Laura writes:

I have a question and i was wondering if you can help me answer it. Here it goes i have a son John(after his father) but he only go by Jack and his middle name is michael. My father died 1 month before jack was born so at the last minute we decided to honor my father and give him the middle name michael. well i am pregant again and i am due anyday and we have been having a hard time agreeing on names so we were thinking about calling him Michael Raymond but we are not sure if we can do this since my other son middle name is already michael. I dont want their to be issue down the line. i do have some family that did it years ago but i just dont know what to do. My father was a wonderful man and that is why i wanted to honor him with the name michael and it such a beautiful name and there are many people on my father side that is name michael it goes back 5 generations . i have had mixed reaction on this. Some people say that it is cool that the boys would both share their grandfather name and some people say that the boys will not like it when they get older so i just want to make the right decision. And some people say it fine because nobody really goes by their middle names. And then some people think that its a horrible idea. I dont want to do the wrong thing as i only want the best for my boys. Also my other question would be if i have more kids down the line would i have to do something to keep them all connected. We might only have one more after this. So in your opinion is this something that should be done or not??

Thank you for your time and help with this matter

 
I was remembering that we’d answered a similar question awhile back, but when I looked it up I found it was quite different: last time, we were answering a question where the parents had already used both their two favorite names on a child, and wanted to reuse one of those names for a second child; but your question contains a second element about whether you should honor the same person with more than one child’s name. Still, the first post and comments section may be useful for general reactions to the concept: Baby Naming Issue: We Already Used the Best Names.

In your situation, my vote is no, don’t do it. This is a difficult vote for me to place, because I think John/Jack and Michael/Mike make such excellent brother names. And if you DO use Michael, I don’t think it will be disastrous, and it’s true that most people’s middle names aren’t even known. (However, if you want to tell the story of your first son’s name, that cancels out the “no one knows middle names” advantage.) Was there any fall-out when the other family members did something similar, or did it go fine?

You have already honored your father with your first son’s name, and it was wonderful sentimental timing. Doing it again now (especially putting the name this time in a place of higher honor) is a little puzzling, and does seem like it would be an issue if you had a third boy. Are there any other men in your family you’d like to honor? Would your father-in-law feel it was a bit pointed that you’d honor one grandfather twice?

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

C. writes:

A Facebook friend has been watching my struggle in naming our baby girl. I’m due in 4 weeks, so she decided to put me out of my misery and recommended your site. I perused through your site to see if anyone had a similar struggle, and I didn’t come across one. So I thought I would see if you could point me in the right direction or perhaps post about it.

Here is my perceived problem. Our last name is Oliver. 3 syllables. Begins with a vowel. Ends in a strong R. It seems, in our quest for a girl’s name, that every girl’s name begins in a vowel or ends in one. For example, Carina or Emmaline (which we like.) And names like with an R don’t work because of the two strong Rs. For example, Riley or Jennifer (which we don’t like anyway.) To throw a wrench in the mix, I’m also wedded to the idea of a name with nickname possibilities. So even though I like the name Coraline, the nickname Cora puts me back in the “girls names that end in a vowel” category.

This is all rather frustrating since we have a son whose name we love and found pretty easily. We went with William and his nickname is Liam (Irish nickname vs. the common Will or Bill in the U.S.) It seems to be a strong first name with a cute nickname. Yet, if he wants, he can go by Bill or Will in the future. Plenty of options. The name is only two syllables, which makes the point about syllables seem valid. His middle name is Rockwell – a family twist on my husband’s name that means ‘rocky ledge’ and my father’s name.

The one name that I really like is Gwendolyn. Elegant. Classy. Not too popular. With great nickname options like Gwen or Wendy or Lyn. And I think Lyn and Liam may be cute sibling names, and both would have a variety of nickname options to choose from in the future. Plus, the nicknames are different from their actual first names, though both using the last letters of their given name, making the use of their names similar, if you follow me on that logic and potential coolness factor. Until someone told me that Gwendolyn Oliver is a mouthful since it is a dual three syllable name.

