Hi Swistle! Hoping you and your readers can help me out. Sabine is tied right up there as one of my favorite girl names. I first heard it in Germany, where it’s pronounced “suh-BEAN-uh” (it is also a French name, but pronounced “suh-BEAN” in France. We prefer the German pronunciation). But, here’s my quandary: would people who hear it just think that the baby’s name was Sabrina?

I love(!) this name, but really don’t want to saddle a child with being misheard all her life when she introduces herself.

Ta!
Robin

I think the bigger issue is that people will think the name is spelled Sabina (if they hear it) or pronounced sah-BEEN (if they see it). If you were spelling it Sabina and asking if it would be confused with Sabrina, I would be shrugging and saying, “Well, sure, sometimes it will be, but many names are mistaken for other names, and all you have to do is make the correction.” A Claire can be mistaken for a Clara, or a Kristen for a Kirsten, or an Alissa for an Alicia, and I wouldn’t let that stop me from using any of those names. Parent and child both get accustomed to pronouncing it very clearly the first time and to correcting it periodically, and it isn’t a big deal.

However, in your case you wish to use a familiar name with an unfamiliar pronunciation. This is not a perfect example (it’s a more extreme case), but it’s similar to naming a daughter Caitlin and wanting it pronounced the Irish way, which is more like Cathleen: in that case I would advise spelling it Cathleen, rather than trying to override the already-familiar U.S. pronunciation of KATE-lin. And that’s the same suggestion I would make for Sabine: I would spell it Sabina, if that is how you would like it pronounced. I would consider that a matter of translating the name into the American English alphabet, as we’d change Annike to Annika, or Eoin to Owen.

I’m definitely not saying I think names should always be spelled as they are pronounced. You would not catch me, for example, advocating that Chloe should be spelled Cloey or Daphne should be spelled Daffnie, just to help out American English speakers. American English speakers have become accustomed to many names that are not spelled as we’d pronounce them phonetically: Chloe, Daphne, Isla, Zoe. But in this case you are trying to use a name that is already familiar with one pronunciation and asking to have it pronounced a different way. It would be like using the name Daphne and asking people to pronounce it Daff-na; or bringing the name Chloe here after we already had a name spelled that way but pronounced Clo. It’s not impossible, but it’s an additional hurdle: you not only have to teach people how to pronounce it, you have to override how they are already pronouncing it. (Note: this may not be relevant if you live in an area of the U.S. with a large German/Dutch population.)

But spelling it Sabina is such an obvious solution to the problem, it leads me to this question: Do you have a particular reason you don’t want to? It can definitely happen that a small change makes a huge difference in the way the parents feel about a name: many of us, for example, are likely to feel very differently about the name Catherine versus the name Kathryn, or Claire versus Clara, so you are in good company if you feel the same way about Sabine versus Sabina.

If the only way you like it is if it is spelled Sabine, I think you can decide it’s worth the hassle—but I do think it will be a hassle, more than the usual hassle of Kristen/Kirsten or Sophia/Sofia.

Name update:

Hi Swistle!

Baby girl was born September 25! A surprise to both my husband and I was that we couldn’t quite figure out her name; with her brothers, the names seemed to fit them straight out of the womb. Part of the problem was that she had been dubbed “Hortense” in utero, and initially no other name felt as right. 😂 We bandied about names for the better part of a week – Marguerite, Aletheia, Thea, Colette – but ultimately came back to what we had thought all along. Baby girl has been Sabine Nina-Elaine for almost a week now, and it fits her perfectly. Thanks to you and your readers for all your advice!

Robin

Hello!

I love the Swistle community! The help we received during my first pregnancy was a highlight for me and helped me solidify my choice to use Esther Elizabeth as our first daughter’s name. We chose the names to honor two amazing grandmothers.

Based on the difficulty of that decision, we didn’t have a huge base of family names we loved to choose from. Now we want to stay with a family/traditional name, but are debating what the right choice will be.

