Carolyn writes:

I’m due with our first child in 3 weeks (eek!). We didn’t find out the baby’s sex. We have a girl’s name figured out…Claudia Katherine Shields. We picked Claudia because it is pretty/unusual and Katherine is both of our moms names.

We’ve decided on Dixon for a boy’s first name. It’s a family last name on my mom’s side and it’s also to honor my dad, Richard, who passed away (Dixon means ‘son of Richard’ according to the websites I’ve read).

I’m emailing you to request help deciding on a middle name for Dixon. Here are the middle names we’ve narrowed it down to:

-Page (My maiden name but I’ve never heard it used for a boy…too feminine?)
-McQuade (It’s a family name/my father-in-law’s middle name but are Dixon and McQuade both too unusual to pair together?)
-James (It’s my husband’s favorite and somewhat of a family name on my side. I’m not sure if it sounds funny to have both his middle and last name ending in ‘s’. That could be the speech-therapist in me talking, though!)

So…what do you think?:
Dixon Page Shields
Dixon McQuade Shields
Dixon James Shields

Any input you could give would be GREATLY appreciated!!
Thanks :-)

The name Page/Paige is currently used exclusively for girls in the United States. Here are the 2012 numbers:

Page, F: 25
Page, M: –
Paige, F: 2892
Paige, M: –

If you were using a more familiar first name, I’d still be open to the idea of using it for a boy’s middle name: the sounds themselves are not distinctly feminine, the Page spelling seems significantly more usable for a boy than Paige, and I love the idea of getting your maiden name in there. But with a name like Dixon (a name given to only 54 babies in 2012), I’d be more inclined to find a familiar and clearly masculine middle name—especially since your girl-name choice is an uncommon first name followed by a familiar middle name.

McQuade seems a little too cool with Dixon. I like McQuade itself, and I like the idea of using it, but I don’t think I’d pair it with Dixon. I’d like it so much more in a name that could use a bit of a coolness injection: Robert McQuade Shields, for example, or Henry McQuade Shields, or Benjamin McQuade Shields. It seems like it would work particularly well if you had another son later and were worried your favorite first name weren’t quite cool enough with Dixon: using McQuade in the middle would even things out, and also give each boy a great family name. Or McQuade might be a very cool first name: Dixon and McQuade.

My own first choice for the middle name would be James. It’s handsome, masculine, and simple, and it coordinates nicely with Katherine if you have a girl later on.

Let’s have a poll to see what everyone else likes best!

[yop_poll id=”25″]

[Edited to add: I had another thought, if you reconsider the name Dixon: Richardson would honor your father in a similar way, without some of the issues mentioned in the comments. I think Richardson Page would work well.]

Name update! Carolyn writes:

Thanks so much for printing my letter a few weeks ago. Your input and your readers’ input was very helpful. I wanted to update you that we did end up having a baby boy and we named him Dixon James Shields. The name suits him perfectly. We are madly in love with him!
Thanks again!

Amy writes:

I’m pregnant with our 3rd and probably final baby, due in February. We have a 3 year old boy named Atticus and a 2 year old girl (whose initials you and your readers helped us with before she was born, thank you!) named Elm. We love both of their names and want something unique but meaningful for this baby too. Atticus was named after To Kill A Mockingbird and I like that it has an easy explanation for introductions (“Atticus, like To Kill A Mockingbird”). Elm was named because my husband and I met while working at a summer camp and fell in love in the woods. It also has an easy explanation (“Elm, like the tree”). Our last name starts with W which rules out lots of lovely W names such as Willa for a girl or Wilder for a boy. Can’t start with W and you have to be able to pronounce it at first glance are the only hard and fast rules. Our name method has always been that I’m the one who comes up with the names and my husband is the one who vetos. I am less picky than he is and would have happily settled on several different names for each of our kids.

Here are the girl names he has vetoed so far for various reasons for this baby:
Felicity (my favorite)
Iris
Lucy
Juniper (June)
Calla
Fiona

We had decided on a boy name, Orion, but now my husband says he’s having second thoughts and is worried it’s too “out there.” It’s very close to Atticus in rank on the social security list and considering Elm has never even been on the list at all I don’t think it’s too “out there” for our name set. I love the stars and mythology tie-ins, it has an easy introduction explanation (“Orion, like the constellation”), it’s something I can remember as child my mom always pointing out to us in the sky, and I love the idea of a stars/space nursery. Atticus, Elm, and Orion. What do you think?

The middle name for either boy or girl will be Beck, my mother in law’s maiden name.

I’m only 10 weeks along but we like to have our names picked out early on and we will pick one definitively and stick with it, not keep 2 or 3 rolling around until he/she is born. So laying a hand on my belly and thinking about baby Something Beck Doubleyou just isn’t doing it for me. Help!

