Lara writes:

Our last name is Hanl0n (only with an o and not a zero, obviously!). I am Lara and hubby is Chris. I am due at the beginning of July with a baby girl. I am at a total and complete loss. Girl names are IMPOSSIBLE! I have dozens of boy names I’d be happy with, but nothing on the girl side is screaming out to me, “I’m your daughter!”. Also, many names I love end in an -in sound, which I feel is way too matchy with our first name (i.e. Emmaline or Rowan). I like names that are less popular, but recognizable. Definitely feminine. Many of the names on my list have a European sound/origin. Unusual but not made-up (for the most part).

I have always loved my name and loved always being the only one with that name. Sure, I get called “Laura” a lot, but it’s never really bothered me. Chris obviously has always been one of a million Chrises (just on my side of the family, my sister is marrying a Chris and I have a cousin Chris on each side). I am more drawn to names on the “Lara” side of the popularity scale than the “Chris” side. Chris just doesn’t want anything weird (insert eye roll, since he seems to think anything not in the top 10 is weird). His only two suggestions have been jokes: Riley (our dog’s name) and Laura (because it’d be funny to respond to people calling me Laura with “That’s my daughter!”…yeah, not even a little funny).

Right now the front runner is Carys. I feel like it’s on par with my name in terms of popularity and elegance (and again, I love my name!). I am a *bit* worried because I’ve seen it popping up more and more often, but I don’t think it’s going to be the next Jennifer of 1980. The other thing that worries me about that name are that Chris and Carys are very similar, and that we had a baby who passed away after being born prematurely in April named Caleb. Are Chris, Carys, and Caleb too many C’s? We very rarely use Caleb’s name (though obviously we love and miss him) and don’t sign it on Xmas cards or anything. But it could be something to consider?? I also hesitate because of the “Y” trend that is so prevalent in names right now, but Carys is the legit spelling so not letting that bother me too much. I love the meaning of the name. My family loves it. Chris likes it and is totally okay with it. But it doesn’t feel like OUR baby. However, NO name has sounded like that, and I’ve completely devoured every baby name book and site (including the bible: Baby Name Wizard). I don’t know if that’s because I haven’t discovered the right name yet or because I won’t know until I meet her. Also, I’m always hesitant to tell people that’s the front-runner. I don’t know if that is just because I don’t want to hear negative feedback on an unusual name (although when I have shared it’s been positive) or again, if it’s because it’s not right.

So right now my list stands as follows (unless otherwise noted, middle name would likely be Josephine or Marie after family):
Adelle
Anna Kate (going by both names)
Annelie (AH-na-lee)
Anneliese (AH-ne-leese)
Annika
Audrey Elise
Carys
Some form of Eliza/Elise/Elisa
Ellery
Everly
Marley (I know, totally out of style with the others)
Milla (MEE-lah)

Names that were on the list but were vetoed and the reason:
Adair (couldn’t get behind the flow with LN)
Adelaide (” “)
Ainsley (” “)
Alexa (too trendy/”now”/stripper-ish, apparently)
Ava (popular)
Avelyn (flow)
Briony (love, but no one else did)
Caoimhe (love, but no one else did)
Charlotte (too popular)
Clara (not sure why off, but doesn’t feel right)
Elodie (flow)
Emma (popular)
Evangeline (flow)
Kira (flow)
Liliana (flow)
Marisol (flow)
Tessa (flow)

None of the first names have any family meaning or significance. My guilty pleasure names are names I’d never have the balls to use but love nonetheless are word/noun names: Story, Lyric, Fable, Scout, River.

I think I just need an outsider’s perspective. Help????????? Please??????? Otherwise I may end up selling naming rights and she’ll end up Sonic Drivethru Hanl0n.

