Hello Swistle!

Almost two years ago you and your readers offered some excellent advice to help me and my husband through our divergent taste issue and came up with a few excellent suggestions: https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2013/02/10/baby-boy-or-girl-arnold/. It turns out it was all very interesting and insightful but somewhat in vain as we had a boy and named him the previously agreed upon Xavier. Well we are back expecting again and I learned a lot from my experience naming my son: when it comes to naming babies you have to make only yourselves happy and it is good to be sure in your footing since people can be somewhat astonishing in their rude opinions. We liked the name Xavier for several years and I am very happy I knew I picked it based on a genuine fondness for the name and not a temporary flush. With that in mind I’m trying to pin down some names early so we can hopefully blissfully overcome our taste incompatibility months in advance and feel like we didn’t pick something in a last minute rush. I like your idea of picking from each others lists so I’d like to give some of these a few months to stick.

We won’t know baby #2’s sex in advance. For girls I’m still liking Lennox a lot (even more so after a near stealing of it by a very close friend a month ago, yes people do that!). I think my husband has warmed a little after the attempted theft as well, making me think it’s a good choice if we like still it after three years and we can face the haters of which there are sure to be many. In case a daughter herself would hate it, I’m trying to come up with middle names where she could go by Leila or something of the like, any ideas? I would like a feminine middle name to go with it. ( FYI we had a ton of suggestions for Aurora for my post on baby #1, but I work for a company by that name so it is out but quite an interesting coincidence). Cole stays on the favored girl list as well. Any other simple, unusual gender neutral names?

For boys I like:
Archer (any insight on if this is truly a trendy one we might regret? I arrived at it as an alternative to hunter but see it is climbing the charts fast).
Emil (namesake of a dear friend who passed, but worried about people struggling to pronounce. Also any girl names that are similar and Eastern European in origin?) General thoughts on this?
Issac (with Xavier I’m concerned we are sounding ultra biblical)
Sinjin (I love this name and it is somewhat familiar to me from the volleyball player, the singer and the character on mad men, but I have never heard of it for any “real life” person ever ). There is a huge black hole of information and opinions on Sinjin unlike any other name I have ever seen, which I find very strange as it is not totally unheard of. Is it a a diamond in the rough or is it just terrible? I would love to hear from you and your readers. If 50% of people hate it I’m not really worried but if it’s more like 80% I get that I might want to move on.

Any thoughts on that crop of names for boys, any possible derivations for girls or alternates would be truly appreciated, your site is a fantastic resource and I’m so happy to see you are going strong!

Tysen Gannon

The children have the day off from school today for a Teacher Workshop Day, and I have a lot of trouble writing when they’re home, so I won’t try to be thorough. However, I did want to quickly address a few of the questions; then I’ll post the whole thing for others to work on.

If you would like to give a daughter a feminine middle name that gives her the option to go by Leila, my favorite way to do that would be to go straight to using Leila as her middle name. If you’d prefer a name that lets you combine Lennox and the middle name to make Leila, it depends on whether you’re pronouncing Leila as LAY-la or as LEE-la or as LYE-la. If it sounds like Layla, my first choice would be Ayla: “L. Ayla” = Leila. If Lyla, my first choice would be Isla: “L. Isla” = Lyla. If Leela, I’m not sure.

The name Archer appeared in the Top 1000 for the first time in 2009, and has risen since then:

(screen shot from SSA.gov)

It’s hard to predict what it will do from here. The rise is fairly rapid, but it’s hard to know how far it will go. It could go one more leap and then stay put in the 200s, or it could continue to leap until it’s in the Top 20. I wouldn’t have thought the name Hunter would go as high as it did (#36 in 2013), and the name Archer has less controversial imagery. And it follows the styles for surname names, and for occupational names, as well as tying in to the Hunger-Games-inspired archery fad. Plus, it has the cute nickname Archie. I’d expect it to become fairly popular—but again, it’s impossible to predict if “fairly popular” will be Top 100 or Top 10.

We’ve addressed the name Emil in another post, so I’ll link to that here: https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2013/08/28/baby-naming-issue-emil/ It doesn’t exactly answer the question you’re asking, but the letter-writer mentions that a majority of their acquaintances pronounced it correctly, which seems like a good sign.

For Eastern European girl names similar to Emil, I’d check the Baby Name Wizard’s site: International Name Lists. Searching “Eastern European names” online brought up many other lists as well. I would think something like Emilia would be a nice honor name for an Emil.

The name Isaac does not sound too biblical to me with Xavier; Xavier is not a name from the Bible. I searched “Xavier Bible” to double-check (I’ve been surprised before by biblical characters I’ve forgotten), and got matches for Francis Xavier; I’m familiar with him, but I think of him only as Francis Xavier: the name Xavier doesn’t bring him to my mind.

The name Sinjin is a respelling of the name St. John, which is pronounced something like “Sinjin.” Searching for information on the name St. John may unearth better information. It’s a very unusual name in the United States; in the Social Security data base for 2013, I find 8 new baby boys named Sinjin, but none named St. John. If Xavier has a St. Francis Xavier association for you, St. John or Sinjin may be too much saint for one sibling group.

Name update!

Archer Sinjin was born in October rendering pointless hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours of debate on baby girl names. Thanks to swistle and you readers for all the feedback, I’ll be keeping liadan in my back pocket for the future. We have been answering lots of “what the heck kind of name is Sinjin” as expected, but that is a time honored naming tradition for mom and to a lesser extent dad and we are very happy with our choices.

Thanks!

Tysen

Hi,

My husband and I are expecting our first baby this August. I am born and raised in NC and my husband has lived in NC most of his life but his dad’s side is Italian and mom’s side Mexican. Needless to say, they aren’t used to a lot of southern traditions like the family names, double names and so on. He is more on board with them so I am not too worried about pleasing everyone except us two agreeing. I want us both to love it! I heard you were the expert, and though I know you can’t respond to every inquiry you get thought I would throw my thoughts your way and see what happened.

A family name that we both agree on is Caswell (my grandpa’s name but he goes by DC). We love Caswell for a boy and calling him “Wells”, but also love Mary Caswell for a girl because I am a sucker for a double name. My biggest fear with a double name is that it would be forced but not sure what else really goes with Caswell. My maiden name is Jackson which I have always loved for a boy until it became super popular. We both still love Jackson for a boy and calling him “Jack” but just hate there are so many of them. I like names that are different but not weird and just not a million of them.

Other family name I love (that my husband is still on the fence with) is Talbot. I would love to incorporate this into a double name for a girl but am struggling to make it work. My middle name before taking my married name was Whitworth. Another kidna strange name I would love to shorten somehow :)

In all this, I hate that we don’t love anything on my husband’s side and have asked him over and over what family names he would like to consider from his side and he has zero. I know it is up to us but feel bad (though they get the last name with all the kids ;)) His side goes from one extreme like Trinidad, his grandfatehr, to very basic David, Joe, Albert kinda thing.

