Hello Swistle,
I am entering week 32 of pregnancy and this is our first child. We found out over fathers day we are having a BOY!! I have had a list of names in the running for awhile now, but we are just not 100% and I was hoping for a little help. It has been a little bit of a challenge because my husband is a teacher/coach and knows a lot of kids. That has ruled out a few names we like. We want something that is unique and not overly popular, but still a solid strong name that when you see this on paper, you know how to say it! No names that start with P due to our last name starting with P. Pippert is pronounced (Peepert) .The list we have started for the boys is this and has been pretty consistent for months now.
Kendrik
Maddox
Emerson
Vincent
Vance
Jackson (I know is popular)
Graham (My husbands name is Grant so may be too similar)
Ethan
Gannon
Nelson
FinleyIsaac (for a middle name)
Isaiah (for a middle name)
James (for a middle name)
Bankes (pronounced Banks, for a middle name)The girl names we liked were:
Grayson
Laney
Blake
Grace
FinleyThank you!!
I notice you have unisex names on both the boy-name and the girl-name lists. Unisex names can be a little tricky to work with, so if you are planning to have more than one child, this is the perfect time to think about such things.
There are a few ways to go with it. One is to give all the children unisex names: a sibling group of, for example, Emerson, Grayson, Blake, and Finley. You could even do the fun thing one of my cousins did: she and her husband agreed on a particular unisex name for each child before they knew the sex, using that name either way.
Another is to use unisex names for all the girls OR for all the boys, and non-unisex names for the others. A sibling group of, for example, boys named Vincent and Maddox, and girls named Finley and Gracen; or boys named Emerson and Finley, and girls named Grace and Laney.
Another is to choose your favorite name each time and not worry about it too much: a sibling group of, for example, boys named Emerson and Maddox, girls named Finley and Grace.
My own preference is for HINTS. That is, if I used unisex names for my sons, I’d want to use specifically girl-only names for my daughters to help people remember who was who. I also like to use specific middle names with unisex first names: Emerson James, for example, or Finley Grace.
To help you narrow down your list, I suggest playing games. One game I particularly like is Name the Sibling Group. Imagine how many children you think you’re likely to have; let’s say that number is three. Imagine yourselves gathered around the table for dinner, or imagine the children hanging around in the living room, or imagine introducing your whole family at an event. Pick some sibling name groups, and see which ones seem like Your Family. If you imagine Kendrick, Finley, and Vance arguing about Monopoly, does that feel RIGHT? Does it feel more or less right to imagine them as Jackson, Grace, and Ethan? More or less right to imagine them as Emerson, Blake, and Finley? More or less right to imagine them as Gannon, Grayson, and Graham?
Not only can that game help you find your naming style, it can help you find issues that might not have come up until you were naming a second child. For example, you might find you don’t want to repeat any initials, in which case with this very first child you may want to decide which G name (or which E name, or which V name) you like best of all the names for both sexes. Or perhaps you don’t want to duplicate endings, in which case this would be the moment to pick your favorite among Emerson, Jackson, Nelson, and Grayson.
Another exercise I find helpful is to start pairing up firsts and middles. Sometimes a particular first-and-middle combination will rise above the crowd, even if the names individually didn’t stand out. Also, I find it shows me which names I feel most drawn to: if I find myself WANTING to make a name work, or reaching for it again and again, or AVOIDING a particular name, that’s all useful information.
It can also alert you to issues with initials: if, like me, you prefer initials not to spell anything, you’d know to avoid Vincent Isaac Pippert; or perhaps you have the opposite preference and the fun initials will help you make the decision.
Another exercise is for each of you to assign rankings to all the names in the list. Names can share the same rankings, so that for example you could have Ethan, Jackson, and Vance all marked 1, and Maddox marked 2, and Gannon and Nelson both marked 3, and so on. When you and your husband compare your lists, perhaps you will see that both of you have the same couple of names marked very low on the list, too low to have any chance of being used over names higher on the list, and so it’s safe to take those out of the running. Or maybe both of you will have the same couple of names marked very high on the list. Or maybe your lists will be absolutely opposite, and you’ll know the choice might need to be from the overlap in the middle.
When Paul and I were naming Henry, I remember us finding it useful to say, “Is there any chance we’d use THIS name over these other names?” There were a ton of names we liked and COULD have used, but it helped to realize the name Alan wasn’t going to win over the names Henry and Charlie, and the name Daniel wasn’t going to win over the names Oliver and Milo. Before then, we kept getting caught up in thinking we didn’t want to remove any names from the list because we LIKED those names and there was no REASON to remove them; this let us take names off the list without feeling like it had to be because we didn’t like them anymore.
