Swistle!

I have been following your blog since I was pregnant with our first! I have searched on your blog for names we have considered as well as read through previous entries for inspiration. Now I am writing to you for help!

We will be having our second child, another boy, this fall! We have narrowed names down to our “Top Three” however, neither of us can narrow it down any further.

Background: Our son is 2 and his name is Joel Andrew. His first name honors my husbands father and grandfather (JOEseph and Leslie) while still giving him his own name. His middle name is shared with my father. Our last name is Burner with a “T”. Our naming style seems to be traditional, but not old-fashioned. Names we have heard of but aren’t too common. We also prefer names without easy nicknames as none of our names have obvious nicknames. Husband wants names that – if seen can easily be said, and if heard could easily be spelled. We also don’t want the name to be too common. This child will most likely be our last and for some reason coming up with a second boy name seems much harder than the first!

If this child would have been a girl, we each had a favorite and it was down to Eliza and Elise.

Originally my husband wanted to also name this child with a “J” name as he and his brother both also had “J” names. My concern was that three “J” names in our family would be a mouthful. On top of that most “J” names I found/suggested were rejected for a variety of reasons and only one has made it to the ‘final three’. Another train of thought we had was to use an “L” name so we would each have a child with the same first initial. Again, most of the “L” boy names were rejected as being either too popular, or too ‘old fashioned’ and only one made it to the ‘final three’. I have also gone through a looong list of boy names with my husband and all have been rejected except one, so we are left with three.

Jensen is the only “J” name that my husband will consider, even with his desire for a “J” name to be used. I think it fits the criteria (easy to say, spell, no obvious nickname), however my concern is that it doesn’t fit with the rest of our names style wise (Jason, Lydia, Joel) and that Joel and Jensen would be a mouthful.

Lucas is the only “L” name that my husband would consider. However, I know this name IS quite common right now AND I am concerned that Luke would be a go-to nickname. Neither of us dislike Luke, but don’t like it as much as Lucas. I do think Lucas goes ok with Joel and the rest of our names, however since it is common and has easy nickname options I just can’t commit!

Seth is my favorite currently! I think it goes really well with Joel and the rest of our names. It is about the same popularity as Joel. People who see it will know how to say it, and those who hear it will know how to spell it! It was also a top pick for me when pregnant with Joel, but Jason really wanted to name him after his grandpa. Husband is just so-so on it. I think if I pushed he would go for it, but it’s clearly not one of his favorites. I’ve been trying this name out for a couple of weeks and while it’s ok, it isn’t love like I thought it would be! I’m not sure if it’s the fact my husband doesn’t love it too, of if it’s not “the one”.

If we were to each rank these three names, our list would be completely opposite. However, neither of us loves Lucas enough to pick that name, or willing to give up our top pick to settle on one of the others. How would you recommend we settle this? Do you have any other name suggestions we might have missed?

A list of some of the names I liked/suggested that were vetoed: Jude, Caleb, Ethan, Levi, Eli, Jonah, Jules, and many many more! Hopefully that will give you an idea of at least my style. As far as middle names, we aren’t decided might be open to using one of the other ‘top three’, Joseph (after husband’s grandfather and shared with husband’s brother), or Matthew (Husband’s middle name). There really aren’t any other people we feel we need to honor, but the question has been raised if our first child’s whole name is honoring three people, will this child feel slighted if he doesn’t’ have an honor name?

Baby is due in approx. 6 weeks and the fact we haven’t decided on a name is starting to stress me out! Please consider helping.

Thank you!!

I rank the names in the same order you do. Seth is my first choice: an excellent style fit with Joel, and I like it a lot with your surname. Lucas is my second choice: very good style fit with Joel, but I see your reservations about popularity and the nickname Luke. Jensen is my third choice by a long distance: it’s a very different style than Joel, and I dislike the idea of you being left out of the J Club. I also dislike the idea of your husband being the one who wants another J name but then only being willing to consider one.

It sounds to me as if it’s time to go back to the drawing board: neither of you much likes the other’s first choice, and you both sound tepid on the one name you agree on. Leave Lucas on the list to see if it grows on you, but then return to the long list to see if your husband likes any of them better the second time through.