Besides Caswell and Talbot we have a few “general’ names we love including Harper, Hadley and Emerson for girls. Boys I feel certain we could go with Jack or Wells just on the fence which. I think our biggest reservation to Wells is that although it is short for Caswell it seems strange to call him by a name that starts with a W when it actually starts with a C. We overthink and make everything extra complicated :)

For a little more background on names of our immediate family: my parents are Julie Ann, Jefrey Brian; brothers are Christoper Taylor and William Andrew. His parents are Rosa Alba and David Lee (his brother is the 3rd so we feel is his name to use, though he had two boys and chose not to). My husband’s full name is Eric Christian and my full maiden name was Meagan Whitworth Jackson.
To sum it all up, I guess my main help request would be help on double names for girls and maybe how else to incorporate Caswell or Talbot in a feminine way and the etiquette or normalcy of how to shorten boy names like Wells. I love how unique Talbot is though my husband thinks it sounds like a 90 year old :)

The biggest catch all to any name we like that is kinda weird traditional is our last name is Bourgeois…so feel like a lot doesn’t sound well with it. Sounds like “boozh-wah”

I know that is a lot of information thrown out more so than one general question but would love your ideas if you have time! We find out in about a month the gender and would love to have a boy and girl name settled for that day :) Thanks so much!

Meagan Jackson Bourgeois

While a majority of nicknames come from the beginning of a name, there is also a nice large group coming from the middle or end:

Margaret/Greta
Virginia/Ginny
Anthony/Tony
Elizabeth/Beth
Elizabeth/Liz
Elizabeth/Libby
Albert/Bert
Robert/Bert
Alexander/Xander
Veronica/Ronni
Victoria/Tori
Penelope/Nell
Olivia/Livvy
Charlotte/Lottie
Andrew/Drew
Rebecca/Becky
Aubrey/Bree
Eleanor/Nora
Genevieve/Evie
Angus/Gus

Whenever a name/nickname combination is an unfamiliar one, I think it can be harder to make it stick: if you want a Benjamin called Ben, that’s not hard; if you want a Benjamin called Jamie, or a Ruben called Ben, that’s going to be a tougher sell. I think if you were asking about naming him Maxwell and calling him Wells, I’d put that in the “tough sell” category, because the Maxwell/Max combination is so familiar; because I’m not familiar with Caswell, I would find it easier to go with Wells. I could also see him going by Cas (I’m pronouncing that S as a Z), which seems like a pretty cool nickname.

I too am a sucker for a double name, and I love both Mary Caswell and Mary Talbot. How hard it will be to pull that off will depend heavily on the naming culture where you live—and it sounds like it’s a good one for that. In my area, double names are extremely rare; the assumption, I think, would be that Caswell or Talbot was the surname. “Hello, this is my daughter Mary Talbot!” “Hello, Mary!” But even in my area, I think with a little extra effort and preemptive explaining I could make it work for at least the elementary years.

The Mary double name seems most familiar, but I think Sarah would be nice too: Sarah Caswell, Sarah Talbot.

It is unfortunate that your maiden name has become too common for your tastes, because one of my very favorite things in the whole naming world is when the mother’s maiden name works as a child’s first name. If I were you I think I’d use it, but then I’d look for every opportunity to mention that it was my maiden name.

Whitworth would make a very appealing middle name for either a boy or a girl, especially since it used to be your middle name. Or Worth is one of the few virtue names for boys, though I don’t think I’d pair it with Bourgeois.

If you use first names from your side, and the surname from your husband’s side, I think it would be nice if it works out to use middle names from his side—unless he actively doesn’t want to honor people. That is, there’s a difference between “Meh, I don’t have strong feelings about any of the honor names from my side” and “I don’t want ANY of those people honored”/”I don’t want to use any of those names.” If he’s the former, I’d suggest choosing any name that sounds nice enough with the first name. Mary Talbot Rosa Bourgeois, Jackson Eric Bourgeois, etc.

Name update!

Hi,

I wrote you earlier this year about Baby Bourgeois.  Since then we have found out it is baby GIRL Bourgeois.  We have also since decided on the name Anna Talbot Bourgeois, going by Anna Talbot.  We just loved the idea of a double name and after many discussions and suggestions settled on what we loved although many don’t seem to get the purpose of a southern double name.  A lot of opinions on the blog also thought our last name sounded pretintious but we cannot change that :)  so decided to stick with using the family name Talbot we highly considered for a girl and loved Anna with it.  We did love the double name suggestions for a girl using the family name Caswell also but that is still our top baby boy name so decided to save that one for a possible future boy :) We enjoyed reading all of the considerations and suggestions! Anna Talbot will be here mid August!

Hi Swistle!
My husband and I are expecting our second baby girl in early June. We could not possibly be more excited to have two sweet girls, but we can’t seem to agree on anything when it comes to names. Our last name is Casper-with-a-K. My name is Avery and my husband’s name is Paul Joseph, but he goes by his initials.

After months and months of disagreement, we chose the name Berkley Dawn for our first daughter. The name could not be more perfect for her. We have had numerous compliments on it being both unique but not difficult to say or spell. Berkley’s middle name is both my middle name and my mother’s first name.

I believe the problem naming Baby #2 is my adoration for Berkley’s name paired with my husband and I’s distinctly different naming styles. I want something that pairs well, but isn’t too similar–I seem to be drawn to androgynous names and names that start with “B” and end with the “ee” sound. My husband; on the other hand, loves traditional, strictly-female names. We both desire a moniker that sounds sweet on a little girl, but won’t sound too juvenile as she grows.

Names that we like, but find problems with:
London — I like this name a lot, but my husband doesn’t like the idea of giving all of our children place names.
Quinn — We both kind of like this, but for some reason, I just can’t picture a baby with this name
Briony (pronounced Bry-uh-nee) — I have loved this name ever since I heard it in a movie, but my husband is having no part of it
Brinley — Sounds too similar to Berkley
Landry — I was completely sold on this, but my cousin recently announced her engagement to a man with the last name Landry, and my husband finds this name too masculine
Brooklyn — Again, a place name that my husband doesn’t seem to care for that much
Charlotte — My husband wanted this name for Berkley, but I just can’t get on board with it at all
Penelope — Another name my husband is in love with, but Berkley and Penelope just do not seem to mesh well

Any suggestions you can give us would be greatly appreciated. I can’t believe I’m admitting to this, but naming a second child is proving to be one of the most difficult tasks I’ve encountered in my entire life!

Thank you!

I suggest Delaney. It sounds somewhat unisex, but the actual usage is almost exclusively girl: in 2013, there were 1,265 new baby girls and 12 new baby boys named Delaney. For comparison, there were 11 new baby boys named Elizabeth: numbers this low are either data-entry issues or else too low for me to consider the name unisex. The sounds of Delaney are similar to the other names on your list, and I think it’s a nice fit with Berkley. Delaney Casper; Berkley and Delaney.

Or Devanie. Devanie Casper; Berkley and Devanie.

I also suggest Emerson. Emerson Casper; Berkley and Emerson.

Or Gracen. It has the traditional/feminine sound of Grace, but with a more modern/boyish/surname ending. Gracen Casper; Berkley and Gracen.

Penelope makes me think of Calliope. Calliope Casper; Berkley and Calliope.

I think Braelyn would work nicely. Braelyn Casper; Berkley and Braelyn.

Or Keelyn, if you don’t mind the alliteration (and repeated initial) with the surname. Keelyn Casper; Berkley and Keelyn.

Or Teagan. Teagan Casper; Berkley and Teagan.

Both sisters’ names would end in the -ley sound, but I still like Everly. Everly Casper; Berkley and Everly.

Or Ellery has a similar sound without repeating the ending. Ellery Casper; Berkley and Ellery.

