Hi Swistle!

I have been a long-time reader and absolutely love your blog! My husband and I are expecting our second (and final) child, a girl, this fall. Our last name is a different spelling of Woodruff.

We have an almost 2-year-old named Mila whose name we absolutely love. She is named for my grandmother Mildred, in the Jewish tradition of honoring a family member who has passed with a variation of the name/same first letter. Her middle name is P@rkes, which is a family name (my husband’s mother’s maiden name/middle name). Mila happens to work perfectly with both my Jewish/Eastern European heritage and my husband’s Hispanic heritage. This is an awesome added benefit, however hard to find and certainly not required for this baby’s name.

We have a few names in mind, but despite lots of searching and discussing (and reading through so many entries of your blog!) have not yet found the one! I am feeling stuck.

We ideally want to honor family members and some potential ways to do this would be names starting with H, J, or L (or maybe E but I don’t love the initials EW), however we are not limiting ourselves to these as it’s more important to us that we give her a name we love.

Names we both like:
Lucy – this was a front runner from our last pregnancy. We both really like it but aren’t sure it’s the one.
Hallie – another front runner, we both really like this and it would honor my grandfather Harold who went by Hal. I am worried that she would constantly be having to explain that it’s Hallie and not Haley.
Harper – newer addition to the list and we both like it but not sure it’s the one, it’s been growing on me more quickly than my husband though I do worry it’s too popular being top 10, also someone in my friend group has a daughter with this name, my preference is not to know people personally with a name so it feels more unique but realize this is silly especially since they live out of state and we rarely see them :)
Emma – we both really like it, though it feels to me too common (#2 name!!) and maybe too plain. It feels so close but not sure it’s the one. I think I prefer Emmi/Emmy/Emmie though my husband does not. I like the idea of Emme but not how hard it is to pronounce, I wouldn’t have known how to say it without reading your blog :)
Zoe/Zoey – we both do like the name, even though we can’t agree on the spelling :)

We like the middle name James, if the first name is clearly feminine like Lucy or Hallie or Emma, and it would honor several family members and a close family friend. But with a more unisex sounding name like Harper or Hadley, we would want a more feminine middle name. We are open to other middle names, maybe beginning with J in memory of the people mentioned above as well as my cousin Jill, however not required.

Some other names I like but my husband doesn’t are Addison (Addie), Ainsley, Chloe, Eloise, Sloane.

Names my husband likes are:
Molly – prob his favorite, and I do like it. It’s a cute name we considered for Mila but it feels too similar to me. I don’t want another M name as it is important to me for each girl to have her own initials, also my husband’s name starts with an M so I would be the only one without an M name other than our dog :). (Mine starts with H and another reason I like the H names for this baby is the symmetry of 2 M’s and 2 H’s. Again not required.)
Ashley (I like the name but don’t want to name our baby this as it feels 80s to me, also we know a lot of Ashleys)
Hannah (don’t love, wouldn’t say I necessarily dislike it but some associations I can’t get over and def not the one)

Some other names we both like but either don’t think we like enough or don’t want to use (friends with the name, associations, etc.) are Adeline, Berkeley, Brooklyn, Callie, Grace, Hadley. It is possible we could be convinced so open to thoughts if any of these stand out to you.

We are stuck and would love your suggestions! It would be great to get your thoughts on the above names if something is standing out to you, or other names we should be considering. Also on what names go well with sibling Mila? Thanks!!!

The one that stands out to me is Hallie. I think you’d periodically have to correct someone who thought it was the more common Haley, but that it wouldn’t be at deal-breaking levels—and once people DID know it was Hallie, they wouldn’t KEEP getting it wrong, so you’d mostly be dealing with in it non-important situations where there’s no need to correct it if you don’t feel like it (e.g., you’re waiting for a prescription and the clerk calls out “For Haley?” to let you know it’s ready).

Hallie has a lot going for it. It starts with one of the initials you were hoping for; but also your grandpa went by Hal, which makes an even better story, and also a good first-three-letters parallel for Mildred/Mila. It gives you the unnecessary-but-fun two M’s and two H’s in your family. It feels like a good fit with Mila in sound and in femininity and in confusion/difficulty levels.

I feel a little weary of the trend of giving baby girls the middle name James (we don’t have a corresponding trend of giving baby boys the middle name Jane), but it’s good with Hallie and for you it would honor several family members, and it coordinates nicely with your first child’s middle name.

Would others like to champion their own picks from the list, or suggest additional options?

Name update:

Hi Swistle –

Thank you so much to you and your readers for your input! We are excited to share that we welcomed our daughter Lucy J@mes Woodruff.

We loved the name Hallie on paper (for all of the reasons you and your readers did), but kept trying it out by saying it out loud to each other and had mixed feelings on the sound; it didn’t feel like the one. I also knew the pronunciation issues would bother me (confirmed by my annoyance when I tried using it for my Starbucks order and received a cup that said “Haley”).

Lucy’s name fits her perfectly and we have gotten lots of compliments on it! Also – added bonus – the way her big sister says “Ooh-sie” is pretty adorable

Hello,
We are due with our 5th (and final) baby in Jan and are having a tough time figuring this one out.
Our last name sounds like Statmiller (with a silent d before the second t). We currently have 2 girls and 2 boys and will not be finding out the gender of the baby until he or she arrives.
Our children’s names are Tessa Rose, Bennett Joseph, Cora Elizabeth and Palmer Francis. We like unique but not unheard of first names and more traditional for a middle name.

The trouble we are having is that we don’t want to use a duplicate first letter of the name and all of our children’s first letter has an E sound to it when saying it by itself. (T, B, C, P)
And would like to continue that since we call them by their first letter when in a hurry or when they are playing sports and we are cheering them on. The other constraint we have gotten ourselves into is each first name is 2 syllables and we would like to stick to that.
So based on that we are down to D, E, G, V and Z which doesn’t leave us much to choose from. Are we being too restrictive and should just pick a name we like? Or do we continue with down the path we have already taken?

If we were open to not following our naming history here are the names on our very short list:

Ada Marie
Lettie Marie

Harris Alexander

Any advice and name suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,
Katie

In my experience, naming got both MORE and LESS difficult as we had more children. It got more difficult because although we weren’t completely opposed to repeating initials, we did PREFER the idea of not repeating, and so gradually we reduced the number of initials we wanted to use. Certain sounds started to seem too repetitive, or at least we would prefer not to reuse them. We wondered about repeating endings and vowel sounds. We ran low on obvious honor names.

On the other hand I felt, especially with our fifth, that some of the pressure was off: when there are so MANY children, who would expect the parents to be as consistent with their naming style? Who would blame them if they DID repeat an initial? Who would blame them if they stopped a pattern that seemed fun for the first few children but then became burdensome? Who would blame them if they JUST SORT OF RAN OUT OF NAMES?

Also, I’d seen how my various concerns with earlier names had come to nothing: my hand-wringing, lie-awake fretting about syllables and number of letters and Which Of Two Equally Good Honor Names Should We Use was completely forgotten until I was pregnant again and looking over my old naming notes.

Here’s where I am going with this. When I started reading your letter, and I got to the part where you want a FIFTH baby to have a name that is two syllables AND a different initial AND TO HAVE THAT INITIAL RHYME WITH THE OTHER CHILDREN’S INITIALS, my mouth actually dropped open. What? WHAT?? I re-read it to make sure I had understood. Why are you playing this game on ULTIMATE HARD MODE when you don’t have to, and when it’s not resulting in any names you like?

On one hand, I wish to attempt to give you what you want—and we WILL attempt that. On the other hand, I feel you have backed yourself into a completely unnecessary corner. To whatever extent it is in my power, I wish to free you from feeling that you are somehow locked in to giving this baby a two-syllable name, or a rhyming-but-distinct initial. I won’t tell you that NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD would notice or care, because, well, you are currently standing in the midst of a community that does in fact notice and feel interested in such things—but even WE don’t DEEP-DOWN care if all five members of a sibling group have the same number of syllables in their names! Even WE don’t typically look at the first initials of a sibling group and notice if they RHYME or not!