It also sounds as if you two are having the classic problem of one of you doing all the work and the other one doing all the vetoing. It would be useful if your husband would make his own list of names for you to consider.

At this point I would leave out these issues: finding a J name, finding an L name, using an honor name. Those sorts of fun preferences work better when parents have a long list of names they love, and they want to narrow the list down. It sounds as if you’re out of honor names, and I don’t see any reason to force that: many families use honor names for the first child and not for subsequent children. I would leave COMPLETELY out of the equation the issue of whether the children’s names go with the style of your name and your husband’s name: your names are a generation removed from theirs and chosen by two entirely different sets of parents, and no one expects them to coordinate.

I would like to make a list of name suggestions, but from the samples you gave, I think you and I are on the same page already and I would just be listing names your husband already rejected. I think the solution here is for him to make his own list for you to consider, and/or for him to go back to your list and really consider every option carefully. If he won’t do either of these things, then I suggest trying your strategy of pushing for Seth: your husband got his way on the first child’s name, so perhaps it can be your turn this time.

Name update:

I wanted to send an update!
Seth Matthew was born a week early.  Matthew is my husband’s middle name.  After the difficult birth, he decided to go with my top picks.  I appreciated your feedback and reading all the comments! I thought the comment of both boys having old testament first name and New testament middle names was a cute tie!

Thank you!!

Hello, Swistle!
I’m not sure if you will have time to answer my question. My husband and I are not currently expecting a child, but we are planning on starting a family soon, and since we have different naming styles, I wanted to have a pretty firm list so that we do not have naming wars when I am pregnant and irrational. I have loved names for so long, and I assumed that naming would be easy, but….not so much.

These were our original rules:
1. Nothing overly-trendy (e.g. Brayden, Brayleigh, etc)
2. One common spelling (No Kaitlyn/Katelyn,etc)
3. No made-up names
4. A name with history, but not too boring

Here are my two problems:

1. My husband’s shortlist of names are very country/cowboy style (Ralan, Clay, Harland, Harley, etc.,) and mine are all Vintage/Biblical (Jeremiah, Oliver, Josephine, Theodora, etc)
2. The names we both like break the rules! So far, we both like Jackson and Callan for boys (-en endings, very trendy) and for girls, we like Juliana, Juliet, and Emilia (trendy-ish and multiple spellings).

Do I throw out the rules or the names list? Is it ok to have trendier boy’s names and more vintage girl’s names? Also, do you have any name suggestions that fit our parameters?

For middle names, we have a few family names we would like to use (Eugene, Renee, and possibly Augusta), but past that, I am struggling to come up with names that feel “right.” Our last name rhymes with Bedford (with an M), so my only concern with that is avoiding words like JAM, DAM, etc.

Sorry this was so long!!

Thanks!

Abigail

I suggest changing the Rules List into a Preferences List. Each name can then be weighed against your preferences, but if a name fails to meet one or more preferences it doesn’t have to be removed from consideration: you’d just move on to considering whether you like the name enough to use it anyway. The preference list can be used to narrow things down, or it can be used to measure the strength of your feelings for a name: “I love it so much I don’t even care about the preferences,” or “I just don’t love it enough to give up that preference.” The preference list can also be used to gently argue against the other parent’s suggestions: “Well, but we agreed we didn’t want anything made-up.”

As you work with your name lists, you may find you want to remove a preference entirely. It’s very common for parents to enter the naming process thinking they want one kind of name, or liking a certain type of name in theory, and then realize that’s not what they want after all. This is another reason I like the idea of preferences rather than rules: it’s psychologically easier to remove a preference than to remove a rule. You may also find you each have your own preference list, and that may help with your discussions: “What about this name? It meets your preference for something friendly/cowboy, but also meets my preference for something traditional/classic.”

Yes, it’s absolutely okay to have trendier boy names and vintage girl names; it’s pretty common for parents to have different styles for boy names and girl names. The only time it bugs me is when parents choose solid traditional serious dignified names for their sons and lightweight cutesy names for their daughters, or when parents make name decisions that assume their sons will keep their full names permanently but their daughters will need room for their husbands’ names—but neither of those cases are what we’re talking about here.