Or Evanie. Evanie Casper; Berkley and Evanie.

If Brinley is too close to Berkley, I wonder if you’d like Finley or Kinley or Kinsley.

Or Shelby. That gives you a B sound without a repeated initial. Shelby Casper; Berkley and Shelby.

Marley duplicates the ending, but I still like it. I have acquaintances who used the spelling Marlie. Marlie Casper; Berkley and Marlie.

Or Hadley. Hadley Casper; Berkley and Hadley.

Name update!

Swistle,
I recently read your post on a lack of name updates, and I certainly knew I wanted to give you our name update as you were tremendous help!
Gracen Quinn joined our family on June 3rd (yes, yesterday!) and we have already had so many compliments on her name.
Your suggestion of Gracen was perfect for us. After you suggested it, it was a name I couldn’t get out of my head.

We had originally settled on Quinn for her first name, but we decided it just didn’t flow for us, and since my husband loved the traditional sound of “Grace,” and I love androgynous names, Gracen it was!
Thank you so much for your great suggestion–we are in love with our sweet girl and her name!

SWISTLE! can you PLEASE HELP US.
i am writing this from my hospital bed so please forgive any typos or bad grammar or whatever!
My name is Rose Campbell and my husband is Nathaniel. When I was pregnant the first time and we had a list of baby names on our fridge, my mom said something really disparaging about one of them (ok, she called one of our top choices a stripper name). It was WILDLY out of character for my mom–she was a wee bit high on post surgery drugs–and she was mortified, but it really turned us off sharing our name choices. So, we haven’t ever since. Fast forward eight plus years and I just gave birth to our fourth and last kid, a boy. The first family member I happened to reach was my older sister. I told her the name Nathaniel and I had chosen and there was just this dead silence on the other end. Finally I got her to tell me what was wrong.
Swistle, the name we chose is the name of the guy who assaulted her in high school. (she is 6 years older than me and although I knew she had been assaulted for some reason I never knew the guy’s name).
obviously this puts the name right into completely unusable territory. we see my sister a fair amount but even if we didnt–can you imagine?
So we need to find another boy name, like right now. the 2nd middle/ last name for the kids is Isaacs Campbell (Isaacs is Nathaniel’s family surname–he took mine because Bucking The System and also he is not close to his family and mine is awesome).
Our other kids–
Elizabeth Clare, mostly called Liza. Clare after my favorite aunt. Elizabeth after husbands grandma Bethany. Liza because it’s a kickass nickname.
Wallace John, mostly called Wally. John is my dad, Wallace was a friend who died young. We don’t think he will be called Wally forever, but can see it lasting throughout childhood, and maybe he will be the sort of teenager and/or adult who can pull off the nickname Wally.
Amelia Josephine, mostly called Mia. Amelia is my moms middle name, Josephine is MIL’s best friend/husbands surrogate mom.

For this boyo we want something that “goes” with the other names–so a longer more traditional name with a shorter kicky nickname. Trouble is we settled on a name quite awhile ago and before that we went thru a bunch of names and rejected them for various reasons. here are the ones we can remember going thru and rejecting:
Daniel
James
Thomas
Christopher
Samuel
Nathan
Edward, Andrew, Matthew, William, Leonard/Leopold, August/Augustus, other names that repeat an initial
Finnegan
Tobias
Theodore

So…can you help us? PLEASE? I hate the idea of taking this little dude home with no name!

Thank you so much,

Rose and the gang

This letter caught my attention not only because you put a cute picture of a fox at the top but also because this has got to be the best reason I’ve ever seen on this site for a hospital-stay name change. For your sister’s sake, let’s get to work.

I think the quickest and easiest option would be to go with whatever your second-choice name was, if you had a second choice. When we were naming Henry, we had seven finalist names, then we narrowed it down to three, then to two. If I’d suddenly found our first choice was unavailable, I would have been pretty happy with our second choice, considering how much back-and-forthing we did. However, this would not have worked with all our babies: with two of them, there was The Name Choice and then a big gap and then a bunch of names we were Fine with but never seriously considered. It sounds like that’s more similar to your situation.

Another possibility is to switch the first and middle. But I know this option wouldn’t have worked for me, since I have a different technique for choosing the first name than for the middle.

I think it works fine to have a different naming style for the boys and the girls in a family, but I do like the boy names to go together and the girl names to go together (e.g., I wouldn’t want to mix Elizabeth/Liza with Miracle/Mira). So as I looked down your list to see which names I liked best with the sibling group, I looked particularly for the ones I thought went well with Wallace/Wally. My favorites (even though I think every single one is from the repeats-an-initial list) are Edward/Teddy/Ned, Leonard/Leo/Lenny, Leopold/Leo/Leap/Lee, Augustus/Gus. Of those, I think my own choice would be Edward/Teddy/Ned. Elizabeth, Wallace, Amelia, and Edward; Liza, Wally, Mia, and Teddy.

Because all the names of your other children are after important people in your lives, I feel disinclined to offer suggestions: it seems as if it would work better for your naming style to go back into the important-people list and find more options there. (Also, I am a little worried I will suggest THE VERY NAME that had to be changed!) But if you WERE looking for more ideas, I think Albert would work nicely. I’ve warmed to this name recently, for a variety of reasons (Colin Firth playing Prince Albert; a very positive association with a nice, cute, good-with-kids guy named Albert; Bertie Wooster making me feel affectionate toward -bert/Bert- names in general; getting close to the right amount of time passing since the name was last in style; etc.), and I think it’s a good brother name for a Wallace, and I like both Al and Bertie as nicknames. Elizabeth, Wallace, Amelia, and Albert; Liza, Wally, Mia, and Bertie/Al.

Frederick is another name in the Albert category for me: until recently I might not have considered it, but now I feel like pushing it on people as a not-yet-rediscovered treasure. Elizabeth, Wallace, Amelia, and Frederick; Liza, Wally, Mia, and Freddie.

And I love Louis (I am thinking of the pronunciation that could also be spelled Lewis, as opposed to the one that could also be spelled Louie). I love to say it. Elizabeth, Wallace, Amelia, and Louis; Liza, Wally, Mia, and Louie.

Name update!

Swistle! Thank you and your commenters SO MUCH for the invaluable help! We weren’t sure what we were going to go with until about an hour ago…we ALMOST went with Jonathan/Jonty but although we both liked the nickname we couldn’t get behind Jonathan.
But even though we had rejected Theodore in the first round, Swistle your delight in the nn Teddy and the commenters delight as well–sorry that makes no sense, I’m a little tired–made us really love it again. We don’t love quite as much as the original name we picked but we definitely love it ENOUGH. So our boy is Theodore George Isaacs Campbell. Not super thrilled with the rhyming-ness of his middle name but oh well, it’s kinda cute.
thank you again SO SO MUCH!

Rose, Nathaniel, Liza, Wally, Mia and baby Teddy!

Hi Swistle,

I’m due July 1st with another boy (the doc was pretty sure but not 100%) brother to Judah Samson. Samson is my mother’s maiden name and Judah is named for my husband’s maternal grandfather whose hebrew name was Yehuda (Judah is the english version of Yehuda). I briefly worried about having an “S” middle name after Judah because I was afraid it would sound like “Judas” rather than “Judah” but then I realized people wouldn’t very frequently be saying his full name anyway and I liked the Samson connection too much to give it up. We didn’t/don’t plan to use the nickname Jude – but we like that there is that option if he chooses it or others want to call him that in the future. We are so happy with his name and people from our families on both sides are truly touched by the connections his name has to his roots.

