Hello!

Baby #1 is due December 5, it’s a girl. Last name is Dimmons (with an S), my name is Hayley (with a K) and husband’s name is Truett (not sure how to do a “sounds like” with that one!) Assuming the next question is, “is your husband from Texas?” and the answer is yes.

Both of us have less common names, or names that are often misspelled/mispronounced (Kylie, Kaylee, Kayla, or any version of those with an H), and Truett becomes Truitt or Trent/Trevor/Trey/literally any other T name when people don’t listen.

My name came from a combination of my parent’s middle names (Kay and Leon) and I’ve always loved to have that story/explanation. Truett was a friend of their family, hence the -ett spelling.

I share a birthday with my great-grandmother, Mozelle. I mentioned that name to him before we got pregnant, and the nickname for the fetus immediately became Moz (pronounced: Maahhzz). We both love the nickname but are now hedging on Mozelle, because it’s too unusual? I know older names are making a comeback (two Sylvia babies on my timeline, Clara, Nora, etc etc), but Mozelle didn’t seem to be that popular back in the day, either. A part of me is okay with an unusual name, but the other part doesn’t want to subject her to the annoyance we both have with our first names.

I guess I’m just wanting a reaction to that name from someone I don’t know. Too weird? Too old? Too unusual? What’s the point if we’re just going to call her Moz all the time? Middle name would probably be Kay.

Our only other back-up name at this point (I know we have months to consider, but I’m a planner and it’s bugging me) is Elliott. But the nickname for some would probably be Ellie, right? I have a first cousin with that name. Too close.

Thanks for reading. Appreciate any input from you and your readers!

Kayley

I am going to proceed on the assumption that the full name is pronounced like a continuation of the nickname: i.e., mah-ZELLE rather than mo-ZELLE. And that brings us directly to the issue I personally would find most irritating, if I used or had the name: correcting the pronunciation. (My first attempt to pronounce it would have been mo-ZELLE, and I was thinking “Oh, cute, she could also choose to go by Mo if she wanted to!”)

The name is certainly unusual: it’s not even in the Social Security Administration database for 2018, and all a name has to do to get in there is be used for at least five babies in the whole country that year. Not in the database for 2017, either, or 2016; I finally found 6 Mozelles born in 2012, but then none in 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and then I stopped looking. I think it is safe to say that part of the package deal of this name would be its unfamiliarity: you and she would have to repeat it and spell it and pronounce it often.

However, it’s a family name, and “It was my great-grandmother’s name” is one of the best ever justifications for going to that trouble. Were you and she close, or is this a family-tree name but not someone you personally knew? I am more all-in on honor names if there is a relationship to remember.

The -elle ending is helpful: it’s a popular sound right now. But it worries me that you mention not wanting to use the name Elliot because it might have the nickname Ellie: one of the things I like about the name Mozelle is that she can go by Ellie if that ends up being more her style than Moz.

I would definitely not name her just Moz, if that’s one of the possibilities you’re considering (“What’s the point if we’re just going to call her Moz all the time?”). Which brings me to the topic of Fetus Names: many, many parents have cute nicknames for the fetus (Bean, Bear, Teddy, Peanut, Sprout, Demon Spawn, etc.), but it’s not necessary to make those nicknames part of the given name in order to continue using them as long as you want to. You can name this baby whatever you want, and then still call her Moz. “That’s what we called her when I was pregnant, and it just stuck!”

This is your first baby, so if you think you might have more than one child I’d also advise thinking ahead to future sibling names. It isn’t that you should try to plan out alllll the names right now (coming up with ONE name is hard enough), or that sibling names have to coordinate—but, especially considering the significant style difference between the two name candidates on your list, I think it’s a good idea to think ahead to what other names you might want to use in the future, in order to avoid backing yourself into a corner with the first choice. If you don’t have any names you want to use except Mozelle and Elliot, go through a baby name book and make a list of names you don’t mind: that is, if you HAD TO use a name other than Mozelle or Elliot, or if babies were assigned names at birth by the government, which names would you be okay with? Then evaluate those names for style clumps: do you see a lot of unisex/surname names like Elliot? a lot of unusual old-fashioned names like Mozelle? or a lot of some other style, such as the more common vintage revivals (Charlotte, Oliver), or timeless classics (Josephine, Simon), or contemporary names (Caden, Briley), or hip biblical (Ezra, Moses), or grandparent names (Jean, Robert), or next-batch vintage (Agatha, Arthur), or what? (I recommend The Baby Name Wizard for helping narrow in on your style.) Which of the names go together in a way that feels like your future family, and which names feel like novelties/outliers of your usual style?

Also, I wonder if you’d like to do the combining-parent-names thing again? Truly would be a pretty cute name.

What does everyone else think of the name Mozelle?

Update on Baby Girl or Boy Benton, Sibling to Milo and Theo: Should We Stick with Another -o Name?

Update on Baby Girl J_____, Sister to Natalie and James

Hi Swistle!

I love your blog and would love your thoughts on alliterative names. My last name is Milk but starts with a W. I love the names Winnie and Willa, and even Wendy, but am really hesitant that they’re too much with the last name. (I don’t really like Gwendolyn or Wilhelmina.) Do you have any thoughts on this? So curious what you think!

