Leah writes:

We are trying to come up with a girl name for our second child due in February (if it’s a boy we will go with either Jonas Levi, James Oberon or William (Liam) James – we both love all 3 names just need to meet the baby first to see what fits :)). However we have a much harder time with girl names. With our first we had whole lists of boy names we both loved but did not like any of the same girl names. We took 3 days (after she was born) to name her and both absolutely love her name (Frances Cecily) it fits her perfectly and we love how it sounds. We call her Frances, Francie and Chezzy – we also call her by both names “Frances Cecily”. Her last name is Irish – Weilly but with an R. We plan to have at least 2 more children after baby #2, so we don’t want anything that eliminates one of our boy choices. My name is Leah, husbands name is Robert (Rob)

Ok, on to our current list (in no particular order):

Erin – family name, we both like it but worry it may sound “dated” or not fit well with Frances

Jane – also a family name (and my middle), we could certainly use it as a middle, Rob is unsure of it as a first name.

Charlotte – we both like it a lot, it is popular which doesn’t bother us in theory, however we know 3 baby girl Charlottes in our circles already…

Elise – Rob’s long time favorite girl name, I don’t mind it, but am on the fence

Marlowe – another Rob favorite that has personal meaning to him, again I’m not sure about it and feel it doesn’t fit with Frances

Sylvie – a new addition to our list that I like a lot and has grown on Rob.

Sadie – A Rob favorite, I like it, but not 100% sold that it would fit our daughter…

Helen – A family name, Rob likes – I don’t really but am seeing if it grows on me

Other names that we tossed around:

Louisa – we have a cat named Louis – would it seem like we named her after the cat?

Georgia – both like, but don’t love

Regan – growing on us, but does it fit with Frances?

Eliza – an alternative to Elise that I like better, but we know a lot of Ellies and if we do an El name maybe stick with Rob’s favorite?

Genevieve – we both like it but don’t really like the obvious nicknames and I’m very much a nickname person

Hester – Rob loves, it could grow on me, but I’m not sure if this is too out there still?

Thea – I like it, but feel it needs to be short for something longer – maybe Anthea?? Theodora isn’t really clicking for us.

Combinations we both like but aren’t 100% sold on:

Erin Jane

Sylvie Jane

Charlotte Elise

Do you have any ideas for us? Combinations to try? Do these names work with our boy choices as well as with Frances Cecily? Thanks a bunch!

The first suggestion that comes to my mind is Harriet. Frances Cecily and Harriet Jane.

The name Erin does seem like a Mom Name to me. It’s still useable now, but it’s different enough from Frances that I think I’d prefer it as a middle name anyway.

Marlowe doesn’t seem like a good fit with Frances, either. I’d put that one on the middle name list too.

Same with Regan: good middle name candidate, but I think it’s too different in style to be the first name.

Jane is one of my favorites. It’s great as a middle name but I love it as a first name. Frances Cecily and Jane Elise.

I think if you had a grandfather named Louis, Louisa would be a sweet honor name. But in the case of a cat named Louis, I don’t think a single person will think the name Louisa was chosen as an honor name. They might remark on the similarity of the two names (although as I reflect on my own circle of friends and family, I find I know very few of the pet names), but they won’t think you thought long and hard about which family member to honor, and in the end decided the cat would be the best choice. It helps that many people have had the experience of using a name for a pet and then later realizing that name falls within their naming style for children as well. It helps, too, that the names are so different in sound:  LOO-wiss and loo-WEEZ-zah. They’re visually very similar, but the two names won’t typically be seen written down together. And if I may switch to a Delicate Tone of Voice, how old is the cat?

Eloise would take the name a step further from the cat’s name. Frances and Eloise.

If your husband likes Elise but you’re not quite sure, I suggest Alice. The sounds are almost identical, and I like the style of Alice better with Frances, too. Frances Cecily and Alice Jane, or Frances Cecily and Alice Marlowe, or Frances Cecily and Alice Regan.

If he likes Hester and you’re not quite sure, I suggest Esther. Esther Jane, maybe, or Esther Louisa

If Genevieve is not quite right, I suggest Josephine—very similar sounds, but a new set of nicknames to consider.

Thea could also be short for Dorothea or Althea. But I think of it as a stand-alone name, and I think that’s my favorite version of it.

A few more possibilities:

Beatrix (I think Beatrice is a better fit, but I’m not sure about the matched endings)
Eleanor
Evelyn
Hazel
Lydia
Mabel
Marian
Olive
Vivian

Name update! Leah writes:

We had our baby! We had a boy, as it turns out :). His name is Jonas Barnaby and he’s a total sweetheart.

A. writes:

I love your blog and check it everyday for inspiration and just to read your insight. I wrote to you last May regarding my interest in using one of my students’ names as a possible middle name for a future child. A month later I got pregnant! So your advice and the advice of your readers on that topic may be put to good use very shortly if we have a girl.

I’m writing because we’re having some trouble with boys’ names. The troubles that we’re having seem to be the same that we’ve been having for months and months, so I thought it might finally be time to ask for some help.

I am due in March and we are not finding out the sex of the baby ahead of time. We’d like to go to the hospital with two full girls’ names and two full boys’ names ready to go and then decide after the baby is born. If this baby is a girl, her first name will be either Eleanor or Margaret. The student’s name that I wrote to you about back in May (with an “e” added to the end, as several readers suggested) will be used as the middle name if the baby is a girl and looks like an Eleanor. If she looks like a Margaret, then her middle name will be Linnea.

Even though I’m still a little nervous about the potential awkwardness if we do decide to use the student’s name as a middle name, I am so much more stressed about naming this baby if it’s a boy. Obviously, we’d like something that would compliment Margaret and Eleanor since it’s possible that we’d use them as names for future children. We seem to be narrowing down our list pretty closely, but I have “problems” with all of our choices. This bothers me because I have no such “problems” with either of our girl names. Here are our top three contenders for boys:

Charles

I like this name a lot and when I imagine having a child named Charlie, I swoon a little. It seems like a name that is well-liked, that won’t be too popular (although it’s more popular in my state than in the US as a whole), and a name that carries some weight with it. I’m a science nerd, so I love the idea that he’d have a nice normal name, but that inwardly I’d know that I’d named him for Charles Darwin. The two concerns that I have are:

1. Would the nickname Charlie sound bad with our last name? Our last name is Ashleigh-Wertman (not spelled exactly that way, but you get the idea). Does the “ee” sound a the end of Charlie sound bad with the “ee” sound at the end of Ashleigh?

