Hi Swistle!

I have a middle name conundrum I would love some advice on! I’m due in June with a little girl. I have a boy named Arlo Randy. Arlo was just a name we liked and Randy is my husband’s father’s name who passed away while we were pregnant with my son (it is also my passed uncle’s name and my part of my brother’s name so it was a no brainer!) Our last name is like Fitzpatrick- but Kirk instead of Fitz.

Our baby girl’s name will be Thia. My mother’s name was Cynthia and she died when I was 22- I’ve wanted to use the second half of her name since then. I know it is not the traditional way to spell Thea- but it makes sense with the name it’s honoring, and it still is pronounced the same (people are familiar with ending ia- Sophia, Mia- right?) I am a little worried about that, but maybe not enough to change it?

Anyways, my real question is the middle name. I always thought I wanted to name my daughter after my grandma’s middle name, Viola. Thia Viola. My great grandma happened to be Cynthia Viola as well. So it would pay extra homage- maybe too much? Maybe this girl needs a middle name that is hers alone? Arlo has his own name and an honor name, so should Thia?

Another twist is that my grandmother turned kind of nasty when my mom fell ill and said some hurtful things to my siblings and me. For the 20 years before that, she was like a second parent (my mom was a single parent) but at the end of my mom’s life, she turned on us (and passed away 6 months after my mom did, so I didn’t have time to see if it was just grief making her mean).

So I’m all sorts of confused about honoring her, having 2 honor names, if Thia Viola even flows on it’s own or goes with Arlo Randy.

If we decide not to do an honor name, I like:

Thia Arwen
Thia Wynn
Thia Nelle (husband vetoed)
Thia Wells (husband vetoed)
Thia Violet (similar to Viola, kind of an honor nod?)
Thia Anne (my middle name. Husband’s mom’s middle name, though hers is without an ‘e’.)

If it matters, our boy name would have been Ramsey Lee or Keller Lee. Lee was my mom’s middle name.

Thoughts? Advice? I’m losing sleep over this and I have 19 weeks to go!

Thanks for reading,
Kaeleen

I did first read Thia as THIGH-ah. I think once I knew it was supposed to be like Thea, I would eventually get it right, and your explanation would help the spelling make sense, but as I was answering the letter I kept reading it wrong. It SHOULD read with the long-E sound to me, because of Olivia and Amelia and Aria and Julia and so forth—but for whatever reason, it didn’t. Maybe it has to do with the Thi- coming at the beginning of a word? Thiamin and thigh have the long-I, but thief has the long-E. (I think thiamin is the primary source of my trouble with it.) I wish we could have a poll, but the polls still aren’t working. I showed the name to Paul, and he said, “I’d first see it as THIGH-ah, but I’d know no one would name their child that, so then I’d guess THEE-ah” (“thee” with a soft TH, not the buzzy TH of the word “thee”). That sums up the way I saw it, too: I think I’d first see THIGH-ah, but then realize it HAD to be THEE-ah, or maybe TEE-ah (like the Th- of Theresa). It’s unfortunate that one of the possible mispronunciations involves the word thigh, making it somewhat more than the usual “more than one way to pronounce a name” issue.

The grandmother honor name is another complicated issue; I can see why it’s a fretful one. Is Viola pronounced with a VEE or a VYE? That would add another issue for me: if Viola has the long-I sound, it makes it even harder for me to say the first -i- correctly: the long-I of Viola, and the similar appearance of the two names, makes me want to say both with a long-I. But that is not likely to come up: most people won’t see the two names together on a regular basis. And of course if it’s VEE, that HELPS with the pronunciation of Thia—though then the combination seems a little sing-song.

I think I could go either way on whether or not she should have one honor name or two. One of my five children has two honor names, and those still feel like his own names—I think because we used relatively common names, so I’m accustomed to encountering them on other people, and so it feels more like duplicating than sharing. It also shows I’m not picky about sibling names being completely consistent: our plan was to use honor names as middle names, but then we found one we really liked as a first name, so we let our preference for the name take priority over the preference to make things consistent. Another family might do it the other way around, depending on how they rank their preferences.

I think for me, the combination of your mixed and stressful feelings about your grandmother’s last 6 months, plus your mixed feelings about using two honor names for this child when you used one honor name for the first child, might tip me toward a non-honor middle name. If you plan to have more children, perhaps Viola could be set aside for a possible future daughter.

