First post of this series, with longer explanation, here.

This time we are not just listing our favorite names starting with a letter, as we did before: we are forming SIBSETS. You can choose any number of siblings, any number of boys/girls, any number of sibsets. This might be TOO broad in scope and, as we play, we might come up with better guidelines. But for now, the idea is that we are imagining a little sibling set of children (they do not have to be our own children), and all of their names are going to start with the same letter, and we will just see how things go from there. As before, you can say as much or as little as you like about your decision-making process, and you can choose multiple sibling sets (“This is what I’d choose for two girls, this is what I’d choose for three boys, this is what I’d choose for one boy and one girl…”) or just one—whatever is most fun / whatever you have the time and energy for on that particular day. I liked the idea some people had of re-naming their actual children with matching initials. (I am not going to attempt that with the more difficult letters.)

Today we work on the letter V. When we played the previous game with V, I liked Veronica and Vanessa and Verity and Victoria and Vivian for girls, but had a harder time with boys: I liked Vaughn, Vernon, Victor, Vince, but none as much as I like the girl names.

But because there ARE four boy names, I am going to pretend I am forced to rename my existing children using V names. I choose Vernon, Vaughn, Veronica, Victor, and Vince, in that order. Veronica/Victor are the twins, and I like the way the two names share the snappy hard-C sound as well as the V. (I DON’T like the way it keeps making my brain glitch and think the girl-name is Victoria.) I wouldn’t normally put Vernon and Veronica in the same sibling set, but desperate times etc.

If my kids were instead four girls and one boy, I would name them Vanessa, Vivian, Vaughn, Veronica, and Verity. I’m pairing Vaughn/Veronica for the twins because I like the similar vowel sound of vaughn/ron. I had trouble with the name for the youngest, because I would rather use Victoria than Verity, but Victoria is so similar in sound/letters to the Veronica right before it; so then I thought, not only is Verity a different set of sounds (even though the Ver-/Ver- of Veronica/Verity LOOKS similar), but also by the fifth child I’d be more willing to steer off my usual style path.

Update on Middle Name Challenge: Baby Girl Corinne _______ Kitten

Update on Baby Girl Instiss, Sister to Laura Tilson “Tilly” and Louisa Susan “Lulu”

Hi Swistle,

I’ve read your blog for YEARS and now find myself needing your assistance. We are due in November with our first baby and are not finding out gender. We are very set on a boy’s name (Samuel) and should have no issues with a middle name.

We are STUCK on girl’s names. Our top two favorite names are Emilia and Everly (both E names completely unintended). We think for this first girl we are leaning with Emilia. We originally were going for Amelia but changed to the Emilia spelling for the nickname option of Emi, which we love. So first question: will Emilia have to go through her life spelling her name over and over? Are we making a mistake choosing Emilia over Amelia?

Our second (and biggest) problem is middle names. We actually really love boy names on girls but want to stick with a traditional girls name for first name and possibly a boy-ish name for middle name. However, are having a truly difficult time finding one that flows well with Emilia. So far we have come up with:

Emilia Logan (current front runner)
Emilia Parker
Emilia Ryan (we know some Ryan’s, so iffy on this)
Emilia James
Emilia Evan (not sure we love the double E’s)
Emilia Riley

We’ve said these names aloud so many times that they’re all starting to sound the same and like none of them flow well. Can you and your readers give us some insight or suggestions? Should we give up the desire for a boy name?

We definitely plan for more kids, hopefully no more than 2 girls because really the only other girl name we have is Everly. We would probably do the same naming style for her if we can get Emilia to work.

Please help give this kid a name! :)

Yes, a girl named Emilia will have to spell her name over and over. But my name is Kristen and I have to spell it over and over, and it’s no big deal: some names just have more than one spelling, and it gets to be a habit to clarify: “My first name is Kristen: K-r-i-s-t-E-n.” It helps that the popularity of Em- names has made the Emilia spelling significantly more common in recent years: it spent decades not even in the Top 1000, but as of 2020 is the 40th most popular girl name in the United States (the spelling Amelia is #6). And if she uses the nickname Emi, that too will help guide people’s minds to the correct spelling.