I’ve also been considering the middle name Annabeth, which combines my Mom’s middle name of Elizabeth with my grandmother’s name of Ann. Again, since my son’s middle name is a family twist, I thought it should carry through to her too. But Gwendolyn Annabeth Oliver may be syllable overkill.

All in all, hoping you can help. Because what is currently making me hyperventilate, I’m hoping is either a fun challenge for you or something you think is a piece of cake. Neither, of which, I’m currently thinking or may be overthinking.

 
I think it would be useful to start by separating preferences from requirements. Right now you want the name to:

• not contain a strong R sound
• not end with a vowel
• not start with a vowel
• not have too many syllables
• have a nickname
• have the nickname not end in a vowel
• have the nickname not start with a vowel
• have a middle name that is a mash-up of relative names
• line up with your son’s name at each comparison point

And all those are in addition to having a somewhat difficult surname to work with. (If it would be helpful, we’ve done a couple of posts with the same surname: Baby Boy-Girl Twins Oliver and Baby Girl Oliver.)

I think the first preferences I’d suggest eliminating are the ones about vowels and syllables. Those are matters purely of taste and not of name law, and can instead be taken on a case-by-case basis. Some names that start or end with vowels might sound bumpy, but some will not—and some consonant sounds will run together with Oliver. Some longer names may sound, as Laura Wattenberg puts it, “like falling down stairs”; others will sound great. And names that sound great to you may sound like a mouthful to someone else and vice versa, but this just means it’s a nice thing we all name our own children.

So my first question is: Do YOU think Gwendolyn Oliver sounds like a mouthful? My own tastes run toward longer names for girls, and I’m not put off by lots of syllables. Syllable-wise, I would use Gwendolyn Annabeth Oliver without blinking; in fact, my daughter’s name has more syllables than that. If the 3-3-3 pattern is not to your own tastes, I’d be equally likely to suggest going longer as to suggest going shorter: Gwendolyn Elizabeth Oliver is nice, and is more of an honor to your mother than using the fourth syllable of her middle name.

As you can see from the Elizabeth suggestion, the next preference I’d suggest letting go of is the one where your daughter’s name has to line up with your son’s in every element. Not only is success in this area unnecessary, it will make things exponentially more difficult if you have more children later. I do enjoy it when sibling names coordinate, and it does please me when things line up nicely (everyone having a family middle name, for example, or everyone having a similar type of nickname), but you can drive yourself crazy requiring it for every single element of the name. I suggest choosing the part or parts where it’s most important to you that it match, but then seeing if you can keep it loose: for example, giving both children family names in the middle-name slot, but not requiring that both family names be clever mash-ups. Or giving both children names with good nicknames that go well together, but not trying to match the end-of-name source.

If nicknames are important, most of the candidates will be longer names. One possibility is to use a name like Margaret: it has tons of adorable nicknames (Greta, Daisy, Meg, Maggie, Maisie), but is commonly pronounced with two syllables (MAR-gret). Margaret Annabeth Oliver; William and Margaret; Liam and Greta.

Or Charlotte has Charlie or Lottie. Charlotte Annabeth Oliver; William and Charlotte; Liam and Lottie.

Or Violet has Vi and Lettie. Violet Annabeth Oliver; William and Violet; Liam and Lettie.

Or, Elizabeth has four syllables to break up the 3-3 pattern, and also has tons of nicknames (Bess, Betsy, Libby, Lizzie, Beth). Elizabeth Ann Oliver; William and Elizabeth; Liam and Beth, or Liam and Lizzy, or Liam and Libby.

But if you agree on Gwendolyn and it meets all your preferences, I’d ignore the “mouthful” objection: one tiny (and subjective) downfall like that doesn’t seem like much when balanced against all the preferences it meets.

Lindsay writes:

I’m very interested in researching the popularity of the two names we’ve paired it down to. In your postings, I keep seeing “in 2010, there were X babies born with that name” and “X were in your state.” Where can I get this precise info? All I find is rankings. Also, I saw you mention to someone that 2011 name statistics would be available in May 2012 — are they out yet? And if so, where can I find them??