Thank you!

Before I’d encountered the name on an actual child, I might have guessed the name Orion would be too out there. But I’ve encountered one boy named Orion and one girl with a similar name (Auryan), both in a way that let me hear their names said again and again, and the effect was not out-there. On the girl, the name had the flavor of Aurora (exotic, yes, but not weird), combined with the boyish Ryan. On the boy, the name sounds so much like the familiar Ryan (in fact, my ear first heard it as O’Ryan), it takes the “out there” factor down significantly. It definitely catches the ear as distinctive, and also as distinct from Ryan—but the similar sound makes the ear say “Well, why WOULDN’T that be a name?”

Girl name possibilities (I’m suggesting even ones that aren’t ideal with Beck):

Athena
Audra
Azalea
Briar
Clarity
Cleo
Clover
Coral
Fallon
Fern
Haven
Hyacinth
Juno
Lark
Linden
Marigold
Opal
Pearl
Prairie
Spring
Verity
Wren
Zinnia

Name update! Amy writes:

I wrote to you several times this pregnancy (Baby W, sibling to Atticus & Elm) and you & your readers were so helpful. My husband and I read through your reply & all the comments multiple times. We quickly & easily agreed on Ivy Beck W. as our girl name after several people suggested it in the first post. The boy name was trickier & at different points we had settled on Sullivan nn Sully then Hawthorn nn Hawk when two days before the birth we both decided it just didn’t feel right and went back to our original choice, Orion. I think secretly we were both expecting a girl and thought maybe that’s why we’d had so much uncertainty about a boy name. But surprise! It IS a boy and we’re thrilled. Orion Cash W., 2/10/14, 9 lbs 5 oz! (middle name honors my husband’s best friend). He and his name are both perfect- thank you again for all your help!

Rebecca writes:

Naming our first daughter was extremely difficult and due to an early delivery we enlisted your help but didn’t get decide on a name until she was already born in the hospital.  https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2010/06/30/baby-girl-marasco/.  Our older daughter is now 3 years old and we love her name (Malia Aiko Marasco) and get compliments on it all the time.  We are facing the impossible task of naming another girl and have been so imtimdated by it that we have left it to the last minute.  Our next (and last) baby is due in September but it looks like she will be early as well.

My name is Rebecca Marasco and my husband is of Japanese and Italian descent and his name is Marc.  We are open to another Hawaiian or Japanese name, but it’s not required.  We don’t have any family names we are conscidering this time but an “E” name would be nice to honor my grandmother.  We are almost out of time and don’t have any names we love and can’t find any names we like more than Malia.

Our top contender (Seneca) was actually the runner up for our older daughter.  It was a name I liked all along, but my husband didn’t care for it the first time.  Now it’s his favorite too as he said it just took 3 years to warm up to it.  I can’t help but feel that if it wasn’t good enough for Malia it isn’t good enough for the new baby.  I was thinking of Seneca Meadow Marasco but I worry it sounds too much like a place.

The only other name I liked was Aria (husband doesn’t like Ariana) as I also like the nick name Ari.  I do worry that it is getting too popular and is a little too similar to Malia.  I also like Everly and or middle names like Echo, Nova or Meadow.

My husband likes the name Hazel, but that’s just too old fashioned to me.  He also like Lucia (which I found too close to Malia) as well as Leila and Aria.

We would like a name that pronouces easily, isn’tt too similar to her sister’s name, isn’t too popular but still sounds familiar.  Besides Seneca being a boy’s name, we are generally not interested in boy’s names turned into girl’s names.

Thank you so much for your help and we look forward to your advice and the great advice from your readers,

Every single name except the name Malia could by definition be put in a category titled “Wasn’t Good Enough for Malia,” so I’d suggest starting by re-naming that category. Another good category title could be “Wasn’t the Right Name for Malia”: her name was MALIA, not Seneca. Perhaps the name Seneca is exactly right for this baby, and that’s why it wasn’t right for your first baby. If you both love it and nothing else seems right, I think you’ve got your name.

We had something similar happen at our house. When we were expecting our firstborn, I had a name high on my list but Paul didn’t like it. When we were expecting our second baby, I had the name on my list again—and Paul chose it as his favorite, and we used it even though I felt a little weird about using a name he’d previously completely rejected. And it worked out even better than I’d hoped: the actual name is a name that seems happy and easy-going to us, and our secondborn’s temperament matches the way we see the name—but our firstborn’s doesn’t. For us, our image of the name would have been a misfit on our firstborn, but it was perfect on our secondborn.

Seneca Meadow does sound a little place-like to me, but not overly. Do you tend to use first-and-middles in your family—that is, do people call your first daughter Malia Aiko? If so, then I’d probably look for another middle name. If not, and if Meadow is your favorite middle name, I think I’d be more on the side of choosing what you like: middle names tend to disappear into Paperwork Only after the birth announcements go out.

