Hi Swistle,

Help! Our baby is due four weeks from today and we are wavering on the name that we originally loved.

Our last name is Wood, which knocked out quite a few names that I had liked before meeting my husband (like Forrest, Harrison, and Willow). We found out very early from a genetic test that we are having a boy – and it’s been hard for us to agree on a name since! My husband came up with the name Spero (pronounced like Sparrow), middle name Benjamin. He has always loved this Latin word, which means “to hope”. He suggested it early on, and I didn’t like it… But it grew on me quickly! And now I love it.

Along with the sound of the actual full name, the meaning of Spero is special to us; we have been through quite a few stressful circumstances just prior to and during my pregnancy, and have continually reminded ourselves that our hope is in God, above all other worries and anxieties we may encounter.

My husband just recently began to worry this name is too “out there” – his name is traditionally now used for girls, and was made fun of as a child for it. He goes between saying his name made him who he is (he now isn’t insecure like he was when he was young) and then saying he wouldn’t want our son to experience anything negative based on his name. He recently said he likes the name Theodore, nickname Theo, which originally he said “no way!” to. Overall, I think he’s hesitant to name a baby before its born, period!

We ruled out the following boys’ names, mostly due to being too popular or just not agreeing between the two of us: Cooper, Levi, Hunter, Beckham.

We hope to have 2-3 more children, picking from the following names…

Girls: Rooney, Phoebe, Ivy, Maisey
Boys: Rex, Theodore (Theo), Emmett, Sawyer

Please help.. We are running out of time! :)

I have mixed feelings. On one hand, Spero is currently completely unused as a given name in the United States, and I think spelling and pronunciation issues would be much more significant than average. My first guess at pronunciation (despite three years of Latin classes) would have been SPEER-o, similar to the name Spiro. If I heard the name instead of seeing it, my first guess at spelling would be Sparrow.

It sounds as if your husband is having “boy named Sue” feelings: on one hand he appreciates the positive results of the negative experiences he had with his name, and on the other hand he doesn’t want his children to have to go through the same experience to get those results. I might suggest looking for other possible ways to achieve those results. I will feel embarrassed if no one else thought of it, but I’m afraid from the similarity in spelling I was immediately reminded of, er…sperm. With your surname particularly, that feels risky to me.

On the other hand, this is such a great time for pulling off an unusual name. And the meaning is special to you. And I loved Latin. And you’re having a lot of trouble finding a name. And he could go by Benjamin/Ben if he wanted to. And maybe no one else did/will think of sperm; it’s only the spelling that makes me think of it, and the two words aren’t pronounced remotely the same. (I do have kids in the Learning the Facts of Life stage, so the vocabulary is near the front of my mind in a way it might not be for others.)

Still, my advice is that Spero would make a better middle name than first name, especially with the other names on your lists.

Theodore feels to me as if it better fits your first-name preferences. It’s fairly unusual (#170 in 2013) but familiar, it goes well with Wood, and it means God’s gift. Theodore Spero Wood.

I’d also suggest Jasper, the ending of which may remind you of Spero.

Hi Swistle,

My husband and I are expecting our third and final baby, a boy, at the end of May. We have two daughters, Sasha and Rose, and our last name is a three syllable Russian name that starts with T and ends with -sky and rhymes with absolutely nothing.

We have a horrible time agreeing on names; in fact, the only reason we found out the gender of this baby was to eliminate the potential pool of names by 50%. I prefer names that are familiar enough that most people can spell them correctly, but are not so popular that there will be several of them in my child’s kindergarten class. I also prefer names that cross racial/cultural/international boundaries. While we didn’t quite accomplish this with Rose (and her naming story is better left for a different time as her original name involved a lot of regret, tears, and several hundred dollars worth of attorney’s fees for a legal name change), we absolutely love her name and it suits her perfectly.

My husband’s taste is all over the place, so at this point, we have only one name that we both agree on and love….Evander. We even both agree on James for a middle name as Evander James just “sounds good” together. I love the meaning of the name, and I love that there are endless nickname possibilities, from Van to EJ to the more traditional Evan or Andy (if he prefers). So while we both love this name, I do want to take into consideration the response that my son will receive, and as such there are a few things making me second guess this choice:

1. Why isn’t this name used more often? It seems like the perfect combination of the very popular Evan and Alexander, and it is derived from the Greek name Evandros meaning “good man” or “strong man.”