I think it might be helpful to have a discussion about the word “trendy” and what it means to each of you. Some people use it to mean common/popular; others use it to mean a name that may end up very tied to a particular decade, because of the way it came suddenly into style and seems poised to depart just as suddenly. Because the word trendy tends to be used in a derogatory way, you may find it easier to weigh names against your preferences if you come up with a few different words to cover the various aspects of trendiness: “common,” “in style,” even “on-trend” has more of a descriptive rather than negative feel. You may decide, for example, that you’d prefer to avoid common names, but don’t mind names that are in style; or that you don’t mind a name that’s common as long as it’s classic/traditional rather than modern/invented.

If I may answer a question you didn’t ask, I will say that although I think it’s valuable to think about and discuss these things ahead of time, I don’t think you need to settle this before getting pregnant. I remember being queasy and weepy while pregnant, and okay, fine, once I flipped over a (small) dining room table—but I was definitely up to the task of working on names. It gave me something fun and pleasant to do during the long uncomfortable wait of pregnancy, and I also found my opinions on names sharpened and changed when there was an actual baby on the way.

Name update:

Hello, Swistle!
I last wrote in almost three years ago. A little while later, we welcomed our daughter, @ugusta “Ju1iet.” She goes exclusively by Juliet or some variation of it. The name is absolutely perfect for her for so many reasons:
1. Matching initials with my husband and I (not something we plan to continue for future children–we just thought it was fun for our firstborn).
2. Augusta is a family name dating back to the 1800s and also the name of my sister, with whom I am very close.
3. August was the month in which my husband and I started dating and were engaged (not the same year, of course!)
4. We visited Augusta, Maine, on our honeymoon.
5. Augusta National is my husband’s favorite golf tournament (is this how I got him to commit to it? Possibly. ;) )
6. Juliet is a name we both love and is easy to spell and pronounce. It’s established and feminine, but not too frilly.
7. Going by Juliet eliminates the confusion over having two Augusta’s in the family and also having three A names on our family Christmas card.

So, there is the name update! Our Juliet is now a spunky little whirlwind of a toddler.

Dear Swistle,

As a long-time reader, I am glad to finally be able to send you a question of my own. We named our daughter Avila (pronounced AV-i-la) after a saint we loved, feisty Teresa of Avila, and also after our two mothers who both have Therese in their names. As we didn’t announce the name until birth, I wasn’t prepared for the difficulty that the pronunciation of her name would bring. Perhaps we live in a friendlier place than most, but people are constantly asking me what our daughter is named and it often takes several tries (it rhymes with Avalon, Avalanche etc.) and some confusion before it’s sorted out. We also have family who see her a couple times a year who still mispronounce her name, including her Grandpa.

Now that we are expecting baby number two, I would really love to choose a name that doesn’t cause so many pronunciation problems. In fact, my husband and I are beginning to realize that although we love Avila’s name for the reasons we chose it, for the most part our naming style trends towards the more familiar. For boy’s names we’re set—deciding between Xavier or Blaise—but girl’s names are posing a problem for us. Our last name is Carrot with an M.

My husband loves the name Anastasia with the nickname Anya, but I am afraid that I will have to explain Anya as much as Avila, or at least that people won’t recognize it at first: (Did you say Ana? etc.) And I’m not enthused by the other nicknames for Anastasia.

We both love the name Rose, and we’ve discussed a number of other names including:

Clara

Genevieve

Magdalena (nn Lena)

Josephine

Sylvie (my husband’s not on board)

 

We’d like to pick a saint name, but that hardly narrows the field as so many names (both unusual and familiar) come from saints.

As much as I’d love to choose Rose, or another good name, and call it done, I’m worried that Avila and Rose just don’t work together. One is so uncommon and the other so classic. We’d also like to have more children, and if we continue in the “pronounceable/familiar” trend, will Avila one day feel strange to have a more unusual name than anyone else?

I feel stuck. Should we go with Anya and just embrace the unusual? Should we go with Rose and forget sibling naming unity? Or choose something else? I feel like what we name baby two will make a big difference for how we name any future children.

Although my due-date is in January, we’d love to stop going in circles on this! Thanks for your help!

 

G.