2. I have never been able to find a satisfactory answer to the question of how to posessify (is that a word?) names that end in an “s.” Is it written Charles’ or Charles’s? And how should it be pronounced?  I know that this may seem like a minor point when choosing a child’s name, but for some reason it really stresses me out to think of my poor kid being corrected by teachers right and left because different style guide writers seem to have different opinions. Am I over-thinking it? How do parents deal with this? I’m kind of a stickler for grammar rules, so I’m really frustrated that I can’t seem to find a single answer that everyone can agree on when it comes to this topic.

Arthur

I love this name. I think it’s interesting and unusual and that it sounds very smart and quirky. It’s also a name that appears a few times in my husband’s family so he’s warmer to it than most of my other quirky suggestions. The troubles:

1. My first name is like “Garden” (but without the “G”). Does Arthur sound too similar? I’m already not a fan of repeated initials within a family and on top of that the repeated “Ar” sound at the beginning of both names seems a bit much. When I say my name, my husband’s name, and the name Arthur all together, it sounds a little weird to me for a family. If I throw in some other names (like, if we used Arthur for a second or third child) then it sounds a little better, but when it’s just the three of us I worry that it will sound too matchy. Also, I’m a little worried about flying together. With our long hyphenated last name, the only way to differentiate between my husband’s boarding pass and my boarding pass is with the one or two letters of our first names that show up. One time, an airline employee scanned my boarding pass and then my husband’s and the machine made a beeping sound. She said, “Oh wait….oh, I see, Ashleigh-Wertman, A. and Ashleigh-Wertman, B. Okay, you can go through.” But what if it had been me and my son flying? They would both have shown up as Ashleigh-Wertman, A and would that have been a problem? From her reaction, it sounded as though the concern may have been that someone could have just tried to copy the same boarding pass and use it for two people or something. Flying has already gotten to be such a headache . . . but surely there are fathers and sons with the exact same name, so it can’t be an insurmountable issue, right?

2. The other trouble is that it’s really hard for me to stay neutral on this name. With many other names, I can picture the name on lots of different kinds of people. But with Arthur, I can really only picture it on a smart, studious, nerdy person. My husband and I are both smart, studious, nerdy people, so the association is not a bad one for us, but what if our kid is drastically different from us? Will we have saddled him with a name that just won’t fit his personality? I don’t know any Arthurs under the age of 60 (besides the cartoon Aardvark on PBS), so it’s really difficult to figure out how this name will be received by others.

William

This is a nice, classic name that has stood the test of time pretty well. I like the way that it sounds and I can imagine it on a ton of different personalities. The troubles:

1. It’s so popular! I know that even the most popular names aren’t as popular as they used to be and that William certainly isn’t a “trendy” name in the sense that it will sound dated in a few years, but it’s really hard for me to choose the #3 name in America (and #2 in my state!) for my child. I mean, according to the SSA, I was one of only 14 baby girls in the United States  who received my first name in the year that I was born. Last year, there were over a thousand times as many Williams.  I know that, statistically speaking, that would still make it very unlikely that he’d be one of three Williams in his class or whatnot, but it’s certainly more likely than if he had a name that was at least out of the top 10. Especially since this is our first child, I’m not exposed to playgroups and daycares that would give me a better sense of how common this name is in our area, so I’m very nervous about bestowing it on my child.

2. I can’t find a nickname that I like for this name and “William” on it’s own sounds a little heavy for a baby. I don’t like Bill or Billy. I could get on board with Will, but probably not until he was at least a little older. I may be juvenile, but “Willy” sounds a little too much like a euphemism for a penis. I like the name Liam, but my husband had a really bad experience with a Liam, so we’d never use it. I know that William on it’s own isn’t a terribly long name and that it’s fine to use it in it’s entirety, but my husband’s family is REALLY into nicknames, so I’d like to at least like some of the options.

My other trouble is that I feel like I associate Charles and Arthur together. Like, if we decide to go with Charles, I’d want the first-middle combo to be Charles Arthur and if we went with Arthur I’d want the first-middle combo to be Arthur Charles. (William seems to be its own entity in my mind…) So I feel as though if we have a boy and go with either Charles or Arthur, it will rule out the other one for a future sibling because it will be this boy’s middle name. Maybe I need to start looking into other middle name possibilities, but for some reason I feel really stuck on these two as a “pair.”

So ultimately I need some help with answering some of my naming questions and I also need some help with prioritizing/getting over my naming concerns. Before narrowing down to these three, our closest runners-up were George, Leo, Ian and Isaac. I think we’d be willing to resurrect some of these if the problems with our top three seem insurmountable, but of course each of these was eliminated for it’s own issues and I think my husband has grown so tired of the naming discussion that he’d rather not re-hash any of the old names.

Of course, if you have any fresh suggestions I’d appreciate hearing them too!

I’m going to start with the question about making a name that ends in S possessive. A person is singular, and so a person’s name is a singular noun, and singular nouns ending in S are made possessive by adding an apostrophe-S. So if Charles has a hat, it’s Charles’s hat—just as it’s Jacob’s hat or Isabella’s hat or Tess’s hat. The final letter of the name doesn’t change anything: it’s always [Name]’s hat. In the case of Charles, it would be pronounced with a repeating Z sound. With time and practice the Z sound of the apostrophe-S gets diminished (shorter and quieter) so it’s not quite so zizzley: Charlez-z hat.

The one exception to this rule is Jesus (probably because three Z sounds in a row didn’t sound dignified enough for prayers): it’s Jesus’ hat and it’s pronounced the same as Jesus (“In Jesus name, Amen”). This exception has caused two thousand years of people not being able to remember what to do with Charles’s hat.

