special. Another part is that by the time parents are naming a second child, the first child’s name has WELDED to the first child: it is no longer a name, it is THE CHILD. No mere name can possibly hope to measure up to that, not until the second child is born and their name has welded similarly to them.

In your particular case, you used a special significant honor first name for your first child, and you’re not planning to use an honor first name this time, so it’s natural that the name would feel less special. I like to think about families who have a naming tradition for the firstborn but not for subsequent children: clearly things aren’t balanced, and yet I don’t hear much from siblings who are peeved their older brother/sister got the special honor name. I’m sure they exist, because if there is a thing to be peeved about, you can be sure someone somewhere is peeved about it; but it’s not a common, regular thing where we all know a grown adult who is angry that their older sibling got a tradition/honor name and they didn’t. We’re familiar with the idea that sometimes there is only one naming tradition in the family, or only one honor name the parents wanted to use.

An obvious fix here would be to find another special significant honor first name, but my guess is that this is an idea you have considered and rejected already. It may be an idea to go back to, if you continue to find yourself unhappy with the difference. I don’t think you need to worry that the child will feel less special over this, especially if you tell the naming stories with equal love and enthusiasm (“We used your name because we just LOVED it, it was our FAVORITE, we just thought it was SO cool/beautiful/classic/etc.!” is a great naming story too). But if it bothers YOU, that is a good reason to see what can be done. The nice thing about the name Ann is that it is ancient and traditional and likely to go beautifully with many, many names from the family tree or from history.

From your can’t-use list, I particularly like Ruth, June, and Jane. From your husband’s list, my favorite is Mae, but I prefer the spelling May with Ann. From your list, my favorite is Rose. From your joint list, my favorite is Joan—and that’s my favorite from all the lists. I would add:

Elaine
Ellen
Irene
Jean
Jill
Joy
Kay
Laura
Leah
Leigh
Lynn
Maeve
Marie
Polly
Sally

I know you said two-syllable names don’t flow well for you, but I left those in anyway in case they’d be of use to someone else, or in case I can persuade you.

I particularly like Sally. Annie and Sally. Darling. Polly is just as darling, and is similar to your boy-name choice Paul.

I also love Leigh and Lynn. I find they have the same unexpected feeling of names such as Ann and John: they’re familiar names the eye can skip across in the naming book, but there’s a fresh surprise when we encounter them on a child. Annie and Leigh, Annie and Lynn.

And I would love to encounter a baby Jill or Kay.

Jane doesn’t seem to similar to Ann to me, but I think June or Jean reduces the similarity. Joan is still my favorite from that group.

Name update:

I wanted to update now that our little girl has arrived. After much thought, we decided to go with Ruth “Ruthie” Christine. My MIL had pushed back due to a family issue but ended up being touched by the name, saying she hoped it appeased any family drama. We also love that Ruth shares a name with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a strong woman we both admire. Thanks for all the help and input of your readers!

Hi Swistle!

I have been reading your blog for years, from the time I was unmarried and definitely not considering naming a child to present, where I am 19 weeks pregnant and undecided on a name! My husband and I are expecting a baby boy in November, and we are thrilled! However, we’re stuck on names and I’d love your input. My husband’s surname is Whit (with an e at the end, like the color) and the baby will take his name. Another thing is that the baby will definitely have 2 middle names; my husband does and his father does, too (their middle names are the first names of both of their grandfathers, which I love).

We have a similar naming style: classic, easily recognizable, not overly popular (not top 10), and we particularly like names that lend themselves well to nicknames.

Our top pick had always been Finley (we’ve talked about names for our kids for years). There are two “problems”: 1) it’s his grandfather’s name, so we have agreed that the 2 middle names would come from my side, since first and last would be his… this is fine but breaks the cool pattern of grandfather middle names, and 2) we have a friend who named his son Griffin, and the parents call him “Fin” for short. Obviously, a Finley would also have Fin as a nickname… The full name would be Finley David (my dad) Ru$$ (my mom’s maiden name) Whit (with an e at the end).

Because of those two things, and because I overthink everything and want to make sure I’ve left no name unturned, we have not yet settled on that name.

Here’s the rest of our shortlist.
Lincoln
Harrison
Jameson
Emerson
Quinn
Ulysses (*husband loves this, obviously a bit out there compared to the rest of the naming style; nn Lee)
Russell
Henry
Malcolm
Ian

(middles names for any of these would be David Dinsm00r)

I am wondering if my qualms with Finley are overstated, and whether there are any names that we are not thinking of that go with this list/naming style. I bought the baby name wizard and we have poured over it quite a bit, most of these names came from there.

Would love your input and that of your commenters!!

Thank you!

I wanted to make sure I understood the grandfather/middle-name issue, so I got more information from the letter-writer:

Finley was my husband’s grandfather, so I guess I felt a bit like it would be fair to give “my” side two names if we did his grandfather’s as the first and then his surname. Dinsm00r is my husband’s father, so if we came up with a different first name the two middle names would be David and Dinsm00r. Since writing, we have continued to think a lot about Finley David Ru$$ White, where David is my dad and Ru$$ is my mom’s maiden name. That makes the entire name an honor name which gives me some pause as we probably wouldn’t have so many honor names for a future child – boy or girl.

I agree: if the first name ends up being a name from your husband’s side, it definitely makes sense to use two names from your side as middles, and I like your solution. Another option would be to use your father’s name and one of your grandfathers’ names, or both of your grandfathers’ names, but I greatly prefer your idea of bringing your mother’s name into it.

I see what you mean about using so many honor names for one child. Would that make you feel pressured to do something similar for future children? It’s not uncommon for the firstborn to have a different name situation than the other children, but it’s good to consider ahead of time if you want that or not. You could decide that the firstborn boy has his grandfathers’ names, the firstborn girl has her grandmothers’ names, and the rest of the children have a different system. Or you could give all the boys the same two middle names and all the girls the same two middle names—perhaps with the order swapped back and forth, so for example the second boy would be ______ Dinsm00r David Whit.

Would you want to consider saving Finley for a future child? It risks losing a chance to use the name, but it could solve all your issues in one swoop if you’re not planning to do the same middle name tradition for subsequent children. The firstborn could then follow the naming tradition and have both his grandfathers’ names, the secondborn could have the honor name Finley and not run into problems with middle names, and it would put more distance between your friend’s Fin and yours.

Another option, though it also involves risk, is to go ahead and use Finley David Dinsm00r for this child, but use three honor names from your side for the second child. This lets you have your favorite first name and also follow the naming tradition you like. I prefer to mix honor names from both sides for each child, but sometimes other preferences take precedence over that one.