Obviously, OBVIOUSLY, if these things matter to YOU, that is what is important. But…I am thinking back to all the things that Mattered Very Much to me when I was pregnant and lying awake, and then thinking about how little those things matter to me now, and I am wondering if we can bring you any peace on this. It seems so unlikely to me that in 30 years you will be visiting Ada’s/Harris’s house and looking at them across the dinner table and wishing you had found a name for them that had an initial that sounded more like their siblings’ initials when you yelled it at a sports event. YES, you are being too restrictive! YES!

I am very, very, very, very interested in baby names, and would have looked at your children’s names carefully and repeatedly and with far more attention than the typical person who will encounter their names, and I don’t think it would ever have occurred to me that all the first initials rhymed; I’m not sure I would have noticed that all the names had two syllables. In fact, let me ask you this question and hope it doesn’t backfire: How much time have you spent noticing and thinking about the syllables/initials of the sibling groups of your friends and relatives? If you’re like me, you might say, “Well, ACTUALLY: SOME!!” But…like, LOTS? Have you ever thought about whether their initials rhyme? Did/do you CARE if their initials rhyme?

If anything, I would think that if you commonly holler the children’s initials, you would NOT want another one that sounds so similar to the first four. If anything, I would think that after four two-syllable names in a row, you might wish to break up the rhythm a little. Think of the charming storybook rhythm of a sibling group that is “DAH-da, DAH-da, DAH-da, DAH-da, and DAH.”

Okay brisk clap! Your FIRST assignment, together or separately or both, is to make a list of names but with NO THOUGHT AT ALL to all your self-imposed constraints. Put down names that duplicate an initial! Put down names that use initials that don’t rhyme with E! Put down names that have more or less than two syllables! Put down names that don’t even go well with the other sibling names! Put down names you can’t use because someone close to you already used it, or because there is a bad association, or because it sounds much too similar to one of the other kids’ names! Just make a list of every single name you like/love. EVEN IF you do decide not to repeat an initial, you might notice something about the repeating-initial names that helps you find a non-repeating-initial name. EVEN IF you do decide it’s important to you that the baby’s first initial rhymes with their siblings’ first initials, you might notice something about the non-rhyming-initial names that helps you find a rhyming-initial name. And so on.

It may also give you a better feeling for the PRICE of meeting preferences. If you were to put every name in the world in order from the one you liked most to the one you liked least, how far down your list would you be willing to go to get an initial you prefer? When you weigh, say, your top 1% of names against the names that meet your requirements, which do you WANT MORE? It seriously does come down to the weight of preferences: there are names I would score higher than names I used, but other preferences DID weigh more. It cost something to use those names, but it was worth the price to me. On the other hand, at some point those preferences started weighing relatively less: I WASN’T willing to use a name I liked Much Less, just to meet a preference I was free to choose not to follow. You may find, for example, that the price of meeting all your preferences is choosing a name you don’t really like, and you may find you’re not willing to pay that price. If you remove a preference, does that make the cost more reasonable? What if you remove another preference? And so on.

If you find a name you love that starts with a non-rhyming initial, I wonder if you could do a MIDDLE name with a rhyming initial and make that work? T, B, C, P, and L-V, for example.

In the meantime, we will also get to work. My plan is to go ahead and try to solve the naming puzzle with all restrictions in place, because that’s like a game, and name games can be fun.

So: Game Mode. The only available initials are D, E, G, V, and Z; the name must have two syllables.

Daisy
Darcy
Della
Ella
Esme
Estelle (kind of a lot of ST and LL with the surname)
Etta (maybe too close to Bennett)
Eva
Gemma
Ginny
Greta
Vera
Zara

Dalton
Davis
Declan
Desmond
Devin
Duncan
Dillon/Dylan
Easton
Ellis (might combine with surname to sound like Ella Statmiller)
Garrett (may be too similar to Bennett)
Gilbert
Gordon
Grady
Griffin
Vincent

I think my own favorites are Greta and Davis. Greta Statmiller; Tessa, Bennett, Cora, Palmer, and Greta. Davis Statmiller; Tessa, Bennett, Cora, Palmer, and Davis.

Name update:

Hello!
I am writing to update you and thank you for the name help. After reading your response and readers responses it gave me relief from all the self imposed restrictions.
I was pretty convinced we were having a girl and focused on that. When we had a boy it came as quite a surprise and left us trying to decide on a name. We took your advice and made a list of names with no constraints. To our surprise there was no names we agreed on that fit our “rules” but we happily agreed on one name!

Albie Robert

To us it works well with his siblings names with still being fresh to him! And if we HAVE to use a rhyming sound we can call him E for his syllable.

Thank you for helping free us from our naming constraints!

Hi Swistle!

Our second baby is due at the end of July, and we do not know the sex. We have one daughter, Aidy June. Our last name is Belston-without-the-B. The naming experience of our first was unexpected – Aidy was on our long list but not our short list – I don’t think we even verbalized the name as one we loved, someone just added it at random. We thought she was going to be Mabel, and it just didn’t fit so we spent 24hrs ‘trying on’ names for her, and out of nowhere, Aidy landed and felt totally perfect. So it’s interesting this time, trying to avoid a name list getting out of control when every name we don’t dislike feels like a possibility we don’t want to forget about, and feeling that we can’t concretely name this kid til we get to meet.

Some of our personal name feelings: my partner’s birth name is Elizabeth, but parents always intended to use Beth, and she has always wished her name was just Beth to begin with – so we have no plans to name a kid the traditional version of a name if we prefer and intend to use the nickname. My name is Camilla, which I disliked a lot as a child but feel more positively about as an adult, and also use Cam in certain circles.

Our naming style is short and snappy. I enjoy a fresh, unexpected name, but one that is easily understood when read or verbalized (although saying that, we still get “Addie” more than I expected. For example, when we introduce her at the park to a new person, and then they try to recall her name next time, it is always “Addie”). We also enjoy the opportunity for a quirky, out-there middle name if it works.

Names we like the most right now: Maeve (if assigned female at birth) and Kit (neutral). We’d like three kids, and the sibset Aidy, Maeve and Kit is really pleasing to me. I love all the names with our last name.

What gives me pause with these names is a) does the Irish heritage of Maeve stand out oddly in the sibset? b) is Maeve going to be the next Ava? c) it sits on the more feminine end of the spectrum than I prefer and d) I truly love Kit, and yet it feels unfinished in my mouth (I know it is traditionally a nickname). I also worry about having to spell it all the time. When I introduce myself as “Cam”, most people say “Pam?” and then I say “C-A-M”. It’s a minor annoyance, but one I would prefer to not have. I worry about resolving my kid to either needing to spell their name for life, or people asking what it is short for. In the back of my mind I feel that with the right name, these things won’t matter and if they matter right now, they are not the right names.

Other names we enjoy: Otto, Bryn, Enid, Ira, Veda, Ripley, Nola, Fable, Ivy.

I also feel a lot of joy about these names connected to the last name, but feel a little unsure about when standalone: Penny, Mackie.

I love love love, and my partner doesn’t (but they are still on the table) – Clover, Arlo.

My partner currently loves Elodie and Elias. Elodie is more feminine than I prefer, and Elias, too popular… but my partner is growing this baby, and I do not dislike the names, so they are definitely on the table. I do like the alliteration.

My question to you and your readers – what am I missing? Is there an unexpected, fresh, snappy name you’ve come across in your circles? Naming without many parameters feels like such an opportunity, and I understand the subjectivity of this but we feel like Aidy June Belston-without-the-B was a total slam-dunk. I’m not convinced we are there with our current list.

Cheers,

Cam

 
Name update:

Hello! Our second child arrived on 8/5, fast and furious and accidentally unassisted, caught by me before our midwives arrived. Whoops! That was definitely not the plan, but everyone is doing very well and we are adjusting to our new normal as a family of four.