If Meadow continues not to sit right with you, I’d suggest looking at the names that didn’t work as first names (Hazel, Lucia, Leila, Aria). Seneca Aria is my favorite: it lets you use that name without worrying about its popularity or its similarity to Malia, and Seneca Aria is nicely parallel to Malia Aiko.

Name update! Rebecca writes:

thank you again for choosing our question for your website and thank you for running it in time for us to have a little while to digest all of the information before our daughter’s early arrival.  We still didn’t have a name until after she was born but we are very happy to introduce Seneca Alani Marasco.  Your advice made it easier to realize that her name has always been Seneca and feeling good about that.  Your reader’s comments did give us pause about not wanting to offend people, but as we had a connection to Seneca Lake after a fair about of research on it’s Greek roots, wide spread use for naming and places in multiple states, the company, institutions as well as a name that was bestowed upon a tribe– we felt comfortable with it’s general use.  The most exciting find on your reader’s comments (besides some kind words about The Seneca Falls Convention) was bringing up the name Alani again for my consideration.  My husband brought it up before and I dismissed it– but seeing it in the comments made us add it to the list.  We thought it was a beautiful name that worked nicely with Seneca (as it was short and feminine) as well as matching her sister as it’s Hawaiian and an A name like Aiko.  Thank you very much to you and your readers.

B. writes:

We are expecting our second child in November and have just learned it is another little girl. We are super excited about this — but now are tasked with finding a name that blends with her sister’s.

Our daughter, almost 3 now, is Molly — a name I have loved ever since I was young, and never thought I would get to use it for a daughter. I am so in love with the name, and it fits my daughter’s personality so much that I feel a lot of pressure to come up with something just as perfect for our baby girl on the way.

Molly’s middle name is Aneen (pronounced uh- neen). Aneen is my and my mother’s middle name. Our last name is similar to Krevitz, but with an L. I would like to honor family again with the middle name this time around. For our middle names, those choices are Rana (pronounced Renee, after my husband’s sister who was killed in a car accident about 11 years ago); Beth (after my mother); Marie (my mother-in-law’s middle name) or Maria (after my grandmother). Our top choice is Rana for the meaningfulness of using this.

For first names, we have it limited to two, the only two we have really felt drawn to — but I would love to hear other suggestions as well. We like names that are not overly popular or super trendy or sound like made up names. I also tend to like boy names for girls – and one consideration was to use Coty, another family name that would have significant meaning, as it would honor both my husband’s sister and her infant son who was also lost in the car accident.

Right now this is our list, ranked in order of appeal:
Madison (nickname Maddie — we love the combo of Molly and Maddie, two little sweet girls running around)
Reese

Others that we discarded were:
Morgan
Quinn
Paige
Shelby
Logan

Thank you for your help –

That DOES seem hard. I think that because you loved the name Molly for so long, it could be helpful to give up the idea of finding anything you love as much. There might just not BE such a name. And of course by now you’ve come to love the name Molly even more, since it’s your daughter’s name—it would be hard for any name to measure up to that. My guess is that you will COME to love another name as much after you use it, but that unless you had a second name you’ve loved since you were young, you might not love it quite as much during the choosing stage.

With a name like Molly, which is used exclusively for girls in the United States, I don’t think I’d go too boyish for a second girl. Reese is borderline; Coty crosses that line for me, if you mean you’re considering it as a first name. (It also seems like it could be a painful choice, considering the circumstances.) Coty might make a great middle name, though I think my first choice would still be Rana.

Because you’d like to avoid popular and trendy, I’d cross Madison off the list. (Molly and Madison also makes me think of Dolley Madison, as well as Dolly Madison, though neither of those are negative associations.)

If you’d like the nickname Maddie, you could get it from Madelyn/Madeline/Madeleine, though those names too have been very popular. There’s also Madigan: it’s similar to Morgan and Logan from your list; it has not been popular at all; it has a boyish sound; and it ties into Molly’s Celtic roots. Madigan Rana; Molly and Madigan; Molly and Maddie.

Another option is Megan. Megan Rana; Molly and Megan; Molly and Meg.

I find Molly and Reese a little bit of a surprising combination, style-wise. But I don’t think the combination is unpleasant, and both names have a similar energetic and friendly sound.

I like several other names on your discard list, too. Molly and Paige sounds adorable to me. Molly and Quinn sounds similar, though more unisex. Molly and Morgan seems close to achieving the Molly and Maddie effect.

