Hi Swistle,

Hoping you and your readers can give some input on naming our baby boy due in early May.

Some background – we already have a girl, named Eloise. We both love her name and knew we would use Eloise before we even knew she was a girl.

I am now almost 25 weeks and both my husband and I aren’t sold on anything. Naming boys feels so much harder. For context, our last name is pronounced like Lucas, just spelled differently. Here are our contenders and my thoughts around each.

Charles nn Charlie – I think Charlie is adorable and we both like this name enough. We would be perfectly happy with this and when our 2 year old says Charlie it’s really adorable. However, it feels so popular, and I especially worry that all the girl Charlie’s (from Charlotte) increase that popularity even more. Will he be `1 of multiple in his class? The class below my daughter in daycare has 2 Charlie’s (both boys) out of a class of 8! It’s a great name, but it just gives me pause. However, I think of the 3 names I’m proposing, Charlie goes best with Eloise.

Miles – we both like this name, and I like how it’s classic but a bit less common than Charlie – has a touch of a twist, I suppose, for a “common” name. Though it also seems to be rising in popularity and for some reason I get a 2010 vibe from it, perhaps because in 2010 I babysat a Miles, so it could just be my own bias here. I think the name is adorable though and we’d both be good with this one too.

Here’s the curveball. I have the idea in my head to use my maiden name…Collins. I know Collins is mostly used on girls but it sounds so masculine to me. I think it would be a cool, solid name for a boy. However, it’s a surname, and his last name sounds like a first name so when said together — “Collins Lucas” it sounds like you’re saying it backwards.

My solution here is to give my husband what he REALLY wants and to give him my husband’s first name Peter, so Peter Collins Lucas – but call him Collins. I do not want two Peters in the house since my husband goes by both Peter and Pete – there is no other good nick name and it would just be confusing for me. But, I could get on board with a Peter if he goes by his middle name, my maiden name. My husband isn’t quite sold on Collins but I like the unexpectedness that it brings, a bit like hearing Eloise, I suppose. But I also can’t say I’m 100% sold either. Will this kid be dealing with so many complications (going by his middle name, having a name more commonly used for a girl, etc)? When I ask people about Collins it seems kind of hit or miss, somewhat polarizing (but maybe I am too worried about what others think!). Also, I’m not sure I love it with Eloise?

Would love to hear your thoughts! What would you do in this situation? The good news is I like all 3 names, I am just not sure which is the winner.

Thanks!
L

I do think that the name Collins Lucas will occasionally be thought to be swapped; I don’t think it will be a big deal—and especially if Lucas is spelled a less-common-for-first-names way. I think it’ll be a “make the occasional easy correction and move on” level of hassle, rather than anything daily/constant. I LOVE when it works out for one parent’s family surname to be used as a child’s first name in a family where everyone has taken the other parent’s family surname, so Collins is my own first choice. (The option of using your husband’s first name as well as your husband’s last name, for a resulting name that has not only LESS family balance but also MORE potential for confusion and hassle, is not appealing.)

I also love both Charles and Miles; both were on my own list, along with Milo. I know what you mean about the 2010 feel of Miles/Milo (for me it’s more of a 2000 feel)—but I don’t feel it the same way as I do when a name feels dated or time-stamped; I think it’s more a marker of when the name got our attention. It felt like it came rather SUDDENLY into use, and that can get burned into our memories, especially when we LIKE the name. I have something similar with the name Henry: Henry is a timeless recurring classic and I wouldn’t call it dated or time-stamped—but on the other hand, I remember exactly when I started liking it on its most recent trip into popularity, and it was in the late 1990s, when it was the name of Tom Selleck’s grandchild on Friends. Yet it was still on my list in 2007 when we named Henry, and I would still use it now.

Yes, I think if you use Charles/Charlie, he will occasionally be Charlie L. I also think this is the kind of thing parents have been conditioned to think is really bad, when it’s not that big a deal. I have mentioned here before that my secondborn was one of three Williams in his preschool class, and then he kept encountering those same two Williams throughout his school experience, though they only had one year of all being in the same classroom again. They all still call each other by their Will Initial names, and they find it fun. On the other hand, it’s true that if you were considering any name with the nickname Maddie, I would probably tell a different story: there are so many Maddies in our school system that we even have multiples of, say, Maddie T. and Maddie Rose, and one of the Maddies has started going by her surname because she couldn’t find any other distinguishing option. So it really does depend on your own particular local area, and on your own tolerance for occasional name duplication. And I think you’re wise to consider it ahead of time, and to include the impact of Charlotte-Charlies. But I don’t think “might have another Charlie in the classroom sometimes” is reason to rule out a name; and my guess is that there are zero Charlies in your daughter’s daycare class and also zero in many other daycare classes. (There were not three Williams in class with any of my other children.)