I find that with a soft, vowel-ending name like Thia, I prefer more consonants in the middle name, especially at the beginning of the name: Thia Wynn and Thia Anne feel so soft, like I almost can’t get a grip on them to say them. Arlo is another soft, vowel-ending name, but then Randy has its nice consonants to balance it; I’d look for something similar for Thia. Thia Miranda would be the feminine equivalent, or Thia Violet from your list does it (but has the same long-I issue as the VYE pronunciation of Viola).

Because I found Thia Viola potentially misleading, pronunciation-wise, I might look especially for middle names that have the same -ia- as in Thia. But because the first and middle names are unlikely to come up together very often, and because your surname is nicely full of consonant sounds, neither of these two issues I’ve raised (consonants and -ia- matching) are ones I’d give heavy priority; more like tools I’d use to help me make a list, if I were having trouble coming up with one.

I wonder if you’d want to use Gracyn as the middle. I’d added Grace to the middle name list below, and then thought of the first half of your mother’s name. Thia Gracyn gets the whole Cynthia in there.

Thia Bianca
Thia Bridget
Thia Claudia
Thia Frances
Thia Grace
Thia Jane
Thia Jillian
Thia Jocelyn
Thia Liviana
Thia Louise
Thia Marigold
Thia Rose
Thia Rosemary
Thia Rowan
Thia Ruby
Thia Simone
Thia Valentina
Thia Victoria
Thia Vivian
Thia Winifred

Name update!

Hello Swistle!
Name update! I asked for some help naming my baby girl back in February! I was so appreciative of everyone’s advice!

We had our little girl on June 17.
We ended up naming her Thia Patrice. My sister’s middle name is Patrice, and I decided that my relationship with my Grandma just was too confusing to name my daughter after her.  My sister was elated with this news! I like the repeated sound of the -ia and -ice and I love that she’s named after the two most important women of my life.

Thanks again!

Hello Swistle!

Almost two years ago you and your readers offered some excellent advice to help me and my husband through our divergent taste issue and came up with a few excellent suggestions: https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2013/02/10/baby-boy-or-girl-arnold/. It turns out it was all very interesting and insightful but somewhat in vain as we had a boy and named him the previously agreed upon Xavier. Well we are back expecting again and I learned a lot from my experience naming my son: when it comes to naming babies you have to make only yourselves happy and it is good to be sure in your footing since people can be somewhat astonishing in their rude opinions. We liked the name Xavier for several years and I am very happy I knew I picked it based on a genuine fondness for the name and not a temporary flush. With that in mind I’m trying to pin down some names early so we can hopefully blissfully overcome our taste incompatibility months in advance and feel like we didn’t pick something in a last minute rush. I like your idea of picking from each others lists so I’d like to give some of these a few months to stick.

We won’t know baby #2’s sex in advance. For girls I’m still liking Lennox a lot (even more so after a near stealing of it by a very close friend a month ago, yes people do that!). I think my husband has warmed a little after the attempted theft as well, making me think it’s a good choice if we like still it after three years and we can face the haters of which there are sure to be many. In case a daughter herself would hate it, I’m trying to come up with middle names where she could go by Leila or something of the like, any ideas? I would like a feminine middle name to go with it. ( FYI we had a ton of suggestions for Aurora for my post on baby #1, but I work for a company by that name so it is out but quite an interesting coincidence). Cole stays on the favored girl list as well. Any other simple, unusual gender neutral names?

For boys I like:
Archer (any insight on if this is truly a trendy one we might regret? I arrived at it as an alternative to hunter but see it is climbing the charts fast).
Emil (namesake of a dear friend who passed, but worried about people struggling to pronounce. Also any girl names that are similar and Eastern European in origin?) General thoughts on this?
Issac (with Xavier I’m concerned we are sounding ultra biblical)
Sinjin (I love this name and it is somewhat familiar to me from the volleyball player, the singer and the character on mad men, but I have never heard of it for any “real life” person ever ). There is a huge black hole of information and opinions on Sinjin unlike any other name I have ever seen, which I find very strange as it is not totally unheard of. Is it a a diamond in the rough or is it just terrible? I would love to hear from you and your readers. If 50% of people hate it I’m not really worried but if it’s more like 80% I get that I might want to move on.

Any thoughts on that crop of names for boys, any possible derivations for girls or alternates would be truly appreciated, your site is a fantastic resource and I’m so happy to see you are going strong!