I have been thinking and thinking about Chris/Carys. Sometimes I think it won’t work; more often I think it will. One thing I’ve tried is changing one of the names a little and seeing how that affects the way I think of it: for example, if it was Chris and Caren, there’d be no problem; if it was Chris and Chrissy I wouldn’t like it; if it was Chris and Maris, it would be fine; if he went by Christopher it wouldn’t be a problem; and so on, making small changes in both directions to try to find where the line is between “works” and “doesn’t work.” It also helps to think of it as the sort of thing a family might do on purpose, to name the daughter in honor of the father.

I THINK that if someone called on the phone and asked for Chris/Carys, it would be clear who they were asking for—and that if it wasn’t, the person on the receiving end would say, “Did you say Chris, or Carys?” and it would be as simple as that. I THINK that the two names, while similar enough to elicit the occasional remark about it, are different enough for the response to be a shrug and “Yeah, we thought of that, but we didn’t think it was a big deal.”

I don’t think it’s similar enough to Caleb to be an issue, unless you think you might feel trapped into using only C names from then on.

I know what you mean about the Y trend, and I think your conclusion is correct: it doesn’t look Y-spelled if it’s SUPPOSED to be spelled with a Y (see also: Emily, Kyle, Ryan, Dylan, Evelyn, Riley).

And I think a hesitation about sharing the name is if anything a GOOD sign: with names you’re half-hearted about, you might not care so much if people have negative reactions; with a name that’s a real possibility, you’re going to feel more protective of it and more nervous that someone will make a cutting remark.

But I think you also have a lot of other really good options on your list, and also on the veto list. It may be that you will need to bring a list to the hospital, or that you will need to let all the names simmer for a bit and see which rise to the top.

Another exercise that can give good results is looking at each name and thinking about other names that are similar, or ways the name could be modified. Do you only like Caoimhe spelled that way? would your social circle like it better if it were translated to the American English alphabet and spelled Kiva or Keva? I think it would be challenging to get people to pronounce Milla as MEE-la when so many are accustomed to the sound of Milly and Camilla, but you might like Leila or Mira or Keela or Delia or Pilar or Celia or Sela. Briony didn’t go over well, but would Briarley or Brinley?

Or have you played that game with The Baby Name Wizard where you look up a name you like, then choose which of the five sister names you like best and look up THAT name and choose which of ITS five sister names you like best, and so on? I’ve found that useful for refining my style—figuring out which names fall into a group of names that would yield sibling names later on, and which names are outliers that would cause sibling-name problems later on if I chose any of them. The names on your list fall in a wide style range (Adelle to Everly, Anna Kate to Adair, Caoimhe to Charlotte), and if you plan to have more children later, this may help smooth the way for later naming.

The new Social Security baby names update is here! The new update is here! Now things will start happening to us!

Today’s discussion question: What happened this year to your kids’ names, or to names you’ve been considering, or to any name you’ve been keeping an eye on for whatever the reason? (You don’t have to say the actual names if you don’t want to.)

Are you happy about it, or sad? It can go either way, I’ve found. There have been names I liked that seemed too uncommon to use, so then I was happy they went up. Or names I liked because they were A Little Different and then felt a little disappointed that everyone else felt the same way. Or names I was happy to see dip down a bit, because it meant they probably weren’t headed for the Top 10 after all. Or names I was sorry to see go down because it meant that other people weren’t liking my child’s name as much as they used to. And so on.

Of my kids’ non-pseudonym names:

One boy name is plummeting, which is a little disappointing. I like common names for boys, so I’m sorry it went up to where I liked it, and then dropped out of that range as if people are thinking they’re sick of it.

The other four names stayed about the same. But what I was worried about with one of the boy names is that it would go up for GIRLS, because there have been many predictions that it would—or people saying it was used almost as much for girls as for boys, or that they hear it all the time for girls, or that they think of it as a girl name. Perceptions/claims are one thing, statistics are another: it’s still barely used for girls, and going down, while continuing to be common for boys.

A moment of silence, please, for a long and faithful tour of duty:

No book can stand up to so much regular and eager flipping.

