I would like to talk a little bit about two topics that come up fairly often in the comments section, and which I think are somewhat related. The first topic is whether or not any particular letter is real, and the second is the rate at which our advice is taken.

There are certain posts which can cause the reader to think, “Wait. Can this be real?” When I am going through the letters and deciding which ones to answer, this frequently catches my attention too. Sometimes it is the circumstance that seems unlikely; sometimes there is something that just seems off about the tone of whole thing. (Sometimes this tone can come from the writer trying to protect identifying details.) Other times, nothing in a letter catches my attention—but months later I will get another letter from the same email address, describing a completely different situation with different sibling names, and I will realize one or the other or both letters were fake.

You may well wonder if this bothers me, and there are times when it does: no one likes to feel foolish, and spending time sincerely answering a totally fake letter could potentially make me feel fooled, and therefore foolish. It generally doesn’t, however, and this brings me to the second topic. We’ll need to take a bit of a leap to get there, but stay with me and I will tie it all up together.

It is common for a commenter to get discouraged, when we get update after update where the letter-writer has asked for our advice and then seems to have decided not to take it. You might think this would be discouraging to me as well, and yet with very few exceptions it isn’t. This is for many reasons, from “feeling that sometimes the benefit of advice is that it reinforces the opposite opinion” to “feeling that sometimes the real benefit comes from seeing a variety of viewpoints” to “we NEVER all agree, and the letter-writer can’t take EVERYONE’S contradictory advice.” But another large part is because awhile back, when thinking about why it was that I loved writing here but didn’t like doing private consultations, I realized that although this blog APPEARS to be written for the benefit of the letter-writers, it is ACTUALLY written almost solely for the benefit of those of us who like to talk about baby names. The whole point of the blog was that I wanted to talk/think about baby names MUCH MORE than I had babies to name, so I wanted a place where I could spend time with other people who felt the same way.

I assume we DO all hope our discussions will help the letter-writers (and other parents experiencing similar problems)—but the real, true, deep-down purpose of each letter is to be a jumping-off place for OUR discussion. This is why I don’t mind taking a letter from someone who has a hypothetical question over a letter from someone in labor: because it is not really ABOUT how badly the letter-writer needs us, it is about how much we want to discuss the topic. There are days I cannot face explaining EVER AGAIN about how the #1 name of today is not of comparable popularity to the name Jennifer in the 1970s, and yet I would LOVE to talk about a dilemma I haven’t considered before, sent by someone who is not even pregnant yet.

Clearly, this is not something I want at the forefront of everyone’s mind all the time. It feels happier and more purposeful all around if the overall feeling is that the letter-writers need help, and we provide help. And yet I think it is happier and more satisfying and less discouraging in the long run to realize that is not the real story.

For one thing, it takes away the discouraged feeling when letter-writers decide against even near-unanimous advice. Even if no one EVER took our advice, WE still had the fun of discussing the topic and maybe continuing to think about it while doing boring chores, and also the fun of getting peeks into other people’s lives and situations and naming preferences/styles. (And this is why I hope letter-writers won’t feel shy about updating us, even if they decided to go a different way: I care very much about knowing the outcome, and little to nothing about whether it’s the same outcome I voted for.)

For another thing, it takes away the need to determine if a particular letter is really truly real before posting/discussing it. Not only would this be almost impossible to verify anyway, it does not matter: all WE wanted was the fun of discussing baby names, and we GOT that. If the letter-writer is someone not actually experiencing the described situation, they have gained nothing from our reply, and we have lost nothing—and we have still gained the fun of discussing the situation; and other parents in similar-but-actually-real situations have still gained the benefit of reading about it.

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Good morning Swistle!
My husband and I are expecting our first baby in September. We would like to keep the name a secret… Unwanted advice is on the top 5 pregnancy annoyances and I’m not ready to cause confrontation.
Instead of saying ” we haven’t decided yet or are unsure” for the next 6 months, I thought of casually mentioning some decoy names. (Can you really say you aren’t sure at 39 weeks without getting more advice bout baby preparedness?) Saying we aren’t sharing might come across as rude. I’m thinking it can be casual as in ” we kinda like blah blah but aren’t really sure”
Good idea? Bad idea? Good example baby decoy names?
I know this sounds like a Cop-out but the questions are coming in Full force and I’m not ready to share.

