Brittney writes:
I really need your help! Here’s our story. We are due December 12th with our first bundle of joy. We are not going to find out what we are having, but don’t worry, I only need your help with a girl’s name. If we have a boy we will be naming him Luca Michael last name sounds like Chan-Choo-Lee with lots of Italian vowels. My husband and I are both Italian and with such a strong last name think it would be nice to stay within that theme. So here is our dilemma. Our name choices couldn’t be more different. I LOVE vintage-ish sounding names while my husband is stuck in the 80’s. We do have about 2 we agree on and I just wanted to know your opinion if you like the flow or any other suggestions you have. Our TOP contender right now is Emilia with a nickname of Mila. My grandfather’s name was Emil so I like the twist on the spelling of the ever popular and rising name Amelia. Here’s what we have so far.
Emilia Clara
(his grandmother’s name is Clara and would like to use that as the middle name)Emilia Grace
Our other top contenders are:
Natalie Clara
Adrianna GraceMy top names:
Charlotte (although I don’t love how popular it is now)
Grace
Harper
EllaHusband’s Top names:
Heather
Alexandra
Tiffany
Pretty much anyone that was featured on Saved by the Bell.So I guess my real question here is how do you feel about Emilia and Clara and/or Grace as the middle names?
Thank you!!!
“Anyone featured on Saved by the Bell” is my new favorite way to categorize the way some men seem to latch onto the names of the cute girls from their high schools.
Well, it’s very good news that there are a few agreed-upon names; if I’d just seen your list and his list, I would have felt we had a long road ahead of us. I love the Emil/Emilia link, and I love Emilia Clara because then it’s your grandfather and his grandmother and that just seems very nice.
All three choices go well with Luca. I notice Natalie has the same ending as Chan-choo-lee, which knocks it down a notch for me—so I think my first choice is Emilia, second choice Adrianna, third choice Natalie.
One thing about Claire/Clara as a middle name is it can lead to The Éclair Situation. This is when the first name and middle name flow together in such a way as to allow the word éclair to form. So whenever I see Claire or Clara suggested as a middle name, I run The Éclair Test, which has two steps:
1. Does this combination make me hear the word éclair?
2. Do I mind? I mean, éclairs are awesome. If my name sounded like éclair, I would make a policy: every time someone pointed that out to me, they would owe me an éclair. The main problem would be an insufficiency of éclairs, since it’s so rare to say the first and middle names together. I’d have to go around introducing myself that way, emphasizing the éclair sound so that people would notice it, THEN I’d demand my éclair.
On that note, let’s have a poll (and perhaps an éclair)!
[yop_poll id=”21″]
Erin writes:
After years of trying, my wife and are are thrilled to be expecting a baby girl in late October. My name is Erin and hers is Virginia. Our last name has two syllables and ends in -son. This will likely be our only child.
Years before even trying to get pregnant, we decided that our future daughter would be named for my grandmother. Her name was long and Italian, and we will shorten it to Bennett. We absolutely love Bennett, and think it a strong ‘resume’ name as well.
We are now on the search for a middle. We are looking for feminine, whimsical names with around 2-4 syllables. We would like to avoid names with an A. (Our last name starts with a D, and we do not want her initials to spell BAD.) My favorites are Simone, Magnolia, Olivia and Emmeline, though I do not completely love any of those – and my wife has vetoed all of them except Simone. Her top choice was Isabel, after her own grandmother, but it was recently used by her brother for her young niece, who is the only child in the family so far.
Our first child, a son, was stillborn. His name was Orion. Though we don’t often mention his name in daily life, a middle name for our daughter with a strong O sound or slightly cosmic feel would be meaningful to us.
Thank you for your help! We love your blog.
First I looked in the Astronomy section of Baby Names Made Easy: The Complete Reverse-Dictionary of Baby Names:
Celeste – “heavenly, celestial”
Celestina – “heavenly, celestial”
Danica – “morning star”
Estelle (BED initials) – “star”
Kalinda – “sun”
Kamaria – “moonlight”
Luna – “moon”
Selena – “moon”
Next, I looked up the names of other constellations; it appeals to me to have a brother and sister both represented by constellations. It’s such a pity that Andromeda gives the initials BAD, because I think that’s a lovely choice—but there were some other options to consider. My favorite is Cassiopeia: it’s whimsical, pretty, and feminine. Bennett Cassiopeia D___son. More options, with the meanings Wikipedia includes:
Carina (keel)
Lacerta (lizard)
Lyra (lyre, harp)
Norma (carpenter’s level)
Vela (sails)
Next I looked for names that shared sounds in common with the name Orion. I went to school with a girl named Orianna, and I think it’s a very pretty name—but if I picture myself in the situation, I think I would prefer a name that related to my brother’s name without feeling like it was a namesake name.
