Hi Swistle!

I have been a long-time reader and absolutely love your blog! My husband and I are expecting our second (and final) child, a girl, this fall. Our last name is a different spelling of Woodruff.

We have an almost 2-year-old named Mila whose name we absolutely love. She is named for my grandmother Mildred, in the Jewish tradition of honoring a family member who has passed with a variation of the name/same first letter. Her middle name is P@rkes, which is a family name (my husband’s mother’s maiden name/middle name). Mila happens to work perfectly with both my Jewish/Eastern European heritage and my husband’s Hispanic heritage. This is an awesome added benefit, however hard to find and certainly not required for this baby’s name.

We have a few names in mind, but despite lots of searching and discussing (and reading through so many entries of your blog!) have not yet found the one! I am feeling stuck.

We ideally want to honor family members and some potential ways to do this would be names starting with H, J, or L (or maybe E but I don’t love the initials EW), however we are not limiting ourselves to these as it’s more important to us that we give her a name we love.

Names we both like:
Lucy – this was a front runner from our last pregnancy. We both really like it but aren’t sure it’s the one.
Hallie – another front runner, we both really like this and it would honor my grandfather Harold who went by Hal. I am worried that she would constantly be having to explain that it’s Hallie and not Haley.
Harper – newer addition to the list and we both like it but not sure it’s the one, it’s been growing on me more quickly than my husband though I do worry it’s too popular being top 10, also someone in my friend group has a daughter with this name, my preference is not to know people personally with a name so it feels more unique but realize this is silly especially since they live out of state and we rarely see them :)
Emma – we both really like it, though it feels to me too common (#2 name!!) and maybe too plain. It feels so close but not sure it’s the one. I think I prefer Emmi/Emmy/Emmie though my husband does not. I like the idea of Emme but not how hard it is to pronounce, I wouldn’t have known how to say it without reading your blog :)
Zoe/Zoey – we both do like the name, even though we can’t agree on the spelling :)

We like the middle name James, if the first name is clearly feminine like Lucy or Hallie or Emma, and it would honor several family members and a close family friend. But with a more unisex sounding name like Harper or Hadley, we would want a more feminine middle name. We are open to other middle names, maybe beginning with J in memory of the people mentioned above as well as my cousin Jill, however not required.

Some other names I like but my husband doesn’t are Addison (Addie), Ainsley, Chloe, Eloise, Sloane.

Names my husband likes are:
Molly – prob his favorite, and I do like it. It’s a cute name we considered for Mila but it feels too similar to me. I don’t want another M name as it is important to me for each girl to have her own initials, also my husband’s name starts with an M so I would be the only one without an M name other than our dog :). (Mine starts with H and another reason I like the H names for this baby is the symmetry of 2 M’s and 2 H’s. Again not required.)
Ashley (I like the name but don’t want to name our baby this as it feels 80s to me, also we know a lot of Ashleys)
Hannah (don’t love, wouldn’t say I necessarily dislike it but some associations I can’t get over and def not the one)

Some other names we both like but either don’t think we like enough or don’t want to use (friends with the name, associations, etc.) are Adeline, Berkeley, Brooklyn, Callie, Grace, Hadley. It is possible we could be convinced so open to thoughts if any of these stand out to you.

We are stuck and would love your suggestions! It would be great to get your thoughts on the above names if something is standing out to you, or other names we should be considering. Also on what names go well with sibling Mila? Thanks!!!

The one that stands out to me is Hallie. I think you’d periodically have to correct someone who thought it was the more common Haley, but that it wouldn’t be at deal-breaking levels—and once people DID know it was Hallie, they wouldn’t KEEP getting it wrong, so you’d mostly be dealing with in it non-important situations where there’s no need to correct it if you don’t feel like it (e.g., you’re waiting for a prescription and the clerk calls out “For Haley?” to let you know it’s ready).

Hallie has a lot going for it. It starts with one of the initials you were hoping for; but also your grandpa went by Hal, which makes an even better story, and also a good first-three-letters parallel for Mildred/Mila. It gives you the unnecessary-but-fun two M’s and two H’s in your family. It feels like a good fit with Mila in sound and in femininity and in confusion/difficulty levels.

I feel a little weary of the trend of giving baby girls the middle name James (we don’t have a corresponding trend of giving baby boys the middle name Jane), but it’s good with Hallie and for you it would honor several family members, and it coordinates nicely with your first child’s middle name.