I really appreciated the comments on our post, both for some great new ideas and validation on our favourites! It was a really fun exercise in the last few weeks of pregnancy, and solidified the absolute joy that it is to name a human.

We landed quickly on Maeve Arlo, and we could not be more thrilled. We love the fun twist that the first three letters of her name are also her initials. And it turns out there is nothing sweeter than hearing your first born say your second born’s name to make you feel like you slam-dunked it all over again!

Dear Swistle,

My husband and I are excited to welcome identical twin boys in mid-August. Our last name is Doyle with a B, and our older sons are Kerry (spelled like the actor last name Grant) and Neil (spelled with an A rather than an I).

We like names that are unpopular but not so rare they aren’t easily identified as names. We also like names that are used in full rather than nicknames. Our preference is names that will sound and feel like they fit with the other boys’ but aren’t very matchy / twinny, so not rhyming or close enough to be confused. I like Jamie, Conall, Theo, Kieran – my husband does not. He likes Felix, Warren, and Alexander – I don’t. We’re stuck – please help!

Thank you!

[I kept putting off answering this because of the different spellings for the first two kids. The spellings feel so important, especially for Kerry, that I wasn’t sure we could even answer the question with the wrong spellings repeatedly in front of our eyes. And with alternate spellings, we don’t notice that both names have four letters, and for some people that will be important! But I think we should try to power through. Just, maybe we should do this one on paper, with the real spellings? And then translate our answers?]

Your firstborn’s name is unisex, but with the spelling used almost exclusively for boys. Your secondborn’s name is used exclusively for boys in the U.S., and is the currently less common spelling of the name. Both names have four letters, which leaves me torn between the fun of finding two more four-letter names, and the idea that that’s way too much pressure and a totally unnecessary goal (but fun, so let’s see how things unfold). If you think you may have more children, I would probably steer away from four-letter names at this point.

Theo seems like a great choice to me, except I think you might be unhappy with how common it is right now: according to the Social Security Administration, the name Theodore was the 10th most popular boy name in the United States in 2021. Alexander likewise seems much too common: it’s been in the Top 20 consistently for over two decades.

I think what we may be looking for here are “Baby Boomer names that are about to start sounding good again.” Theo is too current. Jamie is dated, but too RECENTLY dated: it peaked in the 1970s and 1980s. Warren is uncertain: it hit its peak in the 1920s, so if we’re assuming approximately a hundred-year naming cycle, it might be about to join Theo as Too Current/Common. Some names that might be from the right era (though may overshoot in either direction–it’s a little difficult to pin down Boomer Names because they were all named Dave and Sue and Kathy and Jim, plus names that rhyme with Kerry):

Alan
Clark
Craig
Darrell
Darren
Dean
Douglas
Frank
Fred
Gene
Glen
Gordon
Jesse
Jody
Karl
Keith
Kent
Laurence
Lee
Leon
Louis
Ray
Reeve
Robin
Roger
Ross
Russell
Scott
Seth
Shay
Stanley
Tracy
Wade
Ward

I’m not sure about the names that end in L: with your surname, it’s either catchy or it’s too much—and there’s already a name in the sibling group that ends in L.

Other issues I wasn’t sure about: Are Darren and Darrell and Karl too close in sound to Kerry? Is Karl too close visually to Kerry, especially since it can also be spelled Carl (remember the actual spelling of Kerry)? what about Ray (again, remember actual spelling of Kerry)? Is Lee too much like half of Neil? Is Leon just Neil backward, and is Dean almost just Neil backward? (Remember the actual spelling of Neil, which I think makes the Dean issue more of an issue.)

I included Jesse, Tracy, Robin, and Jody, but the way those jumped the gender line for Generation X (Jesse as Jessie/Jess, from Jessica) may mean that they’re too much in use as Mom Names right now to be used again for boys. On the other hand, it seems to me that Kerry is working great for boys despite all the mom/grandma Carries.

We considered Alan when we were naming Henry, and I still love it. I wondered if it might be the perfect combination of Alexander + Warren + familiar-but-uncommon.

I don’t know if I would have considered Roger, except that some time back I heard that that nickname for it used to be Hodge. HODGE!! I know you’d rather not use nicknames, but it still made me love the name Roger more, just knowing Hodge was there.

Let’s play with pairing up some options:

Alan and Dean; Kerry, Neil, Alan, and Dean. Everyone has four letters.

Frank and Louis; Kerry, Neil, Frank, and Louis. We switch to five letters, but for both twins. Two are one-syllable names; two are two-syllable names.

Gordon and Russell; Kerry, Neil, Gordon, and Russell. Both surname names as well as familiar first names.

Douglas and Roger; Kerry, Neil, Douglas, and Roger. Subtle little matching G’s, but with different sounds so it isn’t too matchy.

Actually, I find I’m almost immediately overwhelmed. It’s HARD to name twins, isn’t it! It SEEMS like it’s going to be FUN, but then it’s HARD! What Paul and I finally had to do with our twins was to pretend they were singletons. First Baby A is arriving: what shall we name her? Now it is two or three years later and the Baby B is arriving: what shall we name him?

Name update:

Dear Swistle,

Our babies have arrived! The0 W@rren and Curt!s Patr!ck won the day.

We read through every suggestion and comment many times, and they really helped us to add to, remove from, and re-rank our list. Thank you, everyone!

Hi Swistle,

We could do with your help naming baby girl due at the end of September. Surname (Fox) so we have to be a little careful with first names but I haven’t found this to be a problem. Baby girl has an older sister (2.5 yrs) Corinna Everly (nn Cory, Cor, Rina).

We have ties to Cyprus, Italy (particularly Rome) and Singapore. We found Corinna on a Greek baby name list and fell in love. It isn’t a name we hear often, is feminine but not overly so, feels strong and isn’t too out there.

Our boy name at the time was Caspian Everett. Our boy name this time was Ethan Everett. We also considered Logan Percival.

Girls names we have considered:
Arabella Wren – I’m worried that Arabella is too posh and would she be just another Bella? My husband loves it.

Morgan Rose – Rose is a family name so despite its popularity we are happy with it as a middle name. I also think it gives some feminine balance to Morgan which is a concern of mine and in reality she would go by her first name. Having said that it is nice to be able to use a more out there middle name. Also not sure I like “morg” (morgue!) as a natural shortening.

Kaia – name I love, Singapore links but not sure about another c or k name.

Sylvie – a name I have recently come across. It feels strong and feminine with out being overly so. Haven’t found a middle name that convinces us this is the one yet.

Erin – We love this name but haven’t found a middle name combination that convinces us yet. It was a contender for Corinna’s middle name.

Thalia – we both love the name. Greek links. I’m worried about spelling variations. I don’t love Natalia. I have the same problem with Lorelai (nn Rory!) – not the easiest to spell. Same with Vivian/Vivienne. Too many spelling options (a problem we have had with Corinna).

Emerson – feels too masculine against Corinna.

Hazel – vetoed by husband based on someone he knew by the same name.

Elowen – sounds lovely but we have no Welsh links and will she be another Elle? A friend has a baby Elodie which I think is beautiful.

Other names I/we like but don’t love: Maeve, Iris, Claudia, Ottilie, Sienna.

We would love to hear your suggests for completely new names or middle names for some of the names on our list that aren’t quite doing it for us.

Thanks!
Joanna

First, a few comments on the current list. Sylvie Fox makes me think of the expression “silver fox”; it’s not a negative association, just a little odd. Kaia and Erin both seem like they have too many sounds in common with Corinna: Kaia shares beginning and ending sounds, and so feels it falls short on sounds in the middle; Erin repeats the -rin entirely and has only the E- to herself. I do think Arabella/Elowen would neatly join the Bella/Ellie groups, though the long forms are still refreshing (and I don’t think Arabella is too posh). I would never have thought to shorten the name Morgan to Morg.

