Hi there Swistle!

I’m a huge fan of your blog and I find myself in a situation where your help and guidance would be amazing!

I’m due with my second child in May 2016, very early on to have a name issue but I’ll explain. My first child is Isabella Pamela, our last name is Gaulton. To most of my family and myself her name is perfect. So when I announced I was pregnant again to them all the response I got from nearly everyone was “congrats! So happy for you! You’ll never find another name as perfect as ‘Isabella'”. Now nothing I see seems to measure up.

Pamela is a honor name in my family and similarly this child (gender will be a surprise) will have an honour middle name as well. It will be Arlene for a girl or Ryan for a boy.

My husband and I love ultra feminine names for girls and masculine names for boys, also our last name is slightly harsh sounding so flow is a concern of ours

Please help us come up with something. I feel panicked whenever I think of picking a name because we want this baby to have a name that is as beloved as our daughter’s is.

Thank you for your time!

Therese

One reason the name Isabella may seem incomparable is that it is now connected to your much-loved little girl. No other name will measure up, until it too is connected to a much-loved child. I suggest abandoning the quest to find a name you like as much as the name Isabella, and switching the focus to finding the name you love best of all the remaining, not-Isabella names.

If possible (and I know it may not be possible), see if you can disregard the concept of whether everyone else will think the name is as good as Isabella’s. It is odd that so many people responded as they did to the news of your pregnancy. Either your circle is unusually interested in baby names (and has an unhelpful way of expressing it), or it is possible that stress is making it feel as the percentage was larger than it was.

In any event, people generally care less about other people’s children’s names than they may seem to. If, for example, the worst happens and you choose a name that others feel really isn’t as good as the name Isabella, no one will lose sleep over it. Even I (and I think it is clear I care quite a bit about baby names, and do think they’re important) don’t DEEP-DOWN care what other people name their children. I have a brief reaction to the name, appreciative or not, and then I don’t give it much thought after that. Maybe a wince from time to time at a particularly disliked one, or a fresh surge of appreciation for a particularly liked one, but not much more than that. And it sounds as if your circle is already prepared to be disappointed in the name, which could take off some of the pressure.

The way you spelled the word “honour” makes me wonder if you are in the United States or not. In the U.S., the name Isabella has been in the Top 10 for baby girls for more than a decade now, and was the #1 most popular name for girls in 2009 and 2010. If you live in an area where the name is much less common, this advice will be useless; but what I’d suggest is looking for similarly popular names. The upside of a popular name is that it is POPULAR: many people love it. If your primary concern is finding another name that many people will love, then the popular names are the way to go. For a U.S. baby, I’d be suggesting names such as:

Amelia
Arianna
Madeleine
Olivia
Sophia
Victoria

I’d consider the name Olivia nearly perfect: similarly popular, same number of syllables, very feminine. Olivia Gaulton; Olivia Arlene Gaulton; Isabella and Olivia.

Less common but still in the style I’d suggest:

Adelaide
Anastasia
Annalise
Aubrianna
Carolina
Clarissa
Emmeline
Evelina
Francesca
Genevieve
Josephine
Julianna
Lilianna
Natalia
Sabrina

I skipped many -ella names (including Elianna, which I’m still wavering on), because of not wanting to duplicate the ending of Isabella, and this made me feel even more inclined toward names ending with -anna: it’s similarly feminine, but different enough for a sister name. I was uncertain about Lilianna: too many shared sounds, or not? I’m not sure. It passed my “Would I raise my eyebrows if I heard of siblings with these names?” test (“No”), so I kept it in. Maybe I should have kept Elianna, too, I don’t know.

With the middle initial A and the surname initial G, I’d keep alert to initials that may spell things. For example, if you’re not open to a different middle name, I’d say Victoria and Francesca are right out. I would also avoid GAG, HAG, NAG, RAG, and SAG. I feel less strongly about BAG, JAG, LAG, MAG, TAG, and WAG, but would still want to consider the issue before settling on a final choice.

I don’t feel as if I have enough information about your boy-name style to make a good list. If you like masculine, popular names, I might suggest names such as Jacob and William. If you like longer names for boys as well as for girls, I might suggest Benjamin, Jonathan, Alexander. If you like gentleman names, I might suggest Everett and Theodore and Oliver.

Name update:

Good Morning!

I wrote you asking for help with naming a sibling for my daughter Isabella Pamela. You gave me so many wonderful suggestions, as did the lovely commenters of your blog. My husband and I decided to name a girl Olivia Arlene…then we had a beautiful baby boy!

Anderson Ryan came into the world June 5th,2016 weighing in at 10lbs 13oz and just over 22 inches long.

Thank you so much for your help and I continue to read your blog- it’s bad for baby fever ☺️

Proud mommy,
Therese

Hi, Swistle.

