Update on Baby Girl Hustling-with-an-R, Sister to Gus and Hugh

Update on Baby Girl DeJean, Sister to Audrey

Hello! I am in a bit of a bind and would love some input! We have two children.. And boy and a girl. We are about to add our final addition in April! This last pregnancy was a bit of a surprise so now we are having trouble thinking of names! Our little boy is named Caden and his little sister is named Copeland. Now I sort of feel like we have to go with another C name so they won’t be left out. I’ve always loved C names and for me it’s easier to narrow it down to one letter anyways instead of going through the whole alphabet! Our last name is Wolfe if that helps at all.
Here are some of our ideas that either I love or my husband loves.. None so far that we both agree on..
Crew
Cooper
Cole
Collins
Colson
Cohen

Obviously most are probably boys names.. But we do also like gender neutral names as well. As far as middle names we are at a loss. Lol
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.
Alison Wolfe

My guess is that you have been through the C section of the baby name book so many times that the letter C is looking like a weird shape instead of a real letter, so on one hand it’s unlikely I’ll suggest anything you haven’t already thought of. But the last time we did a post like this for a name with another first letter, I was very surprised to see how many great choices came up in the comments section—plenty of names I hadn’t seen in the baby name book. So let’s see if that happens again! (Also, I will link here to the post we did on the name Cohen, in the hopes that it will not have to be rehashed in this comments section: Baby Naming Issue: Cohen)

One thing that makes this a little tricky for me is that the name Caden is so relatively common when all the spellings are combined (and feels even more common because of the prevalence of the Aiden/Braden/Hayden/Jaden names), and the name Copeland is so relatively uncommon. One strategy would be to make it a boy/girl thing: if you have a boy this time, use a more-common C name; if you have a girl this time, use a less-common C name. Another strategy would be to look for a name that bridges the gap a bit: neither common nor uncommon. A third strategy would be to ignore popularity. I think I will use that third strategy, in order to cast the widest net; then if popularity is/becomes an issue, you can use the Social Security website to filter the names further.

Another issue is hard-C versus soft-C. Do you want them to all start with the same hard-C sound, or would Cecily and Cyrus and so forth be options? Again, I will include both, and let you apply a filter if necessary.

Another issue is that the name Copeland feels so unisex. It makes me reluctant to suggest a very girlish name, especially a traditional girlish name: would Caden, Copeland, and Catherine make it seem like the safe guess was that Copeland was a boy? It is hard to know, and hard to know how much this matters in an overall way, and I don’t know whether it matters to you two in particular. But here are some examples of names I left off the list: Camilla, Catherine, Clarissa, Caroline, Cassandra, Cecily, Charlotte, Claudia.

In general I avoided one-syllable names, especially with your distinctive surname: Cale Wolfe, Clay Wolfe, Chase Wolfe, Cash Wolfe.

Cable; Caden, Copeland, and Cable
Calder; Caden, Copeland, and Calder
Calista; Caden, Copeland, and Calista
Callahan; Caden, Copeland, and Callahan
Callan; Caden, Copeland, and Callan
Calliope; Caden, Copeland, and Calliope
Callum; Caden, Copeland, and Callum
Calvin; Caden, Copeland, and Calvin
Cambria: Caden, Copeland, and Cambria
Cameron; Caden, Copeland, and Cameron
Campbell; Caden, Copeland, and Campbell
Carlisle; Caden, Copeland, and Carlisle
Carlson; Caden, Copeland, and Carlson
Carrigan; Caden, Copeland, and Carrigan
Carrington; Caden, Copeland, and Carrington
Carson; Caden, Copeland, and Carson
Carter; Caden, Copeland, and Carter
Casey; Caden, Copeland, and Casey
Chandler; Caden, Copeland, and Chandler
Channing; Caden, Copeland, and Channing
Chapman; Caden, Copeland, and Chapman
Ciaran; Caden, Copeland, and Ciaran
Clarion; Caden, Copeland, and Clarion
Coby; Caden, Copeland, and Coby
Coleman; Caden, Copeland, and Coleman
Collier; Caden, Copeland, and Collier
Connor; Caden, Copeland, and Connor
Conley; Caden, Copeland, and Conley
Conway; Caden, Copeland, and Conway
Corbin; Caden, Copeland, and Corbin
Cormac; Caden, Copeland, and Cormac
Crawford; Caden, Copeland, and Crawford
Crosby; Caden, Copeland, and Crosby
Currier; Caden, Copeland, and Currier

I lean toward the options that don’t repeat too many sounds. For example, I like the name Casey, but it has the same Kay- beginning as Caden, so it’s not one of my top choices; I like Calliope, but that may be too much C and L and P and O with Copeland.