The name that jumps out to me based on the name itself but also your description of the name: Thalia. You both love it. You mention it has Greek links. It has some spelling issues, but so do so many names; I wouldn’t rule out a name for that. For a middle name, I would be inclined to choose a name similar in style to Everly, so I would choose Emerson or Morgan: Thalia Emerson Fox, Thalia Morgan Fox. Or Erin would be nice: Thalia Erin Fox. Or, I wish I’d at least CONSIDERED using my own first name as my daughter’s middle name (there’s a tradition in my family of using the father’s first name as the son’s middle name, so you’d think it would LEAP to mind): Thalia Joanna Fox.

From my list of names I am sad I couldn’t use: Anastasia. Corinna and Anastasia. Anastasia Fox.

Browsing through Nameberry’s list of Greek girl names:

Delia; Delia Fox; Corinna and Delia
Isadora; Isadora Fox; Corinna and Isadora
Lydia; Lydia Fox; Corinna and Lydia
Penelope; Penelope Fox; Corinna and Penelope
Persephone; Persephone Fox; Corinna and Persephone
Philomena; Philomena Fox; Corinna and Philomena
Veronica; Veronica Fox; Corinna and Veronica

From this list I would pick Lydia for you: it’s similar to Sylvie; it’s feminine but not frilly; I find it pleasing with your surname; and it’s great with Corinna.

I am also keen on Veronica, for the same reasons as Lydia but also I like the crackle with Fox.

Name update:

Thank you to you and your readers for your thoughts. We ran through your name suggestions over the first 24 hours with our little one and settled on Thalia Rose. We agreed with your readers that Corinna and Thalia was one of the more natural name combinations giving the girls a connection without being too similar. We also like that both girls have nature middle names. I doubt we would have used Thalia without your reassurance around spelling issues – I expect like a lot of your readers we would rather have a name that may raise a few questions than a top 10 name that everyone immediately recognises.

Dear Swistle,

My husband and I are currently in a naming standstill. We are due with a baby boy in early August, so time is no longer on our side. This is our first and potentially only child (leaning one and done right now).

Rules we agree on:
– no names from our parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles/siblings (rules out a lot of great ones including Henry and Frederick/Alfred)
– intuitive spelling and pronunciation
– not a nickname
– classic/tried and true, but not overly popular (Benjamin and Theodore miss this mark but we kept them on the list because they are just very good names)
– ideally would work in French too because I have family in that area of the world and hope to pass on the language

Names that are on our joint list:
Louis, Simon, Harrison, Joshua, Miles, Samuel, Theodore, and Benjamin

Of these, my husband likes Simon, Harrison, and Samuel best, while I like Louis, Harrison, and Theodore best. Obvious overlap is Harrison but I am hesitant because I’m overall not a fan of surname names.

Names my husband likes that I am not too keen on:
Noah (too popular), Jacob, Andrew, Adam

Names I like that my husband has vetoed:
Tobias, Edward, Leon, Arthur, Griffin, Julian

But the real wrench in our gears is the name that I LOVE. The name that felt like a lightening strike when I read it, like that’s The One. Hugo. My husband vetoed it on, calling it an old man name. He knew one person with this name (an old man, now dead) and, even though by all accounts this man was kind and friendly, he apparently cannot shake that association. For me, it hits all the marks: intuitive spelling and pronunciation, works in multiple languages, not a family name, a classic but one that fits well with current trends…

I have not been able to give this name up since I read it some ~18wks ago. Every name pales in comparison. If my husband were searching for ideas, submitting names for consideration, or if he felt passionate about any of the names on any of our lists, perhaps it would be easier for me to give up on Hugo. But as it stands, it’s my passion vs his “this is a decent name” and I am having a hard time giving up on Hugo because of that.

Now we are rapidly approaching a point where we need to have a name decided or, at minimum, a much shorter list to work from. My enthusiasm for naming has dwindled so much during this process. I don’t feel much of anything for the names that we theoretically both like. He feels worn out by proposals of new names and repeated pleas for him to reconsider Hugo. I don’t want to end up naming the kid something that’s just “fine,” and he doesn’t see a problem with a name that we think is “fine.”

So yes, it appears that I am the problem. I have turned out to be the stubborn, unyielding partner. Part of me is ready to tell him we need to scrap everything and start fresh. Part of me thinks we have enough here to work with. But the biggest part of me simply wants my way.

Please help us (ok, me) find a way through this. The stakes feel very high because naming a human is big work and because this might well be our one chance to do it.

Thank you in advance,
Nicole

Periodically we get a letter where one partner (almost always a woman) is explaining that she doesn’t know what to do, because her partner (almost always a man) has dug in on his one favorite name, and is sitting there insisting that she do the work to find him a name he likes better than his favorite, or else, wow, too bad, they’ll HAVE TO use his favorite since she hasn’t found him anything better. And so then I have to make my list of what is wrong with that: she doesn’t have to do that work while he sits there waiting for her to do it; if she doesn’t find him a name he likes better, that doesn’t mean they have to use his choice; he needs to start by realizing his favorite name is NOT going to be used, so now he needs to work on this joint project of finding the name they both like best out of the remaining candidates; and so on.

Your situation is interestingly different:

• you are the partner with the favorite name
• you KNOW you are that partner
• you are also the partner doing most of the work
• you care a lot, while your husband just wants to pick something decent

You make a compelling point about how this combination feels from your point of view: you don’t want to settle on a name that’s Just Fine for both of you, when you have strong feelings and your husband doesn’t have strong feelings and doesn’t want to put in the work/effort of finding a name you both like better than Just Fine. It feels unfair to me, too, that someone who cares less would still get half the vote—and a full veto on the name you love beyond all others. It makes me hope very much that this letter will end up being like the other letters we periodically receive, the ones where one partner (it’s almost always a male one) has ruled out a name, but then ends up doing a 180-degree turn on it at the last minute. (The name updates NEVER give as much information as I want about how that happened, and often they’re completely casual about it: “We named the baby [the name I said my husband hated and would never agree to and we couldn’t possibly use under any circumstances no matter what]! Thanks for your help!”

Still, we come back to the sad reality: I believe you MUST take the name Hugo out of the running. You have done your best to persuade him, and I agree with you that his stated reasons feel unsatisfying (especially when “it’s an old man/woman name” is basically the GOLD STANDARD for determining when a name is ready to be used again, as well as a clear indicator that the person saying it is out of touch with naming fashions)—but still, I think we have to accept that the other parent has said no, and I think at this point you must take him at his word. If it helps, SO MANY of us have stories like this about names we loved and the other parent just WOULD NOT agree to. Sometimes we end up getting to use the name later on; sometimes we find that, with time, the pain of not using the name fades; sometimes we end up having a grandchild with that name; sometimes we enduringly wish we had had the baby on our own, without a co-parent, so that we could have used the perfect name.

Going forward, you will have to stop comparing names to Hugo and watching them pale in comparison: the goal is not to find a name you like as much as Hugo, or even NEARLY as much as Hugo; the only goal is to find the name you and your husband like best out of all the non-Hugo names.

But while you are right that your attachment to Hugo has been a problem, your husband’s lack of effort is also a problem, as is his failure to understand that it is reasonable to want a name that’s more than Fine. He needs to change his approach as well, and I suggest stating it as a in “let’s work together” terms, in whatever wording is right for you; for me, I might say something like, “Okay, look: we are both exhausted by this name search, but we Actually Do need to choose a name, and there is a natural deadline here when we KNOW we’ll get to stop working on it, so in our short time remaining we need to push ahead until we find it, and then we maybe never have to do this again. I will accept that, as much as it breaks my heart, you are not willing to use my Top Favorite Name, and so we will take that off the table: I won’t compare other names to Hugo; I won’t keep pleading with you to consider it; I won’t keep arguing with your reasons. But I want you to accept that, just as you don’t want to name the baby Hugo, I don’t want to name him just Any Decent Name: I want it to be a special name we really like, or that at least I really like and you consider Decent. And to find that name, we are both going to have to put in some effort: it can’t just be me researching/finding names and you vetoing them. We BOTH have to work at it. So let’s come up with some ways we think would make this process easier/better for both of us.”

