Hi Swistle,

We are at a crossroads with naming our second daughter and wanted to turn to you and your incredible commenters for help. I’m 21 weeks and the wheels have fallen off of our usual process for naming.

Like many who write in, my husband and I have very different naming styles, but landed on the perfect honor name for our first born, Ada James. Ada is named for my late brother-in-law Adarris, and iconic computer programmer, Ada Lovelace. Middle name James for my great grandfather who was the most gentle, kind, peace-seeking man I’ve ever known, and the Middle initial J honors my husbands late father. An absolute win for both sides of the family.

We had a pregnancy loss at 13 weeks in 2020, her name would have been Ruth Winter (these are honor /deeply meaningful names as well).

As often happens, we want to have an equally lovely name for our daughter arriving in September. I have utilized Baby Name Wizard and I would describe my naming style as “charming, vintage, solid citizen.” I would describe my husbands naming style as “girls in a classroom from 1996.”

The system we have used previously is bracket style, we talk through names head to head, moving them forward like it’s March Madness, We get down to two names we love, and decide once we meet her. We’re on our third attempt at this and it just isn’t working. Perhaps the languishing of the pandemic has made this much less fun. We just don’t feel like engaging in the witty banter naming usually brought. I’m hoping you can help put the wind back in our sails or give us some encouragement!

My absolute favorites are:
– Violet
– Zara
– Phillipa/ Pippa
– Rosemary
– Greta
– Liesl
– Daphne

My husbands:
– Sloane
– Elyse
– Quinn
– Emily
– Maya
– Cameron
– Skylar

From my list, he likes Zara, from his list, I like Sloane.
I am a teacher, so I have had a student with every name on his list (including Sloane, but she was a doll) I don’t know if either feel a fit with Ada. I’d also like to stay below the Top 100 if we can.

The middle name will be Scott, after my father who passed away less than a month ago. I’m open to a two middle name situation if it feels right.

Is there a name that bridges our styles that you think we are missing? Should we go for Zara? If we go for Zara, does the Zar- and the Gar- in our last name feel rhymey?

Thank you so much! Looking forward to hearing from you!

Laura

I hope it is okay to ask if the name Ruth would be usable for this baby. I realize there are circumstances under which it would be, and circumstances under which it would not be; and I also realize that if it WERE usable for you, you likely would have come up with that idea yourself. It’s just, it’s such a perfect name. And so I am wondering if there is any sense in which you can see it as a name that would have been given but was NOT given (as so many names on our name lists are, when we decide to go with something else, or when a baby is a boy/girl so our girl/boy name goes unused), or if that name feels Given. She could be Ruth Scott. Ada James and Ruth Scott; Ada and Ruth. It’s a wonderful combination.

Well, on the assumption that that has been ruled out, let’s look at the other options. I enjoy your descriptions of your naming styles, and I definitely see the gap. It is interesting to note that both Ada and Ruth got through this gap. Do you think it was because they were honor/significance names? If so, that is the strategy I would lean HARD on this time around. FIND HONOR/SIGNIFICANCE NAMES.

Now to spend some time picking apart the lists! The matching Zar-/Gar- sounds of Zara with your surname do not feel nice in my mouth, but that’s an extremely subjective thing: for someone else, those sounds might make the name click into perfection. I feel similarly about the -lar/Gar- of Skylar.

I am hesitant about botanical choices: Violet/Rosemary with your surname sound like something available at a plant nursery. (I also find Violet difficult to say with your surname.) And Greta with your surname brings Greta Garbo strongly to mind: not at all a negative association, but a little bit startling in that “Why is this name SO INSTANTLY-BUT-NOT-QUITE FAMILIAR?” kind of way.

Possibly I am in an extra-picky mood this morning, because a lot of the other names also feel difficult/clunky to say with the surname. Sloane. Cameron. Quinn. Maya. I feel like I have to work to say them. But perhaps I just need another cup of coffee.

Okay! clap clap! So now that I have unhelpfully picked things apart, I’m going to re-recommend going back to honor/significance names. That seems to be the style you two have in common. If Ruth is not usable, then back to the family tree and the history books.

Name update:

Hello Swistle & Community!

I’m overjoyed to share our daughter arrived on August 25th. Lucia Clementine (pronounced Lou-sha) 9lbs, 12 oz.

We took your advice and wiped the lists we had and dug up meaningful honor names.

Lucia has very special significance to the women in my immediate family (me, my mom and my sister) along with celebrating St. Lucia day as a child, it was the name of a beloved, magical babysitter we spent time with regularly growing up. St Lucia’s name day is Dec 13th, my birthday is the 14th, my oldest daughters is the 15th, my moms is the 16th. (We can celebrate four in a row!) And most importantly, the story of the holiday is a young girl who brings light to a dark time. She has done that and more.

Why the change of middle name to Clementine? Ultimately, we ended up choosing the feminine version of my maiden name/now middle name, so we could honor my whole family, and she and I could share initials. It fits her perfectly.

Thank you for all your help!

Hi Swistle,

I’ve been reading your blog for years and my husband and I finally feel the need for some advice for naming our baby girl, due at the end of July. She will most likely be our last baby. After looking through name lists for years I’m definitely getting name-fatigue and am worried we’re overlooking something.

Our son is named Frederick Miles, nicknamed Freddie and sometimes Fred. We like traditional familiar names with nickname potential and aren’t too popular: both my husband and I have very common first names with a very common last name. Frederick really hits that sweet spot for us and we were hoping for another name with similar history and current use. We both love that we haven’t met other little boys with his name. For middles we prefer not to use honor names, just something that we like that flows with the first name.

We do have a few rules and preferences No repeated first initials M, R, or F – this is a non-negotiable for my husband. Nothing too Biblical/religious. I like strong sounding, non-frilly (warrior-queen) girls’ names that don’t end in ‘a.’ Most of the little girls I know have an ‘a’ sound at the end of their name and I prefer something more tailored – but it is not so much a rule as a preference. Also, nothing that sounds like a play on words with our last name, word names, color names, although my husband thinks that’s cute. He tends to like more feminine, whimsical names for girls. There are a few names we both like. If Freddie had been a girl he would have been Winifred, but obviously we can’t use it now which is heartbreaking. We have almost agreed on Harriet Faye, nn. Hattie which I like but don’t know if I love. My husband liked the name Harriet first and I’ve come around to it – plus it checks every rule and preference box.

Names I like:
Gertrude (I know it’s controversial but I LOVE everything about it. Nn. Gert/Gertie, Tru/Trudy or Rudy! This one has been hard to get over.)
Margaret (M-name; a little too common but I have loved it for years, so many nickname options!)
Beatrix/Beatrice (Bea, Bebe, Trixie)
Prudence (Prue, too religious sounding for my husband)
Katherine (Kit; not quite rare enough)

Names my husband likes:
Violet (Vi, Vivi)
Cordelia
Pomeline (Pom-Pom, way too cutesy for me)
Helen (nn. Nell, Nellie)
Juniper (Junie)
Penelope (Penny)

Names we both like/our short list:
Harriet (does Hattie sound too similar to Freddie?)
Josephine (concerned it’s getting too popular; nn. Josie)
Clementine (two pronunciations; don’t know if we love Clem/Clemmie)
Wilhelmina (husband loves, but I’m concerned it’s a mouthful and hard to spell; nn. Willa, Billie, Minnie)
Georgia (nn. Georgie; too southern for us? Is Freddie and Georgie too Harry Potter??)
Olive (nn. Ollie or Liv; getting more popular and Olive Brown breaks the rules – but we both still really like it)
Annie (we love this but would only use a longer form and can’t find the perfect one)
Juno (Junie; style outlier for us)

Should we stick with Harriet or are there other names we should consider?

