Kayleigh writes:

This isn’t a question about what I should name my baby, or if a name I’ve chosen is okay, or anything strictly like that. It is, however, a question about names. You recently had a question sent by someone named Kayleigh, which happens to be my name, and all of the names she said she liked are on my list, as well… and it’s something I’ve noticed among other people in different name forums who have similar names. So my question is this:

How much influence does a parent’s name have on their naming decision for their children?  Obviously, things like a father named Samuel Jones VII is going to bear rather heavily on the naming of a son, but what about other things- are women with common names more likely to choose unusual names, or will they be more comfortable with a trendy name because they turned out fine? Will someone with a name that lent itself well to nicknames be less likely to name their child something that will also allow that? Have you noticed any trends like that in your questions and in your readership?

Thanks so much!

One thing I can imagine playing a role here is the way certain names go with certain ages. For example, a mother named Kristen or Jennifer is likely to be in a different age range than a mother named Brittany or Courtney—and so two mothers named Kristen are more likely to have favorite baby names in common than a mother named Kristen and a mother named Courtney: in the years between them, naming trends will have changed.

Another issue is that we tend to notice people more if we share a name with them. If I’d posted a question by someone named Brittany who shared your naming tastes, it would have caught your attention too—but it likely wouldn’t have caught it as firmly, or stayed with you as long. Same thing if I’d posted a question by a Kayleigh with different naming tastes than yours: you’d notice it, but that information would be more loosely filed than a double hit like same name AND same tastes. Over time, this can give an exaggerated feeling of correlation.

What I’ve noticed about the connection between naming tastes and the namer’s own name is that every combination can be used for a cause/effect explanation—even if those explanations come out completely opposite. So for example, one person will say, “I had a really unusual name, so I want something unusual for my child too,” and the next person will say, “I had a really unusual name, so I really want something traditional and familiar for my child.” (I notice similar things with parenting experiences: one person will say, “We had sweets around all the time when I was a child, so I got in the unbreakable habit of eating them” and the next person will say, “We had sweets around all the time when I was a child, so they were never a big deal and never became important to me.”)

I have wondered if naming tastes are set up largely by a person’s own family/community. This would be one possible explanation for how people with similar names tend to like similar names: if a person grows up surrounded by people named Margaret and Elizabeth, they’re likely to have a different idea of what a “normal name” is than someone who grows up surrounded by people named Oso and Grove—and a different feeling about what the reactions of their family/friends would be to a name they’re considering. But that’s when the previous paragraph kicks in, because some people grow up wanting what they think of as a normal name and/or wanting to fit/please their circle, and some people grow up wanting the opposite.

Definitely I think some of our naming tastes come from our own names—but I think our experiences with our names are so varied (“I hated it!”/”I loved it!” for two people with the same name) as to cancel out the effects. If I were to ask people to say in the comments section how their names affected their tastes, I think that’s what we’d see: a nice even split between, “Well, my name definitely affected my tastes: I always wanted a nickname, so I gave my children names with nicknames” and “Well, my name definitely affected my tastes: I hated my nickname, so I gave my children names without nicknames.” How we feel about our names affects our decisions—but how we feel about our names is more connected to us than to our actual names.

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What do you think? Have you noticed any connection between parents’ names and the names of their children? And if so, what issues do you think enter into that connection?

Jessica writes:

You might remember helping me & my husband name our daughter, Amelia Eve, a year and a half ago after an epic battle of naming styles. Well, we are at it again – due in May with our second (and probably last) baby. Eve was my favourite name from day one but husband was lukewarm, Amelia was his top choice and I really liked it (and the nickname potential; Murray calls her Amelia, but I call her Mia most of the time). We had to compromise on popularity but overall we both love her name.

Sibsets are very important to us (okay, to me) and I would like another classic first name that can be shortened, coupled with an already-short-but-completely-gorgeous middle. Preferences for the first name are more than two syllables, not starting or ending in A, not top twenty. This child will also have either my or my husband’s middle name as a second middle which has to be taken into consideration for overall length. Easy, right? Hah.

Knowing in advance that it would be a struggle, we started straight away this time and after hearing FOR THE LAST TIME that I will never be naming a son of his Sebastian, Murray has agreed that if this baby is a boy-child, he will be Oliver Fox. THE PERFECT brother name. My guess is that means we’re having another girl.