So far we have pretty much decided on the first name Ezra if this is a boy (the first name would be after my husband’s grandfather whose first name was Israel). For the middle name, we’d like to go with something that honors my grandfather – in English his name was Robert Henry, or Chaim in Hebrew. The problem is, so far none of those names really work with the first name and our last name, which sounds like Korver.

Ezra Robert Korver (B followed by V makes it hard to say, styles don’t match)
Ezra Henry Korver (quite a mouthful, styles don’t match)
Ezra Chaim Korver (no way, don’t like a sound in there no one can pronounce)
Ezra Micah Korver (We even got creative and thought of using Micah, an anagram of Chaim). This still doesn’t flow well with the two names ending in A sounds and may be kind of feminine. But I do like the creativity of it, and I like that the name styles seem to go together.

Other boy names we like, but ultimately decided we like Ezra better because of the honor connection and sound: Elliot, Joel, Rafi, Oren, Ian.

Help! Do you have other thoughts or creative ideas for how to honor my grandfather in my son’s name? Is there a perfect derivative name of Henry or Robert or Chaim we haven’t thought of? He was really musical and we shared that passion – anything i can do with that?. I called him Pop, and my grandmother called him Bobby if those spark anything. Maybe you can convince me that one of the options above is the one or suggest some brilliant advice or alternative.

THANK YOU!
Shira

I don’t think the first and middle names DO need to match in style. In fact, I’d say I generally prefer them NOT to match: I think of the middle name as a great place for a name that doesn’t work in style as a first name, or for an honor name you like more for the honor than for the name itself, or whatever. Ezra Robert Korver seems perfect to me.

I also don’t think the whole name needs to avoid being a mouthful, or that the middle name needs to flow perfectly with either the first name or the surname, unless your family tends to say the full name frequently. In most cases, a person is called by first and last, or only by first; the middle sort of drops out of the picture. But Ezra Henry Korver doesn’t seem particularly like a mouthful to me anyway.

In general my feeling about honor names is that they’re worth a little awkwardness. If you find the B followed by the V a little difficult to say, I think a minor pronunciation issue (especially one that is unlikely to be said) is well worth it as the price of using the honoree’s first name. Using an anagram or hobby-related name seems unnecessary here: I think Robert works beautifully.

I also think Chaim works beautifully, if that name would be more meaningful to your family or have a stronger connection to your grandfather: if anyone needed to pronounce the middle name for some reason and couldn’t manage it, I doubt that would cause a level of difficulty or inconvenience that would make you sorry you’d chosen the name.

Name update!

Hi Swistle,

Thanks so much for your advice and your reader’s insights!

Ezra Ronen was born on 6/24/15 at 7 lbs 13 oz. We thought of Ronen as a middle name option pretty late in the game but it had a lot of great benefits. It starts with Ro like my grandfather’s name Robert, it means joyful song so has the music connection I was looking for, and my husband has a close friend with that name so he has a really positive association with it and so do I. I also loved that with his first name, Ezra, meaning “help or support” his full name “Ezra Ronen” means to help or support through joyful song. That so describes my grandfather and the unique gift he had to lift people’s spirits through music that it feels like a really strong connection to him. Here is a picture of Ezra and one with proud big brother Judah as well.

Thanks again!
Shira

Hi Swistle!

We have a two year old daughter named Emmerson Grace. We call her Em, Emmie, Emmie G or Emmie Grace. We are expecting a baby boy in April and I just really cannot find a boy name I like or feel comfortable with. I think names that I like are too “out there” and names my husband likes are even further out there than you can imagine (ie. he likes names such as Beauregard, Alpheus, and Yorke). These are all an absolute NO for me.

With our daughter, Emmerson always stood out to us and was our “go-to” throughout my pregnancy, even though we considered a million names and we were deciding between two names in the hospital. We really thought this baby was a girl and we just can’t seem to find any boy names that feel right. We don’t really have one name we love or one name we can fall back on.

The one name we were considering since before we got pregnant is Griffin. We aren’t sure how we like names that end in the “in” sound with Emmerson, though. How do Emmerson and Griffin sound to you?

Right now here is our list:

Griffin – “in” sounds weird with Emmerson’s name.

Whittaker – we both really like this name. My husband especially. I really like the feel of it, how it sounds with Emmerson, and that it has good nickname potential (We like Whit) but something about it feels off. Is it odd or clumsy sounding to you? Something with the ending sound “aker” makes me pause. Also, we made the mistake of mentioning it to a friend who flat out said it was awful and “stupid”. So now I’m really not sure.

Shepard – just.. eh..

August – really love but do *not* like the nickname Auggie OR Gus. Which means 1. this name has no nickname potential for us which isn’t necessary but would be nice since Emmerson has many nicknames. and 2. there is the potential for him to get these nicknames one day and I really would not be fond of them at all, especially Auggie. Also concerned about popularity.

Fielding – unsure – same deal as Whittaker. Sound is weird? Can’t picture a baby named Fielding

Wolfe – My husband loves, I do not.

Bennett – My father in law is Benito, nickname Beni and my husband likes the idea of Beni being a potential nickname. I like Bennett but do not like the name Beni so I really wouldn’t want that to be his nickname,

That’s it. Are there names we are missing? Names that have the feel of Whittaker but maybe sound a little nicer to the ear? Other names that seem to match our style that we aren’t thinking of? None of these are names that either of us are that excited about so we are open to suggestions.

Other information:

I am Bonnie, my husband is Alastor and our last name is Polanco. We hope to have three children. We prefer names that are recognizable as names but *not* popular. Emmerson has gotten a little too popular for our liking. Another reason we really like Whittaker is that it’s not in the top 1000.

He will have a middle name but that is also completely up in the air. We are open to suggestions. My grandfather’s name was Bernard. My husband really likes this name. I do not like it but like the idea of honoring my grandfather.

Thank you for your time, patience, and consideration.

All the best,

Bonnie

Name update!

Dear Swistle,

Thank you so much for posting our question a few months ago about our baby boy! He came two weeks early and we still weren’t prepared with a name. I couldn’t get past the hard sound at the end of Whittaker. I still like it, but something felt off to me. In the end Shephard grew on me, a lot. Something about it sounded really calm to me but also kind of cool. We were in the hospital and for two days went back and forth on the names August Bernard (Bernard for my grandfather) and Shephard. It was a tough call and it could have been either name. We called in family members at that point bc we were desperate and we even created a long pros/cons list for both names.

The only problem with Shephard was we couldn’t find a middle name we liked with it that had any meaning. A very smart friend pointed out that Shephard Bernard was not a good idea with the dog associations ;).

My husband always loved the name Rhys, though. SO in the end we decided that as much as we *loved* August, we did not like the nicknames Auggie or Gus at *all*. We also did not love how August is rising in popularity while Shephard (or Shepherd, Shepard) are not in the top 1000 in the SS data base.
We loved how Shephard Rhys sounded. Then my mom (who first hated the name) remembered that my grandfather used to call her Shep and Sheppy (he had crazy nicknames for everyone!) We thought this was such a cute connection we went with it! So, after all of that…. we are happy to introduce Shephard Rhys Polanco. Pictures of him and our daughter Emmerson attached!