Thanks for your help!
Rachel

I think Frederick and Harriet is a HEART-EYES sibling set. I think Hattie is not at all too similar to Freddie.

I wish I could suggest Millicent, but it breaks the repeated-initial rule. I love it with your surname; I love it with the sibling name. Nickname Millie.

I wish I could suggest Florence, but it breaks the repeated-initial rule. I just love it, and I think it has that tailored sound you like.

Another nickname option for Clementine is Minnie. Visually it wouldn’t have occurred to me, but verbally it works. I think as long as you want the Oh My Darling pronunciation, you won’t have many pronunciation issues; if you want the -teen sound at the end, you will probably have to accept a certain level of pronunciation-correction as part of the package deal of the name.

I wonder if you’d like Imogen. Nicknames Immy or Midge or Genny.

I had Wilhelmina on my own list, but Paul and I both come from predominantly Dutch families, so we were considering the Dutch variation Willemina, a spelling I prefer anyway: it’s the “hel” part of Wilhelmina that just feels like Too Much to me, spelling- and pronunciation-wise.

Georgia doesn’t feel too southern to me. The state certainly is in the news a whole lot right now; I don’t think that would stop me from using the name, but it might give me pause. Freddie and Georgie wouldn’t have made me think of Harry Potter, but we need to ask the people who read those books again and again, because there are a lot of people in that category, and they’re all reading those books again and again to their kids. But also, I don’t mind as much when the issues are with nicknames: if the Fred and George association turns out to be (1) a constant issue and (2) unpleasant for them, they have other name options that avoid it.

A name in a similar category as Georgia for me is Augusta. It ends in -a, but more in a Georgia/Wilhelmina sort of way. Nickname Gus or Gussie.

Looking at Margaret and Gertrude, I wondered if you’d like Gretchen.

Looking at Gertrude and Prudence and Juniper and Juno, I wonder if you’d like Judith. It’s a bit cutting-edge, because it’s not quite time for it to come back, but I think it would surprise people in a good way. There’s the usual nickname Judy, or there’s also Jude.

I love Cordelia from your husband’s list. I encountered a real-life Delia and the name struck me very positively. I like how Frederick and Cordelia sound together: all those matching consonant sounds, assembled so differently.

I love Beatrix from your list. I would think the whimsy of the alliteration with your surname might please your husband.

Penelope and Josephine make me think of Philippa. I like the way it gives you sibling-name alliteration without actually repeating an initial: Frederick and Philippa, Freddie and Pippa.

Penelope and Josephine and Wilhelmina make me think of Philomena, but I like that less than Philippa, mostly because I am still reeling from the cuteness of Freddie and Pippa.

I have been going back and forth about whether I should suggest Persephone. Frederick and Persephone; Freddie and Persy. Definitely there would be spelling/pronunciation issues, but perhaps worth it!

Name update:

Dear Swistle,

It’s time for our name update! There was so much great feedback from you post and all the comments that inspired Mike and me to revise our finalist list. We ended up with 4 names that we couldn’t decide from and went to the hospital hoping one would stand out once we met our baby girl. The names were Harriet, Beatrix, Wilhelmina and Josephine. Mike had loved Harriet the most from the beginning and when I spent the first few minutes with her, I knew she was our Hattie. We went with Harriet Faye and it has all of the qualities we wanted in a name: strong and traditional, familiar but uncommon, and just a bit nerdy. We love it so much now on our 3-week-old and wanted to thank you, Swistle, and all the commenters here for the positive feedback that helped to reinforce our choice.

Warmly,
Rachel

Hi Swistle,

Hoping you can help us out!

I am due in 2 weeks with my second baby. I haven’t found out what the baby’s sex will be but am hung up on boy names.

Baby boy names at the top of the list are Nathan, Finn and Nicholas. Others which we have rejected for one reason or another include Hayes, Henry and William.

Our last name is of British background with an -er ending, think Cooper.

If this baby is a girl, she will be Kate or Hazel. I would say our naming style is pretty traditional with perhaps a soft spot for 80s names. We probably will have 2 or 3 children.

My daughter is named Elliott. If my daughter had been a boy, she would have been named Nathan. A few months after Elliott, my sister had a baby and named him Ethan. With Ethan as our nephew (who we are close with), is it acceptable to name our child Nathan? This is the only factor holding us back. We love the name Nathan and would mainly be calling him Nate.

Finn feels a bit trendy to me and I love Nicholas but not Nick or Nicky, so am reluctant on it. William got ruled out as it’s the name of my husband’s grandfather and I don’t love the idea of naming baby after anyone. Hayes is a bit trendy and I always thought “Haze” so we nixed it. Henry got the axe as the “r” sound is difficult for me to pronounce in my heritage language so a translation or transliteration of the name or any name with a “r” sound would be hard for me to pronounce in that language. We have ruled out names ending in “-er” due to our last name also ending in “-er”.

Opinions please on the Nathan and Ethan dilemma plus any other suitable names in the vein of my taste are welcome! Thank you so much for the help.

I think it’s totally fine to use the name Nathan. A cousin named Ethan seems like a non-issue to me: the names may have the same ending, but they sound and feel enough different—maybe not enough for siblings, but enough for cousins, even close cousins who spend a lot of time together. And if you would call him Nate, that makes it even less of an issue.

Another possibility is using the name Nathaniel: you could still call him Nate, but it removes even the tiny worry that matching name endings would be a problem. But I don’t think this is necessary at all: if you prefer Nathan, I think you can go right ahead and use Nathan.

Other names I wonder if you might like: Benjamin, Calvin, Nolan, Simon, Wesley, Wilson. But it seems to me you’ve already found the winner with Nathan.

The girl-name options catch my interest: the name Elliott/Elliot has unisex usage in the United States, and is currently used more often for boys; Kate and Hazel, on the other hand, are used exclusively for girls. [Note: according to the Social Security Administration, there were 6 new baby boys named Hazel in 2019—but in that same year there were 15 new baby boys named Sophia, 11 new baby boys named Elizabeth, 12 new baby boys named Olivia, and 14 new baby boys named Isabella, and yet it still feels accurate to say that all those names are used exclusively for girls.] If I saw a sibling set of Elliott/Kate, or Elliott/Hazel, I would assume brother/sister. This doesn’t mean I would advise deliberately choosing names you like less than Kate and Hazel, just to match the usage of the name Elliott—but if you WERE looking to expand your list of girl-name options, I might be suggesting names such as Keaton and Darcy and Finley and Hollis and Reese and Teagan.

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

I have time to provide an update and love reading others’ so here we go.

I wrote you 2 weeks from my due date and was stressing because I was sure 1- I was having a boy and 2- that you may not answer my question before I had the baby.

Well, thank you for your comprehensive and clear answer and also for all the thoughtful commenters. The insight was so helpful and timely, as I ended up having the baby 6 days before my due date. Reading everything took such a load off.