Whether the friend/Griffin issue matters or not depends on the particular friend. Is it a close friend? Will you see them often? Does this friend seem from other name discussions to be prickly/possessive about names? I do think it helps tremendously that it’s just the nickname that is the same (and not even from the same part of the name, as it would be with, say, William and Wilson), and also I think Finley being a family name gives you full license to go ahead and use it anyway. You could soothe things further by referring to your son as Finley when you’re with the friend’s family.

I love a lot of the other names on your list. My favorites from there are Lincoln, Harrison, Russell, Henry, and Ian; of those, I am particularly swoony over Ian, Henry, and Russell. I love Malcolm, too, but with the surname it feels a little odd. Ulysses feels hard to wear, and the nickname Lee is not intuitive. I would normally suggest using it as a particularly fun middle name, but we are already full-up on middle names!

More names to consider:

Anderson
Callum
Calvin
Davis
Elliot
Ellis
Emmett
Everett
Flynn
George
Harris
Harvey
Keegan
Lawson
Louis
Oliver
Simon
Sullivan
Thompson
Wilson (alliterative with surname)

Name update:

Swistle,

Name update! Baby boy, Finley David Russ Whit(with an -e), was born 11/24 at 11:03. His name was solidified by your commentary and the comments of your readers who helped me feel that using two names from my family was fair and equitable. He’s a doll and we are in love!

Thanks for everything! Happy holidays to you and yours!

Brittany

Hi Swistle,

I’m hoping I can get some help with naming our third baby boy, due in October. My husband and I are struggling so much with this, it’s almost unbelievable. I wrote you a novel, and I’m excessive with parentheses, so feel free to edit as you like.

Our first son is Zane David – my husband’s family is from an area around Zanesville, OH and long before we had kids we visited the Zane Grey museum there. Both of us said “huh, that’s a cool name” and didn’t think much more about it, until we started trying to find names for the baby. Part of the problem with naming our babies is that my husband has wildly different tastes than I do, and it makes everything difficult. We finally settled on Zane, and David is my father’s name. We really like his name, and it suits him VERY well.

When our second son came along, we struggled again. I really liked the name Julian and put it out there as a strong contender. My husband didn’t like it AT ALL, and I heard no more about it for a number of weeks. He’d occasionally float other names, and I’d make a Marge Simpson noise, and we’d move on. Then, suddenly, he decided he liked Julian after all, and actually even started telling people that was what we were calling him. I was surprised, but since it was the name I wanted anyway I was cool with it. His middle name is Stephen, after my father-in-law. The middle name was decided after my FIL was diagnosed with cancer (sadly he passed on last month, three years after his initial diagnosis). We mostly call him Jules, if it matters.

Now we have the third boy, and are struggling again, this time with both first AND middle names. If we had a girl, she would be Edith Grace or Edith Caroline – but he is very definitely a boy, so we’re stuck! At one point my husband was telling people he was going to convince me to name this one “Trace” because it sounds like tres and he’s the third – I shut that down immediately! Trace would be an excellent name for the Palin family to use, but it definitely doesn’t fit with our names.

Complicating factors:

1. My MIL and I have a . . . fraught relationship. Also, when husband and I were first married, we had found a name we really like (Edmund), and she proceeded to crap all over it loudly and at length (which ended any discussion of names with her EVER until after the name is absolutely decided upon and final. She did not like the name Julian.) She named her children with all A-names, claiming it was just a coincidence (Sure, Jan.). I refuse to consider any A-names as a consequence. If that were not the case, Alexander would probably be a strong contender. I also will not use any Z- or J-names, for the same reason. Jasper would be a good name, otherwise.

2. My father’s family has a tradition of using the name Bryson. It was my grandfather’s middle name, my dad’s middle name, and my brother’s first name. Neither of my brothers have chosen to use it, and both are finished having kids. This is the last grandchild (for both sides; we actually have the only grandchildren on my husband’s side), and my mother has been pressuring me to use it since I was about 20. As soon as we found out this baby is boy, she ramped up again on the pressure. I would actually not mind using it as a middle name, although I have some residual contrariness that makes me slightly reluctant. My husband is neither here nor there on using it as a middle name.

3. I really feel like I ‘mismatched’ my sons’ names; Zane is an older name, but sounds trendy/new, and Julian’s feels really traditional. Neither are regionally popular where I live. I’d like, ideally, to be able to balance out the sibling set.

I would say that my taste in names runs to 1920’s-ish sounding names. My current proposed names are:

Wesley (small issue: if my younger brother had had a son, he would have been Wesley Bryson, but they are one-and-done, and they had a girl)
Malcolm
Spencer
Felix (I really love this one)
William (family name on my husband’s side)
Isaac
Gavin

My husband’s:

Luke
Bennett
Calvin

My husband likes Felix okay. I like Calvin okayish. But neither of us are wild about the other’s choices, and he told me the other day that he “keeps hoping he’ll just come across a name and realize ‘that’s it!'” which tells me that he’s really not enthused about any of my choices. He has floated his own name (Aaron) as a middle name, which I really don’t care for, but haven’t said anything about yet.

Names I just generally really love but are probably not going to work for various reasons:

Simon
Jasper
Alexander
Graham

I’m starting to get very antsy. We had both of our boys named by the 6-month-ish mark the last two times, and there is no sign we’re going to get this figured out soon. I am sure hoping you can help!

Gurl I hear you on the fraught mother-in-law relationship. We don’t want to reconsider Edmund, do we? Such a great name. Too bad she doesn’t like it. Fake sad-face emoticon.

Here is what I think: use Jasper. If you had just one child and had used a J name for him, I would agree that you might want to avoid anything that looked as if you were following in your in-laws’ all-same-initial footsteps. But with a Z in there, I think you’re good. And I think Jasper may be the name you’re looking for to bridge the gap between Zane and Julian. But imagining my own mother-in-law, and the way she would have said smugly, “See, that’s how it happens!” about the matching initials of even just two of the kids, and would have said it frequently—well, if Jasper has to be out, it has to be out.

After Jasper, I think Felix is the frontrunner for me. Zane, Julian, Felix. I might actually like that better than Zane, Julian, Jasper. Yes, I think I do. Yes. That’s where I would put my efforts: seeing if your husband repeats the thing he did with the name Julian.

But I also really like Calvin in this sibling set. Zane, Julian, Calvin; Zane, Jules, Cal.

And I don’t think Zane and Julian are mismatched. They might not be the exact same style, but I think they’re adjacent/compatible styles.

I don’t know what you should do about the Bryson thing. Family name traditions can be fun, but, in my opinion, ONLY when they are purely opt-in and there is no pressure/pushing/nagging. The MINUTE there is hinting and pushing, I go into “YOU NAMED YOUR OWN BABIES AND I GET TO NAME MY OWN BABIES” mode and start to think naming traditions should be methodically squashed to avoid letting earlier generations think they get to make that kind of decision for later generations. I suggest the next time your mom brings it up, you say, in whatever way makes sense for your relationship and the way you talk to each other, something like “Mom, you know I have a contrary streak, and when you push for this it makes me want to not use the name just on principle.”