Some ways that might make the process easier/better:

• finding appealing name-search methods for each of you: some people like to use apps; some people like to go through a long list and make their own lists; some people like to use a name book to do little games such as each choosing your favorite names starting with A, or each choosing your favorite names from a particular category

• choosing particular time frames in which you agree ahead of time to work on the name issue (“every evening,” or “this coming weekend when we both have time off,” or “every day for half an hour,” or WHATEVER), and then, outside of those times, NOT discussing it

• giving yourselves treats/rewards/motivations for working on it: maybe you work on it each night over ice cream, or maybe you decide you will watch one episode of a TV show for every 15 minutes you work on the name thing, or WHATEVER

The name-choosing method that worked for me (someone who cares VERY MUCH about names and wanted to work A LOT on it) and Paul (someone who does not care very much about names and wanted to do almost zero work on it other than suggesting the dated names of people he went to high school with): the parent who cares a lot works on it to their heart’s content and makes lists of their favorite names; the parent who cares much less chooses a name from that list, or chooses finalists from that list and then both parents choose together from those finalists. (The parent who cares less may of course suggest options too, but off-the-cuff suggestions will be understood to carry relatively less weight than carefully-curated ones.)

In your case I might instead suggest that you get to choose the name that makes you feel the most enthusiastic from the list of names the two of you have agreed on. He has agreed to all those names; he has acted as if it is not very important what name is chosen; so then, of the names he says are Fine, you choose the one that you feel most strongly about. This gives you a solution where we are choosing a name both parents have agreed on, but we are also taking into account that one parent cares more and one parent cares less, and adjusting for that. This could also work as a two-step process: you could say “Okay, then I choose Louis and Theodore,” and then he chooses between those two, or chooses which order those names go in: Louis Theodore Bern@rdi-without-the-I or Theodore Louis Bern@rdi-without-the-I.

Another method I suggest keeping in mind: removing rules if possible. It caught my attention that you say the rule you agree on about not using any family names has eliminated some really great names. Maybe by removing that rule (it’s your-plural rule! you-plural can remove it!), you would find a name you-singular felt enthusiastic about and you-plural could agree on. Or perhaps you could remove the rule about intuitive spelling/pronunciation: in my experience, a LOT of even very easy names still encounter regular requests to spell them, and it’s not a big deal.

An idea to keep in mind: Hugo can be the MIDDLE name. Your husband may agree to this out of the sheer relief of not having to consider it as a first name anymore, and it’s a nice way to accommodate the imbalance between your strong feelings/effort and his low feelings/effort. You may want to save this idea in case you get to the point where you both really like two names, and he prefers one of them, and you prefer the other but only very slightly: you could suggest you would go with his preference for the first name IF you can use Hugo as the middle name. Or you could ask for it straight-out, saying how happy it would make you. Harrison Hugo would be adorable.

Or I wonder if instead of Harrison you would like Harris. It’s still a surname name, but it feels a little less surnamey without the -son.

I wonder if you would like Nicholas as an honor name for you, especially if you will be using your husband’s surname for the child, and especially if this will be your only child. (Or perhaps there is potential in your own birth surname, either as a first name or a middle name?) Nicholas feels similar to Benjamin/Theodore, in that it is enjoying a time in favor and yet I don’t feel like the popularity is enough to rule out such a great name—and it is quite a bit less-used than either Benjamin or Theodore. (According to the Social Security Administration, in 2021 the name Theodore was given to 9,535 new baby boys and was the 10th most popular name for boys; the name Benjamin was given to 11,791 new baby boys and was the 7th most popular; and the name Nicholas was given to 3,824 new baby boys and was the 92nd most popular. Two of my kids have names that were in the 30s of popularity in their birth years, and they have not had duplicates in their classrooms.)

I wonder if you would like August, for his birth month (assuming he is in fact born in that month). It feels special; people know how to spell and pronounce it; it’s not a nickname but does HAVE the enviable nickname Gus, or Augie.

Lastly, I know this pretty much flies in the face of other things I’ve been saying, but I was not always very enthusiastic about boy-name options, and found some peace in the idea of choosing a good, solid, useful name I felt warmly about, rather than trying to choose a name I LOVED. This was an idea that brought peace when I DIDN’T feel strongly about any of the names on the list, though, and may not work at all when you are disappointed that a name you DID feel strongly about is NOT on the list. Also, I can see how this might be a more difficult sell when you are choosing what might be THE ONLY NAME. I mention it just in case.

Oh: I said “Lastly” in the paragraph above, but actually I have one more thing: would you want to consider just PILING ON the names here? If there is any chance you may decide to have another child, I wouldn’t use ALLLLL the favorites—but isn’t it a little tempting to think of naming him Harrison Hugo Louis Simon Bern@rdi-without-the-I? Is there any sense in which you find the names increasing the value of each other as they pile up, so that you start to feel more enthusiastic about the pile of Decent names (plus your one dear name)?

I should also mention this anecdote: that when I was pregnant with our firstborn, I suggested a name that Paul absolutely vetoed. Under no circumstances, bad association, etc. When I was pregnant with our secondborn, I put that name back on my list, and it was among the dozen names I presented to Paul to choose from—and he chose it. And not only did he choose it, he said it was the only/best name on the list. Did I in that moment mention to him that it was the VERY NAME he had UTTERLY RULED OUT with the first pregnancy?? DID I HELL. I said, “Okay, if that’s what you like best, that works for me,” and wrote it down as The Name.

Name update:

Dear Swistle:

Following my letter to you, my husband and I narrowed our list down to three names: Simon, Harrison, and Hugo. My husband allowed Hugo to stay in the mix simply because I loved it so much.

Once we had our short list, we simply stopped talking names and planned to make the final call at the hospital, figuring we’d know the right choice when we met him.

Turns out babies don’t actually look like any name at all and it still took us 24 hours to make our decision. Hugo. I made the final call with my husband’s blessing.

I was surprised my husband came around from his previously adamant veto of Hugo, so I asked him about the change of heart. In the weeks leading up to our son’s birth, he said he had done a lot of thinking and couldn’t come up with anything better. My love of the name did win out for him in the end.

Thank you!
Nicole

Hi Swistle!

We are welcoming a baby girl in October. She is our third child, coming 5 years after our last so it’s been a while since we’ve had to make these important decisions! Our surname rhymes with pickles but starts with an R. Big brother is Sawyer Ryan and big sister is Sloane Elizabeth.

Names we both like Reese, Ann, Margaret. I like Molly and Mary but my husband does not. My husband really likes Selby (a family name) but I am not sure if it’s too far out there and people will think we just forgot the h in there. Both of our other children have our middle names and so we don’t want to leave this baby hanging with no family name but there aren’t a ton to work with. Ann is also a family name. My husband is convinced if we name her Ann Selby she will marry a man with an S last name and have a bad monogram for life. Or if we name her Ann Reese she will marry another S man and have an English version bad monogram. I don’t think we need to worry that far ahead as long as we don’t give her a bad monogram to start with 😅

We aren’t set at all on having a third S name child. That wasn’t purposeful with our second but many people have asked us if we’re doing that again and we can’t even think of any that have topped our list.

A few other names one of us has liked and one of us has nixed: Quinn, Saylor, Merritt. We are a name the baby before we get discharged type but will definitely send an update come Halloween time!

Thank you
Lara

I don’t think Selby is too out-there, and I like it a lot in the sibling set. I do think you will occasionally have people confusing it with Shelby, but not at deal-breaking levels. But if you think you may have more children, I might suggest avoiding an S-name this time to avoid backing yourself into a corner.

I like Reese in this sibling group, too, though the matching R- and S-sounds with the surname is too much for my own tastes.

Ann and Margaret feel like such a big style leap from the first two names—not that sibling names have to coordinate.