Would others like to champion their own picks from the list, or suggest additional options?

Name update:

Hi Swistle –

Thank you so much to you and your readers for your input! We are excited to share that we welcomed our daughter Lucy J@mes Woodruff.

We loved the name Hallie on paper (for all of the reasons you and your readers did), but kept trying it out by saying it out loud to each other and had mixed feelings on the sound; it didn’t feel like the one. I also knew the pronunciation issues would bother me (confirmed by my annoyance when I tried using it for my Starbucks order and received a cup that said “Haley”).

Lucy’s name fits her perfectly and we have gotten lots of compliments on it! Also – added bonus – the way her big sister says “Ooh-sie” is pretty adorable

Hello,
We are due with our 5th (and final) baby in Jan and are having a tough time figuring this one out.
Our last name sounds like Statmiller (with a silent d before the second t). We currently have 2 girls and 2 boys and will not be finding out the gender of the baby until he or she arrives.
Our children’s names are Tessa Rose, Bennett Joseph, Cora Elizabeth and Palmer Francis. We like unique but not unheard of first names and more traditional for a middle name.

The trouble we are having is that we don’t want to use a duplicate first letter of the name and all of our children’s first letter has an E sound to it when saying it by itself. (T, B, C, P)
And would like to continue that since we call them by their first letter when in a hurry or when they are playing sports and we are cheering them on. The other constraint we have gotten ourselves into is each first name is 2 syllables and we would like to stick to that.
So based on that we are down to D, E, G, V and Z which doesn’t leave us much to choose from. Are we being too restrictive and should just pick a name we like? Or do we continue with down the path we have already taken?

If we were open to not following our naming history here are the names on our very short list:

Ada Marie
Lettie Marie

Harris Alexander

Any advice and name suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,
Katie

In my experience, naming got both MORE and LESS difficult as we had more children. It got more difficult because although we weren’t completely opposed to repeating initials, we did PREFER the idea of not repeating, and so gradually we reduced the number of initials we wanted to use. Certain sounds started to seem too repetitive, or at least we would prefer not to reuse them. We wondered about repeating endings and vowel sounds. We ran low on obvious honor names.

On the other hand I felt, especially with our fifth, that some of the pressure was off: when there are so MANY children, who would expect the parents to be as consistent with their naming style? Who would blame them if they DID repeat an initial? Who would blame them if they stopped a pattern that seemed fun for the first few children but then became burdensome? Who would blame them if they JUST SORT OF RAN OUT OF NAMES?

Also, I’d seen how my various concerns with earlier names had come to nothing: my hand-wringing, lie-awake fretting about syllables and number of letters and Which Of Two Equally Good Honor Names Should We Use was completely forgotten until I was pregnant again and looking over my old naming notes.

Here’s where I am going with this. When I started reading your letter, and I got to the part where you want a FIFTH baby to have a name that is two syllables AND a different initial AND TO HAVE THAT INITIAL RHYME WITH THE OTHER CHILDREN’S INITIALS, my mouth actually dropped open. What? WHAT?? I re-read it to make sure I had understood. Why are you playing this game on ULTIMATE HARD MODE when you don’t have to, and when it’s not resulting in any names you like?

On one hand, I wish to attempt to give you what you want—and we WILL attempt that. On the other hand, I feel you have backed yourself into a completely unnecessary corner. To whatever extent it is in my power, I wish to free you from feeling that you are somehow locked in to giving this baby a two-syllable name, or a rhyming-but-distinct initial. I won’t tell you that NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD would notice or care, because, well, you are currently standing in the midst of a community that does in fact notice and feel interested in such things—but even WE don’t DEEP-DOWN care if all five members of a sibling group have the same number of syllables in their names! Even WE don’t typically look at the first initials of a sibling group and notice if they RHYME or not!

Obviously, OBVIOUSLY, if these things matter to YOU, that is what is important. But…I am thinking back to all the things that Mattered Very Much to me when I was pregnant and lying awake, and then thinking about how little those things matter to me now, and I am wondering if we can bring you any peace on this. It seems so unlikely to me that in 30 years you will be visiting Ada’s/Harris’s house and looking at them across the dinner table and wishing you had found a name for them that had an initial that sounded more like their siblings’ initials when you yelled it at a sports event. YES, you are being too restrictive! YES!