I wonder if something like Nori would work? It uses all the letters of Orion, and it’s pretty. Bennett Nori D____son. Or maybe that again is too namesakey.
Perhaps since Erin, Virginia, and Orion all share the letters R, I, and N, a middle name that also used those three letters would make a nice family tie-in with all of you.
Lorelei would be pretty, and it has the -or- sound of Orion. Bennett Lorelei D__son.
Oh, again I get a pang about the BAD initials, because wouldn’t Aurora be nice? And I’m not crazy about BOD, either, which makes me disinclined to suggest Ophelia or Olympia; or BED, which makes me disinclined to suggest Elodie. More possibilities:
Calliope
Carolina
Chloe
Cleo
Cordelia
Fiona
Gwendolyn
Harlow
Hermione
Imogen
Ione
Isadora
Joelle
Josephine
Juno
Naomi
Noelle
Philomena
Romilly
Rosabel
Rosemary
Sophia/Sofia
Victoria
Zipporah
Sarah writes:
Hello! My husband and I are expecting our first child, a girl, in late summer. We’ve pretty much decided on a first name, Sydney, but are having difficulty with a middle name. Our last name starts and sounds a bit like Cobalt, though it does not end in a hard t.
I really like the tradition of using a family name as the middle name. I also like more feminine names, given Sydney’s history as a boy’s name. I know it’s no longer that much of a boy’s name (and it’s certainly not Sidney), and my husband doesn’t seem to think this is a problem at all. He, therefore, likes Ryan (his middle name) as a middle name, or an alternative spelling such as Rian or Ryann. I could handle Rian but am not an alternative spelling person. I like Elizabeth, my middle name and his grandmother’s middle name, but he thinks it’s too much of a mouthful. Is it? Sydney Elizabeth? I need another set of eyes. Our other family name options are the opposite, short and sweet: Mae, Rose, and Laine. If the baby were born right now, our tentative truce option is Rose, after his other grandmother. But I’m just not sold, or maybe I’m afraid to commit. I wonder if I’m somewhat too selfish and really want her named after me/my side of the family.
Our other first name option is Cecily. This is actually still a strong contender for me, less so for my husband. Given (what I view as) the name’s femininity, I have no problem with Cecily Ryan. This makes my husband perk up a bit, but I know he likes Sydney more than Cecily. He likes cute nicknames, and he loves the thought of calling her Syd. Is there a cute nickname for Cecily, other than Cece?
The only other name that I really love love love is Madeline, but we’ve chosen not to consider it as a first name because a very close family member has a daughter named Madison. I would strongly consider Madeline as a middle (now or in the future) if it were in any way a family name. Am I holding onto that self-imposed “rule” too tightly?
Oh! I just read a post of yours in which the mom finds herself torn between Elizabeth and Elise, and believes that Elise honors her family members named Elizabeth. Is this a commonly held belief/connection? Is Sydney Elise better? I just can’t grasp someone seeing the name and thinking “oh, it must be Elise after her middle name of Elizabeth”?
If the baby were a boy, my first choice has always been Cameron, a name my husband also loves. (It would be the subject of an entirely different question, though, because of another family member, less close, who recently used this name. Back-up boy names were hard to come by before we found out the sex.) Finally, we do plan on having more children, 3 total is the current prevailing thought. I haven’t even thought about matching future sibling names, and maybe I should.
While it’s true that Sydney is used much more for girls now, I’m with you about preferring a more feminine middle name: a name formerly used for boys followed by a name currently used more for boys seems to be making a statement—and also seems like it might make you feel you needed to choose boyish names for all your daughters. If your girl name choice is Sydney, and your boy name choice is the unisex Cameron, I’d suggest you make everyone’s middle names very clearly masculine or feminine.