Once you’ve memorized this, a new problem emerges: will you be able to stand it when no one else seems to know the rule—including, as you mention, some of his teachers? There was a baby James in the daycare classroom where I used to work, and that experience showed me that it can be painful to know something few others know. I once saw someone write “Jame’s.” On something that was then laminated. That baby James is in high school now, and I am still agitating about it.

But if your son mostly goes by Charlie, it’s going to be Charlie’s hat anyway. And swooning when you imagine having a son named Charlie is a very good sign for the name. It does seem unfortunate that the -leigh in his surname will echo the -lie of his nickname; only you will be able to decide if you want to give up your favorite name over it. I’ve found I can say it in a sing-song way that makes me think it’s definitely not going to work (CHAR-lee-ASH-lee WERT-man), OR I can adjust the way I say it a little to make it completely fine: “Hi! My name is Charlie [pause, then mush the surname together] AshleighWERTman.” Or he could introduce himself this way: “Hi, I’m Charles Ashleigh-Wertman! Call me Charlie!”

Let’s move on to Arthur. I’m dismissing the airplane ticket concerns completely. As you say, surely fathers and sons with the same name have traveled together and have not been prevented from flying, and each ticket has its own code number. If you have a boy AND you use Arthur AND you are buying airplane tickets, I would suggest explaining the issue at the time of purchase and asking the airline what you should do to make that part of the boarding process easier and less confusing for airline employees.

Arthur does sound a little like your name, but as with the repeating -lie/-leigh issue, I think only you can decide if this bugs you enough to give up the name. If you prefer Charles anyway, using Arthur as the middle name or saving it for a possible future son seems like an excellent plan.

My other primary association with the name Arthur is King Arthur. You could play that up a bit to diminish the aardvark-only association.

And finally, William. I have heard of people using Wills as a nickname. For a baby, Baby Will or Baby William seems like a natural nickname. And I found with my own babies that other nicknames just emerged on their own: we spent a lot of time calling a baby Sweetymuffin and Bippy-Louise and Pluffybuns and Froggypants, and by the time those names sounded wrong, the child was old enough for more classroom-friendly nicknames. As long as you’ve got Will ready for later on it sounds like you’re all set.

I don’t think I’d use Charles and William in the same sibling group, because of the strong association I have with the royals. But the two names are great together, and I wouldn’t feel at all critical of a family that DID decide to use them together (or who used, say, Charles and Elizabeth, which should have the same level of association for me but somehow don’t); it’s not as if the names belong exclusively to the royal family.

It sounds to me as if you like the name Charles best, and that Charles is the name that best meets your preferences and priorities. Beyond that, all of your questions are questions you have to find your own answers to: they’re all issues of personal taste, so my answers aren’t necessarily going to be the same as yours. Do YOU mind the repeating -lie/-leigh sound? Do YOU mind the problems with making Charles possessive? Do YOU mind the popularity of William? Do YOU want to use both Charles and Arthur as first names or do you want to work on finding new middle names? You’re definitely on the right track to be considering these questions, but another person’s answers might increase the uncertainty rather than decreasing it. If it helps, I’ll say this: not one single issue you raised sounds like a deal-breaker to me. Every single one of them seems like an issue where you could think it over, decide what you think, and go with that. And at this point, that seems like a good idea: instead of agitating over all the issues, think to yourself “Which of the three names do I LIKE BEST?”

 
Name update! A. writes:

You and your readers helped us tremendously with our naming decision for our baby, who was born March 18. I had written to you last May to ask about the etiquette around using a middle name inspired by one of my students’ nicknames. I then wrote to you in November (after I was actually pregnant) to ask about some concerns I had with our finalist boy names. The advice we got from these requests was really helpful. We were going to decide between Margaret Linne@ and Ele@nor Verne for a girl — depending on what seemed to suit her best — and had settled on some undecided combination of Charles, Arthur, Gregory or “something else” if it was a boy (most likely going with Ch@rles Arthur).

We had a girl and it actually took awhile to name her. Within a few minutes of her birth, my husband had formed an opinion and asked me if I’d formed one yet. I’d barely gotten a look at her face yet and so I hadn’t! Besides, when he got back from the warming area where they weighed her, he said he was already leaning in the other direction.

It was a VERY difficult decision, but we eventually decided that she looked more like a Margaret than an Eleanor. And even though we brought her home on the vernal equinox and I still feel some residual “but it would have been so perfect!” feelings about Ele@nor Verne, we went with the name that seemed to fit her best.

Many thanks! I am hoping that I may someday have another daughter who will feel more like an Eleanor. They’d make a great sister pair!

Emily writes:

First let me apologize for this, my second request for your help.  But we are three weeks away and really starting to panic. Your expertise could really help!

We have lists and lists of names that we have dutifully voted on together (in a far more civilized process than I ever would have imagined), only to get down to 5-10 choices that we cannot commit to.

This baby boy will our second child and definitely the last.  His older brother is named Abbot James (middle name and initials honoring my several men on my side of the family).  My husband’s name is Seth, last name sounds like Macon with a B  (the boys have his last name). My name is Emily (I kept my maiden name for a variety of reasons).

Our rules (okay maybe just mine):

1. Simple, yet unique names that are generally familiar to the general public.  Word and surnames in this category are great!
2. Nothing in the top 100, but preferably nothing in the top 1000
3. Must go with middle name Michael (honor name for husband’s dad)
4. Must not conflict with last name that is a breakfast food and could already lead to some measure of playground ridicule
5. Should sound good with Abbot, but this is not a deal breaker
6. We also like nature and virtue names

If we had a girl, we were probably going to name her Delphine (my family is French) or some flower/British sounding name.

Our list so far:

Townsend (I love this name, husband thinks it is too pretentious)
Lark (Too girly? We may use this as a second middle name)
Aubin
Auden (don’t love having kids with two A names though)
Thaddeus (probably out because we can’t think of a cool nickname…hate Thad and Tad)
Fairfax
Pryor
Bright
Barrett (husband lives in fear of child being called Barry)
Bishop
Gideon

None of these is a slam dunk for either of us, which only leads us to keep searching for a new name (vicious cycle). Time is growing short (been fighting early labor signs for a month now) and we know we need to commit to something, but can’t bring ourselves to hone in on one of these names.

