Erin writes:

I am currently pregnant with my second son, due December 24th, 2010. Our first son’s name is Trent Michael. Michael is a family name, and for our second we also want to use a family name, which is Nikolas. We are also open to using the name Petr as the middle name, if it goes better with the first name.
I would like to name our son Silas, whereas my husband likes Dexter. We like names that are not common, but also not out-there, made up, or hippy-dippy in any way. Trent, we feel is a solid, respectable sounding, serious name and we’d like something similar for our second.
Personally, I like to put “Judge” in front of the name to see if it sounds good…
I cannot, in good conscience, strong-arm my husband into the name I like, but I also need to love the name, since I adore the name Trent.
Any suggestions that would bridge the gap?

 
Bryce
Clark
Curtis
Dean
Declan
Derek
Everett
Reid
Scott
Simon

Name update! Erin writes:

Thanks to you and all your readers for some really great suggestions! I am all set if we end up with boy #3! As it turns out, the husband and I came to an agreement. He let me have the first name if he could have the second, so it will be Silas Andrew (his fathers name). We briefly flirted with Baxter, but we had been calling him Silas for so long, that it had just stuck.

Thanks!

Laney writes:

Sorry this is late notice, but I am due on the 12th of November and I would like some name help! (I only came across your blog today).

I’m Laney and my boyfriend Ryan and I are expecting our first baby – a girl! We are so excited, but we still don’t have her name chosen. We are planning on waiting until we see her, but I am a little bit worried that I won’t be able to choose as I love the names we have picked out all equally.

Ryan wants her to have an ‘L’ name like mine, which I think is sweet and a great idea! Her middle names will either be Charlotte Rose or Amelia Rose (family tradition – my grandmother is Margaret Jane Louise, my mum is Casey Michelle Jane, I am Laney Rose Michelle, so my baby will be ____ ____ Rose).

Here are the names we have picked out:
Leah Charlotte Rose
Lila Charlotte Rose
Lucy Amelia Rose

However we can’t choose our favourite! So which one do you like the most?

Another name that I LOVE that Ryan isn’t as keen on is Grace Amelia Rose “Gracie”, and another name that Ryan LOVES and I’m not as keen on is Keira Scarlett Rose. Today I also thought of Elizabeth Charlotte Rose “Libby”, though I haven’t consulted Ryan yet. Do either of these sound any better?

If you have any other suggestions for girl names starting with ‘L’?

Thanks!

One of my favorite girl L names is Lorelei. So pretty! Other possibilities:

Laurel
Leila
Lena
Liana
Liesl
Liliana
Lindsay
Linnea
Lissandra
Liviana
Louisa

If your surname is uncommon, I’d lean more toward the common Lila and Lucy and Elizabeth and Grace. If your surname is common, I’d lean more toward the less-common Lorelei and Laurel and Liviana. (Isn’t Liviana pretty? And a good alternative for those of us who love Olivia. I only just found it this morning in The Baby Name Wizard while working on this question.)

I don’t think I’d use Scarlett and Rose together, since together they sound either like two colors or like an adjective and a noun. Charlotte Rose and Amelia Rose are both great—I’d have a hard time choosing. Or, the first of the middle name slots would be a good place for Keira, Libby, or Gracie. Some of my favorite combinations:

Laurel Amelia Rose
Liliana Charlotte Rose
Linnea Charlotte Rose
Liviana Charlotte Rose
Lorelei Amelia Rose
Louisa Charlotte Rose

And let’s have a poll over to the right for your three finalists. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Name update 11-09-2010! Laney writes:

She’s here! She arrived on November 6th, and is doing great. She was 6lbs 13oz, and 20 inches long!
We decided to go with Leah Madeleine Rose. I think I always knew her name was Leah – it had always been one of my favourite names. We only had to decide between Charlotte or Madeleine for the first middle name, and we decided that Madeleine was best for her. I LOVE her name, and I can’t stop saying it. Thanks so much Swistle for posting the question, and thanks for everyone who answered. You really did make me realise that Leah was the perfect name for her :-)

Here is a picture of Leah:

Rebecca writes:

We’re expecting baby numero dos on or around December 23rd, 2010, gender unknown. Somehow we’ve gotten ourselves into quite the naming conundrum this time around! Which is why we would love to enlist you and your readers’ help. Our daughter’s name is Harper Grace and our surname is pronounced ‘Reese’. My naming ‘rules’ are 1) must be somewhat uncommon, not trendy, 2) must be able to look at the name and pronounce it correctly, 3) must flow well with our daughter’s name. Two and a half years ago when we picked the name Harper, we had no idea how popular it would become (and quickly!). Sorta trying to avoid that this time around, but I just need some opinions that come from outside my own head!

