Hello, dear Swistle!

I mentioned to you on Twitter this past fall that I was bereft to not have a baby boy to name Alfred, because I’d just met a three year old named Alfred and was completely charmed. My ovaries said, “What’s that? You’d like another baby? We can arrange for that!” My husband Kevin and I were QUITE surprised to find out we’re expecting again—we definitely thought we were done—but we are also delighted. And now to choose a name for this little one before she arrives in June! Normally I love thinking about and discussing baby names, but I’ve had a lot of other stressors going on this pregnancy and haven’t spent a lot of time on it since I was really early in my pregnancy. I’m hoping your and your readers’ thoughts might help me get excited about the naming process.

Surname is four syllables. It starts with Mc- and ends with -ery. It’s a similar rhythm to McAllister, but that -ee ending makes a lot of names sound sing-song-y.

We are having a girl, so Alfred is out. Here are the sibling names (there are a lot of them):

—Emeline Anne (Last syllable with a long I sound, rhymes with Caroline as opposed to Pauline. Goes by Emmy.)
—Samuel Albert (Sam or Sammy)
—Lucy Eleanor (miscarried girl)
—Theodore Peter (Theo)
—Quinn Enoch (miscarried, sex unknown)
—Grace Elizabeth (miscarried girl)
—Poppy James (miscarried, sex unknown)
—Benjamin Charles (Ben or Benji)

So the living siblings are Emmy, Sam, Theo, and Benji on a day-to-day basis. I feel quite married to a long name with a nickname, because there are FOUR other kids in the family with this precedent.

All eight of my other children have honor names for their middle names.
We definitely sacrificed the flow of some of the names (or chose less than ideal initials) for the chance to honor loved ones. For this baby, we are leaning towards honoring my husband’s grandmother. Her name is Evenelle (spelled a little differently, but changed for the sake of not being so Google-able). Her parents, who immigrated to the US, apparently made up this name to sound like an American name. She generally goes by Evie (Eh-vee, as opposed to Eve-ee). Depending on the flow with the first name I’m open to either Evenelle or Evie. However, my son Theo has his heart set on naming the baby Joy, so we’re also considering that for a middle name. (Side question: would it be weird to give this baby two middle names if none of the siblings have two middle names?)

I’ve thought about naming this baby Elizabeth Eleanor both in honor of her two miscarried sisters and in honor of the family members for whom I originally chose the names, but I’m not sure how that would feel for my newest daughter as she grows up. When I think about if I would like to be named after two miscarried siblings, now as an adult I could appreciate it, but I don’t know that I’d have understood as a child. I do LOVE both of these names and my husband is on board with this idea, but I’m leaning towards scrapping it. I’d be interested in your thoughts and your readers’ thoughts, though. If we DID do this I love the wealth of nickname options with Elizabeth. I’m leaning towards Lizzy or Izzy.

Okay, beyond Elizabeth Eleanor, here is my list so far:
—Margaret (Maisie or Meg)
—Anneliese (Annie)
—Louisa (Lulu…almost certainly too close to Lucy, whom we talk about by name with some regularity)
—Alice (I suppose we could call her Allie for short, but I love Alice as is, so potential issue of no nickname)
—Katherine (Kate)
—Amelia (Millie…is Amelia too close to Emeline?)
—Rose (I love Rosalie but it is very singsong-y with our last name. Maybe scrap a long version and just go with Rose? I’m sure that whatever her formal name is we’d call her Rosie.)
—Birdie (I’m swooning over this as a nickname, but am not sure what long name to use to get to it. Bridget? Kevin hates it so it’s probably out, though I have time to work on him.)

Part of me feels meh about this whole list (except for Birdie) and wants to venture into a very different style…Imogen! Lark! Juniper! Pearl! But I don’t think I truly want to do that.

My favorite on my “real” list is probably Margaret (I love the alliteration with our surname). Kevin likes Katherine best. Katherine has been on our list for every pregnancy and feels extremely boring to me this time around…probably because I’ve considered it 8 other times. And as if choosing a name with one’s spouse isn’t hard enough, Emmy is 12 and very invested in the name. Emmy likes Anneliese best (from my list…of her own choosing she likes Veronica and Victoria, in case you’re interested in a data point on what names 12-year-olds like). I love Felicity but it doesn’t go well with our surname.

Okay! I am open to suggestions! I would love your thoughts!