Thank you again! You and your readers are wonderful and we are very happy with his name. It fits him perfectly. It reminds me of calm, rolling hills and shepherds tending their flocks and he is our calm, chill, peaceful little love bug.

All the best,

Bonnie and Alastor

Hi Swistle,

My husband and I are due with our first child, a girl, on Jan 31. Our last name is Chenn, but with “a” instead of an “e”.

She won’t have a middle name.

My husband and I are partial to gender neutral names and have narrowed our choices down to Alexis and Riley. Riley was our top choice, but I’m worried that it doesn’t “age well” in the sense that it sounds too childlike (can I picture a lawyer named Riley or a Grandma Riley)? Alexis (nn Lexi) recently came into the picture but I’m hesitant because the possessive form of the name (Alexis’ or Alexis’s) is inconsistent and I find that slightly annoying. I also know two people with that name who I would not want my daughter to emulate.

Other names we have on our list include Quinn, Skyler, and Casey. I also love the name Mia (but he hates it) and he likes the name Caitlin (but I’ve vetoed because: 1. there are too many ways to spell it and I don’t want her to go through life spelling her name for everyone, and 2. It’s traditionally pronounced more like “Kath-leen” in Gaelic so I would be intentionally pronouncing it wrong by giving her that name).

What do you think? Is Riley too “kiddish” and are my qualms about Alexis unreasonable? Do you have any other suggestions?

Thank you!

I like putting names through a series of tests, too. I do the careers test: does the name work on a lawyer? a teacher? a clerk? a carpenter? I also like the stages-of-life test: does the name work on a young child? a young adult? a middle-aged adult? an older adult? And I like the “make sure you’re not imagining a celebrity” test (aka the “Blake Lively looks wonderful in everything but that doesn’t mean the rest of us will” test): picture the name on an ordinary child; on a unpopular teenager with bad skin and unflattering clothes; on a plump, plain, glasses-wearing adult; etc.

Here is where the tests fall short: because name fashions come and go, and because they shift so much from generation to generation, a name can fail dramatically if you run the test while you’re pregnant, even though the name would later on have passed the test easily. When people of approximately my age think about “old man/lady” names, we might think of Mildred, Ethel, Howard, Donald. But the parents who used those names for their babies back in, say, 1920, were not thinking to themselves, “I love this name, and it will work GREAT on an old person.” If you’d asked them at the time to imagine a Grandma Ethel, it would have been difficult. Ethel is a swinging young person, vibrant and cheeky! But 90 years later, people my age are saying “Ethel? That’s an old lady name!” (and are on the verge of finding our grandchildren given it as a charming vintage revival).

Riley is an excellent example of the issue. I know NO ONE my age named Riley, nor anyone my parents’ age named Riley, nor anyone my grandparents’ age named Riley, nor anyone my great-grandparents’ age named Riley. I only know children named Riley. This makes sense when you look at how many girls have been named Riley over the years, going back in roughly generation-sized chunks:

1893: –
1923: 5
1953: –
1983: 36
2013: 4,902 (plus another 2,878 named Rylee, 1,709 named Ryleigh, 839 named Rylie, etc.)

So picturing a Grandma Riley does indeed feel ridiculous: if those 5 in 1923 are not a recording error (in that same year I see 41 baby boys named Elizabeth and 43 baby girls named David), maybe a few of us know an elderly woman named Riley—but most of us have never encountered one. But will it seem ridiculous when all of today’s child-aged Rileys are grandparent-aged? Will the children of that era say, “Wow, sure seems weird to have a GRANDMOTHER named Riley!” Of course not! Fast-forward 80 years from now and parents will be making baby name lists and one of them will say “How about Riley, after my grandmother?” and the other one will say “No way, Riley is SUCH an old-person name. Maybe as a middle.”

Where was I? Oh, yes: I was saying that I would not be very concerned about a currently-popular name fitting an older person. If you were to suggest a name such as Boopsie because you’d always thought that was an adorable name for a baby, I might gently remind you that babies are babies for only a very short time, and after that they need names that work in childhood and adulthood. If you were wondering if I could picture a lawyer named Boopsie, I would have to admit it was a stretch. But if you are looking at the names popular for this generation of babies, and you are feeling concerned because they seem to fit young children but not lawyers or senior citizens, then I say the tests are only helpful to a certain extent. The name Riley was the 45th most popular girl name in the United States in 2013, and that doesn’t even count all the other popular spellings; the name will age along with everyone who has it, just as Ethel has, just as Barbara has, just as Jennifer has.

Speaking of the other popular spellings, however, I’d say Riley is up there with Caitlin in terms of spelling issues. Just looking at the spellings given to 100 or more baby girls in 2013, we have:

Riley (4,902)
Rylee (2,878)
Ryleigh (1,709)
Rylie (839)
Rileigh (185)
Rilee (130)
Reilly (102)

If you wanted to reconsider Caitlin, but the pronunciation issue bothers you, there are two sources for the name. One is the Gaelic, which, as you say, was originally pronounced more like kat-LEEN. The other is a classic combination source such as Maryanne and Annemarie: Kate + Lynn is Katelyn, and is pronounced as you’d prefer, with no “pronouncing it wrong” issue.

On to Alexis. The issue of making a possessive or plural out of a name ending in S is one of the reasons I hesitate over using such names myself, because errors of that sort me want to pull out my teeth. I know I’ve told this story before, but when I worked in a daycare, a co-worker once made baby James’s name possessive by writing “Jame’s,” and I have never quite recovered. And recently my high-school-aged son told me after I proofread his paper that his English teacher told him it is now considered correct to make a name ending in S possessive by just adding an apostrophe; if this is true, and not just a teenager refusing to admit he’s wrong, I will be driven crazy not only by people getting it wrong but also by having to adjust to a new rule.

BUT: this is why I say every name has a set of issues and it’s a good idea to find the ones that drive you less crazy. In my case, a name ending in S is likely to produce decades of irritation; for someone else, only decades of shrugging, because it isn’t one of their hair-tear issues. If the people getting the possessive wrong is only slightly annoying, then it may be something you chalk up to being part of the package deal of the name, and nothing more serious than that. But if seeing Alexis’ and, heaven help us, Alexi’s, will make you grind your teeth, then I think that’s a legitimate reason to be concerned about using the name. Adding in two people named Alexis who are not positive associations, you may have a name you like very much but that isn’t a good fit for your family.

If you’d like the name Riley, but would like to reduce issues of popularity and spelling, I suggest Rory.

I think Avery might be a good fit for you. It’s a unisex name, but it doesn’t seem as youthful as Riley. I can more easily picture a lawyer named Avery.

Or Ellis. It fits so nicely with the Ella/Isabella sound (and has the nickname Ellie if she wants something more decisively feminine), but is much less common and much more unisex.

Or Hollis. It has the nickname Holly, if she wants it.

Devany is a name I’ve heard only once on an actual child, and it was a pleasant surprise.

Or Hadley.

Or Teagan.

Name update!

Hi Swistle!

Thank you for responding to my email and assuaging my fears about names not aging well. Baby girl Riley was born on Feb 1, 2015. We knew that we had the right name for her when she weathered 35+ hours of labor like a spunky little champ.

I’ve attached a picture! Thanks again for your help!
Mama Chenn

Hi Swistle,

I am a massive fan of your blog and have been an avid follower for many years (before I was even married or pregnant!)