Another exercise is to start striking names off the list for various non-deal-breaker reasons, and then see what’s left at the end and how you feel about it. If it were my list, I think I would take Ethan off. Not only is it very popular (Top 10 since 2002, according to the Social Security Administration), but the repeating long-E sound draws attention to the “pee” sound in your surname. Then I might take off Kendrick because Kendrick Pippert is difficult for me to say—something about the repeating K’s and then the repeating P’s, I think. Then I might take off Jackson for being too popular, Graham for being too similar to your husband’s name, and Emerson and Finley for being currently more popular for girls.
Again, none of these are ACTUAL reasons a name SHOULD be removed from the list: the idea of the exercise is to see what’s left on the list, and how you feel about what’s left, and how you feel about losing some of the names. You might find, for example, that as soon as you remove Ethan and Jackson for popularity, you realize you don’t care about popularity as much as you care about those names. Or maybe you find you’re disappointed there’s no reason to cross off a particular name, and that will tell you it’s not a name you still want on the list.
A similar game is to pretend you have decided on each name in turn. Say to each other, “Okay: his name is Kendrick.” Measure your reactions. Do you feel glad? Does your heart rise up happily? Or do you feel disappointed, or unsettled? Try it again with the next name: “Okay: his name is Maddox.” Measure your reactions again; compare them to your husband’s reactions. Are any reactions matching? Those might be good names to bump up the list, or to remove.
It’s a good sign, I think, that your name list has stayed stable for quite awhile. This tells me that it’s likely you’d be happy with ANY of the names on the list, and the difficulty is picking your favorite out of many excellent choices.
Name update: Nyle Kendric
My favorites with your last name would be strong male names like Kendrick or Vincent or Graham. I do like Ethan as well. For girls I like Grace or Laney. I think Grace AND Graham or Ethan and Laney work especially well together. For 2 boys I’d go with Vincent and Kendrick. Would you also like Alana or Elena for a girl (down the road aka Laney for short). I think either of those works best with Grace. For 3 kids I would go with Grace, Elena/Alana (nn Gracie and Laney), and Ethan or Graham. Or Vincent, Kendrick, and Elen.
From your list, I really like Vance with your last name. Vance Isaiah Pippert – gives you VIP as initials, but that’s not a bad thing, right? It’s solid and strong, sounds good with your last name, clearly masculine and not popular. Definitely fits your requirement of easy to pronounce when you see it written! Also easy for people to correctly guess spelling when they hear it, too!
Vance sounds great with all the sibling combos, too – Vance, Finley Grayson and Laney… Vance, Nelson, Grace and Blake…
I do like the idea of picking a unisex name and using it regardless of the baby’s gender, though – my husband and I settled on a name from a song we love and just changed the middle, depending on boy or girl. Looking back, the name is more traditionally feminine (Afton) and it suits our little girl perfectly, but had our ultrasounds been wrong, Afton would’ve come home with us from the hospital :) Maybe if you have another baby you can leave the gender a surprise and go that route!
I like Kendrik a lot, but agree with Swistle that it’s a mouthful with your last name. Emerson is really popular around here for girls, so if you’re looking for something more rare, that might be an easy one to cross off (though I love it, too!)
Congrats! Can’t wait to find out what you choose!
I think Kendrik and Maddox are difficult to say with your last name. Would you consider Kenneth?
From your list I like: Vincent, Vance, Jackson, Graham, and Ethan. You also might want to consider Victor if you like V names.
Gannon is a little unusual for me, and I think you should save Emmerson and Finley for future girls.
Good luck!
Thank you for the input. Kendrik has been a top name for my husband, but I am not 100% sold. I do really like the name and it may be what we pick, but I agree with it being a mouthful now that the point has been brought up. I do like the name Kenneth as well. I’m not totally set on the V names, but I do like them.
I am still looking for a few new names to add to the list, so thank you!!
names are tough :)
I like the slightly more popular names on the list best– Ethan, Graham, Jackson. I am particularly drawn to Graham these days but I see the problem with it being similar to Grant. I think Jackson could be a good bridge name between styles. It goes with the more traditional name and the trendier ones so it could be a good name for a first child, allowing you to go in either direction later.
How about Jackson Isaac (if you like the repeating c sound- I do) or Jackson Isaiah (if you don’t)? Or Jackson James if you think calling him J.J. would be fun?
Vance seems like it could bridge styles, too.