Love, Ellen

When I got to the part about using the names of miscarried siblings as honor names for this baby, my hand flew to cover my mouth. I vote no, and I vote it while making earnest, sustained eye contact.

I can’t easily explain my strength of feeling on this. One of my daily rituals is checking the obituaries, and so I know it used to be very common for a family to reuse the name of a child who had died. I don’t know what the motivation was, at the time: was it because they still wanted to name a child after dear Uncle Thomas? was it in honor of the child who had died? And I don’t know how the kids who were given the names felt about it. But I do know it used to be common. It’s just: it’s not common now. In the context of Now rather than Then, it gives a feeling I would describe as “my hand flew to cover my mouth.”

It would feel different to me if you had intended to use those honor names for other babies, but had miscarried and had not used the names after all. Then the names Elizabeth and Eleanor could still be after the original honorees. But the babies were named, and their names are listed in the sibling group; those names have been used by other siblings and are no longer available to be used by the new baby, any more than the names Emeline and Anne are available.

It would also feel different to me if you had a family tradition of, for example, using Eleanor as the middle name for all of your daughters. Or if some of your other children had been named after their siblings. But neither of those is the case here. I strongly advise you to consider all sibling names Taken and Unavailable.

I think it would be fine to give this baby two middle names, though it’s not a pattern-break I’d want to do at this point, and I think your firstborn might be peeved if you used her brother’s name preferences and not hers! When I was pregnant with the twins, Rob (age 6 at the time) vigorously wanted to give one of the babies the middle name Plum, and we did consider it, and I did think it would have been a fun/cute story, but we didn’t end up doing it, and Rob no longer even remembers wanting this. Joy is a much harder name to resist than Plum, but I think my plan would be the same: if there was another middle name I would otherwise have used, I would go ahead and use that, and encourage the child to use the name Joy as their own special name for the baby.

I find I am very much hoping Evenelle will be the version that goes best with the first name and surname. Evie is nice, but it’s a common current nickname; Evenelle feels special, and I suspect you would enjoy it every single time you filled out paperwork.

From your list of first-name options, my top favorite with a sister named Emeline is Anneliese. The two names are parallel enough to give me a little thrill, but the sounds are quite different. Anneliese Evenelle is majestic.

Amelia would be too similar to Emeline for me. I realize that may seem at odds with my feelings about Anneliese.

My second favorite from your list is Margaret. I like the alliteration too, and all the nickname options.

I’ve heard Birdie used for Bridget but also for Bernadette, Roberta, Bertha, Alberta, and Bernice. These won’t work with sibling names and/or your surname, but in case others have landed here looking for more options, it seems like it would also work well for Ember, Emberley, Emberlyn, Liberty, Kimber. But I think it can also come from calling a nice little baby girl your little birdy. I think it could be sweet as a pet name for Margaret, and this could tie in nicely to you telling Theo he can call her Joy: different family members might have different nicknames for her, and that’s delightful.

I think Imogen would work well and wouldn’t be a big style jump. Nicknames Genna or Midge or Immy (similar to Izzy), or Idgie like in Fried Green Tomatoes; and it sounds a little like Joy. But it seems very close to Benjamin.

I wonder if you’d like Genevieve; it was high on my own list. I worried she’d be called Genny/Jenny, but that’s starting to sound good to me again. There’s also Evie or Vivi or or Gigi (probably not with Benji) or Ginny (maybe also not with Benji) or Neevie. Genevieve Evenelle has a lot of repeated sounds; I might be swayed into thinking about suggesting Genevieve Joy? It’s so delightful.

Or Minerva/Minnie. A little similar to Veronica.

And because you like Margaret and Millie, I bring you one of the names most dear to my heart: Millicent. Millicent/Millie. Just give it time to simmer.

Name update:

Hello, dear Swistle!

I am writing to update you on my baby’s name, which you were kind enough to post about at the end of March.

I appreciated reading everyone’s thoughts on using the middle names of the baby’s miscarried sisters. In the time between sending my email and your post I’d had a good chat with a friend about it, and I came to the conclusion that without knowing the baby’s personality it wasn’t a good decision. Maybe she’ll be a happy-go-lucky person who wouldn’t be bothered at all (or maybe she’d have really liked the connection to her sisters!), but maybe she’ll be a very sensitive child who feels things deeply and the names would have felt like a weight. So! Even before I read your thoughts I’d decided to regretfully let Elizabeth Eleanor go and keep looking. (A special thank you to the commenters who offered such kind words of sympathy for our losses and shared their own stories of lost babies and subsequent naming decisions—I appreciated it very much.)

