Update on Baby Naming Issue: Choosing a Name for a Baby Who Has Died

Update on Baby Twins Des-Rose-Shures!

Update (and photo!) on Baby Boy, Brother to Charles (Huck), Isaac, Katherine, and Seth!

Hi Swistle,

I am a long-term reader, and love thinking about names. Now I am not pregnant, and we are not trying either, but I do love thinking about names and playing with possible combinations. And lately I have been thinking about possible honor names.

Luckily, there are a ton of great names in both of our families to choose from. However, the one person I would really really like to honor is my grandfather, who passed away last year. We were very close, and he was a great man throughout his life. If there was anyone in my family I would really like to honor it would be him. But, unfortunately, he was born in Germany in the 1920s and was named Adolf.

I don’t think the name Adolf is still usable, not even as a middle name. It conveys a certain message, and certainly not one a child of German heritage should have, even though I objectively like the sound of it. Sadly my grandfather didn’t have a middle name, and his last name is a very long German word that is very much unpronounceable and can in no way be used as a first name. He did have a nickname – Adel (pronounced like Uh-dl). Do you think this nickname might potentially be usable, or would this defeat the purpose of an honor name? Other versions would be using something that sounds similar, like Adam (starts with Ad) or Adelia or Delphi for a girl, but these all just seem to be a little far fetched.

Let me know what you think? I would love to honor him, but I do not want to burden any future children.

Ann

Generally you will find me on the conservative end of the spectrum for honor names: really I like the name to be the same as the honoree’s name, and I find all other options significantly less honory, sometimes to the point of not feeling honory at all. However, in the case of the name Adolf, I am absolutely on board with not using the name.

The question now is: How far can we go from the honor name and still feel as if it’s an honor? People are all over the spectrum on this one. At my end of the spectrum, I have a hard time seeing the honor of a shared first initial or shared meaning; but at the other end of the spectrum are parents who use the name Sophia Rose and because they love how it successfully honors all four grandparents at once: Ronald, Ruth, Phil, and Sandra.

I think I would shoot for two goals: first and foremost, for the name to make you think affectionately of your grandfather; second, for the naming story to make sense. Naming stories don’t HAVE to make sense, of course: there’s no review board, and you don’t have to share the naming story with anyone. But I find it useful for testing if, in our efforts to make something work, we have strayed outside the bounds of reason. It’s very easy to make a first jump, and then take a second jump from that landing place, and end up with something that can be connected only with a trail of breadcrumbs.

My favorite in this case would be to use the name Alfred. I think the name is adorable and ready for a serious comeback, and to me it feels similar enough to Adolf that I looked it up in The Oxford Dictionary of First Names to see if they might have come from similar sources. (No.)

For a girl, I think of names such as Agatha, Delphine, Daphne, Adelaide; nothing clicks quite well enough, but there’s a slight tie.

I do think “We wanted to honor my grandfather, but his name is Adolf, so…we just had to do the best we could!” works very well, explanation-wise.

I am not seeing much potential in the nickname pronounced Uhdl. The name Abel LOOKS like Adel, which seemed like a promising path at first, but now I am starting to feel as if the naming story is slipping: a name that looks like (leap #2) a nickname (leap #1). But does the sight of the name Abel make you immediately think of your grandfather? Then I think this option has potential.

Another possible path: according to The Oxford Dictionary of First Names, Adolf means “noble wolf.” Wolf would make a fairly rad middle name, and has the additional advantage of sharing the -olf of Adolf.

We could continue with this idea by looking for more names that mean “noble” and/or “wolf.” Baby Names Made Easy: The Complete Reverse-Dictionary of Baby Names has these possibilities:

Ada: “noble”—from the same Germanic Ad- of Adolf
Adelaide: “noble and kind”—shares the same Germanic Ad- of Adolf, and adds kindness
Adele: “noble”—but the singer Adele is a strong association
Adeline: “noble”
Adler: “noble eagle”—excellent symbolism reboot, plus shares the Germanic Ad-
Albert: “noble, bright”
Alice: “noble, kind”
Alphonse: “noble, battle-ready”
Arwen: “noble maiden”
Audrey: “noble strength”
Cannon: “wolf cub”—awww, baby wolf
Conan: “wolf”
Della: “noble”
Ethel: “noble”
Gandolf: “wolf’s progress”—good symbolism reboot, shares -dolf, but strong Gandalf assoc.
Grady: “noble”
Heidi: “noble, kind”
Lowell: “wolf cub”—but sounds like when my kids say “LOL” as a word
Noble: the word itself is a possibility
Oberon: “noble bear”
Owen: “highborn, noble”—the “highborn” puts the wrong spin on “noble,” it seems to me
Phelan: “wolf”
Rafe: “wolf counsel”
Ralph: “wolf counsel”
Randall: “wolf’s shield”
Randolph/Randolf: “wolf’s shield”—and shares -dolf
Rudolph: “famous wolf”—famous reindeer, too
Shaw: “wolf”
Tala: “wolf”
Whelan: “wolf”
Zeva: “wolf”

Because one person’s huge reach is another person’s intuitive leap, I’ve included even the options where my own feeling is that the connection is getting pretty slim. For one thing, you might have information that gives the name an additional connection, such as if Rafe were the name of your grandfather’s dad, or if Whelan were the name of the town where he grew up, or if Randall were your maiden name.

