Update (and photo) on Baby Girl Shoals-with-a-B, Sister to Wilder

Hey! We are having such a hard time this time around finding a baby name we all like! I’m due September 20th, she’s a girl and we love the name Aurora Paige but our family isn’t too keen on it😂. We are trying to stay with mythological names since our first daughter is named Raven Elizabeth and it’s a mythological name! Our last name is Cox and my husband always says as long as they can’t make fun of her name when she’s older then he’s good with whatever but the problem is he can make a joke out of anything I pick! He liked Christina Paige but I am not in love with that name at all! This is our last baby so we really want a name we love! We are open to a variety as long as it’s Mythological and we can pronounce it 😂 all of this may be shared! Can’t wait to see what you come up with😍

Thank you,

Jacqueline Cox

Won’t it be lovely when we’ve evolved as a society to the stage where it is equally common to use the family name of either parent? It will be too late to save my former classmates Amy Dick and Michael Butt (first names changed, surnames real), but just think of the countless future generations who will be spared. So many surnames are being passed along instead of passed over, to everyone’s loss. Cox is not the worst of them, but it is causing unnecessary problems nevertheless.

And if the surname I see in your email address is your maiden name, then there was a elegant, beautiful, easy-to-work-with, particularly-lovely-with-mythological-first-names surname that could equally legitimately have been chosen for these children, and their father would not have been able to come up with a joke about any first name you picked. But no, we have to work with Cox, because that’s the father’s surname and father surnames are still chosen a vast majority of the time.

Fine. Fine! We will work with reality as we find it.

I think you should choose Aurora. You both love it, you agree on it, it meets your preferences, and your husband has not found a way to make a joke about it with the surname. Your families not being too keen on it is not a good enough reason to find something else: it is so common for members of the extended family to be Not Keen On a name they hear before the birth, but to be completely in love with it when it is announced to them alongside the newborn’s tiny beloved face. It’s hard enough to get two parents to agree on a name, without trying to get extended family agreement as well.

If, however, they have a more legitimate reason to object to the name than just not being keen on it (if, say, they have raised the issue that it is the same as the name of someone who stole your family’s fortune and ran off with its patriarch), or if their non-keenness has already ruined the name for you, let’s see if we can find more options to consider.

I am pulling this list from the Mythological section of The Baby Name Wizard (and thanks to the readers who let me know there was a 2018 fourth edition I’d somehow missed the release of). It’s a little tricky, because a lot of the names I would normally want to suggest from this list (Ariadne, Persephone, Minerva) feel too long and feminine and traditional with the sister-name Raven. But let’s see what might work, and I’ll include the ones that might be too much of a style shift, just in case (except Minerva, which bothered me by containing all the letters of the name Raven AND having unfortunate nickname potential with Minnie-which-sounds-like-Mini):

Aeron
Ariadne
Athena
Calliope
Daphne
Freya
Iris
Lavinia
Lilith
Lorelei
Melia
Morrigan
Niamh
Penelope
Persephone
Phaedra
Phoebe
Selene
Silvia
Thalia
Theia

Morrigan stands out to me from this list. It has a cool-and-somewhat-unisex sound similar to Raven, and I’m not seeing any issues with the surname. I would also lean toward Niahm (pronounced Neeve) if I didn’t think the spelling was more than I personally would want to take on. I don’t know if spelling it Neeve would give you the same mythological feeling, though.

(I would very much appreciate double-checking on surname issues, including with potential nicknames. I am remembering when a letter-writer with the same surname wrote in and mentioned that she wanted to avoid issues such as Mike Cox, and it took me longer than you might think to realize that the issue was that the name Mike would slide into sounding like My. But on the other hand, it’s hard to tell if I’m overthinking it: if Ariadne goes by Ari, pronounced like Airy, is that a problem with the surname? or is that kind of thing just the unavoidable “EVERYTHING can be a joke” issue that goes along with having the surname Cox?)

Hello!!

I just found out I am having a boy! This is my third child. My first is a boy (Miles David Crosby) and my second is a girl (Neeva Jean Crosby). My husband’s name is David Arnold Crosby III – and he goes by Tripp as the third. We agreed to not name our first boy David Arnold Crosby and didn’t follow the tradition. It just wasn’t something I felt great about. My husband is the perfect “Tripp” (he is a comedian) and it just fits him so well. We didn’t have a good name for the fourth that we felt good about so we nodded to his name by giving Miles the middle name David.

My second, my daughter, has a very special name after the woman who adopted my grandmother and saved our family. Her middle name is the same middle name of my husband’s grandmother.

Ok enough about them!

My third is a boy and I am so excited… but all of the names we liked were girl names. My maiden name is Joiner. My husband loves the idea of using Joiner as a first name. I haven’t been able to hear it as a first name but I am trying to figure out if that’s just because it has been my last name for my whole life! Another option would be my mother’s maiden name, Dean. Which I really love but my husband isn’t sure about. I think I am just trying to figure out if we would always get a weird response to the first name Joiner or if it would catch on as a first name.