I am pregnant and due in April with our first baby and this will also be the first grandchild on both sides

We haven’t found out the sex and have had a baby name list for a couple of years. We think we have settled on names for both boy and girl, but I keep having doubts about whether people will like them (I know we can’t please everyone) but I am worrying about peoples negative responses

We have chosen Thelma Jane for a girl, Thelma (husbands grandma’s name) and Jane (my grandma’s name)

My husband really likes the name and it just happens that they are our grandma’s names, but I am worrying about using an honour name (both our grandma’s are deceased) but I don’t want to offend my husbands other grandma (Sheila) or offend any of our parents if we have another girl in the future and don’t use any honour names for them.

For a boy we both really like Forrest, but we can’t decide on a middle name. We liked William, but cannot use this anymore. We also like James, (my granddad was called & christened Jim, so not an honour name, but is in a way?!) but don’t love the name…. and worried about it being too similar to Jane (middle name for girl, see above)

We want something a bit more common to go with the unusual name of Forrest.

I am very concerned about peoples reactions for Forrest. I keep going through stages of feeling determined that this is the name we both like and have liked for a couple of years, but then I go through stages of feeling really anxious and worrying about people mentioning the film Forrest Gump (not the reason we chose the name) or grandparents who only seem to like regal names (like William, Harry, George, Charles) there is nothing wrong with regal names, but not what we are looking for with a first name.

My husband is really settled on these names, I think I am too. But I keep questioning if other people will like them, I am worried they will have a negative reaction and then it will change the way I look at the name.

Other names we have considered for a girl:

Enid
Jovie (don’t like the ‘ie’ ‘ey’ rhyming of last of middle name and last of surname, my name is K@yley H@rtley, cant get much rhymier than that!)
Jerrica
Deryn (pronounced Derren)
Lavender
Nuala
Sylvie (same ‘ie’ ‘ey’ rhyming issue)
Emerald
Penelope
Marcella

Other names we have considered for a boy:

Zeke (don’t like how it sounds with the surname)
Malory
Selwyn
Parker
Morris
Sebastian
Kip (middle name)
Solomon
Evander (middle name)
Gabriel (middle name)
Alexander (middle name)

We don’t like names beginning with H as we feel they clash with our surname and are hoping to have 3 children in total!

Any help or advice on the names we have considered and advice on middle names for Forrest would be really appreciated, really hoping you can help and thank you in advance :)

Many thanks,
K@yley and Jo$eph H@rtley

It is definitely one of the tricky parts of using honor names: many parents wonder if the people they DON’T honor will then feel NON-honored by implication. I’m not sure if there’s any good way around it, but this may be where the tradition of “only use honor names of people who have died” comes from: if you’ll never know if you were honored or not (or at least, not until after you’ve joined an afterlife and presumably have a renewed sense of perspective about such things), there can be far fewer hard feelings. And if the trade-off for being honored is that you have to be dead and never get to meet the sweet little baby namesake, it no longer seems like such an enviable thing. And that’s the spin I’d put on it if I were you: “We wanted to honor our grandmothers who never got to meet our little girl.” Implication: The actual lucky people here are the ones who get to know the baby.

Then if you have another child and don’t use honor names, I would do so with the self-assurance of someone who trusts that all the family members understand how such things work: using an honor name, or two honor names, doesn’t mean the parents will now go through the entire family name by name, making sure they have enough children to cover every single person. Using two great-grandmother names in no way commits you to using the other two great-grandmother names, or to using the four great-grandfather names, or to using all four grandparent names. And it is a familiar practice to give honor names to the firstborn but not to subsequent children.

I do worry about making sure sibling names aren’t too similar, but I don’t worry at all about the middle names being too similar. If you wanted to name siblings Jane and James, I would feel those were too similar; for middle names, I don’t see it as an issue. From your list, my favorite is Forrest Alexander. Or I like Forrest Henry or Forrest Robert. Forrest Joseph, maybe? Or perhaps your husband’s middle name would work? Or do you have a brother or uncle or father or grandfather whose name would be nice? I hope for LOVE-love for a first name, but for the middle I like to find something serviceable: in this case, something to meet your preference of finding something more common to balance the first name, and perhaps something to mollify anyone who doesn’t like the name Forrest. The middle name would also be a good chance to use a name you like very much but don’t want to use as a first name for whatever reason (not a good sound with the surname, wrong style, etc.).

I think it can be reassuring in a bit of a backwards way to realize that no matter what you name your child, a significant portion of the population will think you have made a poor choice. I know you know this, since you mention not being able to please everyone, but I’m not sure it has FULLY sunk in. That is: NO MATTER WHAT you name this child, some people won’t like it. NO MATTER WHAT. Which is what leads us to the other half of the saying: You can’t please everyone, so you’ve got to please yourself. You will not catch Swistle saying that this means you should completely ignore all of society around you: the child will have to wear this name in that society, and so by “please yourself” I don’t mean “shrug off valid issues, such as whether Chicky McBawkBawk is a name that will please the child as much as it pleases us.” But if you have decided on the perfectly nice names Thelma and Forrest, and those are your favorite names, it’s not going to solve the “some people won’t like the names” problem to choose different names; it will only change which people don’t like them, and for what reasons.

My guess is that even if you get your share of negative reactions to the name, it won’t alter the way you feel about the name any more than ANY set of negative reactions would have altered the way you felt about ANY name. There is “Oh, like Forrest Gump?,” and there is the flat little “Oh” of someone so bored by the name they can hardly comment, and there is the “THAT’S an interesting name” of someone who feels incorrectly that they are doing an excellent job being tactful, and there is the “Oh, I know SO MANY of those!,” and there is the “…How did you come up with THAT?,” and there is the “Oh! Is that…a family name?,” and the “Oh, yes, that’s quite a popular choice these days!,” and so on. It’s not so much a matter of avoiding negative reactions; it’s more an issue of picking the ones you’d rather deal with—and of realizing that even a negative reaction is a fleeting thing, and no one truly deep-down cares if you use a name they don’t love, especially as the years (or in fact MINUTES) go by and they find other things to occupy their minds.

Thelma in particular may require a brief adjustment, because it’s so rare these days. It was last in the Top 50 back in the early 1900s, which makes me suspect it is getting to be time for a revival: the usual pattern is Popular Name, then Mom Name, then Grandma Name, then Great-Grandma Name, then back to Popular Name. I remember when the name Emma was such a surprise (and remember when Julia Roberts named her daughter Hazel?), and Emma was last in style in the late 1800s along with Cora and Clara and Grace and Ella; the early 1900s (Ruth, Hazel, Martha, Louise, Pearl) are next up.

You may especially encounter an initial resistance from older generations, since to them it may be an “old lady name”: names the current generation sees as Great-Grandma-or-older names, older generations would naturally see as Mom or Grandma names. Emma and Henry were recently “old lady / old man” names, and my parents are probably not the only ones of their generation who still think of the name Henry as somebody’s elderly great-uncle. I found that my first reaction to the name Thelma was neutral surprise (according to the archives, the name has come up on this blog only twice total, and this is one of those two times), and that the surprise quickly tilted positive: my inclination was to encourage you to use it, rather than to try to talk you out of it. And I think “She’s named for her great-grandmother” is an especially charming assist for those who have a little trouble with the transition to the next generation of names (as all of us likely will have, in our turn): honor names are always in their own category of fashion.