Abigail is popular, but I think Molly and Abby gives you something like Molly and Maddie, while also matching the more old-fashioned/feminine image I have of the name Molly. Abigail Rana; Molly and Abigail; Molly and Abby. Or maybe you’d like Molly and Mabel, or Molly and Maisie, or Molly and Mindy, or Molly and Mandy?

Are you planning to have more children? If so, and if you went with a Molly/Maddie or Molly/Maisie type combination, would you feel like you had to find a third similar name? Perhaps something like Sadie would work well: it coordinates sweetly but without coordinating so well that a third name would stand out. Sadie Rana; Molly and Sadie.

Is your mother’s given name Beth, or is that short for Elizabeth? Elizabeth is a name with a lot of nickname possibilities that could be adorable with Molly. Molly and Libby, Molly and Betsy, Molly and Lizzy, Molly and Bess.

Molly seems to be a different style than the kinds of names you like now. What was it that got you hooked on the name Molly? Was there a Molly in a book or movie, or was it the name of someone you knew? I wonder if that would be a place to look for another name you like (nearly) as much.

Name update! B. writes:

Thank you to Swistle and all of her readers. We were so excited when our question was chosen for a blog, and the feedback and suggestions from both Swistle and readers truly gave us a lot to consider — issues we would have never thought of ourselves. We actually put Paige back on our list for awhile, after reading all the feedback. It was tough decision, and we went round and round on our names. Our little girl decided to arrive 5 weeks early…5 lbs. 14 oz, and I am happy to report that she is healthy and beautiful and has stolen our hearts — including her big sister Molly’s. In the end, we ended up back at the beginning with our very first instinct. Madison Rana was born Oct. 8, 2013 and we are so completely in love. Hearing our 3-year-old say “I love you Maddie” in her sweet little voice is just about the sweetest thing in the world. Thank you again for all your help!

Amanda writes:

My husband and I are expecting our first child in September – a little boy. My name is Amanda Lee and my husband’s name is Patrick Blake (he goes by Blake). Last name sounds like Kershmen.

We have narrowed our choices down to two names but I feel like there are so many options we haven’t considered. This is where you come in (hopefully!). The two names we like right now are Brady and Carter. We will probably use Mills (my maiden name) for a middle name. My husband’s middle name, Blake, is his mom’s maiden name, so we thought that might be a cool tradition to carry on. I’m not married to that, though, and if the name we choose doesn’t go with Mills as a middle name then we can change the middle name.

My husband likes Carter because it is a family name. His grandfather’s name was Anderson Carter. We also considered Anderson as a first name, which I absolutely love, but Anderson Kershmen sounds too long. Plus I don’t want him to be called Andy. I also like Carter but for some reason I just don’t love it. As of now, I’m leaning towards Brady. My biggest concern right now is that it doesn’t sound masculine enough… I guess because of the –y ending. Should that be a concern or is that my pregnancy hormones talking?

If we had a girl we would have named her Mila Blake (pronounced Myla). We plan on having 1 or 2 more kids after our son is born so hopefully we will eventually be able to use this name.

Do you have any name suggestions that have a similar style to the ones we are considering (other than Grady or Brody)?

Thank you!

With Kershmen, my favorite is Brady: Carter Kershmen feels like a lot of C/K and R sounds.

Brady is currently used almost exclusively for boys. In 2012, there were 2,849 new baby boys and only 41 new baby girls named Brady (for comparison, 243 new baby girls were named Carter). I like the idea of Brady Mills Kershmen, and maybe Carter for a future child’s middle name.

Other names that seem similar to Brady to me are Brayden and Aiden and Carson, but those all seem a little choppy with Kershmen. Maybe Davis? Davis Kershmen.

Let’s have a poll for the two finalists!

[yop_poll id=”22″]

Name update! Amanda writes:

Thanks so much to you and your readers for posting my question and for the great comments. Our son was born September 22 and my husband and I went back and forth on several name options until we finally decided on Brady Mills Kershmen.  I think we knew that was his name all along, and we are so happy we chose it!  Thank you again!

Linda writes:

I am hoping that you can help me with a naming problem. How do you name a second baby when the first baby’s name was very much a compromise name and not at all in the style that you wanted?

When we were naming our daughter 6 years ago, my husband suffered from the belief that we could only use names that were common when we were children. Since we were both born in the 1970s, that means he was thinking along the lines of Heather or Michelle. Those are very nice names, but not what I had in mind. After much debate we finally settled on Shannon Elizabeth “Denny”. I don’t love the name, but it is my daughter’s name and I can’t imagine her with a different one. At the time we were only planning on one child so the issue of sibling names never came up.

Now we are expecting again. I am not due until the end of February, but I really want to start looking at names. After 6 years of seeing names like Sofia and Olivia in my daughter’s classes, my husband has admitted that he had the wrong idea and this time is willing to basically let me choose the name. If it is a boy, I don’t think we will have much trouble as boys names haven’t changed as much over time. However, I am really stumped on girl names and don’t even know where to start looking.

