Hi Swistle!

I’ve been reading your blog for a long time as we’ve named our three daughters, and I’m finally writing in as we struggle with baby #4 due in February!

My husband and I have no problem agreeing on girls names. We both love unique, old-fashioned but recognizable names. Meaning also plays a significant role.

Our three girls are: Ser@fina Audrey, Be@trice Lucy and Ingr!d M@gnolia Jane. Our last name sounds like Handlin. If this little one is a girl, her name will most likely be Eliza or Marigold.

For all three kids, we’ve had an impossibly difficult time coming up with boy name options and have never settled on any “finalists”. Our biggest issue is that our all-time favorite boy name, the one we both love and would choose in a heartbeat, is Harvey. I feel like we’ve gone through every boy name in the book, and we just don’t love any compared to Harvey.

The biggest hesitation is that I’m not sure how I feel about alliterative names and would love your feedback. A part of me doesn’t mind them, but I feel that there is some unspoken rule that if one does choose an alliterative name, it should at least have a different number of syllables and a different “beginning sound”. Harvey obviously doesn’t comply with these rules with the two-syllable repeat and beginning with an Ha-.

What do you think? The few people we have run it across have told me it sounds like a DC comic book character. I’m not sure whether this is good or bad? Part of me thinks a boy may like that type of association, but what about as he grows up?

Are there unspoken rules to alliterative naming? Is Harvey Handlin too cutesy/comical, or is it usable?

Other names we like but don’t love are:

Theodore
Wilfred
Sebastian
Wesley

Help! Thank you!!!

Use Harvey. Use Harvey. USE HARVEY.

Okay, I will try not to put on too much pressure. It is YOUR decision. What’s important is what YOU like, not what I like. But here are my reasons:

1. I love the name Harvey. …I mean, YOU love the name Harvey. You both love it. It is your all-time favorite. You don’t love any name as much as you love the name Harvey.

2. There are no rules about alliteration; there are only preferences. Some people like it, and some people don’t. It is the same with syllables: some people prefer them to match, and some people prefer them not to. I have occasionally heard “rules” such as that first and last names have to have different numbers of syllables, or even that all three names must have different numbers, but I am going to take a strong stand and say that that is silly. Yes. I said it. SILLY. I think that’s a matter of someone having a strong preference and going around stating it as a fact, and other people hearing those preferences-stated-as-facts and getting nervous.

We have a perfect example of someone using a very similar alliteration/syllable pattern: the actor Harry Hamlin. I skimmed a short list of celebrities to find a few more: Amy Adams (though the two A’s are pronounced differently), Farrah Fawcett, Janet Jackson, Kelly Clarkson, Lindsay Lohan, Ryan Reynolds. Some people even go further: Joseph (Joe) Jonas, for example, where the entire first syllable repeats. Or Vince Vaughn, whose parents mixed up the syllables when they named him Vincent, but he deliberately uses a 1-1 syllable name—another situation people frequently cite as something they think they have to avoid.

My own opinion is that it has to be taken on a name-by-name basis, but that in many cases the effect is pleasing and memorable. Another person might have the opposite feeling and wish to avoid it—but you’d be likely to look at THEIR choices and think, “Oh dear, no.”

Harvey Handlin doesn’t sound cutesy OR comical to me. I’m surprised that not just one but several people have independently associated it with comic book characters–and not just comic book characters in general, but specifically DC comic book characters. I wondered if this meant there was a specific character I wasn’t familiar with that they were all thinking of; I looked through a list and didn’t see an unusual number of alliterative names. Or I think it is possible that in your distress, it FEELS as if it’s several when it is not as many as that, or that you’ve asked them about that issue specifically and they’ve agreed, or that it’s several among many rather than all of the several you’ve asked. Peter Parker is, after all, Marvel Comics.

Name update!

Well, after all the hubbub over our boys name, we ended up with a fourth precious daughter :)
Matilda Esther was born on Monday 2/22.