Well. We’ll always have our memories. A photo retrospective:

Now: time to dry my tears and email Amazon.com to ask them WHEN OH WHEN they are going to offer the 2009/revised version of this book (currently they list only the 2005/original, though a marketplace seller is offering the new edition at a mark-up), so that I can continue to order it for friends—and for myself. I could have one on its way to me already, but OH NO, I will have to drive to the city bookstore 30 minutes away to buy it. In the meantime, I will see what I can accomplish with some packing tape.

Tori writes:

My fiancee and I are expecting our first child, a boy, in September and though I know we still have lots of time to decide on a name for him I am a little embarrassed to say, I’m stressing out already! The problem is that my fiancee and I were really hoping for a girl, so we’d been focusing all our attention on creating a list of baby GIRL names we love. Because of this, our list of BOY names is non-existent and I feel completely lost and without direction.

In the beginning, I liked biblical names like Noah, Luke and Isaiah, but my fiancee doesn’t want to go the biblical route so now I really don’t know where to turn. There are, however, a handful things I’m sure of and they are:

1. Though we won’t be married when the baby comes, he will take my fiancees last name, which begins with a P and rhymes with Marker.

2. I don’t want his first name to end with the er sound because it sounds too much like his last name.

3. His middle name will be a Hawaiian. We are both Hawaiian and live in Hawaii where it is common for most people (even those who aren’t Hawaiian) to give their children Hawaiian names. His will be Kaleomalino; 5 syllables, meaning “The calming voice.”

4. On the subject of sound I’ve decided that a single syllable first name sounds the best when said with both his full name and with just his last name.

5. My fiancee wants a name that is strong, masculine and “boss-like” and I’d like something that I can best describe as not unheard-of but not too popular.

So, with all of that being said, this is the short list of names we’ve come up with: Brock (or Brocke), Vance, Ace, Gabe, and Cash (or Kash.)

Brock/e is the front-runner and I really like the way it looks with the e at the end, but want some opinions on that spelling. Vance is the second runner-up which I think fits my criteria of not unheard-of but not too popular. I think Ace is cute and different but I worry it might be too quirky and therefore not “boss-like.” We’ve both loved Gabe for a long time (shocking for my fiancee since he nixed all my other biblical suggestions) but i wonder if you’d know whether or not it’s appropriate to just name him Gabe and not Gabriel, which I don’t like as much as Gabe. And C/Kash is just so-so but one of the better one-syllable names I found.

It’d be great if you could give your input about the names in our list and add more you think would appeal to us. We’re open to any and all suggestions, even multi-syllable ones, and I just want to reiterate that what I mostly need is some direction!

With an -er surname, I think one of the trickiest parts is preventing the first name and surname from merging to make what sounds like a single occupational name, even a nonsensical one (Paigeturner, Cashpacker, Brantpacker).

I think if I were going to use Brock(e), I would spell it without the E to reduce its similarity to Brooke. Also, the Brocke spelling first hits my mind as if it might be pronounced “broke” or “brock-ee” or “broke-ee”—whereas Brock is immediately clear to me. But I find Brock _arker hard to say (and it might fall into the Cashpacker category), so I’m not sure I’d use it in any spelling.

Vance _arker, Ace _arker, and Cash/Kash _arker sound more comic-book-like/detective-like/action-figure-like/fighter-pilot-like to me than boss-like. The Baby Name Wizard calls them “Macho Swagger” names. They are good, tough, strong, masculine names, and it’s hard for me to tell whether that’s what your boyfriend MEANS by “boss-like” and I should find more of them for you (my own favorite from that category is the name Dutch, or should I suggest Cage?), or whether I should steer you toward the business suits and conference tables that “boss-like” brings to my mind. And of course the “conference table” names are going to change over the generations, just as other categories of names change (what’s Popular, what’s Grandparenty, what’s Weird, etc.). It’s hard right now to imagine a boss named Isabelle, too, but that’s only because it’s mostly a child name right now, not because the name isn’t strong and dignified.