Hmm, I’m not a huge fan of Kendrik with your surname– mostly because I can’t help but see the last syllable without the “r'” (sorry sorry!) and in combination with the first syllable of your surname…it’s too suggestive for teasing, or association I think. I’m probably very much in the minority on this but it would rule out Kendrik for me (when it’s otherwise a very nice name).
My partner is a big fan of the name Ingraham/Ingram with Gram as a nickname. Maybe that’s one way around the Graham/Grant conundrum? Ingram is an old Nordic/German name meaning “Ing’s raven”.
What about Isaac as a first name? It’s popular right now but nowhere near as much as Elijah or Jacob or Ethan, and it’s such a classic.
Some more “out there” ideas that come to mind:
Moses
Judson/Judd
Samson
Winslow
Harrison/Hank
Ramsay
Also, I remembered this great Swistle post from last year that generated a ton of distinctive “cowboy/western” name suggestions for boys in the comments: https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2014/01/08/baby-naming-issue-west-bestest/ It might be worth looking through as I feel like your style isn’t *so* different from cowboy/western. You might find some new possibilities in there.
thank you for your advice. I found a few from the post that you also shared. I am a fan of the name Landon from that list. I appreciate your other suggestions as well!
Landon is wonderful! Such a handsome name. I also like it with your surname.
Similar to Landon but less common is Leland. I love that one so much.
Oh Swistle. Is there any way you could ever tell us your cousin’s children’s names? Only in my wildest imagination have I ever thought about anyone actually doing THAT level of gender neutral naming. Even those of us drawn to more-neutral names usually picture them on a boy or a girl and wouldn’t be willing to pick a single name for whichever baby arrives. Not to mention that so many ‘neutral’ names are actually quite statistically slanted one way or the other. Tellllllllll. Would your cousin write a guest post??
I can tell you SIMILAR names: it’s something like Taylor and Bailey.
I actually know a couple people who have done this! My husband’so cousins decided on Taylor and Morgan regardless of what the gender ended up being (both girls, btw), and I know an acquaintance who had decided on Cameron either way! (It was a boy.)
My wife and I had decided on Taylor (her grandmother’ maiden name) if we had 2 boys OR 2 girls as the second child’s name. We had another boy and girl name we wanted to use before those and we had a boy and a girl so we never used Taylor. We would have used different middles.
I love Swistle’s feedback for you! As someone who also loves unisex names, I think they are great, but come with their own things to consider. I would also definitely consider the endings. Do you want more than one child with the -son ending? If not, then consider which of the -son names is your favorite. Personally, Maddox is one of my favorites! I also like Emerson, but I worry about the fact that more girls seem to have that name now.
My favourite from your list is Kendrick.
Other names that came to me that were inspired from your names are
Hendrick James (Not as much of a mouthful with your last name)
Ericson
Declan
Asher
Daxton
Kienan
Darius
Swistle! I love your response and find it very helpful. My husband and I actually made a top 5 to 7 names on our own and then came together to see which ones we both had. Those then made our list we put together. There were a few that I liked and he didn’t and vise versa. We actually like using boy names for girls better than girl names that could be used for a boy. That narrowed down our list a little bit. I like the idea of putting the name together as if we had two or three kids. Honestly, I am still undecided on the list we have and would love any name suggestions you may have. I am really enjoying the feedback from everyone. I am loving this!
This is the list as of now and I added a couple that I like to give you our style. Still undecided:
Kendrik
Jackson
Vincent
Maddox
Karter
Landon
Griffin (we can’t use, but like this name)
Drake (love one syllable, but again can’t use its my nephew)
I would add Aidric. I have a little trouble saying it with the surname, as I do with Kendrik, but less.
Really starting to like this name….
My vote is for Landon. :) Landon James is so good!
Landon James is good!
and I still like
Vance
I really love how Whitney’s updates keep the discussion moving forward!
(So, is it too late to throw a little love to Nelson? I know a 9-yr-old with this name, a namesake for Nelson Mandela, & it provides room for so many aspirational namesake discussions).
But what I really noticed as I read through the original list was how much I preferred the rhythm of the 3-syllable and 1-syllable options with your surname. For this reason alone, I liked Emerson and Vance and Graham the best. Then I found myself fantasying about simply using Ken or Vince as the given name, (a popular choice in Europe). Ken Issac Pippert–you could call him Kip! Vince Isaiah Pippert. From your newest list, I like Jackson the best simply because I like Jack Pippert a lot. I do like Kendrick but, like others, find it tricky to say with Pippert–but love Ken. For a 3-syllable option to replace Emerson, I’d suggest Julian.
