Hi Swistle!

We’re expecting our 2nd child this spring. Our last name is one syllable And rhymes with Bowl.

I prefer traditional, timeless names whereas my husband tends to prefer uncommon names. I have a very uncommon name and his name is common, funny how that works.
Jonathan, Benjamin, James and Henry are some names I like for a boy. All of which my husband vetoed for a more trendy name. Our sons name was our compromise, we call him Cam. We did not find out his gender until the birth and his name totally suits him. We ended up using a traditional family name for his middle name which I love and often call him by.

Now we are expecting our 2nd, a girl, and I am hung up on names again. I really like Catherine/Kathryn and we’d call her Kate for short (spelling TBD), but it’s so abrupt with our last name. I don’t love the nickname Kat or Cat and lastly I fear Cam and Kate are too similar. We also thought about Elizabeth and Audrey for a bit, but are now leaning toward Sadie. I also like Abigail, but I fear it’s too common.

I don’t want her to have an unusual name or one that is too cutesy/she can’t grow up with, but I also don’t want a name where she is 1 of 3 or 5 in her class.

Middle name will be Genevieve which is a family name. I’d like to have a 3rd baby, but we’re not making that decision until after we have 2.

Please help, thank you!

I think if the name Cam has not seemed too abrupt with the surname, Kate would also be fine—especially since it would just be a nickname. I think Catherine/Kathryn is a great name for a lifetime, but I do think it would be wise to allow for the possibility that she might choose to go by Kat/Cat.

Is Cam’s full given name Cam, or do you call him Cam as a nickname for a longer name? If his given name is Cam, then I think Sadie works very well as a sibling name. If, however, he has a longer given name and goes by Cam as a nickname, I think my preference would be to do the same for a sister name. Sadie can be a nickname for Sarah, if that appeals, or for Mercedes (though Mercedes doesn’t seem compatible with your style).

I think Elizabeth and Audrey are also great, and that Genevieve goes nicely with all. I don’t think you can go wrong here. At this point you may want to just let the list simmer and see which names rise to the top with time.

And I wouldn’t worry too much about popularity. Even if you were to give her the very most popular girl name in the United States, she would be unlikely to be one of 3 or 5 in her class. The current queen, according to the Social Security Administration, is Olivia, with 1.01% of new baby girls given that name in 2019 (the 2020 data will likely be released in May). That’s approximately 1 in 100 girls, and let’s say a typical classroom has 15 girls, that would be about 1 Olivia per 6-7 classrooms—so you can see that we’re not going to get 5 or even 3 Olivias in a single classroom except by the most bizarre and unavoidable fluke. I grew up when the name Jennifer was in its prime, given to over 4% of new baby girls (FOUR TIMES as common as the current most common name), and I don’t remember ever even once having 5 Jennifers in the same classroom; I’m not sure I can remember ever having 3 in the same classroom, but perhaps. Definitely 2 Jennifers at times, but not every time.

The name Abigail is given to just under half a percent of new baby girls: approximately 1 in every 200 new baby girls. Picturing again a classroom with roughly 15 girls in it, that would be about 1 Abigail per 13-14 classrooms. Again, there are always going to be little anomalies (two Junipers and zero Harpers in the same grade, when both parents chose Juniper to avoid the popularity of Harper; three Josephs-called-Joey in one classroom one year), but in general I don’t think you’ll have a huge problem with duplicates, whichever name you choose.

Name update:

Thank you so much for your help! We went with another one all together and named her Leah Genevieve. Timeless yet relatively common. Thanks again!

Hi Swistle!

I’m expecting my fifth child in May, and after four boys I can’t wait to be having a girl! Naming our boys was easy, we poured over lists, used the process of elimination, asked our parents about family names and eventually came to an agreement. We alternated final say, and now it’s my turn again, although our requirement is that each person must love the name. Now, although I didn’t pick all of them, I am absolutely in love with all the boys’ names and couldn’t imagine them as anything else.

Their names are:
William Field ‘Liam’
Charles Larson ‘Charlie’
Matthew Wilkinson ‘Matt’
Thomas Smith ‘Tommy’

Our last name is Scottish/Irish and starts with Mc and ending is a hard d sound. I’m an 80s Lauren, and my husband is Henry. Our taste is traditional, somewhat popular (but always popular, so not trendy) names that lend themselves to nicknames, although we often call the boys by their full names. This will almost certainly be our last child.

After naming four boys, I am so excited to be naming a girl and have been spending all my free time making lists and comparing meanings and sounds with the boys’ names.

My list is as follows:
Mary – seems so dull, but I still love it and have never met a little girl with this name. I don’t love that she and Matthew would share an initial
Catherine – my old favorite, which I still love but it feels just a little less exciting now. I don’t love that she and Charlie would share an initial
Anna – plain but adorable, having trouble finding something it could be short for, or if it should be a standalone.
Elisabeth – really cute, and it honors my mom, but I worry people many misspell it as Elizabeth
Alexandra – I love Lexie, but it feels kind of harsh, I like Alexandria too but I’m still on the fence
Jane – really cute and sweet I’m not just quite there yet

Husbands list is as follows:
Amy – Ehhh
Monica – feels way to 80’s to me
Chelsea – not my style
Tiffany – just no
Eloise – I actually really like this, but I just can’t seem to fully get on board
Maggie – feels like a nickname to me
Liza – I like, hoping he many warm up to Elisabeth instead

The middle names we are considering are Halsey (my maiden name), Powell (his mother’s maiden name) and Fowler (My mother’s maiden name).

I kind of feel like a lot of our ideas are pretty dull and we can’t seem to commit to anything fully. I think our problem is that our boys’ names are really established, and it feels like the same boy names are always ‘in’ or popular, while girl names seem to fluctuate through the years. Therefore, my husband has recommended a ton of very 80s names and I am having trouble explaining this to him.

Any ideas on how we can find a middle ground that appeases us both and gives our daughter a great name that goes with Liam, Charlie, Matt, and Tommy? So I come to you Swistle, seeking advice on how to proceed in this uncharted girl name territory :)

Thanks so much!
Lauren

 

Hi Swistle!

Just thought I would update you on the Baby Girl McQ______, sister to William, Charles, Matthew and Thomas, in case you decide to post my question. We have decided to scratch our least favorite names from each person’s list, and have combined them into one list. Here is what we have left.

Arranged in my preference order:
Anna/Mary
Elisabeth/Jane
Eloise
Liza
Maggie
Amy

Arranged in his preference order:
Liza
Amy
Eloise
Maggie
Anna/Elisabeth
Mary
Jane

We are okay with each other’s picks on this list, but really love our own. It was so easy with the boys but are now finding that we cannot seem to agree on anything. Although I kind of like it I wouldn’t feel comfortable signing the birth certificate to Amy or Maggie, and he feels the same way about Mary and Jane. I want to find a name we agree on but both love. Is it possible we need to look beyond our list?

Thanks again!
Lauren

I would like to test my powers: do I have the ability to remove Amy from the lists, merely by saying I’d like to, even though I am not one of the parents? I shall try it and see what happens. Amy is a wonderful name, and it is now a Mom Name. If you were both very set on it, you would not need my permission to go ahead and use a perfectly-usable-even-if-dated name (many kids are named for aunts/uncles/parents and so it’s not an uncommon situation), but in this case it seems the issue is that your husband is claiming to be unable to understand explanations about how names come in and out of style, and that doesn’t seem to me like sufficient reason to leave the name on the list. Even if the topic of naming trends is fresh territory for him, I have faith in his ability to use the Social Security Administration’s baby name site to examine the trends for himself, and to consider his own experience in the world as further supporting evidence. Amy, Tiffany, Chelsea—those names have had their time in the sun, and they are enjoying a time of peace and rest. Let’s see, you say you’re an ’80s Lauren, so if your husband is approximately the same age, we can explain to him that your daughter being named Amy/Tiffany/Chelsea in 2021 would be like if your husband had high school classmates named Barbara, Nancy, and Debbie. Those are GREAT NAMES! I look forward to seeing them again, when they come back into style! But they weren’t in style for kids born in the 1980s; they were Mom Names. That is how Amy and Tiffany and Chelsea are now, to your children’s peers.

One possible option is to use Amelia, and your husband can nickname her Amy.

Let’s look at the other names on the lists. What stands out to me is that you have Elisabeth in second place and he has Liza in first place. If you weren’t using the s-spelling of Elisabeth, I would think we had a potential winner: name her Elizabeth, call her Liza as a nickname. And I do still think you could do that, but in your shoes I wouldn’t want to: the nickname Liza seems sure to increase the frequency of misspellings of Elisabeth. Nor would I want to change the spelling of Elisabeth, if it honors your mom. I too will hope that his feelings about the name Liza will help him warm to the name Elisabeth.

The next thing I notice is that you both have Eloise as a third choice. That’s one of my own favorite names, so of course I’m all for it—except that you mentioned you’re having trouble getting fully on board. And it IS your turn to have the final say, AND this is probably the only girl, so that makes me reluctant to have you compromise on a third-choice name. (But if this turns out to be the best area for agreement, I will rejoice, because I just love the name Eloise. Eloise Halsey Mc_____d!)