Thanks!
Margot

Alliteration is one of those subjective topics where on one end of the spectrum we have people who avoid even a hint of it, and on the other end of the spectrum we have people REVELING in it. There are a few kids in our school system with names similar to Jason Johnson and Lauren Lemon, and I’ve got to say I get a little thrill from the sheer flair of names like that, even though I myself am more toward the avoidant end of the alliteration spectrum.

In fact, I’d say I generally admire alliteration in other people’s names, which makes it harder to explain why I didn’t want it with any of my own kids’ names. I didn’t make a deliberate rule that I WOULDN’T use any names starting with the same letter as our surname, but I found I ruled them all out anyway.

I do think alliteration brings extra attention to a name, and exponentially so if the first name or the surname are at all whimsical (the Lemon of Lauren Lemon), or if there is more repetition than just the first initial (the -son of Jason Johnson). Your surname strikes me as just slightly whimsical, and it has only one strong consonant sound. When combined with a repeating Wi-, or even more so with a repeating Wil-, the whimsy is increased and more attention is attracted. And the soft Wil- sound blends very easily, especially for first names that end in a vowel and don’t have many hard consonants, making one word out of two names (WillawiIk, WinniwiIk) [I used a capital i instead of a lowercase L in the surname].

And so Willa with your surname does seem like Too Much to me: it fails the “Would I want to introduce myself with this name?” test, and it fails it hard. I don’t even want to say the name out loud if I don’t have to. I would not want to introduce myself as Winnie with the surname, either (though I would pick it over Willa, if I had to choose one), but the similar name Winifred would pass my test: three syllables, some nice strong consonants, and better first/last name separation all combine to make it fall on my own personal subjective side of this line.

To continue with my own subjective division, here are more W-names I would NOT put with your surname, at least on first pass: Willow, William, Will, Wilma, Wallace, Wynn, Willis, Walker, Wendell. But here are some I think would/could work for someone who likes alliteration: Whitney, Whitman, Wyatt, Wilder, Warren, Waverly, Walton, Wesley, Westley, Weston, Winston, Walter. Different people are going to sort those differently, of course, and, even in the “would/could work” section we’ll have all different cut-offs for where “pleasingly alliterative” turns into “VERY ALLITERATIVE INDEED.”

I would test potential combinations by saying them aloud and listening to others saying them aloud, and putting each one through the “Would I want to introduce myself with this name?” test. I would also make extra sure to test the combinations WITHOUT a middle name: the middle name isn’t usually present, so testing out, for example, Milly Elizabeth Milk can mask how alliterative the first/last are together. I’d also think ahead of time about whether the alliteration is distinctive enough to make you feel pressured to do something similar with the names of subsequent children.

Update (and photo) on Baby Girl or Boy ________ Row O’Burn

Update (and photo) on Baby Girl or Boy Sounds-Like-Silver, Sibling to Edward (Teddy)

The Social Security Administration has released the 2018 baby name information!

Look at Harper and Charlotte and Evelyn in the Top 10! Noah and Elijah in the Top 10! Oliver in the Top 10! These are not predictions I would have made twenty years ago. It’s fun to think what surprises will be in the Top 10 in another twenty years!

Of course I looked up my kids’ names. Two are dropping verrrrry slowly. One is holding steady. One is holding steady now, after rising rather rapidly for awhile. One is dropping precipitously.

Now I’m just looking through the names for anything surprising. At first I thought it was surprising to have Emily and Elizabeth out of the Top 10, but it turns out I’m a few years too late to be surprised by that.

Look at the names Mila and Camila and Luna and Nova working their way up the charts! Look at Everly, for heaven’s sake:

(image from ssa.gov)

I continue to find it surprising that the spelling Zoey outranks the spelling Zoe. I’m pleased to see the name Ivy continuing to climb.

Madison and Addison are slowly dropping after a long run.

Three spellings of Jackson in the Top 100: Jackson (#17), Jaxon (#39), and Jaxson (#76).

The name George didn’t do anything crazy after the little royal baby was born in 2013 (I’m including back to 2006 to see what it was doing before then):

(image from ssa.gov)

Do you see any surprises in the new information? Anything interesting happening with your kids’ names? If you’re in the act of choosing a baby name now, did anything happen that makes you re-evaluate your choices?

Update on Baby Boy Giant-with-a-W, Brother to Everett

I was thinking about the way the names Alice and Ellis are almost identical in sound, and yet RADICALLY DIFFERENT in style. Imagine being someone completely unfamiliar with both names and trying to understand why one was a classic vintage traditional storybook name and the other was an androgynous preppy surname name. So much of the feel and appeal of a name is separate from the actual sound of it—which can make it harder to understand naming styles once they’ve drifted out of fashion. It can also contribute to how ruffled our feelings get if one name is mistaken for another.

Can we think of other such examples? They don’t have to be as similar in sound or as different in style as Alice/Ellis: just anything where a relatively small change in sound makes a disproportionately large change in style.

Allie and Ellie
Amy and Emmie
Autumn and Adam
Beverly and Everly
Davis and David
Lacey and Lucy
Jenny and Ginny
Joy and Joyce
Charlotte and Scarlet
Jane and Jean and Joan and June
Grey and Grace
Chloe and Cleo
Noah and Owen
Carla and Clara
Chris and Carys
Monica and Annika (the ON-nicka pronunciation)

Update (and photo) on Baby Boy Marnik: ________ George