Everyone’s positive comments about Evenelle made me feel much more confident in using it as a middle name. And thank you to everyone who was looking out for Emmy and the disparity of considering Theo’s favorite name Joy and not her names. The reason for this is because I’d told her I thought it best for her to save her very favorite names for her own children or pets someday and she was VERY on board with the idea of saving them.

Okay, with all of that background out of way, introducing our daughter Margaret Evenelle. I’m pretty sure we’ll call her Maisie, but we love the wealth of nickname options and we’ll see how it shakes out in the coming weeks. Thank you again to you and your readers!

I feel bad sending this email as I know you must be busy, however I’m so clueless after months of fighting it I’ve given in and decided to ask for help with our little girls name.

We’re expecting our first little girl in April, and as exited as we are about her she has been the hardest to name so far. Our other two are Oswald Jude ‘Ozzy’ and Reuben Hugh ‘Reu’, their names were so easy to decide but now we can’t even settle on something while I’m 8 months pregnant!

The List I liked, but he vetoed…

Hermione
Sarah-Kate
Caroline
Scarlett
Matilda

The Names he liked, I said no to…

Alice
Clara
Mercedes
Simone
Story

The only name we both can agree of right now is Liliana, but neither of us truly love it to the point we want to use it! As we’re both quite firm in her middle name being Lavender!
We had a boys name all set out (William Atlas Bailey) but we’re expecting a girl so it’s no use. We’re saying this is our last, but we’ve said that after every baby so it’s not guaranteed!

Thank you so much for your consideration!
Em x

I notice the repeated sounds in the other two children’s names: oswalD juDe and then reUben hUgh. I wonder if it would be at all fun, just as a little game or exercise, to see if we can find a first name for your daughter that repeats one or more of the sounds from her middle name Lavender.

Ada Lavender
Adelaide Lavender
Aveline Lavender
Belinda Lavender
Claudia Lavender
Cordelia Lavender
Danica Lavender
Eleanor Lavender
Eliza Lavender
Elodie Lavender
Eve Lavender
Even Lavender
Evelina Lavender
Esther Lavender
Flannery Lavender
Florence Lavender
Geneva Lavender
Genevieve Lavender
Gwendolyn Lavender
Landry Lavender
Larissa Lavender
Linnea Lavender
Lois Lavender
Louisa Lavender
Lydia Lavender
Maeve Lavender
Marilla Lavender
Melody Lavender
Minerva Lavender
Miranda Lavender
Nadia Lavender
Sylvia Lavender
Valentina Lavender
Vera Lavender
Verity Lavender
Veronica Lavender
Victoria Lavender
Vivian Lavender

If I could ask each of you to reconsider a veto, I’d ask you to reconsider Clara, and I’d ask your husband to reconsider Matilda. Clara Lavender! Matilda Lavender!

Name update:

Thank you so much for these suggestions! They definitely have not gone unappreciated, as for our baby girl she was born on March 22nd. She weighed 7lbs 1oz and was born at 36+6, and she’s such a healthy baby girl. Ozzy and Reu are really exited to now have their baby sister. You gave us some really gorgeous suggestions and from your gorgeous list we found a name we both really love, our sweet baby girl Elodie Lavender has been born.
Thank you so much we all really appreciate it!
Em x

Swistle,

I’m a big fan of your blog. I’ve always loved baby names. My mom had a baby when I was 13 and I did so much research and reading. Lots of lists and suggestions. An obsession with baby names was born!

But now that I’m pregnant with my first child, due in July, I’m quite overwhelmed. We just found out we’re having a girl, and my husband and I simply can’t agree on THE ONE. We were totally aligned on boy names and had one picked out: Thomas, with my maiden name as the middle. It’s a classic with fun nickname options, sounds good with our surname, and is also a special honor name on my side of the family that hasn’t been used despite my many siblings and cousins. For a girl, we’re lost. We need your help!

Here’s where we’re at. We’re American, and our last name sounds like Keegan without the “K” (I took my husband’s surname and our children will take it as well). We’re drawn to a mix of traditional, vintage, preppy, and “new classic” names. We’re Catholic but not super religious; both pretty Irish, especially my family.