I am very, very, very, very interested in baby names, and would have looked at your children’s names carefully and repeatedly and with far more attention than the typical person who will encounter their names, and I don’t think it would ever have occurred to me that all the first initials rhymed; I’m not sure I would have noticed that all the names had two syllables. In fact, let me ask you this question and hope it doesn’t backfire: How much time have you spent noticing and thinking about the syllables/initials of the sibling groups of your friends and relatives? If you’re like me, you might say, “Well, ACTUALLY: SOME!!” But…like, LOTS? Have you ever thought about whether their initials rhyme? Did/do you CARE if their initials rhyme?

If anything, I would think that if you commonly holler the children’s initials, you would NOT want another one that sounds so similar to the first four. If anything, I would think that after four two-syllable names in a row, you might wish to break up the rhythm a little. Think of the charming storybook rhythm of a sibling group that is “DAH-da, DAH-da, DAH-da, DAH-da, and DAH.”

Okay brisk clap! Your FIRST assignment, together or separately or both, is to make a list of names but with NO THOUGHT AT ALL to all your self-imposed constraints. Put down names that duplicate an initial! Put down names that use initials that don’t rhyme with E! Put down names that have more or less than two syllables! Put down names that don’t even go well with the other sibling names! Put down names you can’t use because someone close to you already used it, or because there is a bad association, or because it sounds much too similar to one of the other kids’ names! Just make a list of every single name you like/love. EVEN IF you do decide not to repeat an initial, you might notice something about the repeating-initial names that helps you find a non-repeating-initial name. EVEN IF you do decide it’s important to you that the baby’s first initial rhymes with their siblings’ first initials, you might notice something about the non-rhyming-initial names that helps you find a rhyming-initial name. And so on.

It may also give you a better feeling for the PRICE of meeting preferences. If you were to put every name in the world in order from the one you liked most to the one you liked least, how far down your list would you be willing to go to get an initial you prefer? When you weigh, say, your top 1% of names against the names that meet your requirements, which do you WANT MORE? It seriously does come down to the weight of preferences: there are names I would score higher than names I used, but other preferences DID weigh more. It cost something to use those names, but it was worth the price to me. On the other hand, at some point those preferences started weighing relatively less: I WASN’T willing to use a name I liked Much Less, just to meet a preference I was free to choose not to follow. You may find, for example, that the price of meeting all your preferences is choosing a name you don’t really like, and you may find you’re not willing to pay that price. If you remove a preference, does that make the cost more reasonable? What if you remove another preference? And so on.

If you find a name you love that starts with a non-rhyming initial, I wonder if you could do a MIDDLE name with a rhyming initial and make that work? T, B, C, P, and L-V, for example.

In the meantime, we will also get to work. My plan is to go ahead and try to solve the naming puzzle with all restrictions in place, because that’s like a game, and name games can be fun.

So: Game Mode. The only available initials are D, E, G, V, and Z; the name must have two syllables.

Daisy
Darcy
Della
Ella
Esme
Estelle (kind of a lot of ST and LL with the surname)
Etta (maybe too close to Bennett)
Eva
Gemma
Ginny
Greta
Vera
Zara

Dalton
Davis
Declan
Desmond
Devin
Duncan
Dillon/Dylan
Easton
Ellis (might combine with surname to sound like Ella Statmiller)
Garrett (may be too similar to Bennett)
Gilbert
Gordon
Grady
Griffin
Vincent

I think my own favorites are Greta and Davis. Greta Statmiller; Tessa, Bennett, Cora, Palmer, and Greta. Davis Statmiller; Tessa, Bennett, Cora, Palmer, and Davis.

Name update:

Hello!
I am writing to update you and thank you for the name help. After reading your response and readers responses it gave me relief from all the self imposed restrictions.
I was pretty convinced we were having a girl and focused on that. When we had a boy it came as quite a surprise and left us trying to decide on a name. We took your advice and made a list of names with no constraints. To our surprise there was no names we agreed on that fit our “rules” but we happily agreed on one name!

Albie Robert

To us it works well with his siblings names with still being fresh to him! And if we HAVE to use a rhyming sound we can call him E for his syllable.

Thank you for helping free us from our naming constraints!

