Update on Middle Name Challenge: Zoey ______ Peters!

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So I am starting work on a new writing project and I need some help with the names. The main characters are the Winters sisters. The oldest 2 are identical twins and I am calling them Cora and Rose, short for Coraline Elizabeth (I think Elizabeth but not 100% on it) and Rosalind Something. The little sister is Lucy Short For Something Some Middle Name. The dad is…I’m not sure. Pipe smoking tweed wearing philosophy professor. I’m thinking about Neil as Neille was my dad’s middle name but I;m not sure and I don’t want the dads name to also have 4 letters, just the sisters. Also, the mother. I really need help with the mother. She’s meant to be closed off, rather inscrutable to her daughters, a bit cold, but a woman trying her best. I feel like some sort of Highbrow Name would work best but everything I’ve come up with seems not quite right or it has associations for me that I do not want to pass along to the character–Margaret, Judith, Janet, Alexandra, Catherine, Charlotte…

if you have any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!

I think for me the time period makes the most difference. But without knowing that, I can still give an opinion: for the parents, I would look one generation earlier than Coraline/Rosalind/Lucy, whenever we think those names are from: maybe modern, maybe old-timey. Coraline is difficult: I don’t know much about it, but I think of it as recent. And yet it SOUNDS old, because of the Cora and Coral and Caroline elements. Rosalind hasn’t spiked enough to be tied strongly to a particular generation; it sounds old-timey to me, yet ready for a revival soon.

For Lucy, Lucinda seems like the better long form with those sister names. If they’d written to me, I might have pointed out the repeating -ind- sounds in Rosalind and Lucinda, but on the other hand that’s a nice way to help tie the three sister names together; and the parents don’t seem to mind repeating sounds, since they went with two -alin- names for the twins.

Lucille or Lucia might also work, but it has less of the Right Sound to me. That is, I wouldn’t expect the parents of Coraline and Rosalind to choose Lucille or Lucia.

For middle names, I’d expect Rosalind to have a long classic name similar to Elizabeth, since the parents clearly like coordination. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see something like Isabella, though that doesn’t really work with either first name. Maybe Amelia: Rosalind Amelia and Coraline Elizabeth; but then her initials spell RAW. Maybe Victoria, for coordinated royalty. Rosalind Victoria and Coraline Elizabeth. I like that best.

Lucy’s middle is too hard to pick at this stage, but would be easier once her first name and her sisters’ middle names were settled. One thing to decide is this: are their parents the sort who would coordinate the twins’ names but not be too finicky about coordinating the third daughter’s name, and/or want to AVOID coordinating her name with the twins’ names? or are they the sort who would stick to their established pattern?

If the dad is the professor type, I might expect to see some educated/literature names: Cordelia, Beatrix, Miranda, Octavia, Imogen, Cressida.

If you’re looking for something similar to Neil but not four letters, I’d be thinking along these lines:

Allen
Bernard
Charles
Daniel
Edward
Francis
Glenn
Harris
Lewis
Martin
Philip
Richard
Roger
Russell
Warren

I’m not sure about the ones that end in -s like the surname. Francis Winters? Charles Winters?

For the mother, it’s hard for me to picture someone inscrutable, cold, closed-off, with a very plain classic name, giving such fancy names to her daughters. I might want to have a reason for that in the story: either it’s her husband’s influence, or she always disliked her plain name, or she’s using family names, or she became cold/inscrutable later on, after becoming disillusioned from earlier romantic ideals.

Some names similar to Neil, but for the wife:

Ann
Beverly
Constance
Diane
Dorothy
Frances
Helen
Jean
Joan
Lorraine
Lydia
Marilyn
Mary
Phyllis
Ruth

I could also see her naming her first daughter after herself, either first name or middle. So perhaps her name is one of the four names used for the twins. Or perhaps one name is a variation on hers: perhaps her name is Rose (though not if her daughter is going to be called Rose), or Eliza. Or perhaps her name is Belinda, and that’s why she has an -ind- in all three daughters’ names.

Update (and photo!) on Baby Naming Issue: Is it Okay To Use a Name that Was Chosen for a Baby Lost to Miscarriage?!

Hi Swistle,

I’ve been reading your blog for several months now and I love it. My question is this.

I have a baby sister whose name is Jana. It took my parents ages to come up with a name. She was un-named for several days as my parents and my family tried to come up with one!

Anyway, I was wondering, what is the correct pronunciation for her first name, Jana?

We pronounce it like Janna (rhymes with Anna). We have, however, run into lots of people who try to call her Yana (I think this is the middle eastern pronunciation??), Jah-na, and even Jane-a!

So, how would you pronounce it? I don’t really mind what the ‘correct’ pronunciation is, I am just curious as to how you and your readers would say it.