Gabe _arker is the stand-out to me. I can picture telling people I work for Gabe _arker, in a way I can’t picture telling them I work for Kash _arker or Ace _arker. If you’re worried about using a short form of another name, you could use Gage, which stands alone: Gage _arker. But I’ve heard Gabe used on its own before, too, just as Jack and Abby are used on their own. Another possibility is Gable, with the nickname Gabe.

If Ace is too whimsical, I wonder if you’d like Jace, or Case, or Chase, or Tace, or Asa, or Brice. Or Abe, which is also like Gabe.

More suggestions that seem to me to be masculine and strong and managerial—yet capable of wearing a business suit without their powerful muscles ripping the seams:

Brent
Dane
Dean
Flynn
Grant
Gus
Hank
Jack
Jake
Joel
John
Jon
Keane
Kent
Reid
Rhys
Ross
Sean
Shane
Saul
Teague
Trent
Troy
Wade
Zane

As I think I probably do EVERY time I mention the name John, I urge you not to let it flit through your mind unconsidered. But I think others from the list are a better fit with your style. Grant, maybe? Brent? Dane? I put Saul in there even though it’s biblical, just because I like the sound of it so much with your surname.

But you say you’re open to other than just one-syllable names, so let’s see if we can think of a few of those, too.

Brogan
Coleman
Griffin
Hugo
Wyatt

Hm, actually there are probably a TON of 2- and 3-syllable names that would work!

Sherry writes:

I have a last name that is a very common first name for girls. I have friends in similar naming situations with the last names of Gale, Mallory and Shirley. (Though, I must say my last name is even more commonly a first name than any of those!)

My husband has two brothers with children- one has given his daughters middle names, the other has not. Of course, the theory for the non-middle-name givers is that the daughter’s maiden name will become her middle name when she marries.

My maiden name did NOT become my middle name; I kept my original middle name, so now I have three first names.

Anyway, what does your readership think? Do girls get middle names? What if their last name will one day turn into a perfectly suitable middle name?

I absolutely think girls should be given middle names—or rather, that their “being a girl” shouldn’t make their naming structure different than the structure we’d use for a boy. Some girls won’t marry. Some girls who do marry will keep their own names. Some girls who marry will want to call themselves First Middle Married instead of First Maiden Middle. Some girls who marry will want to hyphenate their surname. Some girls who marry will have reason to want to disassociate from their family, rather than treasuring the surname in the middle name slot. Some girls who marry will want to use their married name socially but their maiden name professionally.

Giving a girl a middle name won’t affect her choices later on: she still can, when she marries, drop that middle name and put her maiden name there instead. Or she can do what I did and add the maiden name as a second middle name. OR WHATEVER. But in the meantime, and in all the decades before she marries (if she does marry), she has a middle name, and it’s useful to have it. In the U.S. it’s useful because the naming culture is so strongly middle-name, I have even encountered the occasional computer form that won’t let the middle-name slot be left empty. (Obviously this is a flaw with the form, and it should be FIXED, not allowed to dictate naming practices. I mention it only to illustrate how much “having a middle name” is culturally assumed.)

It’s also useful if the girl is one of two with her first name in her class or in her extended family: some might prefer to be Abigail Louise, rather than Abigail M.

It’s also useful for a girl who doesn’t feel like her first name fits her, but doesn’t really want to CHANGE her name, either: she can easily go by Louise, or by A. Louise.

It’s also useful for differentiating among the near-inevitable case of more than one person in the country having the same first and last name combination. For tax forms, resumes, all legal documents, it’s handy to have an extra identifying item. Not essential, and of course the other person might have the same middle name or middle initial—but still handy.

Plus, it’s fun to choose a middle name, for those of us who enjoy baby names. And it’s a good place for naming compromises: one parent gets his/her first choice for the first name, so the other parent gets more say in the middle name, that sort of thing. It’s also an excellent place for a namesake name, especially if the name in question is not one that the parents would want to use in the first name slot. And it’s a great place for any other name that the parents don’t want to use in the first name position because of initial problems or popularity (either too common or too out-there) or any other similar issue.