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my email!

Hi Swistle!

We are expecting our fourth child, a boy, the first week in October. We currently have two girls (Teresa Brigid and Nora Merian) and one boy (Finn Ricker). My name is Tara and my husband is Marcus, goes by Marc. Our last name is Mulligan but with an i instead of a u. This is most likely our last child.

We are having the hardest time naming this baby! I’ve never made it this far in a pregnancy without a clear finalist before. I have many boy names that I love but each of them has some issue holding me back from using them.

I’m hoping you can either help me realize some of my hang ups are not a big deal or help us brainstorm some great names that we might not have thought of yet.

Middle name will be an honor name, preferably Paul, Marcus or David.

Here are our favorites:

Cormac – I love this name but worry that he will spend his life with people hearing his name as Cor MacMulligan. My husband doesn’t think this is a big deal. Am I over thinking this one? Is this an issue that will bug him his whole life or just be a minor inconvenience? Possibly I can get over this issue but would like some outside opinions on it.

Eamon – We both like this one but my husband is a bit worried that it will be difficult for people to pronounce. It feels easily pronounceable to me, but that might just be because I grew up knowing how to say it.

Cashel – We both like this one, but I don’t love the nickname Cash.

Nolan – Is this too similar to Nora?

Clive – This is a recent addition to the list. I like that it is one syllable like Finn.

Hugh – Does this one “fit” with the names of our other children?

Can you help us out? Any other suggestions that might be “the one”?

Thank you so much!

I will give my opinions on the various issues, and then the commenters can do the same. (Commenters: feel free to comment on just one or some of the issues, if you prefer.)

1. Cormac Mulligan / Cor MacMulligan. I think this one is fine. “Cor” isn’t a familiar name on its own; I think you’ll easily adjust to putting a tiny pause between the two names; and there are no upsetting or distressing results if the names DO blend.

I notice that Cormac shares a major sound with Nora. I think this would be all right (this is the sort of thing that I think matters less as the sibling group gets larger), but it’s the sort of thing I like to think about ahead of time.

2. Difficulty of pronouncing Eamon. I know how to say it, but I had to learn it. I remember practicing it, I think while reading a Maeve Binchy novel. I think that this is a good era to be born with a potentially-difficult-to-pronounce name: people are more accustomed to needing to do so.

One slight concern is that both Finn and Eamon are a little rhymey with your surname. My thought process went like this: “Eamon is a little rhymey with the surname. Oh, but Finn is too, so they’re okay with that. But TWO names that are a little rhymey may draw more attention to it.”

3. Cashel / Cash. This is also a good era to have a name you don’t want nicknamed. However, that involves the cooperation of the child himself. So here is where I draw my own line, with nicknames: Do I actively dislike the nickname, so that I wince at the thought of the child growing up and deciding to use it? Then the name is probably not a good fit. Do I instead just prefer the nickname not be used, but I feel que sera sera at the thought of it ending up being what my child is called? Then it may be well worth the risk.

I also take into account the likelihood of the particular nickname being used. That is, if the name is Isabella, I think Izzy and Bella are more likely than if the parent is concerned about Zabby or Ella. With Cashel/Cash, the nickname Cash feels instinctive and almost irresistibly cool, like Dash for Dashiell; I immediately picture all his high school friends calling him that.

And finally, I take into account (as far as it is possible to do so) the idea that my own feelings may change. We’ve had just enough parents here saying things such as “I NEVER wanted her called Izzy, but she is TOTALLY an Izzy!” that it has drawn my attention to this interesting phenomenon.

4. Nolan / Nora. Visually, the two names seem quite similar to me. When I say them aloud, they don’t seem too similar at all: the only similarity is that they begin with the same letter and have two syllables. I think this is a small issue, definitely worth dismissing if you are able to do so and if the name Nolan is the right one.

Nolan, like Eamon and Finn, is a little rhymey with the surname.