Karter Pippert is a real tongue twister, sorry. But going with a 2-syllable option, Landon is a great addition. I also really like Maddox. In terms of “fitting in” with his generation, I’d probably lean toward using either Jackson or Maddox.
A great level-headed Swistle post. Good luck!
Not too late for Nelson! I still like that and with my husband being a history teacher he actually liked it too. I’m not sure if it outweighs some of the others, but its still on my own list :) I also had the same thoughts on, “KIP”. I think that’s cute as initials. I love Landon, but not sure its a top pick for my husband. I’m going to let him think on that for a bit ;) I also agree with karter being a tongue twister, but just like the name.
thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it!!
Another great response from Swistle and I also like how having Whitney weigh in helps the conversation move along.
This post has lots of excellent suggestions of ‘games to play’ to help you make up your mind – I wonder if you should bookmark it or highlight it on your sidebar or something, Swistle, so you can easily refer other expectant parents to it.
I agree with Swistle’s suggestion to consider how you’ll want to use unisex names. I think my biggest concern with something like Emerson, Grace & Laney is that Emerson will be likely to get mistaken for another girl & he might not appreciate it. Same deal with something like Vance, Ethan & Blake. Blake might not like getting lumped in as another boy with her brothers.
This is a great point and I totally agree!
Just to provide feedback on the Grant/Graham similarity, my youngest is Graham. His name is mistaken for Grant all. the. time. While I don’t mind the split-second confusion and clarification, I can see how it might be problematic with your husbands name.
I really like Landon, though!
This is exactly what I was thinking could happen. Thank you for sharing!
I wonder if you would like Alaric, Anderson, Andrew, or Eric/Erik/Erick?
Given all the additional information (I love the interactive discussion), I have a few suggestions.
What about Kenyon instead of Kendrick? It avoids the difficultly with your last name, follows the surname pattern, and could still give you Kip as a nickname.
Since your husband is into history and you like Landon, have you considered Lincoln? If you like Nelson, have you considered Nolan? With Vance and Vincent on your list, I can’t help but suggest Vaughn which has a similar feel as Graham.
You mentioned the name Drake ( which you can’t use) and that led me to the suggestions of Ford, Clark, Drew, Miles, and Shane. It also makese think maybe Kent would be a good option for you.
I am not really sold on Karter with a K but it does suggest some anothe K options – Kurt.
I haven’t thought about Vaughn! Thank you for your suggestion on that! I love Lincoln too, but friends have used that name. Thank you for the feedback!
We named our 10-month-old son Vaughn, and we love it! I highly recommend it :)
I just wanted to give a huge thumbs up to Landon, this is my oldest grandson’s name. Such a strong name and to this day ( he will be 8 next month ) we have only met a few with his name and it has been at places like Disneyland. Other grandsons are Nolan ( super name and same thing not very many around ) and Davis ( he gets compliments on his name all the time, have never met another ) Here are a few that were contenders, Walker ( love this one ) Duncan.
From your list, I really like Maddox, Jackson and Graham. I can’t help but think of a few hip hop stars from your list: Drake and Kendrick (Lamar) so I’m not sure how I feel about those.
Agree that you may want to save some of your more unisex names for any potential girl babies or use as a middle. I wonder since you like Finley, if you would like Finnegan or just Finn? Finn Isaiah is handsome with your surname.
Love the suggestions of Nolan and Davis. I would also add: Dalton, Tate, Callan, Henry, Sawyer, Hudson, Jasper, Wyatt
I do like just Finn and Finn Isaiah does sound great! I love your other name suggestions as well. Too bad the ones I do like are already family or friends names: Tate, Dalton, Hudson and Wyatt. All great names. Its a battle. Thank you for the feedback!
What do you think of the name Brayson?
I don’t love it……If it gets shortened to Bray I can’t help but think of donkeys. What about Lawson?
Or Grayson!
We liked Grayson for a girl!
I don’t love Brayson. Reminds me of Brayden and Grayson, both names I find to be trendy.
Other -son names I find more appealing: Jameson, Dawson, Emerson, Samson, Judson
Some other boy names that seem to fit your style: Tucker, Chance/Chase, Quentin, Gavin, Heath, Reid/Reed, Knox, Cormac (nickname Mac)
I do like the name Jameson and Gavin. Definitely our style of names. Thank you for the suggestions!
Our baby boy will be here anyday now!! We are going to take our top list to the hospital and decide on a name when we meet him.
What do you think of:
Nyle James Pippert
We have two top names and want to add one more!