Jennifer writes:

I am two weeks out from having baby #2 (a girl), with a 2 year old toddler son named Gabriel.

My dilemma is that my husband will not focus on having a worthwhile and productive discussion about the name for our impending arrival. So I seek outside input on a variety of combinations that I like, and perhaps this might help spur a decision making discussion for the two of us. Our last name is a crisp one syllable name.

Here are some that I’m mulling over:

Keira Madeline
Keira Allison

Madeline Fiona
Madeline Jane
*Is Madeline just too popular these days?

Fiona Madeline
Fiona Jane

If there are other names that one might suggest to include as a new combination(s), I’m certainly open to it.

Thank you very much for your input!

Fiona! Choose Fiona! …Er, I mean, let’s get started on a discussion of the options!

Fiona is my favorite from your list, I won’t try to hide it. It’s a steady resident of my own personal Girl Name List, and I think it has a lot going for it. It’s uncommon but completely familiar, and that’s a hard combination to find. I think it’s beautiful, feminine and strong, and I love it with Gabriel. Gabriel and Fiona. I think either middle name is good with it.

In my opinion, Madeline is not excessively common. It was #61 in the U.S. in 2007 (source: Social Security Administration), which makes it less common than the names Brooklyn, Destiny, and Nevaeh. Furthermore, its popularity is holding steady: it’s been hovering in the 60s/70s/80s rankings for the last thirteen years without any big lunges toward the top ten.

The name Keira, in contrast, was #1004 in 2001, but #128 in 2007. It’s a less common name than the name Madeline—and yet that’s a much more alarming leap in popularity. I’m also less certain of the name with her brother’s name when I say them aloud: Gabriel and Kiera.

Let’s put your six options to the vote. Poll is to the right. [poll closed; see below]

[Poll results (254 votes total):
Keira Madeline: 15 votes, roughly 6%
Keira Allison: 10 votes, roughly 4%
Madeline Fiona: 13 votes, roughly 5%
Madeline Jane: 42 votes, roughly 17%
Fiona Madeline: 49 votes, roughly 19%
Fiona Jane: 125 votes, roughly 49%]

[Name update! 09-29-2008: “Thank you all for the fantastic and very helpful feedback on baby names. We were blessed with the early arrival of our daughter on September 9th and decided on Fiona Madeline.”]

Wendy writes:

Hi Swistle folks!

My family could really use your help! We have a wonderful little boy named “August Josiah” who will be about 2 2/3 years old when his new baby brother is born. We just knew the new baby was a girl (doh!) and have the most perfect girl’s name picked out. Now we are at a loss. We need something that goes with August (or Gusto or AJ as he is often called), but have a few rules…

1 – We want something relatively unique, but nothing that sounds like a name out of the 1960s

2 – It can’t be the name of anyone we know (or relatives that are still living)

3 – Not the name of a month! Silly us – we didn’t mean for everyone to associate August with the name of the month!

4 – Would like something that matches the ‘strength’ we think August Josiah has. We don’t want the new baby to feel like second fiddle!

We have to be pretty careful with the initials, given that we keep liking names that start with “A”! :) Alliteration would be nice too, but we know we can’t be that picky!

Any help you can give us would be awesome.

[I asked Wendy how the surname is pronounced, and she answered:]

It is my husband’s name and the family originally had spelled it “Spiess” (more or less rhyming with ice). However, when they dropped the extra S to sound less German, the pronunciation moved to rhyme with bees. I pronounce it so that it rhymes with eyes because that is how easiest to convey it over the phone and for others to remember it. Long story short, I will let my boys pronounce it however they choose to! :) Sorry for no clear answer on that one!

The Baby Name Wizard recommends these brother names for the name August: Julius, Everett, Leopold, Forest, Theodore. My favorites from that list are Julius, Everett, and Theodore. Forest with August seems too noun-y to me.

All three of those names are strong and unusual. Let’s try them out with your surname and with the sibling name:

Julius Spies (JS); August and Julius
Everett Spies (ES); August and Everett
Theodore Spies (TS); August and Theodore

Gosh. All of those are good. Let’s find some more options:

Edmund Spies (ES); August and Edmund
Foster Spies (FS); August and Foster
Frederick Spies (FS); August and Frederick
Hugo Spies (HS); August and Hugo

Those combine nicely, too, I think. Edmund Theodore Spies. Frederick Julius Spies. Hugo Everett Spies.