We welcome any and all ideas and new names as well. For some reason, our boy names have always been very biblical-sounding and girl names, not so much. Clearly, we’re open to anything. Thanks a bundle!

Girls
Gretta
Atley
Morrow
Eisley
Briar
Matilda, nn Tilly (my husband’s favorite; I’m on the fence)

Middle name options for girls include: Kathryn, Kate, Paige, and Madeline.

Boys
Shepard
Abraham
Judah
Silas (one of my favorites, just don’t know if its too many ‘s’ sounds with our surname)

Middle name options for boys: Benjamin (my husband’s name), but if we go with Shepard, it would be Eli or Elias.

Shepard is one of my favorite unusual boy names, but I think with Harper it’s too careery. Or too nativity, or something. Were harpists present at the nativity? Anyway. Too many trade names.

My favorite from your boy name list is Silas. If you decide it’s too much S, I wonder if you’d like Simon or Simeon? Simeon Elias, maybe.

The girl name list is harder to narrow down. Morrow and Eisley and Atley seem too unusual with Harper (and for me, both Morrow and Eisley break the rule about being able to look at it and pronounce it correctly), and Matilda and Gretta are such a totally different style (sturdy and retro rather than trade/literary/surname name). Briar would be my choice except that then both names end in the -er sound. I think that’s okay since the names are so different in other ways, but I’d still prefer to avoid it. And maybe Atley wouldn’t be too unusual: it’s highly uncommon, but I feel as if I’m familiar with it—in a way I don’t feel about Morrow and Eisley.

More possibilities:

Averil Madeline Reese, Harper and Averil
Cleo Madeline Reese, Harper and Cleo
Ellery Kathryn Reese, Harper and Ellery
Ellison Kate Reese, Harper and Ellison
Elodie Kathryn Reese, Harper and Elodie
Flannery Kate Reese, Harper and Flannery (too literary?)
Hollis Kathryn Reese, Harper and Hollis (repeating H-)
Jensen Paige Reese, Harper and Jensen
Kiefer Kathryn Reese, Harper and Kiefer (repeating -er)
Madigan Kate Reese, Harper and Madigan
Marlowe Kathryn Reese, Harper and Marlowe
Quincy Kate Reese, Harper and Quincy
Waverly Kathryn Reese, Harper and Waverly
Yeardley Kate Reese, Harper and Yeardley

Name update! Rebecca writes:

Just wanted to let you know our babe decided to make an appearance on December 22, 2010. Its a girl! After much contemplation and back & forth, we named her Rowan Kate. It was one of your reader’s suggestions and my husband and I both loved it–and that isn’t easy to achieve! It suits her just perfectly and we feel so blessed. Thanks again for all your help!

Kacie writes:

I am 33 weeks pregnant (the 40-week mark is Dec. 16) with a little girl. My husband and I cannot figure out who she is! I’m thinking we’ll probably need to see her before we can truly decide, but in the meantime, I’m desperate for some suggestions we can work with.

Our last name, spelled phonetically, is ACK-sum. To me, this eliminates all first names that begin and end with an “a” sound. That’s a LOT of girl names! Also, names that end with an “m” sound too sing-songy to me. I think names that end with a consonant sound best.

My son has a traditional name that is fairly high on the SSA chart. He is Jonathan and goes by Johnny. When we chose it, we thought we picked a name that anyone could spell. Nope — even our own family has spelled it Johnathan or Jonathon. Oh well.

Names on our “maybe” list:

Vivienne (this is the front-runner for now)
Jocelyn (nickname of Josie is cute, but we think Jocelyn sounds too similar to Jonathan. We liked this one a lot for awhile, but it just has grown out of favor for us)
Evelyn (not sure if I like any of the nicknames for it)
Evangeline (my husband thinks this is too clunky and not that pretty)

Names on our “nope” list:

Caroline (I like it but my SIL has claimed it for her own future daughter, and I’m not about to cause drama by stealing it!)
Madeleine (not liking nickname possibilities)
Marilyn (I always think of Marilyn Monroe)
Clementine (I thought this would be a fantastic middle name but my husband vetoed that one pretty strongly)
Charlotte (it’s nice, but it’s the name of someone in our family and so that’s why we don’t want to use it)
any name that ends with an “een” sound

Can you help? First name suggestions would be great, and if you want to throw in some middle name ideas, so much the better!

Jocelyn/Josie makes me think of Josephine. Jonathan and Josephine don’t sound too close to me, and Johnny and Josie is too adorbs for words. But it ends in an -een sound.