My husband has a one syllable name and didn’t like growing up without nickname options. For that reason, he’s very drawn to more formal, longer names with vintage and/or cute nicknames, and the nickname is a very important part of the conversation to him. I do like that style as well, but we can’t come up with a combo we agree on or that feels right. I’m also very drawn to classic/simple one syllable names, and even with longer names, needing nickname options doesn’t feel as much a “must” for me like it does for him. In fact, my name is almost always shortened, but I never took a nickname.

Names on my list:
Jane
Margaret (but no clear nn winner – will explain)
Frances
Eleanor nn Nora
Anne nn Annie
Georgia
Caroline
Paige

On his list:
Margaret nn Maisie (he LOVES Maisie)
Susannah nn Susie
Patricia nn Piper or Poppy
Hazel
Penelope nn Penny
Jane (but no nn winner in his mind – maybe Junie among family but would still go by Jane)
Frances (maybe if nn Fran or Frannie)
Beatrice nn Birdie
Caroline

Of the above, Margaret, Patricia and Anne would be meaningful honor names. Caroline would be also, but our relative with that name is currently childless and has expressed preference on saving it for their child — if we had her blessing that would be a strong contender. Oddly, it’s one name my husband likes the full name for. She would go by the full “Caroline.”

So, names we like but can’t use: Caroline, Elizabeth, Ellie, Emma, Claire, Charlotte, Catherine, Molly.

Names we’ve talked about for middle names: Celine, Cecilia, Caroline. (All meaningful. Celine and Caroline on my side, Cecilia for both of us.) Also Frances or Patricia.

Margaret feels like it should be the top contender. We’ve talked about Margaret Celine Keegan-no-K, a name that would honor three women on my side of the family that I love and respect very much, but we can’t agree on a nickname. I don’t know if I can get behind Maisie, my husband’s strong preference. It’s a very sweet name, and I like its Scottish/English roots given my heritage, but there’s a bit of a “dog name” association for me. It leans a little too cutesy for my taste, and I don’t know if I could use it for my firstborn daughter, especially if she truly went by that all of the time. Maybe? But I don’t know.

Maisie aside, we don’t want to use Meg, Meggie or Maggie for various reasons related to people we know, and I grew up with a dog named Daisy, so that’s out. I really like Margot and think it sounds great with our surname, but my husband isn’t a big fan and thinks it could be megapopular in the wake of Barbie. I could also be in favor of Mae but my husband vetoed that as well — he just doesn’t like it. Molly would almost definitely be our top choice if it weren’t my husband’s ex’s name; they dated many years and we don’t think it’s worth the eyebrow raising.

Beyond Margaret, I’ve also mulled over Susannah/Susie, another top contender for him, but I feel like it has a Country/Western/Southern vibe that doesn’t feel quite true to our northeast roots. I could see it for a second child, but for some reason it feels random for the first. Sigh. I wish there was a clear winner but I truly don’t know where we’ll land — our taste is close but not quite aligned, and my husband is pretty opinionated and set in his opinions. He doesn’t understand why I can’t get on board with the Maisie idea. And maybe I could? I want to love it — it would make things so much easier for us — but I just don’t. And in general, I have a tendency to be a people pleaser, and I’m worried I’m going to lose sight of what I like and want out of desperation for compromise and a solution.

I think we need to meet in the middle somehow, or move on from the “Margaret” mayhem altogether and consider different options from our lists or beyond, but I’m not sure what that looks like. I would appreciate any and all ideas or thoughts, from you and your readers!

Many thanks

In spite of my love for the name Margaret, I am going to advise putting it on the Wait list for now. It sounds as if you’re hoping to have more children, so there will likely be time to revisit it—but right now it feels as if it’s getting in your way: it seems as if it OUGHT to be perfect, when it’s not quite, and that’s causing some looping. Additionally, your husband is having some trouble understanding other points of view on the nickname; and it makes me nervous that Meg and Maggie and Daisy all have to be ruled out as nicknames, so how about we make things easier by thinking of Margaret the way we think of Susannah: as a good name to consider for the NEXT daughter.

Or, and I think this would be better by far: another option is to use Margaret, and agree that you can each use whatever nicknames you like best for her, without choosing one official nickname. Then your husband can call her Maisie to his heart’s content, and you can call her whatever you would like to call her, including Margot and Mae and Margaret, and when she’s old enough to write her name on her homework she can choose for herself. I particularly like the idea of you calling her Mae and your husband calling her Maisie, since those seem like they could just be shorter/longer versions of the same nickname.