So after starting from scratch (again), we have narrowed it down to  names  – none of which quite work. But here they are:

Eloise. The last remaining girl name on our list of three from Mia, we were both agreed that we would use it if we had another girl. Unfortunately we’ve both gone rather lukewarm on this name. It does seem to go SO WELL with Amelia, though, and gives me Lo & Lola – so cute.

Evelyn. This was a suggestion of yours from the first round which was – surprise, surprise – vetoed by my husband. Today he looked over at me and said, apropos of nothing, “I don’t mind the name Evelyn.” I wanted to kill him. Instead, I edited this draft. Nickname: Evi (eh-vee), possible middle name Mae. BUT, is it too close now that we’ve used Eve as Mia’s middle name?

Anastasia. Yes! It’s back! Vetoed immediately last time, hubby has finally seen the light and agreed (albeit reluctantly) to put it on the list. Nicknames Ana or Ani, check. Hopefully Fifty Shades of Grey has not ruined this name for us (don’t get me wrong, I loved the book despite it being perhaps THE worst edited best seller of all time, but not an association I really want for my baby girl). Problems here are the repetition of both the first and last letter of her sister’s name, which I really wanted to avoid, plus it’s a bit of a mouthful unless we can come up with a tiny little middle name for it.

Quilla. This is Murray’s top choice and was his great-aunt’s name. At first I said NO WAY. Maybe if we had gone with one of our outliers like Piper or Winter or Sunday the first time around, I said. It doesn’t go with Amelia AT ALL, I said. Then I thought… Is it really that far off? I’ve never heard it before, but if you introduced yourself as Quilla, I’d spell it just like that without hesitation. There are three things that put me off it: it’s two syllables with our two-syllable last name, it has zero nickname options (Q? Illy?) – and it is MY TURN to choose the first name! (Included for the sake of honesty although it makes me sound selfish. It just seems so unfair given that I have been compiling name lists since primary school.) Middle name would likely be Isobel, a name we both love but can’t use as a first. If we had just named our first Eve Anastasia like I WANTED to, I would use Quilla Isobel without hesitation – but does it fit now?

Names that have been vetoed by my husband: My first choice, Imogen (unfortunately, Murray feels the way about Imogen that I did about the phrase “and then he found his own release” by the middle of book two of the Fifty Shades trilogy – I really did love the books, though, I swear. Well, the first one, anyway), Eliza, Eleanor, Coraline, Madeleine, Electra, Adelaide, Louisa, Miranda, Clara, Elodie, Corisande, Clementine, Vivienne, Rosalind, Adeline, Juliet. We both seem to prefer vowel names. Are there any left?

Names that we have rejected for other reasons are Sophia, Charlotte, Violet, Scarlett, Georgia and variations.

Middle names are another problem as it turns out Eve and Ivy were the only already-short-but-completely-gorgeous names on our list, and Murray has gone from ‘meh’ to utter loathing upon careful consideration of Ivy. He has already rejected Wren, Snow, Swan, Jane, June, Io, Aria, Lyra, Lyric, True, Alice, Elise, Claire and Rue as well. I would prefer a bite-sized word name that’s not too ‘out there’, but does it exist?

So what we are looking for here is a name like Amelia Eve, or Imogen Ivy, but NOT those names… Help!

Oh, I do love Eloise so, so much. I wonder if the name would freshen right up again when it was on the baby herself? I might try doing a Google image search for newborns, and then looking at their little faces and thinking “Eloise.”

I don’t think the first name Evelyn is too close to her sister’s middle name Eve. I don’t think I would even have noticed if you hadn’t mentioned it—and if I DID notice, I’d think of how I’m the same way: certain sounds and letters appeal to me again and again. Perhaps we will find a middle name that has some small thing in common with the name Amelia, and that will make an even cuter sibling set! Amelia Eve and Evelyn Anne, for example, to have swapped initials; or Amelia Eve and Evelyn Leigh to have swapped sounds.

I think Kate would make a nice short middle name for Anastasia. Amelia Eve and Anastasia Kate.

It’s hard to picture a sister pairing of Amelia and Quilla. I don’t see any problem with a 2-2 syllable set-up, but I do see an issue with popularity: Amelia was the 30th most popular name for girls in the U.S. in 2011 (and Mia hit the top ten), while Quilla was completely unused. On the other hand, Quilla sounds similar to Ella and Isabella and other names currently in style. I’m not sure. Combined with the lack of nicknames and the your-turn issue, I think I’d use it as a middle name—especially since Q is one of the coolest middle initials ever.

