Update (and photo) and Baby Naming Issue: Could Hildegard Work as a Middle Name?

Hi Swistle,

I’ve waited 6+ years to be able to write you and talk baby names. My name is Allyson (nn Ally) and I’m pregnant with our first child—a girl—and due in late February. My husband, Adam, and I have very different tastes when it comes to girl names. Boy names… piece of cake… we love the names Graham, Archer, Atlas. But deciding on a name for our daughter has been nearly painful, especially trying to come up with something special given that our last name is Smith. The only name we’ve been able to agree upon is Zoe. I love everything about the name: the meaning, the ‘z’ sound, the simplicity. But neither of us our sold on it being “the name.” We would like to give her my maiden name as her middle name, Martel. ______ Martel Smith.

Here are some names from my list:
Hazel
Wynne
Cozette
Naomi
Noelle

Here are some names from my husband’s list:
Savannah
Kayla
Hadley
Ava

Please, please help us! We’re desperate for your input.

Thank you,

Ally Smith

I think you might be unhappy with the popularity of the name Zoe: combining the 7,187 new baby girls named Zoey and 5,920 new baby girls named Zoe in 2013, the name is as common as Mia, Emily, or Abigail (the 6th, 7th, and 8th most popular girl names in the United States in that year).

I wonder if you’d like Eliza. It has the Z sound, and I love it with the middle/surname: Eliza Martel Smith.

Or Esme. Esme Smith; Esme Martel Smith.

Or very similar to Zoe but quite a bit less common: Zola.

Or Zara.

Or Cleo. Cleo Smith; Cleo Martel Smith.

Or Ivy. Ivy Smith; Ivy Martel Smith.

Or Eve. Eve Smith; Eve Martel Smith.

If it wouldn’t make you feel trapped into continuing with A-names, Azalea is distinctive.

Or Zinnia.

Maisy is sweet. We were such fans of Lucy Cousins’s Maisy books at our house, the name brings that character to my mind immediately—but it’s a highly positive association. Maisy Smith; Maisy Martel Smith. I also like Maisy as a nickname for Margaret, but I’m not as fond of the sound of Margaret Martel.

Josie has both the Z-sound and the long-O/long-E sounds of Zoe. Josephine Smith; Josephine Martel Smith. Or you could call her Joey, which is even closer to Zoe.

I see a couple of V-sounds on your husband’s list, plus Ava; these make me think of Genevieve. Genevieve Smith; Genevieve Martel Smith. Maybe with the nickname Evie.

Olive is quite distinctive. Olive Smith; Olive Martel Smith.

Or Haven. Haven Smith; Haven Martel Smith.

Or Maeve.

Or Silvia/Sylvia.

Kayla from your husband’s list feels past its peak, but I wonder if you’d like Kaye. It reminds me of Wynne from your list. Kaye Smith; Kaye Martel Smith.

Update (and photo) on Baby Boy Bungee, Brother to Adeline, Eleanor, and Henry!

Hi Swistle, Our daughter’s name is Ellis Paige and she is due to have a sibling come April 2015. My husband and I can’t agree on a girl name and even though we’re months away I am in a panic.

Overall we like Unisex names for girls with a feminine middle. We also like classic names.

Some of my favorites are:

Charlotte, “Charlie”
Vella
Emilie
Reagan
Lucca
Tyler
Merrill
Vivienne
Claire

Help!! Or can your followers help?

Thank you,

Rebecca

The name Ellis was given to 496 boys and 225 girls in 2013: a unisex name currently used more often for boys. I would be hesitant to pair that, then, with any of the names on your list currently used almost exclusively for girls: Charlotte, Emilie, Vivienne, Claire—which you might have on there as middle name candidates anyway. The nickname Charlie does make Charlotte a better fit, but then I start feeling hesitant about the popularity gap: the name Charlotte was given to 9,232 new baby girls in 2013: more than 40 times as many baby girls named Charlotte as named Ellis.

Reagan is an interesting possibility: it was given to 206 new baby boys and 3,020 new baby girls in 2013: a unisex name currently used much more often for girls. The balance of boy/girl usage is different for Reagan than for Ellis, but they seem similarly balanced to me anyway: I think because my primary association with Reagan (Ronald) is male, and El-/-elle/-ella names are currently so in style for girls. I think Ellis and Reagan make a very nice pair of sister names. Ellis Paige and Reagan Claire, maybe, or Ellis Paige and Reagan Charlotte.