Evelyn and Evangeline and Clementine make me think of Emmeline. Emmeline Acksum, Jonathan and Emmeline. My mom and I have noticed that “Louise” makes a great middle name (not only for the “fun to say” factor but because as others have mentioned you can shorten it to Lou and use it for an extended nickname with the first name): Emmeline Louise Acksum, and you could call her Emmie Lou sometimes.

Vivienne and Evelyn make me think of Lillian. Lillian Abigail Acksum, Jonathan and Lillian, Johnny and Lilly.

One of my favorites is Celeste. Celeste Olivia Acksum, Jonathan and Celeste.

Margaret sounds similar to Charlotte and has so many nicknames. Margaret Louise Acksum, Jonathan and Margaret, Johnny and Maggie/Meg/Greta/Daisy.

Name update! Kacie writes:

Thank you for your help with narrowing down our baby name choices. I’m happy to announce that our daughter, Vivienne Elise, is here! She was born on Dec. 17.

I think my husband needed extra assurance that Vivienne really is a great name, even though we don’t know anyone with that name in our generation. He was worried it would be too uncommon or old-fashioned, but he’s grown to really like it. And after we announced her birth, we’ve had lots of positive feedback.

I suggested Elise way back in the middle of summer, and he vetoed it because he hadn’t ever heard of it. And wouldn’t you know it, a month or so ago he suggests it for the middle name spot. We like the delicate sound and think it all flows nicely.

Thanks again!

Mathilda writes:

I’m due to have a c-section this Thursday (Oct. 28) and my husband and I are still looking for ideas for a middle name. I thought we could manage, but my due date is coming up quickly, and I’m at a complete loss. My sister referred me to youcantcallitit, which led me to Appellation Mountain, which led me to you. I’ve been reading past posts for nearly an hour now. It seems to me that you all have great naming insights, and I was wondering if you or your readers could give us any ideas.

We’ve chosen Nathaniel as a first name, but don’t even have one solid middle name option. We like older, underused boys’ names that are out of the mainstream. Nathaniel is more popular than we’d like, so we were hoping to find a more uncommon middle name.

Our other children are Emma-Grace Iselin Murrah
Branson Levi Murrah
Chandler Jacoby (jack-o-bee) Murrah

We’d be immensely grateful for any suggestions!

Name update! Mathilda writes:

Thanks for putting up the post so quickly. I wanted to let you know we decided to name him Nathaniel Justice. There were so many great suggestions, but I felt like this name really clicked with my husband and I. Thanks so much for your help!

Mathilda

PS: I’ve attached a picture of him as well.

Pamela writes:

I need help with nicknames.

My husband really wants to name our baby Jonathan Elias Orellano. I also like Jonathan, but don’t like the common nicknames that people shorten it to. I hate Jonny and Jon and don’t like Nathan either. I’m not sure I would like using Elias for a first name. I’ve also checked out all the international versions of Jonathan and John and none of them seems just right. I would like to come up with a unique catchy nickname maybe from letters or parts of his name or names.

Thanks so much for any help or advice you can give!

I suggest Jay. I knew a lot of nice guys named Jay in high school, and Jay can be a nickname for anyone whose name starts with J.

You could also go with Jeo (pronounced gee-oh), his initials.

My mom knows a child who goes by “Thanny.”

Or, call him Jonathan. This is one of the best times to live in for calling a child by his or her full name: Jameses and Elizabeths abound, free of Jim and Beth. But of course this doesn’t keep him from choosing a nickname for himself later on.

Name update! Pamela writes:

Thanks so much for all your comments. We have finally decided to stick with the full name Jonathan. I was encouraged to hear that many parents are choosing to call their children by full names and not nicknames. I did like some of the suggestions though, Jonjee and Jonty are cute.

Rebecca writes:

One of my dearest friends has been following you for years and I’ve definitely become a loyal reader these past few months. My husband and I are expecting our 2nd daughter and we just can’t seem to agree on a name. Not really, anyway. We practically chose our daughter’s name when we were on our honeymoon (after a character in a book we were reading at the time, and loved) – a full 3 years in advance of her arrival! But apparently, that’s all the inspiration we have. Now that we’re dreaming up names for a second girl, we’re stuck. It seems to be the classic problem.. I come up with a long list of lovely names and my husband vetos almost all of them.

We’re due the first week of December and our first daughter is Clare Elizabeth. Our last name sounds like “Ho” (all jokes about Heidi, Thali, Randie, and Harry/Harriet have been made, I promise). My husband and his family are Chinese-Canadian.