Can you help us break the cycle or even suggest a new name that gets us out of the rut? Thanks so much for considering our plight!

I’m trying each name on the list with your surname, and I’m afraid I’m running into issues left and right: there’s something about combining a very unusual first name with a whimsical surname that leads to comic results. Fairfax _acon. Pryor _acon. Bright _acon! Oh dear!

Bishop is probably the worst of the list with a brother named Abbot. Bishop _acon is already an amusing name, but Abbot and Bishop is a little like naming them Sailor and Fisher, or Forest and Ranger, or Harper and Piper: the theme makes the effect even more comical.

Lark definitely seems too feminine to me; in the United States, it is currently used only for girls and never for boys. And with the surname, I can’t imagine it.

The only possible name on the list is Gideon. (Thaddeus would also be an option, but not if you hate the nicknames.) In your shoes, I’d be ready to just go with that: you’re having so much trouble, and if this is the only name that (1) you both like and that (2) doesn’t result in an amusing combination, I think it’s a winner. It’s good with the brother name and it’s good with the surname, and you’re running out of time.

I looked around for more suggestions, but I didn’t find anything that seemed better than Gideon while also meeting the other preferences. Maybe Desmond. I’d certainly avoid B sounds, church-related names, word names (Sterling, Forest, Abel), and whimsical names. I might also avoid names ending in the same -on/-en/-in sound as the surname.

Name update! Emily writes:

We are pleased to announce (belatedly) the birth of our son Townsend Michael, or Townie to his friends and family.

Thanks to you and your readers for helping break our love-hate cycle with the names on our list!  In the end, it came down to Barrett and Townsend.  I was prepared to do battle for Barrett and convince my husband that nobody would call him Barry unless we did, but then I gave Townsend a second look.

I love the funny and sweet nicknames it allows for, and the endless number of songs we can sing with the word “town” in them provide lots of amusement at diaper changing time.  Townie was a biggish baby at birth, but is growing into a strapping young infant (100% in weight, height, and head size), so our 3-year-old laughs hysterically when we refer to Townsend as “Tiny Town” or when he cries and we sing “I’ve got those little Town blues”.

It’s all good stuff.  Thanks again for the help you have given us and to so others many seeking advice!

Rebecca writes:

Returning customer here, hoping for some inspiration. Or something like that. Here’s the low-down; we are expecting baby #3, gender unknown, on 12/28/12. Our last name is Reese, my husband’s name is Benjamin, I’m Rebecca, and we have 2 girls, Harper Grace and Rowan Kate. We’re about 4 weeks away from meeting this baby and our baby name spreadsheet (my husband insisted we get ‘serious’ and make a spreadsheet) is feeling lackluster, and really, kind of all over the place.

My only ‘rules’ when it comes to naming are that you must be able to look at the name and pronounce it (no crazy spelling), nothing that sticks out weirdly with siblings’ names (Harper, Rowan, & Bob would be a no-go), and preferably nothing that starts with an ‘H’ or an ‘R’.

Here’s my predicament: when thinking about names for this baby, I realized there is one girl name that I have loved since my first pregnancy, but never had the guts to use; Scout. It made me question if I would regret never using this name if this were to be our last child. I have loved the name Scout since first reading ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ in 7th grade. Here are my qualms with the name:

-our firstborn’s name is Harper, not after Harper Lee, but I also don’t want to be to ‘theme-y’.

-I can definitely envision a cute toddler girl named Scout–a 35-year-old woman, not so much.

-is it just too weird?

I feel like I already think of this baby (if it is a girl) as Scout in my head, so maybe that should give me an inclination. I would prefer to use it as a first name, and give her a more feminine middle. Here are a few of our possibilities, as well as the rest of our list of girl names:

-Scout Eleanor

-Scout Noelle

-Scout Madeline

-Lola Jane

-Sawyer

-Navy

-Ivy

Basically all over the place, right? I know. Here’s the boy names we have so far–I like most of them, but I don’t have that ‘aha! its love!!’ feeling about any of them. I think I want something different, but not completely crazy (the middle name would most likely be Benjamin, after my husband).

-Graham

-Jude

-Finn

-Everett

-August

Please tell me how nutty I am. Any and all advice/suggestions are welcome!

Thank you, Swistle!!

Because my primary association with the name Harper is the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, I would not recommend using the name Scout for the sister of a Harper. I also think Scout seems too nicknamey with your other girls’ names, and I agree it’s not a name I would want for myself as a grown woman, and just as a final blow I don’t think it works well with the surname.

However, I notice both of your daughters have one-syllable middle names; Scout might be a perfect middle name for a third girl. It’s common for parents to think of a fetus by a certain nickname (Peanut, for example, or Bean, or Bear), and less common to be able to use it nicely as part of the actual name like this.

I’m looking over the other girl names on your list, and I don’t see anything that seems right with sisters Harper and Rowan. Madeline seems too feminine, Eleanor is a completely different style, Sawyer seems too boyish, Navy seems too unusual. Maybe Lola or Ivy—but Lola Scout seems like too much distinctiveness for one name, and Ivy Scout seems like too many nouns.

Or actually, maybe Noelle. At first it seemed too different/feminine, but when I say the three names together I start to change my mind: Harper, Rowan, and Noelle. I can see those as sisters. Harper Grace, Rowan Kate, and Noelle Scout.

Or I wonder if you’d like Stella? It has some of the sound of Noelle, but has a better rhythm with the middle name Scout: Harper Grace, Rowan Kate, and Stella Scout.

The name Isla comes to mind. Harper, Rowan, and Isla.

Or maybe Imogen would be better: Harper, Rowan, and Imogen.

Or Madigan would be nice: Harper, Rowan and Madigan.

Or Averil—I like the way it gives each girl an R sound. Harper, Rowan, and Averil.

Or Finley: Harper, Rowan, and Finley.

Or Ainsley: Harper, Rowan, and Ainsley.

Or Darcy: Harper, Rowan, and Darcy. But maybe Har and Dar are too similar.

Or Delaney: Harper, Rowan, and Delaney.