Looking higher up on your list, I see you have Anna and Mary; Mary is almost at the bottom of his list, but Anna is not far from the middle, especially if it turns out I did have the power to remove Amy. I think Anna is a terrific choice with your boys’ names; I like that she gets her own initial; and I don’t think Anna needs to be short for anything (it’s the same number of syllables as her brothers’ names)—and in fact I find it more charming on its own.

ESPECIALLY since this is the first and likely only girl, I like the idea of her having your maiden name as her middle. Anna Halsey is fabulous. I would want that name for myself.

I do think it might help to add more names to the list. Your preferences are almost reversed from each other’s, and that can make for unhappy naming.

I agree with you that Maggie is a nickname (and I would particularly object to that as a given name for the only girl, when all her brothers have full names plus nicknames). But it is a nickname for another of my own top favorite girl names: Margaret. How do you feel about the name Margaret? I am not thrilled that she’d be sharing an initial, but that preference got knocked down the list for me as we had more and more kids and I didn’t want to rule out whole sections of the name book, and maybe you feel the same. Margaret Halsey, called Maggie (and/or Meg and Daisy and Greta).

Another from this general range: Josephine. Nicknames Jo, Joey, Josie, Posey. And she gets her own initial. Josephine Halsey Mc_____d.

Or Clara. I love the repeating sound with your surname. It lacks a clear and natural nickname, but I suspect you’d call her Clarey (similar to Mary) and Clare-Bear as pet names. Clara Halsey Mc_____d.

Or Grace, nickname Gracie. Grace Halsey Mc_____d.

Or Eve, nickname Evie. Eve Halsey Mc_____d.

Ivy doesn’t have a good nickname, but I love it anyway. Ivy Mc_____d. I don’t know if I’d still use Halsey as the middle; I probably would, because of the way I’ve noticed most middle names vanish except for birth announcements and graduation ceremonies.

I wonder if adding Di to Anna would improve it for either/both of you. Diana Halsey Mc_____d. Oh, but I guess I wouldn’t put it in a sibset with a Charles.

I wonder if adding E to Liza would make you like it more. It definitely makes ME like it more: I would not have Liza on my own list at all, but Eliza is one of my top favorite names, and it’s very odd how such things can be the case. Eliza Halsey Mc_____d.

You mention finding some of the names on your list a little dull, but I can report that encountering a Mary in our school system was electrifying to me: my eyes just skip right past that name in the name books, and I think of it as abundantly common—but among children in our area, it is very very rare, and fresh and startling to meet one. Jane is similar: I don’t know ANY.

Oh! Another name that electrified me in that same way was Rose. It’s so abundantly common as a MIDDLE name, I wasn’t prepared for the effect as a FIRST name. Rose Halsey Mc_____d. I LOVE this for you. Nickname Rosie, but also I know if it were me I would call her Rosabelle, Rosalie, Rosamund, and so on, and probably Rosey-Posey leading to just Posey. I LOVE THIS.

Would Jane be improved if it were June? June Halsey Mc_____d.

The name Sarah was so popular in my generation, it’s another one my eye skips past. But nicknames such as Sadie and Sally make it fresh to me again. Sarah Halsey Mc_____d, called Sally.

Which reminds me: would your husband find the name Mary any more appealing if he knew it had nicknames Molly and Polly?

Name update:

Hi Swistle!

Our baby girl arrived early, she was born on May 5th. Her four older brothers are already obsessed, and she has stolen all our hearts. Admittedly, we struggled a lot with her name. She actually was nameless for over 24 hours, but we eventually agreed on something that feels perfect. Rose was a name you suggested Swistle, and from the moment I read it I had a feeling it was perfect. My husband wasn’t sure at first, but once we met our little girl he began warming up to it, and once we went to sign the birth certificate, we were both certain that Rose is definitely our girl’s name. For a middle name, we decided to bestow on our baby two family names, and with that her name feels complete. Rose Elisabeth Halsey McQ____d completes our family in ways we didn’t think possible. For now, she mostly goes by Rosie, but just like you said Swistle, we have already started to call her Rosamund, Rosabelle and a variety of other nicknames.

Thank you so much to you and your fabulous readers for the help!
Lauren, Henry, Liam, Charlie, Matt, Tommy and Rosie :)

Our first baby boy is due at the end of May and we need help! His sister’s are Matilda “Mattie” August and Genevieve “Evie” Francis last name Weier (sounds like ‘wire’). Our girls’ names have a regal, traditional but uncommon vibe, with a hint of religiosity (names inspired by saints) and we haven’t been able to find the same with a boy’s name. If we were having another girl top candidates were Florence, Josephine, Winnifred, Felicity, Phillippa and Beatrix with the middle name James (we did kind of masculine girl middle names.)

A couple names we considered and rejected:
• Copper, but we didn’t feel like it had a strong enough meaning being derived from a profession
• Conner, still OK but then husband mentioned something about a lacrosse bro and that was done
• Husband Vetos: Anderson, Malcolm, Reed

Other thoughts:
• I had a dream we named him Hayes
• Samuel has been on our Boys list for YEARS and now we are finally here and I’m kinda bored of it, plus it’s REALLY common and doesn’t feel special like out girls names
• My favorite name which I still can’t convince husband of is Shepherd. It has great meaning and significance and I just have a feeling about it. But the husband gets a ‘culty’ vibe from it. If you want to write a whole post about why we SHOULD use Shepherd so I can convince him that would be great 😀
• Kind of liking Deacon and Beau lately
• MUST have a nickname! Husband will immediately veto if he thinks there is no good nickname for it.
• Recently husband has been thinking something “Texas-y” since that is where we live. Not super obvious like Austin but a Texas vibe.

Do your worst, or best :)

I think first we should check to see if your boy-name style is in fact regal/traditional/uncommon with a hint of religiosity like your girl-name style, or if it’s different. Conner, Hayes, Shepherd, Deacon, Beau, Austin—those seem more contemporary/modern/surnamey to me (though some have that hint of religion). It is possible that you’re stuck because you’re trying to get your boy-name style to match your girl-name style, and maybe it doesn’t. One reason I so heartily recommend The Baby Name Wizard is that it divides names into categories in a way I find helpfully diagnostic: you can look at each category, and notice how many names you like in each one. It can lead to “Well, I’ll be darned: we like Exotic Traditionals for girls, but Country & Western [or Surnames, or Celtic, or whatever] for boys!” moments.

Let’s start by working on a list of names that meet at least some of the regal/traditional/uncommon/religious preferences and see what we get (we won’t worry at this point about how names work with the surname and the sibling names, and we won’t yet require nicknames):

Adrian
Aidric
Alexander
Albert
Alfred
Alistair
Andrew
Arthur
Augustus
Bartholomew
Caspian
Charles
Claudius
Conrad
Desmond
Dominic
Edmund
Edward
Felix
Finian
Frederick
George
Harold
Henry
Hugo
James
Jasper
Julian
Julius
Lancelot
Laurence
Leopold
Louis
Marcus
Nathaniel
Nicholas
Oliver
Philip
Quentin
Richard
Sebastian
Silas
Simon
Solomon
Sterling
Theodore
Victor
Wesley
William
Winston
Xavier

When you look through that list, does your heart beat faster? Do you think, “YES, THIS kind of name!!” Or are you thinking, “I dunno. Meh. None of those seem Quite Right”? Let’s look now at an assortment of names trying for more of a modern/contemporary/surname/Texas feel (again, without worrying at this point about surname, sibling names, or nicknames):

Abbott
Ames
Barnaby
Barrett
Beckett
Blaise
Brecken
Broderick
Brogan
Camden
Carson
Carter
Casey
Clancy
Cormac
Crawford
Crosby
Cullen
Darcy
Darby
Declan
Ellis
Everett
Fletcher
Ford
Gage
Garland
Garrett
Grady
Griffin
Harris
Hatcher
Heath
Houston
Hudson
Irving
Jacoby
Keaton
Keegan
Lawson
McKinney
Merrick
Miller
Nolan
Redford
Rhett
Rufus
Spencer
Tanner
Teague
Wells
Weston
Wilder
Wyatt
Yates

Does this list click in any better? Or is it too lacrosse bro?

Or possibly we want to look at the names that could be said to work on both lists in different ways: Wesley, Sterling, Spencer, Nolan, Frederick, etc. Frederick specifically stands out to me: sounds regal and traditional, fairly uncommon, has good nicknames, good with the surname, good with the sibling names. Matilda, Genevieve, and Frederick; Mattie, Evie, and Freddie/Fritz.

I also like Everett: could read as surname/cowboy or as gentleman/regal, nickname Rhett if you want it or E._. with the middle name (as long as it doesn’t sound too much like Evie); Matilda, Genevieve, and Everett; Mattie, Evie, and Rhett/E._.