Name update:

Hi Swistle!

Name update: We had almost settled on Bennet (my husband was stubborn) when Stan Rogers came up on my playlist, singing “Barrett’s Privateers” and I asked my husband “what about Barrett? We could call him Rhett.” He looked at me and said, “We could call him Bear,” and we both started smiling like idiots at the thought.

Anyway! Barrett Bryson was born on October 10, and he is healthy and beautiful and both of his brothers are smitten with him. Thanks for your help!

Hi Swistle,

I’ve followed your site for ages – even before getting married – because I love your logical approach to naming, which can be such an emotional choice!

I’m finding this out first-hand while trying to name our first born son, due August 10. Using your suggestions from past posts, my husband and I have narrowed it down to the following three, but are open to other suggestions:

Avery Logan Kiner
Beckett Jay Kiner
Brooks Logan Kiner

Our (Jewish!) last name is pronounced KIGH-ner. I’m against a repetitive “er” sound in the first name, because it feels silly (ie Parker Kiner, Connor Kiner) and don’t care for K names either (Kody Kiner). Blegh.

The main trouble is, we can’t agree on a favorite name. Even close family and friends go in very different directions when we share these three options with them.

We thought Avery was the one for awhile, but the popularity of the girl name has me on edge. It remains my husband’s favorite. Beckett is my favorite, but the hubs doesn’t like “Beck” as a nickname and his grandma asked if it was like “bucket” which made him nervous that it was too unique. Brooks has come up in the past week or two as an attempt at a compromise, and its cute… but neither of us really love it yet.

Then, the middle name debacle. Again, my husband is Jewish so they don’t believe in honor names for living relatives. I’m a red-haired Christian, so all middle names in my family are honor names of some kind. (It’s worth noting that this baby could have red hair too, which might let him standout enough without a unique name!)

Logan is actually my husband’s favorite baby name but it’s so popular (top 10) that I said no to it as a first name. I do like it as a conservative middle name especially for a boy with a more unique first name like Avery. If he gets teased for having a girl name, Logan feels masculine enough to balance it out and give him an option. It also seems to flow well in between.

Jay is actually an nod to Ben’s father whose middle name is J (literally just the letter), which he OK’d and my sister’s soon to be husband, Jaysen. We love Jason/Jay/Jaysen as a name but it’s too common/used in our family for living relatives to feel appropriate. I also tried to fight for an honor to my passed grandfather, Frederick Hugh in the middle name – but hubs didn’t like either of those names at all.

Other names we’ve considered and deleted: Micah, Henry, Owen, Brody, Jordan, Jude, Brady, Colton… Jordy (was a big contender for awhile).

Our girl names came super easy to us! They were Nora and Ruby, which we still love and would like to potentially use as siblings to this baby one day. I also love our second two options as brother names – Beckett and Brooks.

Can you help steer us in one direction or another? Appreciate your help!!

Love,
Ben & Krista

It has been awhile since I’ve checked in with the U.S. usage of the name Avery, so I’m going to start by looking at that.

2010: 6673 F, 1697 M
2011: 7340 F, 1790 M
2012: 8314 F, 2012 M
2013: 9174 F, 2047 M
2014: 9563 F, 2281 M
2015: 9339 F, 2210 M
2016: 8759 F, 2111 M
2017: 8186 F, 2179 M

That is very interesting to me. The usage rises together and falls together in a way I would not expect. Here is what I expected to see: the usage rising for both, and then starting to drop for boys: when a name is in disputed usage, the boys almost always back down. Instead, breaking out my high school math, I can see this:

2010: 80% F, 20% M
2011: 80% F, 20% M
2012: 81% F, 19% M
2013: 82% F, 18% M
2014: 81% F, 19% M
2015: 81% F, 19% M
2016: 81% F, 19% M
2017: 79% F, 21% M

It is HOLDING STEADY for boys, despite being used four times more often for girls. I don’t dare to hope that this means we are finally entering an era where a name’s rising usage for girls doesn’t mean it falls off the list for parents of boys, as if being associated with girls was a kiss of death, but…well, actually, I do hope it a little. So many excellent gentle names for boys have been lost this way.

I am unsure how to proceed from here. If the polls would still work on this blog, I would do a poll; sadly the polls have been even glitchier than the comments section. We can do a sort of manual poll by having commenters write out their pick in the comments section, but we never get anywhere near as many comments as we get poll votes, and there is nothing quite like the vivid visual of a poll. Well. This earth is full of sorrow, and we will have to bear up under the poll-related elements of that. [Edited to add: at commenter Lilly’s excellent suggestion we are going to attempt to have the poll on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Swistle/status/1013764057550196736] [Poll closed; here are the results:]

Or perhaps it would be helpful to have more suggestions? Or perhaps not: sometimes when it’s down to three nice solid finalists, the last thing you want is a whole bunch of new names to consider. Maybe instead we should be looking at posts about narrowing down a list?

But sometimes when it’s down to three, and one name is #1 for one parent and another name is #1 for the other parent and the third name is a not a strong contender yet, sometimes finding some new candidates is the only thing that breaks the stalemate.

It does look to me like you have a nice consistent style for boy names: you mostly like surname names. The name I am eager to suggest is Wesley: a gentle surname name currently used almost exclusively for boys (in the U.S. in 2017, there were 60 new baby girls and 3547 new baby boys). Wesley Kiner. Long usage so even the great-grandparents can’t pretend not to know it’s a name. Nickname Wes, which in my own opinion is one of the best male nicknames of all. Nice with either middle name candidate: Wesley Logan Kiner, Wesley Jay Kiner. Wonderful with Ruby and/or Nora. Similar in sound to both Avery and Beckett. I am holding myself back from pushing very hard for this name.

Or Anderson. Anderson Logan Kiner, Anderson Jay Kiner. I like Anderson Logan less because of the repeated endings, but I don’t mind much if the middle name doesn’t go perfectly with the first name: it’s so rare to even use the middle name.

And possibly if we change the first names we’d want to reexamine middle names anyway. That’s a bargaining chip to keep in your pocket, by the way. Right now that’s what you’re doing with the middle name Logan: it’s a favorite of your husband’s that you don’t want as a first name, so you’re offering the middle name, which is an excellent use of the middle name position. But it bothers me a little that the name Avery Logan Kiner is your husband’s two favorite names and your husband’s surname: I suggest you getting more say on the middle name if the first name ends up being Avery or any other name that he likes more than you do. Perhaps it could be one of the names you like that he doesn’t want as a first name, or an honor name from your side. Okay, back to the first names:

Oo, how about Elliot? That’s a name Paul and I couldn’t use because neither of us would back down on our preferred spelling. Elliot Kiner. Elliot Logan Kiner, Elliot Jay Kiner. Nice with Ruby and/or Nora.