Quilla and Imogen brought the name Gillian/Jillian to mind. Jillian S!mon; Amelia and Jillian. Maybe Jillian Kate or Jillian May or Jillian Jade.

Or maybe Eliana. Eliana S!mon; Amelia and Eliana.

Has he made ANY suggestions other than Quilla? I feel like I can’t get a grip on his naming tastes, since all his contributions are almost exclusively vetoes.

I think the best choice overall is Evelyn. It’s compatible with Amelia in style, popularity, and length; it sounds similar to Imogen; it starts with a vowel; it has cute nicknames; and your husband has not vetoed it. SOLD. Evelyn Quilla would be nice. Or I think Evelyn Mae accomplishes the possible goal of making her middle name similar to her sister’s first name in the same way her first name is similar to her sister’s middle name. Eve/Evelyn/Evi and Mae/Amelia/Mia.

R. writes:

Hi, there!

I’m listening to “The Distant Hours” by Kate Morton as an audiobook, and it struck me that the daughter’s name is nested within the mother’s name:

Daughter: Edith
Mother: Meredith

I doubt it’s a coincidence, judging by how this book is going on, but it got me thinking: what other name combinations do this? Besides obvious nickname ones. My favorite of the few I could think of was Nathan/Jonathan.

I think it would be a cool, inside-jokey way of connecting otherwise unrelated names. What do you think?

Ooo, I like it! Let’s see how many we can think of!

Hm, Anna from Hannah might or might not qualify, but Anna from Joanna wouldn’t. Beth from Elizabeth doesn’t, but Eliza might because the sounds are so different and it’s its own separate stand-alone name rather than a nickname—sort of like Jonathan and Nathan. Lia from Amelia might.

Amaya and May
Annabelle/Isabelle and Abel
Belinda/Melinda and Elin
Candace and Ace
Liana/Lillian/Jillian/Brianna/Brian and Ian
Shannon and Ann
Jeremy and Remy
Catherine and Erin
Elizabeth/Isabel/Annabel and Abe
Corinne and Orin
Felix and Eli
Julian and Lia
William and Lia

Some of these might not qualify; it’s a little hard to find the line.

LB writes:

I’m not pregnant as of yet, but we will be trying soon. I’ve been obsessed with names for as long as I can remember, and I’m really excited about one. It’s not often that I get “stuck” on something like this; the name has become a small obsession of mine, but there is a problem.

The problem comes from a male name, since we’re able to agree on MANY female names (frontrunners are Celeste and Violet. Our favorite, Olivia, became too popular for our liking).

The name is Brock. I LOVE it. My husband loves it, too, for many reasons. For one, it’s an alliterative name to our last name, which is Barlow, which I’ve always been a fan of. It’s not super common, but is easy to say and spell- I feel this is important. I also feel like it sounds preppy, smart and strong. One-syllable names, especially for a male name, have always struck me as really great. Also, we’re Canadian, and this name is of significance (in a positive way) to our country’s heritage.

However, due to the heritage, many things are named “Brock”, including our highway exit, which is where the problem comes in. We live in a small-ish community, which has two highway exits, one being Brock St. As you can imagine, there are also some businesses with Brock in their title… Brock Restaurant, Brock Laundromat etc.

I’ve grown fairly attached to the name, for all the reasons above, and also because it’s a name we can both agree on. Do you think it would be wrong to use a name that our child would hear all over the place? Does it seem odd to you? Please, crush my dreams now before I get too attached, if that’s the case! :)

Other details: we plan on having only one child, and we hate creative spellings.

Thanks so much,

Are you planning to stay permanently where you live now, or is it fairly likely you’ll eventually move? And is the Brock St. exit area a NICE area, or a dicey one? If it’s considered a nice area, and if you might move away from there anyway, I don’t think you have to rule out the name; even if you’re not likely to move, I think it’s still within the realm of okay. Definitely it’s something to weigh into the decision, though: if it came down to two names you liked equally well, and one had the location baggage and the other one didn’t, I’d go with the one that didn’t.