If you use Forrest, some people WILL make the association with Forrest Gump: I don’t think that’s avoidable. They will say, “Oh, like Forrest Gump!,” and you will say pleasantly, “Oh—no, we just liked the name,” and that will be the end of it. Later on, a few people will say “Run, Forrest, run!” when he is running, but they will not intend it meanly; they will feel they are making a funny reference to one of movies’ most beloved characters. The same is likely to happen with people informing him that life is like a box of chocolates. (It can be a little lesson to us all about avoiding saying the first joke/association that comes to one’s mind.) You might be able to reduce the association by spelling it Forest, giving it a nature connection instead, but many people will make the association anyway. If I were you, I would consider it part of the package deal of this name: if that element will drive you crazy, I would look for a different name; otherwise, every name has its own set of issues, and at least the association is a positive one. Thelma may have a similar issue with the movie Thelma and Louise.

Name update!

Hi Swistle,

Thank you for featuring my naming query! I was so excited when i saw it on your blog :)

Our little boy Forrest James arrived on 16th April 2015 at 07:57am by emergency caesarian weighing 9lb 7oz

We absolutely love his name and it suits him perfectly. We have had a few, “oh what an unusual name” or “oh as in Forrest Gump?” or “oh what made you think of that” but we just reply saying thank you we just liked the name.

Please find attached a picture of our gorgeous little man :)

From the H@rtleys :) xx

Hello Swistle!

I’m so excited to be writing, and I’m so hopeful that you can lend your ear and help me find a good name for baby Jenkins number FIVE arriving in June! I have a long list of preferred requirements for a name, but they can mostly be summed up in the following guidelines:

1. Easy to spell when said aloud.
2. Easy to understand (i.e. over the phone).
3. Not too many matchy/rhyming names through the sibling set.
4. No formal name that defaults to a nickname for everyday use.

To give you a complete picture, I think I’ll start with my oldest child and explain a few things about what we’ve done so far. Our oldest is Abigail Kate (nn Abby). My husband and I agreed on Abigail pretty easily, but we were at odds about the middle name (I’m bracing myself now because I know you’re not going to like what comes next!). I grew up without a middle name and HATED it… until I got married and now I LOVE it. When I was a kid I got to imagine up my own middle name, I didn’t feel like I had to give anything up or make a hard choice between keeping my middle or maiden names, or both, when I got married. I simply gained a husband AND an extra name to tag on the back. My husband advocated for a middle name, and I wanted to leave it without. We flipped a coin in a smoothie shop, and you see who won! I don’t hate her middle name, but it’s just a name we both liked with Abigail/Abby, and if I had it to do over again I’d likely skip it. I’d also just name her Abby, since that’s what we call her 95 percent of the time anyway.

Our second child, a boy, we named Evan Campbell. I loved the soft simplicity, sort of worn in feel of Evan, and Campbell is a family name on my side with a deep meaning which I was very excited about. It fits my list of criteria, and I’ve been really happy with it. My husband kind of had the final say on both of the first two kids, and we agreed that I’d have the final say on the next two.

Our third pregnancy was (surprise!) twins! We got a boy and a girl, and I was so so careful with those names. I wanted them to blend well with the others, but pair nicely with just the two of them, but also stand alone well. We debated between Henry/Claire and Hugh/Molly. In the end, we decided to go with Hugh and Molly. I would have loved to have chosen Henry and Molly, but I felt it too matchy matchy with an Abby, Henry and Molly…and Evan. For our son, we chose Hugh Douglas, even though Hugh breaks both rule 1 and 2 because Hugh is a family name on my side, and Douglas which is my dad’s name. (And here’s where it gets fun!) For Molly, we chose JUST Molly, as in Molly no-middle-name Jenkins. I felt that I was giving her my middle name, which is to not have one. We often call her Molly Belle because she was so tiny on her first Halloween that she fit into a little Belle dress for an 18” doll, and it’s just sort of stuck. I feel SO MUCH HAPPIER with her fake middle name than I do with Abby’s real one. With Molly I just FELT that her name was meant to be Molly and just Molly, and she’s the first of any of my kids that I’ve felt that way. With my older two, I never could commit 100%, which is why my husband got the final OK. This time I just felt it for the name Molly, which dictated what happened with Hugh’s name, which I was perfectly happy with.

So. Here we are, with baby number 5 on the way. I’m not sure who gets the final stamp of approval rights this time, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it’s me! We have the slight advantage that these babies have all come in close succession (Abby will be 6 when baby 5 arrives) and also the slight disadvantage that these babies have all come in close succession (leaving less brain power than I once had!) To recap, here’s what we’ve got:

My husband, Kristopher Michael
-I’m not fond of either of his names. I especially dislike that his name is spelled with a non-traditional K, making him Kris instead of Chris to most everyone, and that his middle name is just a name his mom liked for no particular reason.

Myself, BriAnna no-middle-name
-forever explaining the capital A which was supposed to feel a bit like having a middle name as kind of two names put together as one, but really just made cursive in the third grade a little harder to navigate.

Abigail Kate
-I wish I would have gone with just Abby, but Kate with a K could work as a partial, albeit very slight, nod to my husband’s name spelling if we don’t use his name elsewhere.

Evan Campbell
-Family name Campbell.

Hugh Douglas
-Family name Douglas.

Molly no-middle-name
-Because I feel remorse for Abby’s middle name.

We’ve just found out that the baby is a girl! I’ve got a list of choices that I can see working, but nothing that I’m totally sold on. This begs the main question, middle name or no middle name? Many of my family members couldn’t believe that I named one daughter with a middle name and one without, but I felt like if I HAD had a middle name, I could pass that on to one daughter and not the other and that wouldn’t be odd at all. With a third daughter, what happens next? I do know that I feel strongly that if she does get a middle name, it should have meaning and heritage, or else it should be omitted, as therein lays the heritage. Some of the names we are considering for a girl are:

Claire
-This feels maybe worn out from being a top contender last time, although it’s lovely. Maybe Clara instead?

Jane
-Jane Jenkins? Too much? Not Enough?

Beatrice (nn Bea)
-I think this is DARLING, but for everyday use Abby and Bea is just too similar to be workable, and I don’t like Tris. If I HAD to choose a middle name, I think I would choose Bea, because Abby Kate has the K for Kristopher, and _____ Bea has the B for BriAnna.

Lucy

Hazel

Alice

Nora

Ruby
-This is my husband’s suggestion, but I like it.

Ahhh! I feel better now that that’s all out there. Swistle. Help! I’m a planner and would love to put a name to this sweet surprise baby to help her feel more real. I’m open to suggestions as well as your input about what we’ve got on the list so far… and go easy on me about the middle names! J

Grateful,
BriAnna Jenkins

You were right, I AM feeling all squirrelly about the middle name situation! But I WILL go easy on the topic: if it had come up back when you were naming Abby, or when you were naming Molly, I might have gone Full Swistle on it—but at this point, we are working with a set of already-made decisions, and I feel like you could go either way on the next decision.

If you DON’T give her a middle name, I like that the exception to the pattern is the firstborn: firstborns OFTEN have things about their names that are different, because of being firstborn. I also like that Molly wouldn’t be the odd one out: a 3-2 split seems so different than a 4-1 split.