Tysen Gannon

The children have the day off from school today for a Teacher Workshop Day, and I have a lot of trouble writing when they’re home, so I won’t try to be thorough. However, I did want to quickly address a few of the questions; then I’ll post the whole thing for others to work on.

If you would like to give a daughter a feminine middle name that gives her the option to go by Leila, my favorite way to do that would be to go straight to using Leila as her middle name. If you’d prefer a name that lets you combine Lennox and the middle name to make Leila, it depends on whether you’re pronouncing Leila as LAY-la or as LEE-la or as LYE-la. If it sounds like Layla, my first choice would be Ayla: “L. Ayla” = Leila. If Lyla, my first choice would be Isla: “L. Isla” = Lyla. If Leela, I’m not sure.

The name Archer appeared in the Top 1000 for the first time in 2009, and has risen since then:

(screen shot from SSA.gov)

It’s hard to predict what it will do from here. The rise is fairly rapid, but it’s hard to know how far it will go. It could go one more leap and then stay put in the 200s, or it could continue to leap until it’s in the Top 20. I wouldn’t have thought the name Hunter would go as high as it did (#36 in 2013), and the name Archer has less controversial imagery. And it follows the styles for surname names, and for occupational names, as well as tying in to the Hunger-Games-inspired archery fad. Plus, it has the cute nickname Archie. I’d expect it to become fairly popular—but again, it’s impossible to predict if “fairly popular” will be Top 100 or Top 10.

We’ve addressed the name Emil in another post, so I’ll link to that here: https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2013/08/28/baby-naming-issue-emil/ It doesn’t exactly answer the question you’re asking, but the letter-writer mentions that a majority of their acquaintances pronounced it correctly, which seems like a good sign.

For Eastern European girl names similar to Emil, I’d check the Baby Name Wizard’s site: International Name Lists. Searching “Eastern European names” online brought up many other lists as well. I would think something like Emilia would be a nice honor name for an Emil.

The name Isaac does not sound too biblical to me with Xavier; Xavier is not a name from the Bible. I searched “Xavier Bible” to double-check (I’ve been surprised before by biblical characters I’ve forgotten), and got matches for Francis Xavier; I’m familiar with him, but I think of him only as Francis Xavier: the name Xavier doesn’t bring him to my mind.

The name Sinjin is a respelling of the name St. John, which is pronounced something like “Sinjin.” Searching for information on the name St. John may unearth better information. It’s a very unusual name in the United States; in the Social Security data base for 2013, I find 8 new baby boys named Sinjin, but none named St. John. If Xavier has a St. Francis Xavier association for you, St. John or Sinjin may be too much saint for one sibling group.

Name update!

Archer Sinjin was born in October rendering pointless hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours of debate on baby girl names. Thanks to swistle and you readers for all the feedback, I’ll be keeping liadan in my back pocket for the future. We have been answering lots of “what the heck kind of name is Sinjin” as expected, but that is a time honored naming tradition for mom and to a lesser extent dad and we are very happy with our choices.

Thanks!

Tysen

Hi,

My husband and I are expecting our first baby this August. I am born and raised in NC and my husband has lived in NC most of his life but his dad’s side is Italian and mom’s side Mexican. Needless to say, they aren’t used to a lot of southern traditions like the family names, double names and so on. He is more on board with them so I am not too worried about pleasing everyone except us two agreeing. I want us both to love it! I heard you were the expert, and though I know you can’t respond to every inquiry you get thought I would throw my thoughts your way and see what happened.

A family name that we both agree on is Caswell (my grandpa’s name but he goes by DC). We love Caswell for a boy and calling him “Wells”, but also love Mary Caswell for a girl because I am a sucker for a double name. My biggest fear with a double name is that it would be forced but not sure what else really goes with Caswell. My maiden name is Jackson which I have always loved for a boy until it became super popular. We both still love Jackson for a boy and calling him “Jack” but just hate there are so many of them. I like names that are different but not weird and just not a million of them.

Other family name I love (that my husband is still on the fence with) is Talbot. I would love to incorporate this into a double name for a girl but am struggling to make it work. My middle name before taking my married name was Whitworth. Another kidna strange name I would love to shorten somehow :)

In all this, I hate that we don’t love anything on my husband’s side and have asked him over and over what family names he would like to consider from his side and he has zero. I know it is up to us but feel bad (though they get the last name with all the kids ;)) His side goes from one extreme like Trinidad, his grandfatehr, to very basic David, Joe, Albert kinda thing.