Please help!

Hannah

I am so keen on using family surnames as first names when possible. I think Joiner might work as a first name, though I am going back and forth about it. I do like it better with the “It’s my maiden name” explanation. And I like it a little better if I think of Joi as sounding like Joy. And it certain ought to fit with all the other occupational names: Mason, Sawyer, Carter, Cooper. But I didn’t know joiner was an occupation until I looked it up, so my first association was somewhat negative: “a joiner,” like “a follower,” is not something we generally use as a positive way to describe someone. And Joiner is not currently used at all as a first name in the U.S., and so I think part of the package deal of this name would be a fair amount of repeating, explaining, and spelling. Still, if I picture encountering this name in the wild and then hearing “It’s my maiden name” (or, later, “It’s my mother’s maiden name”), I immediately like it a whole lot more.

I’m not sure how well it works in the sibling group: Miles, Neeva, and Joiner. Miles could be considered a surname name, too, but a more familiar one than Joiner, and also of course much more familiar than Joiner as a first name. But if I imagine brothers named Miles and Joiner, it seems like a slightly startling style shift.

But DEAN. You have the option of using DEAN and you’re not IMMEDIATELY SPRINGING ON IT?? Miles, Neeva, and Dean is an amazing sibling group. And it’s your mother’s maiden name! And a familiar surname and first name! I love it. Dean Crosby!

Hello!!

I, like so many of us, have had extra time to ponder names as of late and have a serious question.

I have a 3 year old daughter named Rosalie Jennifer (for my sister). And a 1 year old son named Alfred Paul Andrew (named for both grandfathers – we couldn’t pick!). When I was pregnant with my daughter Anne was a strong contender for a middle name, because both grandmothers share this name (as a middle themselves)so everyone assumed that would be the middle name. And honestly I loved it and wanted it as a first name (husband didn’t like!) but for some stubborn reason (bc everyone had an opinion about it of course and pregnancy hormones?!) I didn’t want it and went with honoring my sister (which I am very happy about still!!). However, since then 2 middle names has seemed less weird and cumbersome and more WHY THE HECK NOT! Hence my sons two middles. And as a consequence I’m seriously regretting not giving my daughter “Jennifer Anne”. I’m sad I didn’t get to honor the grandmas too! We are done having kids, so future honor names are out. I’ve broached the subject of adding to her name to husband and he’s on board. I’ve brought it up with her and she’s fine with it! Except she would also like to add “bunny rabbit” haha!

But is this another flippant desire?! Are two middle names actually cumbersome?! (My sons only 1 so no idea so far!). Is it worth all the time and effort? And lastly, is it completely past being an “honor” name if it’s tacked on years later?!

Thanks for all the help!

Sure, do it! I mean, when the pandemic is over and it is safe to do so! This is one of those naming regrets that’s relatively easy to fix; and the explanation (“We/I just always regretted not honoring the grandmas”) is so endearing; and the change makes your kids’ names even more pleasingly coordinated; and everyone involved is on board, so I say why not?

I do suggest changing your framing: “tacking it on years later,” “flippant desire,” etc. She is still so very little, and a formal/legal court name change is hardly “tacking it on”; nor would a second middle name be any more tacked-on than it was in the case of your son’s name. I suspect the word choices are coming from you feeling a little sheepish/self-conscious about changing the name at this point, but we want to make sure that doesn’t come across to the grandmothers as saying that adding their name is silly and no big deal and maybe doesn’t even count as an honor anymore. Make it a serious sentimental deal to THEM (use the word choices that are more like “seriously regretted” and “honestly I loved it” and “sad I didn’t get to honor the grandmas too”), and you don’t even have to tell many other people if you don’t want to.

I have two middle names myself, and so do all my kids, and I have not found it cumbersome. The only real downside is that some forms only have room for one middle name/initial, which is annoying but not cumbersome: we just all picked which middle name we were going to use as a default, for consistency (i.e., so we don’t have some forms where we’re FirstName A. Thistle and others where we’re Firstname L. Thistle).

On the other hand, I don’t know exactly how much fuss and expense is involved in making a change like this, so I am hoping some others here have gone through this and can give a little report on what was involved. My impression is that there is a fee in the “not shocking but not nothing” range (e.g., $100, $150, $200, something like that), and that there is some paperwork to fill out, and that there is a court appointment; and that then you have to go around to a couple of other places (Social Security, etc.) to show them the court papers and make the change, and then there are probably some phone calls (changing her name with health insurance, that sort of thing). Similar to changing a surname at marriage, but less so in some ways (not as big a change, and no driver’s license or utilities or bank accounts or IRS to deal with) and more so in other ways (not as familiar a change, so clerks will be less accustomed to dealing with it).