2. Will everyone immediately think of Evander Holyfield? We are a family of pale redheads, so I worry that people will hear his name, think of Evander Holyfield, and then look back to my son and think, “huh?” My husband argues that the younger generations will not be as familiar with the boxer and therefore will not immediately associate the name with him. We don’t think that it’s a bad association, and as I mentioned above, I like names that cross cultural boundaries, but I just wonder if Evander is TOO much of a namesake, like Oprah or Madonna?

Thank you in advance for your help! Unfortunately this name is so uncommon (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing) that I haven’t had much luck uncovering the reasons why parents shy away from this name.

Fondly,

Lindsay

It’s mysterious, isn’t it? I’m not sure why, either.

I wonder if part of it is pronunciation. When I see Evan-, I want to start with EV-an, but then I catch myself: no, wait, it’s e-VAN in this case. That hesitation is so small, and yet I think that’s the sort of thing that can make a parent decide not to add a name to a list.

Part of it is going to be that most people have only one association with the name. I think if there were even just one more celebrity named Evander, the association would be diluted enough that parents wouldn’t feel so much as if they were naming the child “after” Evander Holyfield. Time helps to dilute the association as well: I immediately came up with Evander Holyfield, and I knew he was an athlete, but I didn’t remember “boxer” and I didn’t have a face to go with the name.

I’m curious to see how the popularity of the name has changed over time:

1963: –
1968: –
1973: –
1978: –
1983: –
1988: 16
1993: 40
1998: 37
2003: 32
2008: 40
2013: 75

I looked up Evander Holyfield on Wikipedia, and it looks as if he was pretty famous by 1984. Comparing that to the appearance of Evander in the Social Security data, I see why it feels like a namesake name. In 1983, the name is not even in the data base; in 1984, there are 9 new baby boys named Evander.

I have almost completely neutral feelings about the association. If I met a little boy named Evander, I might wonder if his parents chose it because of the boxer, but I wouldn’t assume it, and I wouldn’t think either more or less of them whichever way it turned out to be. My feelings on it don’t change depending on the child’s skin color: I continue to feel neutral. But this is clearly only one data point: I didn’t even remember he was a boxer, so that shows you my level of familiarity; someone who was more knowledgeable might have a stronger association and it might be more specifically positive or negative.

To add another data point, my feeling is that the name is fully useable. I think it’s one of those names that just needs a little BOOST: if we could just get a few more parents to use it, all the OTHER parents would start to think of it is a less-risky candidate. I think if the two of you love it and agree on it, you should go for it.

Now what we need is a whole bunch more data points. These are the questions, I think:

1. Why do you think the name isn’t being used more?
2. Is your association with Evander Holyfield positive, negative, neutral, or non-existent?
3. Do you feel the name is useable?

Wednesday’s post set off a bit of a flurry of comments section about the possible political nature of the name Reagan, and whether that association was positive or negative. Many of us are interested to know if the associations (the political ones and also the positive/negative ones) are tied to age, political affiliation, and location.

I thought about making a poll that would take all that into account, but just imagine the size of it: even if we limited it to age and location, age x location is a lot of poll options. Polls work best if they ask one basic question: as soon as we try to make them answer two or more questions (especially if either/both of those questions have many possible answers), we run into trouble.

Besides, although it would be interesting to know how a person’s age or politics or home state affected their feelings about a name, that isn’t really what we want to know on a baby name blog: what we want to know is how the name will be perceived by the population at large. We don’t necessarily care what issues are behind the reasons individual strangers feel the way they do: what we want to know is whether that feeling is likely to be held by a large majority, a slim majority, a minority, a very small minority, etc., and how it might affect a person with that name. ANY name will have a bad association for at least a very small minority of people (“Ug, that’s my ex’s name,” “I had a bad co-worker/teacher/classmate with that name,” “That was the name of our town’s petty criminal”), so what we want to know is if the level of bad association has reached the point where we no longer feel we want our child to have to deal with that association.