Looking up the name Harper in The Baby Name Wizard (Rowan isn’t there for girls; I hope it will be in the next edition), I see she’d recommend Marlowe, Piper, Scarlett, Tatum, and Emerson; I think Marlowe, Emerson, and Scarlett would work well. And you’re not going to find Nickname-Conservative Swistle endorsing this, but I’ve heard of people using Scout as a nickname for Scarlett. But maybe the name Scarlett Reese would bring Scarlett and Rhett too readily to mind?

From the boy name list, my favorite is Everett. Other names similar to Everett: Elliot and Emmett and Evan.

Some of the others seem choppy to me with the surname. I do think 1-1 syllable names can work (Brad Pitt and Sean Penn are excellent examples), but I can’t tell if Jude Reese and Finn Reese work.

Sawyer from your girl name list is another possibility. Sawyer Benjamin Reese; Harper, Rowan, and Sawyer.

Griffin would be nice, and you could still have Finn as a nickname. Griffin Benjamin Reese; Harper, Rowan, and Griffin.

Or Grady. Harper, Rowan, and Grady.

Or Malcolm. Harper, Rowan, and Malcolm.

Or Wilson. Harper, Rowan, and Wilson.

Name update! Rebecca writes:

Hello again!
Just wanted to give you a name update…we had a baby BOY(!) on December 21, 2012. After a few hours of debate & hoping to just look at him and have some divine inspiration for a name, we decided on Everett Benjamin. Thanks to you and all of your wonderful readers for the input, we appreciated it so much!

Sarah writes:

Hope you can provide some guidance here for a couple of picky parents. We have a toddler son named Corin Henry, last name sounds like Hollis-with-a-W.

We love his name and we like that most people can say and spell it with little prompting, but it’s different from most other names at the local park. It also suits our backgrounds – Scottish Canadian and English/Scottish Australian. The middle name honours his grandfather and great-grandfather (by using their middle names).

Now that we felt we did rather well naming our first, we’re stuck trying to find an equally wonderful name for a second boy.

We live in a large, culturally diverse urban centre, so the naming options out there are wild and almost nothing unusual is unheard of. We are not worried if the name seems slightly feminine, in fact I rather it than a macho boy name like Rock or Axel. We like names from the British/Scottish/Welsh extraction. They just suit our background. Other guiding principles, I prefer two-syllable names for boys and don’t like a plethora of common nicknames.

Our first decision was Errol which I love, but I got turned off it when I found some strange people on the internet that would have our son’s first and last name. ARGH GOOGLE.

All of our other choices are mostly E names:

Emery/Emory  – wondering if it skews too female these days, I prefer the ‘o’ spelling but I think the college is pronounced Em-OR-y

Emrys/Emry – I like Emrys but the double ‘s’ sound of the first and last names seems a bit lispy to me. Also the pronunciation of Emry does sound awfully like our first son’s middle name. We wonder if people will just think we’re mispronouncing Henry, which is a common name in our neighbourhood.

other names I’ve liked:

Auden

Gideon

Rufus

My husband isn’t on board with any of these especially, but does not mind Rufus. It has the same double-s sound with our last name.

I’m stuck for any other suggestions.

Hope you can help!

The first name that came to mind was Omri: similar to Emory and Emry, but not currently used for girls. (In the United States, Emory/Emery/Emry are all used more often for girls than for boys.) Omri is the name of the little boy in the book The Indian in the Cupboard, one of my favorite books from childhood. It’s almost unused (only 26 baby boys were given the name in the U.S. in 2011), but not too difficult to say or spell. I spent a little time online looking up the pronunciation: most sources say it’s AWM-ree. One or two gave an alternate pronunciation of a long O sound and an emphasis on the second syllable: ohm-REE. My family said it AHM-ree: the O sound of Oliver.

The second name that came to mind was Arlo: similar to Errol, but perhaps without any shady associations.

The third name that came to mind was Ruben: similar to Rufus, but without the S-ending issue.

I wonder if you’d like Earl or Karl or Darrell or Merrill instead of Errol?

Or Claude or Alton or Alden or Odin instead of Auden?

A few more possibilities:

Abel
Aidric
Barnaby
Bertram
Cedric
Cyril
Edmund
Franklin
George
Leif
Lyle
Merrick
Merritt
Murray
Perry
Russell (maybe too much L and S with the surname)

Name update! Sarah writes:

Thought I would update you on the name of our second son, born a few days ago.

We went back and forth on a few names before the birth, with Errol back in the mix along with a few of your suggestions, but THE name never emerged. When he was born, my husband felt strongly immediately he was a little Rufus (I love the nn Roo) so we set about finding a middle to break up the double-s sounding ends.

We settled on my father’s name Wyndham, and together we think the name sounds lovely, as well as being a suitable companion name for his besotted brother Corin.

Thank you so much for your help and that of your readers!

Jen writes:

We are having a baby boy (due 3/23). Most of the boy names were on our list the first time around and so it feels as though all of the names have been discussed before and it is…less fun. Our first is Carter Nicholas Holland. Nicholas is my husband’s name and it is a tradition from his side of the family we chose to follow. If this baby had been a girl, the short list we had included Stella, Penelope, Josephine, and Scarlett.

Right now our list is:

Grant
Brooks
Vaughn
Sebastian
Dexter
Graham

As you can surmise from the list, we generally like shorter, surnamey names. Both my husband and I would probably be fine with any of these. His favorite right now is Brooks, while mine is Grant. Are we missing a good first name option since the list is just a repeat of what was there but ultimately not selected before? The only new name is Dexter and I’m not sure I like repeating the -ter. Names that were on the list but have been dismissed are Pierce and Lincoln. We like Lincoln but for me Carter and Lincoln is a little too much matching with President surnames (I do realize Grant is as well, but it isn’t as obvious, right?).

For the middle, we have thought of using my father’s name, Gary, or a great-grandfather’s name, Merrill or Roger, both of whom have passed away. None of these names are really our style but we like using a family name since Carter has a family tradition for his middle. Another idea we had for the middle was to use initials only for the middle names, as it is quite common on my father’s side of the family. My papa’s (Merrill) middle name was D, my uncle’s name is J, and my great-uncle was J W. This would allow us to honor both the great-grandfathers. So it would be Brooks R M Holland or Grant R M Holland, etc. I thought of using the initial only but my husband thought of having both initials in there. I think since we like shorter names, it feels like too much to him to have a full double middle, as in Brooks Roger Merrill Holland. Is the double initial-only middle names strange? Should we just pick one of the names?