Voting is in a poll to the right [poll closed; see below] as usual, and feel free to build some combinations in the comment section.

[Poll results (262 votes total):
Julius: 22 votes, roughly 8%
Everett: 106 votes, roughly 40%
Theodore: 50 votes, roughly 19%
Edmund: 26 votes, roughly 10%
Foster: 23 votes, roughly 9%
Frederick: 9 votes, roughly 3%
Hugo: 26 votes, roughly 10%]

Name update 01-29-2009! Wendy writes:

We have a name update for you! We ended up digging up a great family name from my husband’s side “Carsten”. It satisfied all of our criteria. However, Carsten was born (on December 27th), with red hair! Most of the names we had on our list brought up images of blondes and brunettes. While in the hospital we picked a name that wasn’t on our list and honors his Irish heritage and the other half of the family, Patrick. So, it is with great pleasure we announce the arrival of Carsten Patrick Spies!

Leslie writes:

I am 37 weeks pregnant with my third boy and husband and I can’t agree on a name. Our 17 month twin boys are named Luke and Samuel. I don’t want another plain name, but husband is set on something solid not trendy. Our last name has an OR so names like Forest, George, Ford do not work well. All names we like. I love the name Tate, but husband thinks we are setting our son up for years of torture. Does the word Taint ring a bell? Husband likes the name Truman, but too formal for me. I also like the name Truett, but husband not so much. Another name I like is Crew, although I don’t know if we are “cool” enough to pull that off and husband thinks it’s too trendy.

We both prefer 1 syllable names, we don’t want another L or S name, and we both like names you can shorten or nickname like Oliver/Oli. Is Oliver becoming too popular? A few names we can’t use: Wesley, Cade, Cody, Asher, Elijah. Please help! We’ll take any suggestions? This baby might arrive early.

Here was the difficulty I had with this one: the names you’ve used for your first two children are of a different type than the names on your current consideration list. Luke and Samuel are old, traditional, classic, solid, well-known, all-boy. Forest, Ford, Tate, Truman, Truett, Crew—those are a completely different breed. Luke, Samuel…and Truett. Luke, Samuel….and Forest. They don’t click into place. This makes finding a good third name a slippery business: what can fit with the first two, but be more to your current tastes?

Oh, the name Oliver! I love it so much, and it may be the answer to the problem. It is indeed getting more popular, but it hasn’t yet gotten out of hand: it was #140 in 2007. To put that ranking in perspective, that makes it less common than names such as Omar, Nolan, Oscar, Preston, and Sebastian. (The name Luke was #46 in 2007, and the name Samuel was #25.) It is, however, rising slowly but surely, and I’ve noticed lots of people saying they love it. I’d feel safe using it because, like the name Henry, it may get popular but it’s not trendy: it’s a classic, traditional name with long roots, so it ebbs and flows but it doesn’t spike and vanish. I like it with your other boys’ names: Luke, Samuel, and Oliver. Nice!

I don’t suppose you’d want to consider the #1 most popular boy name in the United States? The name Jacob is solid and not trendy, and it has a good nickname, and it’s excellent with his brothers’ names. Luke, Samuel, and Jacob. Luke, Sam, and Jake. That is one of the most perfect sibling groups ever. And even in the #1 slot, the name Jacob was only used for 1.0955% of baby boys. That means that if your local school has 30 children per classroom, the average will be only one Jacob per 6-7 classrooms. And if the classes are more like 20 kids, the average will be only one Jacob per 10 classrooms. That’s not bad.

How about Calvin, shorted to Cal? Luke, Samuel, and Calvin. Luke, Sam, and Cal.

James. Luke, Samuel, and James. Luke, Sam, and Jim. Luke, Sam, and Jamie.

Frederick. Luke, Samuel, and Frederick. Luke, Sam, and Fred.

Anyone want to give me a hand here? This is a tricky one. Let’s do a poll over to the right [poll closed; see below] with the few I came up with, but also leave your suggestions in the comment section. Remember: nothing that starts with L or S.