[Sigh: ONE WEEK after I posted this, the Social Security website completely changed its format. I may or may not have the heart to re-write this after I get used to all the changes!]

I use The Social Security Administration for all baby name data of this sort. (Some baby name sites publish their own lists, but those are based only on information collected from visitors to that site—and only on what those visitors SAY they named their children.)

I’ll give links where possible (it’s one of those sites where not every page has its own link), but also give instructions so you can find things without the links.

Current top-ten name rankings are on the first page you come to.

To get information on a specific name’s rank over the years, look to the lower right under “Popularity of a Name.” To see ranking lists from other years, look to the lower left under “Popular Names By Birth Year.”

For limited state-specific information, click that link I just made, or else look in the lefthand margin of the main page, under the category Baby Name Data.

To get information on names outside the Top 1000:

1. Go to the lefthand margin of the main page, under Baby Name Data. Click on “Background Information.”
2. Look again in the lefthand margin and click on “Beyond the top 1000 names.”
3. Click on either National Data or State-Specific Data to download those documents.

To get the number of babies born with a certain name in a certain year, you can look in those downloaded documents. OR, you can go to the main page, on the lower left under “Popular Names by Birth Year,” and select “Number of births” before hitting the “Go” button. Each name listed will be followed by the number of females/males given that name in that year.

The 2011 data has not yet been released. When it is (usually in the first two weeks of May), it will update automatically on the Social Security Administration’s site.

Emily writes:

I am pregnant with my 5th and last child, a girl, due at the end of July. We have a name we LOVE, beginning with a ‘B’. We also have a middle name we love beginning with the letter ‘R’. We would be all set to go if our last name did not begin with an ‘A’, which makes her initials BRA! My mom suggested switching the first and last names and then going by her middle name which would make her initials RBA. I sort of like the idea, but I don’t like the idea of a lifetime of correcting people and the headache of official documents confusion. What would you do? Should I pick a brand new middle Name? Are the BRA initials really that terrible? My other daughter’s initials are GAA ,which is kind of funny, but we have never monogrammed anything nor thought about it much. Help!

I would not want those initials myself (I’d be fine with GAA). But I also wouldn’t want to switch the names only to solve the initials problem. I can see why you’re stuck!

I think it boils down to what part of the name is most important to you. One of these three things will have to happen: (1) You will give her the BRA initials, OR (2) You will swap the two names, OR (3) You will choose a new middle name to avoid both #1 and #2. Each possibility has a downside, and so it’s a matter of choosing the downside you mind least—which probably is a question of how important this particular middle name is to you.

Since none of your first four children have swapped first/middle names, my sense of order rebels at the idea of suddenly switching them for this child, and I would vote for option #3. Another possibility is to give her two middle names (I’d make the R-name the second of the two middle names, since many forms default to the first of two middle initials); this still bothers my sense of order, but not as much, and I think it might be possible to come up with an excuse that explains it (“She’s our last, and we still had more names we couldn’t bear not to use!” or “She’s the last one, but we still had two important women to honor!”). I guess that counts as a fourth option, then, but it’s also kind of a subset of option #3.

Let’s have a poll over to the right to see what everyone else would do. [Poll closed; see results below.] It’s a little bit of a tricky thing to have a poll on, though, since it depends on strength of preference. For example, if you’re okay switching the middle name, I vote for doing that—but if you are completely set on using the middle name, then I vote for adding a second middle name. Perhaps in the comments section we can clarify our votes if necessary.

Poll results for “What would you do about the initials BRA?” (419 votes total):

Go ahead and use them – 123 votes (29%)
Switch first and middle names and call by middle name – 24 votes (6%)
Choose a different middle name – 177 votes (42%)
Add a second middle name – 89 votes (21%)
I can’t decide –  6 votes (1%)

Rachel writes:

I was wondering if you could help my husband and I with a baby naming dilemma we are having. We are expecting our first baby at the end of the June and do not know if it is a boy or girl.