Or Wilson. Excellent nickname Will. Wilson Kiner. Wilson Logan Kiner, Wilson Jay Kiner. Nice.

Or Davis. Davis Kiner.

Or Ellis. Ellis Kiner.

With Beckett on your list you have probably already considered Bennett, but I offer it anyway. Bennett Kiner, with the very appealing nickname Ben.

Or Garrett. Garrett Kiner.

Oh! Louis! Louis Kiner.

Or Thompson, potential nicknames Tom/Tommy. I am noticing old-fashioned nicknames making a bit of a comeback in my area: things may be shifting away from “We want to name him James but we don’t want anyone calling him Jimmy.” We have one Tommy and one Johnny in our circle of acquaintances.

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

Wanted to send you a note and introduce you to Beckett Logan Kiner!

He was born on July 28 weighing 8 lbs., and 2 oz. We are absolutely in love! Your poll (and post!) helped us immensely and guided us in making the final decision. So far, we’ve received lots of compliments. :)

Thanks again,
Krista

Hello,

I am due with baby girl #2 in July and big sis is Ava. Last name rhymes with ‘Hide’.

The criteria we have are:

-longer name (preferably 3 syllables),

-feminine,

-natural/obvious nickname(s),

-preferably vintage in feel/classic,

-familiarity, not too obscure

We love Evelyn but feel it’s just too close to Ava, especially if we use the NN “Ev” or “Evie”.

We like Scarlett but the NN “Scar” just feels wrong and having a great nickname is super important!

Rosalie (NN Rosie) is at the top of our list as of now- we LOVE the old fashioned feel of the name and adore the NN Rosie/Ro. We also think Rosie/Rosalie flows so nicely & compliments Ava.

Lately, another name has been surfacing: Eleanor.

In my opinion, one advantage Eleanor has over Rosalie is that it’s ranked higher in popularity (which most would consider a negative, but I actually prefer a more familiar, less ‘obscure’ name as I’ve mentioned before.) I’m a tad worried Rosalie is a little too rare and unfamiliar. Whereas Eleanor seems much more well known.

I don’t want Rosalie to be confused with other ‘Rose’ names or hear from strangers or friends “oh I’ve never heard of that name before m, did you make that name up?”

On the other hand, the advantage Rosalie has over Eleanor is that I like the nicknames Rosie/Ro much better than Ellie, Elle bc they’re more refreshing and not so overdone. (I know, I know.. I’m reaallllly trying to achieve that perfect medium between not too overdone and not too different :) And because nicknames are so important the fact that Ellie seems ultra ‘vanilla’ & bores me is turning me off to Eleanor.

I also truly like the full name and sound of Rosalie better than the sound of Eleanor. I think Eleanor is pretty and vintage, but the “nor” ending is throwing me off a bit. But I think Rosalie is just so, so pretty!

It’s almost as if I wish there were a big, beloved celebrity who named their daughter Rosalie to give it more familiarity.. I think that would alleviate my concern. In a perfect world, right?! :)

Am I overthinking the fact that Rosalie is a little less familiar? It IS offering everything else we are looking for!

Would you place it in the same grouping as vintage revival names like Eleanor, Violet, Evelyn, Josephine..?

Any other thoughts that come to mind when you hear this name? I have been thinking so much about names lately (especially this name) that sometimes it’s hard to even see clearly as far as how the name is perceived…if that makes sense.

I also like Lucille/Lucy/Lu, but my daughter sometimes goes by Ava Lou (Louise is her mn) so we think that’s too close considering her middle name.

Any other insight or suggestions are so helpful!!!

Thanks in advance :)

It sounds to me as if you have a strong preference for the name Rosalie on every single point except that you’d rather it was more popular. I cannot express how refreshing this is.

Also, I empathize with this whole struggle, because I had the same issue with my daughter’s name: I LOVED it and wanted so badly to use it, but it was so much less common than the names we usually chose. Even in the hospital I was still worried, wondering if we should go for the Top 20 name that was our second choice. And now I am SO GLAD we just WENT FOR IT and used the less popular name, because I still love it so much. (I would have been happy with our second choice, too, I think, but the thrill of the little risk of using the less-popular name just adds to my name happiness.)

I find that because of my personal experience, my inclination is to practically FORCE you to use Rosalie. But I will try to override that impulse. But really, reading your letter, it is so clear to me that you vastly prefer Rosalie, almost to the point of not liking your second choice by comparison.

I do think the name Rosalie is familiar enough at this point that no one will think you made it up. Or rather, no more than the usual: my grandparents had never heard of the name Kristen when I was born and thought it was a REALLY out-there choice, but it had been in the Top 100 for years already. I don’t think your contemporaries will think you made it up.

I do think the name Rosalie could be occasionally confused with Rose or Rosemary, but no more than any name might be confused with similar names. I don’t foresee it being a regular issue, though perhaps the parents of Rosalies could weigh in on this.

To me, Rosalie sounds like a name that fits well with other vintage revival names, without being a name that would spring to my mind if I were listing Vintage Revivals (Rose and Rosemary would be the versions I’d think of). According to the Social Security Administration, Rosalie was a less-popular name back in the early 1900s, too: it was in the 200s rankings, just as it is now, while Eleanor and Violet were Top 100, and Josephine and Evelyn were Top 50.

Though I definitely don’t think “Oh, that’s a Twilight name” when I hear it, I’m aware that the Twilight series is what seems to have brought the name to our collective awareness. Or it could be that we all, including the author, became aware of the name at the same time, and that she happened to use it in her books for the same reason other people happened to start using it for their babies.

While I don’t think the name Rosalie is too uncommon/unfamiliar to use, it does bother me that it’s so much less common than the name Ava. In 2017, the name Ava was #3, and that was its 13th year in the Top Ten; the name Rosalie was #236, and that was its 9th year in the Top THOUSAND. But although it’s my own preference for sister names and brother names to be in a similar range of popularity (I don’t mind a difference between the girls in the family and the boys), I don’t know if that’s one of your preferences. And I think many preferences can be ditched for The Right Name. And your preferences have changed since naming Ava, and I think that is something we should be flexible about. Eleanor was #35 in 2017, and so while that’s a point in its favor, it’s not the game-winning point.

One possibility is you could use Rose instead. The name Rose is not radically more popular than Rosalie (Rose was #141 in 2017), but its much-higher usage as a middle name makes it FEEL more common than it is. Ava and Rose would be a very sweet set of sister names, and you’d still have the nicknames Ro and Rosie.

If you wanted to use Eleanor, you could use the nickname Nora instead of Ellie; in my limited experience, Nora is the more standard nickname for Eleanor. Ava and Nora.