The baby was a girl so the Nathan/Ethan dilemma became irrelevant. We named her Kate, which we know will likely make Nathan obsolete if we have a third and it’s a boy. Given we are unsure about the future of our family, we’re more than ok with this trade off.

Thank you so much again for your expertise and your help, and for that of the commenters! I so appreciate it.

Wise Swistle,
We would love your help deciding on a name for our daughter who is now 8 days old and still nameless. We have narrowed it down to our top two options but just cannot choose. I know it’s very short notice but even if you haven’t got time to answer I’d love it if you just posted our question to hear what your commenters think as everyone always has great ideas here!

We have a son called Innis (spelt differently but pronounced like that), which is a Scottish name that means river island. We are English/French (me) and Scottish (my wife). We deliberately chose a Scottish name for our son as I carried him and we wanted the connection to my wife’s family but that’s not a requirement this time. Baby’s surname will be double barrelled and sounds like Shays-Potter (initials C-P). Middle names will be after our grandmothers and we don’t mind about the overall flow, we just want to pick the first name based on its own merits.

Our top two options are Sorrel and Tarn. Sorrel is my absolute favourite name and I love the idea of a plant name for a baby born on the first day of spring. My wife also really likes it but is worried it sounds like sorrow, especially in her accent, and she finds it slightly hard to say. Tarn is her preferred option, and is more meaningful for us as a family. The word tarn is used in Scotland/northern England for a mountain lake, and we like the water connection with her brother’s name and the wild/outdoorsy feel as we are keen hikers and lovers of nature. Tarn is also a river and area in France where we went on our first holiday together, so has a joint Scottish-French connection as well as nice memories for us. I do love it but am worried it’s too short (all the names I love are at least two syllables, even though I do love Tarn I feel somehow that it’s not ‘me’ if that makes sense) and not namelike enough. Is it too out there?

Sorrel is the name of my heart that I would be devastated to let go of but I don’t want to use it and for my wife to regret it so I’m leaning towards Tarn. She in turn is leaning towards Sorrel because she thinks (probably accurately) that I love it more than she loves Tarn (which was originally my suggestion) and she doesn’t want me to regret not using Sorrel. So we are at stalemate! We are planning on having one more baby after this so could save either but obviously can’t guarantee it would be a girl. If this baby had been a boy (we didn’t find out until she was born) we would have used Guthrie.

Sorrel is currently 4001st in the name ranking for England, Tarn has been registered a few times for boys but never for girls. Innis’s name is 3411th in England but 83rd in Scotland. (If you’re interested you can track name rankings for England and Wales at names.darkgreener.com).

Other options we’ve recently eliminated but could reinstate if we can’t agree between Sorrel and Tarn: Delphi, Petra, Odette, Vesper.

We’ve reached a point where we feel stuck in our own echo chamber and just really want outside opinions on how these names come across to other people!

Thanks so much,
Izzy

If I put it through the “Which name would I want for myself?” test, I choose Sorrel. Tarn to me sounds almost indistinguishable from the word darn, and reminds me of the words tarnish and torn; sorrel doesn’t sound like the word sorrow the way I say it. Sorrel sounds somewhat name-like, even though it is not currently used as a name in the U.S., because it sounds like Laurel and Coral and the surname Norrell; I can’t think of similar names to bring Tarn into the name realm. But these are United States English impressions of the names, which may not apply.

I know she’s already 8 days old, so this suggestion could feel like too large a step back, but I do think it might actually help to kick out both Sorrel and Tarn, especially if we’re at the point where both of you feel like you can’t even use your own first choice because of how it would make the other parent feel.

Just yesterday we covered Our Favorite Names Starting with D, so Delphi from your list catches my eye, though I’d make it Delphine. Odette would be my next pick: unusual but familiar.

Name update:

Thanks so much for posting our question! Just wanted to let you know we decided to go for Sorrel. All the positive comments helped my wife feel more sure about it. We’re still saving Tarn for a future daughter though despite nobody seeming to like it! It was actually quite reassuring to see how many of the problems people had with it were specific to an American accent/background (e.g. I’ve never heard of the word tarnation). We have a few more years to psyche ourselves up anyway! For now we love Sorrel’s name, she is our hopeful little springtime sprout. Thank you!

Hi Swistle!

This is baby girl # 3 and we don’t plan on having more children. Our last name is pronounced In-Stiss but starts with an E and ends in the spelling “ice.” Our daughters are Tilly (Laura Tilson) and Lulu (Louisa Susan)- all of those names being family names, tributes to grandparents and parents.

I would like this baby to be named in a way that honors my grandmother, whose name was Frances Bernice, but who always went by “Bea.” My name is also Frances but I go by Franny.

Our first choice became Beatrice because I like it more than Bernice and the nickname “Bea” can honor my grandmother. Then we realized that with our last name this may not work: “Bee-ah -triss In- stiss” – both names end in the same sound and also both share the same last letters “ice.”
Now we feel we cannot use the name- do you agree?
My husband also thinks that “Bea Instiss” just doesn’t roll off the tongue/ sound right.

Our new favorite choice became Ruth- Ruth Bernice or Ruth Frances- nickname Ruthie.
This name popped up as one we both have always liked and we feel it fits in well with our other daughters’ names. It is a (distant) family name and I worry it doesn’t hold as much “meaning” as the other names we’ve used. Also I’m sad to walk away from using the name Bea. I do love the name Ruthie though and have for some time.
I consider the name Ruth a classic/ biblical name but I’m wondering if it will become “trendy” this year with many families honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

Final option that I’m still toying with- I have always loved the name Blaire for a girl-
Blaire Frances nicknamed Bea or Frances Blaire nicknamed Bea. My husband does not feel that Bea is a nickname for Blaire like it is for Beatrice or Bernice. I worry that Blaire doesn’t fall into the same category as our other daughters’ names (traditional yet whimsical? I don’t know how to categorize them!)

Can you provide any insight into what name would be best for this new addition?
We just continue to go in circles!

Other family names we’ve considered: Tucker, Mary nicknamed Mae or Minnie, Frances with another nickname (could Annie, Nan or Nancy be a nickname for Frances?)

Other names we like: Martha, Clementine, Poppy, Daisy

Thanks to you and your readers for any help you can give us in naming this special girl! I promise I will give an update!

Franny

I started by trying to figure out a way to make Bea work for Blair (“Well, it’s like B., which would be a perfectly legitimate nickname for any name starting with B…”), but then started feeling like “Bea, from B., from Blair, for Frances-Bernice-called-Bea” was getting too many steps away from the honor name.

But I don’t think of Bea as a nickname for Bernice, either. DID it come from that, in your grandmother’s case? It seems like so many women of that generation had names like “Eleanor Ann, called Peggy” or “Margaret Mildred, called Dolly.” And I do think it’s possible to just DO that: Frances Blair, called Bea; or Ruth Bernice, called Bea. But it also makes me feel a little tired.

Wait. Wait wait. Actually, I don’t feel tired when I consider the option of naming her Frances Bernice, called Bea. Then it becomes FULLY naming her after your grandmother: both of your grandmother’s actual names, plus her nickname. AND, this then clicks into a naming practice more familiar to us with male names: your daughter would have the same first name as you, so it would be familiar/expected for her to have a different nickname to avoid confusion.