[Poll results (282 votes total):
Oliver: 115 votes, roughly 41%
Jacob: 93 votes, roughly 33%
Calvin: 33 votes, roughly 12%
James: 34 votes, roughly 12%
Frederick: 7 votes, roughly 2%]

[Name update! Leslie writes: “Just wanted to let you know that we went with the name Ian Wesley. Thanks for your help. All of our friends and family thought we were going to go with Oliver…which was a close 2nd!”]

Amanda writes:

Hi there! I am due with girl #2 on Sept.3 and my husband and I are beyond stumped about what to name her. With my first pregnancy I had my heart set on a particular girl’s name (Anneliese) but he loathed it. We fought about it for the entire 40 weeks, and then after a 40 hour labour, while I was still soaked in sweat, I pleaded, “Can we PLEASE call her Anneliese?” And he still refused. In the end we went with “Avelyn” (pronounced with a soft “a”, like Evelyn, but with an A) and it suits our daughter (now two years old) way better than Anneliese ever would have.

All that back story is to say that this time around, I don’t have a front-runner, so while we’re not fighting about what to name the next baby, we’re not coming up with any clear winners, either. We seem to have very different tastes in names, my hubby and I. One thing that’s really important to me is that her name be uncommon (but not strange) and unique (but not too “out there” like Muse, or Lyric, or Harmony, or something). I love Avelyn’s name because it is feminine, but uncommon. A little twist on an old-fashioned name. So, something else like that might be good.

Here are the names I am liking:

Alida/Elida (pronounced Al-eye-dah)…hubby HATES this one
Elise…he doesn’t really like this one either
Evanie (probably too close to Avelyn, in that their nicknames would be Avi and Evi, but I REALLY like this one)
Renate
Maea

Here are the names my hubby likes:

Leah
Aliyah (just reminds me of the singer who died in the plane crash)
Annalie
Natasha

By the way, we have the world’s dullest surname: Brown. Which is also why I’d like a first name with some flair/uniqueness to it.

HELP US, please!!

I thought your labor/delivery naming story was going to have a totally different outcome! Your husband is one tough cookie! I think it’s safe to say he’s not going to cave on any name he doesn’t like no matter what, so we might as well take Alida/Elida and Elise out of the running right this minute before we get our hearts set on them any further.

And is he a little crazy to unshakably loathe Anneliese but like Annalie? Yes, I think so.

All right. Let’s get started. I LOVE the name Avelyn. LOVE IT. Am adding it to my personal Girl Name List. That’s beautiful. Let’s find some sister candidates.

How about Amelie? It’s close to Annalie, and I see that three out of the four choices on your husband’s list feature combinations of the “uh” sound and the “lee” sound: Leah (lee-uh), Aliyah (uh-lee-uh), and Annalie (ann-uh-lee). Amelie seems like it might be just his style. Avelyn and Amelie. Amelie Brown.

Here’s a name I’ve been saving for a special occasion: awhile back a friend sent me the name suggestion Briarley, which she said she’d wanted to use for her own child but the association with the one Briarley she had ever known would have been a little awkward (they didn’t have a “name my child after you” level of friendship). I penciled it into my naming book and this seems like the moment to bring it out. What do you think? Unusual, beautiful. The only problem is I’m not sure it works with your surname. Briarley Brown. That’s a lot of “Br” for a single name to carry.

Ariadne, perhaps. Beautiful, classic, but unusual. Avelyn and Ariadne. Ariadne Brown.

Have you considered Elodie? Your choices Elida and Elise made me think of it. Avelyn and Elodie. Elodie Brown.

Isadora gives you the cute nickname combination Avi and Izzy. Avelyn and Isadora. Isadora Brown.

My friend Mairzy and I are totally split on this one: I love the name Minerva and she doesn’t. I think it’s particularly good here: Avelyn and Minerva. Avi and Minnie. Minerva Brown.

Rosalie. Avelyn and Rosalie. Rosalie Brown.

Mariel. Avelyn and Mariel. Mariel Brown.

This may be too many choices—it was really hard to narrow it down at all. There are so many names that are good with the surname and sibling name, and it was hard to stop leafing through the book looking for just! one! more! Poll is to the right. [Poll closed; see below.]