I am not personally a fan of the trend of giving girls names-currently-used-more-often-for-boys as middle names, primarily because it annoys me that the trend does not go the other way: we are not hearing of a similar edgy trend of baby boys being given middle names such as Jane and Rose. (If the middle name candidates for Samuel include such names, then I withdraw my complaint.) But my own preferences are irrelevant for any babies not my own, and I think the middle name position is a terrific place for names you’d like to use as first names but have decided not to for one reason or another. I don’t see any particular flow issues with Emilia + any of the middle names you list: I think they all work well. I tripped a little bit over Emilia Parker C@mero—but the three names will hardly ever be said together, so that feels like a non-issue. One thing to watch out for: making sure you don’t accidentally use any names you may wish to use for future boys (or names that would rule out other names for you, if your preference is to avoid even similar names).

As far as I know, there is no way to find out usage information on middle names—but based solely on what people mention in their letters to this site, I can tell you that James seems to be far and away the most common of the names-currently-used-more-often-for-boys chosen as a middle name for girls. This could be a plus or a minus, depending on what you’re looking for.

If it helps, we can also look at the 2020 usage of these options as FIRST names in the U.S.:

Logan: 992 F, 9086 M
Parker: 2121 F, 3797 M
Ryan: 678 F, 5286 M
James: 63 F, 12250 M
Evan: 87 F, 3389 M
Riley: 5309 F, 1350 M

From this we can see that the name James is currently the most used-more-often-for-boys of the options, usage-wise: 12,250 new baby boys named James in 2020, and only 63 new baby girls. The name Riley, in contrast, is currently used more often for girls than for boys—and the numbers above don’t even take into account all the other spellings (another 2,677 new baby girls and 127 new baby boys named Rylee; another 1,742 new baby girls and 15 new baby boys named Ryleigh; etc.).

If Emilia Logan is your front-runner, I don’t see any reason not to go with that, or any reason to choose a different name instead.

Since this is your first child and you’re planning more, I’ll mention that I do notice that Emilia and Everly are very different styles, and also that Emi and Evvie are very similar-sounding nicknames, in case either of those situations affects which name you wish to use now. I would expect a child named Emilia to have sisters with names such as Eleanor and Sofia and Violet; I would expect a child named Everly to have sisters with names such as Emerson and Hadley and Brinley or (maybe not those exact ones, because of the repeated -ley—but names LIKE those). The two names aren’t startling together (the shared E- helps, I think: Amelia and Everly looks a little more surprising to me), and not all parents prefer for names to coordinate in style, but it’s the sort of thing I like to think about ahead of time, just to make sure I don’t make things difficult for myself later on. (We very nearly used the name Emerson for our first child, without realizing that our usual style for girls was more like Josephine and Elizabeth, names I don’t think coordinate well with Emerson, and we DO like at least some level of coordination; luckily, our first child was a boy, and by the time we had a girl we’d realized.) (Not that it would have mattered, since we had only one girl. BUT ANYWAY.)

Update on Baby Girl or Boy Rhymes-with-Mask, Sibling to Rose and Nolan

Update on Baby Girl or Boy Schoenfeld, Sibling to William Edward “Teddy”

Dear Swistle community,

Thank you for considering our baby naming adventure!

To say we are thrilled to welcome this baby at the start of August is an understatement. Our journey to this point was a long and hard one and we are so grateful to have this little one in our family at long last. This is our first and I have been baby crazy for oh say 20 years with a long list of names I loved to refine through the years. Through all the years I had the tendency to think about names in groupings – a little duo of a first and middle name.