On the other hand, my guess is that a small child would get a huge kick out of seeing his name all over the place, and you’d have so much fun collecting photos and items with his name on them. I’m imagining decorating a nursery with large photos you’ve taken of just the “Brock” part of various business names, street signs, exit signs, etc. And if you DO move away, it’ll be a very pleasant association with where he was born. Hmm, that is swaying me back the other direction. I’m imagining if someone in the U.S. lived near a Lincoln St. exit and wanted to name a child Lincoln. I think the reaction to that would be mostly positive.

Am I right that the Brock association is with Isaac Brock? If so, I notice that the name Isaac shares an end-sound with Brock. It loses both the preppiness and the alliteration, and it’s more common and also harder to spell, and it has two syllables and it’s a completely different style over all—so in short it’s not a likely candidate. But I thought I would mention it anyway, since it does keep the heritage and that hard-C sound, and I like it with your surname. Isaac Barlow.

Or we could look around for other names that capture more of the style and sound of Brock: Burke, Ross, Drake, Derek, Dean, Bryce, Beck, Blake, Brant, Brooks, Barrett, Lachlan, Declan.

Another possibility you’ve no doubt considered is using Brock as the middle name. The middle name position is a great place for names you love that, for whatever reason, don’t work as the first name. _____ Brock Barlow keeps the alliteration and the heritage, but lets go of the laundromat and the exit.

The more I think about it, though, the less it feels like it’s a problem. It seems like it would be a positive and fun association, and at worst he’d get a little weary of saying, “Yes, like the street.” I think we should have a poll over to the right, to make sure I’m not just getting swayed by the fun nursery decor. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Poll results for “How are you feeling about a baby named Brock living near the Brock St. exit?” (357 votes total):

I think it’s fun and cool! – 204 votes (57%)
Fine, but better to find something else – 80 votes (22%)
I don’t like the idea – 45 votes (13%)
I can’t decide –  28 votes (8%)

Earlier today I posted a question about the pronunciation of Cecily, and I misunderstood the question: I thought it was asking if the name was SESS-sih-lee or SUSS-sih-lee—but in fact it was asking if the emphasis is on the first syllable (CEC-ily) or on the second (ce-CIL-y—like Cecilia). So let’s scrap that old poll and have a new poll over to the right. [Poll closed; see results below.]

My answer to the question is that the emphasis is on the first syllable. Cecile is seh-SEEL, Cecilia is seh-SEEL-lee-ah, but Cecily is SESS-sih-lee (rhymes with messily).

Katie writes:

I noticed that you recommend the name Cecily a lot. It’s one of my favourite names to look at but I can’t figure out if it’s pronounced Cess-a-lee or Suh-see-lee. Which one would be the more common, “go to” pronunciation?

I say it Sess-ah-lee—and would not recommend the name if I thought it were pronounced with a Suss. Let’s have a poll over to the right!

[Never mind! I misunderstood the question! See new post/poll!]

Modessa writes:

First, some background, which you are free to edit out if you choose to publish my question:

Long-time reader, first-time writer because….I’m not actually pregnant yet.  My husband and I are, however, planning to start trying to conceive at the end of this year and I’m already enjoying mulling over potential names.

I’m particularly sensitive to the significance of names because I have never met anyone with my name (although I am named for my paternal grandmother) and I’ve never found my name in a baby name book.  While I was mildly frustrated as a kid that I couldn’t ever buy personalized pencils or those license plates they sell at gift shops, I quickly grew out of that and now love having a unique name with a family history.  I do not, however, tend to like names with “creative” spellings.

If we have a daughter, my husband and I are are strongly inclined to name her after my eldest sister, Catey Lynn.  Catey is pronounced like Katie; my mother chose this spelling so that Catey would have the same initials as her grandfather.

Here’s the dilemma (finally):

I would like to use the name Caitlin to honor my sister and I prefer that spelling.  I’m torn, though, because I agree with the point you have made that the honor of a namesake decreases the further away you get from the actual name of the honoree.

Spelling the name Catelyn would be truer to my sister’s name, but I don’t want people to look at the name and assume it is “creative.”  Many of the negative reactions to names with y’s that are perceived as “creative” are summed up in this past post: https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2008/08/05/the-y-spelling-phenomenon

Then again, the “creative” phenomenon is popular, so presumably many people would react positively to the name?  I looked up the spelling Catelyn on the SSA database, and it isn’t in the top 1000 names for the past 13 years.  When I looked up Caitlin, I was surprised to see that the spelling Kaitlyn is significantly more popular.