[Poll results (465 votes total):
Amelie: 170 votes, roughly 37%
Briarley: 36 votes, roughly 8%
Ariadne: 7 votes, roughly 2%
Elodie: 110 votes, roughly 24%
Isadora: 55 votes, roughly 12%
Minerva: 5 votes, roughly 1%
Rosalie: 50 votes, roughly 11%
Mariel: 32 votes, roughly 7%]

[Name update! Amanda writes:

Baby girl Brown arrived and after much deliberation we decided on the name Jolie Grace. We are pronouncing the name Jolie with a soft ‘J’ and the accent on the last syllable, so it has a bit of a French flair to it.

Sorry we didn’t end up using any of your suggestions…I liked them but the ol’ hubby thought some of them were a little too “out there”. He’s such a stick in the mud. :)

The name suits her perfectly and she’s a dream baby.

Thanks for your help!

Amanda Brown]

Amy writes:

I came across your blog on a search to find a name for my second child that would fit with the first. I have a son named Nicolae Farley. I am Romanian and Nicolae is a family name. Farley is my husband’s grandfather’s name. I realize this is an odd name never thought of the problem I would have naming my second.

We do not know the sex of the baby, so have to consider both genders. My husband is German/Swedish and I wouldn’t mind chosing a name from that ethnicity. I don’t think I want to go with all my children’s names beginning with ‘N.’ Our last name is Johnson so nothing that would match that or ryhme with it.

I had considered Ivan if it was a boy since it is a variation of my great-grandfather’s name (Ivanti) and David for the middle name since it is my father’s middle name and my father-in-law’s name. For a girl, I have considered Evalina or Annalise but am not quite sure that will work with Nicolae. My maternal grandmother’s name was Margaret and I’d love to use it, but am concerned it may not be a good match or sound odd with Nicolae. I really am not concerned about middle names matching. I really dislike names like Hayden/Conner or Ceirra/Jayden.

Any advise or suggestions would be great!

Swistle’s friend Mairzy writes:

Scene: Swistle and Mairzy are in their virtual office, sitting at their virtual desks. Swistle is doing a little on-the-job field research: she’s flipping through “The Baby Name Wizard.” Mairzy has broken open the certified-mail envelope that brought their latest virtual payment and is eating the toffees, leaving the fudge for Swistle. Suddenly an email comes in. Books and toffees are forgotten: Swistle and Mairzy gear up to solve another name dilemma and make the world a little better place for babies.

Except that this time, there wasn’t too much for us to do. Here are my thoughts, and please forgive the sticky toffee-stains on it.

If you keep your current choices, you won’t go wrong. Ivan is a good compromise between global and “normal American.” Annaliese is a beautiful name, with German roots, and a top choice on this blog. Margaret pairs with it well, although it does make for a very long name.

Other suggestions (most courtesy of Behind the Name):

Claudia
Francesca
Margot (as a form of Margaret)
Johanna

Adrian
Gabriel
Sebastian
Julian
August

Still, with all these in front of me, I like your suggestions best. Go for what you’ve got!

Best wishes!

Thanks, Mairzy!

My favorites from Mairzy’s lists are Francesca and Gabriel—but I agree with Mairzy that I like Amy’s choices even better. I love the name Ivan with Nicolae; and Margaret is a great name and also a family name, so that’s my first choice for a girl. Maybe Margaret Evalina?

Let’s do a poll over to the right [poll closed; see below]. Since we don’t know if the baby is a boy or a girl, please choose one boy name AND one girl name.

[Poll results: 180 votes for boy names, 184 votes for girl names

Boy names
Ivan: 93 votes, roughly 52% of the boy name votes
Adrian: 10 votes, roughly 6% of the boy name votes
Gabriel: 22 votes, roughly 12% of the boy name votes
Sebastian: 20 votes, roughly 11% of the boy name votes
Julian: 24 votes, roughly 13% of the boy name votes
August: 11 votes, roughly 6% of the boy name votes

Girl names
Evalina: 31 votes, roughly 17% of the girl name votes
Annalise: 38 votes, roughly 21% of the girl name votes
Margaret: 19 votes, roughly 10% of the girl name votes
Claudia: 18 votes, roughly 10% of the girl name votes
Francesca: 16 votes, roughly 9% of the girl name votes
Margot: 41 votes, roughly 22% of the girl name votes
Johanna: 21 votes, roughly 11% of the girl name votes]

[Update! 08-29-2008 Amy writes:
“It’s another BOY! Gabriel Matei
My husband wasn’t fond of Ivan and actually had chosen one of your ideas (Gabriel) as a favorite without seeing your polls. Thanks for all the input and the votes!! -Amy”]

Teresa writes:

I have recently given myself a naming delima, and am hoping you and your beautiful, charming readers will be able to help.