I can’t really think of a naming category for Shannon except for “names that were popular in the 1970s” or possibly “sort of Irish names”. It seems like I would need to avoid anything ultra-feminine since Shannon used to be a unisex name and when talking about my children it might sound like I have a girl and a boy instead of two girls. Other than that, I really don’t know where to start and I was hoping you might be able to help. This will definitely be our last child, so I won’t need to try and co-ordinate a third name. Thank you so much!

I think one idea is to just choose the second girl name without taking the first name very much into consideration. This might not be the advice you’d expect to hear, considering how keen I am on sibling-name coordination. But I think if this time you choose a name YOU love, and the naming story became “Dad chose Shannon’s name, and I chose yours,” that that makes a very nice story and goes a long way to patch two quite different names together.

On the other hand, I always feel a little unhappy about the names of the Bush twins Barbara and Jenna: both names are good names, but the name Barbara is from the 1930s-1950s and so is not yet due for revival, while the name Jenna got popular right around the time the twins were born. Because the name Shannon is currently more often found on mothers than children (though it IS still being used for children, as is the name Barbara), I do think I’d look first for names that bridged the gap: there are girls my age and my daughter’s age named Elizabeth, Katherine, Anna, and Emily. That route appeals to me more than going with, say, Shannon and Isabella.

The name Shannon last peaked in the United States at #17 in 1976, so I would go to the Social Security website, scroll through 1976, and see what still sounds right for a little girl born today. Here are the ones I’d pick from the Top 100 of 1976:

Rebecca
Sarah
Elizabeth
Laura
Emily
Jill
Holly
Katherine
Megan
Leslie
Veronica
Heidi
Anna
Natalie
Samantha
Victoria

Some of those work better with Shannon than others: I like Shannon and Leslie, and I like Shannon and Holly, but Shannon and Anna are too similar in sound, and Shannon and Victoria might be too different in mood.

The 1976 list could also make a good starting place for more current versions of those names. Laura could lead us to Lauren, for example, or Amy to Amelia, or Julie to Julia. Or some of the names might remind us of other names: when I saw Jill, I thought Jillian might be great with Shannon, and Laura made me think of Maura and Nora and Morgan, and Leslie makes me think of Lindsay, and when I saw Holly I wondered if Molly might be perfect—and Molly made me think of Bridget, which made me think of Bethany. Etc.

My favorites are Jillian, Bethany, Bridget, Molly, Emily, Leslie, and Holly. It’s too bad so many of those are two syllables ending in a Y sound—I suspect they might not work at all well with your surname.

Do you remember which names you were campaigning for when you were expecting Shannon? That’s where I’d start, if I were you. Next, I’d look through name books and make a list of everything you like now, and add it to that older list. THEN, hold each name up to Shannon and see if it creates a Bush Twin Feeling or if it’s fine. I think this is a situation where I wouldn’t agitate too much about the names going well together, as long as neither child seems to have a “better” name. The age gap is on your side as well: it’s easy to see how the parents’ naming style could have shifted a bit in that time, and of course six years is long enough for the overall naming style to shift a bit as well.

It might also work to have Shannon help name the baby. The whole situation falls in a new light if she’s the one who chose the modern and ultra-feminine name.

 
Name update! Linda writes:

I wrote to you last summer asking for help coming up with another girl name that would go with my daughter’s name of Shannon (you posted it on July 12). I greatly appreciated your suggestions, and those of your readers. It made me feel a lot better to not have to try and restrict possible names to those that would match her name. Of course, this meant that we had a boy. Colin Thomas “Denny” was born on March 2. We let his sister make the final decision on his name, and we love it and think that it matches his sister’s name quite well. Thank you again for your help!

B. writes:

We’re having our second baby in November, and we are looking for names. Our last names rhymes with Tower, but starts with BR, and our daughter is named Lucia (pronounced Loo-SEE-ah) although we call her Lucy at least half the time. Her middle name is my maiden name, which will probably be the same for the next one. We won’t find out if we’re having a boy or a girl, but we’re making progress on the boy name (prob will be Theodore or Maxwell). The issue right now is with a girl name. We both are leaning toward May or Mae.

My issue with this name is that I think it might be too short to hold up to Lucia. I know it’s traditionally used as a nickname for Margaret or Mary, but I don’t really like either of those names. But I do really like the idea of having a name that comes with a nickname, so that we can use both names for the child. So I’ve been playing around with other names that we might use for a full name with May as the nickname.

Some ideas:
Maeve
This is a name I would love on someone else’s baby, but I’m just not sure that I love it enough for my own.