Of course I realize there is plenty of time but I already feel like we’ve exhausted the topic.

Thanks so much for your help!

I’ve found that every name can stand to have something unusual about it, but that it works best to limit the number of unusual things. In this situation, you’ve got three unusual ideas to consider:

1. Initial-only name

2. Two middle names

3. Changing concepts between first child’s name and second child’s name

I think I would choose no more than two of those. If, for example, you had given your first child two initial-only middle names, it would be no big deal to do the same for your second child. Or if you wanted to give your first child a middle name and your second child a middle initial, I think that would be okay. Or if you wanted to give your first child one middle name and your second child two middle names, I think that would be okay. But I don’t think I would give a first child a single regular middle name, and then give a second child two initial-only middle names.

On the other hand, I’ve found that having a good explanation can topple a tower of unusual things. For example, if in this case you explained to people that you’d named your first son using a naming tradition from his dad’s side, and your second son using a naming tradition from your own side, that makes pretty quick work of combining three unusual things into one.

If you’d prefer, however, to follow the same pattern as your first son’s name, I don’t think there’s any need to try to cram in more than one honor name. When you named your first son, you gave him just one honor name as a middle name, without trying to honor the other side of your husband’s family as well. I think the same choice would be perfectly appropriate for the second child: give him one name from one side of your family. My own preference would be to honor your father, especially since he’s alive to enjoy the honor, or to choose whichever grandfather you were closer to. I think honor names are most satisfying when they are given based on relationship rather than on naming style.

But there’s something to be said for naming style, too, and on that basis I think if I were you I might solve the dilemma by first choosing a favorite first name, and then using whichever honor name sounds best with it in the middle. Carter Nicholas and Grant Merrill, perhaps, or Carter Nicholas and Sebastian Gary, or Carter Nicholas and Brooks Roger.

I agree with you that Carter and Lincoln is a very presidential combination, and that Carter and Grant is less so. Graham seems even better: very similar to Grant, with no presidential issue at all.

Here are a few more possibilities to consider:

Bryce
Davis
Dean
Flynn
Gage
Grady
Reid
Smith
Wade
Wells
Wilson

Name update! Jen writes:

Thank you and your readers so much for your advice on naming Carter’s little brother!

Brooks Andrew Holland was born on 3/28. He was almost Sebastian Brooks but in the end we realized we had been referring to him as Brooks for awhile. The middle name Andrew is a nod to my middle name Ann (as it would have been the fourth generation, had he been a she). Overall we liked how the boys both have surnamey first names and a more classic middle name.

Thanks again!

Nicole writes:

We are quickly approaching the due date of baby # 3 and would love your opinion on our potential girl’s name…

My husband and really like Joelle Aimee.  It honours both my sisters in different ways, we love the meaning, and think it’s pretty, elegant, and timeless.

Here’s where I’m stumbling: We already have two daughters: Peyton & Mackenzie.  I realize that both their names fall into the “unisex/british surname” category/style (generally speaking) and I’m worried that ‘Joelle’ deviates too much from this?  I know that these categories and rules (as you so recently reminded us all!) are only guidelines… but I also don’t want to choose a name that stands out like a sore thumb!  If you have other suggestions as alternatives, we’d love to hear… We’d prefer a name that has a different ending sound than our girls’ names, and would consider the following names as middle names: Nicole, Sara, Danielle, or Aimee (all are significant within our family).

Name update! Nicole writes:

Thanks so much for posting my question back in November… To refresh your memory: we were unsure whether ‘Joelle Aimee’ sounded too different than our daughters’ names, Peyton and Mackenzie. We were very encouraged by your readers remarks and were confident about our choice once receiving their feedback.

Only trouble was… We had a BOY!! He arrived December 7th (13 days overdue) and his name is Bennett Daniel. We love how this name fits with our girls’ names… My only concern is that Bennett has crossed over as a female name, but most feedback (and I agree!) is that ‘Ben’ will always be a masculine name.

Thanks again,

Marcy writes:

My husband and I are elated to be expecting our third child, gender unknown, due in June.  This little one is a surprise, but one we welcome and anticipate with great joy!  My husband is still exhausted of the naming talk of a year ago (when we named our youngest), but I am already turning all the options over in my mind.  I need a sounding board, and some great ideas.  When my friend Amy and I were both pregnant with our second daughters last year, you helped her choose the name Eliza, and I have full confidence that Swistle is just the place for us to find our third child’s name.

We have a lot of time, but with 13 nieces and nephews and lots of friends with good name taste, many of my favorites are already taken (or a too-similar variant has been used).  We spend a LOT of time with our extended family.  So, while I’m sure others wouldn’t worry a bit about similar cousin names, it would definitely cause concern for us.  Most of the cousins attend the same church and are engaged in regular playtime/activities together.  And of course Gram Gram would never figure out who’s who with names too similiar!

We would love your input for both boy and girl names!  We’re wide open when it comes to boys’ names, though something more classic/traditional likely suits us best.  For a girl, her middle name will be Louise, after my mother.  I could consider it for a first name as well, but right now I’m leaning towards Louise for the middle.  I don’t like the idea of modifying Louise to Louisa or Elouise.  I want to keep it as is.

My name is Marcy and my husband is Daniel. Our daughters are named Amelia Mae and Norah Lane.     Our last name sounds like Sherman. 

Amelia’s name rang in at #55 on the SSN list for her year (was #68 on the list when we chose it, and we had no idea it would see such a jump.  It was up to #30 by 2011!), and Norah at #263 with the H (#137 without it, so a bit higher than that combined).  Like most folks, I think we’d prefer something outside the top 100, but really we’re open to even a very common name, if it really is the perfect one for our baby.