My husband and I are due to have our first children on Sept. 18th, twin boys (YAY!). Early in my husband’s and my relationship, we talked hypothetically about names for children, and future expectations. Now that the pregnancy has actually materialized, I am reconsidering one of the options I originally thought was great.

We agreed that if we had twins, the girl(s) would have my initials, and the boy(s) would have his initials with the first boy being named after him. I am still happy with naming our first son after his father, but I am now thinking that giving both boys the same initials is too cutesy. My husband still likes our original name choices, but I wanted to ask your opinion to see if there was something we were missing.

Our original name choices were: David Lloyd Miller, Jr. (DLM); my husband’s name – non negotiable, and Duncan Lucas Miller. While I love, love, love the name Duncan, Lucas does not seen to fit so well, it is just the best “L” name I could find. Also, it may seem silly, but I am concerned as to the feelings of the child not named after his father, even though he was part of the first pregnancy, will he feel left out or slighted in some way? So, I am considering the name Adam Mac Miller (AMM). Adam, because he was the first man God created and Mac because it means “son of”, so his name would mean first man son of Miller.

For reference, other names we like are: Stockton, Bradford, and Maximilian.

What do you think; are the names David and Duncan okay together? Am I overreacting to think the child not named after his father will care? Is there a great name out there I am missing? I need help!

I have a friend who, as it happens, was in your exact situation: she was expecting twin boys, and they wanted to name one boy after the father but were afraid the other boy would then feel less special—especially since she was having a c-section, and so the birth order would be arbitrary. I’ll tell you what she did, because I thought it was genius: they named the SECONDBORN twin after his father. And they gave the firstborn twin a significant family name from the mom’s side of the family.

I’ll just let the amazingness of that sink in. Isn’t that GREAT?

If your husband is going to insist on the firstborn as his namesake (honestly, men and their names—you hardly ever see women doing this kind of thing), then I don’t think using Adam for the secondborn helps. If you’re using it mainly for its significant meaning, and its meaning is “first man,” what does that mean when it’s for the second boy? It almost seems like saying, “What’s special about YOU is that we’re naming you AS IF you had been the firstborn twin! Because being FIRST is what is special!” Instead of giving the secondborn his own specialness, it re-emphasizes that being first is what’s important.

If you love the name Duncan and don’t have a significant family name from your own side of the family you like as much or more, I think you should stay with Duncan. (I like Lucas with it, too.) David and Duncan are good together, and it follows the naming system you and your husband agreed on, and people love a little gimmick in twin names: you’ll get a lot of positive reaction to the matching initials.

What do the rest of you think?

[Name update! 09-29-2008 Teresa writes:

I just wanted you to know that our twin boys arrived mostly healthy, but small on September 4th, and came home soon after in perfect condition. Your readers were incredibly helpful and my husband and I took a lot of what was said into consideration. Ultimately, we decided to split my husband’s name between our boys and chose the names Stockton Lloyd and Duncan David; Stockton and Duncan. Neither boy is named exactly after my husband, and nobody shares initials, but they both have strong names that honor their father. We are very happy with the names (and the boys) and want to thank your readers for all their help, they really did make a difference.]

Carmen writes:

Hi Swistle,

I am due in September with our second child, a girl, and my husband and I are having great difficulty choosing a name this time around. We don’t have any family name traditions, and have only a few restrictions:

a) I don’t want names that people automatically shorten into cutesy nicknames (e.g. Timmy, Tommy, etc.) because then the poor child has to convince the world to call him something else when he becomes an adult. (The same would hold true for a daughter – I just can’t think of an example at this moment.) I know that the parents should be able to avoid this with a bit of work, but I know my parents. And his parents. It’s just easier to avoid the situation all together.

b) And of course, the initials also shouldn’t spell anything crazy. This seems like a fairly standard restriction though.

c) We’d like a name that is not really in the top 20 or so of current names – in order to avoid the situation of 3 kids in one class with the same name.

d) I’m not a huge fan of the current trend of crazy spellings of normal names.