Or I like Laurence, which I wonder if enough of us have read Little Woman that it wouldn’t be too difficult to pull off the nickname Teddy for it? Matilda, Genevieve, and Laurence; Mattie, Evie, and Teddy.

Or if Nicholas is not too common, it’s quite regal/saint and you could use Cole as Texas-vibe nickname for it. Matilda, Genevieve, and Nicholas; Mattie, Evie, and Cole.

Broderick sounds similar to the saint name Roderick, and gives you the Texas-vibe nickname Brody. Matilda, Genevieve, and Broderick; Mattie, Evie, and Brody.

I liked the name Shepard (I’d likely go with that spelling to reduce the occupational association) after reading a book with a great character named Shepherd/Shep. But I found it harder to imagine on an actual child in an actual classroom. I’d be interested to know what I’d think of it if I encountered it in real life.

I think Hayes would work great with the sibling names, but with the surname it makes me think of the word haywire.

I’d like to request that your husband take a step back from his insta-veto on names without nicknames. It’s such a limiting requirement, and there are so many other ways to get nicknames: initials, letting them happen on their own, etc. Also, many of the boy names with good standard nicknames are the more common names. I suggest FIRST coming up with a list of names the two of you can agree on, and THEN seeing what can be done about nicknames.

Let’s think now about middle names. You gave your daughters masculine middle names; do you have a similar interest in giving your son a feminine middle name? If you want something with a less traditionally masculine feel, and you are in favor of the current administration, the name Robinette would be a fun honor name. If you hadn’t thought ahead to what seems like the messaging of using boy names for girls but not girl names for boys, and now you feel a little stuck but on the other hand don’t want to give him the middle name May or Leigh or Jane, one workaround is to choose a family maiden name (yours, your mother’s, etc.) as his middle name. Or perhaps you can find some unisex names of women in the family tree, or names that were once used for men but are now used mostly for women (Lindsey, Lesley, Allison, Addison) and still have a sort of surnamey/unisex sound as middles. Is Shepherd’s personal meaning/significance in any way connected with a woman? If so, that might (1) make a terrific middle name and (2) give you access to the nickname Shep, if the first name doesn’t have a natural nickname. Or perhaps there is a Roberta/Patricia/Paula/Louise/etc. you’d like to honor by giving him the middle name Robert/Patrick/Paul/Louis after her.

Name update:

Dear Swistle,

I can’t thank you enough for answering my letter and providing such great advice. You truly helped to un-stick us! We found it incredibly helpful to rethink our “style” of name for baby boy. Reading through the two lists you provided we both connected more with the “vibes” of the second more contemporary name list. Turns out I actually was really gravitating toward surnames but it was just about finding the special one. I also forgot to mention in my initial letter that my husband and I come from large families with lots of first cousins who are very fertile :) so many names that you and your readers suggested, and that we love, have already been claimed.

With the help of you and your readers we revisited our list with a new outlook and openness. Ultimately we decided on John Rhodes, the first name after my FIL and middle is the maiden name of my Grandmother. While we plan to call little guy Rhodes, husband especially liked all of the nickname options like: Ro, Roey, Rodeo, Roadie, JR, and even Jack.

Baby Rhodes made his arrival on Wednesday May 19th and we are all home enjoying spending time as a family of 5.

Hi Swistle!

My husband and I are expecting our third child, a boy, at the end of May 2021. We already have a daughter Millie Jean (middle name after my grandmother) and Howard Gorman (named after both my husband’s grandfathers).

Our last names sounds like “Boat” but with an F.

I am having a difficult time coming up with a name for this little guy. I feel like I used all the good names with my other children!

To add to the issue, my husband has rejected everything so far. The only name he has liked is “Cody” which while has the E sound like Millie and Howie feels too 90’s for what I consider the more classic/vintage names of Millie and Howard. I don’t dislike it but it feels like there are better options.

Names we’ve considered (and have been rejected by my husband):

Thomas
Robert (my husband’s middle name)
Samuel
Bennett
Wesley

I’ve ran through all the male family names and I don’t know that there is anything particularly good that we could use except possibly Gregory after my husband’s father.

Are there names similar to Cody that might work?

Help and thank you in advance!

Obviously there are no rules that sibling names must go together in any way, and there are many good reasons to do otherwise. But the name Cody is a STARTLING CLASH with Howard. If you had just Millie, it would be fine: Millie is more vintage/antique revival while Cody is 1990s Live with Regis and Kathie Lee—but it’s not uncommon for parents to have different naming styles for boys and girls, so it could work just fine. But once you went with Howard/Howie, in my opinion Cody went out of the running.

(Again, there are no rules, and we COULD make it work if the circumstances were right. Let’s say you had felt forced to use the name Howard for your first son because of a family tradition on your husband’s side of the family. And let’s say that as part of that deal, you very reasonably negotiated Full Naming Rights for the next child; and your long-time favorite name, also the name of your dear brother, was Cody, and you were writing because you were anxious now that that represented a startling style clash. Well, in that case I would say ABSOLUTELY Howie and Cody could work just GREAT together, and that it was good there was such a nice easy explanation ((“Family naming tradition!”)) for the startling clash of Howard and Cody.)

I do have one way to save Cody, if you want it, and that is for you to use it as a nickname for a name similar to Howard. I’m not really seeing any names-similar-to-Howard that would work with the nickname Cody, but on the other hand I tend to be (1) picky about what counts as a nickname for what and (2) not good at coming up with creative nicknames (others have come up with Bix for Beatrix and Jet for Juliet and Cole for Nicholas, and I would never have come up with any of those). So perhaps some commenters can use their skills here. And perhaps you have a family name with good strong C and D sounds in it that you initially passed over but it would click into place with this idea.

But I don’t actually suggest trying to save Cody, or for us to all spend a lot of time trying to find a name similar to Cody that your husband might consider accepting as a Cody substitute. Instead I suggest that the next step in this process is for you to take a break from your role of coming up with names, and your husband take a break from his role of rejecting all your ideas, and instead the two of you switch jobs for awhile: HE does the work and research involved with coming up with a list of names he likes and is willing to use for this baby, and YOU evaluate his choices. A role swap can be very clarifying for some couples.

This might also be a good moment in the process for the two of you to take a look at the balance of family names so far. There is no reason family/honor names MUST balance out, and in fact in many cases and for many good/valid reasons they DON’T balance. But I still feel it is good to check in, just to see how things are going, especially in situations where the parents are having trouble agreeing and it might help to know whose turn it is to have their wishes honored. Is your household’s surname from your husband’s family? And then your son has first and middle names after your husband’s family. And your daughter has, as her middle name, one name from your family. Okay! So I would certainly recommend a good search of YOUR side of the family tree before choosing names for this baby! But if that has already been done, and there are no names left that you want to use, then I think we should lean a little more toward your name preferences this time around—and especially if there WERE family names you liked from your side but that your husband dismissed.

The whole time I was writing the above, I was ITCHING to get started on a list of names that would work with Howard. (And with Millie, too, but I am more concerned about “brother names” or “sister names,” less concerned about brother/sister names—because of the aforementioned normality of style differences.) Because Howard is a family name, I don’t think names MUST go with it, and I think everything on your name idea list works, with the possible exception of Bennett—which has more of a surname-name crisp preppy contemporary sound to me and doesn’t seem like it works as well with Howard’s warm vintage coffee-and-doughnut-in-a-diner appeal. …I lost track of that sentence somewhere. What I was saying was that because Howard is a family name, I don’t think future sibling names MUST be the same style, and I think your name list works well for names of an adjacent/compatible style. But it feels much more fun to come up with names of the same style and time period—and I think that, unlike with the name Cody, you’re going to end up feeling extremely Cutting Edge when all these names start coming back into fashion.

According to the Social Security Administration, which has online records starting in 1900 (downloadable starting in 1880), the name Howard was nicely popular in the early-to-mid 1900s: it was Top 50 when the ranked records began in 1990, and stayed there until 1943. So what I’m going to do is check in with the Top 50 in 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940, and see what little Howard’s friends and classmates would have been named back then. In addition to the ever-popular James/John/William/Charles/Thomas, we have:

Albert
Alfred
Arthur
Bernard
Carl
Clarence
Earnest
Edward (repeats ending of Howard)
Francis (Frank)
Frank
Fred
George
Lawrence
Louis
Oscar
Ralph
Roger
Stanley (repeats ending of Millie)
Warren

The way my heart flutters at a number of those, while I simultaneously think “Oh, but I don’t know, is it too…Old Man?” is what makes me think these names are NEARLY RIPE and will soon be back in our midst. Think of all the pets that people named Jack and Sam and Max right before those names stopped being Old Man and started being Extremely Preschool. NEXT UP: Alfred and Louis and Stanley!

