Update on Baby Names to Consider: Classic/Traditional Names with Atypical/Non-Traditional Nicknames

Update (with extra bonus updates) on Baby Naming Issue: If They Use the Mother’s Surname as the Baby’s First Name, Does the Mother Now Have to Change Her Surname?

Update (and photo) on Baby Girl Carsons-with-a-P, Sister to Brady and Campbell

It is a little difficult to turn one’s mind to baby names when there was a violent coup attempt in the U.S. last week and may be more to come. We will be gentle with ourselves, and not have high expectations.

In the meantime, if you had a question answered here and have an update to send in, this would be a great time to do it. If I get more than one, I’ll draw them out a bit and post one a day so we’ll all still know we’re here.

(If, however, writing a name update right now is too difficult to turn your mind to when there was a violent coup attempt in the U.S. last week and may be more to come, trust that we FULLY UNDERSTAND.)

Update on Baby Girl Black or Cohen

Update on Baby Girl A., Sister to Sawyer Beatrice

Hi,

Happy New Year!

I really enjoy your blog and hoping you can help with the impasse my husband and I are at naming our baby girl who is due in April 2021. Our son’s first name is August (nickname Gus) and middle name is Roland (family name) and both children’s last name is both mine and my husband’s (non-hyphenated). I would say his last name sounds like Doctor and mine is like Shuffler except with an E instead of the U, so combined surname sounds like “Shuffler Doctor”. For this combo -er/-or problem we avoid any names with those sounds or any names that also sound like last names.

Our problem is that I always wanted to name a daughter Aurelia (nickname Lia) and my husband hates it. Basically, I find myself comparing all other names to to and being disappointed because it is both exactly what I want and goes great with our son’s name (both classic Latin names). Last time we couldn’t decide on a name for our son until 2-3 days after he was born because I was so indecisive so we are trying to avoid that situation again.

In general, I like names that are a bit different but not too out there. I like a name that’s at least two syllables and has a 1-2 solid nickname options and I like a vowel sound at the end of the name; I like fairly girly names as well. My husband tends to like shorter names (which I think we could incorporate easily as middle name) but otherwise any trend in his preferences is lost on me. He does generally like French names but I want to avoid anything that’s too hard to spell or pronounce in English. Both of our lists are below.

My list
Aurelia
Celia
Elisa(betta)
Rosalie
Cecilia
Ophelia
Laurel
Magnolia
Interested in a name with Ginny as nickname but haven’t even able to figure one out that I like as full name (ruled out Virginia)

Husband’s list
Abigail
Colette
Norah
Zoe
Willow
Claire
Margot

This is our last child and, if helpful, our unused short list names last time for our son were Jonah and Henri.

Thank you!

Susan

The first step is a hard one, and it is to fully let go of the name Aurelia. It makes your task so much harder if you are trying to find a name you like as much as that name, when such a name might not exist, and when the comparison is irrelevant anyway. Your task now is to find a name you like best out of all the names that are not Aurelia. One potentially helpful exercise is to imagine you ALREADY USED the name Aurelia for an earlier daughter, so it is Really Truly Out of the Running.

(I say all this even though it has happened here TIME AND TIME AGAIN that someone writes in that they have One Perfect Favorite Name But Husband Hates It, and then the follow up is “Thanks for all your help! We named her The One Perfect Name Husband Hated! No further explanation, byeeeeeee!!” Still: best to assume for now that Aurelia Will Not Be the Name.)

If it helps at all to let go: I find Aurelia Shuffler Doctor quite challenging to say. Not to the extent that I would try to talk you out of it if the two of you fervently agreed on Aurelia and were writing to ask if you could still use it with the surname, but enough that I feel some relief at not having to say it after finishing this paragraph. I think it’s all the R and L sounds: I find Laurel and Rosalie and Claire similarly tiring to say with the surname. And the Aur- is kind of like the -er/-or sound we’re trying to avoid.

It’s hard to be sure from seven names, but my guess is that your husband’s style is Top 50 Names + French Names. The French names on his list don’t seem any more challenging to say/spell than Aurelia or Elisabetta, so that seems okay so far.

Possible long forms for the nickname Ginny (some of these are more of a stretch than I’d prefer, but I tend to be on the That’s a Stretch end of the spectrum, so I like to include those for people on the That’s Not a Stretch end of the spectrum):

Geneva
Genevieve
Geneva
Georgianna
Gianna
Ginevra
Giovanna
Imogen

I am wondering if you are considering family names for the middle name, to coordinate with your son’s name. I ask partly because in general our culture thinks it’s more important to use family names for boys than for girls, and I like to counteract that notion where I can; but I am MOSTLY asking because it matters for the compromise it looks like we may be headed for: I need to know if the middle name is in play. It SOUNDS like it is, since you mention considering using one of the shorter names your husband likes there. And if so, that is also a possible place for Aurelia: you’d likely have to trade it for your husband having more sway with the first name, but many a couple has found a happy compromise with “MY first choice from YOUR list” as the first name, and “My beloved first choice you aren’t willing to use as a first name but can accept as a middle” as the middle.