That’s where the fun twist comes in. To shorten a long and personal story, during an especially dark time of the TTC (trying to conceive) journey my cousin who is like a sister had a dream that I had a baby named Remi Sunshine. I latched onto her dream and it pulled me through an extremely tough time – I made Remi Sunshine all my passwords, my visualizing exercises and my efforts to have some trust and faith that our Remi Sunshine would make their way to us had me using this name for 5 months before I got pregnant…and then once pregnant I knew this was our little Remi Sunshine. I’ve been through so much with this name I can’t leave it behind now, and luckily my husband is on board to incorporate Remi or Sunshine as either the first or middle name.

This makes my list pretty tricky since so many of my favorites had already been considered a pair.

We are both fans of the name Remi for either boy or girl and I do think Sunshine could be really sweet for a girl. Baby’s last name will be my husband’s last name, Kormushoff, so not exactly a free flowing last name.

We’re having a hard time deciding whether to incorporate Remi as a first or middle name, though we at least know that if it’s a girl Sunshine feels best as a middle name.

Our favorite boy names:
Calvin
August (Gus)
Hugh or Hugo
Louis
Roman

Our favorite girl names:
Louisa
Gemma
Willa
Georgina
Genevieve
Marigold
Mirabel
Ophelia

We are open to additional names to consider (particularly boy names because we find those harder) and would love thoughts on how to combine Remi or Sunshine for a name that feels like its own intentional duo.

Thanks so much!
Brenna

I gave this a little time to simmer, and I can tell you that for myself, if this were my situation, I think there are three ways to handle this that would satisfy me.

1. Give the child the first/middle names Remi Sunshine.

2. Give the child “Remi Sunshine” as the middle name. A child who doesn’t like any part of that middle name can drop one or the other on forms as they get older, but the whole name, as you have been using it, is included and intact. Calvin Remi Sunshine Kormushoff. Louisa Remi Sunshine Kormushoff. (Don’t be alarmed by HOW MUCH NAME this is. Middle names are used on the birth certificate and birth announcements, and then it’s pretty much just First Last from then until high school graduation. My daughter’s name, for example, is 30 letters long, divided among four names, and no one has ever said “Wow, that’s a lot of name!”—in large part because they only know her by her first/last.) (Not that “a lot of name” is a bad thing, even if someone DID think/say it! Think of the royals and their fabulous names that never quit!)

3. Give the child a name that does not include Remi or Sunshine, but then call the child Remi Sunshine interchangeably with their given name, as a special nickname that others may or may not pick up on. I’d probably make it a whole THING: personalized wall art with that nickname; “Remi Sunshine” on a baby blanket; etc.

For ME (and this is going to be HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE, and it’s only YOUR OWN subjective that matters here, but input from others can help clarify your own feelings), it would not satisfy me to, for example, use Remi as the middle name without Sunshine, or Sunshine without Remi; the special name, to me, feels like it is “Remi Sunshine,” the whole thing.

In your case, since you say you’ve always imagined names in first-middle pairings, that second idea (using “Remi Sunshine” as the middle name) may not be what makes you happy. Or you might find that breaking up the firsts/middles (especially when this is no longer a fun pre-baby game but is instead a two-parent job for a baby on the way) is one of the things you’re willing to do to make baby-naming work for this child and for this particular special name. It happens for most of us that there comes a point when two preferences are in opposition to each other, and in those situations the preferences need to be weighed: which is more important to you, giving this baby the name Remi Sunshine, or sticking with specific name pairings you came up with before the dream, before this baby?

I would like to add a possibility that you have likely already considered, but that many women don’t DEEP-DOWN consider until much later when they wonder why they didn’t: it doesn’t have to be your husband’s family surname. It could be yours, if yours is nicer and/or works better. It’s not too late for this idea, even if you took your husband’s family surname when you married; that’s a decision that can be re-made at any time.