The dilemma is that we are very reluctant transplants to the Midwest from our beloved hometown of New Orleans (husband and I met at college in New Orleans – he never left after his freshman year; I have lived there my entire life until now- didn’t even leave for college!) So, given the significance of New Orleans for us, we would love for the baby’s name to reflect our NOLA love. We have more or less decided on first names of Walker for a boy and Catherine for a girl.

My husband has decided that he is so hurt over the Saints bounty scandal (aren’t we all?) that no Saints related names will be allowed, so WhoDat is definitely out, as well as Sean, Pa(e)yton and Drew. Ideally, I would like something with a little more NOLA flavor than those names anyway. We have come up with short lists for each –

Girl – Delphine (Google Delphine LaLaurie – I love the name but don’t know if I can get past the story)
Coralie (I’m not sure how I feel about Catherine Coralie though)
Adelaide
Eugenie
Louise
Mathilde

Boy – Carrollton
Eli (this is my husband more than me)
George (there are a bunch of New Orleans artists named George)
Charles
Faulkner
Rex
Philip

Our last name is 2 syllables, starts with T and ends with R. We would love any thoughts on which one of these names works best or any other ideas you might have.

Thank you so much!!!

The names that sprang immediately to my mind were Louis, Louise, Louisa, and even using Louisiana or Orleans. (Louisiana, incidentally, is one of those names I’m surprised more parents who like the “long feminine name with lots of nicknames” style aren’t using: nicknames Lou, Louie, Louise, Lulu, Annie, etc.) If you weren’t set on using Catherine as the first name, you could also go a bit clever with something like Louise Anna.

Nola, of course, would work for a girl. Or Nouvelle, for La Nouvelle-Orléans.

Catherine Louisa
Catherine Louise
Catherine Louisiana
Catherine Nola
Catherine Nouvelle
Catherine Orleans

Walker Louis
Walker Orleans

I am a bit worried about the initials of some of the girl options allllmost spelling naughty words, but I tend to be cranked up a bit high on Initials Sensitivity. Spelling Catherine with a K may help. Along those lines, I would want to have considered ahead of time that Eli would give the initials WET, and Adelaide gives the initials CAT, and Orleans with Catherine gives the initials COT, and Faulkner gives initials of WFT but a monogram of WTF.

I love the name Delphine, but the very first line in her Wikipedia entry is “…a Louisiana-born socialite, known for her involvement in the torture of black slaves.” It’s not just that this is one of many things she’s known for, as with a famous author or politician who later was discovered to have a skeleton in the closet—it’s the ONLY reason she’s famous. And since you’re specifically considering the name for the New Orleans tie-in, and her brutal torture of slaves IS the New Orleans tie-in, I regretfully vote no.

Wikipedia has a whole page for people from New Orleans. Those and the other options on your list probably depend on how strongly they bring New Orleans to your mind.

C. writes:

I’m panicking… our baby girl is due in less than 4 weeks and we can’t come up with a name!

She is our first (and probably only). Her last name will be Brown. A few key points have come up through our name-search:

1. Meaning/history is incredibly important! My partner even vetoed my favorite name “Ophelia” because the character didn’t fare so well in Hamlet… despite it having a great meaning (“helper”).

2. We have been drawn to Greek names (though we are not Greek) particularly those ending in “-ia”. Though this has made it hard to think of paring first and middle names since they all end up having the same sounds (Thalia, Ophelia, Philia (now vetoed completely as well), Thea…).

3. We are both bookish-academics and thus literary sources have been influential.

4. In addition to -ia Greek names, we’ve considered a few gender-neutral last names taken from various authors on our bookshelves: Morrison, Ellison, Beckett…

5. The name itself does need to be relatively unique/unpopular (and no spelling a name oddly to add to it’s uniqueness). My partner’s name has been in the top ten for decades and thus grew up going by his last name, whereas I was the only one in my school with my name and I always loved that.

6. I would like if the name (or middle name) had some form of “Ann/Anna” in it, because it would call out to several female family members but it’s not necessary.