We shy away from names that are trendy. For example, Avery was on our list until we discovered that there are 4 at our daughter’s daycare centre. We seem drawn to fairly traditional names. Our top 5 so far are:

Julia
Charlotte (Charlie)
Madeline (Maddy)
Margaret (Maggie)
Catherine/Katherine (Cate/Kate)

The predicament is that I love Julia and my husband dramatically prefers Kate. Julia’s at the bottom of his favs and Cate is at the bottom of mine.

The other predicament is that we have almost no plan for a middle name. My family tradition would be to choose something from the family but there are some slim pickings (Joan, Evelyn, Dorothy, Louise, Kathleen, Eva, Theresa, Cynthia for example). I would love to choose a middle name that leant itself to an initial-based nickname .. like Charlotte Joan (CJ) or AJ, JJ, JD, etc. My husband “refuses, under any circumstances to call (his) daughter by her initials.” Ideally the middle name would come from the list above but feel free to offer some new suggestions for a middle name. We may just have to break with tradition this time.

Finally, I don’t like aliteration and I’m not sure that I like both daughters having a hard ‘C’ sound at the front of their names. Hence my reservation with Cate.

Thanks so much to you and your readers!

 
Let’s see what happens when we get rid of both Julia and Cate. That leaves Charlotte, Madeline, and Margaret. And you have GREAT family names for the middle name! Joan, Evelyn, Louise, and Eva are my favorites.

My own favorite of the three remaining names is Margaret, and I like it with any of those middle names. I particularly like it with the shorter middle names, since that gives a balanced feeling with your first daughter’s name: one longer name and one shorter. Clare Elizabeth and Margaret Joan, or Clare Elizabeth and Margaret Eva.

But Madeline and Charlotte also work well with the middle names: Madeline Joan, Madeline Louise, Charlotte Joan, Charlotte Louse.

I think we’d better have a poll. I’ll include all five of your finalists. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Name update! Rebecca writes:

Our baby girl arrived a little bit ahead of schedule – November 28th, 2010. Your comments really helped us come to a decision on her name. In fact, your suggestion of removing both Julia and Cate from our short list helped us realize that we really didn’t want Julia eliminated from contention. Sometimes being told that you can’t have something only makes you want it more, doesn’t it? So, that’s all it took! Our 2nd daughter is Julia Louise Ho and she’s truly lovely. We couldn’t be happier. Thanks for all your help.

Tiffany writes:

Our second child, a boy, is due on November 30. We were all set on a girl’s name, Ava Rose. We already have a little girl named Piper Iliana. I always loved the name Piper and we had decided on that name for our first girl before we were even married. Now that we are having a little boy, we are stuck. We like a lot of names with different styles, but can’t seem to agree! Everyone has their opinion in our large family! The middle name will be “Reece.” That is my husband and father-in-law’s middle name, so at least that part was easy! I will list the names we like and the problems we have with them. We don’t like names that are really common (except obviously Ava), we have a very large, close family, so lots of interesting names are already taken (Abram, Joah, Evan, etc.)!

*Archer

We really liked this name, but it doesn’t sound well with our last name, Church.

*Liam

Everyone either doesn’t like this name, or pronounces it like “limb” which I can’t stand.

*Ryder

Everyone brings up the sound of “ride-her” which bugs me! This is one of our favorites.

*Emmett

I love this name, but am afraid everyone will associate it with Twilight.

*Thaddeus

I like this name, but am afraid it is a little too unusual.

*Finn

I like this name, but am not sure if I want to go with just Finn or as a nn for something else!

* Everett

This is one that we both kind of like, but don’t love.

Please help us with our naming dilemma! We thought it would be so easy to pick out a name for this baby! I am the kind of person that likes to know my baby’s name early so I can get used to calling him by name! Thanks so much in advance!!!

 
I do associate the name Edward with Twilight, but only partly—and I definitely don’t think the association with Emmett is strong enough to throw it out, and I think Piper and Emmett is wonderful. Let’s have a poll over to the right! [Poll closed; see results below.]

Name update! Tiffany writes:

Thank you for all your suggestions and the poll! In the end, we decided on a name that wasn’t on our list at all. Gabriel Reece Church arrived happy and healthy on November 26, 2010! In the end, we both made a list of ten names and Gabriel was on my husband’s list and we fell in love with it! We also decided to keep it a secret since we have such opinionated families and called him “Pinto” the whole pregnancy!

Thanks again!