I was going to say which names I had particular soft spots for, but it would be quicker to say which ones I don’t like as much (I am not going to do that). I will pick JUST A FEW. I have had a soft spot for Roger ever since hearing that an old-timey nickname for it was Hodge. HODGE. I have a soft spot for Warren not only for political reasons but because of a long-time family friend who was good-natured and warm and kind. George and Louis and Frederick and Franklin are all already on my own boy-name list, and Albert and Alfred are names I probably wouldn’t use in my own family’s sibling set but feel very warmly toward and would like to see used more. I have a soft spot for Clarence because of the book Life with Father by Clarence Day, which I got in a $3/bag library book sale and have read many many times since then. I gave up awhile ago trying to push people into using the name Carl/Karl, but I still think it’s a great underused name. I have a soft spot for Earnest, one of the few male names that can be considered a Virtue Name. I’ve had a soft spot for Edward ever since I started using it as a blog pseudonym for one of my kids.

I suggest taking another look in your family tree to see if you can find any of these warm, endearing names that might look a whole lot fresher on a sweet little baby with older siblings named Millie and Howie.

Name update:

Hi Swistle!

I wanted to share a name update with you. I thoroughly enjoyed your response to my question and I loved the reader suggestions in the reply.

I will say that after reading your response, I was able to get my husband to move on from the name Cody (LOL).

So, our little guy arrived a couple of weeks early. My husband and I had somewhat of a short list of names but nothing was really standing out to either of us so at the time of birth we were nameless (which was also the case with our other children so nothing new and I wasn’t stressed). I had taken a liking to Henry but felt it was more popular of a name than I wanted to use.

After he arrived and spending some time, we decided on…

Walter Gregory

He is just precious. He completes our family and our trifecta of old people baby names!

Hi Swistle,

Thank you so much for reading this letter! I’m due with my third and last child in May and am feeling utterly lost in picking a girl’s name! Our last name sounds like Crepsky. I wrote to you when I was expecting our second child and of course, you were a huge help!

My husband and I seem to want to choose names that: 1.) have significance to us (family name or notable person), 2.) are uncommon, 3.) we both like the sound of it, and 4.) can be pronounced easily in Spanish (and French if possible) because of our family backgrounds.

Our first two children’s names fit all four criteria. Ayrton is named after the Brazilian F1 driver and philanthropist who both my husband and I were big fans of growing up. Elia is named after my husband’s maternal grandmother in Chile. They both have two middle names that honour family or friends.

There are three frontrunner boy names at this point: Rafael (after the tennis player – we are huge fans), Matias (after my brother Matthew) and Alvaro (after my husband’s favourite uncle). These names are more common than Ayrton and Elia, but I think any would work well since they hold significance, are easily pronounced in Spanish, and I love the sound of them! Middle names will likely be Christopher and Adam after family members.

The problem is that we can’t seem to find even one girl’s name we like that fits three or four of our criteria. I’ve been reading your site long enough to pick up on the fact that as you have more children, you may need to relax on certain criteria but I’m having trouble weighing out what to let go of. For middle names we will choose my MIL’s name (Cecilia) and either Marie or my maiden name, Darby.

Two girls names we’ve considered are Matea (after my brother) or Ximena (after my husband’s aunt). But I don’t love the sound of Matea and I feel that Ximena is so very Spanish that it could be considered in bad taste giving her that name if she doesn’t indeed speak Spanish. Neither of these names feel right.

Two other names we like so far are Louisa and Alma. Luisa fits the language component but not the other criteria. Alma is uncommon and will work well with Spanish speakers. Still, I don’t love the sound of either of the two names as much as our first two children and neither have any significance or history for us which makes it feel like something big is missing.

I really like the sound of the name Marie (my mother’s middle name) but it’s neither Spanish-adjacent nor uncommon. I also can’t use the name Maria so that’s out. My husband likes Vera and Matilda but those don’t fit the significance, Spanish-sounding or uncommon criteria!

Any advice about how to think about these competing variables for a girl’s name – and what would sound best with the names Ayrton and Elia – would be so appreciated!

Sincerely,

Heather

Obviously none of us will be able to add names that would have personal significance. And while some of us will be able to evaluate whether certain names work in Spanish and French, that’s not an area where I have any knowledge. But the real question here is “How do you figure out which preferences to let go of?” And that’s a question I think all of us can help answer.

I think for me the answer is to get rid of the preferences that are (1) least important and (2) most responsible for ruling out names I love. Well, but that’s the easy answer, isn’t it? If it were that easy, you wouldn’t be writing. What tends to happen is that the MOST important preferences are the ones ruling out the most names—and that cutting the least important preferences doesn’t help bring enough names back into the running to justify the loss of the preference.

And so my secondary answer is that modifying preferences to work with naming reality can be really hard to do, and that what I’ve personally found most helpful is to realize I’m making deliberate trades/choices. That is, it can be tempting to spiral, to think “My preferences rule out all the names except the ones I don’t like!!” and feel completely stuck. It can be calming to remember that I am CHOOSING those preferences and ALLOWING them to rule out names, and that I can UNCHOOSE and UNALLOW at any time. Even if I DON’T unchoose/unallow, it helps settle me to know I COULD. And it helps me to see it as a TRADE: I am TRADING a degree of name-love, in exchange for getting an honor name; I am TRADING a degree of popularity, in exchange for getting a degree of name-love—or whatever.

It can also help to remember that it is absolutely fine and normal to have one set of preferences for some children, and change those preferences for other children, and that society at large is not noticing/caring. Think of all the families that have naming traditions for the firstborn, or for the firstborn and secondborn, but not for subsequent children. Or all the families that want to use ALL honor names, but unfortunately run out of honor names after the first few kids. Or all the families that start with matching initials, but soon run out of names they like.

Anyway, to get back to my point, what I find useful is realizing that if I want my most important preferences, I may have to TRADE other preferences to get them. (“Trading” a preference feels less dire than “giving up” a preference.) I could easily be wrong, but it sounds to me from your letter that your most important preference is that the name have personal significance to you. To get that preference, you may need to trade a less important preference—for example, that it be a name you love, or that it be a very unusual name, or that it work well in Spanish.

Or perhaps it will turn out there just aren’t any more girl names of sufficient personal significance to be worth making that trade. Names of Personal Significance isn’t a very flexible category: as with honor names, we each have our own batch of them and we can’t readily add or subtract names—we’re kind of stuck with what we’ve got (and even more so when the names have to have Personal Significance for TWO people). It’s always a little sad when parents would really love to use honor names but run out of them before they run out of babies, but it’s such a very understandable situation and it might be what’s happening here. In that case you might be very sad to let go of that preference, but maybe it’s a preference that’s working against your purpose at this point: i.e., if there are only a couple of Significant Girl Names in the barrel, and both of those names require you to give up ALL your other preferences, then maybe it’s not worth it—even though it may have been your most important preference to begin with.

It is also possible to RELAX a preference rather than eliminating it. For example, your preference for Very Unusual Names. You mention that Louisa doesn’t meet that preference, but according to the Social Security Administration, it was the #683rd most popular girl name in the United States in 2019; that makes it a very uncommon name. It’s not as uncommon as Elia or Ayrton, but it’s still Really Quite Uncommon. Vera and Matilda are more common (Vera was #252 and Matilda was #447)—but still Pretty Uncommon. If you could relax that preference from Extremely Uncommon to Quite Uncommon, you could open up a whole new field of options. Or possibly that WON’T work, and the only way to get Quite Uncommon names will be to relax the preference for them to work well in Spanish. It seems likely that the subset of names that work well in English and Spanish might be names that are much more common in your circle than they are nationally.

Something you have very likely considered already and rejected: could you use your maiden name as a first name instead of as a middle? The name Darby is not currently in the Top 1000 in the United States. Its usage is right between Ayrton and Elia. I don’t know if it meets the language requirements, but perhaps that could be the preference that gets ditched for the third baby, or perhaps she could be called a nickname that works with the other languages. Darby Cecilia Marie Crepsky; Ayrton, Elia, and Darby.

I am hoping lots of others will now tell stories of how THEY decided which preferences were most important, which preferences needed to be eliminated, which preferences needed to be relaxed, which preferences were worth trading, etc.

Name update:

Hi Swistle!
Excited to send in my name update. Thank you so much to you and your commenters for all of your/their input! We had a baby girl on May 16th. Your response freed us from feeling tied to all four of our criteria. We decided to let go of the significance/family connection criteria and it opened up a new list of possibilities. So, we scanned baby name books, made new lists, and went to the hospital with four possibilities. Once she was here it seemed clear to me which of the four suits her and fits the best with her sibling’s names. Introducing: Amaya Marie Cecilia Crepsky (7lbs13oz).

Hello!

You helped name our second baby 5 years ago and now we have a (surprise) 3rd baby on the way – due in May.

Our last name is pronounced Molly-Ache-Elle.

The sibling names are:
George Lindsey – called Gil
Malcolm Joseph – called Mac

George is my father in law and Malcolm is my grandfather. The kids’ middle names are my husband (Joseph) and my own (Lindsey) names.

My husband and I have never had an easy time naming our kids – we come from VERY different naming traditions. His family is catholic and from India – where the naming traditions are very strong and quite narrow. I’m a west coast kid with total free reign on naming.

We don’t know the sex, but the boys name has pretty much sorted itself out this time – so now we are trying to negotiate girls’ names.