The name we chose for our son was Kieran James. No nicknames, fairly uncommon, not crazy initials. Girls names are harder as there aren’t any so far that I really really love. I sort of like Jemma, but my husband does not. And Alexa, although I’m not sure if the ‘x’ makes the name sound a bit ‘hard’.

How about Calla? Or Lyra? And predictably, I have no thoughts on middle names…

I guess the other complicating factor is that our last name is Foster. That makes names that end in ‘er’ impossible as they just sound ridiculous: Spencer Foster. See? Too funny.

So. Can you help me, O Wise and Wonderful Swistle?

As you know, I love the book The Baby Name Wizard with all my baby-naming heart, and so I do love when it slips onto a problem like a well-worn glove. In this case, not only does the book have entries for both Calla and Lyra, but it puts both names in the same two categories: the “Little Darlings” category (short-and-sweet names) and the “Why Not?” category (for names that are not being used much despite having so much going for them). Let’s find some more choices from those two categories:

Little Darlings
Ada (Ada Foster; Kieran and Ada)
Britta (Britta Foster; Kieran and Britta)
Eva (Eva Foster; Kieran and Eva)
Lila (Lila Foster; Kieran and Lila)

Why Not?
Elsa (Elsa Foster; Kieran and Elsa)
Geneva (Geneva Foster; Kieran and Geneva)
Jill (Jill Foster; Kieran and Jill)
Joy (Joy Foster; Kieran and Joy)

(It’s Eve that’s in the Little Darlings list, not Eva, but I think Eva has a better rhythm and fewer Adam jokes.)

The name Kieran has a strong K sound and a strong vowel sound and a strong N sound, and I found a lot of names got tangled with it when I tried to pair them as siblings. Try for example Caris, a name from the Why Not category that I think is great with your surname: Caris Foster. But now put it with Kieran: Kieran and Caris. Or try Kieran and Ellen. Kieran and Kara. Kieran and Kira.

I can’t tell if the name Calla is like that or not. Is “Kieran and Calla” lovely and coordinated, or is it tangley? I like the name Calla a lot, and it’s terrific with your surname, so we’ll include it in the list and let everyone vote on it with the others. Let’s also include Lyra–which may or may not have a vowel tangle with Kieran, I can’t tell for sure.

Calla (Calla Foster; Kieran and Calla)
Lyra (Lyra Foster; Kieran and Lyra)

That gives us a nice long list. Let’s put a poll over to the right and vote on it! What should Kieran Foster’s sister be named?

[Poll results (207 votes total):

Ada: 21 votes, roughly 10%
Britta: 16 votes, roughly 8%
Eva: 17 votes, roughly 8%
Lila: 35 votes, roughly 17%
Elsa: 12 votes, roughly 6%
Geneva: 14 votes, roughly 7%
Jill: 15 votes, roughly 7%
Joy: 10 votes, roughly 5%
Calla: 46 votes, roughly 22%
Lyra: 21 votes, roughly 10%]

[Name update 10-10-2008! Carmen writes:

Thank you so much to you and your readers for your advice and suggestions; it certainly gave us more options to talk about. At least as much as I could convince my husband that we needed to STILL TALK about names! I had our little baby girl on Sept 29th and we named her Alexa Lenore. I agreed with your readers and really wanted Calla, but in the end my husband didn’t like it as much. Lyra was also nice, although we realized later that we were pronouncing it incorrectly (like Leer-ra, rather than Lie-ra) and only really liked it that way; we didn’t want her to spend her life having to tell people how to pronounce her name. So. Alexa it is. Her middle name is the same as mine, as her brother’s name is the same as my husband’s.

Thank you for posting my question. I’m sorry that we didn’t get to use your suggestions in the end, but we’re happy with Alexa and it suits her. Although you may have noticed that by using it, we didn’t follow our own rules. There IS a cute nickname (Lexi) but neither of us hate it, so we overlooked that fact. Also, her initials are ALF. Presumably by the time she’s in school no one will remember that stupid sitcom, right?]