And if you DO give her a middle name, I like that she has a middle name. It’s not that I think middle names are so crucial (I wouldn’t be the least bit squirreled-up if none of the children in the family had them), but I will say again (just once, because I know you already know) how much I dislike the idea that a girl’s name is not complete until she’s married (with the implied presumption, intentional or not, that she WILL marry and WILL change her name), while a boy’s name is complete from birth. I think you really could keep Molly from feeling left out with the “you have the same middle name as Mommy!” concept, even though I think passing on the absence of a name is not quite the same as passing on a name: YOU feeling it’s the same is what would be important here. A good happy-parent naming story is valuable and important, and you’ve got one. You can play with her the “choose your own middle name” game, have family jokes where you’re Mommy Belle and Molly Belle, and so on and so on. The question, I think, is “Can this odd-man-out situation be considered SPECIAL instead of LEFT OUT?,” and the answer here I think is yes.

In short, I think both ways can be right.

If you decide NOT to give her a middle name, you probably don’t need me anymore. Clara Jenkins is wonderful, and probably my top choice from the list. Jane is one of my favorite names, and with Jenkins I think it has a certain flair. I like the way Lucy and Ruby give all three girls names ending in -y (if we count Abby as Abby instead of Abigail), while neither boy has that. Nora Jenkins is another hit, I think, and I like it with Abby and Molly. Alice seems a little similar to Abigail/Abby; Ruby seems a little similar to Abby; Hazel seems a little different in style than Abby and Molly; but all seem like fine candidates.

If you DO give her a middle name, then this is the point at which I would turn my attention from your very good finalists list to the middle name issue, in case the middle name helped us narrow down the first name. I like your idea of Bea, to be a little bit after BriAnna the way Kate is a little bit after Kristopher. I also like the idea of using Anna, since that was sort of a stand-in for your middle name: you’d have one daughter with your actual childhood middle name (nothing) and one with your sort-of childhood middle name (Anna). Or, if you’ve made your maiden name into your middle name, I like the idea of passing on your actual current middle name. (And if this is the case, it seems worth noting that you now DO have a middle name and are no longer BriAnna no-middle-name—and that it was upon acquiring a middle name that you finally stopped hating not having one.)

To add more options to the list, I would use whatever method you used for finding your sons’ middle names. Part of your regret over Abigail’s middle name seems to be that it was just something that sounded nice, instead of being a significant family name like your sons’ middle names. Are there women in the family you’d like to honor? More family surnames to consider?

Once you have a little list of significant names, try them out with the list of first names: sometimes pairing the right middle name with a first name can make the whole thing click into place. Or perhaps that exercise will demonstrate that you really, really don’t want a middle name, in which case you can revert to that plan.

Name update!

Hello Swistle!
I’m so happy to be writing to update you on the arrival of our little surprise baby number 5! We definitely needed your help because this was the longest any of our kids have gone nameless and we were still discussing names while we were in the hospital after she arrived. In the end, we owe her name to a reader comment! In my original letter I mentioned both Claire/Clara and Nora, and reader Megz suggested Cora. I loved that Cora didn’t have the “does it have an H or not?” problem that Nora has, but also has the hard C start of Claire and Clara. As I reread my original letter to you, I’ve realized that Cora also hits every single one of my requests that I made for the ideal name. Hooray! Ultimately we decided not to have a middle name at all, but were still deep in the throes of figuring that out at the hospital. Our final three choices were Cora, Cora Bea or Cora B. In the end I was just happiest going without, and my husband gave me last picks. So! I’m so pleased to introduce you to our newest addition, Cora Jenkins :)

Hello!

I am due in early February and we do not know the gender of the baby. We feel pretty good about our choice for a girl’s name – but a boy’s name is eluding us! Our last name is pronounced Molly-ache-elle.

We have a 2 year old son named George Lindsey – who we solely refer to as ‘Gil’ – Gil’s name was a tensely negotiated settlement last time around that didn’t get solved until we were about to leave the hospital. ‘George’ is a family name on my husband’s side (and my father in law’s name) that I did not feel a real kinship to and Lindsey is actually MY name. My husband loved being able to honor his father and a connection to me and advocated for that name from the very beginning. I agreed on the condition that we would exclusively call him ‘Gil’ from birth on (I love Anne of Green Gables and Gilbert Blythe). This has worked out well for us so far but would love to avoid the same kind of negotiated settlement with our second kid.

There is still a strong tradition of naming on my husband’s side of the family (they are very catholic and also from India) that means he would like it to be one of the following:
Jacob
Thomas
Anthony
Peter
Joseph (also my husband’s name)
Of those names, the only one I like is ‘Jacob’ – but am unwilling to go in that direction because of how popular it has been over the last 5 years or so and how many awesome kids I already know named Jacob. My husband says he would also be amenable to another name from the bible…

I love names that my husband says sounds like little British, white boys (we are a mixed race couple) and is therefore uncomfortable with:
Simon
Samuel
Spencer
Oliver (though feels trendy now)
Malcolm
Lewis

We considered ‘Zeke’ for awhile (full first name: Ezekiel) but it just didn’t sound quite right with our last name.

So here we are….with a somewhat unique last name and a stalemate on first names. I am not worried about middle names because we will either go with my husband’s name ‘Joseph’ or my grandmother’s maiden name ‘Akslen’ depending on what flows better.

Any suggestions for names that sound ok with the last name ‘Molly-ache-elle’, and goes well with the sibling name ‘Gil’ – but doesn’t remind my husband of little British babies? Bonus points if it has a Catholic connection!

Thanks for any help you can offer!

I can see how a person might associate Oliver, Simon, and Spencer with little British white boys; I don’t have that association myself, but I can at least see how someone might. But Malcolm? MALCOLM? As in X?

Malcolm would in fact be my favorite from your list. It goes well with George/Gil in popularity and style. But with your surname, it seems like a lot of M and L and C: Malcolm Molly-ache-elle.

My second choice is Samuel. Boy, that REALLY doesn’t sound like a British white boy to me (the first Samuel who comes to my mind is Samuel L. Jackson), and it’s traditional and biblical. I’d wonder if it were too much L with your surname, but if Gil works with it, I’d think Samuel would too.

For a name to go with George/Gil and satisfy traditional/Catholic naming inclinations, I think I’d look on a list of saint names rather than on a list of biblical ones. Gil and Thomas, Gil and Jacob—those aren’t style clashes, but they don’t quite click into place either: one boy has a distinctive, interesting, uncommon name, and the other has a name we’re all thoroughly familiar with. I think I’d go for something more like Gil and Felix, or Gil and Quentin, or Gil and Leo, or Gil and Finian, or Gil and Edmund, or Gil and Silas.

I know you’d prefer to avoid it, but it may be that the sort of solution you came up with for your first child’s name is exactly the right way to handle this child’s name as well: your husband gets his preference for a traditional and honor name, and then you bring it more toward your tastes by choosing a non-traditional nickname. Joseph Akslen, for example, with a nickname such as Joel or Jax or Joss or Jonty or Jep. I especially like Joss: George and Joseph, Gil and Joss.

Or since your first son is named for your husband’s father, perhaps a second son could be named for one of the men on your side of the family?

Ezekiel makes me think of Ezra, which you might like better with your surname. I like it with Gil, too.

Name update!

Our new addition arrive Friday morning and we named him Malcolm Joseph.
Thanks to everyone for their comments and suggestions!  It was great to hear people’s opinions and it spurred some great conversations for us.