The most popular front runner for most of this pregnancy has been Edith. I like the idea of Esther and Edith (two baby grannies) I also like the nn Edie. I just feel like I have to keep looking to make sure it is perfect. Edith was a beloved great aunt on my mother’s side and I believe it would be an honor to her children to use her name.

If I go with Edith I was debating if it would feel more regal or powerful if I went with an alternate spelling such as Edythe, then her nn could be Edy? The issue is that I don’t want her to always have to say “I’m edith with a y and an e at the end”. I just love how that spelling looks. With such a common last name as Davis I also like the idea of being more unique somewhere else. however I don’t want to burden a child with a fussy name.

In addition to our concern about loving the first name enough, i really wanted to use Rae or RaeAnn as the middle name to honor my mother. We had debated this the first time as well. An Edith Rae sounds very southern to us (not like that’s a bad thing!) and we were hoping for a more classic sound like her sister has.

Our due date is Feb. 18th. We would love hearing from this expert name community again.

Thank you.

My vote is to keep the Edith spelling, especially if that was the way the beloved great-aunt spelled it. I don’t think changing the spelling improves it, and it adds the fussiness complications you’re hoping to avoid. I think you could spell the nickname Edy even if you spelled the name Edith (just as an Addison can be Addi, Addie, or Addy), though my own preference is for Edie either way.

I agree with you that the mood of the name Edith RaeAnn is not quite the same as the mood of the name Esther Elizabeth. I think it will come down to which is more important to you, the honor name or the mood of the name. Those two choices sound as if I’m trying to say the honor name should be more important, but that is not how I feel about it: I think both things are important, and sometimes one thing wins and sometimes the other does. With my own kids’ names, sometimes I went one way and sometimes the other.

My own favorite here would be something like Edith Josephine. Do you have a Joseph in the family tree, perhaps? Or Edith Margaret. Or you could go all-out on E names and name her Edith Eleanor.

Getting back to Josephine/Joseph, that might be a good idea for finding more family names in general: see if any of the men’s names can be feminized. Henry/Henrietta, Charles/Charlotte, George/Georgia, Louis/Louisa, Francis/Frances, Philip/Philippa, Robert/Roberta, Frederick/Fredrika, etc.

If you are not quite set on Edith, it might be fun to discuss other options. Ruth, for example, is similar in style and shares the -th. I love the nickname Ruthie. Ruth Davis; Esther and Ruth.

Or Winifred. I so love the name Winifred. Winifred Davis; Esther and Winifred.

Sylvia is pretty. Sylvia Davis; Esther and Sylvia.

I have an unbroken track record of getting no one at all to agree to use Millicent. Shall we break that record? Millicent Davis; Esther and Millicent.

Name update:

Hello!  I have a name update.
We are so happy that our swistle email was answered.  We spent a lot of time contemplating this name and are so very grateful for everyone’s advice.

We chose Edith Frances Rae (two middle names) as the baby’s name.  As we are unsure if we will have another child I decided that I wanted to feel like I chose a name that I loved that wasn’t necessarily an honor name.  I have always liked Frances and am happy to be able to include it.  My father’s middle name is frank so it can also be a loose tribute to him.  I added Rae as a second middle name so I could have it included as a tribute.  I have 4 names so I felt this wouldn’t be so out of the norm.  Thanks swistle universe!

We are about 3 weeks out from having our 3rd child, a boy! We think we’ve settled on a first name but we’re really debating on a middle name. I would love to hear the vote of you and your readers. Our last name is is Kirpatrick with another K in there. We are pretty positive this baby’s first name will be Keller. As for middle names, we have 2 front contenders and cannot decide.

Option 1: Jonah. Keller Jonah.
My oldest son just turned 3 and since he found out he was having a little brother has been insistent on naming him Jonah. We have no idea where it came from, we don’t know any Jonahs, we don’t think he’s been exposed to the name Jonah at all. We think it would be pretty cool to honor that request by giving the baby the middle name Jonah.

Pros: It seems cute that the baby was partially named by his older brother.