But although it might be the case that your preference for a more popular name will win out, it sounds to me from your letter as if Eleanor is not the right more-popular name for you.

I wonder if Nora on its own would work better? Oh, but it doesn’t have a natural nickname.

I notice you have Scarlet and Violet on your list, which make me think of Charlotte. Charlotte was #7 in 2017, and it’s lovely with Ava, and it has the nicknames Lottie and Charlie.

Or is Violet still a contender? It seems to meet a lot of your preferences, and it’s very nice with Ava. Potential nicknames Vi and Lettie.

Your hesitation with the -nor ending of Eleanor makes me want to suggest Eloise or Eliza, but those are both in the Less Popular category (#190 and #140, respectively), and also I don’t think of either one as having a natural nickname, and they don’t solve the El- issue, and Eloise is very similar to Ava’s middle name Louise, so never mind.

Evelyn makes me think of Vivian, another good vintage revival and not as similar to Ava; it was #97 in 2017. Ava and Vivian. Nickname Vivi. I guess that’s kind of a lot of V sounds.

Vivian makes me think of Lillian, which avoids a lot of the Vivian issues, and it was #27 in 2017. Ava and Lillian. Nickname Lily.

Name update: Rosalie Mae

Dear Swistle,

I am currently 20 weeks pregnant and due in September so this question is not urgent by any means but it’s something that has been weighing on my mind ever since we found out I was carrying a girl a few months ago.

We currently have an almost 2 year old son named Jameson Penn who we call both James and Jameson interchangeably. A little back story with the name; my dad’s first name is James, my father-in-law’s middle name is James and my husband’s middle name is James. I love that we were able to choose a classic name with a modern twist that covered three important men in his life.

We’ve always been on the same page with boy’s names and prefer strong surnames with special meaning behind it. If this baby had been another boy we would have most likely gone with Campbell or Maxwell with the middle name Christopher.

Here is our dilemma with naming a girl. I remember reading on here once that you have an issue with parents who name their boys strong, masculine names and their girls frilly names (worded differently of course.) I found out recently that my husband has an even stronger opinion about this issue ever since he talked to a higher up in his company with a “frilly” girl name. My husband works as a research scientist for a well know pharmaceutical company in a very male-dominated field. This person he spoke with goes by the name of Ann but recently confided in him that her first name is actually Daisy. She decided later in life (in her 40s) to go by her middle name because she was tired of introducing herself as Daisy at meetings or presentations and felt she wasn’t taken seriously by her male colleagues.

For the longest time, I’ve had our girl name picked out. The first name would be Tilly, after one of my favorite characters in a book and the name of my husband’s grandma, and her middle name Juliette after my mother-in-law. My MIL’s full name is Julie Jeanette so we just combined it into Juliette for her honor name. I was quickly turned down when I brought this name up to my husband after finding out we’re having a girl however and I have to admit that it does sound like a little girl’s name after thinking it through. Neither of us like the full name Matilda to get the nickname so it is officially off the table. But now we are having the hardest time finding a name that isn’t too girly or “silly” but that we still both like. I’m finding I tend to like girlier names but I understand the dilemma of her needing to “grow into it”, something I never even thought of when we were pregnant with our son. Now when I try on a new name, I picture an adult woman at an interview or giving a presentation and I don’t want her feeling silly with that name or resentful.

I recently fell in love with the name Annabelle and my husband admits he likes it and she can always go by Ann or Anna when she is older if she prefers, but we are still unsure if it falls into the “frilly” category. My mother’s middle name is Ann so I love the idea of having another child that covers both grandmas like our son covers both grandpas. However, Annabelle Juliette sounds VERY girly and froufrou to me but I haven’t found a close contender that I like nearly as much.

We’ve thought about naming her Juliette as the first name but my husband’s name is Jeremy and I hate the idea of being the only non-J name in the family. Jeremy, Jameson and Juliette. We have to use Juliette as the middle name as we’ve already told my MIL that we would be honoring her with this granddaughter and I can’t go back on that now.

What are your thoughts on this? Are we overthinking it too much? Should we just completely start over from scratch and only consider more serious names? Does this put too much pressure on her someday to be a professional when maybe she’ll want to be a dancer or a stay at home mom like I currently am when she’s older?

Our last name is a very short, harsh-sounding German name that is a combination of Trout and Trash so I would like the first name to be at least two syllables for a better flow. We tend to like classic, more traditional names that aren’t trendy or can be dated too much. Other than that, we are pretty flexible with styles.

I promise to send an update and a picture when baby girl arrives.

Thanks in advance!

You are remembering correctly that I can get a bit of a bee in my bonnet on this issue. Frilly and girly I don’t mind: frilly and girly can be words people use to mean Very Feminine, and there’s not a thing wrong with being Very Feminine. But I do mind when names for sons are chosen to be solid and dignified and important, and then names for daughters are lightweight and insubstantial and cute—and particularly if it seems important to give the sons honor names, but doesn’t seem equally as important to do so with the daughters.

So I am absolutely on-board with Annabelle Juliette. It is indeed a very feminine name, and so a person might use the words frilly or girly to describe it—but it is in no way lightweight or insubstantial, and you are using honor names just as you did for your son. And it’s a flexible name, nickname-wise, giving her lots of options for later on. Clearly no parent should feel they ought to put “Pleasing Swistle” on their preferences list—but if you DID by any chance have it on your preference list, you can check that off. If you love the name but want to decrease the frill, you could go for Annabel Juliet—but I like the way Juliette makes the Julie Jeanette connection clearer. Annabel Juliette, maybe.

Or I can think of a few more names you could consider as given names if you’d like to use Tilly as a nickname, and I’m hoping the commenters can think of still more. One is Ottilie. I haven’t yet encountered this name in person, and it is full of potential pronunciation/spelling issues, but it’s a very pretty name; I like the German pronunciation which is somewhere between oh-TEEL-ee-ah and ah-TILL-ee-ah. I’m afraid in the U.S. you’d hear a lot of AHT-tih-lee. Spelling it Ottilia/Otilia (as we do with names such as Anneke/Annika and Tilde/Tilda) would help, I’d think.

Another is Tilden. This name is too new to me for me to have an opinion yet, but I would think it would fit in well with other surname/location names. But I wonder if it might sound wrong with the surname.

The third is Natalie. It feels like a stretch to get Tilly from that, but I’ve seen bigger stretches.

Name update:

Dear Swistle,
I wanted to give you an update on our baby girl’s arrival after you posted our question and so many people took time out to respond. I was secretly heartbroken that we wouldn’t be using the name Tilly after loving that name for most of my life. Both my husband and I fell instantly in love when we read your answer and the name Natalie jumped out at both of us as the perfect solution. It became even more special when we learned that the meaning of the name is “Christmas day” when we were both engaged and married at Christmastime. Natalie “Tilly” Juliette was born a week early and we are all in love and adjusting to life with two little ones. Thank you so much for your solution and to everyone who helped!