Because I had to look it up, I want to give some U.S. usage data about the names Remi and Sunshine. I think of Remi as a boy name (despite not knowing any children named Remi), but in the U.S. its usage is currently unisex leaning girl: 2,185 new baby girls and 312 new baby boys named Remi in 2020; the spelling Remy was used for 610 new baby girls and 865 new baby boys. (Did the dream specify the spelling? or is “Remi” your cousin’s interpretation of the spelling? or is it YOUR interpretation of the spelling?) The name Sunshine, which could theoretically be a neutral noun name, and certainly should be usable as a middle name for boys alongside a trend of giving baby girls middle names such as James, was used in 2020 for 71 new baby girls, and there is no recorded use of it for boys (though of course we don’t know about middle-name usage). For better or worse (it’s worse), we as a culture think light pretty names are great for girls but not for boys. Still, I would feel comfortable using it as a second middle name for a boy, especially with the story to explain it. If he feels the negative pressure our culture asserts on topics such as this, then on the rare occasions when “What’s your middle name?” comes up, he can just say “Remi.” (But frankly, I would find it entirely charming to find out that a man’s second middle name was Sunshine, especially if he was kind of charmingly bashful about it, like he knew the information would surprise and delight.)

Dear Swistle,

We are expecting our third and final baby, whose gender we will learn when baby is born (the best surprise!). Our surname is Laherty with an F in front. Baby’s sister is Elis with two Ls (pronounced/spelled like the NY island) + Anne (both honor names, she is “sometimes” Elle or Ellie), and brother is Fin with two Ns + James (James is an honor name). We have a strong preference for Irish-inspired names and hope to include at least one honor name.

Our favorite girl names are Maeve, Molly, and Malone. If Maeve or Molly, we’d use Malone as a middle. BUT there’s a famous character named Molly Malone (and an accompanying song), that is not the most flattering. Malone is an honor name and my personal favorite but my husband isn’t sold yet; he finds it an odd girl first name. (What do you think? And, are Mallie and Ellie too similar if those nicknames stick?). If we decide on Malone as a first (and I can convince my husband), we’d want something feminine and short as a middle name. Kate (well, Katherine, but I think I’d shorten for middle) and Beth are both honor names.

So:
Molly Malone
Maeve Malone
Malone Kate
Malone Beth

For boys, we like Dillon, Blake, and Patrick. Middle name Malone. Derrick is also an honor name that we would consider incorporating, though I’m not sold. DMF initials would also honor a family member, but it’s not a dealbreaker.

What do you think?

Interestingly/unexpectedly, I have secondhand experience with a grown woman called Malone. She’s a friend of a friend, and my friend mentions her periodically to me, so I’ve had a chance to experience the name in that way—and I will say that for me, I went from “I never would have considered that name, especially for a girl/woman” to “THAT IS ONE OF THE BEST NAMES EVER, ESPECIALLY FOR A GIRL/WOMAN” in about two repetitions. I now think it’s a TERRIFIC name, and I find it extremely fun to say. I particularly like it for your sibling set, where the other girl has a unisex-used-more-often-for-boys surname name: pairing that with a non-surnamey name used exclusively for girls, such as Maeve or Molly, feels jarring to me. I find I am now hoping you will have a girl, so that you can name her Malone.

I’d note also that Molly could be used as a nickname for Malone: visually it didn’t occur to me, but when I was saying Malone aloud and testing it for nicknames, I tried out the Mal-y sound, which is almost the same as Molly. Ellie and Molly/Mallie is cute, and I don’t worry much about nicknames being too similar—but also, I don’t think they’re too similar for nicknames.

I like both Malone Kate/Katherine (I prefer Katherine) and Malone Beth; I think the only way I’d be able to decide between them would be to think of the potential honorees and which I’d prefer to honor, and/or which side of the family has been honored more often so far with the other children’s names (including surnames).

If your husband never does come around to Malone as a first name (I WEEP AT THE THOUGHT), then my second choice from your options is Maeve. I don’t worry much about nicknames being too similar, but it bothers me that Elis’s option for a more feminine name if she wants one, Ellie, would be so similar to her sister’s given name Molly. And my inclination is to do a hard-avoid of the Molly Malone combination. And Maeve seems more compatible with Elis and Fin. And Maeve Malone is fun to say.