For a boy, I think my favorites are:

Callahan
Carlson
Carson
Carter
Connor
Corbin
Crosby

For a girl, I think my favorites are:

Callahan
Campbell
Carlisle
Carrington
Channing
Collins
Crosby

Dear Swistle,
Wondering if you could help me… We’re due in 2 weeks with our 2nd child, a girl this time. For a middle name, I would like to honor my only living grandparent, who also happens to be an amazing lady! My problem is her name is Henrietta Mae. We’ve decided on the name June for the first name, so Mae doesn’t work as a middle. The other piece is my mom passed away 8 years ago, and I always thought I’d honor her in some way. Her name was Catherine.

With my grandmother still alive, I’m slightly more interested in honoring her. Problem is I can’t find a good way to use Henrietta. Her mother’s name was Mary, as was my grandfather’s mothers name.
I was thinking June Mary Cate Mc—–. What do you think? Is that too wordy?
Thanks so much Swistle!

The missing piece of the letter is this: What is the reason Henrietta can’t be used as the middle name? It seems great to me: sassy and fun and underused. June Henrietta is terrific, and makes me feel happy to see it and say it.

If I had to guess the reason from context, I’d guess it was that you dislike the name. I would encourage you to consider using it anyway. I greatly disliked my grandfather’s name AND it was the name of my high school boyfriend (a very negative connection at the time). But my grandfather was alive when my son was born, and I knew he’d be so thrilled to have a namesake, so we went ahead and used his first name as my son’s middle name. (I would like to take a minute here to appreciate Paul for being cool with this even with the ex-boyfriend issue.) Every time I tell someone his middle name and every time I fill out a form that requires it, I have a happy warm feeling about using the name. And, to my surprise, 17 years later I realize I have come to really like the name: part of it is that the name is closer and closer to coming back into style, but I think most of it is that the positive association (with my grandfather, with my child, and with the memory of my grandfather’s reaction to having his name used) has worked its charm. My children were asking the other day, do I really LIKE the taste of coffee? And I said I don’t even know anymore: I used to hate it, but now the positive associations with it are so strong, I say “MMMMmmmmmm” with the first sip, and I perceive it as GOOD. This is very similar to the way I feel about my son’s middle name.

And in the case of Henrietta, I love the name to begin with, and wish it were a name in my own family tree. I realize that doesn’t mean YOU will love the name—but I’ve found that other people’s positive or negative reactions to a name can affect how I feel about the name myself. It may work the same for you, if I and a bunch of commenters are all like “HENRIETTA HEART HEART HEART!!!”

Or if it doesn’t, and I’m right that the issue is that you dislike the name, and a bunch of strangers loving it doesn’t help, it may help to think about how infrequently a middle name sees the light of day in most families. Some bring it out on a regular basis, but at my house we only see the middle names when we’re doing paperwork or when I’ve roped someone into a discussion of baby names. If you dislike the name, but you very much want to honor your grandmother, I suggest going ahead and just DOING it: after the birth announcements go out, the name won’t come up very often.

I am a fan of long names and of multiple middle names, so I would also be on board with June Henrietta Catherine Mc_______. (Or if you’re planning more children, I might plan to honor your mother with the next child.)

But if instead you decide on June Mary Cate Mc_____, I don’t think that’s at all too wordy. I think it has a very nice rhythm and sound. MaryCate could even be a single middle name, if you didn’t want two.

Update on Baby Boy or Girl Eaves-with-an-R

So my husband and I are having our first baby girl, she’s not due any time soon. It’s very important to me that I honor the matriarchs of my family, it’s crucial actually. But I feel like this first girl, being that none of her cousins has taken on a family name, we can’t leave a matriarch out, we must somehow include them all. We’re okay with two middle names. The most important name is Maggie, my dads mom, Margaret, always went by Maggie. I love Margaret, my husband does not. He’s fine with Maggie being on the birth certificate but I feel like she needs a more formal name. My great grandmother was Opal May, we both love both names. My moms mom is Nola, which we also love. My mom is Thia… So how do we incorporate all of these names? We live in North Carolina, I’m not from here, he is, I do love the southern names. The best we’ve come up with is Magnolia May Ellis (“Maggie” and Ellis being our last name) but also Nola and Thia are incorporated and May for Opal… My concern is southerners pronounce it Magnolya, I like the Eah sound better, but that won’t happen in the south.

