Dear Swistle,

It’s still early in my pregnancy, but I’m starting to worry about my husband and I not agreeing on a name for our baby boy due in October. We have two girls and our girl naming style is much more in sync – if this last baby of ours would have been a girl, we had chosen the name Ivy.

Our boy naming styles couldn’t be different – I like both classic and nature inspired boy names. I can’t even describe my husband’s naming style, he seems to dislike the majority of boy names, is completely unfamiliar with naming trends and popularity, and I had to beg him for this list below. His top names are marked with an asterisk =

Reed
Cole
Uriah*
Archer
Jordan
Ezra*
Ethan
Jett*
Ronan
Noah
Easton
Dash
Maverick
Grayson

I’ll go ahead with my list next =

Hudson
Charles* (after my husband)
Luke* – my cousin has a Luke or this would be my #1
Everett
Samuel
Wright*
Clark
Benjamin
Theodore*
Abram
Rowen*

And names we both like are as follows =

Jeremiah (I’m bothered by this lacking a nickname I like)
Archer (I’m worried this could be confusing with Harlow as we often call her Har, am I wrong?)
Evander (My husband wants to use the nickname Evan which I dislike)

Our last name is Lox with a F (the animal) and our girls are Harlow and Violet. I have a few rules I’d like to hold strong to – no H or V names as I want my three children to have their own initial, and no names that have “low” or “et” endings. So that there throws out Hudson and Everett from my list, as much as I love them. Middle name will likely be Charles or Tucker, if Charles doesn’t work.

In my head, this baby is Rowen. I would even settle with Owen. Second best for me is Charlie after my husband Charles. My husband isn’t enthusiastic about anything really. I’m becoming extremely frustrated and my husband thinks we have all the time in the world to decide. So I’m hoping you can step in and perhaps recommend something we’ll both like or have advice for agreeing on a name together.

I appreciate your time,
Morganne “Lox”

I find the names Harlow and Rowen a little difficult to say together: the -rlow sound and the row- sound are allllmost the same, but then not QUITE, so my mouth gets confused. Then, those two names both have a unisex/surnamey sound, and seem to leave the name Violet stranded. And Rowen means “red-haired,” so with your surname it seems a little too descriptive. (I say all these things to make you feel better if you can’t use the name Rowen. If your husband comes around, then I say go for it.)

From your husband’s list, my definite favorite is Ezra. I think it’s great with the surname, great with the sibling names; I really like it. And it’s entirely possible I’m in a nitpicky mood this morning (I’m a little hung over from all the sugar I ate on Mother’s Day), but I see a ton of little things that bug me with the other names on his list: Ethan with your surname makes me think of Ethan Hawke; Reed with your surname makes me see Red _ox; Cole with your surname makes me think of “stone cold _ox”; Jett, Dash, and Maverick are all too nouny/cartoonish with the surname; the Avengers movies are too fresh in my mind for me to choose Ronan; Grayson could shorten to Gray and then you’d have Gray _ox; etc.

From your list, my favorites are Everett, Abram, Benjamin, and Theodore. Benjamin seems extra cute with your surname. Everett seems extra debonair with your surname, and keep in mind that the “no repeating endings” is your own preference and you can override that if you want to for a name that feels worth it. I don’t like the way Charles repeats the -harl- of Harlow. Wright seems difficult to pull off in regular life; it seems like it would be heard confusingly as the word Right, and I am pre-tired of the Mr. Right jokes.

Ezra and Everett strike me as just similar enough to hope for compromise. Do either of you like Elliot (maybe too many shared sounds/letters with Violet) or Emmett?

The repeating -ar- sound of Harlow and Archer does bug me, but everything seems to bug me today. I think if I encountered the sibling group Harlow, Violet, and Archer in real life, I would not give it one second’s thought.

I too dislike the nickname Evan for Evander, even though I like the name Evan. It feels to me as if it doesn’t WORK: EH-ven is not similar enough to the ee-VAN of Evander. It’s more like a coincidence, the way Edith is present in the name Meredith and yet I wouldn’t use it as a nickname.