I’m the second wife to a wonderful guy who brought two great kids, a boy and a girl, to our family. I’m due in May with our third child. Our family’s last name is P0ll@rd. Both children have four-letter first names, they are D@ne Ev@n and Nol@ Vie (pronounced “Vee”).

We would like to continue the four letter name pattern, if possible. We like names that are uncommon and interesting (subjective, I know). If this baby is a boy, we are currently loving Joss, a name we chose before we were even pregnant. We are satisfied and happy with that option for a boy. For reference, I also love Nash and and we both also like Jace, Jude and Zaid.

Girls’ names are harder because most of the names we tend to love are not four letters long. Names we both like but I wouldn’t say we love are Dare (I wouldn’t use it as a first name; it’s probably too much), Esme and Vada. I also like Zara, Ever and Beau.

The middle name of either a boy or girl will be an honor name from my family. We have the following names to choose from: George, James, Cindy, Lou and Lucine. I’m 100% okay using Lou, George and James in the middle name spot for either a boy or a girl. I’m also okay with playing around with those names (turning George into Georgia, for example), as long as there is a clear tie to the honor name.

We would really appreciate you and your readers’ help in coming up with more girls names to choose from. As you can probably see, we are happy to go outside of traditional names to find the right one. I really think this baby is a girl (like, really, REALLY think she’s a girl), and it’s driving me crazy not to even have one name we feel like is a real contender.

Thank you all so much for your help!

P.S. I promise you a baby name update with a photo. I’m a photographer, so I’ll make it a really good picture!

My inclination is to suggest ditching the four-letter idea. It’s ruling out such an enormous number of names.

On the other hand, I see the appeal. Well. My first suggestion, then, is to make a list of all the names you love, without regard to number of letters. Then, use that list to help you brainstorm four-letter options.

For example, let’s say you told me your list of non-four-letter names included Rosemary. We could use those sounds and letters to find suggestions such as Rose, Rosa, Mary or Mari or Mara, maybe Rory or Ruby or Zara or Zora. But I might also see it as a plant name and suggest Fern or Iris, or it might make me think of old-fashioned names and I’d suggest Opal or June or Lois or Avis.

Another option is to link this name with the other names in a different way. For example, if the baby is a girl, perhaps she could share an initial with her sister. Perhaps your family’s themes could be “four-letter boy names, and girl names starting with N.”

If you can’t find any four-letter names you like, maybe it would work to have a longer name with a four-letter nickname.

At some point in this process (around the point where you start to feel panicky or despairing, or when you’re down to the final few weeks), even though I see the appeal of finding a name with four letters, I would suggest you consider if the cost is worth it. For example, if you would LOVE to name a daughter Marigold, and that name would make you feel happy in every way, is it worth giving up that name to meet the preference for a number of letters? The way I’m phrasing that question may imply that I think the answer should be “No,” but I am intending it to be neutral: IS it worth it to you? If so, then I think you will be happy paying that fee: you will put the names you prefer on the counter, and use them to pay for a four-letter name you like less but find satisfying for its number of letters. (People choosing honor names over names of their own style make a similar purchase.) If not, asking the question may make it clear to you that the cost is too high.

Or it might be that the only four-letter names you like are ones that don’t meet your preference for an unusual/interesting name. Again, it’s a question of value: is that worth it to you, to give up that preference in order to find a name with four letters?

There is also the question of future children. After just two children, there isn’t yet a pattern to break: the matching number of letters can be considered a coincidence. After a third child, there’s a clearer pattern, and I’d be exponentially more reluctant to break it.

All right, now the fun part: finding some four-letter names to think about!

Anya
Aria
Ayla
Bryn
Cora
Faye
Fern
Grey
Ione
Isla
June
Kaye
Kaya
Kyla
Lane
Lark
Lois
Luca
Luna
Mila
Mina
Remi
Rory
Ruby
Ruth
Thea
Zora

Name update!

Hi Swistle! It’s almost 2am and I’m awake in my hospital bed with our brand new baby. I wanted to get you a name update ASAP!

Not long after I wrote, we found out that our new baby would definitively be a boy! We welcomed our sweet son, Joss Wilder George P0ll@rd yesterday.

Joss was a name we chose for a boy before we were ever pregnant. We loved that Joss seemed like it could be the name of any number of very different, but all very interesting, type of people. Wilder was a name I found while pregnant that caught my interest. Plus, this little boy was a furious ball of activity in utero 24-7, so it seemed very fitting and a fun detail to share with him later about his earliest personality trait. George honors my grandfather, one of the greatest men I’ve known.

We love his name so much! Thank you to your readers for all of their wonderful ideas and feedback! I loved reading through all of the suggestions and comments. You’re all extremely generous with your ideas and support. xo

Hi Swistle,

We are expecting our third daughter in December. Our last name is Loop. It creates some challenges in choosing a first name. We want to stick with something more traditional and familiar since our last name is so unique. We don’t want anything that adds to the quirkiness of our last name.