Dear Swistle,
I am due with baby number 3, a boy, the first week of June. My husband and I have known what we would name him even before we found out I was pregnant, but we are now having serious second thoughts due to a potential nickname issue that just recently came to light.
Our first 2 children, one boy and one girl, are Colton and Hannah. We named them both with the thought that they would go by their full names, which is how we introduce them and how they are known amongst friends/teachers/teammates etc. However, over time they’ve both developed nicknames used mostly at home, but my husband and I and a few other family members almost exclusively call them Coley and Hannie— names we never would have planned in advance!
The name we’ve chosen for baby #3 is Emerson James. But it only just occurred to me that if we follow our past trend, we will likely end up calling him Emmy. The name itself doesn’t bother me so much. The problem I have is my association with the name. I have an estranged step sister named Emme (pronounced Emmy), who I’ve never been particularly fond of, and over the past 10-15 years has battled a drug addiction and spent time in and out of jail. My immediate family does not have a relationship with her whatsoever, but she’s the only Emme I know and the name feels very negative to me. I have never connected the name Emerson with Emmy until just recently when my daughter used that nickname for him.
I’m not concerned about what other people will think of the association. I’m more worried that I’ll regret or dislike his name over time because I associate the two. So my question for you is: is there a way to avoid the nickname altogether or should we start from scratch and find a new name for him?

Thank you!

In general, I think the likelihood of the nickname Emmy would rest almost entirely on whether the Emerson in question were a girl or a boy. For a girl named Emerson, I would say I thought the chances of her being nicknamed Emmy could be quite high—high enough for me not to want to risk it if there were a very negative association with that sound. But for a boy named Emerson, I’d guess the chances of the nickname Emmy are much, much lower. Perhaps some parents of boys named Emerson, Emmett, etc., could weigh in on this.

However, in the case of your particular family, you have gone Colton/Coley and Hannah/Hannie without anticipating that you would do so, and now your daughter has started using the nickname Emmy for the baby before he’s even born. This tells us the chances in your family are different than the chances overall. That is, in general a parent naming a son Emerson probably doesn’t need to worry that people in general will default to the nickname Emmy—but in your particular family, it is not only a possibility but a strong likelihood. The only thing that comes to mind as a way to avoid this would be to come up with a different nickname ahead of time and start using it preventatively—but I’m not sure that would work, and I’m not sure what alternate nickname to suggest.

I can’t say whether it would make you regret or dislike his name over time; it’s possible it would instead erase the negative association with Emme/Emmy. But I too would be worried, and I don’t think it would be a bad idea to get out the baby name books as you’re thinking this over, in case you end up coming down on the side of choosing something else. If it is of any help at all, the name Greyson kept coming to mind as I was working on the post.

Name update:

Hi Swistle!
It’s nearly two years later and I’m finally getting around to sending a long overdue update.
After discussing the name conundrum many times over, we decided to stick with the original plan and named our little guy Emerson James. And guess what! The Emmy thing has been a total non-issue. As far as I know, nobody has ever called him Emmy. Just like his siblings, he mostly goes by his full name, but our close family often calls him Em-J, another completely unplanned nickname.
Thanks to you and your readers for your help, and for making me feel less like a crazy person for endlessly obsessing over finding the perfect name.

Hi Swistle!

My husband and I are expecting identical twins this fall. We have decided to not find out their gender and are completely stuck on names. Our last name is M@njg@fic. The easiest way to pronounce it is Main-ga-fitch. My husband was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so we tend to like names that have a Eastern European/pan-European feel. We have one daughter already who’s name is Cecilia Ajsa (eye-sha).

Before we knew we were having twins, we were pretty set on Vera for a girl and Roman for a boy. However, now that we know there are two of them, we can’t think of two more names to go along with these! I feel so much extra pressure naming a set of twins than I would for a set of siblings. We will constantly being saying their names as a pair for years to come and I would really like them to sound great together! I don’t want them to be matchey or rhymey, but I do want them to sound like an equal pair. Does that make sense?

For girls we like distinctly feminine and romantic names, that aren’t too dainty. Other names we like, but are not sure of include,

Tatiana- Beautiful name and I love that it has ancient Roman roots like Cecilia, but we do not like any of the nicknames like Tia and Tiana. Also, not sure if its too much to be a twin of Vera

Helena/Elena- I love Helena, my husband loves Elena but neither of us want to budge and go with the others name

For boys, we are even worse off. My husband tends to like short nickname names like Leo and Gio. These are not really my style and my husbands name also is short and ends in an o, so it seems way too similar. Roman was the only name we could agree on. I really like Nicolai, but hate the idea of him being called Nick for the rest of his life.

Please help us finish our twin sibsets! I’m sure the perfect names to go along with Vera and Roman are out there and we just haven’t found them yet.

Sincerely,

Taylor

I found when selecting twin names that I had to sort of start all over. That is, with each of my pregnancies, I immediately started making lists of boy names and girl names—but when I found out during one of those pregnancies that I was having twins, I needed new lists. I still had a list of boy names and a list of girl names, but then I started lists of Twinned Names: in my case I didn’t know if the twins were identical or fraternal, so I needed three lists, one for boy/boy twins, one for girl/girl twins, and one for girl/boy twins. In your case we need only boy/boy and girl/girl, unless there is any chance they are not identical and could be boy/girl (though in that case perhaps you would go with Vera and Roman and be done with it).

What I’m trying to say is that it might not work to find a girl name to go with Vera and a boy name to go with Roman. It might very well work—but it MIGHT not: there might not be any girl names you like as a twin for Vera and there might not be any boy names you like as a twin for Roman, and I think it can be helpful to go into it knowing that, so that if you DO run into what feels like a wall, you know not to keep walking into it. There were some names I liked for singleton babies that I just couldn’t make work for twins—not because I was looking for anything matchy, but because sometimes any two favorite names might not go together, and when it’s twins the names do get more attention as a pair.

But for now, you are starting the way I would start: pretend the twins were instead going to be born as singletons, and choose one name for the first baby, and then work on a name for the next baby, pretending the second twin was instead born a couple years later. So you’d have Cecilia, Vera, and now it’s two years later and you are having another girl: what name do you want now? or you’d have Cecilia, Roman, and now a few years later you are having another boy: what boy names do you like for this next baby?

If that doesn’t work, if for example you keep finding names that go well with Cecilia but not with Vera, or names that you love but they sound odd with Roman, then I suggest leaving aside the names Vera and Roman for now and making new lists of all the boy and girl names you like; then experiment with pairing up names from those lists. What I did was take a name from one list, and then fairly rapidly pair it with every single other name: “Edward and Daniel, Edward and Milo, Edward and Henry, Edward and Charles…” and then go to the next name on the list: “Daniel and Milo, Daniel and Henry, Daniel and Charles, Daniel and Alan…,” writing down good combinations as I went along. Some names got crossed off my list because they didn’t go well with anything else on the list.