Another possible compromise is if your husband has a family name he’d like to use, and you’ve been opposed to it: you might be able to swing “HIS first choice from YOUR list” as the first name, and “His family name you didn’t want to use” as the middle name.

We might also want to poke around a little in how your first child’s name was chosen. Did one parent have more say in choosing? Which side is the family name from? It’s not that these things MUST come out even (and I think in general they just DON’T, for many many valid reasons), but sometimes when a decision is difficult, it can be useful to find more Ways To Decide.

An exercise to try: Which names do you like best from his list? / Which names does he like best from your list? Can you look at those names and think of similar names you like better? For example, let’s say that from your list, his favorites are Rosalie and Magnolia; maybe Rosalie makes him think of Rose and Rosemary and Natalie, all of which he likes; and Magnolia makes him think of Maggie which makes him think of Margaret and Margot, which he likes, and Magnolia also makes him think of Azalea and Ivy and Marigold and Meadow, and he also thinks of Nola—and maybe you don’t really like ANY of those, except well actually you think Azalea and Marigold are pretty good. And then maybe you look at his list, and you like Claire okay but it’s too short/plain, but it reminds you of Clarissa and Clarity, and Clarity reminds you of Felicity; and you also remember an old TV show on which a child was named Emma-Claire and that’s pretty cute even if you don’t like it enough to use it; and Clarabelle isn’t right but it reminds you of Arabella; and something about the Cl- makes you think of Claudia which is amazing with August. And maybe he doesn’t really like ANY of those, except well actually he likes Felicity and Claudia. AND SO ON. You can even tennis the names back and forth: maybe you like the whole vibe of Ivy from his-suggestions-based-on-your-list, but it’s just WAY too short for your tastes, but that gets you both going on botanical names. Or maybe he likes the sound of Claudia from your-suggestions-based-on-his-list, but he doesn’t like the repeating -au- sound with August, but it still gets him interested in names like Lydia and Cordelia.

A similar exercise: discussing what you DO like about names on the other parent’s list. Maybe you like that Abigail is three syllables instead of one or two, and you like the fun initial of Zoe, and you like the way Margot is an interesting combination of cute sound + sophisticated image. Maybe he likes the thought of calling an Elisabetta “Betty,” and he likes the flower reference of Rosalie, and he likes the nickname Maggie AND the flower reference of Magnolia. Maybe then the two of you start questing for long cute sophisticated floral names with cute nicknames and fun initials. OR WHATEVER.

A similar exercise: each parent look at their OWN list and see if they can identify some things they like about those names, and see if any of those pieces can be found in or combined with names on the other parent’s list. For example, you clearly like the -lie/-lia ending. Adding -lia to names on your husband’s list gets us nowhere (except that Margot + -lie/-lia would have made me think of Magnolia), but it might work to search -lie/-lia names and see if there are any your husband likes. And you both have a lot of long-O sounds on your list, so the two of you might look together for more long-O names to consider: Fiona, Noelle, Naomi, Violet, Josephine, Eloise, Gwendolyn, Meadow, Leona, Lois, Rosabelle, Rosamund, Opal, Simone, Ramona, Elodie, Persephone, Cleo, Clover, Antonia (these are just examples of names the exercise might come up with; I’m not checking if they go with the style/surname/sibling or not).

Also, you’ve noted that he seems to like shorter names, and you seem to like longer/frillier ones. Each parent could look at names on their own lists for compromises: you could see if you can find longer/frillier names with shorter nicknames that he could use (Rosalie/Rose, Clarissa/Claire, etc.); he could see if he could find longer/frillier versions of names he likes (Norah to Eleanora, Claire to Clarissa, etc.).

Finally, the two boy-name options (Jonah and Henri) make me think of Josephine and Henrietta.

Update on Baby Girl or Boy Banner-with-a-T, Sibling to Miles and Lucy

Hi there! Hoping you can help!

Just realized all of my top name choices for a baby boy are in the top 5 or so names. I’m worried to have a kiddo with lots of kids in their class someday having the same name.

Important info:
Surname Merrick
Big Brother- Paxton Robert
Big sister- Isla Mae
Due in early June 2021

Names we like- Theo, Jude, Levi, Ezra, Oakley
Middle name- Silas or George (both family names).