And it gives her a classic 3-letter monogram.

And of course it is classically used to inform the child that he or she is in trouble: “Abigail Louise, you get in here RIGHT NOW and pick up that mess!”

I don’t think it matters one single bit if the surname happens to be an established first name as well: either way, a middle name is useful, and leaving a slot free for when she marries is making too many assumptions.

Note: None of this means that I think people MUST give children middle names, or that it is somehow required—and of course things are done differently in different cultures and/or family traditions, and there are other reasons why a middle name might not be used (I had an acquaintance whose family had a tradition of letting the child choose his or her own middle name at a certain age, which I thought was charming). I mean only to answer the question about whether girls in particular SHOULD NOT be given middle names, in order to leave a space for their maiden names when they get married.

What do you all think? Should girls not be given middle names, in order that they can use their maiden names as middle names later on? Does it make a difference if the maiden name is a girl’s name?

Vanessa writes:

LOVE your blog. A.
B. I have questions/suggestions/whatever and I would like to first apologize for rambling!

OK–questions.

1. I wonder if you might be willing to put up some kind of open forum every now and then for people to post cool names they’ve heard, or interesting sibling pairs, or whatever (without last names, obviously). I think it would be really fun to discuss. For example, when I was in ES there were–I sweartogod–sibs named Christina, Christian, and Christiana.

2. What’s up with month and color and flower names? Or I guess all noun names? How come–and I don’t mean this snarkily–some are considered names and some aren’t? See: June/May vs November, Lily/Daisy vs Peony, Violet vs Yellow…

3. What are your thoughts on giving kids in the same family different last names? I love my name–it’s Vanessa S____ V____ Steck which is possibly the greatest name ever. I am definitely not changing it if I get married, but I’d also like to give my kids my last name–at least some of my kids–and I don’t think I want to hyphenate anything. What do you think? Would it be horrid to have, say, Annie Steck and Cora SomeoneElse’sSurname?
thanks!

1. Oh, good idea! We sometimes have things like that (what names have you had to give up because of surname compatibility and what is our favorite Z name and cool names from our family trees)—but I think they would be fun to do more often, and I don’t always think of it. Or, now that we have the new non-due-date order, people can submit a question of that sort! Ooooo, that would be fun! Yes, if anyone has a general name-related discussion question, they should submit it. Come to think of it, I have a couple on the spreadsheet from wayyyyyy back—perhaps I’ll do one after this!

2. I know, isn’t that weird? Violet, Rose, Lily—YES! Tulip, Carnation, Daffodil—no. April, May, June—YES! February, July, October—no. One thing I find particularly interesting is the BORDERLINE word-names. That is, a FEW people use December, and Magnolia, and Emerald—but VERY FEW. I think those make a nice choice when someone wants something a LITTLE out-there but not TOO out-there: the use of other word-names from the same category make the names easier to accept, just as unusual rhyming names are easier to accept (“It’s like Natalie, but without the N” or “It’s like Jenna, but with a K instead of a J”).

3. My mother’s friend Donna was telling us that she knew a family where all the boys had the dad’s surname, and all the girls had the mother’s surname. Wait, no, I think it was a whole CULTURE where they did that. Seems like a good idea to me. The downside is that until it becomes a cultural norm, it gives the wrong signals: a family where the children had two different surnames would, I think, be assumed to be a blended family. It’s none of their business + who cares + people who know you will know the real story + nothing wrong with blended families—but it’s the sort of thing that can feel like too much of a hassle to take on.

But if I were you, I’d want to keep that name TOO. One possibility is to keep your own name and give the children their father’s surname (which is done often enough to be familiar), but then give the children two middle names: either a new middle name plus your surname, or your second middle name plus your surname, or something of that sort. We did something like that in my own household, when I was loathe to give up my own name.