Another option: Sloane. (Though not with Malone.) Somewhat similar in sound to Malone, and nice with the sibling names: Elis, Fin, and Sloane. I like it with Katherine as the middle.

Or if you enjoy some sound repetition, Rowan Malone is pretty fun to say.

Or Teagan? Elis, Fin, and Teagan.

Or Morgan. Elis, Fin, and Morgan.

Or Darby. Elis, Fin, and Darby.

Or Darcy. Elis, Fin, and Darcy. I don’t know if I like the -y ending with the surname. Though we just went through graduation season, and nothing makes me feel comfier about first/last combinations than hearing a whole bunch of them that are Not Quite Right on the drawing board and yet once given are Absolutely Completely Fine and No One Would Ever Think Anything of It.

Let’s see, now the boy names. I like the way Dillon and Derrick would give all three kids a double letter in their names; but that’s not important enough to make the decision, just a fun point in their favor. I think Dillon and Blake are best with Fin, but I feel like Dillon is teetering on the edge of being too similar to Elis: both with the short-I-double-L thing. I am leaning toward Derrick, if you come around to it: it has the snap of Patrick, while feeling a little fresher, and it gives all three kids’ names distinctive sounds. Elis, Fin, and Derrick. Derrick Malone is super. (Derrick with the surname has a repeating sound that some would love and others would prefer to avoid.) I think Blake works well, too: Elis, Fin, and Blake.

I feel a little tepid on Patrick, even though it’s a great name, just because Elis and Fin feel more modern and less common. (Patrick’s usage in the U.S. is currently less common than Fin’s, but the previous generations of Patricks gives the name a more familiar feeling.) I’d lean more toward something like Aidric or Declan or Broderick or Cormac.

Or Camden would be nice. Elis, Fin, and Camden; Ellie, Fin, and Cam.

Or Nolan! I love Nolan for this set. Elis, Fin, and Nolan. Downside: it’s odd with Malone as a middle, and I feel myself getting increasingly invested in Malone being part of the name. But Nolan Derrick is nice.

Or Keegan. Elis, Fin, and Keegan.

Or Keane. Elis, Fin, and Keane. I like how both boys get a one-syllable name—again, not to the point of letting it make the decision, just a point in its favor.

Another one-syllable option: Mack. Fun to say with Malone. Elis, Fin, and Mack.

Or Kieran. Elis, Fin, and Kieran. Or is that a bit challenging to say with the surname? I’ve said it so many times I’ve reduced it to meaningless component sounds and can no longer tell.

Similarly: Rory. A little odd with the surname, maybe?

Maybe Brody would be better. Elis, Fin, and Brody. Brody Malone is very fun to say.

Or Grady. Elis, Fin, and Grady.

I recently encountered a Kellan in real life and the name made a positive impression. Elis, Fin, and Kellan.

And Rowan can go on the boy list, too.

Dear Swistle community,

Thanks for considering my question! I am particularly eager to hear your thoughts as I am a solo mama by choice. Thus I have both all the power and all the responsibility in naming this kiddo (due to arrive early July, sex unknown). I have thought a lot about names for a long time, but have kept my lists private during pregnancy (I didn’t want a name I ultimately loved to be colored by close family’s opinions) and have had a couple names rise to the top. However, I’m feeling a lot of uncertainty committing to my boy name without getting some outside input from some name nerds – I’d love to hear your thoughts!

My last name is the month we are currently in (rhymes with “bay”) [note from Swistle: this email is from last month]. Given the shortness of my last name, I am very partial to a 3 syllable first name (that’s the case for my first name and I’ve liked it). For a girl I’m about 95% set on Josephine. Joseph is a family name and while I don’t want to have a “the third” for a boy, I do like this version as a girl’s name. I also really love that it gives the kiddo a lot of options in both length, style and “girliness” as they grow (Josephine, Josie, Jo, etc.). For middle names I’m considering Marion (a derivation of another family name) and Juniper (just love it, the sound, and the nature connotation).