Several we still have on the list: Thalia, Thea (I LOVE this as a nickname!), Amalia, Hadiya, Safiya (afraid it will be confused with Sophia which we love but is just too popular), Zaphira, Atiya, Eos (would only consider it for a middle name)… None of them sound like “the one” though. I honestly don’t expect to have one chosen when she arrives anymore… but if we could at least have some solid choices that would help! Otherwise I’m afraid she’ll be 2 before we come up with something.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

C. writes:

My husband and I have a 19 month old daughter named Emery Michael. We always loved the name Emery and used the name Michael to honor my dad. (Growing up, I knew a girl named Michael, so it didn’t seem odd to me to use it for her middle name). I fleetingly had namer’s remorse over Michael, but the joy my dad got from it quickly remedied that.

I am now expecting a boy in August. My husband and I can never agree on boy names…which is why we were relieved to have a daughter first, and were secretly hoping for another one!

So, Baby Boy Wilson is on the way! After my husband shot down dozens of names, I threw out the name Meyer. To my surprise, he loved it! Here’s our problem: M-E-Y-E-R = E-M-E-R-Y. They have the SAME letters! I’m trying hard to convince myself that this is not a deal breaker, but I’m wondering if it should be? We do plan on having one more child, and I don’t see how we can use the same letters to form yet another name.

I guess I’m just wondering what your opinion is on the situation. Should we keep on hunting? If so, we are so very open to suggestions. We would like to use the name Owen, Jacob, or Lee for the middle name as they have family significance. We would prefer to not use Owen for a first name because of it’s current popularity in our area. Jacob is my husband’s name, but he doesn’t want a Junior. Lee is a family name my husband would like to use. I don’t love it, but would compromise on using it as a middle name. Please help us!

 
Ooo, I think you have stumbled on an excellent set of twin names! Emery and Meyer is pretty genius!

If you were having only two children, I would say no, it’s not a deal-breaker, and also it’s pretty cool. If, however, it’ll make you feel weird when naming a third child, then probably it won’t work out.

Do you like the name Miller? I think of it as very similar to Meyer, but it takes away that rearranged-letters issue. I don’t think it’s quite as good with Wilson, however, which is disappointing. Well, and making that comparison made me notice how really nice Meyer is with Wilson, and now I’m reconsidering the third-child issue. Do you think it’s something you’d be able to go with? That the first two children happen to have re-arranged letters of each other’s names, not on purpose but just by coincidence, and that the third child won’t? It’s the sort of issue that can seem like a huge deal during the naming process, and not a deal at all later on. I suspect children care about these things less often than we do—or at least that they can have it explained to them, if they do turn out to care. It seems like a cheerful “I know! Isn’t that a funny coincidence? We almost didn’t use it, but then we decided the most important thing was to use a name we loved for each child!” could go a long way to reducing feelings of exclusion. And perhaps you could find another way to tie a third name in, such as making sure it had an “er” in it like the first two, or a Y in it like the first two, or something like that. (Or both, like Sawyer or Cameryn. Emery, Meyer, and Sawyer; Emery, Meyer, and Cameryn.) Another option would be to gamble and save Meyer for a possible boy next time, but I think that could make things even more complicated by giving the potential excluded feeling to the classically-feeling-excluded middle child.

Well. It’s a tricky issue. I’m not sure what I’d do. Let’s have a poll over to the right to see what everyone else would do. [Poll closed; see results below.]

To find new candidates, I think I’d look in the Last Names First section of The Baby Name Wizard:

Connolly
Currier
Dwyer
Fletcher
Flynn
Garner
Hayes
Kiefer
Maguire
Mercer
Merritt
Mitchell
Murphy
Ridley
Sawyer
Thatcher
Turner

Owen could be a little tricky as a middle name: BOW, COW, DOW, HOW, LOW, MOW, NOW, POW, ROW, SOW, TOW, VOW, WOW, YOW, ZOW. But those are pretty innocuous, and may even be fun. Jacob and Lee both work without spelling anything, though L could be cute with a monogram where the surname initial goes in the center: with a name like Oliver Lee Wilson, you could have the monogram OWL—a little secret cuteness, maybe a cute family nickname, and a fun excuse for buying owl things.