For the middle name, I think you could use your middle name again, and that strikes me as a fun thing to do: you and your girls, all sharing the same middle name.

I am a little torn on the subject of Future Married Initials. On one hand, I think it’s a smart idea to think things through ahead of time, even relatively minor or unlikely things. On the other hand, I cringe at the idea that we would name a girl differently than a boy on the assumption that a girl (1) will get married (2) to a man (3) whose surname she will take at marriage. Certainly we would avoid A.S.S. initials for a boy just as we would for a girl; but would we avoid A.S. initials for a boy, in case he might marry someday, and in case that spouse might have a surname starting with S, and in case he might change his surname to that one? No.

If she DOES someday get married, AND it is to someone with an S. surname, then at that point I think we can trust her to make the decision about what she’d like to do about that. She can choose not to take that surname, or she can choose to drop her middle name and move her birth surname to the middle, or she can choose another of her options; I don’t think we need to try at this point to make that decision for her, OR to prevent her from ever having to make that decision. But back to the first hand: if you don’t feel strongly about wanting both the A. and the S. name and in that order, I guess I would choose something else, while feeling a little irritable about it.

Let’s look for some more first name options.

Aubrey; Sawyer, Sloane, and Aubrey
Audra; Sawyer, Sloane, and Audra
Blythe; Sawyer, Sloane, and Blythe
Brynn; Sawyer, Sloane, and Brynn
Darcy; Sawyer, Sloane, and Darcy
Ellery; Sawyer, Sloane, and Ellery (-ry/R- an issue?)
Emlyn; Sawyer, Sloane, and Emlyn
Eve; Sawyer, Sloane, and Eve
Hollis; Sawyer, Sloane, and Hollis
Laine; Sawyer, Sloane, and Laine (too many shared sounds with Sloane?)
Maeve; Sawyer, Sloane, and Maeve
Mallory; Sawyer, Sloane, and Mallory
Maren; Sawyer, Sloane, and Maren
Marlowe; Sawyer, Sloane, and Marlowe
Margot; Sawyer, Sloane, and Margot
Maude; Sawyer, Sloane, and Maude
Morgan; Sawyer, Sloane, and Morgan
Paige; Sawyer, Sloane, and Paige
Peyton; Sawyer, Sloane, and Peyton
Rowan; Sawyer, Sloane, and Rowan (too many shared sounds with Sloane? too alliterative?)
Sasha; Sawyer, Sloane, and Sasha
Sydney; Sawyer, Sloane, and Sydney
Teagan; Sawyer, Sloane, and Teagan
Vivian; Sawyer, Sloane, and Vivian

Name update:

Hi Swistle and readers,
Thank you so much for all of your thoughtful suggestions. We had so much fun reading through them. We ended up delivering early due to preeclampsia and spent two days trying to figure out what baby looked like once she came. Funny enough, we ditched the pressure we put on ourselves to use a family name and also went a different S direction and are happy to present Scout Reese pickles with an R

Hello, Swistle!

We are due with a baby girl in April. We have one son named Jack. Our surname is two syllables, ends in an “s,” and is very common (think Williams).

My husband and I have extremely different taste in names, and it’s been hard to pin down a final name for our daughter. Right now our top contender is June. We both love the name, but I’m concerned it’s too close to Jack? We want at least 4 children, and we don’t plan on carrying on a one-syllable J theme. Would it be odd to have two J’s right next to each other, then not continue that trend? Am I overthinking?

In addition, my brother recently started seriously dating a lovely girl named June; however, she spells it “Joon,” or “Joonie,” and it’s a nickname for something else. My family exclusively calls her “Joonie,” though, so I’m worried adding another June/Junie would be very confusing? This isn’t a dealbreaker for me, as relationships come and go, and we liked the name before they started dating. It’s just another factor adding to my confusion!

I also love the names Etta, Georgia, and Rosie, and he loves Lila. I don’t mind Lila, but it doesn’t feel like “the one” for this baby. I’m also afraid it might be the next big name, and I don’t love the idea of naming her something with equal popularity to “Jack.” To get a further sense of our name style, had she been a boy, I very much liked the names Lewis or Simon.

Note: if we don’t end up naming her June, we won’t be using it as a middle name. We would save it as a future first name for another daughter, should we have a second.

I would love your thoughts, or additional name suggestions that have a similar vibe to June!

Thanks so much.

I think Jack and June is cute, and that it would be considered cute. It isn’t like John and Jane (a pairing we briefly considered for our twins, because we liked the names separately, but we nearly instantly vetoed it), where there’s another shared consonant sound AND a negative association (John/Jane Doe): the initial is the same, and they’re both one-syllable names, but the other sounds are completely different. If you imagine hollering one name up the stairs, the other child is not going to think you’re calling them. But it IS cute: it sounds like it could be the name of a company, and in fact if you search online you’ll find several.

For me, the primary consideration against it is that you’re planning more kids—and so that’s where I’d start: naming a pretend third (and possibly fourth) child. Imagine that you have named your secondborn June, so you have Jack, June, and ? If you feel like you can come up with more names for that sibling set (and can hold on after the third one is named and seems like odd-one-out for awhile, until the fourth one is named and makes the situation more stable), then I think you’re okay: you wouldn’t even WANT to continue the one-syllable J-name theme. So if you like Jack, June, Lila, and Georgia, or Jack, June, Louis, and Simon, then everything is fine and I think you should just go right ahead and use the name you like best. If, however, you feel uneasy when you try to choose a third/fourth, then maybe you’d rather go with the plan to use something different this time and save June for a possible second girl. Sometimes a sibling in between can make all the difference.

On the other hand, as soon as I write that, I wonder if it might not be particularly charming to have the older kids with similar names and maybe the younger kids also with similar names? Jack and June, Lila and Louis? I love that. I realize we can’t know how many kids you’ll have or what their sexes will be; it’s more that I think if you DO feel like THIS BABY is June, I can see real potential for having fun (as opposed to feeling painted into a corner) with future names. You can write to us again! We will help with the fun!

I can see how your brother’s new girlfriend’s name is making things feel a little unsettled. I would feel the same way. It sounds to me as if you have that in perspective, though: you know she may not last, and/or that she may last awhile and then be a painful association, and/or that she may be a permanent addition to the family. The difference in spelling does make a difference to me, as does the fact that it’s a nickname for another name. But I can also see how this might be one too many complications, and may be an argument for saving the name for later.

I’m obviously completely guessing, and also you should keep in mind that I was very surprised when Charlotte and Evelyn went Top 10, so it’s not as if I have a keen and reputable track record—but it seems to me the name Lila already had its run for the top, and since then has fallen back to settle comfortably in the 200s:

(screenshot from https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/)

It shoots up all of a sudden there starting in 1998 (notice that before that it had been out of the Top 1000 since 1982); and anyone considering it in 2006-2010 would have good reason for thinking it was heading up the way Isabella/Charlotte/Emma/etc. did. But then it just stalls out. It hangs around for awhile thinking about it in 2010-2014, but by 2015 it’s decided it’s happy where it is and isn’t going to try for queen of the hill. Then we have a good five years or so chilling in the 200s, which is a lovely place for a name to be: familiar and non-startling, but also not very common at all.

I’m interested in the question about names similar to June, because I feel like there are surprisingly few. June is vintage, but not COMMON vintage like Jane; it’s a month, which puts it in the special/noun category; it’s one syllable, which adds another level of distinction. I am hoping commenters can help with this; some of the ones I’m coming up with are more like June combined with other names on your list. The Baby Name Wizard suggests Rose, Eva, Iris, Joy, Ruby, May. I would add Jane, Jean, Joan; they don’t solve your issue, and none of them are quite right, but they’re adjacent, and may lead us to think of other possible candidates. Fiona and Simone (Simone would rule out Simon) keep coming to my mind even though I would not really put them in the same category. Ruth? Louise (would rule out Lewis/Louis)? Eliza? Frances/Frankie. Kay(e). Polly, Sally, Leigh, Lynn—all names I think would sound extremely fresh on a new baby. Cora, Clara. Mabel. Pearl. Ada, Alice, Greta. I might look at botanical names: Violet, Dahlia/Dalia, Laurel, Olive, Hazel. Oh! Fern?? Flora? IVY!!