The name that sounds to me as if it most meets your preferences is Miles. It has a very nice sound with Eloise (I think even better than Charles); it is not as common as Charles; it does not have the issues of Collins.

When I say that, what does your heart do? Does it sink, because you were hoping I’d say Charles/Collins? Does it rise up and click into place: yes, Miles! This is one of the most useful things about feedback, I think: not that the feedback itself is helpful, but that our REACTIONS to the feedback can tell us what we really wanted to hear. I think all three names are excellent choices in their own ways, and that you can safely pick the one you like best. I am interested to see if the feedback here and in the comments section will help the true favorite rise to the top.

Let me also try to add a Twitter poll, for another kind of feedback (you may find yourself rooting for one to win): Twitter poll. [Poll closed; results below:]

A few more names I wonder if you would like:

Alistair; Alistair Lucas; Eloise and Alistair
Barnaby; Barnaby Lucas; Eloise and Barnaby
Benjamin; Benjamin Lucas; Eloise and Benjamin
Desmond; Desmond Lucas; Eloise and Desmond
Frederick; Frederick Lucas; Eloise and Frederick
Percy; Percy Lucas; Eloise and Percy
Philip; Philip Lucas; Eloise and Philip/Pip
Simon; Simon Lucas; Eloise and Simon

Oh I wanted so badly to suggest George! Eloise and George!! But George Lucas is not going to work, even with a different spelling.

Hi Swistle!

I am a middle aged parent, coming out as nonbinary in my 40s. I am looking to change my very gendered, family name to something more gender neutral and nature inspired. I have two kids, one with a space themed name, and one with a tree themed name. I would like to pick a first and middle name that go with those themes. My last name rhymes with Blanks. Here are some of the names I’ve been tossing around, for either first or middle:

Lennox
Aspen
Birch
River
Elm
Nova
Sky
Aster
Cypress
Halo
Willow

Thanks so much!

My first suggestion, with what I hope is the full and obvious understanding that ultimately this is about what YOU think is best and not what SWISTLE thinks is best, is that you NOT try to coordinate your name with your kids’ names. Even in families with name themes, such as “everyone starts with an M,” the parents still have names like Matthew and Melissa, and the kids have names like Mia and Mason: they’re themed, but they won’t be mistaken for a four-sibling set, because the names are from two different generations. Looking at your list, my guess is that you are heading for something that sounds like you’re naming someone the age of your kids, rather than someone in their 40s; and because of that sibling-name sound, and the lack of the usual generation gap, I think it will hit people’s ears as a Fake Name—and/or that it will generate the kind of questions you may rather avoid (“Whoa, how did your parents choose that??” “What are your siblings named??” “Is that your REAL name??).

You can practice a little to see if you agree with me or not. Go somewhere you will see an assortment of people—a store, a mall if you still have one of those near you, any sort of big public event, the Facebook page for people from your graduating class. Pick a name from your list, and “try it on” the people you see. In particular, try it on people who appear to be approximately your age. Does that person in their 40s seem like a Halo? an Elm? Imagine one of them introducing themselves to you as Birch, as Sky. It’s fully possible that you will do this exercise and wonder what the HECK I’m talking about: SURE that person seems like a Halo! Why WOULDN’T that person be named Sky? Or it may be that you will get the same little feeling I get, of names that don’t feel like they click. A BABY named Aspen or Elm, sure! Someone my age named Elm, no.

I’m going to start digging around in the Social Security archives, so here’s how to get there if any of you want to join me. Start at the Social Security Administration’s baby name site (which is where you can find information about all the names in the Top 1000, but we’re going to need more than that). Scroll down until you see “Related Links” on the left half of the page, and click “Background Information.” From the menu at left, choose “Beyond the top 1000 names.” Choose “National data”; this will download a folder to your computer, containing usage information for each year from 1880 to 2021 (the 2022 data is likely to be available this May).

Okay! Now we look for the names in your list, to see if they were used the year you were born. I don’t know the exact year, so I will guess the middle of your 40s and look at 1978. In 1978, this is how many babies were given each of those names [names are not in the data base if they were given to fewer than five babies of a particular sex; since that means it COULD have been given to 1-4 babies, I use a dash instead of a zero]:

Lennox: F -, M 6
Aspen: F 20, M –
Birch: F -, M –
River: F -, M –
Elm: F -, M –
Nova: F 56, M –
Sky: F 36, M 71
Aster: F -, M –
Cypress: F 5, M –
Halo: F -, M –
Willow: F 75, M –

If you are in your mid-forties and were born in the United States, it is virtually impossible for your name to be Lennox, Birch, River, Elm, Aster, Cypress, or Halo. Your name COULD be Aster, Nova, or Willow—but for someone named in the 1970s, it would not be a gender-neutral name. The only real candidate is Sky: it was very, very unusual in 1978 (for girls it was as common as Peter, Jimmie, and Yalanda; for boys it was as common as Heather, Kermit, and Buck), but there WERE some babies given the name—and it was given to boys and girls.

I also played the game I mentioned, where I imagined the names on people my age. I found I actually COULD imagine a person in their 40s named Lennox: I would be a little surprised, but I wouldn’t think “No way is that their name.” I think it is because of Annie Lennox. And River Phoenix was older than us, so the name River wouldn’t be a huge shock to me on someone my age, even though based on usage it ought to be. I would not be incredulous to meet a woman named Nova; on a middle-aged non-binary person I would wonder if it was a reference to the word “new”; I would find it startling on a man.

And of course there ARE people who have startling names! I have encountered people my age (just one of each) named Orion and Grove and Mikayla, and those should be basically impossible for people born in my birth year, and yet there they are! They exist! Their parents liked extremely unusual names! But: that’s one of the ways I know that someone with a name outside their generation gets asked to explain it (and list their sibling names) CONSTANTLY.

Here’s another reason I keep pointing out that this is about what YOU want/think and not what SWISTLE wants/thinks: maybe you WANT a name you couldn’t statistically have been given. Maybe you WANT a name that hits the ear as a mismatch for your age, as a way to deliberately indicate that it is a chosen name and not a given name. Maybe you have looked through all the names that were given to 1970s babies and none of them feel like YOU, because the 1970s were not a time that allowed for you. And I’m not looking through the names on your list and seeing low-profile, blend-in kind of choices, so it could easily be that I’m saying “Wait, no, but you need to realize these are SURPRISING and ATTENTION-GETTING names,” and you are saying “Um, YES, and thank you so much for finally tuning in to the question I am asking!”

Still, I would not pick a name that makes you sound like a sibling of your children. And I would particularly avoid matching only ONE of your children, by choosing a space- or tree-related first name—even if you do a middle name from the other theme: the middle name tends to disappear, and is so clearly lower-ranked. But I do realize this suggestion eliminates…a large portion of your list. Like, pretty much all of it.

The names on your list that hit me as GIRL are Willow, Aster, Aspen, and Nova: all of those, if I encountered them on a name list, wouldn’t make me wonder—I’d assume they were girls. (I wouldn’t be RIGHT to assume, since all of those names are given to some boys in the United States—but their usage leans heavily toward girls.) The other names would all leave me uncertain, and so they feel more gender-neutral.

I feel like the name Halo is a lot to carry. It has overt religious/angelic associations, plus the video-game ones. It’s a cool sound (like Haley, but gender-neutral), but I feel it has too much baggage as a name.

Sometimes when someone is choosing a new name as an adult, it works for them to consult with their parents to find something their parents could actually have chosen. Or, if that doesn’t work for any number/combination of reasons, it might work instead for you to IMAGINE some of the names they might/could have chosen if they were naming a child in their own style, or in a style adjacent to theirs, but including current naming trends: surname names, for example. Surnames from the family tree can be a great way to find a meaningful and gender-neutral name with an easy explanation (e.g., “It was my grandmother’s maiden name” or even just “It’s a family name”) that skips over the issue of when specifically the name became yours—and preppy kids have had surname names for generations, so those names can feel outside of naming trends. Or maybe there are names your parents might have chosen if they were naming a baby now, names that weren’t really options in the 1970s. Or of course, you might have reasons not to want to take your parents’ naming style into account, and/or you might have reasons not to want to use a family name.

If you are going to use the tree/space names, and you are going to use modern names, then my absolute number one clear no-contest favorite would be Lennox—except that I am not sure about the repeated ending with your surname. I like that its current usage in the U.S. is fairly gender neutral, to the extent that I would not make any assumptions/guesses if I saw the name in an appointment book or on a business card: 495 new baby girls and 1,393 new baby boys in 2021. I like that the Annie Lennox association makes it feel like it could be the name of a current adult. I like that although it’s tree-related, I believe most people wouldn’t pick up on that.

What I would do is pair it with a more obvious space-reference middle name, and that’s how I’d attempt to achieve balance: a subtle first-name reference to one child, with a blatant middle-name reference to the other child. I like Lennox Nova because of the additional association with the word “new,” but it’s a more subtle space reference than I’d prefer. Lennox Sky would be more obvious, but I don’t like the way the -x combines with the Sk-. Stellan appeals because it feels a little gender-neutral (that is, I would guess boy, but I wouldn’t be shocked if girl) and means “star”; but I don’t love the way the -x combines with the St-, and it’s a more subtle reference than I’d prefer. Sol would work, except once again I am not keen on the -x/S-. Celeste and Stella are lovely but SO girl, and I dislike both of them with Lennox. Aster is a nice subtle star reference (I would have thought first of the flower), but combined with Lennox I hear something that sounds like the word “disaster.” Maybe Baily? It’s VERY subtle (I found it on a list of astrology terms and otherwise wouldn’t have known it), and I like the sound: Lennox Baily. With the surname, it’s a lot of repeated sounds, but those could tie the whole thing together.

My second choice is River—but unfortunately absolutely not with the surname I can see in your email address, which makes it into a joke name. But I like that it is neither tree- nor space-related; I like that it feels like it could be someone our age, because of River Phoenix; I like that it is very gender-neutral. I would pair it with another non-tree-or-space-related middle, probably a family surname name.

Now I am noticing another issue, which is that with your surname, anything that ends in an S sound turns into “spanks.” Non-ideal. Lennox Spanks. Cypress Spanks.

Birch with your surname is VERY alliterative, particularly with two one-syllable names.

I am talking myself out of every option. Let’s turn this over to the commenters and see if they can be more help than I have been!

Oh, coming back to say: maybe Arbor? Briar? Cielo? Garnet? Laken? Rowan? Sage?

Update (and photo) on Baby Girl or Boy Statmiller, Sibling to Tessa, Bennett, Cora, and Palmer

Hi,

I’m hoping you can help!

We are desperately trying to name our beautiful one month old baby boy and I have to say we’re struggling.

The problem is that our absolute favourite name is Max but our surname is Marshall and we’re just so worried that Max Marshall is a bit ‘too much’. We think it might seem like a superhero name or even a comedy name and we are worried about saddling him with something too bold for the rest of his life.

We’ve considered finding a longer version of Max but we don’t really like any and so we’re basically a bit stuck. I think perhaps another name like Michael or Matthew would sound fine but it’s perhaps the ‘Max’ that adds to the superhero element.

It would be great to hear your thoughts (and soon!) as we really need to register this baby!

Thank you,

Jen

If you were writing before the baby arrived, we could have gone over the pros and cons of the name and discussed whether it was Too Much and so forth. Since the baby has been in your midst for over a month now and you still can’t commit to the name, my guess is that you don’t want to. I think if you wanted to name the baby Max, you would have named him Max by now; or I think at the very least you would have told me something along the lines of the baby just FEELS like a Max and that’s one reason you can’t let the name go. But I can’t be confident about this theory, because it could also be that you’ve been spinning in this cycle for too long and now you can’t get out of it, and that at this point you don’t have enough sleep for either this decision or this discussion.

What if I suggest TABLING the name for now? That is, pick something else this time. Save the decision about Max for a FUTURE baby. Give THIS baby a different name. Consider your indecision to be a sign from the universe that Max may be your favorite name but it is not the right name for THIS baby.

After reading that idea: How do you feel? Do you feel some relief to give up on the name Max? Do you have a few other names you both like, and do you feel relief at having permission to use one of them? Or do you feel despair and grief, and does it feel like the baby IS Max and can’t be anything else? Let those feelings guide you: If you feel RELIEF about putting aside the Max decision for next time, then GOOD: let’s give this baby one of the runner-up names and be happy. If you feel DESPAIR AND GRIEF, then use Max and stop worrying about it: if it’s a problem later, you can come up with a solution later.

I wonder too if you have already discussed that Max can be short for Maxine. If you love Maxine the way you don’t like Maxwell/Maximilian/etc., then possibly your lengthy hesitation is because Max is your future DAUGHTER’S name.

I wish we knew the rest of your boy-name list, so we could stand up for other options. Michael and Matthew are both unsatisfying to me: they are almost as difficult with the surname (and I think Michael might be worse), without being your favorites, so they don’t seem WORTH it; also, it seems like they’re not contenders, but only examples to show how you think the name Max is the issue. And I’m not sure what else to suggest. Maybe you like Max in the same way you’d also like Jack/Jake/Sam/Max/Luke/Gus/Nick. Maybe you like Max in the same way you’d like Elliot/Everett/Franklin/Silas/August/Ezra. Maybe you like Max in the same way you’d like Axel/Rex/Quinn/Zane/Jax/Chance/Lennox/Nico/Ryker/Ranger. Maybe you like Max in the same way you’d also like Reid/Dean/Finn/Ian/Keane/Lane/Dane/Grant/Heath. Maybe you like Max in the same way you’d like Grady/Wyatt/Merritt/Jasper/Levi/Jude.

I have a desperation idea for you to consider. You both love the name Max best, right? And your PRIMARY issue is how it sounds with the surname, right? How does it sound with the OTHER parent’s surname? Maybe the name Max isn’t any better with that one. Or maybe it’s glorious, and this solves the issue. It creates another issue, sure, and some paperwork if you all want to have the same surname. But the three of you are in an unusual situation, and sometimes an unusual solution is just the thing for that.

Hi Swistle,

I enjoy your babynaming blog and thought it would be fun to hear all about your readers’ “names that got away” – the great names they thought of but never used. This idea comes to you from the name Octavia.

Thanks,
Megan

Oh, this feels like the PERFECT weekend discussion! And I love Octavia: a former classmate used that name for a daughter, and I felt some jealousy. See also: former classmate who named a daughter Emerald. EMERALD!!

Well, but neither of those are on my Names that Got Away list. And the list does change with time: I once actually WEPT at the thought that I was never going to get to use the name Anastasia—but if I had another chance, I don’t know if Anastasia would even make the short list. And there are names I wish I HAD USED, and would still use if we were talking about going back in time and doing things over; but that doesn’t mean I would necessarily use them NOW, years later: for example, using Oliver in 2007 when it was #140 is an entirely different thing than using it now when it’s #3.

We can all play this game however we like; the way I’m going to play it is I’m not going to consult old lists, I’m just going to see what names spring to my mind as names I still pine for in one way or another, and I will come back and add more if I think of more:

Annabel
Claudia
Eliza
Eloise
Eva
Florence
Genevieve
Jane
Josephine
Margaret
Millicent
Winifred

Elliot
George
Louis
Oliver

I don’t feel anywhere NEAR as strongly about the boy names, and in fact almost left them out—but it felt more fun to include them.

Hi Swistle! (and lovely readers)

I have been reading your blog long since before baby names were even on my radar and I was a single gal. You even helped my friend change her name as an adult!

I am writing because I am due in March with baby girl number 2!

We are Ally and Ted Vitale (yes, my name rhymes), and we have a daughter, Cora Marilyn-Margaret who will be five when sister comes.

We went to the hospital with a handful of names (Cora, Margaret, Eliza, Adele) and obviously ended up using two. Margaret was my husband’s grandma who passed when Cora was six months (they did get to meet) and Marilyn was my mother who died when I was in college. We knew we wanted to honor them in some way and landed on both as middle names which maybe shot us in the foot a little bit, but, we didn’t know if we’d have another, etc etc.

Obviously, we love the name Cora and think it’s pretty darn perfect. Cora and Margaret were definitely the front runners my entire pregnancy.

This time around, our “remaining” names of Adele and Eliza don’t quite seem to be “it”. Although, for me I think Eliza fits more than Adele does.

We tend to like vintage names (I think?), names that are not wildly popular (however we can classify that! Social Security registry?) and names that are short or can’t be easily shortened/nicknamed. Both my husband and I have longer names and we go by a short nickname. (Allison/Ally, and Theodore/Ted–additionally, I am often called Al by close friends, he is Teddy to his family.)

Names we have ruled out for various reasons (and unfortunately these are hard not usable names): Georgia (absolutely love, would use in a heartbeat, but it our daughter’s best friend’s name, who we see almost daily and are incredibly close with the entire family), Olive, Audrey/Aubrey, Mila, Vera.

Names my husband has vetoed: Iris (BUT WHY!), Ruby, Tess, Mira, Camilla/Camille, Cecily/Cecilia, Hazel, Mabel, Elsie, Holland, Marin, Rosemary/Rose, Mary Emmy/Emme.

Names he has suggested: Violet (fine, but I find it to be too popular; I also feel this way about Vivan), Lily/Lilly (same sentiment, personally), Lila, Layla/Leila (I prefer the Leila spelling), Campbell, Brooke.

 

Semi short list

Ivy (I feel like this has shot up in popularity and is only gaining strength—this is my husband’s compromise on Iris but I don’t know that either of us are sold)

Eliza

Anna/Anne

Lila

Adele

Mia (we are torn here because it’s so popular right now and like that Cora is common but not “popular” if that makes sense. I am not a “cannot use top XYZ names” person exactly, I think if you love it, you love it and that’s all there is to it, but, I don’t know that we love this name enough)

Sophie

Leila/Layla

*maybe Haley (this is my “work wife”‘s name so I don’t know if that’s weird? We can’t do the similar Hallie because it rhymes with my first name and our last name, and as the resident name rhymer, we only need one of us)

The middle name will likely be Kathryn in that spelling to honor my paternal grandmother.

If we were having a boy, the name would be Theodore as per custom in my husband’s family. I would push for the middle name William in that instance, to honor my dad. Although, to be very frank, I don’t love either of those names for my own child (don’t tell my husband!) and know that both are very popular right now. But, I wouldn’t have a choice, because, tradition. Boy names I would personally have chosen might have been Scott, Aaron, Josh–truthfully I did not give boy names much thought, I am embarrassed to say.

Are there any in that style that we are missing? What have we overlooked? Is there a hidden gem on that list that I don’t see yet?

I guess we are hoping to find a “wow” name and we just aren’t there yet.

Thank you so much! I’m looking forward to your insight and that of your readers!

Give Swistle a moment to enjoy her smelling salts and lounging couch after reading the part about how you would not have had a choice in your own baby boy’s name because your husband’s family has a tradition of THEM getting to choose the name. What if YOUR family ALSO had a tradition of getting to choose the name, THEN what? Well, you’re not having a boy, you’re not having a boy, we do not even need to address this, we can move on.

(But!! And I know you were speaking lightly, but I feel that SO MANY it’s-almost-always-women have their naming rights taken from them by these it’s-almost-always-male naming traditions—and that many of those usually-women REALLY DO feel there is no argument against it. Let me just say it for anyone who needs to hear it: THERE IS AN ARGUMENT AGAINST IT, AND THAT ARGUMENT IS “I DON’T WISH TO PARTICIPATE IN THAT TRADITION”! A tradition is IN NO WAY an inalienable right or unbreakable law; it is an invitation to follow a pattern. And couples routinely have to pick and choose among MANY traditions from BOTH sides of the family, keeping some and declining others! Many couples discover that a holiday tradition from one side of the family is in conflict with a holiday tradition from the other side of the family, and in those couples one person cannot shrug and say “Well, we have to do it my family’s way because it’s tradition; you and your family and your traditions don’t factor into this decision.” If anyone reading this is planning to co-parent with someone who thinks they would get 100% dibs on naming a shared baby Because Tradition, there’s a BIG CLARIFYING DISCUSSION that needs to happen, ideally before any permanent decisions are made.)

Okay. Okay. This is a baby girl. We are going to talk about a name for a nice little baby girl. Cora and _____, Cora and _____. Well, I absolutely love Eliza. Like, if you said “Swistle, please name this baby whatever you want,” I would name her Eliza Kathryn Vitale. What a lovely name. Or I might want to give her a hyphenated middle name like her sister, especially if you end up with an extra name you don’t have a place for and would be sad not to use, or if you have another honor name. Eliza Iris-Kathryn Vitale. Eliza Allison-Kathryn Vitale. (Or if I chose another first name: Ivy Eliza-Kathryn Vitale.)

My second favorite is Ivy. I think it’s wonderful with Cora, and I like that both names are familiar and easy without feeling overused. I do agree with you that Ivy seems to be suddenly getting more popular—though when we were considering the name for Henry before we knew he was a boy, my feeling was that I couldn’t use it UNTIL it became more popular. At 2007 usage levels, kids were still reacting with incredulity to the name and then immediately saying “Poison Ivy, poison Ivy, she’s poison, don’t let her touch you!!” while screaming and running away from poor Ivy on the playground. (In my imagination. That is: the children I surveyed ((mine)) about the name Ivy came up with that playground game idea in under five seconds, but the game was not actually played in my sight, nor did we know anyone named Ivy.) At current usage levels, I think children will still come up with the game, but there will be more than one Ivy on the playground, and they will form a little gang to play together and roll their eyes at dumb game ideas until the other kids get bored and knock it off.

And my third favorite is Anne. I think that name is overlooked right now, and would give people a fresh pleasant surprise when they heard/saw it.

From your husband’s veto list (and we know from experience that those vetoes sometimes unexpectedly reverse), I’d particularly want to keep trying to save Hazel, Rose, Iris, and Mabel.

It is interesting to me that he likes Violet and Lily, and you like Rose and Iris and Hazel, and you both like Ivy. It feels as if a good flower/plant name is within our reach. Fern? Briar? Calla? Dahlia? (Calla and Dahlia might be too rhyme-ish with the surname, and Calla too similar to Ally.) Daisy? Holly?

Or with Ruby as inspiration, what about Pearl? Cora and Pearl. I think Pearl has that simple/lovely/vintage/familiar-but-uncommon thing going for it.

More names to consider:

Ada
Bianca
Celeste
Claire
Eloise
Esther
Fiona
Frances
Gemma
Greta
Gwen
Jane
June
Lina
Lois
Louise
Lydia
May
Ruth
Stella
Sylvia
Willa
Winifred

My husband carries the family name. He is the fourth generation. However, we have only had girls. My sister-in-law is expecting a boy in a few months. Should my nephew carry on this name?

I have so many questions.