Maelys (Maa-ay-lees)
I think this is pretty. It’s very popular in France right now, which I think makes an interesting pair with Lucia which is very popular in Spain. But is it too out there for an American baby? I’m ok with a little confusion over a name (such as the Loo-see-ah/loo-sha questions we get) but is Maelys on a totally level? Also, does Mae even work as a nickname for this?

Maelyn
Pretty, but I think this is too much like Jalen/Kaylyn for me. I know a ton of kids with these names . . .

Maisie
Cute, but it already sounds like a nickname.

Marie
I really like this name, but I don’t know that May fits it as a nickname.

We don’t like Mariam, Marianne, and other similar names that sound like a form of Mary in some way.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks!

At first my response was going to be essentially this: If the only reason you’re looking for a longer form for Mae is that you feel you ought to have more syllables to go with Lucia, and you’ve looked at a whole bunch of possibilities and you don’t like any of them as much as just Mae/May, then I think at this point you can stop looking. I too find it pleasing to have sibling names similar in length, but not to the point of choosing a name I like less—and Lucia is so short in number of letters, I think it’s just fine to pair it with Mae.

Then on re-reading, I noticed that it’s also that it appeals to you to have a name/nickname set, and that Lucia goes by Lucy at least half the time. Okay, then, that sounds like a fun mission instead of an obligation mission! But if we go through and list all the Mae-nickname names we can think of and nothing seems right, then I’ll go back to my original response about it being fine to go with just Mae. I think a nickname will evolve: in my house, I think she’d be Maeberry and Mae-mae and Maybe-baby within the first hour.

I think yes, Maelys is in a different category of pronunciation difficulty than Lucia. I listened to the Forvo pronunciation about a dozen times before I felt like I could remember how it was said—and that’s with the mnemonic of “It’s like ‘My Elise’, kind of,” and remembering the Elysian fields. And then on top of that, it’s supposed to have an umlaut over the E, and the Mae part is not pronounced like May. I think pronouncing it May for the nickname would considerably increase the difficulty others would have with the full version: if I got used to a little girl nicknamed Mae-pronounced-May, and then I saw her full name was Maelys, I’d pronounce it MAY-liss—like Marlys or Arlys.

My first inclination would be to go with a double first name. Ava May, or May Ella, or something of that sort. That does seem a little too Southern United States with Lucia, though.

Or Mayella could be a single name. It’s still Southern, and yet I like it with Lucia: the way they’re both three syllables with the accent on the second syllable ties them together a bit more, especially when I say them aloud.

There’s also Meagan, pronounced like MAY-gun. But that seems dated to me with Lucia, and the Mae nickname doesn’t feel natural for it.

Or Esmé (EHZ-may). That’s pretty with Lucia, and Twilight has increased the general familiarity with the pronunciation.

Mabel/Maebel/Maebella would be pretty too. Or maybe the B sounds are a little bumpy with the surname.

Maya is a possibility, though I always think of the MY-ah pronunciation first (I think because of the Mayans, and also because we know an Amaya pronounced ah-MY-ah).

More suggestions for long forms for Mae/May?

Name update! B. writes:

Sorry this update is so late . . . Life is a little crazier with two little ones.  We had just about settled on using the name Mae for a girl.  But we had a boy and named him Maxwell.  Thanks for all the help!

Sarah writes:

Hello! My husband and I are expecting our first child, a girl, in late summer. We’ve pretty much decided on a first name, Sydney, but are having difficulty with a middle name. Our last name starts and sounds a bit like Cobalt, though it does not end in a hard t.

I really like the tradition of using a family name as the middle name. I also like more feminine names, given Sydney’s history as a boy’s name. I know it’s no longer that much of a boy’s name (and it’s certainly not Sidney), and my husband doesn’t seem to think this is a problem at all. He, therefore, likes Ryan (his middle name) as a middle name, or an alternative spelling such as Rian or Ryann. I could handle Rian but am not an alternative spelling person. I like Elizabeth, my middle name and his grandmother’s middle name, but he thinks it’s too much of a mouthful. Is it? Sydney Elizabeth? I need another set of eyes. Our other family name options are the opposite, short and sweet: Mae, Rose, and Laine. If the baby were born right now, our tentative truce option is Rose, after his other grandmother. But I’m just not sold, or maybe I’m afraid to commit. I wonder if I’m somewhat too selfish and really want her named after me/my side of the family.

Our other first name option is Cecily. This is actually still a strong contender for me, less so for my husband. Given (what I view as) the name’s femininity, I have no problem with Cecily Ryan. This makes my husband perk up a bit, but I know he likes Sydney more than Cecily. He likes cute nicknames, and he loves the thought of calling her Syd. Is there a cute nickname for Cecily, other than Cece?