 

 

 

Name update:

Thanks for all your suggestions! Naming all our kids after saintly geographical locations, (such as the name Siena that so many of you suggested,) was an appealing idea, but seemed potentially limiting in the long run. So, when we did have a second little girl, we named her Rose Therese Eowyn. The names Rose Therese are in honor of St. Therese of Lisieux (whose symbol is the rose), and Eowyn is a courageous woman from the Lord of the Rings books that my husband and I both admire. We waffled a little on giving her two middle names, but in the end since we could not pick between them, we gave her both.

Hi Swistle,

I’ve been a fan of your blog for years, particularly for the Naming Update satisfaction, and thought that, due to my research, baby naming would be no problem but that was before I realized my husband and I have COMPLETELY different naming styles.

Our first baby, a boy, is due in 3 weeks, and we need help. I finally was able to sit my husband down to talk names this past week by reading through the Baby Name Wizard and I now feel even more stressed than before. Our last name is Sp@d@for@ pronounced Sp@d@-for@h. My husband’s name is Mark and mine is Joyce (or Joyce-Marie for my family). As you can see, one of us has Italian heritage but the other does not. With such a distinctive Italian last name, I would prefer an ethnically neutral first name or one that errs towards Irish/Danish/German to represent my heritage.

For family honoring purposes, my husband wants the baby’s middle name to be Anthony. It is not my favorite name but I value family history (both my names are family names) and am willing to use this name.

The biggest issue is not that we disagree on individual names but instead on styles. I favor classic names that don’t give away the year someone was born (like the Ashleys and Emilys and Jennifers of the 1980s), that work well for a boy and a man, has some meaning, and is not out in left field (if it can be found on a personalized keychain kiosk, unlike Joyce, that would be a plus). My husband, who has coached men’s sports for 15 years, wants a unique name. He has bad connotations of many “normal” names because of past players and wants to reject any name that shows up on a top 10 or 20 list or feels generic (e.g., Christopher, Paul, Noah, Aidan, Liam, Thomas). I explained that the quantity of people with these names is low, but he is unconvinced.

I think I am also part of the problem because I am set on a name: Jack. It was my uncle’s name, so has a good family tie, it is steady, usual, works well for a boy or a man, balances a complex last name, and has the same ending as Mark and his father, Frank. Jack Anthony even works and honors both families. However, my husband currently has 2 Jacks on his team and while he hasn’t come out and said no way (mostly due to my saying how much I love the name), he keeps trying other options.

Some of his suggestions that I have rejected for various reasons have been:
Dominic (he got the name from the Fast and the Furious, I think it’s too Italian/Mafia with our last name)
Vincent (ditto)
Steele
Duke
Maximus (from Gladiator – I like the name Max but I don’t like this longer form and he doesn’t like Maxwell and we both don’t like Maximillian)
Clark (as in Clark Kent)
Mason (I don’t love that it’s a Kardashian name and I also don’t really love the name)
Samson
Jett
Titus
Simon
Tobin
Calvin (Calvin and Hobbs)

Some of my suggestions that he doesn’t like have been:
Jack
Jameson (James is a family name, this naming convention is Scandinavian)
Nathan/Nate (he doesn’t think it goes with Anthony)
Luke (I like the Star Wars reference, he thinks it is too popular and we have friends with a Lucas)
Colin/Cole
Graham
Finn (again, Star Wars but he thinks that will cause the popularity to rise)
Asher
Caleb (he hates the name for some reason)
Joshua/Josh
Miles
Tobias/Toby
Christian (rejected by him because of past associations with players)

Some of our compromise names – as in neither of us love it but we don’t hate it and we have overlap are:
Jackson (he’s open to this because of the character in Sons of Anarchy but doesn’t like its popularity, it would get me Jack but it feels like settling off of a perfect name)
Lincoln
Logan
Parker
Tucker
Walden

It also doesn’t help that both families are convinced we have a name and are lying to them when we say we don’t. In short, there is a lot to be stressed about at the end of the pregnancy and I would like one or two names to choose from after the baby is born. I know I’m being stubborn with Jack when Jackson seems like a compromise and I feel like I am shutting down his ideas when I should be grateful that he is participating but I don’t want to name my son Jett/Steele!

Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated! Help us Obi-Wan Swistle, you’re our only hope

Thank you for your time!
Joyce

PS I should mention that girls names do not seem to be a problem for us – I have a ton of ones I love and he overlaps with a great deal of them (I like Lucy and Grace and Alice and Rosemarie). Fingers crossed the next kid (and maybe the last) will be a girl for marital harmony!

So your husband likes mostly superhero / action hero / comic book / xtreme tuff names. Luckily, there are a number of those names that don’t seem that way when they’re not on a list with the others. Here are the ones I’d pick from his list:

Clark. My top choice for you guys. I think it accomplishes everything you’re looking for with the name Jack (except the family honor), but with an option that satisfies your husband’s wish for something less common and/or something that has superpowers. If you were both on board with Jack, I’d be all for it: it’s a nice classic familiar friendly versatile name, and I love family names. But I’m siding with your husband on the popularity of it: popularity will vary by location, of course, but in our area (and on your husband’s teams, apparently) it feels like it’s everywhere. Clark has a very similar classic versatile feeling, but also feels much fresher. Clark Anthony Sp@d@for@. Top choice.

Calvin. A great name, and doesn’t hint at a wish for hyper-masculinity.

Samson. Hints at hyper-masculinity, but is mainstream enough to just seem like a way to get the friendly nickname Sam.

Simon.

Tobin.

From your list, I think Nathan is a great option, and I don’t think an incompatibility with the middle name should be enough to completely rule it out. Could Anthony wait and be the middle name for a future child? Are there other honor names the two of you would like to use? How about Jack in the middle slot this time? Nathan Jack Sp@d@for@.

I’d also rescue Finn from your list. I wouldn’t let fear of future popularity rule out a name: predicting such things is so difficult.

I don’t think you’re being stubborn about Jackson. It doesn’t feel like a satisfying compromise to me, either: it reduces the honor name for no real gain, and I don’t like it as much with the surname.

I feel disinclined to search for more options when Clark is shining out at me like that. But maybe Teague, Ian, Alec, Grant, Blake, Keane, Leo, Milo, Nolan, Reid, Jude, Flynn, Keegan, Abe, Gage, Dane?

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

Thank you for posting my naming dilemma and for all the helpful comments! It seems as if the old school hero names like Clark are on an upswing. However, one of the commenters pointed out that Clark rhymes with Mark, my husband’s name, and so that eliminated that name from contention in my mind. After about 20 hours of labor while we were waiting to begin pushing, my husband looked at me and said “so, Jack, huh?” and that was that! Jack Anthony Sp@d@for@ was born on his due date and we couldn’t be happier. I also love that he has a piece of my family’s history along with my husband’s in his name. And, interestingly enough, he looks like a dead ringer for my uncle Jack! Thank you again for everything!

Joyce-Marie

Hi Swistle,

We are expecting our third baby girl at the end of November! Our daughter’s names are Emerson Alexandra and Lennox Eloise. We are having trouble coming up with something we love for our newest addition! We obviously prefer unisex/gender neutral names and ones that are surname-ish paired with a more feminine middle name. We do not like nicknames so those are not a factor for us. We also prefer if the name isn’t something that is common (no Avery, Jordan, Finley, etc.) Our surname is long and Italian, M0scaritol0.

We have discussed so many names but none feel right. I’m looking for some new suggestions of ones we may have not thought of so far. We don’t use family names so we have no real inspiration and feel stuck!

Please help!

Samantha M.

This is a little tricky, because you’ve discussed so many names and want new suggestions you haven’t thought of—but of course we don’t know which ones you’ve discussed and which ones you haven’t thought of. We could easily end up making you a list of the same old names you’ve been over a hundred times before. But that list could still help other people looking for names of a similar style, so let’s give it a shot.

Brecken
Brennan
Brinley
Callan
Camden
Campbell
Carrigan
Colby
Crosby
Delaney
Delancey
Devany
Holland
Hollis
Keaton
Keller
Kieran
Kinley
Padgett
Presley
Quincy
Rooney
Rowan
Sterling

Name update:

Just wanted to drop by and update! Our rainbow baby girl was born on 12/6/17 and we hadn’t decided on a name before her birth! We ended up going with something that was not on our shortlist because it just fit her! It was a name we both said no to before but when I saw her I just knew it was the one!

Briar Caroline is now 1 month old and has brought our family so much joy!