It’s a little maddening to me that he likes Ronan and Noah, and you like Rowen and Owen, and yet there is no agreement. They are SO CLOSE. In fact, can you spin it that way to him? Owen is all the same sounds as Noah, but rearranged. I know that’s not all there is to a name, but sometimes reducing a name to its sounds can help someone reconsider a name they haven’t given enough consideration to.

I feel dissatisfied with the whole list of names the two of you agree on. I’m glad there’s a lot of time left, because I think it’s going to be needed. Sometimes an unenthusiastic husband with no particular naming style and not much knowledge about names can be persuaded to do the plan where YOU make a list and HE marks the ones he likes from that list, and then you two agree on one of those names he marked. (Ask me how I know.) And although he has some Cool Guy Names on his list, once I cross those out his style looks at least ADJACENT to yours: his Grayson and Easton are similar to your Hudson; his Reed is similar to your Everett; his Noah isn’t far off from your Samuel. Archer and Clark, Ezra and Everett, Ronan and Rowen, Noah and Owen, Grayson and Hudson, Everett and Jett—I feel like there is HOPE here.

I would say you guys seem to like the -ar- sound (Harlow, Charles, Archer, Clark), the long-O sound (Harlow, Violet depending on how you pronounce it, Noah, Owen, Ronan, Rowen, Theodore depending on how you pronounce it), and possibly the D sound (Reed, Jordan, Dash, Hudson, Theodore, Evander) and the K sound (Cole, Maverick, Luke, Clark). You are both at least on board with biblical names (Noah, Ethan, Uriah, Luke, Samuel, Benjamin, Abram). Neither of you minds a one-syllable first name with the one-syllable surname (Reed, Cole, Jett, Dash, Luke, Wright, Clark); neither of you minds noun/word names with the noun/word surname (Violet, Ivy, Reed, Archer, Jett, Dash, Maverick, Wright, Rowen).

I think if I were you I might work on him with your own favorites, or I might start again at the beginning of the baby name book looking for more names that seem to work with your shared preferences. I’d suggest you each mark the names on each other’s list that you feel more warmly toward, even if you wouldn’t want to use those names, and then make a combined list of those names; see if there is anything those names have in common. For example, if from your list he felt most warmly toward Hudson and Clark, and from his list you felt most warmly toward Easton and Grayson, I might point you in the direction of surname names. If on the other hand he chose Everett and Theodore from your list and you chose Reed from his, I might suggest looking for gentleman names.

Some options to consider, if you haven’t already:

Alfred
Alistair
Arthur
Barnaby
Calvin
Daniel
Davis
Dean
Edmund
Elijah
Ezekiel
George
Gideon
Gilbert
Grant
Griffin
Ian
Jasper
Joel
Josiah
Jude
Lincoln
Louis
Malachi
Malcolm
Miller
Nolan
Oliver
Paul
Roman
Simon
Wade
Warren
Wesley
Wilson

Name update:

Good morning Swistle,

Our sweet baby boy arrived just in time for Halloween! I appreciated the responses from you and your readers very much and reflected on them many times through out my pregnancy. We were never able to come up with new names not already mentioned and baby was almost a Benjamin or Ezra!

However, towards the end of my pregnancy, Daddy decided he wanted the baby to be named after him! I was smitten of course! So here is our very own Charles Rowen – baby Charlie. He mostly goes by Monster for now, being born on October 30th and being the boob monster he is… but I think Charlie fits him perfectly.

Thank you again for your help in naming our baby boy –
Morganne

Hi Swistle!

I wrote to you about three years ago now for help with our first daughter (who we didn’t know was a daughter at that point). You and your readers gave us great confidence in our chosen girl’s name at the time, even though the whole discussion was around a male name. We named our daughter Josephine Rose; we call her Posey. We get mostly great feedback on her name on how it fits her and is so sweet, with a bit of confusion every now and again on why we didn’t just go with Josie (which they call her at daycare)…she just has a lot of names. But I think already, at the age 2.5, she understands her names and I don’t need to worry.