1. Is your sister-in-law your husband’s sister, or is she married to one of your husband’s siblings?

2. Does your sister-in-law WANT to use this family name?

3. Do you and your husband want her to use it?

4. Is it important that a family name be kept going? Which of the people in this situation would say yes?

5. Are you and your husband done having children?

There are so many interesting possibilities here. For example: your sister-in-law could be your husband’s sister, so the name and the tradition could both be important to her, and it could even be kind of fun to think of her being the one to carry it on when her brother couldn’t. Or, it could be that she’s married to, say, one of your husband’s brothers, and didn’t originally have any reason to believe this naming issue would apply to her. (If the latter is the case, I encourage everyone involved to drop the idea, unless the sister-in-law is the one actively campaigning for it.)

More interesting possibilities: It could be that you and your husband think it is important to carry on this tradition, and you wish your sister-in-law to understand that you believe it’s her responsibility to do so. Or it could be that your sister-in-law is the one who wants to use the name, and you and your husband think she should not. Or it could be that all of you are having a wonderful time thinking together about all of the interesting options.

Well. My own opinion is that this is the PERFECT moment to let an exponentially-increasing-in-pressure-with-each-generation naming tradition be broken naturally and gracefully, without anyone having to break it by refusing to use it. Paul’s parents broke a similar naming tradition when Paul was born, and it caused a gigantic family feud, including Paul’s grandfather refusing to acknowledge his birth, which is really Quite a Stance: “If this baby is not named after me, then this baby does not EXIST for me, because this tradition is more important to me than the baby itself!” Imagine!

Even in families where the tradition is theoretically cherished, it is important to acknowledge that the child has a second parent who is NOT FROM that family. I am a little amazed every time I hear of a co-parent agreeing to the Tradition of your-baby’s-name-is-chosen-for-you-by-my-family without extracting a privilege of similar heft and significance. My high school boyfriend was a III, and he went on to marry a woman who agreed to make their son a IV; but in exchange she got to choose the unrelated name the son would go by on a daily basis, and she got partial full naming rights (i.e., the children still had their father’s surname, but she got full choice of first/middle) for all subsequent children. WORK that deal.

Where was I? Oh yes: my opinion is that this is the perfect moment to let the tradition come to an end, as all such traditions eventually must; and this is absolutely the nicest and tidiest and least-fraught way it could possibly end, so I say SEIZE THAT OPPORTUNITY. If, however, your sister-in-law is your husband’s sister and is PINING to use the name because the tradition is very important to her, then I see no reason she shouldn’t: once we get past Sr./Jr., a baby gets the next number in line whether they’re an immediate descendant or not, so your nephew can certainly be Important Male Descendant V. (And if your sister-in-law is co-parenting, the co-parent should extract full naming rights for the next child, at minimum.)

Another option is that one of your daughters could carry it on: the numbering system doesn’t care if a generation is skipped. And I am a little curious to know if “We will need to use my surname, and the first and middle names are already decided, because my first child needs to be named in full after my father; it’s a family tradition” will work as easily for her as it has for four generations of men.

Dear Swistle,

I wrote to you about a month ago in regards to this same baby – but circumstances have changed and I have a different question I was wondering if you could help me on.

Alliteration – yay or nay?

My husband and I are expecting our 4th child, and third son, in the new year (likely our last). Our older children are Beckett James, Lucia (Lucy) Kate, and Charleston (Charlie) Luke. Our last name sounds like Rah-tick-ah. If this baby had been a girl her name would have been Shiloh Annemarie.

Amazingly shortly after I wrote you earlier – when we couldn’t agree on any names at all, my husband and I came up with a short list of names we are both ok with.

The challenge – the top two names we agree on both begin with R and we just aren’t sure about the alliteration with our last name. Is it too much?

Those names are Rhys or Rhodes.

Rhys has been on our list the last 2 go-rounds, but we’ve decided against it because of the alliteration…but we just can’t seem to let it go.

The middle name would likely be Matthew in either case.

Other names on our short list:

Griffin (my personal favorite)
Jonas (my husband’s favorite)
Soren
Sawyer

Looking forward to your input!

Julianne and Brandon

Alliteration is striking! memorable! attention-getting! It’s one of the Statement options available in baby-naming, and it can range from Mild to Extreme depending on the particular names and the particular sounds. An example of mild would be something like Sophia Smith: the alliteration is lessened by the blend Sm- with the non-blend S-, and by the familiarity of both the first name and the surname. An example of Extreme would be something like Drusilla Dressendor: the matching Dr- blend is even more noticeable; the additional internal -s- alliteration is even more ear-catching; and both names are already uncommon enough to get some attention on their own.

To my ear, Rhodes Rahtickah and Rhys Rahtickah are somewhere in between, though nudged a bit more toward the Extreme end by the uncommonness of the names involved, especially Rhodes, which is not currently in the Top 1000 of boy names in the United States and has not been at any point since the online records start in 1900. The name Rhys entered the Top 1000 for the first time in 2004 at #941, and as of 2021 was #413; that same year, the variation Reece was #579 and Reese was #701 (Reese was #147 for girls).