So that is my STRONG first choice: Frances Bernice, called Bea. Your grandmother’s entire name/nickname, and also your first name. An absolute total package of an honor name. I don’t really want to consider anything else.

But I don’t think you have to rule out Beatrice Instiss, if you prefer that option. I think it’s probably a little tricky to say, and Not Quite Ideal in its combination of sounds—but something I’ve noticed over the years is how VERY MANY names are Not Quite Ideal. If you look at the credits of a movie or TV show, or leaf through a yearbook, there are SO MANY names that, if they came up on this blog, we might all agree Don’t Quite Work—and yet! there they are! working!

This morning I was listening to NPR, and once again noticed Franco Ordoñez carefully saying his name. If his parents had come to us, I think quite a few of us would have recommended avoiding putting all those O’s together—but there he is, saying that name on the air, and if anything it’s catchy. Similarly, I might have advised against the name Windsor Johnston, explaining that I found the whole thing difficult to say with all those sturdy consonants—and yet, after hearing Windsor Johnston say her name again and again over the years, and saying it myself, I see how it gets easier with practice and familiarity.

I don’t worry about how a nickname sounds with a surname, as long as it doesn’t result in something rude or silly (the classic example is Ben Dover). Bea Instiss is fine, and would not likely be said very often anyway, and will sound normal once it’s familiar. And “Tilly, Lulu, and Bea” is a pretty unbeatable set of sibling nicknames.

I also love Ruth. I like Ruth Frances best, to honor you and your grandmother. I don’t think it would be possible for that name to feel trendy, even if it became much more popular. And if it DOES have a surge of popularity because of RBG, I think that would be touching and delightful, and that it might feel lovely to have your daughter one of that group. (I am getting a little choked up thinking about this.)

Still: my top favorite by far is Frances Bernice, called Bea. If it were my job to assign names to babies, that is the name I would assign to this one, and I would do it with decisive confidence.

Name update:

Dear Swistle,
I’m in disbelief that it’s taken me 3 months to write, probably the fastest 3 months of my life! Your response was just perfect and most of all made me excited to name our daughter again, it felt like we couldn’t go wrong. After your response I was almost 100% sold on Frances Bernice nickname Bea. However I just kept coming back to the fact that I don’t love the name Frances (even though it’s my own!) or Bernice.

I kept thinking about names that “don’t quite work” working. It is genius! I was overthinking the whole thing.
I love the name Beatrice and after speaking with my mom I felt like my grandmother would be so honored by a baby Bea regardless of her full name.

Your “not quite ideal” and “don’t quite work” theory also influenced us in another way. I’ve always felt like we needed to honor my mother in law who is such a great grandmother but both her first and middle name always “didn’t quite work” so were dismissed early in the naming process. Suddenly I was like I don’t care I want her to feel honored! When we got to the hospital I said to my husband “well this doesn’t “sound” right to me at all but I suddenly want to give the baby your mom’s middle name.” He was like that is so weird I was just thinking the same thing!

So our perfect miracle girl got her perfect imperfect name!

Beatrice Lynn “Bea”

Thank you and your readers for all your help!

Franny

Hello,

We can’t decide on a boy name to save our lives. My husband and I are expecting our second child in the next few weeks. This is our second child awe are waiting until delivery to know if he/she is a boy/girl. A friend had your help with naming their son a few years ago and she suggested we write you.

We have narrowed down our list (however still open to others) for each sex. Our last name is Schoenfeld pronounced “Show-in-feld”. Our first sons name is William Edward “Teddy” and we have a few names we can’t/not going to use due to neices/nephews already have those names. This include: Thomas (Tommy), James, Stephen and Andrew

As far a girls names we have come up with we have narrowed down to
Margaret Frances and call her “Francie”
Katherine Frances and call her “Kit”

We are struggling to find a boy name we love, can agree on and then figuring out a dilemma with neighbors and their names.

Henry is a family name but I prefer not to call him Henry. I am happy to use in name baby’s name though. My husband’s grandfather was Fredrick “Fred” and we both are open to using as a nickname.

Boy names:
Henry “Wells” Schoenfeld
Henry Whitaker “Whit” *favorite
Henry Fredrick “Fritz”
Sullivan Henry
Henry Tate and he would go by Tate -* Favorite

The problem with two of our boy names is that our next door neighbors have 5 kids and two of them are Tate (2.5 yrs) and Whit (7 yrs). We are friendly with them but not super close. Our children play together more than we socialize with parents Is it weird to name the baby one of the kids next door names?

Any insight would be helpful! Thank so much!!

Maggie

Do you want our input on the girl names, too, or is this a situation of “We’re all set, and at this point we’ll decide when we see her?” I’m half hoping it’s the latter, because I don’t know if I can decide between those two. Margaret is on my own list, so normally that would be my vote, but I’m not sure I can resist the appeal of Kit. Teddy and Kit! Well, but I also love Francie. Teddy and Francie! I guess in the end I would vote Margaret Frances, but it’s such a close race.

Now for boy names. If Henry Tate and Henry Whitaker are your favorites, I don’t think it’s weird that he’d share a name with the neighbor kid, especially with such an age gap (i.e., they won’t be in the same grade at school, even if these neighbors stay neighbors long-term). If I were you I would lean toward Henry Whitaker, first just because I personally prefer it, second because then he could go by Whitaker or Henry while playing with the neighbor kids, but also because it’s the larger age gap. If either Whitaker or Tate is a family name, that would be an additional point in its favor, especially since it gives you something to say to the neighbors. (If not, I would practice a light “Oh—yes, we’ve had it on our list for years! And of course your Whit/Tate just made us love it even more!”)

I also like Henry Frederick a lot. I hesitate in case he might want to go by Fred/Freddy, which rhymes with your first son’s nickname—but I don’t think rhyming nicknames is a giant issue, especially since both of them have so many other options here if they want to avoid that.

And I think Sullivan Henry is great (though I think Henry is better with the brother name and potential sister names), and Henry Wells is great, and I can see why you’re having such a hard time deciding, but I don’t think you can go wrong here. My own vote would be either Henry Whitaker called Whit or Henry Wells called Wells, with the final decision to be made depending on how much you want to avoid the neighbor situation.

Name update:

Hello!
Thanks so much for your help!
We welcomed Henry “Wells” Schoenfeld into our family on April 13th!
We used my husbands family name Henry as his first name however we are calling him Wells or as Big Brother Teddy calls him “Wellsy”.
Thanks again!
Maggie

Dear Swistle,

We are having our second baby girl in late August. Our first daughter is named Holly Clare Pederssen (middle + surname spelled differently)

We are having the classic dilemma of having used our favorite name for our first child and are bummed that we haven’t had the same clarity for this child as we did for the first. I’ve been reading your blog for years, and am a self-proclaimed name nerd. LOVE baby names.

Before we even conceived we said THE name for a 2nd baby girl would be Mabel Marais. It was done, that was that. Mabel is BOTH of our maternal great grandmothers’ names. Marais is after a city which we are very fond of, plus we think it’s beautiful with almost any first name we can come up with. Marais is 99.9% set in stone as the middle.

My issue is feeling like there are other options out there. Mabel is beautiful and meaningful to us, but I told my husband it just sounds “sticky” in my mouth. I know you know what I mean. Are there any similar names you can recommend that would be fresh to our eyes and ears?