And here I’d like to make sure all of us–but I am only actually wondering about your husband–realize that eventually the child WILL choose for herself. It’s perfectly reasonable for the parents to choose a preferred nickname and introduce it early to increase the odds of that being the choice—but it’s important to realize that, just as you never used the common shortening of your given name, and just as my coworker Liz overturned her parents’ decision to call her only-Beth-and-NEVER-Liz, a Birdie may chose Bea or Beatrice instead, a Maisie may choose Meg or Margaret instead, a Susie may choose Anna or Susannah instead, and so on. Once the child has been given the name, it’s up to them how to wear it.

I wonder if you two would like Josephine. Nicknames: Josie, Joey, Jo, Posey.

Or Cordelia. I like the nickname Delia, but Cory or Rory or Lia or Cordy would be options.

Georgia, with the nickname Georgie or Gigi.

Winifred, with nicknames Winnie and Freddie.

Matilda, with nicknames such as Mattie and Tilda and Tillie.

Meredith/Merrie.

Minerva/Minnie.

Rosemary, with nicknames Rosie and Romy, or she could go by Mary if she preferred.

Veronica, with nicknames Nica or Vinnie or Ronnie or Vera.

Anneliese, with nicknames Annie or Anna.

I see that you both like Jane, but the nickname issue stops him. I wonder if the two of you would also like the name June, and you could call her Junie, Junebug, Juniper, etc.

Another method is to use the first and middle initials: if, for example, you named her Jane Patricia Keegan-without-the-K, you could call her J.P. as a nickname. I went to college with a girl who went by K.C., and that seemed pretty cool and snappy.

Piper and Poppy are not typically used as nicknames for Patricia, and I think they might be a tough sell. That is, in theory they’re no further a leap than Maisie for Margaret or Jack for John, but in practice there is an enormous difference between “what the public has already become accustomed to” and “what the public has not.” I’ll note that Poppy could be a nickname for Penelope. I think of Piper as a standalone name, but the somewhat similar Pippa can be short for Philippa.

Name update:

Swistle! Hello again. Thank you for responding to my note back in March. I revisited your post and the comments a few times as we continued to deliberate.

Looking back now, it’s interesting to reflect on where we were in the naming process all those months ago and what changed — and didn’t change — leading up to the birth of our daughter. Notably, my husband moved away from the “long, traditional name that needs a nickname” thing. Meanwhile, the overlapping names on our lists stayed largely the same and would become our top contenders.

We landed at the hospital with Jane, Hazel, Frances, and Margaret. When she was born, I felt she was either a Jane or Margaret, but ultimately we kept coming back to the sweet simplicity and versatility of Jane. For the middle, we elected to honor my beloved Nana, Marie. It wasn’t a name combination we talked about until we were at the hospital, but once we said it, it just sounded like… her name. Jane Marie.

We are calling her Jane for now but open to embracing Janie if that seems to suit her better or becomes her preference. To your point, she’ll be able to introduce herself before we know it, and it isn’t our name, it’s hers. We hope she likes it as much as we do!

Thanks again

Hi Swistle!

It’s crazy to think that I started reading this blog when I was expecting my first, and now I’m catching up to you with five kids. How time flies! We are due in April and our last name sounds like Carrot with an M.

Our daughters are Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, and Cl@ire. And baby 5 is a girl!

I think somewhere half-spoken in my mind, I had been thinking that it would be fun to mix it up this time: daydreaming about learning how to do a cute little boy haircut and… Well, anyway, I could still totally learn how to give cute haircuts.

I think what I need to get excited about little girl 5 is a great name. But it’s a catch-22, Swistle; I need a great name to help me get jazzed about twenty more weeks of pregnancy and a new baby, but I’m just so blah about naming this time around. Every name on our list has already been rejected before. What I really need is for someone else to help me look at names afresh, (which, isn’t that what so many of us write in to ask?)

In the early days of baby naming, I had a lot of angst about naming because my husband and I both cared about names, but our styles seemed very different, (see previous letters here and here). In the end, we’ve settled on a naming compromise: we take turns naming the baby with full veto/suggestion power from the other person. This has worked pretty well for us!

He loves saint names out of the top 1000, and he chose Avil@ (sounds like Avalon) and Ze1ie (rhymes with Ellie). I like what I jokingly call Hollywood Pirate names: Will, Rose, Theo, Jack, Hope, Kate. Short, familiar, and snappy. I also like names like Anneliese, Vivian, Genevieve. I chose R0se and Cl@ire for my names.