Thank you so much!
Danielle Merrick

I can start with some good news, which is that if you’re in the U.S., none of those names are in the Top Five, or even in the Top Ten. According to the Social Security Administration, here are the 2019 rankings of each name:

Theo: #195 (Theodore, which would add to the total Theos, is #36)
Jude: #153
Levi: #25
Ezra: #49
Oakley: #441 (it’s #348 for girls, which would add to the total Oakleys-per-classroom)

More good news is that it’s rarer now than in previous generations for kids to have a lot of kids in their class with the same name: even the very most popular names are used at a rate that statistically ought to mean no duplicates. (Though of course there are going to be geographical hot spots and abundant anomalies, such as zero Liams in nine of the ten kindergarten classes and then three in the tenth class; or not a single Olivia in the entire 1st grade, but three Olives. These things happen, and are not avoidable.) More common are clusters of similar name-sounds: one classroom might have an Eleanor, an Ella, an Elizabeth, an Elijah, and an Eli.

So any of your choices COULD result in having more than one kid with that same name in a classroom—but none of them are LIKELY to. And I can say from both personal experience and parental experience that when duplicates aren’t at the level of the Lindas of the grandmother generation or the Jennifers of the mom generation, the occasional coincidental duplicate can be fun rather than exhausting: I double-checked with William, who had a fluke of two other Williams in his classroom for several of his years in school, and they STILL call themselves The Williams and greet each other with “Hey, Will C.!” and so on. And I had another Kristen in my classroom once or twice, and that’s why some of my oldest acquaintances still sometimes slip and call me Kristy, and that’s just fine.

I think all of your options go well with your surname. The only one I wouldn’t choose with the sibling names is Levi, because it shares so many sounds with Isla.

Swistle,

HELP! We are pregnant with surprise baby #3 (definitely our last). We always wait until the birth to find out the gender of our babes and this one will be no different. We have two girls, Emmalynn Kaye (age 5) and Luella Jo (age 1.5). We want to find a name that we LOVE LOVE LOVE just like we did with our girls. Unfortunately, nothing is giving me those feelings thus far. Neither of the girls names are nod to family members, just names that we heard somewhere along the way and decided fit into our family. We tend to go toward classic / unique names as you’ll see by the lists below. Here are the lists my husband and I have come up with – names we like, but don’t LOVE…at least not yet:

Boys
Smith
Clark
Reid
Harrison (likely a middle name candidate vs. a first name candidate)

Girls
Hallen
Colette

Please help us find some names we love for this baby due in late April / early May.

Thanks,
KARA

From the boy-name list, I like Clark Rogers and Harrison Rogers (if it is in the running as a first name). Reid Rogers wasn’t originally one of my favorites but is growing on me considerably as I work on the post; I think it’s only that I don’t personally tend to lean toward alliteration (though with time I find myself leaning more), and also it makes me think (not in a negative way) of Roy Rogers. Something about Smith Rogers is not quite right to my ear when I say it—not at a level where I’d cross it off the list, just at a level where I prefer other candidates.

More names that seem to me to be similar/adjacent to those on your list:

Cary Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Cary
Dean Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Dean
Everett Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Everett
Grant Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Grant
Hank Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Hank
Heath Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Heath
Lee Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Lee
Merritt Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Merritt
Nash Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Nash
Nolan Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Nolan
Perry Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Perry
Russell Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Russell
Vance Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Vance
Wade Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Wade
Warren Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Warren

I am a little inclined, just for fun, toward the ones that give you another set of double letters: Everett, Lee, Merritt, Perry, Russell, Warren. Lee may be too close to Luella, Everett may be too close to Emmalynn, but I left them on the list in part because (1) “too close” is subjective, and (2) the double letters.

For a girl, I’d be inclined toward another compound name: Emma + Lynn, Lu + Ella, and now _____ + _____, though I kept running into combinations that were too close (Annabel, where -bel seems too similar to -ella; Evalina, where the E_al_n_ seems too similar to Emmalynn), so I’ve included non-compound names as well. Some possibilities:

Adelaide Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Adelaide
Angelica Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Angelica
Annalise Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Annalise
Bernadette Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Bernadette
Bonnie Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Bonnie
Clarissa Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Clarissa
Coralie Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Coralie
Daisy Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Daisy
Delilah Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Delilah
Gemma Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Gemma
Georgia Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Georgia
Hazel Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Hazel
Joanna Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Joanna
Juliette Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Juliette
Marianna Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Marianna
Pearl Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Pearl
Rosalie Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Rosalie
Rosemary Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Rosemary
Ruby Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Ruby
Sally Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Sally
Shirley Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Shirley
Susannah Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Susannah
Suzette Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Suzette
Violetta Rogers; Emmalynn, Luella, and Violetta

Some of those might cross the line into TOO alliterative. Georgia, for example: is Georgia Rogers too much R and G? or JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT? Ginger Rogers carried it off, and she had the -er/-er thing as well.