Last time around our name option for a girl would have been Margaret Akslen – called Greta. I still LOVE this name and have had a hard time hearing that my husband doesn’t want to just go with this name for this kid.

My husbands family traditions would have the baby be named Anne or Mary. I am ok with Anne as a middle name but don’t feel close to either name as a first name. And there have been two girls born in his family this year who were named Ann and Joanne.

I tried to brainstorm a list of names that have a nod to Anne or Mary that I am more drawn to like:

– Jilliann (sounds too close to Gil)
– Annalise and Annaleigh (I like these names but my husband had a negative reaction because of the word anal)
– Mariella (feels like a lot with our last name and ‘ella’ as a nickname is too close to many great kids I already know)

Names I love if I weren’t bound by traditions:
Tessa
Joelle
Evangeline
Lauryn/Laurel
And of course – the name Greta (short for Margaret) is still my absolute favorite

The middle name would likely be Anne (if the first name doesn’t nod to it) or Akslen (my grandmothers maiden name) depending…

Any ideas or cautions as my husband and I continue our wrangling? Reference to the last time you helped: Baby Boy or Girl Molly-Ache-Elle, Sibling to George (Gil)

Thanks for your help!

Last time I suggested using a traditional/family name to please your husband, on the condition that you get to choose the child’s everyday-use name (even if it is unconnected to the given name)—which is roughly how things went with your first child, where George is your husband’s father’s name, but you call him Gil. Both names start with G, if we are looking for a way to connect the given name and the nickname, but it’s not even the same kind of G, so I feel like there is some flexibility here. I know you said you’d rather not do that kind of deal again, and I am keeping that in mind—but it feels like it may be the loophole we need to make things work.

The first thing that leaps out at me is that Evangeline from your list seems like it counts as a nod to Anne from his list. This is probably where I would try to lock down the deal, if I were you. Evangeline Akslen Molly-Ache-Elle; George, Malcolm, and Evangeline; Gil, Mac, and whatever nickname you have in mind for her. I might even compromise on Evangeline Mary Molly-Ache-Elle, if that would get it done.

The second thing I notice is that Tessa can be a nickname for Therese, a saint name. George, Malcolm, and Therese; Gil, Mac, and Tessa. (She’d also have the option of going by Reese, or of course Terry.)

The third thing I notice is that the first three letters of Margaret are the same three letters as Mary. Can we not do a bit of a REACH here? “Look, if we erase the top of the -g-, it looks even more like Mary!” I’m holding out some hope that this will be one of those letters we get where the husband didn’t want to use a certain name, but then after the baby is born he changes his mind. Perhaps the baby will just LOOK like a little Margaret/Greta!

Or perhaps we could use a double or hyphen first name: Mary Margaret or Mary-Margaret, called Greta; Anne Margaret or Anne-Margaret, called Greta. If family names and traditions are of top importance to him, he may have to bend on other things.

Annabel is pretty. What could we do with a nickname there? Bella might have the same issue as Ella; Annie is sweet but it seems like if you liked it you would already have mentioned it.

Maribel is pretty, too, but again I don’t know if the nickname works out, and it is a lot with the surname.

Annika, with a nickname of Nika? Maybe a bit much with the surname. I remember this from last time: I kept thinking of names with crisp c/k sounds and a lot of L and/or M!

Would Marilla feel like it honored a Mary? But it too repeats a lot of sounds from the surname.

Or Rosemary. Nickname Rose or Rosie or Romy or Rory? George, Malcolm, and Rosemary; Gil, Mac, and Romy.

Could we do a giant double-honor first name, such as Marianna or Annamaria or Anne-Mary, in trade for Greta as the nickname? There’s no name police here. I went to school with a Michael who was called Scott because his parents couldn’t agree, and we all took that explanation in stride. On the first day of class, the teacher would say “Michael?” and he’d say “Here! But I go by Scott,” and the teacher would make a note, and we’d be done.

In fact, it’s really common for boys to go by totally different names, in part because of the commonness of boys being named after their family traditions/ancestors and needing a different daily name (and/or needing a compromise name for the other parent to agree to letting her husband’s ancestors name her baby). In my circle of friends/acquaintances/classmates I can think off the top of my head of a Howard called Scott, a Gary called Jason, a Robert called Jay, a Thomas called Adam, etc. No reason in the world we can’t do the same with girls’ names.

And I am feeling not just sad but also angry that you have a list of names you would like to use if you weren’t bound by tradition—and not even bound by YOUR traditions, but by your HUSBAND’S FAMILY’S traditions. Excuse me, but how did we get to this place where one parent’s family traditions bind THE OTHER PARENT? How do we START the naming process by letting one parent’s traditions narrow it all down, as if that were a real requirement? What if BOTH parents had Strong Important Traditions? If HE wants to use HIS family’s traditions to guide/narrow HIS name list, then fine! But his name list shouldn’t outrank yours, just because his ancestors tried to call dibs on all future generations of baby naming.

I can’t tell if Anne and Mary are from his side, your side, or one of each. Another compromise I might suggest is His First Choice of Names from Your Finalist List + His First Choice of Middle Name.

Last time you mentioned your husband was also open to biblical/saint names, and I wonder if we might look that direction again, especially with babies Ann and Joanne already in the extended family.

For biblical names, I love Esther, Ruth, Claudia, Lydia, Lois, Elizabeth, Eve, Susanna (Anne!), Miriam (Mary!), Naomi.

I don’t know the saints’ stories so I am pulling these from The Baby Name Wizard‘s list without taking into consideration what each one is a saint FOR:

Ada
Antonia
Augusta (Gussie)
Beatrix
Cecily
Claire
Elodie
Felicity
Flora
Genevieve
Josephina
Josephine
Juliana (Anne!)
Louisa
Matilda (Tilly)
Philomena
Sophronia (Phronsie)
Veronica
Vivian
Winifred (Winnie/Freddie)

Several of these are such favorites of mine I have trouble not pushing them on you (Winifred!! Felicity!! Flora!! Genevieve!! Louisa!! etc.!!). I also love love love Josephine, and I wonder if it would be fun to name a girl for her father, or if we want to deliberately not do that. (It doesn’t bother me that one of her brothers has the middle name Joseph, except that it means honoring him twice, which seems unbalanced. But using an honor middle from your side would help.)

Name update:

Thank you so much for your help with this one! We had a little girl at the end of April. My goal was to go in with two name possibilities to the hospital and after many hours of conversation- we had both agreed on Margaret or Evangeline. I was still secretly hoping for Margaret since I had been advocating for that name from the beginning and really had to wade through my husband’s ambivalent feelings about it. But surprisingly- after she was born we both agreed she just wasn’t a Margaret!
We went back to the drawing board for a bit but eventually came back to Evangeline and I gave in to the middle name Marie to ensure we were honoring some of the family naming conventions. So now she is Evangeline Marie – and we have been calling her EvaMarie! Her brothers are thrilled – as are we.
Thanks for helping move that name to the front of the list!

Hi, Swistle!

I am so thankful that someone recommended your blog recently, but I sure could’ve used it sooner! We have 4 girls and are currently expecting baby #5 (likely our last) who is due in April. We were shocked to find out that this one is a boy; I was convinced that my husband and I only made girls!

So here’s the issue: my husband and I have never discussed boy names. He has always refused to talk names until we knew the gender, so we have a long list of girl names but had to start from scratch for boy names. I feel like boy names are so much harder!

My current favorite is Theodore/Theo, but then in my relatively small facebook due date group, there are three other moms who are naming their sons Theo! So now I’m worried that Theo is going to be crazy popular. We’re considering using the middle name Joseph so we could use TJ, but I don’t know if I love that. Other names we are considering: Alexander, Nathan, Benjamin, & Christopher. But none of those really feel right at the moment. I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on what would work for our family! 💙

The important details:

-Surname is McKowan with a G
-We are very big on traditional names with nicknames and would like to continue this with our son’s name
-Siblings are: Abigail Jane (Abby), Theresa Ann (Reese), Josephine Margaret (Josie), and Elizabeth Grace (Lizzie)
-Girl names from previous lists include: Rebecca (Becca), Catherine (Cate), Cassandra (Cassie), and Julianne (Julie/Jules)
-Boy names that I like but have been nixed for various reasons: Michael, Robert, Patrick, Jonathan/John, & Joshua

Thank you so very much!
Melissa

For decades, the name Theodore has been bopping around in the 200s/300s of baby name rankings, not really going much up or down. But then recently:

(image from ssa.gov)

Meanwhile, look at what the name Theo has been up to (notice the lowest three years are from the 1940s, after which there was a big gap when the name wasn’t even in the Top 1000):

(image from ssa.gov)

My own naming style for boys is Top 50 names, so for ME, these charts would be good news: “Yay, the name is finally common enough that I feel I can use it!” But even I would feel a little trepidation at the speed of the rise: maybe it will come to a stop in the 30s! maybe it will peak and start drifting back down! but maybe not.