We love nicknames, and use them interchangeably with our daughter’s names: Avi, Rosie, Ze1ie-Lou (from middle name Louise), Clara/Coco.

It’s his turn to choose a name, but he also seems surprisingly uninterested in the task this time around and he keeps asking me for suggestions. The only part I’m excited about is using my name Gabrielle as the middle name. We used my husband’s name Michael for Cl@ire’s middle name, (at my insistence because I just loved it and wanted to honor him,) and I am feeling that same excitement for using my name this time.

His suggestions:

Hildegard (vetoed. Hildie is a cute nickname, but the name seems harsh to me.)

Anastasia (but we both like the nickname Ah-na, which honors my Grandma. So far everyone we’ve tested it on says Annastasia and Anna; it feels like an uphill battle. The full name seems very long to me.)

Blaise (This has been our boy name for 9 years, but I just don’t know for a girl)

 

My suggestions he vetoed:

Vivian

Sylvie

Anneliese (name of his cousin)

Hope (name of his mom’s cat)

 

Our list so far:

Genevieve (He said maybe and likes the nickname Evie. Not great with middle Gabrielle.)

 

Hmm, well, I don’t know. Can I admit to you? Secretly, I feel like you may not choose this letter because the names are too “boring”. Recently the Swistle name posts that got me excited were for names far outside my usual naming style: this one was awesome, and I thought about possible names for ages! This recent one was fun too. Am I having a midlife naming-style crisis and need to name this kid Oak or Maverick? Or should we name her Genevieve and that is still exciting? Help me, Swistle, before I go crazy overthinking this.

Thank you!!

Gabrielle

I suggest Mathilda, which includes the nickname Hildie as well as Tilda, Tilly, Mattie, etc. It’s a saint name, and it’s alliterative with the surname in a way I find it pleasing to say. Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Mathilda.

Belina. I found it in the Saints section of The Baby Name Wizard, so I am suggesting it without knowing the story of this or any of the other saints; I don’t know if that part matters to the selection. Belina strikes me as distinctive and unusual but accessible; my one hesitation is about whether it could be too similar to Ze1ie, but for myself I come down on the side of no. Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Belina. Nicknames and pet names absolutely abound: Bella, Belle/Bel, Lina, Lee, Bee, Bina, just so many fun sound combinations to make.

I wanted to suggest Annika (I have an Annika in my circle, and although people will sometimes GUESS ANN-nika, once they HEAR ON-nika it seems to click into place for them), but it seems too similar to Avil@.

Blaise, for me, does not pass the “Would I want this name for myself?” test—especially if I had four sisters all with highly feminine names. I think it would accidentally communicate that you were hoping for a boy. I find, in fact, that even seeing it on the list is giving me a surprisingly strong feeling of indignation. It makes me want to pointedly offer counter-suggestions such as Felicity (lucky) and Evangeline (good news) and Beatrix (blessed).

Bonus: Felicity and Beatrix are both saint names, so I do suggest them, earnestly as well as pointedly; I love them both, and will give them their own spaces below so they don’t get lost in the “Swistle says no to Blaise” section:

Felicity. Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Felicity.

Beatrix. Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Beatrix.

Oh, WINIFRED is a saint name?? You know I am not going to miss the opportunity to suggest that favorite! Avil@, R0se, Ze1ie, Cl@ire, and Winifred!! …I see I also discovered this while answering a previous letter, and then forgot. This is one of the glories of aging: fun fresh surprises, again and again!

I like Genevieve a lot, and this is subjective but I really like it with the middle name Gabrielle. I think it’s intriguing the way the G initials match but are pronounced differently, and it gives you the nickname G.G./Gigi, which is especially nice if Evie seems too close to Avi. There’s also Ginny.

Name update:

Hi Swistle!
I enjoyed reading all your suggestions so much. Amazing how it can make the process of baby naming appealing again! We had pretty much decided on the nickname Evie by the time baby was born, but it still took us some time to decide between Genevieve and Evangeline (thanks for the suggestion!) as the first name. Her uncle had also suggested the name Wren, which wasn’t quite our style for a first name, but was fun to add as a middle. In the end, we named her Genevieve Anastasia Wren, and we mostly call her Evie (or Evie-Wren.) Evie is a peaceful baby, which is just the best for a fifth child. Thanks for helping us name her!

P.S. Although we didn’t end up with Gabrielle as a middle name, she did end up with my initials, which still makes me feel like we have a special connection.