Some of our (ok my) guidelines have been:
-No name ending with Y or IE as I don’t want to repeat the same sound our first daughter has
-No name ending in A (this guideline I’m not as “strict” on) I’d love it to end in really anything other than Y, IE, A, AH
-I don’t like names that can be shortened or nicknamed

I personally believe that our 2nd daughter’s name has the opportunity to make Holly sound certain way when they go together. It could create a more twirly, girly set of sisters (think: Holly and Mirabel) which I’m not so sure I like. For some reason I’m leaning toward a more androgynous sounding name, BUT wanting it to flow with Holly. I am not a fan of sibling sets that don’t make any sense together. And I’m always cognizant of the fact that it would be “Holly and _____,” but someday it could be “Holly, _____, and _____” if we have a third child.

Here are some names that have been floating around our house:
-Payton Marais (initials PMP, ehh?)
-Blair Marais
… Ok that’s really it.

We like both of those but are looking for more to test out with Holly.

For a boy I was loving the name Baker. (NOT after the football player) Others we loved were Hayes, Gavin + Corbin. We were convinced it was a boy until we found out. So when we learned she is a girl, we kind of went back to our baby girl name drawing board, per se.

Am I being annoying and should just go with the name we were so confident with before? Is there another name out there that is “the one?”

Thank you in advance for your wisdom and advice, Swistle and commenters!

I think it’s normal to re-think even a Very Decided name once an actual baby is on the way, and I also think it’s fun: why give up the thrill of the naming process, just because you may already have the right name? It’s especially pleasant, I think, to be able to think about it as much as you want, always knowing that if you get tired of the process, or stressed by it, you can go right back to the plan of Mabel Marais. And if it’s just cold feet, playing around with other names can sometimes help with that.

I wonder if you would like May instead of Mabel. May Pederssen; Holly and May. Or, and this would be my own preference, you could name her Mabel to get the family honor name, but call her May for as long as Mabel feels odd in your mouth. (I do know what you mean, and also my GUESS is that effect would fade with time/use.)

Payton strikes me as a mismatch with Holly. Holly is a name that was moderately common in my generation, while Payton was virtually non-existent; that’s probably part of it. But also: Holly is a nature name currently used only for girls in the U.S., while Payton is a modern surname name with unisex usage (though leaning more toward girls). It immediately hits my ear in this context as a brother name.

I can better imagine a Holly and a Blair. Even though Blair wasn’t much more common than Payton in my age group, there was a Blair on the TV show The Facts of Life, so it feels like it’s from a similar era. (I feel similarly about Drew and Reese: I didn’t go to school with any girls who had those names, but Reese Witherspoon and Drew Barrymore were on screen and made those names feel familiar and from the right time period.) It’s a little bit of a surprising combination, but not startling, and I think a third name could make a very nice happy assortment later on.

Holly and Mabel is a surprising combination to me, though SIGNIFICANTLY less so when I hear that Mabel is a family name on both sides. Holly peaked in the 1970s and 1980s, but I don’t remember Mabel coming to my attention as anything but an Old Lady Name until they used it for the baby on the TV show Mad About You in the late 1990s (and it was a startling choice on the show); more recently, it was the name of a quirky character on the TV show Gravity Falls. (Today’s edition of Swistle is apparently TV-themed.) The name Mabel had dropped out of the Top 1000 completely in 1964, and appeared again as a sort of alternative-vintage-revival choice starting in 2013, along with names such as Matilda. It’s currently almost exactly as popular as Holly (according to the Social Security Administration, in 2019 Holly was #479 and Mabel was #440)—but headed in opposite directions: Holly gradually dropping more and more out of usage while Mabel gradually gains. In another couple of decades, the generation gap may become more apparent—like siblings named Susan and Shannon, or Jessica and Ava.

It kind of sounds like I’m trying to talk you out of Mabel, and I’m not (I love the name AND I love a double family honor name); this is merely the downside of being CHATTY about baby names. I start looking into it, and typing what I find, and before I know it I’m talking about not-really-equivalent pairs of names (Susan, Shannon, Jessica, and Ava were/are all much too common to compare to Holly and Mabel, but they came to mind as representative examples of their eras). Holly, while a peer name for me, is not the same as other peer names such as Michelle and Shannon, nor the same as peer names such as Elizabeth and Sarah: while not a timeless name like Elizabeth/Sarah, it feels much more usable than the quite-tied-to-their-era Michelle/Shannon. Michelle and Shannon need to wait their turn to come back into style, and Elizabeth and Sarah are always in style, but Holly feels more like, say, Jillian and Veronica: just because they were used back then doesn’t mean they’re not still working great now.

Holly has a further advantage because it’s a nature name. Nature-type names come in and out of style like any others (Heather and Holly and Amber back then, Violet and Hazel and Ruby WAY back then and also now), but they have a certain permanence because of being Actual Things (and usually Actual Pretty Things). It also potentially gives us a nice way to tie sibling names together. Perhaps you don’t want to catch yourself humming “The holly and the ivy / When they are both full grown” day and night (and that’s a bit of a competitive song for siblings anyway), but Holly and Hazel, or Holly and Ruby, or Holly and Violet, have a pleasant little tie-in without being too cute (though it would be a good idea to think ahead to a possible third girl and whether you might feel pressured to go with another nature name).

So in short, I think those are the areas I’d be starting with if I were you: the Jillian and Veronica names (contemporaries of Holly that still sound great), and the Hazel and Ruby names (contemporary/vintage choices that fit thematically—especially if the theme is more subtle, as with a name such as Laurel). Well, and then I’d move on to “any other names that seemed like they’d work with Holly,” so this list is a bit of a jumble.

(Also, you will notice I ignored for the time being the preferences for avoiding names ending in -y/-ie/-a and names that could be nicknamed. This is partly in case you are moved to reconsider those preferences in the face of difficulty, and partly to make the list more widely usable by others in a similar naming situation.)

Abigail/Abby
Anna/Annie
Avril
Bethany
Bridget
Brynn
Claudia
Cleo
Darcy
Emily
Ginny
Hazel
Hope
Jill
Jillian
Jocelyn/Joss
Joelle
Joy
Laine
Laura
Laurel
Lynn
Mallory
Maren
Melinda
Melody
Morgan
Paige
Phoebe
Robin
Ruby
Sadie
Shelby
Susanna
Tess
Veronica
Violet

The group is going to differ on some of those, of course: one person’s “This name is still beautifully usable!” is another person’s “Wow, that is such a MOM NAME!,” is another person’s “I didn’t even hear that name for the first time until after high school!” It depends a lot on our own personal experiences with the names, and where we grew up, and how old we are, as well as our impressions of the name Holly (Holly Golightly is a very different impression than Holly Hobbie, which in turn is a very different impression than the Hollys I went to school with, who are now mothers of half-/nearly-/fully-grown kids).

But don’t let your eye skip past some of those just because they’re familiar. Lynn, for example: I recently encountered a small child named Lynn and was BLOWN AWAY by it. I hadn’t Truly Seen the name Lynn for DECADES: my eye just went right past it as the filler middle name of maybe a third of the women I know. But as a first name, and NOW! It’s trim and unexpected, familiar yet extremely underused, feminine yet not a bit frilly. Lynn! Lynn!

Or Robin. I went to school with more than one Robin, but all I have to do is say the name a few times to bring back the bouncy fresh birdlike sound.