Name update:

Hi, Swistle!

Our sweet June Elisabeth was born in April. When it came down to it, we just couldn’t resist the magic of June—you were right, there’s nothing quite like it! Plus, it fits her perfectly. Thanks to you and your readers for the input!

Hi Swistle,

My husband and I are expecting our first baby, unknown sex, in early April and we’d love your help with name suggestions. I originally thought that we would struggle coming up with boy names because there weren’t many that we liked, but I think we’ve settled on either Rowan or George as a first name and maybe Harald as a middle name. Harald is an honor name and I really like the idea of incorporating at least one honor name into our baby’s name. My husband and I both have honor names as our middle names (my middle name is my mom’s first name, and my husband’s middle name is his grandpa’s first name).

My husband’s last name sounds like Dickson, and we’ll likely use my last name (sounds like Mattson) as a second middle name. I don’t love how our last names sound together (too much like Mason Dixon), but I want our baby to have my last name as well, so adding it as a second middle name seems like the best way to do that.

We’re struggling more with a name for a girl. We’d ideally like something that is recognizable but not super common (preferably not in the top 100 names for that sex in the past few years). I would also prefer a name that is fairly classic and not just a trend. We considered Nora and Lucy, but both of those seem too common for our preferences. Other names we’re considering are Quinn, Sloane, Felicity, Harriet, Evelyn, and Maren. The names Eleanor and Madeline have been used by family so we’re not considering those.

Harriet has some significance in our relationship, but if we name our daughter that I’d like her to have a nickname, and one of my best friends goes by Hattie (her real name is Heather) which seems like the most obvious nickname for Harriet.

I’ve loved the name Maren for a long time, but I don’t like that there are two ways to pronounce it (I like it best when it doesn’t rhyme with Karen), and I’m not sure I like it with my husband’s last name.

For girl middle names, I really like either Jean or Ruth. Both of these are honor names, and I like that the don’t start with a vowel since we’ve realized there are lots of words that can be spelled by initials when the first name starts with a consonant, middle name a vowel, and then D (George Otto Dickson was in the running for a boy name if the initials didn’t spell out GOD). Even though we intend for our kids to have my last name as a second middle name I’d like to avoid spelling other words or names if they drop my last name sometime in the future.

I’d appreciate any help and suggestions you have, either on the names we’re considering or others you think we should add to our list of contenders.

Thank you,

K

My first question, if we were sitting together in a cozy little office with comfy chairs that were easy to get in and out of even while heavily pregnant; decorated with name-labeled photos of newborns; with a tray of exactly the snack you happened to be thinking of on your way to the appointment—I say, my first question there and also here would be “Are you planning to have more children?” Because if so, I think the first task before us is to see if we can narrow down your naming style. There is a world, a WORLD of difference between George and Rowan, between Quinn and Felicity. And so if you are planning more children, and if you like sibling names to coordinate to some degree, this is a decision that would be useful to make ahead of time.

Let’s start with Boy Name Style. Rowan strikes me as unisex, Celtic, and modern: I would not know if a Rowan on a name list was a boy or a girl, and I can’t think of any Rowans in my age group or my parents’ or grandparents’ age group except for Rowan Atkinson. George is boy-only, more British in flavor, and with usage that goes up and down over the years but I can definitely think of plenty of Georges throughout the generations. If you started with a boy named Rowan, and then had more children, I would expect names such as Quinn (boy or girl), Sloane, and Maren. If you started with a boy named George, and then had more children, I would expect names such as Felicity, Harriet, and Evelyn. (If you are avoiding common names, I will mention that according to the Social Security Administration, Evelyn is a Top 10 name as of 2020.)

Which grouping seems more like Your Kids to you? Picture them around the table, in the car, upstairs in their rooms, writing their names on their homework, being introduced to someone you run into while shopping. Do you have a Quinn and a Rowan and a Sloane? Do you have a Felicity and a George and a Harriet? There is obviously no rule that you have to divide things this way: you are allowed to have a Rowan and a Felicity, a George and a Sloane. But what we find is that most parents who are interested enough in baby names to write to us are also parents who like the names to Go Well Together—and so those are a lot of the letters we get: parents who used Felicity and now realize that was an outlier to their tastes, and now they want to use Quinn for a second girl but it feels wrong; parents who used Rowan for a boy, and now want to use George but it feels wrong. Etc.

Next I would like to discuss your surname. I used my birth surname as my children’s second middle name, and at this point of my life I feel both glad that I put it SOMEwhere, and also disbelief that I put it in the absolute least important spot, and even planned on them DROPPING IT. Why? Why? Why did I think that my family’s surname was only worthy of that tiny crumb? At this point I wish I’d made it part of the surname: either a double surname or a hyphenated one. At the time that felt like Too Much Surname, or Too Much To Ask; now it feels like a completely reasonable and fair thing to do. It also helps that there are several kids in our school system who have double surnames that are even more complicated and difficult and clunky than my kids’ surnames would have been, and everyone just copes with it and it’s fine. I felt so happy to hear my own surname read out at two kid high school graduations so far, and it’s made me realize I could have heard my own surname used continually throughout their childhoods/lives. Instead I used it not just as a middle name, but as a SECOND middle name. I encourage you to think about whether this is enough for you. If our system were fair, the parents’ surnames would be used in a way that gave them 50-50 importance; ask yourself if you’re willing to accept, and can be happy long-term about, a split that is more like 1-99. Especially if (and I can’t tell for sure if this is the case or not, but your phrasing makes me think it is) you have kept your own surname! If you still have your surname, a double surname (your name second, to avoid the Mason Dixon thing) will be easy for everyone to understand, and will make everything EASIER: the school will remember the surnames of BOTH parents, and will remember that you are related to your own children! your kids’ friends’ parents will be able to find you on Facebook! you can be The Dickson Mason Family, and that will make sense for every family member’s surname! you won’t be the ONLY ONE in your family with a different surname! etc.! That is what I should have done: I should have kept my own surname, and given the kids a double surname, and then everything would have been fair AND would have made sense. (If you are thinking, “Well, but double surnames just push the problem down the road,” I’d say first of all “Okay, but so does using only the father’s family surname!” and also “Okay! I feel confident the kids can handle it!” and also “Okay! Then let’s use just YOUR surname!”)

Well. Onward.

If you are looking for names more like Quinn and Sloan for a girl, one option to consider is using Rowan. In the U.S. usage is unisex-leaning-somewhat-boy: 1166 new baby girls and 3231 new baby boys were given the name in 2020 (the 2021 information is expected in May).

If you like Maren but are not sure you want to take on the pronunciation issues, there’s Brynn and Corinne—both also similar to Quinn. But I wonder if any sort of -in name with your husband’s surname is too evocative of Winn-Dixie. That’s a fairly neutral/non-harmful association, though.

Brynn makes me think of Wynne, which makes me think of one of my own favorite names: Winifred. Underused (not even in the Top 1000, let alone the Top 100), but familiar and easy to spell and pronounce. Cute nicknames Winnie and Freddie/Fred, which feels like it gives her a fair amount of wiggle room to choose what’s right for her.

I also think of Linnea (linn-NAY-ah).

In fact, I am noticing you have a lot of -in- sounds in your options: Evelyn, Quinn, Maren. And then you’ve got Sloane and Rowan, with the long-O and N sounds, which makes me think of Fiona (#296 in 2020) and Simone (#875) and (long-shot, but I think it’s a great name) Joan (not in the Top 1000).