I do think it’s a nice level of popularity with his sisters’ names. According to the Social Security Administration, the name Abigail was in the Top Ten from 2001 to 2017, and in 2019 was #11. The name Josephine is rising in popularity, and in 2019 was #89. The name Elizabeth has been in the Top Ten or near it for decades. The name Theresa, while not currently in the Top 1000, is familiar and feels more common than it is.

It bothers me just a teensy bit that the name Theodore would repeat the first three letters of Theresa. The three letters are pronounced entirely differently, and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. The nickname Reese makes it much less of an issue.

I too find boy names more difficult. With girl names, I look for Love, and have more than I need to choose from, and in fact get overwhelmed by all the wonderful names I won’t get to use. With boy names, I try to narrow it down to a list of Can’t Go Wrong choices (good solid names that feel like they’d work just fine for us), and then let one rise gradually to the top.

Your boy name list is in the same basic range as mine, with some overlap. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of those. Benjamin is the one that catches my eye: I feel like it has the same traditional/warm feeling as your girl names, and I find the nickname group particularly charming. Abigail, Theresa, Josephine, Elizabeth, and Benjamin; Abby, Reese, Josie, Lizzie, and Ben.

But let’s see if we can make the list of candidates a little longer: I’ll add some from my own boy-name list, plus others that seem like they might work well.

Abigail, Theresa, Josephine, Elizabeth, and:/
Abby, Reese, Josie, Lizzie, and:

August/Gus
Calvin/Cal
Charles/Charlie
Daniel/Dan
Edward/Ted/Ned
Franklin/Frank
Frederick/Fred
Henry/Hank
Isaac/Ike
James/Jamie/Jimmy (retro nicknames seem to be coming back into style)
Julian/Jules
Louis/Lou
Nicholas/Nick/Cole
Oliver/Ollie
Wesley/Wes

This sounds like something you have already considered and decided on, but just in case, I wanted to mention that it is not uncommon for parents to have different naming styles for boys than for girls. It is possible that you are stuck because you’re trying to use your girl-name style on boy names. Or maybe not: very possibly your boy-name style IS the same as your girl-name style! But if you continue to feel as if nothing is right, it could be a helpful exercise to go back to the name books and pretend for a moment that this is your very first child, and make a list of boy names you like—even if they’re not traditional and/or don’t have good nicknames. I kept finding names I wanted to suggest, and then reluctantly putting them aside because they didn’t meet one of the preferences:

Clark
Davis
Dean
Elliot (same first three letters as Elizabeth)
Everett
George
Ian
Miles
Nolan
Paul
Simon
Warren (probably not right after using Elizabeth)

(And some of those could have nicknames by the method you mentioned of using initials.)

Name update:

First of all, a huge thank you to Swistle and to everyone who shared opinions and ideas on my post! My husband and I decided to go back to the drawing board and not put any restrictions on ourselves. We decided against Theodore because although I love the nickname Theo, I just didn’t see myself ever using the whole name, and that didn’t sit well with me. We did decide, however, that we still wanted a traditional name with a nickname.

Our sweet baby was born last week, and we named him Andrew Joseph. We want to let his personality choose the nickname he’ll eventually be called (AJ, Andy, Drew??); we love all the options! Thank you again for your help!

-Melissa

Hi Swistle,

I’ve been reading your blog for as long as I can remember and I’m so excited to finally be writing to you with a baby name question of my own!

Ok, so here’s the lowdown: I’m Allie (short for Allison), my husband is Chris, and we’re expecting our first child, a girl, in March of 2021. Our last name sounds like Spiers, but with an M, and we plan to have two to three children. We both grew up with very common, fairly generic names, so would like to bestow something a little more interesting and fun for our little one. We like short, easy to pronounce and spell names that are unique, meaning there won’t be three other kids in their class with the same name. The middle name will be Anne, after my dear grandmother who passed away when I was in college.

Which brings us to Ferris. Cute, spunky, and fun, with a hint of an eighties vibe. The Ferris Bueller association does not deter us, but tickles us, it seems like a cute connection. Perfect, we thought. Ferris Anne (M)iers, it flows, and even the initials FAM are cute, and seem to be a sign that the name is meant to be part of our family. That was until we confided in my mother-in-law about the name. I know, I know, big mistake, but we were so giddy about Ferris we just had to tell SOMEONE.

The minute we said our daughters potential name, she recoiled in horror, and promptly began to explain to us all the reasons this is a terrible name. She mentioned its masculinity, the Ferris Bueller thing, the Ferris wheel thing, and just it’s general ‘ugly sound’. “The only Ferris anyone will have ever heard of is Ferris Bueller! They’re going to think my granddaughter is a boy!” She told us.

This shook us pretty badly, because even though we don’t care THAT much what she thinks (and Chris is pretty sure she’ll calm down once the baby arrives and love her granddaughter too much to care) this did get us to start considering the Pros and Cons of Ferris. Here they are:

Pros:
It’s unusual, but simple and has been heard of
Seems to only have one pronunciation
goes the middle name we want to use, Anne
has a bit of an 80s vibe but not too much
Chris and I went on a Ferris Wheel on our first date so it has a fond memory attached to it
We both love Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (also in the new generation is the Ferris Association fading. We are on the younger side, and born a few years after it came out. Surely many parents will know it, but will the kids think of it so strongly, or will it be a weaker reference?)
We both just love the name and cute nn possibilities (Ferri, Riss, Rissi, Fam, Fammi, for the initials FAM)

Cons:
does the S at the end of Ferris sound clunky with the S ending of our last name? Ferris (M)iers?
We know Ferris is a masculine name, and we don’t mind that too much, but
Does the ferris wheel thing seem bad to the general population??????? Are we blinded by the cute story?
Is it hard to pair with sibling names? What even would those be, we have NO ideas. Eek!

We just love Ferris Anne (M)iers so much and would hate to give it up, but feel it may not be right for a little girl. Maybe we can save Ferris for a boy??? Our style for girls is more gender neutral names.

Here are some other names we like for girls.
Gracyn
Finley (having trouble picturing an adult with this name)
Taylor
Peyton
Morgan (feels a bit harsh to me)
Cory
Jesse
Callahan (nn Callie. If we used Ferris for a girl then Callahan as a sister, will it seem too feminin in comparison?)
Garret
Teagan
Quinley
Sloane (but a definite NO with Ferris, for obvious reasons)
Darcy
Callum
Drew (Chris likes Drue, like true with a D, is that a thing???)
Logan

My favorites are probably Drew and Teagan while Chris’ favorites are Callahan and Garret. We really like Quinley but feel the rest fit into a category it doesn’t quite match. So far, none of these really feel quite right, and we are only lukewarm on some of them. I feel like our taste is a bit all over the place and I’m worried future sibling names will be a nightmare, boy or girl. Though some of these may be easier to pair together then with Ferris.

So my main questions are:
Are the cons issues or non issues?
Is the Ferris association getting weaker as time goes by?
Is Ferris a possible girl’s name? Has it ever been used for girls? Is it going too far with the unique thing?
What are some other names with a similar feel to Ferris that go with the mn Anne, or names that could serve as future siblings to Ferris Anne?
We would love some advice on this matter and suggestions for names like/that go with Ferris to see if it is the name for us and our daughter.

Thanks so much!
Allie (M)iers

I too have a positive association with Ferris Bueller, but I know that in my circle, whenever the movie comes up, people IMMEDIATELY start quoting BATCHES of lines from the movie, and it isn’t long before someone says “Ferris Bueller, you’re my hero!” in the dippy Cameron voice, and then someone says “Bueller?…Bueller?…Bueller?…” in that Ben Stein voice, and I would be heartily sick of that whole routine after one single time.

I think the issue isn’t that the associations aren’t positive, but that there are so few and so strong, and that Ferris is not much used as a name in the United States at all: in 2019, it was given to 29 baby boys and it is not in the data base at all for baby girls. So this would be a change from the style and popularity of the names you and your husband were given, but is this how far you want to go with that goal? Looking at the other names on your list, I don’t see anything as unusual or as strongly-associated as Ferris.

And I think you’re very wise to take future sibling names into account. Once you’ve used (1) an almost-unused name (2) for the opposite sex it is exclusively associated with, it seems like it could be very difficult to find a follow-up.

I do think the name Ferris makes an awkward -smi- sound with the surname, not that I’d consider that a deal-breaker—and I’m about to include similar names in suggestions below.

I know that just because a name sounds similar doesn’t mean it has the same feel, but I wonder if you would like any of these options:

Carys
Ellis
Florence
Frances
Hollis
Iris (I find this hard to say with the surname)
Maris/Merris (this may be far more alliteration than you’d like)
Verity

I especially like Ellis and Hollis for you: both are unisex names that lean boy, but have feminine nicknames (Ellie/Holly) if your daughter ends up preferring that; both are unusual but simple and seem to have only one pronunciation. Both go nicely with Anne. Both create the same issue with your surname as Ferris does, but again, I don’t think that’s a deal-breaking sort of issue, and I think everyone would get used to leaving a little pause in between. Hollis, unfortunately, gives you the initials HAM, which WOULD be a deal-breaker for me. Ellis still works, and Ellison would resolve the issue with the surname.