Or Bridget. I only know one Bridget my age, and her name is so much fun for me to say, I have to be careful not to overdo it.

Name update:

Hello Swistle,

This past March, the same evening after I sent you my email request for naming help, we found the name Brynn and it was almost like it had a shining halo above it, saying, “this is her name.”

The following day, I read your response on your blog and it felt like fate that you had included it in your list of names to go with Holly.

Our (ten pound !!!!) Brynn Marais was born last week and we are so happy with our naming decision. Thank you for your input, and we also very much appreciated reading the perspective of fellow name-nerd commenters – you guys are my people!

Photos attached of the sisters Holly Clare and Brynn Marais❤️

Hi Swistle,

I’ve been an avid reader of your blog for years and am so excited to finally be submitting my own question. You and your readers always have great and decisive opinions that seem to make the naming process easier, and I’m hoping you can help with my dilemma.

I’m pregnant with my third baby, a girl, due in early May. Our last name sounds like Paddle. With all that’s going on now, (work, baby preparations, the virus, having two young children at home all the time,) picking a name for this baby has not been a top priority, until now.

I have two daughters: Theodosia Marie (Teddy) and Philippa Jean (Pip or Pippa). I love the class and sophistication of both their names, and the adorable nickname that comes with them. They are not made up by any means, just not in the top one thousand, meaning I’ve never met anyone with their names. (Although we run into a boy Teddy every once in a while).

The name category they fit into is kind of coincidental, I didn’t intend for this specific type of classical name group, but since we already have it going, I figure I’ll just continue it.

We have a kind of idea of what we like, and it’s between three names, (with the middle name being Rose):

Wilhelmina- seems to compliment the vibe of Teddy and Pippa’s names, and Willa/Willie is a darling nickname. I just seem to associate the name with Kaiser Wilhelm and it also feels really hard to spell. This is kind of our compromise name.

Henrietta- I feel like there’s a great nickname staring me in the face every time I look at this name, but nothing has ‘clicked’ yet (I don’t like Henry or Harry, is Hattie an option?). I really like this name, but I’m not sure this is the ‘one’. (Although this is my husbands favorite)

Augusta- I think this goes with the girls’ names, and I can’t resist the nickname. Teddy, Pippa and Auggie! I really like this, but my husband does not seem completely sold.

Other possibilities we considered are
Tabitha (Tabby) – too similar to Theodosia
Georgina (Georgie or Gina) – couldn’t agree on a nickname, Georgie vs. Gina
Dorothea (Dot) – too close to Theodosia
Eugenia (Genie) – Not a fan on the nickname
Winifred (Winnie) – LOVE Winnie, but freddy rhymes with Teddy
Rosamund (Rosie) – Rosie is too common
Elspeth (Elsie) – my girls think ‘Elsa’ when they hear Elsie

If I were to rank the top three:
Augusta
Wilhelmina
Henrietta

His rankings:
Henrietta
Wilhelmina
Augusta

Of the extra ones, I like Elspeth and Dorothea the most, but neither will probably work. He favors Eugenia and Winifred.

I know Wilhelmina is a good compromise, but I don’t want to settle for a name we’re both meh on when we love Theodosia and Philippa so much!

Any advice Swistle on how to pick a name we both love for our little girl?

Thanks for your consideration!

I love the name Wilhelmina, though I have the Dutch spelling Willemina on my list; does that spelling make it any easier and/or less Kaiser-Wilhelmy for you? I feel like it’s the -hel- that really takes it over the edge, difficulty-wise. And in addition to the nickname Willa, I like the nickname Mina.

I also love Augusta, though I would use the nickname Gus/Gussie; I wonder if your husband would like that any better?

And I love Henrietta. Hattie is definitely a nickname option, as is Hennie, as is Hettie, as is Etta/Ettie, as is Ree/Ria.

So I am not much help: I love all three names. As you say, Wilhelmina seems like the obvious compromise name; is it definitely accurate to say you’re both “meh” on it? If so, then you each have the other person’s first-choice name as a “worse than meh” name, which I’m afraid means you will need to start over with a new list.

I wonder if you would like another of my favorites: Millicent. Not in the Top 1000, but familiar and easy to spell. Adorable nickname Milly/Millie. Theodosia, Philippa, and Millicent; Teddy, Pippa, and Millie.

I also love Minerva: also not in the Top 1000, yet familiar and easy to spell. (Sometimes people say “It makes me think of Minerva McGonagall!,” and I think, “…Yes? Oh good! She’s a wonderful character!”) Theodosia, Philippa, and Minerva; Teddy, Pippa, and Minnie.

Florence has been catching my eye recently. Theodosia, Philippa, and Florence; Teddy, Pippa, and Flora.

Oh! Oh! CORDELIA. Theodosia, Philippa, and Cordelia; Teddy, Pippa, and Delia.

Or Sophronia, a name made beloved to many of us because of Five Little Peppers. Theodosia, Philippa, and Sophronia; Teddy, Pippa, and Phronsie.

Or Persephone. Theodosia, Philippa, and Persephone; Teddy, Pippa, and Percy/Persie.

Magdalena. Theodosia, Philippa, and Magdalena; Teddy, Pippa, and Maggie/Dolly/Lena.

Amaryllis. Theodosia, Philippa, and Amaryllis; Teddy, Pippa, and Rilla/Lissa.

Isadora. Theodosia, Philippa, and Isadora; Teddy, Pippa, and Izzy/Dorrie/Sadie.

I’d bring Winifred back into the running: yes, Freddie rhymes with Teddy, but you love Winnie; and if she wants to go by Fred/Freddie later on, she can decide for herself if it bothers her that it rhymes with her sister’s nickname or if she thinks that’s fun—and by then perhaps Theodosia will be going by Theo or Thea or Theodosia, so it won’t even be an issue. I wouldn’t give two siblings given names that rhymed, but nicknames are a different matter and feel like far less of an issue.

Rosamund may also warrant another shot. I’d be interested to know if others find the nickname Rosie to be too common. It’s virtually unheard of where I live (though Rose is extremely popular as a middle name), but such things vary so much by area. If you already know a couple little Rosies, that may indeed rule it out.

Name update:

Hi Swistle!

Our girl was born on April 24th and she is already consuming the attention of her sisters Teddy and Pippa. We named her Wilhelmina Rose, and for now she goes by Willie. (The girls also call her Mini sometimes because of how small she is :)) After her birth, we realized how much we did love Wilhelmina, and it really is the perfect name for our girlie. Runner up names were Georgina (Gigi), Winifered (Winnie) and Augusta (Auggie, Gussie). I also love Cordelia (Delia), but the husband was not too keen. :) Thank you so much to Swistle and commenters for your help. We now have a Teddy, a Pippa and a Willie, a Theodosia, a Philippa and a Wilhelmina, and we couldn’t be happier.

Much thanks,
The ‘Paddles’

P.S. I included a pic of Willie you can share with your readers –

Hi Swistle,
Long-time reader excited to get your input!

We are expecting a baby boy shortly who will be joining sister N0a Vi0let and brother Levi J@mes. We have a strong preference for Hebrew names and a general preference for shorter names given that he will sport a double-barreled last name (similar to Burklee Stirring). I tend to like less common names that are still approachable – i.e. easy to read/pronounce correctly. My husband favors more mainstream names, but has been surprisingly open-minded this time around (third child perk?).