Ms. B. writes:

Hi, I came across your blog in a desperate search for help in determining whether our name pick “flows”. You seem like an expert on baby names so I thought I’d send you an email to see what you think!

My husband and I already have a three year old named Matthew, and we’re expecting a baby girl in May. We’ve agreed on the name Skye Samantha, but I’m having doubts. I love the name, but originally we planned to call her Samantha Sky which I *know* flows well and I absolutely love.

It was just recently we decided we really like “Skye” and might prefer it as a first name. (I don’t think we want to name our child with the intention of using her middle name… my sister-in-law and father-in-law have both taken that route and paperwork is always a nuissance.) Our last name is three syllables, starts with B and ends with “let.”

As much as I still LOVE “Samantha” I do wonder if a different middle name might work better. My husband suggested “Abigail” but I just think Skye+Abby = scabby…

The problem is that Skye and Samantha were the only names we really agreed on. Other names I suggested were: Sarah, Sierra, Sienna, Eliza, Jessica, Isabelle. We’d also consider Elizabeth for her middle name since that’s mine, but I wasn’t sure if ending Skye with an “e” and starting a middle name with an “e” made sense. My husband also likes the name Dakota, but I’m not feeling it. He also likes “Skylar” but I feel that “Skye” is more original and I like the way it looks.

We want to avoid ending up with the intials SOB.

I think this will be our last child, though having a third isn’t out of the question. For a boy, I love the name Noah Emmanual, but I don’t think my husband is sold (even though Noah was a name we considered when we were expecting our first). If we had another girl I don’t think we’d be able to find another name we could agree on!

Please help! Maybe you can reassure me that Skye Samantha flows just fine, or maybe you can come up with a suggestion we haven’t thought of. I feel like baby girl will arrive and we’ll still be “debating” the name issue.

One-syllable first names can be challenging to find good middle names for. I think Skye Samantha is great. In fact, I think I prefer it to Samantha Skye, though I think both work well. If you had written this as a middle name challenge, saying her name would be Skye _____ Bernadet [not the real surname, just showing the rhythm], I’d be first looking for a name with a da-DA-da sound: Skye da-DA-da DA-da-da. Samantha fits perfectly.

Skye Abigail is also pretty. Name rhythm/flow is very subjective, but my vote is that I prefer Skye Samantha. But I also don’t think “scabby” is an issue, since people rarely get nicknames for their middle name.

I also don’t see anything wrong with having Skye end in E and Elizabeth start with E, if you like Skye Elizabeth better—but again, I don’t think it particularly helps the flow, so again would advise sticking with your favorite.

It can be reassuring to consider how often you think the first and middle names will be said together. In some families, the parents routinely call their children by first-middles, in which case it would be worth questing to find a combination you liked. In most situations, however, the middle name all but vanishes after the birth announcements are sent out, and it seems more important to choose a name you love than a rhythm you love.

A. writes:

I know that several times on your blog I’ve read about people worrying that they can’t use ‘someone else’s’ baby name. You often say that names don’t belong to any specific person, and I’m wondering if there is an exception to this!

There is a name that we love, but it is the name of my husband’s deceased sibling, and since his parents and I have a shaky relationship and this is the sort of thing that could ‘rock the boat’ we’ve opted to not use the name. Even though we love it. Even though it’s our favourite and has been for years and we had decided on it since we got together for our hypothetical child.

So I’m wondering, although we’ve made our minds up for this baby, (love the name so much we’ve even shelved it under ‘maybe there is a possibility of using this sometime in the future?’ in our list of names) is there ever a time when a name really DOES belong to someone else?

There are two different issues here: one is whether someone can own the rights to a name, and the other is whether a name’s association is too strong/difficult.