Merrill is another interesting one to consider. It was given to 6 new baby boys and 8 new baby girls in 2013, so it’s rare right now for both sexes. Similar possibilities are Merrin and Merrit and Mirren.

The name Tyler was given to 6,590 new baby boys and 172 new baby girls in 2013: a unisex name currently used much more often for boys. A similar name is Taylor: in 2013 it was given to 818 new baby boys and 4108 new baby girls: a unisex name used more often for girls. Or Skylar/Skyler, given to 1,596 new baby boys and 4,630 new baby girls in 2013. I think of Tyler and Taylor as names a little past their 1990s peak, but Skylar is still increasing in popularity for girls.

Vella seems very close to Ellis.

Lucca/Luca might work very well for you. In general I find it a difficult name to recommend: it has characteristics that mark it as feminine for a United States name, but it’s an Italian boy name. For a U.S. family looking for a unisex/boyish name for a girl, it could be exactly the right fit. The spelling Lucca looks like luck-ah or loo-chah to me, but the comments section on this post shows that’s by no means a universal opinion. The current usage in the United States looks like this for 2013: 1,881 new baby boys and 74 new baby girls named Luca; 256 new baby boys and 49 new baby girls named Lucca; 433 new baby boys and 25 new baby girls named Luka.

Without a surname to work with, it’s difficult to come up with further suggestions. But here are some names I think might fit well with a sister named Ellis:

Avery
Beckett
Brennan
Campbell
Emery
Everly
Finley
Gracen
Hadley
Harper
Jensen
Lane
Lennox
Marley
Perrin
Quinn
Reese
Rory
Rowan

Update on Baby Boy Hilton!

I am curious about your opinion (and that of your readers)
I LOVE the name Shepherd and am considering using it for Baby No. 3 but my husband and I are not religious – bordering on atheism. Does it have too much of a biblical flare to make sense for us?

Thoughts?

This name came up in yesterday’s post as well, with the same concern, and I’m interested enough to have a whole post on the name. As I mentioned yesterday, I had to think for a moment to discover the religious connection—despite being a pastor’s daughter who grew up very familiar with Jesus/pastor-as-shepherd imagery. The association is diluted by actual non-metaphorical shepherds, German Shepherds, Cybill Shepherd, Sam Shepard, Sherri Shepherd, Matthew Shepard, Alan Shepard, etc.

Sometimes with such things it’s helpful to ask the question from the other side: “Does Shepherd seem biblical if someone doesn’t want it to be?” AND “Does Shepherd seem biblical if someone wants it to be?” For example, if someone were writing here saying they were very religious and wanted to use only biblical names for their children, and did we think Shepherd qualified as biblical, what would we say?

I think I would say it’s a word-name that could be made to have an association with certain religious imagery, but that I wouldn’t think of it as a religious/biblical name per se. It’s a little like saying Lily is a biblical name because Jesus tells a story about the lilies of the field, or that Reed is a biblical name because Moses was in a basket of reeds: it can have that meaning for the family, if the family wants it to, but if I met someone named Lily or Reed I wouldn’t make the connection without being told.

In fact, on further thought, if I encountered a child named Shepherd, I think I would assume the family was NOT religious, because if the family WERE religious, I’d think they’d recoil a bit from seeming to compare their child to Jesus. It reminds me of the more extreme example of the name Trinity: it’s a very religious/biblical word, but not one I’d expect to see used as a name in a religious family.

Shepherd/Shepard is interesting because I think the different spellings could make a big difference. Shepherd is an occupational name as well as a surname name—like Baker, or Deacon, or Archer. Shepard is a surname name. If you want to reduce/avoid shepherd/sheep/Jesus imagery, I’d use Shepard.

Update (and photo) on Baby Girl Rhymes-with-Kerchew, Sister to Josephine Mae (Joey)!

Update (and photo!) on Baby Girl Trude11e, Sister to Miles Joseph!

Hello! We are very excited about our 2nd child. We are naming the baby Welles regardless if it is a boy or a girl. For a girl we like Welles Katherine or Welles Kate but we are totally stumped for a boy middle name. For our first, we used Pierce Robert. Our last name is Johnston. What do you think? Baby is due in spring!

It looks to me as if you may like classic/traditional middle names: your first son’s middle is Robert, and your middle name choice for a girl this time is Katherine. (I prefer Welles Katherine to Wells Kate, rhythm-wise and also because I get a little bit of Well Skate run-together.) Are Robert and Katherine honor names? If so, that’s where I’d look for a boy’s middle name.