Thanks awfully!

As with many names, the name Jana has more than one familiar pronunciation. The question “What is the correct pronunciation?” would be answered in this case with “It rhymes with Anna”—because that is the pronunciation the parents have decided to go with.

A similar name is Lucia. It can correctly be pronounced loo-SEE-ah, loo-CHEE-ah, or LOO-sha. Another is Helena: heh-LAY-na, HEH-leh-nah, heh-LEE-nah.

Part of the package deal of a name with multiple pronunciations is that the pronunciation will regularly need to be clarified and corrected. Names with multiple spellings are similar: parents who choose the name Annabel are signing on for the task of saying “two N’s, one L”—and for being patient when they need to correct it on class lists, forms, etc., or when they see it spelled wrong on party invitations, valentines, and letters.

One of my own preferences is to have a quick and easy way to clarify/correct. In your little sister’s case, you have a great one: “rhymes with Anna” is quick, easy, and clear for spoken clarifications. In writing, it would be unclear whether Anna was pronounced ANN-ah or AH-na, so I might go with something like “Like the name Jan, but with an -a on the end.” Or “Like the ‘a’ in ‘apple’.”

If I saw the name Jana on a class list, I would know right away that it could be pronounced several different ways. The first pronunciation that comes to mind is YAH-na (my ancestry is mostly Dutch and German, so Jan-pronounced-Yahn and Jana-pronounced YAH-na are familiar family-tree names), but my first actual guess would be the rhymes-with-Anna version. I would probably say, “JAN-ah, YAH-nah, JAH-nah?” to cover my bases when saying it for the first time. I don’t think I’d guess JAY-nah, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be the answer. Worldwide, my guess is that YAH-nah is the most common (the Forvo listing is made up almost entirely of YAH-nahs); in the United States, my guess it that JAN-ah is the most common—but the Social Security name lists don’t deal with pronunciation at all, so that’s purely a guess.

Update (and photo!) on Baby Girl Jenkins, Sister to Abigail, Evan, Hugh, and Molly!

please help!

I am due with my third baby at the end of this month and my husband and I still cannot seem to settle on a name. Our last name is two syllables and starts with a W.

We have a son, Kingston, and a daughter, Arizona, and we are expecting another girl (yay!). We don’t want another place name, but would like something that goes with those names and their style.

Names we have considered:

Honor- we both like this name because of the “on” that it shares with the other two names, but struggle with feeling like it may give too soft of a personality image to give to a baby who may end up being completely opposite.

Quinn- already have a boy nephew with this name. Love the Q and that it has the “n” ending like Kingston.

Ember- we love the meaning and look of it but I can’t help feeling like everyone will think her name is Amber, which is a name I am really not fond of.

Penny- my husbands favorite. I like it as a nickname but don’t like it on its own or any of the longer forms that it could be used with (ie. Penelope, aspen, Persephone etc)

Sunday- another name my husband has said no to. I love sunny as a nickname and its bright, happy sound. He thinks it’s too far from a normal name, which I can understand.

Gray- we love this name but aren’t sure if we can use it since we already have a child who shares a name with someone from the show grey’s anatomy, and also don’t know how well we feel it goes with the names of the other kids.

Any feedback would be appreciated. We have scoured countless name sites and read too many name lists and are running out of time!

Thanks,

Jessi

Good Morning! My husband and I are in the process of starting our family soon and love talking baby names, but are struggling to set on a name! (Plus, we are the TWO most indecisive people I know…) To start, our last name is H!ll. A few things…
1. We don’t want a first name that can be nicknamed, and 2. we want the middle name (or first!) to be an honor name.
At this point, we think we will keep our family small with only one or two little babes :)

We have some boy names we LOVE but can’t decide. The following are our favorite combos:
-Jack Anderson (Anderson is an honor name)
-Judd Anderson OR Judd August (Our wedding month)
-Beau Anderson
-Hank Anderson

And as far as girl names… ugh. So many to choose! We love classic, older names. We were both raised in the midwest, but now live in the south and have fallen in love with older, southern sounding names.
Some names we love:
-Hattie or Haddie
-Grace
-Annie
-Caroline
-Vivienne
-Ramsey

Some girl names I love, but he isn’t crazy about:
-Daphne
-Seraphina ( I know, I know… this one could be nicknamed ;)
-Phoebe

Honor names we like but don’t know what to do with:
-Toni
-Ann
-Rose
-Olivia
-August
-Anderson
-Edward

Thanks so much! I love your blog :)

I am going to stay fairly general, since it’s early days. It can be so much easier to make a decision when there is a baby growing and a due date impending, and it helps considerably that you both love to discuss names. (I’m so envious of that last part. Paul was more the “Ug, do we HAVE to talk about baby names?? You’re only 8 months pregnant!” type.)