With all that context here is my real question/conundrum. The boy name I’ve been holding on to all pregnancy is Orion. I like that it is short in letters, but has 3 syllables, I like that it is the constellation I can always find in the sky, and I think that it may be in that sweet spot of not too common, but also not too unique. But this is where I’m not sure –

Concerns:

1) will people hear it constantly as “ryan” leading the kid to have a lifetime of correction people,

2) is it common enough that people will pronounce it correctly (rather than or-ee-on) (I live in New England if that matters).

3) I like the nickname option Ori, however I am not Jewish and don’t want to appropriate

4) I’m not too up on my Greek classics – but the story of the hunter Orion is…not the most positive.

Most likely middle name is Thomas (a family name).

Other boy names on my list:
Finnian or Finnigan

Gideon

Brendan

Callum

Solomon

Theodore

This is my first child. I am unsure if I will have another, so for now just want to go with what works for this kiddo.

Thanks for your thoughts and perspectives on whether Orion will cause problems and whether there are other contenders I should be considering! For what it’s worth I have Irish heritage and am often drawn to that type of name (other than these of course).

Oh! Coincidentally, I have light experience with TWO boys named Orion/O’Ryan (one of each—and it’s interesting to me how two names pronounced the same can have such STRONGLY different style feelings): one was the younger sibling of a child we had some playdates with long ago, and the other was the son of a woman I worked with for awhile. So I can tell you what my own experience was.

First issue: The first time I heard the name Orion/O’Ryan in passing, I did mis-hear the name—not as Ryan, but just in a general not-being-able-to-catch-what-the-name-was kind of way. When I heard the name of the second Orion/O’Ryan, my experience with the first Orion/O’Ryan helped me hear it, and I only wondered if it were Orion or O’Ryan.

Second issue: I’m interested to hear from commenters if anyone would have thought to pronounce it OR-ree-on: I’m so familiar with the pronunciation like the constellation that it took me a second to even understand how it could be pronounced another way. My guess is that this is a non-issue: that even if someone DID once in a while have a little neuron misfire and say OR-ree-on, it wouldn’t be often enough to be annoying.

Third issue: I don’t know enough about this (particularly if it’s a nickname rather than the given name Ori), and am hoping we have commenters who know more.

Fourth issue: For those who need to brush up on Orion mythology, two of his more famous attributes are (1) hunter and (2) rapist. The hunting thing will be highly subjective: some people see hunting as killing things for the cruel fun of it, others see it as participating in nature as God intended, and there’s pretty much every view in between. In Orion’s case, one of the stories of his death is that he was such an avid creature-killer that he had to be stopped by another deity before he killed all the animals on earth—so that doesn’t feel to me as if it falls into the “killing respectfully and gratefully and only when necessary for survival” type of hunting; it’s the “killing living things unnecessarily/wastefully for fun and sport” type of hunting.

The rape story is unfortunate; on the other hand, so many male deities have a story that involves rape. Not that that makes it better, but it’s not something that stands out as particular to Orion—er, not that that makes it better, either.

And there’s one of Orion’s origin stories, which is that he was born because a bunch of male gods peed into a bull hide and buried it. My guess is that most people aren’t familiar with that story, but it’s common to do a mythology unit in school at some point, so there may be an uncomfortable few weeks. Still, speaking for myself, I was very keen on mythology in high school, and I didn’t remember this little tidbit at all. And when I encountered the two O’Ryans/Orions in real life, the ONLY thing I thought of was the constellation.

I wonder if you would like the name Oliver. Three syllables, only one more letter than Orion, and the nickname Ollie. More names that came to mind:

Calvin
Darrien
Declan
Elliot
Everett
Frederick
Nolan
Simon
Sullivan

Update on Baby Girl Power-with-a-B, Sister to Mischa and Angus