Do you have any other suggestions of how to get all these names into one fabulous name? And no we can’t leave anyone out… They would be heart broken and so would I

Let’s unpick this a bit. I think it is very unlikely that all four matriarchs would be heartbroken if they were not ALL honored on ONE child. Could you ask one or more of the matriarchs about this? My guess is that they would be eager to reassure you that this is not a goal you have to shoot for.

Also, are you planning more children? If you use all four essential matriarch names on your firstborn, what is the plan for the names of subsequent children?

My feeling is that you have built up an impossible logic problem, and that the way to solve it is to remove the untrue elements (“we must somehow include them all,” “we can’t leave anyone out of they would be heartbroken”) rather than to drive yourselves crazy looking for a solution. Did anyone leap from a cliff when other babies in the family were not named after all the men/women in that family tree? No? Then you do not have to take this burden on yourselves. And my guess is that you will be glad, when naming future children, to still have good names left to use.

The usual plan for parents who like honor names is to use one or two honor names per child, so that everyone gets some, and so that the honorees have room to feel honored. The dilemma, then, is whose names to use first, and in what name order. There can be reasons to move a person’s name up in line: for example, if any of the matriarchs are elderly and you would definitely like them to know they have a namesake before it’s too late to tell them. Some names can honor more than one person: if, for example, you use your mom’s mom’s name, you are honoring both your grandmother (because it’s her name) and your mom (because it’s her beloved mother’s name, and represents her side of the family). And of course your own personal tastes will enter into it: if you have two people you’d like to honor, but you like one person’s name better than the other person’s name, that could alter your decision.

If Margaret/Maggie is the most important of the names, then I would make an effort to use that name for the firstborn child. But because you two love Opal, May, and Nola, and you don’t agree on Margaret/Maggie, I would use Margaret as the middle name and choose the most important of Opal/May/Nola as the first name for this child. So here are what your options would be if I were in charge:

Opal Margaret Ellis
May Margaret Ellis
Nola Margaret Ellis

I would give priority to Opal and Nola, since May is a middle name. I would also give priority to a name that comes from your mother’s side of the family, since Margaret comes from your father’s side. You don’t mention whether the two of you both love the name Thia; if you do, that’s a fourth option:

Thia Margaret Ellis

Then let’s say time passes and you have a second little girl. Pick the NEXT two most important names for her (based on family feeling, age of family member, etc.), and put the name you prefer first. Or if you have a boy, you may want to consider using the name Nolan to honor Nola. Perhaps this first child could be Opal Margaret, and the next could be either Nola or Nolan.

If you absolutely insist on honoring four women with one baby’s name, and if you don’t think anyone will be hurt by being a second middle name or having their names combined/modified, and you don’t mind having no honor names left for possible future daughters, then I think your solution works pretty well. I don’t see Thia in there, unless you mean the -ia of Magnolia, but you’ve got at least plausible references to everyone else.

I think if it were me I would prefer to use all the actual first names and just heap them up: Margaret Opal Thia Nola Ellis. I would not normally want to use so many names, but if I felt I HAD to, I think I would just go ahead and REVEL in it: “YOU get an honor name and YOU get an honor name and YOU get an honor name and YOU get an honor name!” The amusingly long name shifts the situation in my mind from stressful heartbreak-avoidance to a near-comical rejoicing in so many great women. And then look at them all in the list! It’s a loving family reunion of a name. I can picture everyone standing around laughing and crying at the same time—and without you having to explain who was honored by which part of which name.

But again, I urge  you to reconsider the premises of this dilemma. DO you need to honor ALL FOUR with one child’s name? WILL everyone’s heart be broken if you don’t? It would be such a ludicrously unreasonable thing for a family to expect, it’s hard for me to work on the assumption that they do.

Update on Baby Naming Issue: Blake, Cooper, or Hudson?

Update on Baby Boy or Girl B.