Thank you so much

Ah! Yes! It’s one thing to say “Just don’t TELL anyone,” and quite another to deal with the constant, constant questions. I found that the only way I could manage it was by saying, “We’re keeping the name a surprise!” It didn’t feel rude to say it that way, and it makes the situation clear. Another way to soften the answer is to say that you’re waiting until the baby is born, to make sure the name fits before you announce it, and/or just in case you change your minds right at the last minute.

If you don’t mind discussing names and just don’t want to reveal the final choices, you can talk about the TYPES of names you like, and/or mention a few you considered but decided against. “But I CAN say that we considered William and Henry!” or “We’re thinking along the lines of unusual-but-not-too-weird” or “We really wanted to use [name], but can’t because of [reason]” or “Get this: my husband wanted to use [hilarious and out-of-the-question option]!” This can lead to suggestions and guesses, but you can just raise your eyebrows and look mysterious because you’ve already said you’re not going to tell the name. Or you can lob the discussion back to them: ask them if they had trouble agreeing on names, or what they think about using family names, or what names they wish they could use.

If by decoy names you mean names of the “We’re thinking about X and Y but aren’t sure” type, then I think that seems like a good script—especially for early on, when it wouldn’t be strange to be undecided. For the X and Y, I’d use names you actually did consider (or names similar to names you actually did consider), but have decided not to use. But if by decoy names you mean telling other people that you have chosen names, and then saying fake names you aren’t going to use, I would not recommend that. If it feels awkward to say you’re not sharing names, it seems as if it would feel much more awkward to explain afterward that you lied because you didn’t want to share names. Furthermore, one of the many reasons people have for asking about baby names is that they like to get baby gifts personalized.

[Note to readers: Typically I stick to letters that are from one of the parents of the baby in question. However, in this case the father of the baby left his question as a comment on another post. Then shortly afterward, the letter from the grandmother appeared. Since the letter was in letter form, and because it did a better job of laying out the issue, and because I’m not sure it would be okay to take a comment on a post and turn it into another post, I used the letter.]

Swistle,

I have a problem in my family at this moment. The issue is that my son wants to name his first born, being a son, after himself. Example is this, lets say my husbands name is John Doe Smith II and my son is John Doe Smith III. My son wants to name his son John Doe Smith III Jr.
My son and Daughter-in -Law have checked this out legally and found out that you can have two suffixes in your name.
My husband believes that naming the baby with the two suffixes would end the family name.
What are your thoughts on this?

Thank you for your opinion on this matter,
Happy Gam Gam

WHY do they want to do this? Are they serious, or are they trying to be clever/funny, or do they not understand how this works?

An example of being serious: If your son feels his grandfather was a deplorable man, and absolutely does not want to name a child after him, but DOES still want to name a child after himself. I could see how your son naming a child John Doe Smith IV is naming the child, in essence, after his grandfather; naming a child John Doe Smith III Jr. says specifically “This child is NOT named after my grandfather and is NOT named after my father, but is ONLY named after me.”

An example of trying to be clever/funny (courtesy of Paul, who came up with this parallel): “It’s the 4th anniversary of my 39th birthday!” There is already a way to count the 4th anniversary of a 39th birthday, and it is to say “43th birthday.” But you COULD say 4th anniversary of 39th birthday, just as you can say III Jr. instead of IV. I wouldn’t do it on any legal paperwork, but it makes a good joke to post on Facebook.

An example of truly not understanding how this works: Perhaps your son and daughter-in-law don’t understand the suffix system, and don’t know what Sr./Jr./III/IV/V/etc. mean or how they’re used. The suffix “IV” (the Roman numeral for “4”) is the way we abbreviate/symbolize the concept “the Jr. of someone who is a III”—i.e., the fourth bearer of the name. If it is indeed legal to have two suffixes, your son could be named John Doe Smith Jr. Jr. instead of John Doe Smith III—but he isn’t, because that is not the way the system works: instead of “Jr. Jr.” we say “III”. And instead of “Jr. Jr. Jr.” we say “IV”. It isn’t a matter of the legal number of suffixes, it’s a matter of How the Suffix System Works.

Whatever the motivation, if he chooses to use III Jr. for his son, that does not necessarily end the family name. Your grandson, upon reaching adulthood and having a son of his own, could name his son John Doe Smith V, or John Doe Smith III Jr. Jr., or even Howard Joseph Smith Jr., and there would be no Name Police to leap out from the shrubbery and tell him he couldn’t. My guess is that anyone named John Doe Smith III Jr. would grow up so sick of the confusion and explanations that he would gladly ditch the tradition, but there’s no reason he has to.

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