A few of our “dont’s”:

• Rhyming with our names, with sibling names, or with the middle name or last name;  
• Name or nn too similar to Amelia’s (Millie/Mil – and her sister calls her Mimi)
• Name or nn too similar to Norah’s (Nor, Norrie, Noley – her sister’s name for her before she could say it properly)
• Aything that would be nicknamed Ellie or Emmy or Addie (sooo common around here!);
• Anything that causes a lispy-ness in the transition from the end of the first or middle name to the last name this includes most names ending in s).  That SH sound can be rough!

I’ll begin with girls, since we have it a little more together in that arena!  Currently under consideration for a girl are Vivian/Vivien/Vivienne (spelling preference, anyone?), to be called Viv/Vivy/Vivie and Josie.  Both seem to work with Louise so it’s not a bad place to start.  I do like Josephine for the full name, to be called Josie, but my husband does not like it, preferring Josie as-is. I think I could get into Violet too, but I feel like it only flows with Louise if it’s prnounced “Vie-let” instead of “Vi-o-let”.  How would most folks pronounce it?

In light of our close family and heap of cousins, these favorites of mine are OFF the table:

• Clara (niece named Claire)
• Anna (niece named Hannah)
• Ada (niece named Ava)
• Julia (niece named Julia Elizabeth)
• Eliza (friend’s daughter.)
• Celia (same friend’s older daughter)
• Micah (we almost named our first Micah Marie, but changed late in the game to Amelia Mae afte rmy husband and I started swooning over Mae.  We now have very dear friends with a baby boy name Micah, so it’s permanently nixed.
• Abigail (niece name) – Although I wouldn’t choose this with Louise anyway becasue of the L at the end
• Chloe (friend’s daughter)

We’re struggling a little (okay, a LOT) more with a boy’s name.  With our previous pregnancies, names considered for a boy were Cael Arthur (after my grandpa, Arthur), Grayson Paul (decided we really just like Gray, not Grayson or Grady as much), Charles (after my other grandpa) and Wilcox (my mother in law’s maiden name). 

Cael is out now due to nephews named both Kade and Caleb.  I liked the name, but it was really my husband’s pick. And Wilcox is already used as well.

Gray is still in the mix, as well as Charles and Paul (Daniel’s middle name).  Although I actually prefer to use Daniel over Paul if we use my husband’s name.  I love the name Daniel!  :)  Of course I’m not sure what’s best to pair it with.  If we use it, I’d like it as a middle name instead of a first, to avoid confusion.  We also like Henry.  I Iike Mac/Mack (a nod to my maiden name, which is an Irish Mc name), but it’s so much more casual than most of the other names we like.  It’s probably not for us. I have just as I sit and type decided I like Benjamin, too. But we just aren’t LOVING anything yet, and the list of names we like doesn’t seem to be producing any amazing combinations.

I’ve listed a mix of my nephews’ first and middle names below.  These are names we’d like to avoid. I think we can avoid the names on the Friends list too, though it’s less of a priority:

FAMILY: Kade, Reed, August, Wilcox, Shepard, Wiliam, Adam, Joel, Wade, Kenneth, Caleb

FRIENDS: Micah, Jack, Christopher, Edison/Eddie, Isaac

My husband has vetoed James (he’s not sure why, since we both like the name, but he just knows that’s not it!) and Benjamin (I just asked him – same as with James – it’s just not THE name, even though it’s a name he likes). Finneus/Finneas/Phineas. I suggested Finneus Gray – which he says sounds like a storybook character and not a real person. :)  We also would not likely choose anything like Cooper, Carter, Parker, Hudson, etc.

I actually love August (a family name and one of the nephews’ names).  It’s obviously taken, but something with that vibe might be nice.  And I love Wiliam, as well as its nickname, Will.  It’s nice to find a name that can sound both formal and a little serious (August/William) and also ornery (Gus/Will).

I sincerely hope you can help us wade through this mire of names before our heads explode trying to work it through on our own!

Thanks so much for your consideration!

I realize we’re still a long way from our due date, and I’m really trying not to get all Shawshank Redemption on you by sending a new email every day/week/month, but as a quick update, I wanted you do know that my husband has now vetoed ALL of the girl names on our current list, save Josie.  Which I do like, but am not convinced enough to commit to.  EXHAUSTING.  You can see why we need to get an early start on this! :)  Anyway, I will do my best to restrain myself from begging/pleading/groveling for assistance (at least until we find out the gender :)).  I am having so much fun reading your site for inspiration in the meantime!

Name update! Marcy writes:

I really enjoyed all the feedback and ideas from you readers and from your many other posts! Thanks for posting my question! Your method of listing out all of the name options as well as listing the names within the sibling set was easy to put into practice on my own and extremely helpful to us.

We found out a week ago that we are having a girl, our third!  We are thrilled!

Despite working around a long list of “taken” names we liked, as well as sorting through our sometimes different naming preferences, my husband and I managed to produce a list of five names that pleased us both.   We finally landed on June Louise, which we both LOVE!

June entered the game late, since I had to decide if a June born in June was perfect, too cheesy, or maybe just didn’t matter.   Once I settled on it being perfect (my husband’s great Aunt June was a June born in June, also!), June quickly rose to the top of our mutual list, and won out over the others [the full list of names we could agree on included: Caroline Louise, Miriam Louise (my 2nd pl vote), Mariah Louise and Halle Louise (his 2nd pl vote)].

My pets that didn’t pass the husband test included: Louise Adele (I love, love, love this, but I don’t feel sad about not using it, since I’m now certain this baby is June!), Vivian Louise (the name I wanted for our next girl before we were even expecting, but that husband never loved) and Magnolia Faye (I think this felt too southern and unusual to the mister, but I discovered it on your site and couldn’t help but swoon!  I also didn’t want to give up Louise, but I liked Magnolia much better with Faye, and I my husband actually does like Faye).

Thanks so much!

K. writes:

We are expecting our first baby, a little girl, in early December and have yet to settle on a name. In my family, there is a strong tradition of passing along family names; I am a seventh generation Hephzibah, although I go by my middle name. I feel somewhat compelled to pass along Hephzibah, but the baby will be taking my husband’s last name, Budzick, which makes for a lot of B and Z sounds. If we don’t use Hephzibah, I would like to have some family name connection to my side. Other family names on my side that I’ve considered for middle names are Catharine and Caroline.