I would love to get your and your readers’ input on my dilemma and promise to send an update if/when I have a daughter.  Also, if this makes a difference, the middle name would be Jane (my mother’s middle name) and she would be given my husband’s last name, which is similar to Pristorius, so the choice is between:

Caitlin Jane Pristorius
Catelyn Jane Pristorius

All the best,
Modessa

PS:  Even more detail, but I can’t help myself!  Part of my preference for the spelling Caitlin is that I perceive it as being more traditional, and I have always appreciated having one unusual name and a traditionally spelled last name (which is why I kept my maiden name).  My husband and I have already decided to give our children his name, which is unusual and frequently misspelled.  Would I be setting my daughter up for endless frustration if I gave her two unusual names?  Given that the spelling Kaitlyn is more popular than Caitlin now, it seems like she is going to have to spell her first name out for people regardless of whether we choose Caitlin or Catelyn.  I could go back and forth forever, which is why I need feedback from someone with a neutral perspective.

There are two broad categories of names spelled with the letter Y: those that happen to be spelled with a Y, and those where a Y has been put in place of the usual letter in order to change the appearance/style of the name. An easy example is Emily: clearly that’s name spelled with a Y, not a Y spelling. A slightly more difficult example is Evelyn—but again, that’s not a Y-spelling, it’s just a name with a Y in it. Same with Peyton, Layla, Lydia, and Taylor: not Y-spellings. Emylie and Evylyn, on the other hand, are Y spellings.

The line between the two categories can get blurry. Is Mikayla a Y spelling, or not? Michaela is the original spelling, and yet Mikayla FEELS like an alternate spelling to me, not like a Y-spelling. Sometimes a spelling starts out as a Y-spelling but then becomes a standard alternate spelling, losing its connotation of Y-for-creativity. To be “a Y-spelling,” there needs to be the feeling that the name was spelled with a Y on purpose to make it special in some way: more unusual, or more feminine. Madisynne, for example, or Kamryn.

All this is to say that although Caitlin is the original spelling, I think of pretty much all -lyn names as alternate spellings, not Y spellings. It doesn’t look creative to me to use Caitlyn or Katelyn instead: perhaps those seemed Y-spellingish when they first emerged, but now they just seem like other ways to spell the name. There is even room to argue that the -lyn is more appropriate, since the original spelling Caitlin was pronounced more like Cat-leen or Cath-leen. Or it could be argued that there are two sound-alike names here: that Caitlin is Irish, but that Katelyn is Kate + Lynn (like Maryanne or Marybeth) and can be spelled a variety of ways (like Marianne and Maribeth).

So that’s my first point: I think you can spell Caitlin with a -lyn and not come across as someone who would use Madysyn. Many spellings of Katelyn/Caitlin are currently accepted as natural, non-creative spellings; you’d probably have to go to something like Kaytelinn before you’d activate the sensors. If anyone’s eyebrows did twitch, the explanation of the reasons behind the spelling ought to take care of that.

My second point has to do with the honor factor. I agree that Catelyn seems like the most honor-y choice—but I’d say that going with Caitlin wouldn’t make a huge difference. When someone wants to name a daughter Madison after Grandma Mildred, I wonder if they’ve considered how honored they’d feel by that if they were Grandma Mildred. But if someone names a daughter Catherine after Grandma Cathryn, it seems like a much smaller step away. And since you’re already going from Catey Lynn to Caitlin/Catelyn, the spelling difference feels like it’s tied to the name change rather than being a second step away.

In short, I feel like both choices are good choices for different reasons. You’re a bit stuck here: you don’t like creative spellings, but you want to honor someone with a creatively spelled name; neither option is going to fully satisfy both preferences. I think if I were you, it would come down to weighing the things that make the spellings different, to see which feels closer to what you want: the stronger connection to your sister’s name on one hand, the original/traditional spelling on the other hand. I’m not sure which way I’d go if it were me. I might use Catey Lynn!

As for having two names she’ll have to spell, I’m afraid she’s stuck with that no matter what: there are just so many ways to spell Caitlin. But I don’t think of it as a huge deal: I think it’s so common now for people to have to spell both.