Cons: Keller Jonah would not have any family significance, which our other two kids do (Our other two kids are named after my husband’s father who passed away and my mother who passed away)

Option 2: Barnett. Keller Barnett
Barnett was my mother’s maiden name and is my brother’s middle name, so there is family significance. I don’t love it, but I like it. My mom was already honored in my daughter’s name, but I guess there can’t be too many honor names? My brother would probably be happy, but he wouldn’t really care in the long run. I can’t decide if I like the look of the double letters in both names.

Pros: Family name like his siblings
Cons: The family name is from my side, which I kind of feel bad about. My daughter is named after my mother and sister. I feel like if we do another family name it should be from my husband’s mom’s side, but I don’t really like any of the names (I’ll list below)

Other options:
Richard (Husband’s middle name, MIL’s father’s name) -Keller Richard Kirpatrick sounds like a mouthful of Rs.
Powell (MIL’s father’s middle name) Keller Powell Kirpatrick doesn’t flow

Any boy names you can derive from Nancy or Anne? I can’t think of any.

So what do you think? Family name or name arbitrarily created by a 3 year old?

Any and all advice is appreciated!

Thanks so much in advance if you choose to address this question!

Kaeleen

Two of my many name-related soft spots are “names chosen by siblings” and “maiden names,” so this is a pretty happy question.

I don’t think it’s crucial that a whole name flows together nicely, but I do prefer a nice flow when all else is equal, so I tried saying both Keller Jonah Kirpatrick and Keller Barnett Kirpatrick aloud. I had a harder time saying the latter, but not a deal-breakingly hard time.

I have a slight preference too for the way the name Jonah keeps the name from being three surname names in a row. But again: slight. Not enough to make the decision.

I have a preference for giving everyone an honor name. But after breaking this preference with my own kids’ names and finding I cared less in the long run than I expected to, I have modified this preference to “everyone gets a similarly-good naming story.” That is, I think if two kids get honor-name stories and one kid has a sibling-chose-the-name story, those are equivalent. Especially when the parents are running out of honor names they want to use.

I also do like Keller Richard Kirpatrick, but I get the impression from the letter that it’s not a strong contender.

I can’t think of a good Nancy/Anne namesake, either. Some people like to match meanings, so that’s a possibility if it appeals. But it feels like less of a pleasing story to me than the other options.

I keep wanting to start a paragraph with “I find myself leaning toward…”—but then I change my mind as soon as I pick one! First I thought I felt more warmly about using Jonah, and then I thought I felt more warmly about using Barnett, and then back to Jonah, and then back to Barnett. If we were in the maternity ward with the new baby and you MADE me choose, RIGHT now…I think I would choose Jonah. But then all the way home I would be thinking, “Wait, was that right? Should I have said Barnett? Maybe I should call her back.”

Well. I had a similar conundrum with Henry’s middle name: three excellent choices and none of them had an extra edge over any of the others. What finally settled my mind was thinking that this meant there probably really WASN’T a “best choice”: we just had to pick one, and we were very unlikely to be sorry about ANY of the three excellent choices.

But what I think we should do here is a POLL! Polls are fun, and also it may sway your feelings—especially if you find you’re hoping the results will come out one way or the other. I had trouble deciding if Richard should go in there or not; I eventually came down on the side of no, but I think commenters should go ahead and say in the comments if they WOULD have voted for that if it had been an option.

[yop_poll id=”74″]

Name update:

Hi Swistle!

I had my baby and wanted to give an update! We wrote to you regarding his middle name. Keller Barnett, Keller Jonah, or something different?

After one commenter pointed out that Keller Barnett sounded like a law form, and another said she still feels sour that her older sister got to name her, we fell out of love with both. Neither felt right.

He went a couple days without a middle name but we ultimately decided on Lee. Keller Lee. Lee was my mother’s middle name, my maternal grandfather’s middle name, and my paternal grandmother’s first name. I initially didn’t like it because it felt like an overused name and because I was afraid it would make Keller sound like an adjective (kellerly?) But anyways, it actually felt perfect once he was here.

Thanks for all your help!