Update on Middle Name Challenge: Celeste ______; A Name to Honor a J and an A

Hi Swistle!

We are due with our second (and last planned child) this fall. Our toddler is Ford @rthur $tew@rd. We love his name. It’s short and strong, but we do sing-song it as Fordie daily.

We’re mulling over a few options this time around and my main question is your opinion on Bernhard, nn Bern which I admit I will surely sing song into Bernie from time to time. I think the majority of the time we would call him Bern. I think Ford and Bern compliment one another well.

That being said, my concern is whether or not Bernie is too politicized… Bernhard is a (distant) family name for us, we don’t have strong opinions on Bernie Sanders one way or another but people around us do. I cringe at the possible inquiries of “like Bernie Sanders?” to which we *could* answer, “it’s a family name” and leave it at that, but it may bother me if those inquiries or associations go on for years… We are NOT the type of people that debate politics as dinner conversation and tend to avoid sharing opinions one way or another.

Other front runners are Frederick “Fritz” Murray or Murray Thomas. Middle name for Bernhard would be Thomas.

So to summarize:
Bernhard Thomas $tew@rd
Frederick Murray $tew@rd
Murray Thomas $tew@rd

*Thomas and Murray are honor names for grandfathers (one deceased, one a middle name of the living) and Frederick would be in honor of our little one’s only living great grandmother as it was her father’s name. Ford @rthur was equally tied to family with each name honoring a different side of the family.

Which goes best with Ford? Is Bern too strongly associated with Bernie Sanders and if so, do you think that association will lessen over time (considering he is no longer a candidate for president and we don’t live on the east coast)?

Mostly I just love your taste in names and am curious if one of our three options makes your heart sing more than another. :-)

I think part of the package deal of Bernhard-nicknamed-Bern/Bernie is that people will have to assume you’re at least okay with the Bernie Sanders / “Feel the Bern” association. Imagine for a moment a politician you can’t stand, someone whose policies and views make you shudder with revulsion, and then imagine using a distant family name that made people say “Oh, like [that politician]?” You’d never! And so I do think using the name Bern/Bernie right now may seem to indicate a political opinion, and that “It’s a family name” won’t be enough to counteract that.

But as to how long that will persist—it’s hard to know. Sometimes after a name comes abruptly into the news we will get a big flurry of letters wondering if it’s still okay to use it—but even just a few years later the whole thing has slipped out of public consciousness. If I meet a baby named George, I don’t assume his parents are fans of the Bush administrations or the royal family, because those associations have had time to diffuse. But George is an old and traditional name with many associations including not just Bush but also Washington and Burns and Clooney and Lucas and R. R. Martin and Michael and Lopez and Gershwin and Eliot; if I met a baby named Clinton, I’d have fewer associations and would do more wondering/assuming. Bernhard/Bern/Bernie is not a name with many associations for me. And Bernie Sanders is still an active politician, and I think it’s likely we’ll continue to see him in the news as long as that’s the case. On the other hand, the man is 78 years old, and it’ll be another five or so years before your new baby is starting school. Still, if it makes you cringe to think of people making the association or making assumptions about your political opinions, I think I’d use a different name, or use Bernhard as a middle name.

Ford and Fritz is a nice pairing. I think my main concern would be that he would instead prefer to be called Fred/Freddie, and that Ford/Fordie and Fred/Freddie were too similar. I’m also finding I don’t like how many letters/sounds Ford and Frederick already share, even before taking nicknames into account. The styles of the names also feel different. I don’t know, this combination just doesn’t sit right with me; I only like it when it’s Ford and Fritz, not when it’s Ford and Frederick or Ford and Fred, and I don’t like the idea of relying on a particular nickname to make a combination work.

The one that makes my heart sing more than the others is Murray. I would be charmed to encounter that name in the wild, and I like it with Ford: another surname name, but with its own set of sounds.

Update (and photo) on Baby Girl Sounds-Like-Edward, Sister to Parker

THREEFOLD update on Baby Naming Issue: Does a Cool Name Set Expectations?

Well. How are you? Are you hanging in there? “Hanging in there” is what we seem as a society to be using as the answer to “How are you?” right now. Because “fine,” while we all realize it was always meant to be an automatic call-and-response answer and not the real truth, sounds very weird when we all know perfectly well that no one is fine. “Hanging in there” feels more right. I have also used “We are all still well,” using tone to indicate that I only mean physically.

I have been attempting to do four or five posts a week, to take my mind off things and give me something productive to do. But this morning I woke up at 2:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep because of fruitless fretting, so my mind feels too fuzzy to work on something as important as names. Let’s take a day off from that and just get some coffee and update each other on how we’re doing. Are you still well?

Update (and photo) on Baby Boy or Girl Petersen, Sibling to Graham