Here we are again, this time knowing we are having another daughter at the end of August! She is most likely our last baby. I’m quite excited to know this is a girl, as it makes me feel like the naming process may be just a bit more simple…maybe.

My husband and I have quite different naming styles (especially when it came to boys, so, phew!). He leans towards nicknames and only nicknames (no formal name) like Buck or Skeeter (for real). If it were a boy, we were leaning towards Sebastian, with the nickname of Bash.

Most of me wants a longer, “formal” name with a sweet, vintage-ish nickname, to match her sister, but I’m not sure how important this really is. I really love the name Mae, and think the pairing of Posey & Mae couldn’t be cuter, but I can’t find a name I LOVE to derive Mae from. I just can’t get on board with Margaret. I know full well that we can go with Mae as the name, but can’t get over how I would love to have a longer name.

So far, our names are:

Mae
Mabel (this is number one for me, but we happen to know a few children with this name, which isn’t a deal breaker)
Margot (could we call her Mae? I love Margot on its own, as well.)
Ramona (Mona or Mo which is my sister’s nn, do Posey and Mo sound too rhyme-y?)
Matilda (Mae or Tilly)
Henrietta (Hattie)
Pearl
Bernadette (husband’s suggestion, wants to call her Bernie)

The middle name will most likely be Patricia, after my momma. I’m a huge fan of names sounding good together (as I am sure we all are on this blog!), so it’s a must that it pairs well with Josephine and Posey.

What are we missing?

Thanks so much for reading through this lengthy ramble and for your help!

xo Kim, Joe and Posey Lauren-with-a-D

In your shoes I too would be leaning toward another long name with nickname options. I’d know it wouldn’t HAVE to be that—but that is what the heart would want.

I was all set to recommend Rosemary as a long form of Mae, and then I realized you could end up with Posey and Rosie. (And also Josephine’s middle name is Rose.) I am not much bothered by the potential for rhyming nicknames, but it would be something I’d want to have thought about ahead of time.

Magnolia? I think you could get Mae out of that. And she’d have Maggie and Nola and so forth if she wanted them. Josephine and Magnolia; Posey and Mae; Josie and Maggie.

Or Maeve is pretty, though it doesn’t satisfy my inclination toward a longer name. Josephine and Maeve; Posey and Mae.

I think Mabel is a great idea, and agree that knowing a couple of other Mabels doesn’t have to rule it out.

Margo(t) could have the nickname Mo, if you wanted.

Bernadette is nice; other nickname options include Bennie, Betty, and Birdie. I especially like Birdie with Posey.

I am very fond of the name Henrietta and would love to see it used more.

I decided as I began this post that I would not try to push you into using Margaret: you have stated firmly that you just can’t get on board with it, and that is something I should respect. BUT I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH. Margaret with your surname!! Josephine and Margaret!!! Posey and Mae, Josie and Maggie, Posey and Daisy, Josie and Maisy, Jo and Meg, ohhhhhhhhh!!! I require my fainting couch.

Well. Well. I will not push. (Any more.)

Beatrix or Beatrice? Josephine and Beatrix; Posey and Bee; Josie and Bea.

Or Penelope. Josephine and Penelope; Posey and Penny (fainting couch); Josie and Nell.

Or Millicent. Josephine and Millicent; Posey and Milly; Josie and Millie.

Name update:

Hi Swistle!

Here with an update, thanks so much to your readers and you for the awesome advice!

Mae Patricia Doren was born on 8/25. We decided after going through all the formal names that Mae could be derived from, we really just wanted her to be called Mae.

I love how it mirrors her sister in syllables, Josephine Rose, and how simple and sweet it is, just like her personality so far!

Posey loves her but still refers to her as “new baby” – we will get there!

Thanks again, here are my girls. ❤️