If you like Harriet but don’t want to repeat your friend’s nickname, I wonder if you’d like Henrietta? I think it’s splendid. Underused (again, not in the Top 1000), with various nicknames including Hennie, Henry if she’s in the mood, Hettie, Etta, etc. Though of course it loses the connection to your relationship.

This feels out of nowhere, but the name Claudia came to mind. Again, underused, and I think it’s a great name. (It would have been high on my list if it hadn’t been the name of one of Paul’s ex-girlfriends.)

If you like Nora but it’s too common (#30 in 2020), I suggest Flora (#932 in 2020) or Cora. Cora was #88 in 2020, but the bottom of the Top 100 may be quite a bit less common than you’re imagining. For example, the name Cora was given to .17% of baby girls in 2020. That’s 17 girls out of 10,000 girls; 17 babies out of approximately 20,000 babies, if we remember that girls are only about half. If a classroom has approximately 25 students in it, and approximately half of the students are girls, that’s 17 Coras per 800 classrooms—or 1 Cora per 47 classrooms. That’s national, of course; there will be schools where the name Cora is much more common, and schools where it is much less common. And no matter what name you choose, the statistics fully allow for little coincidental clusters: three Coras and zero Olivias, for example, even though Olivia is #1. But overall, the #88 name is not very common at all.

In fact, while we’re here, let’s do that math on Nora. At #30, it was used for approximately .32% of baby girls in 2020. That’s 32 Noras per 10,000 girls; 32 Noras per 20,000 babies; 32 Noras per 800 classrooms; 1 Nora per 25 classrooms. Many parents are remembering the days of Jennifer (used back then for approximately 4% of baby girls), but names are no longer used at those rates.

Name update:

Hi Swistle,

Thanks so much for all of your thoughtful advice on the name for our baby. I appreciated your idea to think of the style of names that we like as a way to narrow down our options.

More than anything, I appreciated the comments from you and your readers about the baby’s last name. You’re right that I didn’t change my last name when I married, and after reading your advice and talking it through with my husband, we decided to hyphenate the baby’s last name. I ended up having a fairly difficult labor and it felt so right, and fair, that this baby has both of our last names.

Anyway, George Silas Mattson Dickson was born at the end of March. George and Harald were both honor names from my husband’s maternal grandfather’s side of the family, so we decided on Silas as a middle name because we like it and its meaning and we didn’t feel that we needed two honor names.

Thank you again for your help!

K

Hi Swistle

I’ve been an avid reader of your blog despite easily deciding on the names of our first two children. We’re pregnant with a surprise third- a girl due late February.

Both our first two children have two middle names- Eleanor Lucy Féy (nn Ellie) and Zachary Harold Logan (nn Zach). Their full names and nicknames are used interchangeably in our house. The middle names are honor names. Our surname is W00let (with two L’s and two T’s).

Sibsets are very important to me, hence lots of dilemmas with naming this third baby. We don’t have a lot of honor names left to choose from due to using up four already! Does this baby need two middle names like her siblings? And lastly does it need to have multiple syllables and a nickname like her siblings?

Top contender for a first name that meets the above criteria is Alexandra, nickname Alex. The other name we love is Maeve but it doesn’t really have a nickname (I hate Maevy/ie). Other names on our list include Chloe, Sophia, Sloane and Blair.

For a second name we think Toni as my deceased dad was Anthony, called Tony. We like Grace as a third name but it has no family ties and not sure if we’re using it just to have three names.

Any wisdom or advice you can share would be appreciated.

Thanks
Victoria (Tori)

Everyone will have their own answers to these questions, and mine are:

• she DOES need to have two middle names like her siblings,
• it would be NICE (though not necessary) for her name to have a nickname, and
• it is NOT necessary for her name to have multiple syllables

I would not have thought to call a Maeve “Maevy.” I suggest the nickname Mae. Eleanor, Zachary, and Maeve; Ellie, Zach, and Mae. A friend’s child has the nickname Mae-Mae, which I would not have thought of (or thought to choose ahead of time, as they did), but with time it seems completely natural. Everybody calls her Mae-Mae. I had to pause to remember her actual given name. Or would you like Maisy? It’s so similar to Maevy that I wouldn’t think you would—but I don’t like Maevy either, and I very much like Maisy, so maybe!

Another possibility for a nickname for Maeve is to see if it combines well with any of the middle names. And only you know if your family is like this, but in my family we have a tendency to take names like that and lengthen them with completely unrelated endings: a Maeve would be called Maeve-Ann, Maeva-Louise, Maeva-Maria, Maeve-abelle, etc.

The name Alexandra isn’t sitting right with me. I think part of it is that it doesn’t seem like the same era as Eleanor, while also seeming too similar to it in sound: similar beginnings Ele- and Ale-; both with an -an- in the middle. And potentially nicknames Ellie and Allie (I don’t fret much about similar nicknames, but I would generally prefer to avoid them).

None of the other names on the list are grabbing my attention. For a sister to an Eleanor I’d be looking for something a little more current than Chloe and Sophia, a little less preppy than Sloane and Blair. But Chloe is the only one that feels surprising to me with Eleanor. Sophia seems fine style-wise. Sloane and Blair tip Eleanor more to the trim/tailored kind of elegant, rather than to the vintage/Austen kind.

For a second middle name, I suggest your name: ______ Toni Victoria W00let. Or I think it could be sweet to repeat one of her sister’s middle names, so that they match: ______ Toni Féy W00let. Or I think any name with a story works well: a name you wished was yours when you were a child; a place name; a friend’s name; the name of a writer or poet or scientist or politician. Or something to indicate the happiness of a surprise bonus baby: Joy, Felicity/Felice/Felicia, Beatrix/Beatrice. Or Valentine, if she’s born in February. Or, I’m not usually very into name meanings, but I happened to notice that the name Tressa means “third.” That doesn’t seem fun enough to use if you don’t also like the name—but if you DO like the name, it’s at least a little fun! I’d prefer one of the joy/luck names, though, story-wise.

Let’s look for more first-name options.

Jane. This comes to mind because of the Austen novels, and also because it is not entirely unsimilar to Maeve and Sloane. Do you like the nickname Janie? Eleanor, Zachary, and Jane; Ellie, Zach, and Janie.

Lydia. Also Austen. Nickname Lyddie/Liddy. Eleanor, Zachary, and Lydia; Ellie, Zach, and Lyddie.

Margaret. Still Austen. Nicknames are abundant: Maggie, Meg, Daisy, Greta. Eleanor, Zachary, and Margaret; Ellie, Zach, and Maggie/Meg/Daisy/Greta. I’m not sure about the repeated -t ending with the surname.

Josephine. A veer from Austen to Alcott. Eleanor, Zachary, and Josephine; Ellie, Zach, and Josie/Posey.

Louisa. While we’re on Alcott. Eleanor, Zachary, and Louisa; Ellie, Zach, and Lulu.

Rose. (Posey made me think of it.) Eleanor, Zachary, and Rose; Ellie, Zach, and Rosie.

Georgia. Eleanor, Zachary, and Georgia; Ellie, Zach, and Georgie.

Florence. Eleanor, Zachary, and Florence; Ellie, Zach, and Flora. (Possibility of Nora and Flora if Eleanor changes her nickname later on.)

Cordelia. Eleanor, Zachary, and Cordelia; Ellie, Zach, and Delia.

Vivian. Eleanor, Zachary, and Vivian; Ellie, Zach, and Vivi.

Meredith. This has some of the tailored sound of Sloane/Blair, but increases the femininity to put it closer in style to Eleanor. Eleanor, Zachary, and Meredith; Ellie, Zach, and Merrie.

Name update:

Hi Swistle

Thank you for answering my questions so thoughtfully.

Maeve Antonia Grace was born a few weeks ago.

The answer that we didn’t need a multiple syllable first name was enough to confirm that it was ok to use the name we love. Lots of readers suggested Antonia and we felt the longer first middle name definitely complemented two short other names.

Her nickname is currently ‘baby Maeve’ and we are ok with seeing how her nickname evolves organically.

Thanks again
Tori