6. Hugh. I don’t see any reason it doesn’t fit with the others. I also like Hugo.

5. Clive. I deliberately switched #5 and #6, because Clive is the name that would make me wonder if it were a good fit with the others. Teresa, Nora, and Finn are all familiar names; Clive is much less familiar to me.

The name Theresa/Teresa is not currently common (both spellings appear to be on the verge of leaving the Social Security Administration’s Top 1000). But because it was so widely used in recent years (Theresa was Top 100 from 1941 until 1977; Teresa was Top 100 from 1948 until 1981), it’s a name most people are familiar with. Nora is currently popular, at #49 in 2014 (and that doesn’t take into account the Eleanors going by Nora). Finn is currently rising in popularity, moving from #835 in 2000 to #234 in 2015 (again, this doesn’t take into account the boys using it as a nickname for Finnegan, Finley, Phineas, Griffin, etc.).

But the name Clive hasn’t been in the Top 1000 at all, not since 1900 when the online Social Security records begin. It was given to only 77 new baby boys in 2014. For comparison, 1,567 new baby boys were named Finn that same year, and 4,708 new baby girls were named Nora.

To be fair, the name Hugh is also uncommon. But 251 new baby boys were given the name in 2014, and it’s been in the Top 1000 continuously since the Social Security records start in 1900. Its highest popularity in the data base was in 1900, when it was at #88, which makes me think it’s ready for a comeback soon. And it helps that I happen to know a child named Hugh; I admit that before meeting him, I would have thought of it as a more surprising choice.

And Clive, though not currently very common, is RISING in usage; here are the number of baby boys given the name, looking at every 5 years starting in 1964:

1964: 17
1969: 7
1974: 10
1979: 13
1984: 18
1989: 11
1994: 16
1999: 17
2004: 20
2009: 56
2014: 77

I think you have a lot of good candidates to choose from, so I’m reluctant to add to the list. But here are the names I thought of while writing the post:

Casey
Corbin (a little rhymey with the surname and with Finn)
Declan (a little rhymey with surname)
Emmett
Hugo
Ian (a little rhymey with surname)
Lyle
Niall
Reid
Wesley

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

Thank you so much for your response and all the reader responses, they were so helpful! At the last minute my husband changed his mind about the name Conor, which I’ve loved since I was young and still wanted to use despite the popularity it has seen. I thought he had totally vetoed it, so didn’t include it in my list of names when I emailed you. Conor Davin was born October 3, 2015. A few days later we found out he had a Congenital Heart Defect and he had heart surgery at 5 days old, but is doing so awesome now. Life has finally calmed down enough for me to remember to send a naming update!

Dear Swistle,

We are currently expecting our fourth child. We have two girls and a boy, Kamryn Alexis, Logan Michael and Kensington Bree. This fourth baby is coming as a huge surprise but after the initial shock it is definitely a welcomed surprise. I have a bit of an odd name question and was told it might be a good idea to come here because you have dealt with all kinds of questions. So here we go…..

My naming journey for this baby starts with Kensington (Kensie). When I was pregnant with her, just a year ago, (her and the baby will only be about 16 months apart) I had a really hard time naming her. As most pregnant woman, my hormones had me all kinds of crazy. Since after Kamryn was born we had said if we had another girl we would name her Eliot. It has always been a favorite girl name of ours. Then we had Logan and 2 years after he was born we found out we were expecting a girl. As you could expect we immediately decided she would be Eliot. Finally!! Our Eliot! But then I started to get second thoughts. One day she would be Eliot and the next Kensington and a week later I said we’d call her Finley. It went on and on right up until the day she was born. While I was in labor we just kind of said “Let’s call her Eliot!” So we did. The whole time I was in the hospital with her I just kept looking at her and thinking…this isn’t right. But again, my hormones were all over the place so I just chalked it up to that. We brought her home as Eliot and just 2 days later called my mom crying. I just KNEW we had given her the “wrong name”. Yeah, looking back now I realize how out of my mind I was. But everyone around me, my husband, our parents, our siblings and our friends were incredibly supportive. We almost immediately started calling her Kensington and the name just became her. Our other kids were never confused by it, it just felt right. Then when Eliot was just 2 weeks old we legally changed her name to Kensington. They say hindsight is 20/20 but looking back now I really truly wish we had never changed her name. It sits with me as if we had our chance to use a name we love and we blew it. I blew it. I let my emotions get the best of me and we did the unthinkable….we changed our baby’s name.