Another question to ask is whether the general public would transfer that negative association to the person with the name. If a child is given the name of my terrible ex-boyfriend or a city/actor/celebrity/politician I hate, it might give me a little flinch—but do I have a long-term negative impression of the CHILD and his FAMILY, or not? This will vary all the way from “Absolutely” to “Absolutely not,” and it deals with the future predicted feelings of strangers so it’s not a question with an actual answer. The purpose of the exercise is to get a feeling for how serious we think the particular issue might be: to get an idea of the extremes, first try asking it of yourself with the name John (or any very common name), and then with the name Adolf. Try it with the name of a politician you admire, and with the name of a politician you can’t stand. Try it with the name of an author/actor you admire, and then with the name of one you can’t stand. My guess is that you will come away from this exercise with two feelings: (1) “Boy, there is just NO WAY to know whether it will affect the child: people feel so differently about different names/associations!” and (2) “But I feel more certain about some names than about others.”

So here is what we will do. We will have a poll that asks only one question: whether the specific association of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan affects the poll-voter’s feelings about the name Reagan positively, negatively, or neutrally. If people would like to leave further information in the comments about how they believe their age, politics, interests, or location affected their vote, they may.

I don’t think it would be productive or useful, however, to turn this into a detailed discussion of Ronald Reagan’s presidency or personality. This is a baby name blog, and what we are interested in here is not his presidency or personality per se, but only how it affects the current usage of a name that was his famous surname. I suggest that mentions of Ronald-Reagan-related like/dislike or agreement/disagreement be limited to the existence and strength of those feelings, without the details of precisely which policies or actions or traits contributed to those feelings. I also suggest that as much as possible we speak only for ourselves, rather than for others in our area, age range, social circle, or political group.

Hi Swistle,

I have no baby to name at the moment but always have names and words on the brain. I’d love to know what you and your readers think of Winsome as a name for a girl. I’ve decided it is about my favorite word in the English language and have started to wonder if it could work as a name. I wondered if maybe the Puritans used it, with their penchant for out-there virtue names, but I can’t find any evidence to suggest so in my limited searching. It seems like nicknames like Winny or Wynn could make it more wearable, but is it maybe still a bit too much?

Thanks,
Jodi

My first association surprises me, because I’m familiar with the word winsome and I like it very much (a winsome smile, a winsome curl, a winsome glance)—and yet my first association when I said it aloud as a name was with wince and wincing. I wonder if it’s because I’m familiar with the word in books but I don’t use it in speaking? I continue to like the way it looks written down, but I liked it less when I said/heard it.

My second association, after I’d said it aloud a few more times, was “win some, lose some.”

My third association was with the name Winston, which is a name I like. But perhaps because it’s a name I’m familiar with, while Winsome is not familiar to me, my tongue tangled over it—as if the name were supposed to be Winston and I were saying it wrong.

The name is very uncommon (I looked in a sampling of Social Security data bases and didn’t find it in a single one, which means in the U.S. it was used 0-4 times in those years), but it HAS been used from time to time: I found references to Winsome Evans, Winsome McCaughey, Winsome Pinnick (Nameberry); and Winsome Sears (The Baby Name Wizard). I suspect that being familiar with one of those Winsomes would dramatically improve the name-like feel of the name.

“Win” is a moderately familiar name segment, though not currently in style: Winifred, Winnie, Winston, Winter, Winslow, Winona, Darwin, Edwin, Irwin. The “some” segment is less familiar for names in the U.S.: Summer and Blossom were the only two I could come up with—but Summer was more common in 2013 than all the Win-/-win names combined. Oh, wait, I forget about -wen/-wan: some of those might count as Win-/-win names, depending on local pronunciation: Owen, Rowen/Rowan, Ewan—even Wendy and Gwyneth and Gwendolyn might increase the name-like quality of the sound.

One thing that makes me nervous about many virtue names is that they seem to set such a clear expectation—and to make the wearer look a little foolish if that expectation isn’t met. A girl named Patience would have reason to assume that her parents expected her to exhibit that trait—and any time she ISN’T patient, she sets herself up for an easy joke. Winsome is less of an issue because the word is less familiar/used than a word like patience, but I still feel it could be a bit of a burden for a serious sort of girl. The definition isn’t particularly appealing to me if I imagine it applied to myself: “Charming in a childlike or naive way” (American Heritage Dictionary). Sweet on a small girl, but less so on an adult.

I feel quite differently about it as a middle name. It’s in the category of names I sometimes wish I’d used for my own kids’ middles: something adventurous and fun and interesting.

