Hi! I’m having our last child, a baby girl in February, and we don’t know what to name her!! Our only other child is 3 year old Alexandra but is always called Alex. The girls’ surname is Sweeney and both of their middle names are my surname (a 2-syllable American last name that starts with a D). My name is Amanda and my husband is Kyle. We prefer “A” names and names that can be shortened–especially names that are gender neutral or can be shortened to a gender neutral nickname (e.g., Alex). We also like names that are somewhat regal or grown up (again, e.g., Alexandra)–names suiting a high powered attorney or politician. I know this is a lot of criteria.

Names we don’t hate: Kennedy, Abigail, Anderson

Obviously, Kennedy doesn’t start with an A but can be shortened to Ken for gender neutrality, is regal, and shares a K with my husband, although I’d prefer she have an A like me and Alex. Abigail isn’t gender neutral. Anderson can be shortened to Andy but an issue with using surname names is that this child already has a surname as her middle name, so does she really need to have 3 names that are surnames?

I have no idea what I would name a boy–probably Alexander. 😂 Alex is the most perfect name IMO!

Please help me find a gender neutral, nickname available, starting with “A,” regal name for my daughter!! I promise to write back and tell you which name we choose! Thank you!!!!!!

Amanda and Kyle

I do think you will have a much easier time if you can eliminate some of these requirements. I suggest writing each preference on an index card, and then playing with them a little: which ones are MOST important / which ones CANNOT be eliminated / which ones are strongly preferred but can go if necessary.

For example, I would definitely eliminate the preference for a gender-neutral long form, now that you’ve gone with the exclusively-used-for-girls name Alexandra for your first child. I wouldn’t pair an Alexandra with an Anderson unless Anderson were a boy.

I suggest Anastasia. Regal and high-powered, starts with A, and shortens to Stacy or Tacy or Sasha or Asia or even Andy (though not if you want to keep Anderson for a remote-possibility future son). It’s also one of the names from my own Sad I Can’t Use list, so I’d love to see it used on someone else’s dear little baby.

If you don’t mind a big difference in popularity: Acadia. It’s fairly uncommon (according to the Social Security Administration, it was used for only 40 new baby girls in 2021; compare that to 1,715 new baby girls named Alexandra), and it may cause those of us who grew up with ’90s music to find we have Sarah McLachlan’s song Adia going through our heads for some reason; but the nickname Cade is great with Alex, and she can go by Cate/Katie if she turns out not to be a short-boyish-nickname type of person.

Adelaide: regal! distinguished! starts with A! For the nickname, I suggest Del. I went to school with a boy Del, and Elizabeth is friends with a girl Del (short for Delaney). Along similar lines: Adeline/Del.

Adrienne, nickname Ren.

Augusta, nickname Gus.

I want to suggest Annabel (another from my Sad I Can’t Use It list), but I don’t have the right kind of nickname for it; I’m hoping someone else will think of something. Can we stretch to Abe or Abel, do you think?

Amaryllis. I dare you, I DARE you to use this wonderful underused name—though I can see it isn’t ideal with the surname. Nicknames, hm. Les? Again, I hope others will be better at this than I am.

Amethyst. I like this even more than Amaryllis. It’s perhaps an odd combination with Alexandra, and a little bumpy with the surname, but when there are a lot of preferences to accommodate, something’s got to give. Once again, I must beg for help with nicknames.

Andromeda. I realize this, like Amaryllis and Amethyst, is a long shot, but you’ve got me in the long-A-names section and I am bringing out all the contenders. And this one has the easy nickname Andy! (Unless you want to save Anderson for a future boy.) I think you could also do Matt/Mattie.

Artemisia, nickname Art or Tom or Timmy. Okay, I will stop with the more out-there ones.

Angelica. Nicknames…could we do Nick? Eli? I know I’m reaching.

Annika!! THAT gives us Nick without a reach! Oh, I feel excited about this one. Alexandra and Annika; Alex and Nick.

Annaliese, nickname Lee. I would rather avoid -s/S- with the surname, but I don’t think it has to be a dealbreaker.

Antonia, nickname Tony.

Arabella/Arabelle, nickname Rob/Robbie.

Aubrey, need help with a nickname.

Aurora, nickname Rory.