Keryn writes:

We are due with our second baby (gender unknown) November 26. This baby will be younger sibling to our son, 3-year-old Griffin Kenneth Wilson. I’m having the most trouble with girl names, and I could use some help. We have decided for sure that we will use my grandmother’s name, Angela, as a middle name. For this reason, and also because we aren’t really drawn to the “girlie girl” names, we don’t want a name that ends in “a.” I like the surname for first name trend, and I also like names that are a little unisex. That being said, I don’t want a “trendy” name, if that makes sense. Here is our current list:

Emery Angela Wilson – I love this name but my husband doesn’t really care for it.
Berkeley Angela Wilson – I actually came up with this one and my husband loves it, but I’ve read some posts online where people hate the name Berkeley for a girl! I think it’s cool. I’d like some feedback on this name in particular.
Keaton Angela Wilson – Both my husband and myself have names that begin in “Ke” (Ken and Keryn) so I’m afraid this would be weird for Griffin to have the rest of us have matchy “K” names (am I overthinking this?)

We’re really stuck here and I would LOVE some additional suggestions. Don’t even get me started on boy names (although if anyone has some cool boy’s name suggestions that would go with the middle name “Strummer” I’d love to hear them. We’ve picked that middle name in honor of Joe Strummer, who we both love.)

Thanks a million!

If you and your husband both love Berkeley Angela Wilson, I think you should ignore the element of “some people hate it.” The thing is, there are some people to hate EVERY name.

For boys, I like Otto Strummer Wilson and Harris Strummer Wilson and Emmett Strummer Wilson.

Name update! Keryn writes:

I wanted to let you know that Griffin got a baby sister on November 23 and we named her Harper Angela Wilson. She’s an angel.

Thanks for all the advice!

Raechel writes:

We’re quickly approaching our due date, Nov. 14th, with no name that we can agree upon. My husband initially wanted to use a family name, either Caroline or Katherine. I don’t care much for either – they are beautiful names but I don’t want our girl to be named either.

Half way through the pregnancy, his mother tells us that each first born daughter on her side has had the first or middle name of Elizabeth. “No pressure”, though, but also no real alternative. Baby Girl’s middle name will be Elizabeth. Though we should name her what we want (versus what she feels appropriate), Elizabeth as a middle name is 99.9% non-negotiable.

This left me wanting to use a family name from my side for her first name. My initial idea was Violet but my heart isn’t set on it. The other family name is Barbara but we won’t be using that.

We both liked Mari for awhile — we liked it was a name seen in different cultures, such as Scandanavian and Japanese. We live on a Japanese island so we felt it’d be a neat tie for her when we returned to the States. Recently, though, we decided against it because of the alliteration and similarity to his mom’s name, Mary.

I like ‘old’ names (antique if you will) but would like something bordering on uncommon. A name I recently stumbled upon was Genevie, a variant of Genevive. Vivienne is also pretty, as is Charlotte – for examples – though the names haven’t reached out and said, “This may be the one.”

Our last name is Malmberg, pronounced Mall-m-berg. Can you think of any names that are on the traditional side that have an antique feel? I am open for any other suggestions you think may fit as well.

The tricky part of what The Baby Name Wizard calls “Antique Charm” names is that the entire category is in style. Vivienne, Charlotte, Genevieve—all getting more popular each year, and with the potential to get VERY popular. This doesn’t bother me very much because any name that’s a “revival” is a name that’s likely to wax and wane over the years but always be a good solid choice. I’m mentioning it only because you’d like something bordering on uncommon, in which case I’m worried this category will lead to later disappointment if a name continues to get more common. I recommend using the Social Security Administration’s baby name site to track the recent progress of each name: is it making huge startling leaps, or just a slow gradual increase reflecting the increasing popularity of its category?

It’s too bad the name Elizabeth means Eliza is out, because I love it with your surname: Eliza Malmberg.

I also like Stella, but it’s what I consider a “startling leaps” name:

(screenshot from SSA.gov)

Clara is rising, too, but not as startlingly. Clara Malmberg, Clara Elizabeth Malmberg.

Cecily is a name I’d EXPECT to see rising, but instead it’s fallen completely out of the Top 1000. Cecily Malmberg, Cecily Elizabeth Malmberg.

Fiona isn’t quite what you’ve asked for, but I wonder if you’d like it? Fiona Malmberg.

But here is my #1 choice for you: Felicity. I don’t know why this name isn’t increasing with the other sweeties like Emma and Madeline and Abigail, but it just ISN’T. Felicity Elizabeth Malmberg.

Name update! Raechel writes:

Thank you so very much for your suggestions — and thank you to those who commented with suggestions as well!

Evelyn Elizabeth was born on November 18th at 13:41 at 20″ long and weighing 6lbs 12oz. She didn’t have a name until Friday afternoon as we couldn’t decide but we are happy with our choice now.

Thank you again!