As a first name, I think I’d be more inclined to choose Winifred: you could use Winsome as a pet name without committing her to it.

Let’s see what everyone else thinks:

B. writes:

Almost 3 years ago we announced we were naming our baby boy Catcher and were immediately swamped with people telling us the name was a homophobic slur and that we absolutely could not name our baby Catcher. I was heartbroken to say the least and ended up changing the name. Some thing I’ve always regretted.

Now I’m pregnant again and I just met a baby named Catcher. My mouth dropped open when I heard it and now I find myself considering the name again. I love the name so much! I really want to use it but am really wavering back and forth as to what we should do.

I honestly had never heard the slur before. Do you think the name is unusable? Could we have a poll to see how many people had heard it used as a homophobic slur?

That’s interesting; I’d never heard that word used that way. I looked it up and did find that definition listed online. It seems to be more slang than slur: I didn’t find any mention of homophobic connotations. For comparison, I looked up a couple of terms I know to have issues, and they are listed as such: the word “fag,” for example, is listed with the notes “vulgar,” “offensive,” and “disparaging.” The word “dick” is listed with the notes “vulgar,” “slang, and “pejorative.” The word “catcher” (and the coordinated term “pitcher”) is listed only with “colloquial”: a casual term used in spoken language.

Because the baseball term is so familiar, and because I had to actively search for the other meaning, it seems like this would be a small issue. On the other hand, you have many people in your circle who are familiar with the term and feel it is an absolute deal-breaker. In that sort of situation, where the name had an intense meaning to my own friends and family, I think I would avoid the name even if it weren’t a problem in the culture at large. Do you like Fletcher or Thatcher or Hatcher?

But this still leaves us wondering how well-known this term is: Do adults know it? Do children know it? When people are discussing baseball games and the catcher and pitcher are referred to, is there snickering? I asked Paul if he knew the slang term catcher, and he didn’t. I was going to ask my two teenagers, but realized I didn’t want to have the resulting conversation right at that moment. So instead let’s have a poll:

M. writes:

Hello!

I just have to say that I LOVE reading your blog. I tend to have a very classic but not super common naming style, and I love reading the wide variety of options on your blog!

I am not currently pregnant (and no plans any time soon), but I have a HUGE name obsession. To the point where I routinely find a name I like and text it to all of my friends, thereafter googling and scanning for possible nicknames (to me, nicknames are HUGE).

I could write you a dozen different e-mails about so many names that I love and combinations I like…but I’m writing because I have one specific name in mind that I am obsessed with…but can find very little about online. Not to mention, I have a nickname in mind that I need a little clarity with.

Some back story: my boyfriend and I used to be in a long-distance relationship. It was generally a 7 road trip to visit each other a few times a month. One such route between our homes often took me past a sign for a town called Avoca.

Avoca is an Irish name, and a common one for “places.” Not to mention, I’ve seen Avoca cookbooks, Avoca blankets, and so forth. It is NOT as common for a little girl’s name. But I just love it. I am Irish, and seeing it in print reminds me of all of those trips my boyfriend and I made to see each other!

I think it is absolutely an adorable name for a little girl, and something that also solves a conundrum I’ve had for awhile: Namely, I have loved the name Ava since I was a little girl. But it is now SO popular, I would never consider that to be my (future, some day) child’s full name. Also, I am obsessed with nicknames and there is no strong contender from the name Ava (and yes, names without a decent nickname are a deal breaker for me).

However, Avoca…pronounced Ah-VOH-ka…could provide me with the missing link.

Now for question time:

a) is this unusual name “right” for a little girl? Does it sound too much like Avocado?
a1) Is it SO unusual that people would hate it (I don’t generally care about what other people think, but I myself hate when people get too “out there” with names: this is something your child must live with FOREVER! Not you: THEM!).

b) Does the fact that Avoca starts with an AH sound as opposed to Ava’s AY sound make the two NOT sync up enough for a nickname cross over?
b1) If so, what other nickname suggestions are there?
b2) Would pronouncing it Ay-VOH-ka help?

Thank you so much for your help!

I hadn’t immediately noticed the avocado connection. My first association was with vocations and Latin and church and Ave Maria: it looks to me like it could be the name of a song or blessing to begin the church service. But once you mentioned avocados, I’m afraid I kept seeing it.