Our top contenders are Amos, Elon, and Shai.

I love Amos though my husband is having trouble seeing it as anything but a 18th century Puritan.

We both love the sound of Elon but really don’t want the association with Elon Musk – given how rare the name is and how unpredictable he is as a public personality, it feels like a big risk. We feel like the association wouldn’t be as strong with an alternative spelling of the name (Elan, Ilan, Ilon), but worry that it wouldn’t be pronounced the same way – we like the long vowel and emphasis on the first syllable. Also wondering if the pairing with Levi is tongue-twister-y?

Shai (pronounced shy) is a longtime favorite that’s always in the mix, but we have reservations about using it given a relative with the same name (a mix of superstition and not wanting it to seem like an honor name when it’s not).

Middle name will be a family honor name (TBD) and if this baby was a girl, top contenders would be Ruth (called Rue) and Adele.

Would love your thoughts on all three names as well as any other suggestions.

Thank you!

I reluctantly agree with your assessment of Elon. It is too bad when someone with a very distinctive name also rises to uncertain-future fame/celebrity.

And I also reluctantly agree with your assessment of Shai. I do think it would seem like an honor name. I also see pronunciation/spelling issues, not at a deal-breaking level but not insignificant either.

I am not familiar with Hebrew names, and so I am hoping commenters will be able to help with more suggestions!

Name update:

Hi Swistle,
We’ve got a two-for-one name update! We loved going through the comments and suggestions on your post and came to the same conclusion as you and many readers – Amos is a fabulous name and Elon and Shai just didn’t work for us. Amos Sylv@n was born in late July and his name’s meaning of “carried by God” had special significance given that he was born via a surrogate (pretty much the closest we get to angels on earth!).

The story’s twist came a couple weeks after I wrote to you when I discovered that against all odds, I too was pregnant. So last week, we welcomed another baby boy, less than three months apart from “big” brother Amos. We started with a blank slate for names having ruled Elon and Shai out – every single one we considered came from the comments section of your post! We landed on Samuel M@yer and are so excited to welcome him to the family.

Thank you to you and your thoughtful community of name sages!
Rachel

Hi Swistle,

Big time nerd fan of your blog here. I’ve been reading every post religiously for years, and when I initially found your website I went back and read all the archives too! The time has finally come for me to write in on my own…eek!

My husband and I are expecting our first child in May, a boy. Our biggest issue seems to be our differing tastes. We do have some overlap, but the overlap seems to be only with names we both sort of like. We both hate the names the other person loves. Meaning, we are left with just an “okay” feeling about all our top contenders.

Any advice for how to select from just okay names, that neither of us feel passionate about? Both of us are losing our enthusiasm which saddens me, as I’ve looked forward to this process my whole life. As you’ve advised before, a name really only needs to be a perfectly good name, but I’m struggling with it not being a name that makes my heart flutter.

I keep hoping our unicorn name will suddenly appear out of nowhere. This is seeming more and more doubtful, as we’ve been having name conversations for a while, and no unicorn so far. I’m hoping you and your readers might be a source of sparkly rainbow-y name magic that my research has alluded me?

Here are our considerations:
· Middle name will be Roberts after my maiden name. Last name is four syllables, T——i. I have proposed using Robert as the first and calling him Robin, but neither of us really like the name Robert, and I worry about bestowing equally “important” names on future children.
· We live in the US, I’m white, my husband is Indian. He feels it would be nice to have a name that is recognizable in India, although it’s not required. He doesn’t feel super tied to Indian culture, but we will be visiting family there often. It doesn’t even have to be spelled the Indian way, if there is a more common American spelling. I know international suggestions are not your forte, but like I said, this isn’t required, and this understanding will help frame our list below.
· My family is big on genealogy and has Welsh ancestry. My husband also likes the idea of a Welsh name (he thinks it would provide a convenient excuse of not giving an Indian name). We also both tend to think Welsh names are cool, but of course we like different ones. Also, obviously not required.
· We seem to like “R” names. I love Rhiannon (also my own middle name) for a girl. I don’t want to be a one-initial family, so I’m nervous about the future if we choose an R name this time.

Current compromise of *just okay* names:
Bodhi (Indian name)
Dean (Deen is an Indian name)
Harvey (we both like)
Kieran (Kiran is an Indian name)
Ruben (Rubin is an Indian name)
Vaughn (we both like)

His favorites:
Avery (I actually don’t hate it, but it’s SO common, I just can’t get on board)
Keanu (yes, after the actor, eye roll)
Niam
Rhodri (“Rod-dree” – he found this on a list of Welsh names and fell in love, I actually don’t hate it, but its just so rare, seems like it would always be mispronounced)
Rowan (this one feels too trendy to me)
Royce (too much car vibes)

My favorites:
Addison
Beau (hoping if we use Bodhi, we can use Bo as a nickname, he feels it’s a dog name)
Bryce
Heath
Loren
Rhys (swoon! But would definitely rule out Rhiannon. It seems like there should be some compromise here with Royce/Rhys but we are at a stalemate)
Rhett (he really hates this one)

Unicorn that unfortunately had to be ruled out:
Asa (the one name we both loved! But it’s a family name that has a baggage associated with it)

Indian-friendly names that have been ruled out:
Aric/Adric
Ash
Jay (Jai)
Neil (Neel)
Sean (Shaan)

Help! Our styles are all over the place and we are feeling lost. We need a wise guru to comb through this mess and provide some sage and stern advice. Perhaps some new suggestions, or some fun exercises/activities to help us find passion amongst our current choices?

Thank you!
ST

P.S. – I promise to email an update. I too feel so unfulfilled when posts go without!

To pick out a detail first: I don’t think if you use your maiden name for a first child that you need to find something equally Important for future children. It is extremely common for a firstborn to get an Important name (Jr./III/etc.; a family name handed down for generations; the best honor name) and extremely common for the reality of it to be that one name IS more important than the others, and that is why it was used first. Fortunately, from the children’s point of view, Important Names tend to be a little iffy: it isn’t as if the firstborn will definitely sashay around saying “I got GRANDPA’S name and YOU didn’t!!” From the children’s point of view, maybe the honor name is Better, or maybe getting one’s own name (or a more current name, or a more popular name, or a less popular name, or WHATEVER) is Better, or maybe they will not care much about any of it. But if you want to use a tip from a friend of mine: what they did was deliberately use The Most Important Honor Name for the secondborn, figuring that firstborns DO tend to sashay around talking about being oldest, so this way each kid got something. (As it turned out, though, this meant their firstborn is oldest AND, in the view of the children, has the Better name, so there’s really no way to predict/win this game.)

To select another detail: I too worried about feeling pressured to keep going with a certain initial, since our boy-name choice and girl-name choice started with the same letter and we wanted to use both names. I was relieved when our second child was also a boy, so there would definitely be a gap between the uses of that initial. (Though then I fretted that people would think we were having a third child “just to get a girl,” so this is another situation where apparently there was no winning.) Well, and then it turned out that by the time we DID have a girl, we’d changed our first-choice girl name anyway. A slightly risky way to solve/prevent this issue is to use a non-R name first; then after that, you can feel free to use as many R names as you want, without it making a pressurey theme. But I preferred the method of bracing myself ahead of time (unnecessarily, as it turned out) for saying “Oh! No, that was a coincidence: we just happened to like two names that started with the same initial.”

Okay, let’s finally look at the lists. I feel like you two have SO much potential for finding something. Avery and Addison are both unisex surname names. He has Royce, you have Bryce and Rhys. He has Rowan, you have Loren. And, as you’ve mentioned, you both seem to like R names. And you both sound very flexible and accommodating about the Indian/Welsh name issue. Really, you’re both VERY GOOD. It makes me hope we can find you something! …Or, that if we fail, you will nevertheless succeed without our help!

My first suggestion is Rory. It’s a unisex name similar in sound to Rhodri and Loren.

Next let’s browse some -ce/-se names:

Chase
Francis/Frank (this is because Frances came up in my search result)
Jace
Lance
Laurence (Loren + ce)
Pierce
Terrence/Terry
Vance
Vincent/Vince

I feel like at least half of those are not your style AT ALL, but I included them anyway: sometimes a not-right name can prompt someone to think of a better option.

Now let’s look at some surname names!

Alcott (perhaps not with a T___ surname)
Alden
Ames (a bit of the sound of Asa?)
Beckett (perhaps not with a T___ surname)
Brennan
Crosby
Darby
Darcy
Ellis
Emory
Harris
Hollis
Keane (I’d sell this as a little secret nod to Keanu)
Keaton (this one, too: “It’s sort of like Keanu, but less obvious!”)
Kellen
Lawson
Miller
Nolan
Perry
Reid
Wesley

Again, I am not thinking that these just SMACK of your style, but perhaps they will lead to other ideas.

I want to make a case for Avery. When a couple is having a lot of trouble choosing a name together and is beginning to lose their enthusiasm as you describe, I think it can be helpful to drop any preferences that are possible to drop. And I know you’ve seen me go off many times on the concept of popularity, and how it isn’t what it used to be. The name Avery is popular, and it’s even MORE common because it’s popular for girls as well as for boys. And it might be that in your own circle there are already too many Averys, and I can understand that. But if it’s more that it just feels too popular, I urge you to see if you can put that out of your mind, just as an experiment: if the name Avery were uncommon, would you start to feel enthusiasm for it? IF SO, see if you can nurture that little sprout of enthusiasm, see if it has the potential to grow. In situations like this one, I think we should nurture every tiny sprout.

A similar sprout to nurture: the Bodhi/Bo idea. (Although Bodhi with T______i feels like A Lot to me, so feel free to skip this if you don’t want to talk your husband into it.) Your husband thinks Bo is a dog name. Can he…get over that? Like, just DECIDE to get over it, the way he presumably would if someone said “I think of Royce as a dog name”? Maybe no, and that would be fine, just as it’s fine if you can’t get over the popularity of Avery! But if he could try it as an experiment: imagine if the name Bo did not seem like a dog name to him, had NEVER been used for ANY dog—would he start to feel enthusiasm for Bodhi/Bo? and would you, too? Give that sprout a little attention and see if it grows.

Rhodri is a sprout I’d like to nurture, but it feels like there are too many issues. The spelling. The pronunciation. The utter lack of usage in the United States. The possibility of it ruling out Rhiannon. The combination of it with the surname. The -i ending, which in the U.S. is used mostly for girl names. But it’s a nice sound, and I like that your husband chose it from Welsh names, and it sounds very much like the much more familiar name Audrey, so it OUGHT to work. We couldn’t respell it, could we? Rodrey? I don’t know; it feels like that detracts from its charm, and also would be mistaken for Rodney.

I’m interested in the name Niam. Does it rhyme with Liam? If so, I think that could be a very neat way to get a name that is quite different while also feeling quite familiar.

I would like to fish Adric out of the discard pile, though I would spell it Aidric. It feels like a crisper, fresher version of the more common Aidan and the somewhat dated Eric.

And I see a lot to love on the Just Okay list. Dean! Harvey! Kieran! Ruben! Vaughn! Just because SWISTLE loves some names doesn’t mean YOU TWO will love them—but on the other hand, sometimes hearing that someone else loves a name can be like water for a sprout, too. I have had Dean, Harvey, and Ruben all on my own list, and Dean and Harvey are still on my list, and Harvey in particular is a name of my heart, and I think Dean is particularly good with your surname. And I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but I just never get as excited about boy names as I do about girl names, and even though Paul and I are moderately compatible baby-namers, it still always comes down to more like “Which of these names do I feel most SATISFIED with?”/”Which of these names do I feel most WARMLY toward?” as opposed to “Which name do I most LOVE?” And, once a Pretty Satisfactory List has been assembled, I find that the lowering of standards leads to its own levels of fun. Like, here we go, perfectly good names, let’s just Pick One, no real pressure—and once that shift has happened, and I am looking at my Okay names on their own spectrum (with no “Names I Hate” on one end, and no “Names I Love But Can’t Have or Haven’t Found” on the other end), I can start to get more enthusiastic about the decision. (And, in one case, once we were at the Just Pick One stage, I DID think of another name I felt more enthusiasm for, and sold it to Paul, and we used it! …But pretend I didn’t say anything, because you don’t want to be HOPING for that to happen.)

And it can be fun to play the games you’ve seen me recommend, and I think those games are MORE fun with Just Fine names, because it can be more like Discovering Your Joint Preferences rather than Battle of the Passionate Favorites. Write them each on their own little half index card and put the cards near where you spend a lot of time, and just sort of lay them out in various ways and consider them and sort them. Or flip through them one a day and pretend each day that you’ve decided to use that name, and try it out in various ways the whole day, and refer to the baby that way to each other, and think about telling that name to friends/family/receptionists/teachers, and see how you feel. Have each parent rank the names (names may share rankings, so that for example you could have two names ranked #1, three names ranked #2, one name ranked #3, and so on) and see if there are any that are low for both of you or high for both of you. Write each first name out with the middle and surname, in printing and in cursive, maybe in a bunch of fonts on the computer, and see how you like the look of it; write the initials and see what you think. Make one of those little bracket things people use for sports and see which names win. Draw a name out of a hat, and pretend it’s the name you have to use, and see how you feel. Find famous people with each name and see if any of those names can coax you into liking the name even more.

There can also be room to put Flutter names in the middle name position, especially when the couple is using only one parent’s family’s surname. Perhaps your husband can’t settle on Rhys as the first name when he loves Royce, but would go for it as the middle name to balance things out.

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

Baby Boy T——-i arrived a few day ago on our anniversary! Three years and a family of three! Your letter and all the comments were very helpful. A lot of folks suggested Robert(s) as the first name (nn Bo), and while I’m normally a huge fan of giving the maiden name as a first name when possible (if I was a commenter I probably would have suggested this too!), ultimately we just didn’t like the name Robert enough to justify the honor. We went to the hospital still undecided, but by using your activities had narrowed it down to Dean, Bodhi, and Asa (we got the ok to add Asa back into the running). We tried calling him by each name for a few hours at a time and finally decided on Dean Roberts T——- i. To you and those that wrote about not focusing on finding a name you are passionately in love with, but instead reframing to find a name that you and your partner are mutually happy with, thank you! As soon as I thought of it in this new way (Discovering Your Joint Preferences), it was so satisfying to choose a name we both bonded over together, which is how Dean came to be.

ST