If they’re not honor names, then I’d start by looking for names of a similar style. I was combing through possibilities and none seemed quite right until I came to Welles Henry Johnston. That’s my favorite. More possibilities:

Welles Frederick Johnston
Welles Philip/Phillip Johnston
Welles Thomas Johnston

A middle-name-finding strategy I used for my own kids’ names was to go through the baby name book saying each combination rapidly in my head and seeing if any stood out: Welles Aaron Johnston, Welles Abel Johnston, Welles Abraham Johnston, and so on. Not taking a long time over it or even necessarily trying each possibility carefully/individually, just sort of skimming fast while saying Welles ____ Johnston over and over, and seeing what felt like it clicked into place. I didn’t go through the whole name book, but a few that stood out to me:

Welles Alexander Johnston
Welles David Johnston
Welles Davis Johnston
Welles Douglas Johnston
Welles Gilbert Johnston
Welles Griffith Johnston
Welles Hugo Johnston
Welles Kenneth Johnston
Welles Leonard Johnston
Welles Lucas Johnston
Welles Matthew Johnston
Welles Michael Johnston
Welles Nicholas Johnston
Welles Patrick Johnston
Welles Russell Johnston (a little L/S heavy?)
Welles Theodore Johnston
Welles Timothy Johnston

Hi Swistle!

I am a first-time expectant mother and it goes without saying that I am more anxious than I have ever felt. It doesn’t help that I keep fearing my son being called “little guy” forever as we cannot decide upon a name. My boyfriend and I both agree that his name should be unique but not outrageous, which seems hard to do for a boy’s name! His middle name will be Andrew and his last name will be Decker. If we were having a girl the top two competitors were Ryne Faye and Emason Rey (after my great grandfather Emerson Reynolds). Our first contender for a boy’s name was Bentley but while testing it aloud one day we both agreed we no longer had an interest in it at all! After giving it a few months break I came up with Caden which everyone really liked until we realized it is very close to my younger brother’s name, Kasyn. As my due date keeps approaching I fear not having a name for my baby. Please help!!

Thanks, Caitlin

I think it would be fine to have a son Caden and a brother Kasyn; you could even spin it as a partial honor name, if you wanted. A bigger concern is that you’re looking for something unusual, and Caden belongs to “the -adens”: a group of names so large and prevalent, even some people not normally interested in baby names have become aware of them. The name Caden itself isn’t particularly common (though multiple spellings Cayden, Caiden, Kayden, Kaiden, Kaden do add up), but its popularity can feel combined with the popularity of Jaden, Hayden, Brayden, and the recently-top-10 Aiden.

The middle name Andrew is a little difficult to work with, because with your surname you end up with the initials _AD. Depending on how you feel about initials spelling words, this could rule out BAD, CAD, DAD, FAD, HAD, LAD, MAD, NAD, PAD, RAD, SAD, TAD, and WAD. I might be okay with HAD or PAD, and I can picture RAD or LAD being fun, and TAD would give a good nickname option, but I would avoid BAD, CAD, etc. I’m not sure how set the middle name is (that is, is it in stone, or could it be changed for the right first name?), so I’m making my list of suggestions below as if the middle name is still under discussion. If you love a first name that causes the initials to spell an unpleasant word, one option is to add another middle name: Brady Andrew Emerson Decker, for example, or Crosby Andrew Emerson Decker. (Reynolds is another good possibility, as is Rey, though then we get initials such as CARD and BARD and WARD, which at least are fine words to spell.)

Ashton
Brady
Bryson
Cade
Camden
Carson
Casey
Corbin
Crosby
Grady
Holden
Kai
Keane
Keaton
Keegan
Kieran
Lawson
Wilson

I wonder, too, if we could make an honor name out of your great-grandfather’s name, or if there are other family members whose names you could use. Greyson, for example, while possibly more common than you’d prefer, has the -rey- of Reynolds and the -son of Emerson. Reyson would be an uncommon possibility, but it sounds similar to raisin.

I like the idea of Rey, too: Rey Andrew Decker, or Rey Emerson Decker, or Rey Andrew Emerson Decker.

Or I originally had Grey on my suggestion list, but Grey Decker made me think of deck colors, not that that’s a terrible association. Grey Emerson Decker, or Grey Andrew Decker.