Furthermore, when I first saw the name and was guessing at its pronunciation before getting to that part of the email, I pronounced it correctly—though I would have said it aloud with a question mark at the end, not certain I had it right. But as soon as I saw the avocado connection, it threw off my pronunciation and I had to stop and think each time to keep from saying it with the avocado emphasis.

As to whether it’s too unusual, it’s beyond the point where I would use the word “unusual”: it is in fact currently unused in the United States. But it has many name-like qualities: it begins with the currently stylish Av- sound (Ava, Avery), and it ends with an -a as many girl names do. In the middle is the long-O sound, which is also currently in style (Olivia, Sophia, Zoe, Chloe, Noah, Logan, Owen). Those three things combined make it seem unusual to me, but not TOO unusual—especially since you have a story for the origin of the name. Instead it sounds to me like a name from another language that I just haven’t heard before.

Ava does not seem like a natural nickname for it, however. The only sound in common is the V: AY-vuh and ah-VOH have nothing else in common, not even emphasis. I also think calling her Ava would throw off the pronunciation of the full name: if I knew the nickname was Ava, I’d think Avoca must be pronounced more like AY-vock-uh or ay-VOCK-uh.

But no, I wouldn’t change the pronunciation. It’s more confusing, and it seems odd to change the sentimental town name’s pronunciation, and it also feels like a reach: lots of people wish the name Ava weren’t so popular, but it just IS that popular, and forcing a connection to a less-popular name doesn’t make the name Ava any less common—it just makes it feel as if the parents thought it did.

The final blow is that Ava doesn’t seem like a nickname name; it seems like a stand-alone name. If I hear of a girl named Annie, or Evie, or Lucy, I might wonder if it could be a nickname; if I hear Anna, or Eva, or Luca, I first assume it’s the full name. Certainly some nicknames DO end in -a and ARE also stand-alone names (an Annabel could certain go by Anna or an Emmaline could go by Emma, and there’s Eleanor/Nora and Margaret/Greta and Isabella/Bella), but it’s not as familiar a format in the United States: nicknames for girls have more often ended in the -ie sound, or have been a syllable of the full name with or without the -ie sound (Abby for Abigail, not Abba; Susie or Sue for Susan, not Susa; Becky for Rebekah, not Reba; Mandy for Amanda, not Ama). When an -a is used, it seems to come more often from the end of the name: Manda for Amanda, Bekah for Rebeckah, Nora for Eleanor. It might still work fine if Ava were known as a nickname the way Bella and Nora and Greta are, or if Ava were known to be related to the name Avoca: traditional usage covers a multitude of inconsistencies. But by using a unique name, and then wanting as a nickname an unrelated and very common stand-alone name in a non-typical nickname format, I feel like we’re exceeding the Stretch Limit.

Although, wait. Something else occurs to me. I originally started this paragraph by saying, “However, this doesn’t mean I think you CAN’T do it: if I encountered an actual Avoca going by Ava, I might initially think ‘exceeds the Stretch Limit’ and then I wouldn’t give it any thought after that, and in fact might not even remember I’d ever even thought of it as a stretch”—but as I wrote that out, I realized the situation was better than that. Because what I might actually assume is that the parents wanted to use the very unusual town name as a sentimental name, and then they wanted to give her a more familiar name for everyday use. Yes, I think that’s what I might very well think—and what I might very well SAY, if I were the parent. And when I spin it that way, it completely undoes the Stretch Limit effect—as well as making the name Avoca feel even more usable. (Although it would be better still if it were a town you’d met your boyfriend in or visited your boyfriend in, rather than a town name you drove past on the road.)

I am not succeeding in coming up with alternate nicknames. Sometimes something will occur to me if I say the name again and again, but I’m not coming up with anything that seems viable. Vo, Vokie, Avvie—actually, I think I’d go with Avvie. It’s so similar to Abby, just a V-sound instead of a B-sound, and it feels like the nickname that would happen naturally if you didn’t try to come up with one.

One final concern is that you say you have a very classic naming style. Will you be able to think of sibling names you like with the name Avoca?

If Ava is more your style, and the only reasons you wouldn’t use it are its popularity and its lack of a nickname, I might suggest a double first name such as Ava Louise, with a nickname like Ava-Lou.

Let’s have a poll to see what everyone else thinks of the name Avoca: