Shelby writes:

Here is our issue:
I am a proud mama to 2 little girls, Poppy (Penelope) Isabella and Paisley Savannah. Our last name is Powers. Well, we are now expecting baby number 3 in September and I cannot decide whether to go with another P name or not if this is a girl. I don’t want their names to sound cheesy, and I definitely gravitate toward P names because I love the double P sound in the first and last names, particularly for female names. Do you think a 3rd daughter will feel “left out” if we don’t use a p name? This is most definitely our last child.
So far, names in the running for a girl are:
1. Piper (my husband loves this name)
2. Posey
3. Mariposa and call her Posey
4. Phoebe
Do you have any non-P name suggestions that go well with Poppy and Paisley?
If the baby is a boy, his name will probably be Theo Caspian Powers, which I love.

I think if I were you I’d stick with a P name for a third girl. I like Piper best of your options because I think it’s the best in the line-up: Posey is so similar in sound to Paisley when said out loud (I found myself swapping the sounds: Paisy and Posely), and Phoebe suddenly feels like it SHOULD be pronounced with a P sound instead of an F sound. Other P names to consider:

Padget Powers. Poppy, Paisley, and Padget.

Patience Powers. Poppy, Paisley, and Patience.

Persia Powers. Poppy, Paisley, and Persia.

Philippa Powers. Poppy, Paisley, and Pippa.

Peyton Powers. Poppy, Paisley, and Peyton.

Polly Powers. Poppy, Paisley, and Polly. (This might be too close to Poppy—but it helps that Poppy is actually Penelope: Penelope, Paisley, and Polly.)

My two favorites are Padget and Philippa: Padget because I only recently heard of that name and I think it’s adorbs, and Philippa because I like the way she can draw attention to the P sound with Pippa, or downplay it with the F sound of Philippa.

Name update 09-17-2009! Shelby writes:

We have an update — our little boy, Theo Caspian, was born on September 14th!! He’s a healthy, beautiful little boy and everyone is doing great. Thank you all for the great suggestions!

Jill writes:

My husband and I are expecting baby #2 (a girl!) who is due September 10. He and I, along with our first daughter, Jenna Elizabeth, share the same initials including middle initials. We can’t decide if we want to continue with this or not. I’m leaning toward not using another J name because I don’t want people to confuse our kids. We like names that are “normal,” somewhat traditional, but under-used. We’re not fans of super trendy names like Grace, Claire, Ellie, Isabel, etc.

Our top picks for J names are:
Joni Ellis (Joni for my husband’s grandmother, Joan)
Jane
Jocelyn

Or top picks for non-J names are:
Callie Sue (Sue for my husband’s mother)
Lyndie Sue

And…. that’s about all we’ve got! We’re definitely coming up short this time around. Can you help??

P.S. Our last name rhymes with Yarns.

If you DO continue with J names, here are some possibilities:

Joely Elena
Jorie Emeline
Josie Ellis
Joy Emerson
June Ellery

If you DON’T continue with J names, here are some possibilities:

April Sue
Cara Sue
Claudia Sue
Ellis Joan
Holly Sue
Laurel Sue
Libby Sue
Marissa Joan
Molly Sue
Robin Sue
Romy Sue
Sukie Joan

And what I want most to know is whether everyone thinks they should stick with J names or not, so let’s have a poll over to the right. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Poll results (190 votes total):
Stick with J names: 125 votes, roughly 66%
Switch to another letter: 65 votes, roughly 34%

Name update 10-02-2009! Jill writes:

Just a quick update on our JEB dilemma….

We decided not to go with another J name and named our daughter Callie Sue. She was born 09-08-09!

Thanks for the help,

Jill

Diane writes:

Hoping you can help us out. I am pregnant with a boy. Definitely a boy. And we have no ideas about what to name him. I tend to like classic, Old Testament sorts of names and have suggested Jacob, Samuel, Ezra and Lucas (which isn’t really Old Testament, but has the same feeling.) I also like Hunter and Thaddeus.

Hunter is a variation on an old family name.
My husband has pretty much vetoed all my choices outright, except for Lucas and Hunter (both of which he said “weren’t terrible”)

Other things to note:
Our daughter is Claire Barbara – her first name is one we both liked and Barbara was an aunt of my husband’s who passed away.
I was thinking I might like to honor my cousin Nan, who passed away just shy of three years ago.
Our last name is Germanic and rhymes with Stanline.

My husband was a veto-er, too. What I did was have HIM come up with a list. Then I laughed and laughed, because it was all names of Cool Kids From High School. Soon we were making progress. Not, uh, EASY progress, but progress.

That’s where I might start in this case, too: asking your husband for HIS list. That might give a better idea of the meeting place between what you like and what he likes. Failing that, we’ll start with your preference for Old Testamenty names, combined with the names on his Not Terrible list: Lucas and Hunter.

The Baby Name Wizard has a specific list for Old Testament names, which certainly gives us a good start. What I did was look at each name and think, “Does this seem like someone who thought Lucas and Hunter were Not Terrible would also think this name was Not Terrible?” My conclusion: “Hey, he chose the only two names on your list that didn’t sound Old Testamenty. He doesn’t like Old Testamenty names.” I changed my focus: Old Testament names that don’t sound quite so Old Testamenty.

Asher Stanline
Caleb Stanline
Ethan Stanline
Jared Stanline
Joel Stanline
Joshua Stanline
Nathan Stanline
Reuben Stanline
Simon Stanline
Zachary Stanline

None of these just CALL OUT to me as the solution to the situation, though. If he doesn’t like Jacob and Samuel, he probably won’t like Caleb and Joel. If you’re thinking Samuel and Ezra, I suspect Nathan and Ethan won’t satisfy.

Would anyone else like to try?

Name update 05-31-2010! Diane writes:

Hi Swistle – I don’t know if I ever updated you, or your readers about what we decided to name our baby, nearly nine months ago.

Benjamin Colin. It meshes nicely with his big sister’s name, Claire Barbara.

We were undecided about right up until the end. Then as I was lying there, in the throes of labor I started thinking about the names in my head. And talking to the unborn one (oversharing? Maybe. But whatevs.) I decided then and there, that his name was Ben. So I told my husband so.

Stephanie writes:

hi there! i’m due with baby #3. my due date is september 6/09. i already have 2 daughters and my ultrasound tech ‘thought’ it was another girl. not like we’re surprised, but anyhow, we are having many, many issues trying to find a good name this time. my two other daughters have the names Kaia Faith and Kaybrie Joy. we weren’t planning on the ‘k’ theme with the first two, just happened to like those names that started with ‘k’. i think we’d like to avoid the ‘k’ names this time around b/c i don’t think i want to have my daughter’s being the KKK (kwim?). i have always LOVED the name Brynn. it’s one of my absolute favorite names and i would love to use it, however, it doesn’t fit with our middle name of Grace. we want to use Grace as our middle name this time b/c it ‘goes with’ Faith and Joy that we used before for the girls. ack! so… here’s the conditions…
1. feel like i need at least a 2 syllable name to go with the middle name Grace.
2. avoiding names that start with ‘k’.
3. want something unique and different (not common but not totally crazy and out there — see my daughter’s names)
4. avoiding names that also start with ‘t’ and also avoiding names that end in ‘son’ b/c i don’t like the way they sound with our last name.

i have a huge list of names that i already like but just can’t seem to pick that ‘perfect’ name, if you know what i mean. here’s a few of my favs for you to deliberate over:
-Ayla
-Hadley (my husband really likes this one but i worry it’s too masculine compared to my daughters’ girly names)
-Payton (again, too masculine? maybe b/c the other spelling of it we’d use as a 2nd name for a boy)
-Juliet
-Ainsley
-Brynley or Brynnley or Brynly (i like the sound of this name especially b/c i can shorten it to Brynn when she’s older, which i love, but i just don’t like any of the spellings for it. help!)
-Paige (not 2 syllables but love the name)

i guess that’s it for now. i hope to get a few good suggestions and comments. i’m just starting to freak out b/c baby is due SO soon and both other times i was a week early.

thanks in advance,
stephanie

(incidentally if this baby turns out to surprise us and be a boy, we already have a name picked out and it was SO easy to choose — Drew Peyton. what’s up with that? not fair!!)

I wonder—are you flexible about the middle name? Because if you’d consider other virtue names that go with Faith and Joy, we might be able to find a multi-syllable one that goes with your first name favorite of Brynn. This sort of thing:

Brynn Charity
Brynn Honor
Brynn Mercy
Brynn Patience
Brynn Prudence
Brynn Verity

None of those sound as good to me as your Brynley Grace option, though. My favorite spelling is Brinley: Brinley Grace.

You could also use Brynna: Brynna Grace.

You mention liking the name Paige and wishing it were more than one syllable; I wonder if you would like the name Paisley? Paisley Grace.

I like Hadley and think of it as cutely tomboyish but still primarily feminine—probably because of the name Haley. Same with the name Payton/Peyton—probably because I’m watching One Tree Hill (with main female character Peyton Sawyer).

Let’s have a poll over to the right. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Poll results (211 votes total):
Ayla: 7 votes, roughly 3%
Hadley: 16 votes, roughly 8%
Payton: 2 votes, roughly 1%
Juliet: 21 votes, roughly 10%
Ainsley: 24 votes, roughly 11%
Brinley: 61 votes, roughly 29%
Brynna: 63 votes, roughly 30%
Paisley: 17 votes, roughly 8%

Name update 04-08-2010! Stephanie writes:

i was due sept 6th with a girl and i really wanted to use brynn as a name or a variation on it. you gave me so many options and for that, i thank you. in the end, i allowed my husband the honor of naming our baby and with much consideration… and 2 hours AFTER her birth, she was finally named Hadley Grace. she was 6 lbs 14 oz and was born september 8/09. two days after her due date. she is the perfect fit to our family, a sweet little sister for Kaia and Kaybrie. thanks again for all your help.

F. writes:

We are expecting our second daughter and my husband and I have a hard time agreeing on girls’ names. Our first daughter is Sophia (Sophie.) I knew it was a popular name but it was really the ONLY name we could both agree on… So… as excited as I was to hear that Sophie was getting a sister, I was also very anxious about finding another girl name!

I went through the Baby Name Wizard book and read out every single name I would consider and after my husband’s veto, we are down to 7 possibilities (with 3 leading the pack)

Top Picks:

Allegra (Allie)
Allison (Allie)
Lucy

Also Under Consideration:

Sadie
Francesca (Frankie)
Charlotte (Charli)
Delaney (Laney)

Middle name is not set in stone, but will likely be Jane (for MIL) and our last name is two syllables, rhymes with Pagan.

Ideally, we’d like to find a name that sounds sophisticated but has a cute nickname she can use when she’s younger. Name meaning is fairly important since the association with “wisdom” played a big role in choosing Sophia.

My husband really likes Allegra, and I do too, but I’m concerned about the allergy medication of the same name. Will this lead to teasing? Are we crazy for considering a name that has been hijacked by a pharmaceutical company? We like the musical connotations, the meaning (cheerful), and the way it sounds with our last name and our daughter’s name (Sophia and Allegra, Sophie and Allie,) but I’m still worried.

You’re welcome to make additional suggestions, but I’ve tried so many different names and these are really the only ones my husband likes… I doubt he’s going to go for anything new.

Thank you so much for your help!

I love the name Allegra—and every time I want to suggest it, I back away because of the allergy medicine. I’m ANGRY at the company that stole it. Let’s have a poll over to the right: Is the name Allegra too associated with allergy medication to be used for a baby? [Poll closed; see below for results.]

Poll results (337 votes total):

Yes: 174 votes, roughly 52%
No: 163 votes, roughly 48%

Name update 11-16-2009! F. writes:

We ended up naming our daughter Lucy. I love her name, but I regret not being gutsy enough to go with Allegra. Personally, I’d encourage anyone considering the name to go for it. No matter what name you choose some people will like it and others will hate it.

Thanks again for your help.

Lindsay writes:

I have seen some friends use your site, and I always love your suggestions so I thought I would try. We are pregnant with our second child, a girl, and we are due mid August. My little girl’s name is Hayden Claire. My husband and I both like names that are “different”, and by different I think I mean names that aren’t used all the time. We are having a hard time finalizing a name for this little girl. We absolutely LOVE the name Anderson, and we would use the middle name Kate. We just LOVE it, and I know of 2 little girls that are named Anderson (neither of which I know personally.) However I also know of boys named Anderson, and I’m starting to second guess this choice wondering if it’s too boy-ish. I also am big on no nicknames. Meaning if I wanted a little girl named Emmy I would name her that and not something that could be shortened to that. If I named my little girl Anderson I would NOT want her to be called Andy. Other names we are considering: Emerson Kate, Harper Kate, Merritt. I also like the name Madison Kate, but Madison is very popular! We liked the name Carrington, but I don’t think I want a name that long. We also liked the name Ainsley, but I think it might be too “girly” to go with Hayden. I like the name Channing, but my husband isn’t a huge fan. I would LOVE any and all name suggestions that you might have and your thoughts on the names that we have liked. Our little girls will be almost exactly 2 years apart so I really want their names to “flow” together. Thanks so much in advance for you help and advice!!!

I love the name Anderson, too, and I will mourn it if it goes girl. If baby names were stored in silos, the boy name silo would be about 1/4th full, and the girl name silo would need several supplementary silos and STILL be overflowing, so it makes me cringe to see buckets being carried from the boy name silo to the girl name silo. The girl name silo does not need this name; the boy name silo is desperate for it.

For that reason, I throw my support behind the name Emerson, which I think is very, very similar to Anderson, but which in my opinion has already moved fully to the girl silo. (The Baby Name Wizard disagrees with me and has it only in the boy name section.) Emerson Kate is adorable. Hayden and Emerson. YES.

A similar name is Emerin, or Emryn. Emryn Kate, Hayden and Emryn.

If you like Madison but find it too common, you could use Madigan. Madigan Kate, Hayden and Madigan.

Another suggestion: Kirby. Not with Kate, probably, but maybe with Jane. Kirby Jane, Hayden and Kirby. I am leaning toward this option because I think it is so cute.

Let’s have a poll over to the right. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Poll results (261 votes total):
Anderson: 12 votes, roughly 5%
Emerson: 124 votes, roughly 48%
Harper: 59 votes, roughly 23%
Merritt: 26 votes, roughly 10%
Emryn: 12 votes, roughly 5%
Madigan: 20 votes, roughly 8%
Kirby: 8 votes, roughly 3%

Name update from the comment section: “Just wanted to update … She had the baby on Friday and named her AINSLEY KATE!!!”

Traci writes:

We’re due with baby number four – our first girl! – on August 7th. Her brothers are Calvin David, Henry Butler, and Charles Fenn. (Cal’s middle name is his Dad’s first, the other two have family names that we loved.) Her first name is Jane. We’ve loved it forever and the boys already refer to her as Baby Jane or Janie. However, we cannot come up with a middle name!

My husband is absolutely adamant that if we are going to call her Jane, that will be her FIRST given name – none of this naming her something else and just calling her Jane. I had hoped to use a family name for her middle name like we did for the boys, but the rhythm is all wrong as a middle for Jane (not to mention the fact that our female family names are not entirely beautiful).

Everything else that comes up as a pair for Jane is a first name, too – Mary Jane, Sarah Jane, Eliza Jane, etc. – since Jane has historically been a middle name. We’re also getting a little guff from family and friends about “Plain” Jane, and a few people have even commented that girls don’t really need middle names since their maiden name becomes their middle once they’re married anyway. (I’d love to know people’s thoughts on that!)

Anyway – I’d like a middle name that’s maybe a little fanciful or flowery, that has a good rhythm after Jane and before our surname Miller, and/or maybe has a beautiful meaning since it won’t be a family name. The only one that I’ve really loved so far is Lisette, so I’d like more ideas to toss around. Elizabeth is out because it’s in reserve for another girl (if and when:)). Also – we’ve been living in Ukraine for a year and will be for the first year of her life, and she will be born in London, so maybe something with a Russian / Slavic or British flavor would work?

Help!

I am usually of the mind that there are different strokes for different folks, ESPECIALLY with baby names, and so I am trying VERY HARD to allow into my universe the “girls don’t need a middle name” idea people are attempting to sell you. The option of taking the maiden name as a middle name after marriage is by no means universal—and in fact, neither is the option of taking a married name at all. Besides, around here we LIKE names, so we WANT to choose a middle name, and in fact sometimes TWO. So I suggest we dismiss this whole theory as silly and turn our minds to the more interesting task of choosing a middle name (or maybe two!) for Jane.

Here are a few possibilities (I left out options that would give monograms of JAM or JIM):

Jane Beatrice Miller
Jane Belinda Miller
Jane Callista Miller
Jane Carissa Miller
Jane Cecelia Miller
Jane Celeste Miller
Jane Cordelia Miller
Jane Corinne Miller
Jane Evangeline Miller
Jane Felicity Miller
Jane Linden Miller
Jane Mirabel Miller
Jane Miranda Miller
Jane Meredith Miller
Jane Penelope Miller
Jane Rosabel Miller
Jane Verity Miller
Jane Veronica Miller
Jane Victoria Miller
Jane Wilhelmina Miller

I especially like the meaning of Felicity, which is luck and happiness. Wilhelmina is the feminine form of the German form of William, if you follow that, and William means “resolute protection,” which I like too. Evangeline means bearer of good news. Meredith means great ruler, and Carissa means grace. Belinda and Callista mean beautiful, and Beatrice means happy, and Cordelia means heart (or daughter of the sea, depending on whether you want it to be Latin or Celtic). Verity means truth, of course. Veronica means true image, and Victoria means, creatively, “victory.” Mirabel means miraculous beautiful one, and Miranda means marvelous. Penelope means weaver—or, er, duck. Celeste means heavenly. (I got all the meanings from The Baby Name Bible, which is one of those total overkill name books that obviously had to strain super hard to come up with enough names to meet their “50,000+ baby names!” boast, and in fact would have been better off stopping around 20,000, but on the other hand it’s sometimes handy to have such a book.)

Do you have any pretty surnames in your family tree? Those seem like they’d be nice with Jane, too.

Name update! Traci writes:

After all of our angst, we ended up naming her Jane Elizabeth – she was born in London, so her 5-year-old brother kept insisting that she should be named after the Queen of England. That made us smile, so we went for it. The middle names that came in close behind were Lisette and Ophelia. Both of which I still love. Maybe if I can talk us into one more baby. :)

Robin writes:

I am due with our first baby (a girl) in early August and my husband and I have been having a hard time finding a name. We’re looking for something that is relatively uncommon but not weird or something that she will always have to spell for people. Our last name sounds like “while.” We’ve come up with a long list of names but some of them seem too common, some names one or the other of us is not thrilled about, and a couple of others are closer to what we are looking for but are not quite right:

Too common: Grace, Sophie, Madeline

Only one of us likes: Sylvia, Olivia, Rachel, Annabelle, Cleo, Ella, Eloise, Josie, Lila, Mila, Sonia, Romy

Closer but not quite right: Macy (thanks, Baby Name Wizard book!), Sabrina, Miranda

We also like Natalie and Serena but they have been claimed by our siblings already.

So as you can see, we are all over the place! Please help!

 
The names Grace and Macy make me think of these possibilities:

Clara
Darsie
Elsa
Emerson
Gracen
Kacey
Laney
Lucy
Mercy
Molly
Nora
Ruby
Sadie
Sally

The name Natalie makes me think of these possibilities

Aubrey
Camilla
Hailey
Holly
Mallory

The name Miranda makes me think of these possibilities:

Claudia
Emerin
Geneva
Jillian
Jocelyn
Malin
Marin

Name update! Robin writes:

Apologies about the very late baby name update for Baby Girl While (from August 2009) – have not been back to this site for a long time and then saw the post re One parent loves the name, the other is fine with it. That was pretty much our situation – I loved the name Sonia – it really clicked for me – but my husband was very meh about it. Going into the hospital we were thinking Sydney, because it was the only name we were both OK with, but neither of us loved it. But then I had a long, very difficult labor and delivery, and after the baby was born my husband turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, “you can pick the name!” I took a day or so to decide and ultimately did go with Sonia after assurances from him that he didn’t hate it. As compromise, we used his grandmother’s name, which I don’t love, as her middle name.

Maybe it was a postpartum thing, but in the weeks afterwards, she just didn’t seem like a “Sonia” and I had difficulty calling her that, and even thought about trying to change her name to Sydney. I think a big part of it was that I felt badly that my husband had not been excited about the name. Even now she just doesn’t quite seem to fit her name, and I was surprised that a lot of people mispronounce it (“Sawn-ya”), and although we didn’t want a super common name I feel badly that many people, especially little kids, seem very unfamiliar with it.

So, in summary – I wouldn’t completely discount one of the parents not being thrilled about the name. It depends on the situation (my husband did care, a lot, about the name, although he is fine with it now), but presumably you married the person you did because you value their opinions, so it’s probably a good idea to listen to them!

Beth writes:

Even though I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your Baby Names blog, I never thought I’d actually be writing to you! Our first daughter, Cate Meredith, was named within 24 hours of finding out we were expecting her. Our second daughter, whom we lost to a late miscarriage, took a little longer to name, but once we’d found her name we were quite happy with it (Lena Emilie). We’ve had a boy name picked out all along (Isaac Joshua), so if this baby, due August 2, is a boy, we’re all set.

The girl name (Naomi Caroline) we had picked out for this baby took a little longer to settle on, and apparently now my husband is having second thoughts. As am I…I think? It’s a perfectly lovely name, but Naomi is a bit unusual for our family, and it doesn’t resonate with us like the other names have.

Other relevant info…our last name starts with a “D”, ends with an “er”, and is three syllables. It’s Dutch, but doesn’t sound overly so. I like the fact that my name, my husband’s name and our daughter’s first names all have one syllable (Beth, Neil, Cate), but we are certainly not stuck on that. Other names we’ve considered and eliminated include Audrey, Leah, Adele (I love it, but it reminds my IT consultant husband of “Dell” computers), Sylvie, Ella (friends have used it), Darcy/Dorsey (family names that I like, husband doesn’t), and Charlotte.

Currently Eliza is under consideration, but when combined with Caroline, my husband is not too enthused. Perhaps another middle name? My goal in naming is something a little different, yet not so strange that people have a hard time saying/pronouncing it (hence the Cate with a “C”, which I will be forever explaining, but I love it anyway). My husband is quite conservative in his tastes, so I almost feel like I have to be sneaky in choosing a name that walks the line between different and classic.

I hope that’s enough info…any help you can give is so appreciated!

Ooo, I LOVE the name Eliza. I also love the name Isaac, and in fact the two names share similar sounds. If you want to reserve the name Isaac for future use, this might rule out the name Eliza—or maybe not. They’re similar, but maybe not TOO similar.

Your first daughter has a one-syllable first name and a three-syllable middle name; it might be pleasing to reverse the pattern for your third daughter, since two of your contenders, Naomi and Eliza, have three syllables. Jane is one of my top favorite one-syllable middle names, because I love its mix of tradition and punk. Eliza Jane and Naomi Jane are both great.

If you instead want to continue using one-syllable names, I wonder if you’d like the name June. It has vintage charm; it’s very uncommon but completely familiar; it sounds great with Cate.

I really like June. Let’s see about a middle name.

June Avery
June Camilla
June Charlotte
June Louise
June Hillary
June Marie
June Miranda
June Silvia
June Winifred

Two more one-syllable options I like are Eve and Nell.

Eve Caroline
Eve Charlotte
Eve Claudia
Eve Marissa
Eve Minerva
Eve Naomi
Eve Nicole

Nell Bianca
Nell Caroline
Nell Charlotte
Nell Darcy

My favorites are Eve Charlotte and June Hillary.

Name update 11-23-2009!
Beth writes:

Just wanted to update you about the name we chose for our little girl. Naomi Caroline was born on July 28, so unfortunately your suggestions were a couple of days too late! We are very happy with our name choice, and while we’ve had people ask “how do you pronounce that?”, in general we’ve gotten lots of compliments on her name.

However, we will certainly keep your suggestions and the comments for future reference, since our track record of 3 girls makes another girl in the future seem quite likely. J

Thanks again!

Lindsey writes:

We are pregnant with our second child, and we do not know the gender. We knew our daughter’s gender ahead of time so didn’t have much trouble deciding that go round, but for some reason, my husband and I cannot to commit to a name for either gender yet. We need help! Our daughter’s name is Emery Grace and our last name sounds like Lie-neck. I tend to like names that are out of the top 200ish in popularity and have strong vowel sounds. My husband is less particular than I, likes names that are slightly more common and traditional. Still, he seems almost indifferent to most names for this baby. He has yet to find one that has really struck him, which throws me because I want him to love a name as much as I. For middle names, we are not completely decided, but for a girl, we have considered Lee (after my father) and for a boy (Thomas, which is my maiden name).

We did manage to create a short list for each gender, though we are certainly open to other suggestions:

Girls:

• Maisie (a nod to my grandmother as this was her nickname given by my grandfather)
• Olive
• Sibyl (which is my grandmother’s first name and a name we both like, but I worry about the first name ending with the same consonant as the last name begins)

Boys:

• Cullen
• Finn
• August
• Ames
• (Orlando, see below)

Names I like but husband does not:
Girls: Juniper, Iris, Ruby, Paloma, Matilda, Luna
Boys: Orlando (though I’m still working on him to like this one as it is an old fav of mine and still on my own contention list), Leo, Lucian, Eamon/Amon

Let’s put your lists over in two polls to the right, one for the girl names and one for the boy names, and we’ll also collect suggestions in the comment section. I like Olive best for a girl, and Ames or August best for a boy.

Follow-up 07-16-2009. Lindsey writes:

I just posted a comment on your post for our baby, Baby Lieneck. It has our new favorites with a little help from your readers. I finally feel like we have a solid list of good names that I don’t feel so wishy washy about.

Any feedback on our new names would be so appreciated. Now it isn’t a matter of finding a name we love, but rather choosing a name we love most. And this baby is coming so soon, it feels, so we can’t possibly have that much time left to change our minds again. :)

Here’s the rundown, or you can check the comments section: (and our daughter’s name is Emery Grace)
Boys (middle name is my maiden)
Sullivan Thomas
Elliot Thomas
Finnegan “Finn” Thomas
Solomon Thomas

Girls (middle names are all family names of our very favorite family members.)
Eve Monaghan
Juliet Janita (it’s a strange middle name, I know, but it is my mother’s name and I’d so love to honor her)
Greta Lee
Annalise Jane

Poll results:

Original girl names (208 votes total):
Maisie: 136 votes, roughly 65%
Olive: 51 votes, roughly 25%
Sibyl: 21 votes, roughly 10%

New girl names (194 votes total):
Eve Monaghan: 59 votes, roughly 30%
Juliet Janita: 22 votes, roughly 11%
Greta Lee: 61 votes, roughly 31%
Annalise Jane: 52 votes, roughly 27%

Original boy names (205 votes total):
Cullen: 33 votes, roughly 16%
Finn: 82 votes, 40%
August: 64 votes, roughly 31%
Ames: 26 votes, roughly 13%

New boy names (181 votes total):
Sullivan Thomas: 49 votes, roughly 27%
Elliot Thomas: 55 votes, roughly 30%
Finnegan (Finn) Thomas: 65 votes, roughly 36%
Solomon Thomas: 12 votes, roughly 7%

Name update! Lindsey writes:

We welcomed another baby girl to our family and spent two days pondering over which of our final four names (Eve, Juliette, Gretta or Annalise) fit her best. We happily settled on Eve, which is the name I almost called her outloud when they laid her on my chest and I discovered that she was really a she. Her full name is Eve Analee. Once we decided on Eve, my husband and I both decided that this probably being our last child, wanted to give her a middle name after my father, Lee. Lee alone sounded too choppy with Eve so we added the Ana, which worked out well because Analee sounds a lot like one of my old favorites: Annalise. So there you have it! Thank you to all your readers for their assistance and insight with our names! It really helped!