And when you’re making these master lists of all the names you like, don’t be too selective: that is, include names you like that your husband is tepid about, and names your husband likes that you’re tepid about, and names that don’t meet other preferences—allllll the names. A name one of you isn’t crazy about might seem much more appealing when paired up with another name. Put Elena and Helena on the list: maybe during the naming process one of you will be willing to give up your preferred version in order to get more say on the other name. (Or perhaps since you have already agreed to use your husband’s family name for all the children, and considering you are looking for names that represent your husband’s culture, your husband could take his turn and agree to use your preferred version of the name. It really seems like a very small step toward compromise on his part, considering everything you have already agreed to.)

I really like Nicolai; do you like the nickname Nico any better? Though I agree that if you hate the nickname Nick, probably that rules the name out: it’s hard to know what the child himself may choose to be called.

Same with Tatiana, if you strongly dislike the nicknames. And I don’t like it with Vera anyway: it makes the name Vera seem plain by comparison, especially when there is a third sister named Cecilia. Cecilia and Tatiana end up sounding like the twins, and Vera their older sister.

Using your husband’s surname and also using your husband’s ancestry for the first names feels to me as if it leaves you a bit out in the cold. I wonder if it would open up the naming field to look at names from your family’s background? When parents are already having trouble finding names they can agree on, and then they level up to TWIN names, it seems like we should do anything we can to widen the pool of names.

You mentioned liking names with ancient Roman roots, so I’ve flipped to the Classical section of The Baby Name Wizard.

Aelia and Livia
Augusta and Claudia
Cassia and Sabina
Lydia and Claudia (maybe matchier than you’d like, with the -dia endings)
Sabina and Lydia
Liviana and Sabina

I started to make a similar list for boy names, but I wasn’t finding as many options. Marcus, maybe; Rufus, Darius, Cyrus—too much -us. Maybe one of those would work well with Roman, though: Roman and Marcus, Roman and Darius, Roman and Cyrus.

I’m finding the name Roman particularly difficult to pair with anything else. It’s a word name, and word names can be tricky: they can feel simultaneously as if they MUST and MUST NOT be paired with another word name.

I found a Behind the Name list of names from Bosnia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and paired some of them up with Vera:

Vera and Aida
Vera and Dalia
Vera and Lana
Vera and Lena (another possible Elena/Helena compromise)

I found a fair number of names on the list that worked in theory, but in the U.S. are much more popular names than Vera, and would be a very different style: Mia, Emma, Nora, Eva, Ella.

If I look in the Slavic section of The Baby Name Wizard, I might pair up names such as:

Anya and Mila
Danica and Veronica (matching endings)
Anya and Vera
Sonia and Vera
Daria and Katia
Vera and Irina
Vera and Nadia
Lana and Nadia
Mira and Sasha
Mira and Lana
Mira and Nadia
Verica and Irina

Anton and Roman
Andrei and Nikolai
Ivan and Victor
Marek and Roman
Marek and Lukas
Roman and Ivan

I think overall what is needed is MORE NAMES to work with. I think the place to start is with longer lists, so you have more room to play around with combinations.

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

We recently welcomed our identical twin girls! The process to finally decide on their names was a long one. We initially decided on Lydia and Helena, but after a little bit we both felt Lydia was not the right name for us. We kept coming back to Vera.

In the end, Vera Aldina and Helena Marie were born on 11/2! Their names fit them perfectly. Thank you and your readers for all your help!

 

Hello baby naming genius, I need your help!

I am currently pregnant with my third child: a girl, due June 11th. My husband and I absolutely cannot (and never have) agree on a girl name, so my sister-in-law sent me to your blog and I am reaching out in desperation!

We currently have two boys, Lincoln Scott and Sullivan Woodrow. We did not find out the gender of the boys before they were born, but this time around, I just wanted to know, and we are excitedly expecting a girl. When I was pregnant with the boys, we did not have a girl’s name picked out—nothing, so I was happy that they were both boys! Actually, my husband named the boys after popular movies that had come out (or were soon to be released) around the time the boys were born: “Lincoln” and “Sully”. The boys have family middle names, one for my father, and one for my husband’s late grandfather. I love the boys names.

Our last name is Cave, which is a little unusual, but not too odd.

I LOVE the name Molly. Always have. Always will. It is the only girls name I’ve ever seriously considered. My husband, however, thinks it is a “baby name” and sounds like a “nick-name”. (He has suggested awful things like naming her “Ryan” after a best friend, or “Alexandra” which is just way too stuffy and formal). I am very stuck on Molly, but don’t have any idea of what to use for middle name—as we don’t have any female family names that we want to use, it’s pretty open to whatever sounds good.

I am trying to convince my husband to side with me (am I allowed to pull the “but you named the boys!” card?? 😉), but I need a good middle name to help me out. I feel like the middle name should be longer—maybe three syllables, to help balance the shortness of our last name. I don’t like “Elizabeth” or “Victoria” or royal sounding names, I tend to like names like “Agatha” and “Hazel” and “Willow”. However, My middle name is Joi (Joy) and I love it, but my husband thinks it would be weird to name her Molly Joi after me…..thoughts?

I am also Irish. (Cave is Welsh).

So, I don’t know if you can help me out—-perhaps even giving me another option for Molly (no, I don’t want to use “Mary”). But really, I need your help to make “Molly” more appealing! :)

Thank you!!

Tarah Cave

Let me start by arguing with your husband on pretty much everything:

1. The name Molly is not a babyish name.

2. The name Molly CAN be a nickname for Mary or Margaret, but is also a given name. My strong guess is that it is currently much more common as a given name than as a nickname. Many people don’t even know it can be a nickname for other names.

3. It would not be weird for your daughter to have the same middle name as you. Handing down a name from parent to child is in fact a fairly ordinary baby-naming practice—more common with father/son names, but why should that be? I’d like to see it get equally as common with mother/daughter names.

Also, I’m with you: he got more say with the first two kids’ names, so you should have more say this time. He should at the very least be considering your favorite very seriously and trying very hard to come around to it.

Some similar names, in case any of them would appeal:

Holly
Malia (the MAH-lee-ah pronunciation, with Molly as a nickname)
Mallory
Milly (Amelia, Millicent)
Polly
Tilly (Matilda)

I would have suggested Sally, but that’s so close to Sully. Even Molly/Milly/Polly/etc. are getting a little close, if you usually call him Sully.