Besides Caswell and Talbot we have a few “general’ names we love including Harper, Hadley and Emerson for girls. Boys I feel certain we could go with Jack or Wells just on the fence which. I think our biggest reservation to Wells is that although it is short for Caswell it seems strange to call him by a name that starts with a W when it actually starts with a C. We overthink and make everything extra complicated :)

For a little more background on names of our immediate family: my parents are Julie Ann, Jefrey Brian; brothers are Christoper Taylor and William Andrew. His parents are Rosa Alba and David Lee (his brother is the 3rd so we feel is his name to use, though he had two boys and chose not to). My husband’s full name is Eric Christian and my full maiden name was Meagan Whitworth Jackson.
To sum it all up, I guess my main help request would be help on double names for girls and maybe how else to incorporate Caswell or Talbot in a feminine way and the etiquette or normalcy of how to shorten boy names like Wells. I love how unique Talbot is though my husband thinks it sounds like a 90 year old :)

The biggest catch all to any name we like that is kinda weird traditional is our last name is Bourgeois…so feel like a lot doesn’t sound well with it. Sounds like “boozh-wah”

I know that is a lot of information thrown out more so than one general question but would love your ideas if you have time! We find out in about a month the gender and would love to have a boy and girl name settled for that day :) Thanks so much!

Meagan Jackson Bourgeois

While a majority of nicknames come from the beginning of a name, there is also a nice large group coming from the middle or end:

Margaret/Greta
Virginia/Ginny
Anthony/Tony
Elizabeth/Beth
Elizabeth/Liz
Elizabeth/Libby
Albert/Bert
Robert/Bert
Alexander/Xander
Veronica/Ronni
Victoria/Tori
Penelope/Nell
Olivia/Livvy
Charlotte/Lottie
Andrew/Drew
Rebecca/Becky
Aubrey/Bree
Eleanor/Nora
Genevieve/Evie
Angus/Gus

Whenever a name/nickname combination is an unfamiliar one, I think it can be harder to make it stick: if you want a Benjamin called Ben, that’s not hard; if you want a Benjamin called Jamie, or a Ruben called Ben, that’s going to be a tougher sell. I think if you were asking about naming him Maxwell and calling him Wells, I’d put that in the “tough sell” category, because the Maxwell/Max combination is so familiar; because I’m not familiar with Caswell, I would find it easier to go with Wells. I could also see him going by Cas (I’m pronouncing that S as a Z), which seems like a pretty cool nickname.

I too am a sucker for a double name, and I love both Mary Caswell and Mary Talbot. How hard it will be to pull that off will depend heavily on the naming culture where you live—and it sounds like it’s a good one for that. In my area, double names are extremely rare; the assumption, I think, would be that Caswell or Talbot was the surname. “Hello, this is my daughter Mary Talbot!” “Hello, Mary!” But even in my area, I think with a little extra effort and preemptive explaining I could make it work for at least the elementary years.

The Mary double name seems most familiar, but I think Sarah would be nice too: Sarah Caswell, Sarah Talbot.

It is unfortunate that your maiden name has become too common for your tastes, because one of my very favorite things in the whole naming world is when the mother’s maiden name works as a child’s first name. If I were you I think I’d use it, but then I’d look for every opportunity to mention that it was my maiden name.

Whitworth would make a very appealing middle name for either a boy or a girl, especially since it used to be your middle name. Or Worth is one of the few virtue names for boys, though I don’t think I’d pair it with Bourgeois.

If you use first names from your side, and the surname from your husband’s side, I think it would be nice if it works out to use middle names from his side—unless he actively doesn’t want to honor people. That is, there’s a difference between “Meh, I don’t have strong feelings about any of the honor names from my side” and “I don’t want ANY of those people honored”/”I don’t want to use any of those names.” If he’s the former, I’d suggest choosing any name that sounds nice enough with the first name. Mary Talbot Rosa Bourgeois, Jackson Eric Bourgeois, etc.

Name update!

Hi,

I wrote you earlier this year about Baby Bourgeois.  Since then we have found out it is baby GIRL Bourgeois.  We have also since decided on the name Anna Talbot Bourgeois, going by Anna Talbot.  We just loved the idea of a double name and after many discussions and suggestions settled on what we loved although many don’t seem to get the purpose of a southern double name.  A lot of opinions on the blog also thought our last name sounded pretintious but we cannot change that :)  so decided to stick with using the family name Talbot we highly considered for a girl and loved Anna with it.  We did love the double name suggestions for a girl using the family name Caswell also but that is still our top baby boy name so decided to save that one for a possible future boy :) We enjoyed reading all of the considerations and suggestions! Anna Talbot will be here mid August!