Josie writes:

I have a two part question. We are expecting our first child- a boy- in August. We have decided on one of the names- Clayborne, and will call him Clay (family name). My husband thinks this is better as a middle name and I hate the idea of using the middle name as the name he will go by. I think this will lead to a lifetime of confusion and always having to explain that your first name is something else but you actually go by the middle name. So, my first question is, what do you think of going by the middle name?

And the next question is what to pair it with. Our original plan was to name him Clayborne Walsh (also a family name) but we are having second thoughts about Walsh. Other possibilities are more common family names: Joseph, Andrew, Charles, Robert.

Our last name is common and goes with anything.

So, do you think Clayborne works better as the first name or middle name and should we stick with Walsh or change it to one of the other names- either as first or middle. (Clayborne Joseph, Joseph Clayborne, etc.) We are going to call him Clay regardless.

Thanks so much!

Sometimes when parents decide to call a child by the middle name, it’s because they feel obligated to use a family name as the first name, but they don’t actually like the name or want to use it—or perhaps it’s a Jr/III name that would cause confusion. So they call the child by the middle name, and that makes sense to me.

Sometimes when parents decide to use the family name as the middle name, it’s because they don’t like the family name and don’t want to use it. So they tuck it into the middle-name slot, and they call the child by the first name but have fulfilled the obligation to use the middle name, and that makes sense to me.

But in your case, you like the family name, and you want to call him that, and you’re going to call him that no matter what. So it doesn’t make sense to me to put it in the middle-name slot: there’s no reason for it, and that’s what would cause the confusion. I think you should give him Clayborne as his first name.

Now, about the middle name. I think Walsh is a great middle name, and especially with Clayborne: Clayborne Walsh. Nice! But if you’re feeling ho-hum about it, let’s take a look at the other options:

Clayborne Joseph
Clayborne Andrew
Clayborne Charles
Clayborne Robert

My favorite is still Clayborne Walsh.

But let’s vote! Poll over to the right. [poll closed; see below]

[Poll results:
Clayborne Walsh: 115 votes, roughly 69%
Clayborne Joseph: 19 votes, roughly 11%
Clayborne Andrew: 20 votes, roughly 12%
Clayborne Charles: 4 votes, roughly 2%
Clayborne Robert: 9 votes, roughly 5%]

[Name update! Josie writes:

Hi-
Wanted to let you know that our baby boy was born last week and we ended up naming him Clayborne Joseph. And we literally didn’t decide on the middle name until a few hours after his birth.
thanks for your help.
josie]

Christa writes:

My husband and I are expecting our second baby, it’s due in about 2 weeks. We think we have our names picked out, but I am afraid that we have run into a problem. Our first baby girl, Addison Jane, is 2 years old. We both love her name and agreed on it right away. The names we picked for baby number 2 are Liam James or Alexis Ann. We would most likely use Lexi/Lexie as an occasional nic-name until she was old enough to choose what she wanted to be called. We are planning on having a third, and maybe fourth child, and the other boy name we love is Lucas (no middle name yet). That would leave us with a possible 2 A-named girls and 2 L-named boys. And it is totally a coincidence, those are just the names we love.

A little history: Jane is my middle name as well as both of my grandmother’s first names, James is my husband and both of our father’s middle names, and Ann is both of our mother’s middle names. My name starts with a C, my husband’s name begins with an S, and our last name begins with a K, ends with an S and is one syllable. His side of the family has a tradition of naming the first boy S-name James K___s. We do not like any S names, so far, but you might come up with one we didn’t see, and we would consider it for a second boy. My husband originally picked the name Liam and is in love with it, so we are tied to that.

My husband can be a little picky, he seems to relate certain names with certain things. Names that are out are: Mark, Michael, Patrick, Jennifer, Claire, Jessica, and Katherine. I know that all the names we like are pretty popular, but to be honest, we have liked those names for years – even since before we were married. I would like to think we go for trendy first names with a classic middle name. And we have picked the middle names we did for family connections, so first names are all for ‘fun’.

I like Jocelyn, he doesn’t. I like Ellen (Elle/Ellie for short – I know, not too trendy), he hates it. Other that what we have, I’m not sure what he likes.