Well. I put this in a new-post window to work on, and then got caught up in unusually spinny Christmas preparations and never actually answered it. We may be much too late, as the due date is tomorrow, but let’s do our festive best:

Much to my surprise, daughter number three is due 12/18 and I’d love to have input from you and your readers. Our daughters are named Iris R@mona and Cleo Ros@lind. Our top two names for this baby are Sybil and Esme (ehz-may pronunciation). I like that Sybil is also of Greek origin because I’m half Greek. I like Esme because it has four letters and I like how it sounds with Iris and Cleo. Friends and family that I’ve asked mostly prefer Esme, but it’s a bit more frilly and less historical than I’d prefer. Also, I’m sure there will be pronunciation issues with Esme. We are struggling with middle names too. I’m not sure if I can use Sybil Esme or Esme Sybil because of the flow even if they are the top two names. Some other names we are considering in the middle spot are Josephine and Annora. What do you think?

Thank you!
Ashley

In the last two days I have seen two names that may or may not be what I see them as, but either way they give me an idea. Here are the names: Tameron and Tauren.

Both could easily be well-established names I just haven’t encountered before. But they hit my eye as “Cameron with a T” and “Lauren with a T.” They reminded me of other similar naming situations where adding or subtracting or substituting a letter can make a remarkable difference:

• Madison to Addison, Madelyn to Adelyn
• alllll the Aidens and Cadens and Haydens and Jadens
• Kyla, Myla, Isla, Lila
• Riley and Miley and Kiley and Briley
• Kevin and Evan and Devin
• Lesley and Wesley

I wondered if any of us would have fun trying to create some new names in this way from existing names. This is not one of my strong points: I wouldn’t ever have thought to form Tameron or Tauren, but as soon as I saw them I thought “OH!!” and could picture them working. Tameron in particular seemed workable as an updated/freshened version of both Cameron AND Tamara. (Meanwhile when I try to come up with anything I end up sounding like I am singing The Name Game: “fee fie fo FEVELYN!”)

Update on Born Baby Boy K3nt, Brother to Scarlett and Ivy

Hi Swistle, a coworker just told me about your site this morning and I’m desperate for help naming our first baby. This is the first baby for both of us, a boy.

My partner and I have gone through all our family names and even used an app to try and match on a name we both like. We’re pretty open, but avoiding names that are more common like Mike or John. The baby will be mixed. He’ll probably have a Chinese middle name (also TBD), and the surname sounds like Clementine, it starts with a C.

Some names I like are Henry, Owen, Coen. My partner likes Arthur, Bruno and Bruce. Could these be more opposite?

Appreciate any help from your readers, thank you!
Liz & Nico

Ooo, I think it’s going to be fun to see if any of the names we come up with are ones that overlapped on the app!

I am going to start by directing you to a post we did awhile back on the name Cohen. Re-reading it now, ten years later, I am wincing a little at my own take at that time, which I’d summarize as “I guess some people have a problem with it so I guess I’d steer clear, unless you feel like using it in which case go ahead.” At this point I would say my reaction to hearing the name in the wild is a strong flinch, plus “Eep, I wonder if the parents knew??,” and I would advise against using the name. I would suggest alternatives such as Rowan, Bowen, Ian, Jonah, Nolan, Cole, etc., as well as Owen already on your list.

While Michael and John have been very popular names over the decades/centuries, the name Henry is more common for current babies, and the name Owen is right in the same range: according to the Social Security Administration, the name Michael was the #17 most popular boy name in the U.S. in 2021 (though this is coming off a streak of being a Top 10 name from 1943 until 2016, which gives it a certain generational saturation); the name John was #27 (but Top 10 from 1900 when the online records begin, staying there until 1986); Henry was #9; and Owen was #22. For comparison: Arthur was #155, Bruno was #664, Bruce was #535.

Before we start looking for names that bridge that gap: one of the things I like to aim for in a name is BALANCE. If the surname will come from one parent’s family, and the middle name will come from the other parent’s family, then I think it’s nice if the parent who got the middle name can get a little more say in the first name; if the surname AND the middle name BOTH come from one parent, then I think the other parent should get significantly more say in the first name. Sometimes it doesn’t end up making sense to do it this way, but I like to START from that position—rather than, for example, thinking of one parent’s family surname as the default and not as a HUGE SIGNIFICANT THING.

Another thing to consider: future sibling names. It’s hard enough to name one baby, let alone an unknown number of potential future babies—but thinking ahead to possible sibling names now can help in two ways: first, by helping to clarify your joint naming style; and second, by helping you to avoid accidentally choosing a name that will rule out another name later, or a name that doesn’t go with any of the other names you like. Do you have favorite girl names that would be ruled out by any of your boy-name options? for example, do you love Henrietta, Rowan, Juno, Lucy? would you prefer to avoid repeating an initial? When the two of you look at your lists, can you form little imaginary sibling groups with the names? are there some names that don’t seem to fit in any grouping? are there other names you find you keep going for because they seem to work so well with everything else you like?

Now let’s see if we can find more names to consider in the Henry/Owen/Arthur/Bruno/Bruce range:

Alistair
Archie
Bennett
Caleb
Calvin
Clark
Davis
Desmond
Douglas
Edmund
Elliot
Emmett
Everett
Ezra
George
Gideon
Grant
Harris
Hugo
Ian
Isaac
Jasper
Leo
Louis
Milo
Nolan
Reid
Russell
Simon
Stanley
Warren
Wesley

Hi Swistle!

Nine years ago you helped me name my fourth little boy! That’s right, all four kids are boys!

My husband and I love having a big family. I am able to homeschool our boys and my husband works from home. We recently purchased a home with more property and we are loving this stage of life. Now we would like to add another babe! My husband had a vasectomy too long ago to be reversed so we have undergone IVF. I am now 18 weeks along with our baby girl!

Here is the kicker, we have more female embryos, and God willing, we would like to give this a little girl a sister and a sibling closer to her age. My favorite name is Freya Florence, but we would like to save that for the youngest sister.

This little girl, we would like her namesake to honor her Great-Grandmother Marys’ name who passed away this year. Baby girl is due the same week as Grandma Mary’s birthday!

Other children names (last name rhymes with truck):

Logan Clark
Abram Bradley (Abe)
Henry Samuel
Miles Thomas
***** Mary
Freya Florence (God willing)

Ideas:

Ava Mary (lovely, but overly popular and too close to brother “Abe”)

Edith Mary (love the sound of Edie/Edee for a nick name but don’t love how the spelling looks like Eddy).

Bonus but not necessary: Swistle noticed that all my children have a 5 letter first name and that would be true again with Freya. Any suggestions that would keep with the five letter trend with this little girl?

Thanks to Swistle and community!

This is an interesting task. If Freya were already with us, I would be looking for a name that coordinated more with Freya than with the other names, since I don’t mind so much if the brother names don’t coordinate with the sister names, but I do like all the brothers to coordinate and all the sisters to coordinate. But Freya is POSSIBLE FUTURE Freya. And the boys are here now. So I also want to make sure that the sister name goes nicely in this sibling group as it is.

It is striking me as fun rather than oppressive/restrictive to find another five-letter name, so I am going to play it as that game (which is not to say that we should not all feel free to suggest non-five-letter names if we think of them). If you find yourself struggling, though, it’s one of the very first restrictions I’d suggest dropping. “How many letters do my siblings’ names have?” is such a rare topic of conversation, and such a rare area for competition or hard feelings.

I’ve recently been informed that Nordic names have become popular with white supremacist groups. I mention this because WITHOUT that information, I might have been inclined to flip straight to the Nordic section of The Baby Name Wizard to look for names to coordinate beautifully with Freya; but WITH that information, I am more inclined to look for something that coordinates without being specifically Nordic, to avoid giving the impression that that was the theme I was now going for. But…my ear is not attuned to Nordic names, so it is very likely I wouldn’t NOTICE two Nordic names in a row to know that they were Nordic; and also, there are many names that are used in multiple cultures (Greta and Clara, for example, show up on multiple lists, including the Nordic one). I mention it just to make you aware of it in case, like me, you were NOT aware of it but would certainly want to be keeping it in mind.

Logan, Abram, Henry, Miles, _____, and Freya:

Celia
Darcy
Delia
Elena
Eliza (maybe too many shared sounds with Miles)
Emlyn
Gemma
Greta
Hazel
Liana
Lucia
Lydia
Lynna
Margo
Nadia
Pearl
Sasha
Sonia
Talia
Tessa
Viola
Willa

As I was making the list, I was disinclined to add M names, because of it being the next name in line after Miles. But the way you love Freya Florence makes me wonder if you might like alliteration for this baby as well:

Mabel Mary (probably too much -abe- with Abram/Abe)
Macey Mary
Madeline Mary
Maeve Mary
Malina Mary
Margaret Mary
Marilla Mary
Matilda Mary
Melinda Mary
Millicent Mary
Minerva Mary
Miranda Mary

Shannon writes:

So…. Ryan Reynolds & Blake Lively are expecting their fourth kid. They already have 3 daughters named… James, Inez, and Betty! What an eclectic & unpredictable mix of sibling girl names! I want to suggest that you do a poll on what kid #4 will be named, especially if it’s another girl. Swistle readers would love it! :)

Well, I suspect Shannon is absolutely right.

I am perhaps EVEN MORE interested in what they would name a boy. For a girl, I feel like we grasp their style, insofar as it can be grasped: they wish to surprise! and perhaps shock! They wish to choose the name they think no one else will choose! Would they do the same for a boy, or would they have a different style for boy names?

Update (and photo) on Baby Girl Pickles-with-an-R, Sister to Sawyer and Sloane