All I’m saying here is that it would be A Choice—but you know that, and it’s why you’re writing. My own opinion at this point is that if you both love it, and you both think the alliteration is kind of neat, then you could just do it. Paul and I had a name on our baby name list that we didn’t use for Extreme Alliteration reasons (the first name was familiar, but it had initial alliteration and STRONG-middle-consonant alliteration with the surname, and the surname is already a constant issue on its own), and looking back on it now I think it would have been perfectly fine—and possibly even perfectly splendid. It would have been A Choice! But I also kind of LIKE Choice names when I encounter them in the wild.

Not too long ago I encountered someone with one of those names like Thomas Thompson, which is another from the Statement Options category, and my reaction was positive. It’s just kind of…fun, I guess. I don’t know if it’s as fun for Thomas Thompson, who probably gets a fair amount of repetitive attention/commentary about his name, and perhaps that’s another angle to consider: ask yourselves if YOU would want this name. Would you want to be Rhodes Rahtickah or Rhys Rahtickah? How much talking about your own name do you think you’d want to do/hear?

If you feel like you’re a little on the fence (i.e., on one hand it’s kind of fun and catchy, on the other hand you find you don’t personally yearn to spend even more time discussing your name), one option is to Dial It Back (look for R- names that are less uncommon, for example, or use Rhys/Rhodes as the middle name), and another option is to Add More Options (give a middle name from your runner-up first-name options; find a nickname option that doesn’t start with R).

Or if the name brings you joy, you can just GO FOR IT. I notice your first child’s name has some pretty snappy internal alliteration with those repeating K and T sounds; and if your second child’s name is pronounced loo-CHEE-ah or loo-SEE-uh, that’s got some real bounce with the rhythm of the surname. And the name Charleston is even less common in the United States than Rhodes. In this sibling set, I think Rhys Rahtickah or Rhodes Rahtickah could be a pretty nice fit. (My own choice would be for Rhys, as the more Dialed Back option: not only is Rhys a more common name, but it avoids the strong association of the Rhodes scholarship.)

Update (and photo) on (yesterday’s!) Baby Girl or Boy Kershmen, Sibling to Brady, Walker, and Davis

Hi! I am having my third boy in March. My other 2 are named Henry Morris and Avery Bernard. Our last name is daniels so it obviously can’t be jack or Charlie. My husbands name is Zachary. We like the name Brody the best but we also like max and Alexander. I think I want all my kids to end in y or ie.

Thank you!

Arielle

I really like Brody in this sibling set, and with the surname. If I were you I think I’d be brushing my hands together briskly and moving on to choosing the middle name. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to think about other options!

I think the first two names could be seen as the start of a Happy Assortment, or they could be seen as Vintage Revivals, depending on how you go with the third name. Henry is of course an old and enduring traditional classic, but it is also currently enjoying one of its recurring times in the sun, which for some people gives it the feeling of being an on-trend choice. And Avery could feel like a contemporary unisex surname name, except for those of us who remember it as Fern’s brother in the 1952 book Charlotte’s Web, which for some people gives it more the feeling of a vintage revival. Both names feel to me like they fall into the category of gentle boy names, and Avery is currently used more often for girls in the U.S.; so I’d be looking for a name that fit with that and didn’t spin Avery as more likely to be a sister name.

If you are planning to have more children, I might recommend loosening or breaking the -ie/-y preference at this point. To me it seems like having two kids ending in that sound is pretty easy to change for the third without causing a stir—but once you have three, you might find yourself feeling like you’re painted into a corner. And especially with boy names: there are a million girl names ending in -ie/-y, and there are quite a few boy names too but it’s a much smaller category—especially if you’d like one from the subset that feel like full given names (like Henry and Avery) rather than nicknames (Frankie, Marty, Tommy, etc.). This could be the moment to go with Max or Alexander or anything else that keeps you from accidentally locking yourselves in.

Some names that I think fit well but DON’T end in -ie/-y:

Asher
Benjamin
Bennett
Caleb
Clark
Corbin
Eli
Elliot
Ellis
Emmett
Ezra
Felix
Finn
Gage
Gus
Ian
Isaac
Jasper
Julian
Kellan
Leo
Liam
Louis
Merritt
Micah
Milo
Noah
Nolan
Owen
Warren
Wilson
Winslow

Names that DO end in -ie/-y:

Archie
Casey
Colby
Finley
Percy
Terry
Wesley

From the non -ie/-y list, my favorites are Elliot, Emmett, Ezra, Gus, Leo, Milo. From the -ie/-y list, my favorites are Percy and Wesley from my list plus Brody from yours.