I also like Carys (it is ALMOST Ferris), but worry it’s too feminine with most of the other names on the list.

And Frances is interesting to think about. I don’t think it’s right with the rest of the names on your list, but the unisex nature of Frances/Francis, plus the nickname Frankie, plus you’d still have the initials FAM—well, it’s interesting to think about, but doesn’t seem Right.

I think you have a lot of other good options on your list. Probably I would steer away from Garret just because it’s another name used exclusively for boys in the U.S. And Jesse, though it is sometimes used for girls in the U.S., feels like a spelling specifically intended to communicate the male version of a unisex name, similar to Frances/Francis and Erin/Aaron. And Taylor and Cory feel a little dated, though not unusable.

I think Finley will feel right on adults by the time they grow up: it’s just that most of them are still children, so it still feels like a child name.

I have seen the spelling Dru/Drue before, but I think only as a nickname (like for Drusilla), not as a stand-alone name. I just checked, and to my surprise, in 2019 there were: 36 new baby girls named Dru, 14 new baby girls named Drue, 44 new baby boys named Dru, and 18 new baby boys named Drue. (For comparison, there were 184 new baby girls and 547 new baby boys named Drew.)

I’d be interested in what sorts of names you’re considering for future sons. If you haven’t made a list yet, I think it would be a good idea to make a quick list now: not that you have to decide on names for future children when it’s hard enough to decide on a name for this one, but it’s an exercise that can help clarify the current decision. Do you like unisex-leaning-girl names for boys? or traditional/classic names for boys? or do you like the same unisex-leaning-boy names from your girl-name list, and so you might want to choose now which you prefer for girls and which for boys?

And mixing and matching little groups of sibling names (just for fun, no pressure to ACTUALLY decide) can start to give you a feeling for what sounds like Your Kids. Picture them putting a puzzle together at the table, or getting into the car, or eating breakfast, or doing some other normal daily thing: are they Ferris and Callahan and Teagan? are they Garrett and Callum and Hollis? are they Gracyn and Sloane and Malcolm? Look at pictures of yourselves as children, and at kids you see on TV or in public: which names feel like they FIT well on those kids? Imagine filling out kindergarten registration paperwork; imagine announcing the name when you arrive at the pediatrician’s office; imagine telling another parent at the park which child is yours: which names feel like Your Kids?

I’d also think about which names on the list might rule out other names on the list (such as the rhyming Quinley and Finley), to make sure you use your favorite in each case. For example, would you use both Logan and Teagan, or does one -gan name mean not using the other? Similarly, Callum and Callahan: after using one, would the other be off the list? Do you have any feelings about not repeating initials? If so, you’d want to think ahead of time about Gracyn/Garret, Finley/Ferris, Cory/Callahan/Callum, and so on. It can be especially tricky if you prefer one name for a girl and another for a boy: you could accidentally use one of several favorite girl names, realizing only later that it ruled out a name you felt even more strongly about for a boy. (As when a friend used Eva for a girl, without realizing until later that it ruled out her top choice of Evan for a boy.)

More names to consider, just for the fun of making the list:

Campbell (cute initials-spell-the-nickname situation)
Carrigan
Carsten
Casey
Crosby
Darby (initials spell DAM)
Elliott
Emlyn
Garnet (initials spell GAM)
Jensen (initials spell JAM)
Keaton
Keegan
Kellen
Keller
Laken (initials spell LAM)
Locklyn (initials spell LAM)
Lowen (initials spell LAM)
Sterling
Winslet
Winslow

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

Thank you so much for posting and answering our question! It was really helpful to see everyone’s thoughts on this matter and get some more helpful insight into our conundrum. It was also really fun to read!

After seeing your and your readers responses, we had a long talk about exactly what we wanted our naming style to be. We agreed Ferris was our favorite name, but the cons outweigh the pros, although if we planned on having only one child she would probably be Ferris. That said, we used your idea of imagining our children and what we thought they may be like and trying to picture calling them. We had several rounds of:

“Campbell it’s time for dinner!”
“Drew, set the table!”
“Teagan, we have to leave in five minutes!”

before we came up with a few ones we liked. These names were on our original list, but embarrassingly, we overlooked them. We decided that despite our love of the more unisex boys names, we felt our girl was more unisex girl leaning. We planned to go into the hospital with the two names we loved, and decide there. Well, baby girl decided to come early, and after the scariest and most painful but also happiest day of my life, our daughter was born at thirty three weeks on January 19th, 4 pounds, 5 ounces, 17 and a half inches long. She is the joy of our lives!

When she arrived we were debating between Gracyn and Teagan, me favoring Teagan and him Gracyn. I actually broke down in tears when I saw her and realized that she didn’t look like either. Oddly, Chris agreed. So we were scrolling through comments and recreating lists to find an appropriate name for our girl. But I just knew she was our Ferris the minute our eyes locked, and just couldn’t shake the feeling.

Our daughter is Aven Louisa Ferris (M)iers, and she is the love of our lives! We realized that Ferris is perfect for our little girl, but we know she may outgrow it at some point and not want it as a first name. Thank you to the commenter who mentioned Ferris Olin, we think she is a beautiful namesake for our girl. Louisa entered late in the game, and we had never even had it on our lists, but when we met our girl, a Nurse named Louisa was there, and my mother commented on how that was a family name, and then it just clicked!

As for her first name, my mother actually suggested Aven when I was in tears over having no idea what to name our girl, and it felt perfect from the moment we called her that. We are sad we were unable to use Anne, but are happy with our choice and are in love with Ferris and the rest Aven’s name. I have never met anyone named Aven, and according to social security it’s not even in the top 1000, which I love. For now we are calling her A, Avie, Avie Lou and Muffin.

Thank you so much to Swistle and all the readers who helped us! We are obsessed with both our little Aven and her name!

Allie, Chris and Aven Louisa Ferris (M)y-ers

Dear Swistle,

I’ll preface this by saying that my actual problem might just be that the prospect of naming a whole entire person is too daunting, having never met the child in question. But possibly I’ve just given myself too many options to consider and that’s what’s overwhelming? At any rate, I’m turning to you, the best naming advice-giver/therapist on these internets.

My husband and I are expecting our first (likely only) child, a girl due in about 8 weeks. He and I share a first initial, so we have at least rejected all names beginning with the letter J (including Josephine, which is a favorite and thus contender for a middle name.) She’ll get both our last names, so her last name will sound something like Otherword-Mitten (to hyphenate or not, another thing I have too much time to consider in These Times!)

When we learned the baby’s sex, we came up with a fairly long list of potential names and have tried out one name a week from the list since. Names we both like go on a list on the fridge with potential middles in a column next to each. We’ve been at it for a while, and maybe the novelty of the game has worn off, but we haven’t come up with a fridge name in well over a month. (This week is Victoria, and we are both meh on it.) One major similarity between the fridge names is multiple nickname options. The name Charlotte (nn Charlie) would, I think, be number one on both our lists, but my parents picked a very, very popular name for me and I’m not interested in doing that for our child, so Charlotte is a no-go.

The fridge names:
Liliana (a name he and I have liked for years and years as a hypothetical, but now feels like maybe it’s lost a bit of its sparkle for me that I’m considering using it for a real person? He still loves it.)
Penelope
Ramona
Rosalie (I love this, he is less enamored.)
Theodora

Every time we look at the list now, we’re just not enthused. Is it decision fatigue or have we just not hit on the right option? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you so much,
Jen

Wait, let’s not be too quick to give up on a name that is #1 for both of you. I can see why you’d feel that way, but the name Jennifer was its own phenomenon: no subsequent name has come ANYWHERE NEAR that level of popularity. I don’t know why I don’t jot this down so I don’t have to look it up every time, but let me see if I can find the peak year for the name Jennifer. Ah, here we go: in 1974, it was used for 4.03% of baby girls born in the United States. Additionally, the name was in the Top Ten for TWENTY-SIX YEARS IN A ROW (1966-1991), and it was #1 for FIFTEEN of those years (1970-1984), and it didn’t even drop out of the Top 50 until 2006, so the Jennifer Saturation was INTENSE and LENGTHY, making it FEEL even more popular that it was—and it was very popular.

The name Charlotte, on the other hand, has been in the Top Ten for six years, none of those years yet at #1. Its highest usage was in 2019, when it was used for .72% of baby girls. Jennifer was used at 5-6 TIMES that rate. For every FIVE TO SIX Jennifers back then, there is only ONE Charlotte now. When you were in school, I’ll bet you frequently had another Jennifer in your classroom with you, sometimes two other Jennifers. Think back: did you ever have FIVE more Jennifers with you in a single classroom? That is approximately how often there are two Charlottes in a classroom now.