Now we are expecting another baby and as we talk names I can’t help but want to use Eliot. I just don’t know if that is allowed. This really is uncharted territory. People don’t usually change their baby’s name so I don’t know what the rule is. I do know I would never EVER change this baby’s name. It was a long process and living with the regret I have today shows me I could never do it again. We really like Eliot Mackenna a lot and love how it sounds with our other kids names. We’ve also thought about using the spelling “Elliette” as well. But again, is that okay to use? Will people think it’s not right or just straight up weird that we used it (again)? Or does this mean we get another chance to use the name we love and didn’t end up using before?

We would love to hear some insight on this. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. We so greatly appreciate it!

Here’s what I think. If you use the name Eliot for this baby, I think some people are going to have a flicker of reaction to that. Some will think it’s weird, some will think it’s amusing, some will think it’s interesting/thought-provoking. But I don’t think anyone will deep-down care very much, so you should certainly go with what you most want to do. As you say, this is not familiar territory for most people; this means most people won’t have any particular opinions about how it “should” be done. My own reaction falls into the camp of finding it interesting and thought-provoking, and to me it seems like getting another chance to use the name you love and didn’t end up using before.

In fact, I think using Eliot for this baby strengthens your decision to change Kensington’s name. It reinforces the idea that there was nothing wrong with the NAME Eliot, except that it didn’t fit THAT baby. That is, THAT baby WASN’T Eliot; THIS baby is Eliot. It makes for a good naming story: We accidentally used your name too early! We thought Kensington was you! But she wasn’t! We realized it right away, and fixed it—whew!

When discussing it with others, that’s the spin I suggest using. I wouldn’t make it into a story about how much you regretted changing Kensington’s name; instead, I’d emphasize the idea that THAT baby wasn’t an Eliot, she was a KENSINGTON, and THIS baby turned out to be Eliot. As much as possible, I’d suggest you laugh it off as something charming rather than something emotionally unstable: Names are HARD for us, ha ha! But it makes a great story, doesn’t it, ha ha! And NOW we have our Eliot, hooray!

I also feel the impulse to reassure you about that earlier decision. The way you describe it, it doesn’t sound at all crazy to me: you weren’t certain about the name before the baby was born, and then you felt the chosen name was the wrong one, so you changed it, and the new name immediately felt right. The part that confuses me is that even though it sounds like it was the right decision, you’re describing it afterward as an unthinkable, crazy, and much-regretted decision. Changing a baby’s name doesn’t seem unthinkable to me at all; it’s unusual, yes, but not awful or shocking. I would go so far as to say that if you decide on Eliot for this baby, and in the hospital it doesn’t seem right, you should allow yourself the option to change your mind again. Or, perhaps the experience with Kensington’s name will help you feel more certain of your choice this time.

Name update!

Hi Swistle,

I wanted to update you on our baby girls name. She’s been here for 3 weeks now. We decided to take majority of your readers advice and spend a good 24 hours with her before deciding on her name. As much as we absolutely loved the name Eliot it turned out that Eliot just was not her name. Yes, a bummer but I am happy we didn’t use it just because of our attachment to the name. So, after much back and forth we decided to name her Tenley James and we couldn’t possibly love her name more. It suits her perfectly!

Thank you Swistle and readers for your help! You were all awesome!

Here is a picture of Tenley:

xoxo, Kristen