My question is: Should we look for other names to replace Alexis and Lucas (Luke)? Should we be worried about the possibilities? Could you help with possible suggestions?? It’s hard to look for more names when we already love the ones we have picked out.

Thanks for your help!

If you think you might want more than four children, you could briefly consider whether you’d feel “stuck with” using A/L names for additional children—but on the other hand, you might very well have one girl and three boys, or four girls, or some other combination that doesn’t lead to two A girls and two L boys anyway.

I’ve found, too, that with each pregnancy, my name list changes. We had a girl name picked out for our first baby (a boy), but we didn’t use that girl name when we had our girl years later. We had two boy names picked out when I was expecting the twins (a girl and a boy), but we didn’t use the unused boy name when we had another boy two years later. It’s possible that some of the A/L names you’ve chosen now won’t be candidates once those future babies actually arrive on the scene.

I have given this some mulling, and here is what I think: use the names you love. I think you’re smart to consider the issue ahead of time so you don’t get backed into a corner, but I don’t think you’re going to get backed into a corner.

[Name update! Christa writes:

Hi Swistle,

Thanks for you encouragement. You were right, we shouldn’t worry about it too much.

We had a boy! Liam James was born July 24th weighing 6 lbs and 4 oz. It has been busy around here with a slightly jealous 2 year old and a new born!

Thanks again,

Christa]

Heather writes:

Throughout our 7 year marriage, my husband and I have had a fairly easy time agreeing and compromising and negotiating on just about everything – until we started trying to name our baby girl. We have discovered that we are world’s apart on girl names – names I like, he hates and vice versa.

After months of debate, reading and re-reading of the Baby Name Wizard book, (which I have recommended now to about 10 different people!) we have finally agreed on the following names as “potentials”. Even getting this many that we both would consider is a huge step.

Now about our family –

We have a 21 month old named Alex Aiden. We like a lot of the suggested sister names from the BNW for Alex, Alexander, Alec, etc.

Our last name is two syllables and starts with E. A lot of names sound sing-songy with it, or they kind of run together.

We are planning on using Elizabeth as a middle name because it’s all over our family tree. The only exception might be if we name her Emily – then we were thinking about using Kate as a middle name.

We are not that concerned about popularity of the name (obviously, since Emily is a contender).

We are totally open to other suggestions.

So here is our hard fought list:
analise
anna
cara
emily
katelyn (kate for short)
lauren
madilyn (maddie for short)
molly
sarah

We’d love some help and an impartial opinion! Thanks!

Good list! Lots to work with!

The only change I suggest is the spelling of Analise: because of the word spelled by the first four letters, I recommend spelling with two Ns instead: Annalise. (My favorite spelling of the name is Anneliese—but that’s also the hardest one to spell, and in fact I had to look it up just now to make sure I had it right.)

Let’s look at each name with your son’s name, and we can also check out the initials of each name (using Elizabeth as the middle name with all choices except Emily, for which you’d use Kate).

Alex and Annalise (AEE)
Alex and Anna (AEE)
Alex and Cara (CEE)
Alex and Emily (EKE)
Alex and Katelyn/Kate (KEE)
Alex and Lauren (LEE)
Alex and Madilyn/Maddie (MEE)
Alex and Molly (MEE)
Alex and Sarah (SEE)

My favorites from the list are Cara Elizabeth and Emily Kate, although I also think it’s super-cute the way Lauren gives use the initials (and potential nickname) LEE. Let’s take a poll [poll closed; see below] to see what the rest of you think!

[Poll results:
Annalise Elizabeth: 16 votes, roughly 10%
Anna Elizabeth: 13 votes, roughly 8%
Cara Elizabeth: 34 votes, roughly 21%
Emily Kate: 24 votes, roughly 15%
Katelyn Elizabeth: 10 votes, roughly 6%
Lauren Elizabeth: 25 votes, roughly 16%
Madilyn Elizabeth: 6 votes, roughly 4%
Molly Elizabeth: 23 votes, roughly 14%
Sarah Elizabeth: 8 votes, roughly 5%]

[Update!
Heather writes:

Just wanted to let you know…

Emily Kate arrived (2 weeks early!) last night [07-15-2008] at 10:43!

Thanks to you and everyone for the comments!

Congratulations!]