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.