Dear Swistle,
I have accidentally gotten myself into a bit of a baby name situation. My husband’s legal first name is Daniel (also his father’s name) but he goes by his middle name Scott. He has always really hated that his parents chose to not put his name in the “correct” order. He has even researched changing his name to Scott Daniel but decided it was too much time/money. My name also starts with an S. When my daughter was born we both fell in love with the name Stella Grace, my great grandmother’s name was Estelle and it was nice to honor my side a little in the naming department. I really fought against the name my whole pregnancy because I did not want us all to have first names that start with S. But, we were unable to find a name that we liked better at the time. We found out we are pregnant with another baby girl due in November.
The question is do we name this baby girl a name that also starts with S? I have always hated the idea of having first names that all start with the same letter- I know that many families choose this but I didn’t think I would be one of them. Reading your blog has me re-thinking the whole thing. My husband thinks we should at least consider the idea of having another S name. This will likely be our last child and would she feel left out that her name starts with a different letter? Will our Christmas cards look weird when we list out all our names and they start with S except for the last one? Can I use the loop hole that my husband’s actual first name is Daniel, so technically does not start with an S? Or should i just get over this idea and name her something that starts with an S. Our last name sounds like “Jen-dron” but actually starts with a G. We would like to use the middle name of Rae, because it is my father’s middle name, but we are not completely stuck on it. The other middle name we are considering is Malia, it is my mother in law’s middle name. But I feel that my husband’s side is already represented in the baby’s last name. If we had a boy our top runner would likely have been Miles.
Will you please help me see if I am off base with the S thing? If I am can you help me think of an S baby name that goes with Stella? If you think it okay to name the baby something that starts with another letter any suggestions?
Some names we like:
Alice (love this name but we are not sure how it sounds with the short middle name of Rae)
Allison (love this name too, but it ends in the same last sound “on” as our last name)
Hazel
Fiona
Ellen
Caroline
Lydia
Olive
Madeline
Nora
Sylvie
Eloise (Love this name but my sister says that she wants to name her future daughter this)
Lillian (like this name but it is a little too popular)
Evelyn (Also too popular)
Names we like but must avoid
Violet
Louise
Clara
Olivia
Elena
Lucy
Mary
Julie
Thank you for considering our question!
Stephanie
We get what I would consider a surprising number of questions asking if a child will feel left out if he or she has a different initial than his or her siblings. I’m just going to go ahead and say that in 99%* of cases the answer is “No.” (And in the remaining 1%, there are other things going on besides just an initial.) I do think that if a family made a big deal of it, saying “We’re Team S!!” all the time before the child was born, getting a license plate that said “S FAMILY,” having matching t-shirts with a big S on each one—then the next children without an S name could feel a little weird if they ever gave it any thought at all. But if I picture myself as the second, non-S child, I have more of a “rolling my eyes and letting them thank me for breaking up THAT dorkitude” feeling.
[*Number might be completely made up by Swistle.**] [**But I think it’s a pretty accurate guess.]
And of course the number of kids matters: if you two parents and your first three children all had names starting with S, and then you were having a fourth and definitely last child and wanted to use a name starting with T, I guess I’d advise you not to at that point. (But even then, if you really wanted to use it, I’d be behind you on that and helping you to think of ways to handle reactions: “Ha ha! Oh I know, isn’t it funny? But we just LOVED the name and couldn’t resist it! And it turned out we had exactly three S names we loved, and not a single one more! We really scoured every baby name book, but in the end it seemed better to use a T-name we loved instead of an S-name we disliked!”)
You mentioned this is likely your last child, but I’ll seize on the not-quite-certainty of the word “likely” and add that if you DO have another child, I think you will be very glad if you did not choose an S-name this time. The Duggars say they never meant to have so many J names, but their first three favorites happened to start with J, and then with each additional child they didn’t want that child to feel left out. Imagine if they had J____, J_____, J_____, M______, T______, L______, K_______, T_______, S_______, S________, B_______, and so on: at this point no one would think anything of those first three J names, except perhaps relief that they managed to break out of it. And if you ended up with Stella, L_______, and F______, no one will feel anything about the initials.