First names that are on our list right now are Eloise, Esther, and Nora.

Which combinations with the family names would you suggest with our first names, or can you suggest any other first names that might work? I hope you can help. Is there any way to gracefully incorporate Hephzibah?

Thank you!

This letter has languished in my inbox while I wring my hands over it. On one hand, I can’t advise ditching an 8th-generation name; on the other hand, the zi-bah-bud-zi of Hephzibah Budzick is a significant hurdle. What are the odds that of all the surnames in this world, it would be one that specifically challenged the use of the specific family name?

Well. It would not be the worst trial a child has ever faced. I see less-than-ideal name combinations all the time in credits and class lists. And if she went by a middle name as you do, she could have the family name and yet avoid most of the name awkwardness. In fact, we could maybe even spin the combination as awesome: two Z’s! two B’s! A very memorable and distinctive name!

Or Hephzibah could be the middle name.

Or is there room to consider not using your husband’s surname?

I think it comes down to how you feel about it. I can’t tell from the letter if you want to use the name, or if it’s only a feeling of obligation to keep up the tradition. Have you been glad to have the name yourself? Do you think you would have felt unhappy if your parents had been the one to drop the tradition?

As Rita pointed out in a comment on another post about naming traditions, all naming traditions eventually get dropped, so it’s just a matter of which set of parents drops it. It seems to me that the set of parents to drop it should be the first set that doesn’t want to use the name. My in-laws dropped a “since our ancestors came from the old country” naming tradition when they named Paul, and Paul and I were both so very grateful; if they hadn’t dropped it, we would have.

It’s completely different, though, if you love the naming tradition and WANT to keep it. And it’s an ancient name with a wonderful meaning (according to The Oxford Dictionary of First Names: “my delight is in her”—i.e., in the daughter), and it’s an important name in your family. Those things seem to me to dwarf the surname issue if you’d like to continue to pass down the name.

If you decide not to use it as the first name, I do think I’d advise using it as the middle. Any of your first name options work with it. I think my favorite is Eloise, since it plays up the repeating Z sound in the three names.

If you decide not to use Hephzibah at all, my favorite combinations are Eloise Caroline, Esther Catherine, and Nora Catherine—but I liked both middle names with Eloise and Esther. (I was more opinionated about Nora because I didn’t like the “ora” of Nora with the “aro” of Caroline.)

A few similar first names: Eliza, Louisa, Eleanor.

Name update! K. writes:

I wrote to you for advice a couple of months ago about what to name our baby girl. Well, she arrived (finally) on December 18, healthy and beautiful. I really appreciated your thoughtful response to my particular situation and all of the commenters’ opinions as well. I was surprised at the overall positive response to my family name, Hephzibah, and it affirmed my feeling that I really did want to pass it on to my daughter. In the end, we chose it for her middle name, which seemed like the perfect solution. So, watch out world, because Eloise Hephzibah Budzick has arrived!

Thanks so much for your help!

Megan writes:

My husband and I have a 16 month old named Finnian.  We absolutely love his name and want to find one we love as much for his sibling due in February.   The gender is going to be a surprise, so we don’t know if Finn will have a brother or sister.

Here’s the thing,  I have a list of girl names picked out that my husband and I both really like.  I would be completely happy naming the baby any of them, so I’m not to worried on that account.  We are having no luck with boy names, however.

There aren’t any family names that we would particularly like to use. We are Roman Catholic and prefer that the name have a saint associated with it, although my husband doesn’t really like the style of Old Testament names. I would love a name that sounds good with Finnian, but not too “matchy” (like Kieran, Cian, Brendan, or Killian).

Here are the names we’ve considered so far:

Peter Campion- I like Peter a lot, but don’t love the nn Pete,  love the mn Campion, after Edmund Campion

Benedict- This one has gotten turned down because of the generally negative connotations of Eggs Benedict, Benedict Arnold, and the teasing potential in the ending (DH hates Benjamin so that’s a no go

Leo- I really like this name, but is becoming much too popular for my taste.  I’m afraid of picking too trendy a name, because I was one of a what seems like a million Megans born in the late 80s

Blaise- I love this name, unusual but not unheard of.  DH really can’t get on board with it, however

Beckett- I like this name a lot, but DH says only as a middle name.

Our last name sounds like “Roomy,” but with a “T.”
Can you and your readers give us some other boy name suggestions?

p.s. Here are the girl names we like to give you a better idea of our style : Genevieve (nn Evie), Bridget, Gwendolyn, and Mariel

Thanks so much,

I’m not Roman Catholic, but I have the Saints section of The Baby Name Wizard. Without knowing any of the stories behind the names, I’d pick out:

Aidric
Bertrand
Brogan
Colman
Cormac
Darius
Declan
Edmund
Elias
Felix
Ivan
Marek
Ronan
Sebastian
Silas
Xavier

If you like Blaise, I wonder if you’d like Blaine.

If you like Beckett and Benedict, I wonder if you’d like Bennett—perhaps with a saint’s name as the middle name.

Would you want to consider Campion as the first name? Or using Edmund instead of (or in addition to) Campion?

Leo is somewhat more popular than Finn/Finnian (the Social Security Administration has Leo at #167 in 2011, near George, Alan, Maddox, Jonah, and Kenneth), but nowhere near the popularity of the name Megan—a Top 10 name in the 1980s. In 1985, there were over 20,000 new baby girls named Megan and another 4665 named Meghan; in 2011, there were 2226 new baby boys named Leo and 2631 named Leonardo. Even combining Leo and Leonardo and yet not counting Meagans and Meaghans and Megs (so, building up the Leos unfairly high, while reducing the Megans unfairly low), there were more than five times as many Megans per classroom in the 1980s than there are Leos per classroom now. My main hesitation about Leo would be not its popularity but rather that I think it’s a little awkward with the surname.

Name update! Megan writes:

I wanted to thank you and your readers for all of your advice and input on boys’ names. They gave us some great ideas for the future..  This time, however, we had a baby girl!  Genevieve Noelle was born on Valentine’s day.  Big brother Finnian loves his little sister Gigi!

Thanks again,