Our girls names are Emma Rielle and Audrey Corinne. We love the idea of finding another two syllable first name.

We think we have settled on Brigitte for a middle name. It’s French (my family background) like our daughters middle names and has a double consonant as well.

We’d also love to find a name that begins with a vowel like the other girls but want the baby to have her own unique initial. I love Isla but it sounds too strange with our last name….Isla Loop. We don’t like the plant reference of Ivy or the rigidity of Ingrid or Irene. We can’t seem to find anything that begins with an O or U that we like.

Other names we have considered that don’t start with a vowel are Norah, Hannah and Charlotte. We’ve even considered one syllable names such as Kate, Claire and Beth. Isabella is also beautiful but we dislike the nick names Bella and Izzy.

None of them seem like her name and I’m beginning to worry we won’t have one when she arrives.

We’d love to hear your name suggestions!

Melanie Loop

If you and I were sitting in my office in a skyscraper downtown, and the handsome secretary had just brought us coffee and cookies (I’m imagining a Pepperidge Farm assortment), and now we were getting down to business, the first thing I would try to do is find out which preferences are truly important to you, and which we could consider ditching.

Right now your naming search looks to me like a math equation that can’t be solved: “We’d love a vowel name, but we don’t want another A or E, and we don’t like / can’t use any of the I, O, or U names.” This is exactly the point at which I’d be inclined to give up the quest for a vowel name, particularly because you’d prefer traditional and familiar names, so it’s not likely you’re going to want to toy with Iolanthe and Orinthia. And then there’s the surname issue, AND the preference for two syllables, AND a preference for a double-consonant middle name. I would ply you with another Milano and suggest we start over.

You may already know that I am a big fan of sibling-name coordination. In fact, my first two children have names that are so well-coordinated, on so many levels (syllables, styles of firsts, styles of middles, number of letters, equivalent honor names—everything) that it made it very difficult to choose names for the next babies. I am very glad at this point that we did manage to break away from the patterns. At this point, no one is saying, “Wait…but the first two names both have characteristics X, Y, and Z; why don’t the other names match?”

All of this means that I am both 100% on your side (for example, thinking “Ooo, AND it has the double-consonants!”) and ALSO fully ready to talk you down if necessary (my first two are in high school now, and it doesn’t matter to me anymore how many syllables their names have).

I think there are two different paths I might suggest from here. One is to take away ALL the preferences, and start virtually from scratch. Pretend it doesn’t matter what letter the name starts with, or how many syllables it has. See what that kind of freedom feels like, and what kind of list the two of you come up with when you’re not putting the candidates through a series of filters.

The second possible path is to rank the preferences rather than ditching them, with the understanding that not all of them can be used. For example, which preference is more important to each of you: a vowel name, or a unique initial? Which is more important: number of syllables, or a unique initial? And so on. Which preferences would you be willing to give up, in exchange for fulfilling another preference? It would be interesting to see if your answers are the same on this, or different.

For example, you might decide that using another vowel name was more important than having unique initials. Unique initials was another of my own preferences when I was naming babies, and it hasn’t been something that I’ve enjoyed as much/often as anticipated. It IS fun getting them initial Christmas ornaments, I’ll say that. But for everything else I was imagining (mostly labeling issues), it wouldn’t be much harder to write ER, AC, and EB.

I suggest ignoring the middle name until the first name has been chosen.

If I were just looking at the names Emma and Audrey Loop, and I were trying to think of a sister name for them, I might suggest:

Abigail
Catherine
Eleanor
Elizabeth
Eloise
Evelyn
Iris
Jocelyn
Julia
Madeline
Katherine
Molly
Natalie
Sabrina
Sarah
Sophie

I also would have included Charlotte and Isabel, but those are already on your list. I think Nora/Norah is another good option.

My favorite option is Iris. It satisfies a LOT of preferences. Iris Loop; Emma, Audrey, and Iris.

Name update!

Thank you to all of you for your comments and suggestions, they really helped us on our journey to finding the right name.

From the moment we met our new little girl, we knew what her name was going to be…our little math naming problem had been solved!

A vowel name with a unique initial was ultimately the most important factor for us. But, our two syllable predicament seemed to solve itself! Our first two daughters look completely different from one another; so we were surprised when our third daughter was a beautiful blend of the two of them. Since Emma and Audrey both have two syllable names, it seems perfect to us that our new baby girl has a four syllable one…..2+2=4!

Plus, we love that her name has 6 letters like Audrey’s and ends with an ‘a’ like Emma’s. Similarities to both her sisters!

Olivia Brigitte Loop was born on December 20th, 2015 and took our breaths away with 8 lbs 13 ounces of love and dreams.

Sincerely,
Melanie Loop