Of course, those are national statistics: some locations are going to have more Charlottes than that, and in others there will be almost no Charlottes. We’ve all heard/experienced situations where someone chose, say, Juniper to avoid the popularity of Harper, and then there happened to be three Junipers and no Harpers in that grade. There were THREE Roberts (.48% usage nationally) in Elizabeth’s classroom one year, and three Josephs (.90% national usage) (all three going by Joey, and two of them having the same middle name, and a different two having the same surname initial) in Edward’s class another year: statistics are broad, and local anomalies happen. But IN GENERAL, the name Charlotte is not even in the same orbit/league as the name Jennifer—NO name is now in the same orbit/league as the name Jennifer, nor has any name come close in recent years: even extremely popular names max out at about 1/3rd-1/4th Jennifer’s usage, and for much shorter reigns.

Well. Let’s look at the other names on the list. I do think a certain level of fatigue can set in, and that you’re right that the weight of responsibility makes it harder—and especially if you’re thinking this might be The Only Name You Ever Choose. I don’t know if this will help you, but it helped me: your parental responsibility is to give her a good solid usable name. It doesn’t have to be The Best Name or The Perfect Name or the name that shines out obviously as The One. She just needs something to write on her homework papers, and for you to call out when it’s time for dinner. Think of long-ago generations of parents, who were just like “I don’t know, I guess Mary for a girl, John for a boy.” They did not sweat the way we sweat. They just picked one of the dozen or so names that were commonly used, and they went on with their lives.

All of the names are your list are good, solid, usable names; you can’t go wrong here. And I don’t see any style concerns to work through: that is, if your girl-name list were Josephine, Charlotte, Avery, and Riley, I would suggest narrowing down your style before starting the naming process, so you don’t get backed into a corner later on if you were to change your mind about having more children. But all the names on your list are of compatible/adjacent styles: even if you were to have more children, I don’t think you’re going to use Charlotte and then be having another baby and think “Oh no, none of our other girl names work with Charlotte!”

One exercise I used to narrow down my own list was to imagine the kids sitting around the dinner table, or draped around the living room. Which sorts of names feel like “my kids”? Or I would imagine giving the name at the doctor’s office, or writing it on school registration paperwork. Maybe ALL the names sound a little funny, just because it’s hard to picture theoretical kids—but some names felt more comfortable/natural than others.

Sometimes it helps to look for similar names (whatever similarity looks like to the particular parents), if only to rule them out and feel more strongly about the originals. Charlotte might lead me to Scarlet and Violet and Juliet (I remember the no J’s rule, but am including it just as part of the exercise) and Celeste; Liliana to Vivienne and Eliana and Lillian and Jillian and Lydia; Victoria to Veronica and Bianca and Catherine; Penelope to Calliope and Phoebe and Eleanor and Philippa; Ramona to Simone and Fiona; Rosalie to Rosemary and Natalie and Romilly; Theodora to Dorothea and Cordelia and Thomasina and Claudia and Georgia.

Sometimes it helps to simplify the name: Liliana to options such as Lily and Anna; Penelope to Nell and Elle; Rosalie to Rose and Leigh and Lia; Theodora to Thea. And you can play with those pieces, too: maybe you take the Anna and the Elle and it makes you think of Annabel. Or the Nell of Penelope makes you think of other names Nell can be short for, such as Eleanor. Maybe you’re thinking about how you’d like to use the nickname Lottie for a Charlotte, and that makes you think of Lettie and Etta and Hattie, and you end up considering Violet and Henrietta and Harriet. Or maybe you’re dividing Theodora, and you think of Dora but don’t want to use that, but Dora makes you think of Nora and Cora, and Cora makes you think of Clara, and so on.

Because you like Josephine and Ramona, I’d like to specifically draw your attention to the names Fiona and Simone. Both are relatively uncommon, yet easy to pronounce and spell. They both seem like they’d work well with a longer surname.

And Theodora and Liliana make me think of Lydia, which would let you still use Josephine as the middle. Lydia Josephine.

Name update:

Dear Swistle,
Liliana Josephine joined us in the wee hours of Saturday morning! We love her and her name and all the many, many nicknames she’s already inspired.
Thanks again for tackling my question!

Hi Swistle,

Baby girl is due in 4 days and I am freaking out! We have no idea what her name is going to be, and I’m desperate for an outside opinion.

For context: I’m Elisabeth and my husband is Michael, and our last name sounds like Harding. This will be our first child together, but we each have children from prior marriages. I have two daughters, Hannah Eileen (8) and Norah Joanne (5), and he has a son, Holden Emory (7).

Because both Holden and Hannah start with H, we don’t want another H name, which would cause Norah to feel left out. Unfortunately, Harleigh, Hartley, and Hailey are all among my favorite names. Even more unfortunately, hubby actually really likes all of those. Eek! Why are the only names we can agree on the ones we cannot use?

At five, Norah is really at the peak of understanding her name versus her siblings’ names and I don’t think I would feel comfortable with her being the only non H. She is already losing her spot as the youngest and I wouldn’t want to make it an even harder transition for her, so the no H thing is fairly non negotiable.

Ok, onto other possibilities. The middle name we like is Corinne, but this is still rather up in the air. Our first choice is Hailey Corinne, but obviously that’s not going to happen. As for first names, here is our list:

Caitlyn
Piper
Willa
Lilly
Clare
Rose
Grace

Obviously our taste is kind of short and sweet and more contemporary names, although we’re having so much trouble fully agreeing to anything. There’s just nothing we love as much as Hailey Corinne, and that sings to our hearts the way it does. As far as personal preferences go, my favorite is probably Clare or Grace, while my husband favors Piper and Lilly. I also love Rose, but do not like Rosie but Rose Corinne does flow nicely to me. Caitlyn is also nice but I’m still on the fence about it, while Willa is a bit outside our normal range which makes me a little

I hope you can help us narrow down this list but also add some suggestions of your own! With the due date coming so close we are in desperate need of some advice and an outside opinion!

Thanks so much,
Lissie and Mike Harding

It is hard when a preference is so strong/important that it has to rule out the parents’ first-choice name. What I suggest in situations like this is a redirect: Don’t try to find a name you love as much as Hailey Corinne, or a name that makes your hearts sing as much, because there might not BE any such name. Don’t compare your new list to Hailey Corinne, because you’ve ruled that name out and it is no longer relevant. Instead, make your goal to find your favorite of all the non-H names, and only compare those names to each other.

Would it be fun in any way to choose a name that starts with N? I don’t mean in an “Oh, no, now our choices are even more limited!” kind of way, but more in a “Let’s try this interesting little side path first!” kind of way. We’ve just done Our Favorite Baby Names Starting with N, if that would be helpful. Nadia is pretty: it gives all three girls an -a/-ah ending but with a different sound to it, and it ties into the -d- of Holden and of the surname. Nadia Harding; Nadia Corinne; Hannah, Holden, Norah, and Nadia.

If she is born in December—well, I am a sucker for a good holiday-themed name, and would lean very hard toward Noelle. Noelle Harding; Noelle Corinne; Hannah, Holden, Norah, and Noelle.

Or do you have any interest in switching first/middle? Especially adding an -a: I think Corinna Hailey is very pretty, and lets you have most of what you wanted, without ending up with an H- first name. Corinna Harding; Corinna Hailey; Hannah, Holden, Norah, and Corinna. And I also like Hannah, Holden, Norah, and Corinne.

From your list, I like Willa if it appeals to you to give all three girls -a/-ah endings: I like the old-fashioned sound of it with Hannah and Norah. Willa Harding; Willa Corinne; Hannah, Holden, Norah, Willa.

I also like Lilly, Clare, Rose, and Grace: all great vintage-revival choices, all good with the sibling names, all good with the surname and middle name.

Piper feels to me like a sudden style jump: it’s great with just Holden, but doesn’t feel like a natural choice with Hannah and Norah, and emphasizes the change in naming partners. Caitlyn is a name that has had an extended season in the sun, and now perhaps is ready to take a well-deserved rest until its revival in a few generations.

We can also look for names similar to Hailey/Harleigh/Hartley—though I’m nervous that many of those veer from the style of her sisters’ names: e.g., I could suggest Kailey/Bailey/Paisley, and Marleigh/Carly, and Carter/Courtney/Atley, but those seem mismatched with Hannah and Norah. So I’m going to be looking for names that ideally combine to some degree the sounds of Hailey/Harleigh/Hartley with to some degree the style of Hannah/Norah; I’ll also add in anything else I find during the search:

Abigail
Ada
Adelaide
Audrey
Charlotte
Claudia
Dahlia
Daisy
Darcy
Elena
Faith
Garnet
Ivy
Jane
Laney
Layla
Lilah
Maisie
Margaret
Margo(t)
Molly
Rosalie
Sadie

Name update:

I’m sure you normally don’t get updates this soon, but then again I suppose most people write to you more than four days before their due date. :)
On December first, Noelle Corinna Harding was born at 5:36 am, happy and healthy. Older siblings Hannah, Holden and Norah are over the moon with joy. We are so happy with her name! Thank you so much for the suggestion of Noelle, Swistle, it’s absolutely adorable and suits her perfectly. She is our little Christmas baby.
Many thanks to you and your readers for all the help!
Lissie, Mike, Hannah, Holden, Norah and baby Noelle