Hi Swistle!

Our second baby is due at the end of July, and we do not know the sex. We have one daughter, Aidy June. Our last name is Belston-without-the-B. The naming experience of our first was unexpected – Aidy was on our long list but not our short list – I don’t think we even verbalized the name as one we loved, someone just added it at random. We thought she was going to be Mabel, and it just didn’t fit so we spent 24hrs ‘trying on’ names for her, and out of nowhere, Aidy landed and felt totally perfect. So it’s interesting this time, trying to avoid a name list getting out of control when every name we don’t dislike feels like a possibility we don’t want to forget about, and feeling that we can’t concretely name this kid til we get to meet.

Some of our personal name feelings: my partner’s birth name is Elizabeth, but parents always intended to use Beth, and she has always wished her name was just Beth to begin with – so we have no plans to name a kid the traditional version of a name if we prefer and intend to use the nickname. My name is Camilla, which I disliked a lot as a child but feel more positively about as an adult, and also use Cam in certain circles.

Our naming style is short and snappy. I enjoy a fresh, unexpected name, but one that is easily understood when read or verbalized (although saying that, we still get “Addie” more than I expected. For example, when we introduce her at the park to a new person, and then they try to recall her name next time, it is always “Addie”). We also enjoy the opportunity for a quirky, out-there middle name if it works.

Names we like the most right now: Maeve (if assigned female at birth) and Kit (neutral). We’d like three kids, and the sibset Aidy, Maeve and Kit is really pleasing to me. I love all the names with our last name.

What gives me pause with these names is a) does the Irish heritage of Maeve stand out oddly in the sibset? b) is Maeve going to be the next Ava? c) it sits on the more feminine end of the spectrum than I prefer and d) I truly love Kit, and yet it feels unfinished in my mouth (I know it is traditionally a nickname). I also worry about having to spell it all the time. When I introduce myself as “Cam”, most people say “Pam?” and then I say “C-A-M”. It’s a minor annoyance, but one I would prefer to not have. I worry about resolving my kid to either needing to spell their name for life, or people asking what it is short for. In the back of my mind I feel that with the right name, these things won’t matter and if they matter right now, they are not the right names.

Other names we enjoy: Otto, Bryn, Enid, Ira, Veda, Ripley, Nola, Fable, Ivy.

I also feel a lot of joy about these names connected to the last name, but feel a little unsure about when standalone: Penny, Mackie.

I love love love, and my partner doesn’t (but they are still on the table) – Clover, Arlo.

My partner currently loves Elodie and Elias. Elodie is more feminine than I prefer, and Elias, too popular… but my partner is growing this baby, and I do not dislike the names, so they are definitely on the table. I do like the alliteration.

My question to you and your readers – what am I missing? Is there an unexpected, fresh, snappy name you’ve come across in your circles? Naming without many parameters feels like such an opportunity, and I understand the subjectivity of this but we feel like Aidy June Belston-without-the-B was a total slam-dunk. I’m not convinced we are there with our current list.

Cheers,

Cam

 
Name update:

Hello! Our second child arrived on 8/5, fast and furious and accidentally unassisted, caught by me before our midwives arrived. Whoops! That was definitely not the plan, but everyone is doing very well and we are adjusting to our new normal as a family of four.

I really appreciated the comments on our post, both for some great new ideas and validation on our favourites! It was a really fun exercise in the last few weeks of pregnancy, and solidified the absolute joy that it is to name a human.

We landed quickly on Maeve Arlo, and we could not be more thrilled. We love the fun twist that the first three letters of her name are also her initials. And it turns out there is nothing sweeter than hearing your first born say your second born’s name to make you feel like you slam-dunked it all over again!

Dear Swistle,

My husband and I are excited to welcome identical twin boys in mid-August. Our last name is Doyle with a B, and our older sons are Kerry (spelled like the actor last name Grant) and Neil (spelled with an A rather than an I).

We like names that are unpopular but not so rare they aren’t easily identified as names. We also like names that are used in full rather than nicknames. Our preference is names that will sound and feel like they fit with the other boys’ but aren’t very matchy / twinny, so not rhyming or close enough to be confused. I like Jamie, Conall, Theo, Kieran – my husband does not. He likes Felix, Warren, and Alexander – I don’t. We’re stuck – please help!

Thank you!