My first note is to make sure you’re trying your name candidates without the middle name, since that’s the way they’ll mostly be said and used. If you are saying aloud, “Beau Anderson H!ll,” that’s a very different sound than “Beau H!ll.”

My second note is that your surname is little tricky. First names ending in a hard C/K sound tend to make H!ll into Kill, and I noticed that a lot of combinations brought associations to mind. Jack H!ll, for example, makes me think of Jack and Jill going up the hill. Annie H!ll makes me think of Annie Hall. Hank H!ll makes me think of Hank H!ll from King of the Hill, even though I haven’t watched that show since the late ’90s. Are any of these Giant Serious Concerns? No, and a couple of those references get more dated by the day—but they’re the sorts of things I like to take into account when making a decision, rather than getting surprised by them as I start announcing the baby’s name.

My third note is to watch for style outliers. For example, looking over your list of girl names, Ramsey is a stand-out. If you have one child, or if you prefer sibling names not to coordinate, this isn’t an issue; if, however, sisters named Ramsey and Vivienne strike you as startling, it’s good to have thought of that ahead of time.

You’ve got some great honor names to work with. My suggestion there is to work first on the first name: add any honor names you might want to use as first names to the list, and narrow that list down. Once you’re down to your finalist first names, start bringing in the middle names. If, for example, you have your girl-name list down to Caroline or Hattie, then start pairing them up with honor middle names: Caroline Olivia H!ll, Hattie Anderson H!ll, Caroline August H!ll, Hattie Rose H!ll, etc. If, on the other hand, you decided on Annie or Rose or Anderson as a first name, you could then look for non-honor names for the middle names: perhaps names that weren’t quite right as first names but you still want to use them.

Hi Swistle,

I have been a long time reader of your blog. Love it! I’m also a baby name fanatic.

I had written you previously about naming our second baby girl. Her name is Amelia. Today I see through some photos a friend posted on Facebook that an ex of mine is having a baby girl. He and his wife has chosen our second choice name. The name that we ultimately did not choose. But I can’t help this feeling of having been stolen from. It isn’t as if they knew this name was at the top of our list, a frontrunner, a favorite name. They have without knowing stolen this name from me.

I know this is not your typical baby naming issue but I am hoping you may have some advice for me. I think in the way way way back of my mind I was hoping to ‘save’ the name for a future daughter. Is this name off the table? Am I forbidden to use it? We have quite an overlap of friends and social circles.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

The short answer is that you are not forbidden to use it, but that I would indeed say it is off the table.

There are times when I would emphasize to parents that names are multi-use items (there are many other people named Amelia, for example, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t use the name Amelia), and I would add that duplication can be fun.

This is not one of those times. THIS falls into a different category, where the use of a particular name is packed with so much symbolism and/or so many potential issues, it causes me to flip right over to the “There are so many other names to choose from; why choose THIS one?” side of the name-duplication argument. If you and your ex had each named a daughter the same name inadvertently and unknowingly, that would be awkward enough; I think it would be a very poor idea to do it knowingly. It might be a useful mental exercise to imagine how it would feel if your ex named his new baby Amelia, knowing you had used the name already.

I think what is needed at this point is Coping Thoughts: thoughts to make yourself feel better about the loss of the name. One is this part of your letter: “I think in the way way way back of my mind I was hoping to ‘save’ the name for a future daughter.” After my first read-through of the letter, I was feeling as if the name in question was your chosen first-choice name if you had another girl later on; after re-reading, it sounds more as if that idea to use the rejected name for a future daughter didn’t fully occur to you until after you saw that your ex was going to use it. I wonder if the issue is more that it was very startling to see your second-choice name on an ex’s child, combined with the natural human feeling of wanting something more when it is no longer available.

Another Coping Thought is that it’s very possible that, if your ex hadn’t used the name, you wouldn’t have used it either. Many parents find that by the time the next baby comes along, they’ve cooled on previous finalists or have discovered new favorites.

If I’ve correctly assumed that your ex’s baby is not yet born, there is also a slim possibility that they won’t use the name either. (This could be a False Hope Thought rather than a Coping Thought.)

It is also of course a possibility that you will not have a third daughter, and so the issue won’t come up at all. This is more a Coping Thought for the future: looking back, you may be able to say, “We wouldn’t have been able to use the name anyway.”

I’m finding it interesting to wonder about the other names on your ex’s list. Wouldn’t it be interesting if they had Amelia on their list, and had to scramble for a new favorite?

Update on Baby Girl Rhymes-with-Cow, Sister to Carter and Holden!