The only other name that I really love love love is Madeline, but we’ve chosen not to consider it as a first name because a very close family member has a daughter named Madison. I would strongly consider Madeline as a middle (now or in the future) if it were in any way a family name. Am I holding onto that self-imposed “rule” too tightly?

Oh! I just read a post of yours in which the mom finds herself torn between Elizabeth and Elise, and believes that Elise honors her family members named Elizabeth. Is this a commonly held belief/connection? Is Sydney Elise better? I just can’t grasp someone seeing the name and thinking “oh, it must be Elise after her middle name of Elizabeth”?

If the baby were a boy, my first choice has always been Cameron, a name my husband also loves. (It would be the subject of an entirely different question, though, because of another family member, less close, who recently used this name. Back-up boy names were hard to come by before we found out the sex.) Finally, we do plan on having more children, 3 total is the current prevailing thought. I haven’t even thought about matching future sibling names, and maybe I should.

While it’s true that Sydney is used much more for girls now, I’m with you about preferring a more feminine middle name: a name formerly used for boys followed by a name currently used more for boys seems to be making a statement—and also seems like it might make you feel you needed to choose boyish names for all your daughters. If your girl name choice is Sydney, and your boy name choice is the unisex Cameron, I’d suggest you make everyone’s middle names very clearly masculine or feminine.

If Sydney is your husband’s first choice of first name, it seems like it would be fair for you to get more sway in the middle name. And if you’re planning to have more children, it seems likely that there will be other chances for him to name a child after himself. Sydney Elizabeth doesn’t seem like too much of a mouthful to me at all—and if the surname is your husband’s, I think it would be nice to bring in a name from your side of the family instead of a second name from his. That doesn’t seem selfish, it seems balanced.

Another balanced option is your idea of Cecily Ryan. Then it’s your husband’s middle name and surname, but you’d have more sway in the first name. I don’t see any reason he couldn’t still call her Syd/Sid; plenty of people use non-name-related nicknames, and it seems sweet for a dad to have his own nickname for his daughter. We know a family where the dad calls his daughter an assortment of boy names (Hank, Frank, George, Lloyd) as their own running in-joke.

If before your first child is even born, your rule about family names is already painfully ruling out names you love, I do think it would be a good idea to loosen that a little. One option would be to make your rule that one of the two names should be a name of significance; this takes away the restriction that it has to be in the middle-name position and also the restriction that the significance has to be family-based. Another option would be to set the whole thing up as a preference rather than as a rule: you’d say that you’d prefer each child to have a family middle name, but then you’d allow another preference (such as a preference for a particular name) to trump that. (We did something like that in our family: I looked first for family names, but didn’t sweat it ((much)) if it didn’t work out.)

Different people have different feelings about how far away from an honor name you can go and still be honoring the family member. Some would use just a first initial; some would use a few letters or a sound (Madelyn honoring a Lynda, for example); some use variations (Elise honoring an Elizabeth, for example); some would translate a name from another alphabet into their own (Orla to honor Irish Grandma Órlaith, for example); some would vary the spelling but not the name (Marian instead of Marion, for example); and some would be completely strict about it being the exact name. I use the “Would I feel honored?” test: I wouldn’t feel particularly honored by a child named Keegan or Crystal “after me,” but I would be by a child named Cristen or Kristin (though even more so by a child named Kristen, if anyone is currently filling out a birth certificate). To me, Sydney Elise doesn’t seem like it honors an Elizabeth, any more than Riley seems like it honors a Ryan—but what matters is whether it feels that way to the people involved. If when you think about it, you can’t imagine anyone seeing Elise and thinking it’s after your middle name, then it sounds like Elise won’t work for you.

Here’s a name that seems to me to be right between Syndey and Cecily: Cassidy. Cassidy is used only for girls, like Cecily—but it has more of the sound of Sydney, and Sid could definitely be a nickname for it along with Cassie. Cassidy Elizabeth Cobalt.

Name update!

In a shamefully long overdue update, I want to let you and your readers know that we named our baby girl (now a wonderful and willful toddler) Cecily Ryan.  I cannot tell you enough how much your perspective and the thoughts and ideas from your readers helped us!  We poured over everything.  We went into the hospital with two options, and Cecily had really grown on us and won out when we saw her.  We call her any one of a million nicknames, too, which is something that was difficult for us, first-time parents, to imagine when all I thought about was naming.  Now, it seems totally natural.  Thank you again.

p.s. – Cassidy would definitely have been on the short list–you nailed my style–were it not also the name of one my good friends.

L. writes:

I am currently pregnant with my second child. This one is a boy, which has been a bit of a surprise to both sides of our family as all of my siblings, my husband’s siblings and all of our combined cousins have only girls (our first child was a girl, too, obviously). Because it’s been a while since we’ve had a boy in the family everyone has very strong opinions as to what family name our son should have. We have narrowed our list of options down to three: Wilson (the fourth), Loren (the third) and Joseph (the sixth).