Update on Baby Girl or Boy Gaulton, Sibling to Isabella

Hi Swistle,

I’m due at the end of October and until just recently thought I had my daughter’s name settled. As a teacher a lot of names got marked off the list quickly for either a) negative associations or b) not wanting to seem like I was naming my child after a particular student. Before I knew I was expecting a girl I had considered August Pierce for a boy’s name (with the nickname of Auggie or calling him Pierce, depending on what felt more suitable). This pregnancy was unexpected and I am going to be a single mom so by the time I had come around to the idea of thinking about names I had only really come up with the one boy option before I found out I would be having a girl. I’ve settled on the first name of Vada (inspired by the spunky little girl in the “My Girl” movies, but loved entirely because it’s unique and highly unlikely that there will be more than one in her classes or any in my future classes; also, my paternal grandmother’s name is Vanetta and I like the connection of the V names between my Memaw and her only-to-date great-granddaughter). The middle name I’m currently thinking of using is James, simply because I like how Vada James sounds and for pretty much no other reason (which I don’t really like; I like having a story behind a name, even if it is just a favorite movie from my childhood).

My dilemma comes, however, from a recent strong urge to honor my maternal great-grandmother. Her name was Minnie Louise and her nickname was Polly. Depending on who you asked she was either known as Minnie or Polly and the names were fairly interchangeable. Minnie’s descendants are all still fairly close (all six of her children are still alive and there’s a breakfast reunion each month) and while a couple have honored my great-grandfather (Troy Hoover), none have tried to honor Minnie/Polly. Toward the end of my great-grandmother’s life, after my great-grandfather had passed, my mom and I spent a lot of time helping her and making sure she was taken care of. A lot of Friday nights were spent spending the night at her house with my grandma and mother and they’re some of my favorite memories.

I’m open to using a middle name that could be nicknamed into Minnie or Polly, something that doesn’t necessarily scream either of those names at first, but I would know the connection and have a story for the use of the name). I had considered Minerva (which I know you’ve suggested in the past with the nickname Minnie), but it doesn’t seem to go with Vada very well. Completely sad, too, because Minerva (aside from the Minerva McGonagall connection, which is awesome) was the original mascot of my college alma mater back when it was an all girls institute. It would be perfect if it just sounded okay with Vada. Vada Minerva…am I crazy not thinking it goes?

Do you have any other suggestions?

Other girl names I’ve loved, if it helps:

Margaret
Eleanor
Olivia
Claudia
Phoebe
Piper
Elizabeth (which is my middle name and where my nickname of Bess comes from, so I’m okay with using a nickname that comes from a middle name)
Charlotte

My last name rhymes with memory, but starts with a K (assuming you pronounce memory like I do: two syllables, mim-ree–I’m from the south, if that pronunciation sounds odd).

Thank you so much for any ideas/help you can give!

This is going to be a short answer, because I think Vada Minerva sounds GREAT. My friend Miss Grace and I have had multiple conversations about how much we like it when there is a repeated sound within two names: that is, not necessarily alliteration (Veda Victoria, for example), but rather the exact thing you’ve got going on with the repeating V sound of Vada Minerva. I think it makes names fun to say, and also ties them together. So I’m doing double-thumbs-up for the Vada Minerva idea, for the sounds and the associations, and don’t see any reason to look further.

But “sounds GREAT” is a very subjective thing, and if it doesn’t sound good to you, you may want to continue looking. In that case, I’d next go with Vada Polly. I think that’s super cute. Or Vada Louise: I like that even better for sound, but less well for connection to the original name.

This is a bit of a reach, but did you by any chance love the Anne McCaffrey books as a child, the ones about a harper and dragon-handler named Menolly? It’s been a long time since I read those, but I used to LOVE them, and I remember Menolly as a good strong character. Also, her name sounds to me like Minnie + Polly. Veda Menolly. (I’d prefer Minerva, though, for the associations and for the more direct reference to the honor name.)

In your circle, is it common to call a child by first-and-middle? That too would influence my advice. If NOT, then I’d be much less concerned with how it sounds, and much more interested in getting the honor name in there. But if SO, then I’d still be interested in the honor name, but would put much more emphasis on it sounding well together.

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

I’m sorry for the delayed update. Thank you to you and your readers for your input on my daughter’s name. I ended up going completely out of left field and choose a name that wasn’t suggested or even thought of at all: Siobhan.

Siobhan first came from an extremely minor character in a novel I teach to my 9th grade English classes each semester. The first year I taught it I couldn’t pronounce the name to save my life. It was the first time I realized I had to be extremely prepared when it came to even the smallest things in education. I was discussing names with my mother and threw Siobhan out almost jokingly. We both ended up loving the sound of Vada Siobhan. A nice bonus is that she shares a middle initial with both my mother and father.

Here’s newborn and 3 month old Vada.