With Molly ____ Cave, I like a two-syllable middle name with the emphasis on the second syllable: Molly Louise, Molly Noelle, Molly Marie, etc. But I also like Molly Agatha. Or Molly Frances, or Molly Jo, or Molly Vivian, or Molly Abigail, or Molly Ruth, or Molly Evelyn. Or this could be an area for giving your husband something he wants in order to get the more important thing you want: Molly Ryan or Molly Alexandra. Molly Alexandra gives you the initials MAC, which might be a cute nickname option if she wants it.

Name update:

Hi! I recently asked for help with naming my third baby, a girl.

My top name was Molly, but my husband thought it was a baby nickname.

Thank you for all of your help and the awesome responses!

I’m happy to say that without much prodding, I was able to change his mind about Molly! He slowly began referring to her as “Miss Molly” (it may have helped that I played him the song “Miss Molly” sung by Willie Nelson, AND one of you referred to Molly Weasley, which he loved!) about a month before she was due. Two nights before she was born I asked him again about the name, and he said that he had actually started to like it! YES! So, I picked her first name, and he picked her middle name.

Allow me to introduce:

Molly Hazel, our sweet redheaded gal!

Here she is with her adoring big brothers, Lincoln & Sullivan:

Dear Swistle,

We need to call on your expertise, and the creativity of your readership to find something to satisfy our (somewhat bizarre) naming criteria!

We are looking for names:
– with some Christian/biblical link (my criteria)
– with some link to a superhero character or a significant player for the Pittsburgh Penguins (husband’s criteria)
– that isn’t too obviously connected to said person, or indeed any one person/character.
We both agree T’Challa is a lovely name, but no.
– that isn’t cultural appropriation (so definitely not T’Challa)
– not in the UK top 100 (my criteria)
– that won’t be a source of ridicule (husband’s criteria – surely we all try to avoid this?!)
– that are names in their own right (husband’s criteria). This means I can’t offer him a compromise of we’ll name him Richard but call him Ricky. He would argue we need to name him Ricky.
– not a surname name (my criteria)

We have approx. 6 weeks to the arrival of baby no. 2.

We already have a son, Xavier (pronounced zay-vee-er) who has the perfect name (not in the UK top 100, saintly, and with a nod to a certain leader of the X-men). The children (we haven’t ruled out having more) will all have my husband’s surname (as do I) which sounds like Ernie but starts with B. A boy would have the middle name John (not a contender for a first name) and a girl would most likely have the middle name Agnes (I would love Agnes as a first name but my husband detests it so I think middle is the best I’m going to get).

Names my husband likes (simple and popular):
Oliver
Jack
Daisy
Sydney
Thea (I have offered him the compromise of Theodora or Dorothea and he said no)

I like (old fashioned and a bit foreign?):

Blaise
Inigo
Ivo
Pascoe
Pax
Raphael
Agnes
Arwen
Bronwen
Evangeline
Sadie
Veronica

We both agree on Eugene. It’s either “the one” (variant of Evgeni (Malkin of the Pens)) or it’s horrible.
So we either have Eugene or nothing for a boy, and nothing for a girl!

Please help!

Liz

It’s a little hard to know what’s a reach and what’s reasonable, so I’m just going to fling out options and let you sort them out. I’m also going to say right at the start that I know about as much about saints and superheros as I do about the Pittsburgh Penguins, which is to say I’ll be picking the names right out of Wikipedia articles without doing much more research than that. Like, if I say a name is a saint name, it means that I searched “Saint” + that name and got a result from a Catholic website, and that’s it; I won’t have looked further to make sure it’s not an embarrassing or controversial saint. I should also say that I know very little about UK baby names or which ones are Top 100. So we are off to a very promising start!

Arthur. Saint name, and the name of the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers; he was instrumental in getting the Pittsburgh Penguins going. Also I see there is an Art Ross trophy named for an Arthur.

George. Saint name, and also the name of the first head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Paul. Saint/Bible/Christian name, and also the name of Paul Coffey of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Martin. Saint name, and also the name of Martin Straka of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Philip. Saint name, and also the name of Phil Kessel of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Dominic. Saint name, and also the name of Dominik Simon of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Alfred. Saint name, and also the name of Batman’s butler/caretaker/companion and father figure.

Oliver (on your husband’s list already). Saint name, and also the name of the Green Arrow. But I don’t know if I like it with Xavier: it seems like they might be too similar, and they come very close to rhyming.

Remy. Saint name, and also the name of Gambit from X-Men. A little singsongy with the surname.

Pascal. Saint name, and also the name of Pascal Dupuis of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

For a boy, your choice of Blaise seems pretty much perfect to me: it’s a saint name that sounds like a superhero name. [Edit: Commenter JMV points out that the sound of the surname includes the word “burn,” which could be a major plus depending on just how superhero a parent wanted to go, but makes the name way too punny for my own preferences.]

Lois. My mother once mentioned this as a biblical name. When I looked at her in complete bafflement, she said, “Hello?? The mother of Timothy??” The name is mentioned exactly once in the entire Bible, making this an oft-repeated family story illustrating how my mom thinks her level of biblical knowledge is normal. Anyway, the name does in fact appear in the Bible (once) (hello! she’s the mother of Timothy!), and also it’s a Lois Lane reference.

Diana. I lost interest before I could get to the part about whether she’s actually a saint or just someone in church history, but she does show up on Catholic websites. Also it’s the name of Wonder Woman, which seems like the more important part.

Jean. Saint name, and also Jean Grey of the X-Men.

Veronica (on your list already). Saint name, and also from Archie Comics. I realize that’s not exactly a superhero, but I really like the name, and particularly if you’re avoiding nicknames.

The problem with your husband’s preferences is that they work a whole lot better for boy names than for girl names. Women do not play for the Pittsburgh Penguins, and very few superheros are women. So I’m going to ignore those preferences when looking for girl names from now on. And the children will all have his family’s surname, so it seems like we should do something to lean more toward your preferences anyway.

Felicity. Saint name.

Esther. Bible name, and I love it with your surname.

Claudia. Bible name.

Priscilla. Bible name, and one I’m ready to start hearing again.

Lydia. Bible name.

Anastasia. Saint name, and one of my own favorite names. It’s a little long for avoiding nicknames, but Anastasia Krupnik may help with that.

Winifred. Saint name, and I like that she’d get a distinctive initial like her brother did. Winnie with the surname would be a little singsong.

Matilda. Saint name.

Louisa. Saint name.

Beatrix. Saint name. I don’t always like alliteration, but I think it’s pretty great here.

Flora. Saint name.

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

Thank you so much for your advice and the suggestions from all your readers.

Eugene Andrew John was born on Sunday morning. Following your readers’ advice we added Andrew (after his dad) to break up the J sounds, and the initials EAJ he shares with me.

Thank you so much,

Liz

PS
If he had been a girl, we still had nothing!