I generally don’t consider the parents’ names/initials as if they were part of the sibling group, unless someone draws my attention to it. That is, if someone says “We’re the S team!,” I would think “…?” followed by “Oh, I see: Stephanie, Scott, and Stella. All starting with S. Yes indeed. Cute.” It’s possible that the occasional person will once a year look at your Christmas card signatures and think, “Oh! Three start with S and one doesn’t!” But imagine yourself in that situation, looking at the card: would you draw any unpleasant conclusion from this? Would it linger unpleasantly in your mind, leading to suspicions that the last child wasn’t loved/wanted? Or would you, as I would, go on to the next card without giving it any more thought than the sheer noticing of it? We all know that the parents didn’t choose their own names. At worst, a few people might love the idea of matched family name sets and wish you had loved it too—but that’s not so bad to deal with. Plus, you can spin the appearance of the card a bit: write your two names on one line with your surname, and the kids’ names on a second line:
Happy holidays and a very happy New Year!
Scott and Stephanie Jendron
Stella and Lydia
I would definitely use the loophole that your husband’s actual legal name starts with a D. So if you had a child who in adolescence was looking for reasons to claim you hated her, and she seized upon this initials thing as her pet issue, you could say, “What? Oh, no, that’s not something we even thought of. Dad’s real first name starts with D, and mine starts with S; for you kids, we just chose our favorite names. Stella’s happened to start with S, and yours happens to start with ___.” (If it happens to start with D, that would be quite tidy. Delia, Daphne, Diantha?)
I would in fact use that explanation with anyone who brings it up at all. For example, if someone has noticed the three-S situation and says, “Are you going to go for another S name?” “What? Oh, no, that’s not….” etc. You can add your story about wishing Stella’s name HADN’T started with S, but you just loved it too much to give it up.
Within your family, you can play the Name Similarities Game, to dilute any feeling that the first letter is the only thing that matters. Let’s say you name this child Lydia. “Lydia and Dad both have five letters, if we use the name Dad goes by; if we use Dad’s given name, Stella and Dad both have six letters. Mom and Lydia both have three syllables. Stella and Mom both start with S—and Dad, too, if we use the name he goes by. Dad and Lydia both have D’s in their names, if we use dad’s given name. Stella and Lydia both end with A. Everyone has an A in their name if we use Dad’s given name; otherwise, just the girls in the family have A’s in their names. Mom and Stella both start with Ste-. Stella and Lydia both have L’s, and Dad does too if he uses his given name.” And so on. Dad should be teased for cheating with his two names, and should keep switching what he claims his name is, in order to be included in as many categories as possible.
If you’re narrowing down a list and get to the point where you like everything equally, you could even use the anticipation of the Name Similarities Game to help make decision, choosing something with MORE similarities over something with less. I mean, only if it would be fun to do this, not if it would add to the pressure.
The basic strategy I would advise for choosing this child’s name is the same strategy you used to choose Stella’s: find your favorite. If the name starts with an S, use it and resign yourself to people thinking you were cute on purpose. If the name doesn’t start with an S, use it without fear of psychological damage to the child.
The names on your list look like great choices. With Stella, I particularly like Alice, Hazel, Fiona, Lydia, and Sylvie. I love Ellen, but it seems like it shares too big a chunk of the name Stella. I think Alice does combine a bit with Rae, but that unless you were planning to call her regularly by both names, I’d rank that issue lower than the benefit of using a family name.
Name update:
Dear Swistle,
I am thrilled to let you know our baby girl Alice Rae arrived promptly on her due date! I cannot thank you enough for your help in picking out her name! We went back and forth up until the end but we love her name. My dad is so honored that she is named after him. And as a bonus I found out my grandmother’s sister was named Alice and my maternal grandfather had the middle name of Ray too.
Thank you again,
Stephanie