And this brings me to another source of honor names I do not generally reach for, but many people do: names of things connected to your grandfather, such as the names of towns he lived in, schools he attended, professions, hobbies, siblings, favorite flowers/colors/foods, other names in his family tree, whatever. Or you could look for German names in general.

Or there’s the idea of sharing multiple initials. If your grandfather’s surname started with K., for example, you could make it your goal to find first/middle names with the initials A.K.

And finally, there is the idea of abandoning the whole thing. It is fairly common for parents to really want to honor a beloved person, and yet be unable to make it work. I always feel sad when that happens, because I love honor names—but sometimes it turns out to be an unsolvable equation.

Update (and photo!) on Baby Naming Issue: They Changed the Previous Baby’s Name; Can They Use That Name for This Next Baby?

Dear Swistle,

I am due in October with my second son. Everyone in my immediate family and my husband’s immediate family’s names start with “J” and there are many, many “J” names in our extended families as well. We therefore decided to continue the tradition and name all our children “J” names, our first son being named Jameson. Although we weren’t pregnant yet, we started discussing potential boys names for the future. We were having a very difficult time coming up with another boy’s name that started with “J” that fit our three criteria: 1) not a given name already used in the family, 2) not overly popular, 3) we love it. We finally came up with a name that we love: Jules.

The problem is that my sister has four daughters, one of whose name starts with “J”, Julia. One of Julia’s many nicknames is Jules, although she goes by Julia on a regular basis. There will also be eight years and many states between Julia and her cousin-to-be. Everyone in my family, sister included, really likes the name and doesn’t think there should be an issue…except for my brother-in-law. He has told my sister that Jules is his special nickname for his daughter and if we name our baby that name he won’t call the baby by his given name. He even went so far as to “jokingly” state that if we name our child Jules he will buy a dog and name it my given name. Ironically, our second favorite name is Julian, which would inevitably end up being shortened to the nickname Jules, and he doesn’t seem to have a problem with, yet.

I don’t think my niece Julia will be upset by her new cousin having her nickname since she suggested Julian for my first son’s name, but don’t want to hurt her feelings in any way. I also don’t want to acquiesce to my brother-in-law over his emotional attachment to a nickname that we all use on occasion for his daughter. Lastly, when there are so few names, i.e. one, that fit our criteria, I do not want to settle for a name that I will be second guessing for the rest of my son’s life.

Please help! I know that I have some time still, but this has been weighing on my mind.

-Jenée Morgan

Your brother-in-law is being an ass, I think we can agree on that. The question is, what effect if any should this have on your baby-naming decisions?

What I WISH we could do is just make him see that he’s being an ass, and have him say “Sorry for being such an ass,” and then you go ahead and name your own baby just as he got to name his own baby. He did not name his baby Jules; even if he HAD named his baby Jules, you would still be able to name your baby Jules, because names are not one-time-use items. Presumably Julia Roberts’s parents are not buying a dog to name after your brother-in-law just because he used their daughter’s name.

Is there any hope of your sister handling the task of making him see that he’s being an ass? Or I wonder if she DOES have a problem with you using Jules, but doesn’t want to say so. It seems a little suspicious that she’s passing along to you what her husband said, apparently without kicking his legs out from under him first.

Well, let’s assume your brother-in-law does not change his tune. I hate the idea of giving in to his jerky behavior, but there are some things that are not worth the family drama. My vote, then, is for using the name Julian. I like the way it totally gives you the Jules nickname AND is actually CLOSER to the name Julia, but in a way that is evidently flying under your brother-in-law’s radar.

If that doesn’t work (either you find you are just not happy with the name Julian, or else your brother-in-law suddenly notices it and doesn’t feel at all bashful about preventing you from using another name), I vote for going back to the drawing board. I would go back even as far as “Do we really want to use all J names?” It’s hard to choose names, and it’s even harder when 25 out of 26 initials are eliminated. The new tradition could be “Firstborn child gets a J name,” or “Everyone gets a J somewhere in their name,” or “J-name, then K-name, then L-name…”.

If you decide J names are your most important preference, and it looks as if that IS the decision, then it may be that another preference will have to give way. There may just not BE any more J names you love that are also unused in the family and not popular. If we were chatting right now in my skyscraper baby-naming office, here’s what I’d give you for this week’s homework: rank the other preferences. If J names is first, what’s fourth? If one preference has to go, which one will it be? Picture a balance scale: if “name we love” is on one side and “uncommon name” is on the other, which weighs more? What if it’s “not already used in the family” and “name we love”? And so on.

If this is too hard to do (you might think, as I would, that it really depends on the particular name), then I’d suggest eliminating one preference at a time, experimentally, and seeing what kind of lists you get. For example, try kicking popularity out of the running: pretend that all J names are equally uncommon, and see which ones you like best. Next, reinstate the popularity preference, but knock out the requirement that it be a unique name in the extended family. Then, go back to the no-repeats rule, but consider names you don’t love: it can feel a little weird to do, but it happens all the time that someone uses a name they don’t love (because it’s a family tradition or an honor name, because they couldn’t agree with the other parent, etc.) and then they grow to love the name once it belongs to the child. Even with names I loved, it’s funny to think back and remember all the doubts I had about the names before using them.

Update (and photo!) on Baby Naming Issue: If You Promised Not to Use an Honor Name, Do You Have to Keep that Promise?

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