[I kept putting off answering this because of the different spellings for the first two kids. The spellings feel so important, especially for Kerry, that I wasn’t sure we could even answer the question with the wrong spellings repeatedly in front of our eyes. And with alternate spellings, we don’t notice that both names have four letters, and for some people that will be important! But I think we should try to power through. Just, maybe we should do this one on paper, with the real spellings? And then translate our answers?]

Your firstborn’s name is unisex, but with the spelling used almost exclusively for boys. Your secondborn’s name is used exclusively for boys in the U.S., and is the currently less common spelling of the name. Both names have four letters, which leaves me torn between the fun of finding two more four-letter names, and the idea that that’s way too much pressure and a totally unnecessary goal (but fun, so let’s see how things unfold). If you think you may have more children, I would probably steer away from four-letter names at this point.

Theo seems like a great choice to me, except I think you might be unhappy with how common it is right now: according to the Social Security Administration, the name Theodore was the 10th most popular boy name in the United States in 2021. Alexander likewise seems much too common: it’s been in the Top 20 consistently for over two decades.

I think what we may be looking for here are “Baby Boomer names that are about to start sounding good again.” Theo is too current. Jamie is dated, but too RECENTLY dated: it peaked in the 1970s and 1980s. Warren is uncertain: it hit its peak in the 1920s, so if we’re assuming approximately a hundred-year naming cycle, it might be about to join Theo as Too Current/Common. Some names that might be from the right era (though may overshoot in either direction–it’s a little difficult to pin down Boomer Names because they were all named Dave and Sue and Kathy and Jim, plus names that rhyme with Kerry):

Alan
Clark
Craig
Darrell
Darren
Dean
Douglas
Frank
Fred
Gene
Glen
Gordon
Jesse
Jody
Karl
Keith
Kent
Laurence
Lee
Leon
Louis
Ray
Reeve
Robin
Roger
Ross
Russell
Scott
Seth
Shay
Stanley
Tracy
Wade
Ward

I’m not sure about the names that end in L: with your surname, it’s either catchy or it’s too much—and there’s already a name in the sibling group that ends in L.

Other issues I wasn’t sure about: Are Darren and Darrell and Karl too close in sound to Kerry? Is Karl too close visually to Kerry, especially since it can also be spelled Carl (remember the actual spelling of Kerry)? what about Ray (again, remember actual spelling of Kerry)? Is Lee too much like half of Neil? Is Leon just Neil backward, and is Dean almost just Neil backward? (Remember the actual spelling of Neil, which I think makes the Dean issue more of an issue.)

I included Jesse, Tracy, Robin, and Jody, but the way those jumped the gender line for Generation X (Jesse as Jessie/Jess, from Jessica) may mean that they’re too much in use as Mom Names right now to be used again for boys. On the other hand, it seems to me that Kerry is working great for boys despite all the mom/grandma Carries.

We considered Alan when we were naming Henry, and I still love it. I wondered if it might be the perfect combination of Alexander + Warren + familiar-but-uncommon.

I don’t know if I would have considered Roger, except that some time back I heard that that nickname for it used to be Hodge. HODGE!! I know you’d rather not use nicknames, but it still made me love the name Roger more, just knowing Hodge was there.

Let’s play with pairing up some options:

Alan and Dean; Kerry, Neil, Alan, and Dean. Everyone has four letters.

Frank and Louis; Kerry, Neil, Frank, and Louis. We switch to five letters, but for both twins. Two are one-syllable names; two are two-syllable names.

Gordon and Russell; Kerry, Neil, Gordon, and Russell. Both surname names as well as familiar first names.

Douglas and Roger; Kerry, Neil, Douglas, and Roger. Subtle little matching G’s, but with different sounds so it isn’t too matchy.

Actually, I find I’m almost immediately overwhelmed. It’s HARD to name twins, isn’t it! It SEEMS like it’s going to be FUN, but then it’s HARD! What Paul and I finally had to do with our twins was to pretend they were singletons. First Baby A is arriving: what shall we name her? Now it is two or three years later and the Baby B is arriving: what shall we name him?

Name update:

Dear Swistle,

Our babies have arrived! The0 W@rren and Curt!s Patr!ck won the day.

We read through every suggestion and comment many times, and they really helped us to add to, remove from, and re-rank our list. Thank you, everyone!