Our surname is Booker. We named our daughter Harper Ann despite the obvious problem of both first and last names ending in the suffix “er” because I fell in love with the name literally 17 years before I even met my husband. Her middle name is for her grandmother. I really love the idea of passing on another family name.

I adore the name Wilson, which we would probably shorten to Will, despite the fact that it is growing increasing popular (as are many names with the suffix “son;” we already have a Jackson, Jameson, Grayson, Greyson and Mason all in our neighborhood). Of course, there is also the issue that it will look like he has two surnames on paper if we go with Wilson.

Joseph is the name my husband is pulling for. He has been calling the baby “Joe” for weeks. I think Joseph is a great middle name but I really can’t stand it as a first name. I don’t know why. Ironically, Wilson is a name from his side of the family and Joseph is a name from mine.

Of the three names Loren is the one I like the least, but probably the one we’ll have to incorporate somehow because it is the name my husband is passing down.

I’m open to using two middle names just to make everyone happy. I also love the name Milo, which my husband refuses to use (“No son of mine will be named after a grain!”) and he likes Randall, which is probably my least favorite name of all time (due to a bad association).

I’m leaning towards Wilson Joseph Loren (to break up the “on” and “en” sounds) and my husband likes just Joseph Loren, so we’re stuck.

Any input you have would be greatly appreciated. And thank you!

If you can’t stand Joseph as a first name, then your husband’s choice of Joseph Loren is out. How does he feel about Wilson as a first name? If he can’t stand it, then Wilson is out too. But it sounds like it’s on his list of finalists, and it’s just that he’d prefer Joseph. He may need to be told frankly that Joseph is not going to be the name, before he’ll be able to bring himself to concentrate on another candidate.

If Loren is from your husband’s side of the family and must be used, and the surname is also from his side of the family, then it feels to me as if bringing balance to the name will require some concessions on his part. If I’m right that he likes the name Wilson and it’s just that he’d prefer his own choice, then that’s exactly the sort of concession I have in mind: he gets his family surname and he gets to hand down the name Loren, and you get your first choice of first name. The only thing that bothers me about this solution is that it’s THREE names from his side. But since Wilson is your first choice, and since it sounds like you had more say in your daughter’s name, it works. And if you do the mirroring idea of using as another middle name the name from YOUR side that HE likes, then that’s a pleasing balance. In short, I’m in favor of your idea of Wilson Joseph Loren.

Wilson Booker does sound like two surnames—but that’s how it is with ALL surname names, and surname names are in style right now so I think everyone is used to that. There may be the occasional form or letter with Booker Wilson on it (that’s kind of cute, isn’t it? it makes me realize Booker would be a cute first name), and in that case you’ll just make the correction and everything would be fine. The only time I think I’d avoid it is if the surname were a common first name: for example, if your surname were David, I think I’d avoid all surname first names just because of what a pain the constant corrections would be. But Booker is barely used as a first name in the U.S. (only 38 born in 2012), while Wilson is more familiar (418 born in 2012), so I think the hassle will be minor and manageable.

If you do use two middle names, I offer this piece of advice from our own family’s experience: choose ahead of time which one will be the “default” middle name for forms that only allow one. The kids and I all have my maiden name as a second middle name; I use my maiden name initial as my default initial, but the kids all default to their non-maiden-name middle initial.

Name update! L. writes:

I just wanted to send an update on the naming of our little one and thank you for your advice. It turned out to be very helpful.

You were correct when you guessed that my husband liked the name Wilson but just preferred the name Joseph. I did end up putting my foot down about not using Joseph as a first name and then he was very open to using Wilson (which was his early favorite anyway). That only left us with a middle name conundrum and, as it turned out, you solved that problem for us too.

As I outlined before, I was leaning toward Wilson Joseph Loren for several reasons. First, because it seemed the best way to use all the family names we wanted to pass on. Second, I thought Wilson Joseph Loren was more pleasing sounding than Wilson Loren Joseph (because the “on” and “en” were broken up). And third, because Wilson and Loren are both from his side of the family (as is our daughter’s middle name) so I was pretty firm about passing on Joseph, a name from my side of the family.

After some prodding, my husband admitted he didn’t want to go with Wilson Joseph Loren because he wanted Loren to be the middle name his son would use, and he assumed that would not be an option if it was the second of two middle names. I recalled the advice you offered regarding choosing a “default” middle name and assured him that it was perfectly fine, both from a legal perspective and with me in general, for our son to be named Wilson Joseph Loren but go by Wilson Loren for practicality. That was all it took for him to relent, and we’re very pleased with our choice.
Thank you again!