When people tell me that, for example, they named their baby Braden and now can I please keep a pregnant friend from stealing it, or if someone says they can’t use a name because it’s a distant family member’s middle name, or if someone is complaining that they’ve wanted to use the name Charlotte since childhood but now a friend stole it for her baby so they can’t use it anymore, or if two people in a family are fighting about who gets to name their baby after grandpa—all those are situations when I bring out the idea that no one owns a name. People who have used a name (or have planned to use it) don’t get to say that now that they’ve used the name, no one else may now use it; people who want to use a name don’t need to cross it off their list if they find that anyone else in their lives has used it or has known someone who used it. Certainly there are situations where we might CHOOSE not to re-use a name out of consideration for the other person (maybe we know they’d be upset, and we don’t want to upset them), or because we have our own reasons (maybe we COULD duplicate our cousin’s daughter’s name but we’d prefer not to), but it’s not because we are not allowed to use the name. Names, as I am fond of saying until everyone is sick of me saying it, are not one-time-use items.

So! We’ve covered that pretty thoroughly and regularly. However, what you’re talking about here is a different kind of issue, and it’s the Strong Association issue. Can someone name a child Cher, or Madonna, or Adolf, or Apple? Sure, but there is an instant association, and it’s too strong for most people to want to deal with. It’s not that Madonna’s parents “own” the name; it’s that the name is now so strongly associated with the famous Madonna, it’s nearly impossible to separate them. Similar issues crop up when someone’s favorite name from childhood turns out to be the name of the other parent’s previous fiancée, or the other parent’s family dog. Or when someone would like to use the name of the family black sheep, or of their sister-in-law’s first husband who was abusive, or of someone who has recently become famous for a terrible crime. Or when someone wants to name a child a name that has since been used for a well-known product. Again, it’s not that anyone is claiming those other name-holders (or the name-holders’ parents) OWN the name or the rights to use the name; it’s just that those names come with significant associations that mean most people voluntarily choose not to use them.

In this case, it’s clearly an association issue. The concern is not that your in-laws will feel that they used the name first for their baby and so now no one else is allowed to; the concern is that the name will make them think of their child who died, and this is presumably a very strong and complicated association for them.

However, using the name of someone who was loved and then died is generally considered a very pleasing and sentimental and meaningful tribute in our culture. I don’t have enough of the details for this case, so I don’t know where the hard feelings might come into it, but it seems like the simplest solution would be for your husband to go to his parents and say that he’d like to name a child after his brother/sister, and ask if that would be too painful for them.

Nara writes:

We are expecting our second child in August and have had a very difficult time agreeing on a name. Our daughter’s name is Ayla Rheann. This time we are having a boy. Our last name is Skipper. We’d like a strong name with the possibility of a nickname. We also want to stay out of the top 100. The middle name will be Jeffrey, Louis or Dean depending on what first name we chose. We are avoiding names that end in “er” because it just sounds funny with Skipper and we do not want a gender neutral name.

My husband absolutely loves the name Lincoln with the nn Linc. I was just about on board with it until I started saying it combined with Ayla. Does Ayla and Lincoln sound too much like Abraham Lincoln? He will be devastated to not use the name, but I don’t want our two children to turn into a school joke. Do people always put the oldest child first when saying their names?

If we have to ditch the name Lincoln, our other favorites include-

Everette, nn Rhett
Paxton, nn Pax
Pierson, nn Pierce
Lawson, nn Laz or Law
Sullivan, nn Sully

I realize 5 of our names end with the ‘en’ sound and I’m not sure how that flows with our last name. Please help!!

 
It’s not too close for me. And even though some of the sounds of the phrase “Ayla and Lincoln” might bring the connection to mind, I don’t think anyone would think it was because the name Ayla was too similar to Abe or Abraham: the sound combination is a coincidence, and much of it comes from the “and” sound in between the names. If your husband will be devastated not to use the name, the possibility of some particularly clever and well-educated playground children noticing the sound connection between the names of two children in different grades (particularly when the connection is to someone who is generally considered in a very positive light) wouldn’t rule the name out for me.

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