Hi Swistle!
My husband and I are expecting our second baby girl in early June. We could not possibly be more excited to have two sweet girls, but we can’t seem to agree on anything when it comes to names. Our last name is Casper-with-a-K. My name is Avery and my husband’s name is Paul Joseph, but he goes by his initials.

After months and months of disagreement, we chose the name Berkley Dawn for our first daughter. The name could not be more perfect for her. We have had numerous compliments on it being both unique but not difficult to say or spell. Berkley’s middle name is both my middle name and my mother’s first name.

I believe the problem naming Baby #2 is my adoration for Berkley’s name paired with my husband and I’s distinctly different naming styles. I want something that pairs well, but isn’t too similar–I seem to be drawn to androgynous names and names that start with “B” and end with the “ee” sound. My husband; on the other hand, loves traditional, strictly-female names. We both desire a moniker that sounds sweet on a little girl, but won’t sound too juvenile as she grows.

Names that we like, but find problems with:
London — I like this name a lot, but my husband doesn’t like the idea of giving all of our children place names.
Quinn — We both kind of like this, but for some reason, I just can’t picture a baby with this name
Briony (pronounced Bry-uh-nee) — I have loved this name ever since I heard it in a movie, but my husband is having no part of it
Brinley — Sounds too similar to Berkley
Landry — I was completely sold on this, but my cousin recently announced her engagement to a man with the last name Landry, and my husband finds this name too masculine
Brooklyn — Again, a place name that my husband doesn’t seem to care for that much
Charlotte — My husband wanted this name for Berkley, but I just can’t get on board with it at all
Penelope — Another name my husband is in love with, but Berkley and Penelope just do not seem to mesh well

Any suggestions you can give us would be greatly appreciated. I can’t believe I’m admitting to this, but naming a second child is proving to be one of the most difficult tasks I’ve encountered in my entire life!

Thank you!

I suggest Delaney. It sounds somewhat unisex, but the actual usage is almost exclusively girl: in 2013, there were 1,265 new baby girls and 12 new baby boys named Delaney. For comparison, there were 11 new baby boys named Elizabeth: numbers this low are either data-entry issues or else too low for me to consider the name unisex. The sounds of Delaney are similar to the other names on your list, and I think it’s a nice fit with Berkley. Delaney Casper; Berkley and Delaney.

Or Devanie. Devanie Casper; Berkley and Devanie.

I also suggest Emerson. Emerson Casper; Berkley and Emerson.

Or Gracen. It has the traditional/feminine sound of Grace, but with a more modern/boyish/surname ending. Gracen Casper; Berkley and Gracen.

Penelope makes me think of Calliope. Calliope Casper; Berkley and Calliope.

I think Braelyn would work nicely. Braelyn Casper; Berkley and Braelyn.

Or Keelyn, if you don’t mind the alliteration (and repeated initial) with the surname. Keelyn Casper; Berkley and Keelyn.

Or Teagan. Teagan Casper; Berkley and Teagan.

Both sisters’ names would end in the -ley sound, but I still like Everly. Everly Casper; Berkley and Everly.

Or Ellery has a similar sound without repeating the ending. Ellery Casper; Berkley and Ellery.

Or Evanie. Evanie Casper; Berkley and Evanie.

If Brinley is too close to Berkley, I wonder if you’d like Finley or Kinley or Kinsley.

Or Shelby. That gives you a B sound without a repeated initial. Shelby Casper; Berkley and Shelby.

Marley duplicates the ending, but I still like it. I have acquaintances who used the spelling Marlie. Marlie Casper; Berkley and Marlie.

Or Hadley. Hadley Casper; Berkley and Hadley.

Name update!

Swistle,
I recently read your post on a lack of name updates, and I certainly knew I wanted to give you our name update as you were tremendous help!
Gracen Quinn joined our family on June 3rd (yes, yesterday!) and we have already had so many compliments on her name.
Your suggestion of Gracen was perfect for us. After you suggested it, it was a name I couldn’t get out of my head.

We had originally settled on Quinn for her first name, but we decided it just didn’t flow for us, and since my husband loved the traditional sound of “Grace,” and I love androgynous names, Gracen it was!
Thank you so much for your great suggestion–we are in love with our sweet girl and her name!