If Sydney is your husband’s first choice of first name, it seems like it would be fair for you to get more sway in the middle name. And if you’re planning to have more children, it seems likely that there will be other chances for him to name a child after himself. Sydney Elizabeth doesn’t seem like too much of a mouthful to me at all—and if the surname is your husband’s, I think it would be nice to bring in a name from your side of the family instead of a second name from his. That doesn’t seem selfish, it seems balanced.
Another balanced option is your idea of Cecily Ryan. Then it’s your husband’s middle name and surname, but you’d have more sway in the first name. I don’t see any reason he couldn’t still call her Syd/Sid; plenty of people use non-name-related nicknames, and it seems sweet for a dad to have his own nickname for his daughter. We know a family where the dad calls his daughter an assortment of boy names (Hank, Frank, George, Lloyd) as their own running in-joke.
If before your first child is even born, your rule about family names is already painfully ruling out names you love, I do think it would be a good idea to loosen that a little. One option would be to make your rule that one of the two names should be a name of significance; this takes away the restriction that it has to be in the middle-name position and also the restriction that the significance has to be family-based. Another option would be to set the whole thing up as a preference rather than as a rule: you’d say that you’d prefer each child to have a family middle name, but then you’d allow another preference (such as a preference for a particular name) to trump that. (We did something like that in our family: I looked first for family names, but didn’t sweat it ((much)) if it didn’t work out.)
Different people have different feelings about how far away from an honor name you can go and still be honoring the family member. Some would use just a first initial; some would use a few letters or a sound (Madelyn honoring a Lynda, for example); some use variations (Elise honoring an Elizabeth, for example); some would translate a name from another alphabet into their own (Orla to honor Irish Grandma Órlaith, for example); some would vary the spelling but not the name (Marian instead of Marion, for example); and some would be completely strict about it being the exact name. I use the “Would I feel honored?” test: I wouldn’t feel particularly honored by a child named Keegan or Crystal “after me,” but I would be by a child named Cristen or Kristin (though even more so by a child named Kristen, if anyone is currently filling out a birth certificate). To me, Sydney Elise doesn’t seem like it honors an Elizabeth, any more than Riley seems like it honors a Ryan—but what matters is whether it feels that way to the people involved. If when you think about it, you can’t imagine anyone seeing Elise and thinking it’s after your middle name, then it sounds like Elise won’t work for you.
Here’s a name that seems to me to be right between Syndey and Cecily: Cassidy. Cassidy is used only for girls, like Cecily—but it has more of the sound of Sydney, and Sid could definitely be a nickname for it along with Cassie. Cassidy Elizabeth Cobalt.
Name update!
In a shamefully long overdue update, I want to let you and your readers know that we named our baby girl (now a wonderful and willful toddler) Cecily Ryan. I cannot tell you enough how much your perspective and the thoughts and ideas from your readers helped us! We poured over everything. We went into the hospital with two options, and Cecily had really grown on us and won out when we saw her. We call her any one of a million nicknames, too, which is something that was difficult for us, first-time parents, to imagine when all I thought about was naming. Now, it seems totally natural. Thank you again.
p.s. – Cassidy would definitely have been on the short list–you nailed my style–were it not also the name of one my good friends.
[The summer schedule at our house is making it hard to keep up with posts, but I thought this one would make for a good discussion topic and poll:]
W. writes:
My husband and I are expecting a second daughter any day now and we currently have a shortlist of name possibilities. Our two-year old is Daphne Elisabeth (last name sounds like Cable with a “Kr”). My favorite potential name lately has been Phoebe since I feel like it coordinates so well with Daphne and has the same characteristics we love about Daphne, but I worry that it’s just too similar. Both names are Greek, both end in an “ee” sound, both have a “ph”, both two syllables. I can’t decide if the matchiness is a good thing or an eye-roll inducing cutesy thing.
Other first names in the running:
Juliet
Camille
Alice
BlytheMiddle name will be another longer, feminine classic like Caroline, Josephine, etc. We’re most likely done with two kids but on the off chance we had a third girl, I also wonder what in the world would go with those two and not sound out of place. So do you think Daphne and Phoebe pair well as sisters? Or do you think another name on our list (or not on our list) would coordinate better?
Thanks! I’ll send an update once we have her the first half of July!
[yop_poll id=”20″]