Elizabeth writes:

I’m 14 weeks pregnant with our 2nd child and starting to think about names seriously now. Boy or Girl we do not know, but will in about 6 weeks. We are pretty set on a boy name. Lucas James (James is DH’s name) If its not Lucas (Luke) then our 2nd choice is William (Will, I love Will, but then I would have a Will & Kate??). Our DD’s name is Kaitlyn Elizabeth (which I do not love Kaitlyn) most people call her Kate, Katie or Katie Beth. What do you think of having the same ending for a girl name? Madelyn (Maddie), Emmalyn, etc? I love simple middle names like Rose, Jo & Claire

Any suggestions would be great.

 
Two interesting questions here: (1) Do we think Will and Kate are still usable as sibling names, and (2) How do we feel about matching endings? I’ll give my own answers, but I think opinions will be all over the spectrum on these—from “AAAAAAA NO NEVER!!” to “What’s the big deal?”

I would not use Will and Kate as sibling names. Other sibling pairings that would be off my list: Charles and Diana, Brad and Angelina, my mom’s name and my dad’s name. Some two-name sets are so well known for belonging to a particular couple, hearing them together on siblings is highly evocative and sometimes even a little disturbing. (I remember, back when I was looking for names for my twins, finding a comment by a woman who said she’d named her boy-girl twins Romeo and Juliet. Oh…dear.)

But on this issue I can see how someone else might say that Will and Kate are both classic/traditional/popular names and there’s no reason to reject them just because some couple is currently in the news (and in the case of some celebrity couples, might not be anymore by the time the child is in school). Some people might even say “Will and Kate? Who are they?” And certainly I would use Will and Kate before I’d use Romeo and Juliet. It helps that your Kate is short for Katelyn not Catherine, and that the order would more often be Kate and Will.

And there are plenty of couples whose names don’t immediately trigger an association for me (er, at least when they’re not all together in a list like this): John and Kelly, Sarah and Matthew, Michael and Catherine*, so clearly it’s a complicated equation with many personal-association and particular-name elements. In short: while I wouldn’t use Will and Kate for siblings, I WOULD use Michael and Catherine, and I probably would use my grandmother’s name and my grandfather’s name—so it wouldn’t surprise me to find plenty of people who would use Will and Kate. It also helps if there are more than just two siblings, and if the names are separated by a sibling: Kate, Henry, Meg, and Will is far less of an issue. But I suggest avoiding the whole issue and sticking with Lucas.

Matching-endings is another area where I’d generally avoid it, but there are plenty of people who do it on purpose—so it’s not anything clear-cut. If my top two favorite girl names were Katelyn and Madelyn, I might use them (especially if I planned to call them Kate and Maddy)—but I think I’d be more likely to change the spellings to avoid at least the visual element of the match: Caitlin and Madelyn, or Katelyn and Madeline. (It’s too bad that the -lyn has already been used for Katelyn, because I really like the way the -lyn ending clears up the pronunciation question of the names Madeline and Emmaline.)

In short: I’d prefer to avoid repeating endings, but if I loved the names and couldn’t think of any I liked better, I might go ahead and use them—changing spelling if possible.

********

What do you think? Would you use Will and Kate as sibling names? Would you repeat a name ending?

In fact, let’s add polls, because polls are fun. There’s one for each question, and they’re over to the right. The “it depends” option is for things like “If Kate were short for Katelyn, but not if it were short for Catherine” and “Not this year with all the fuss, but maybe a few years down the road” and “Only if I planned to use nicknames that were less similar.” [Polls closed; see results below.]

*Travolta, Jessica Parker and Broderick, Douglas and Zeta-Jones

Melissa writes:

We are having a girl in two weeks and she still doesn’t have a name.

We have 15 month old twins Colton Thomas (my father’s first name) and Chloe James (husband’s middle name).
We are veering away from another “C” name but would totally name her a C name if we loved it.

Our last name is Stratton
My name is Marissa and my husband’s is Matt.

Names on the list:
Stella
Lola
Reese
Husband likes Colby…..I think it sounds like a tongue twister with the twins.
Hadley.

For some reason Stella is in the lead but we can’t pull the trigger?

We are thinking Stella Vita or have tossed around Stella Maris. My name, Marissa is a derivative of Maris (meaning sea) and Stella Maris means star of the sea. Middle names we have used family names. Vita is my great grandmothers name.

But is Stella getting too popular? Everyone tells me it is but no one can tell me that they know of any Stellas???
We also love boy names for girls.

I know I haven’t given you much time but would LOVE to hear you toss any suggestions our way.

We are DESPERATE : )

 
I agree with you: I think adding another hard-C and L name like Colby is too much—especially since it also repeats the first syllable of her brother’s name. Shelby might work instead, or Darby, or Darcy, or Delaney, or Laney.

With Chloe, I think Lola might be too much Lo—or maybe not, I keep saying them together and can’t tell. Chloe and Lola. Hm. Maybe it just ties them together nicely? Lila would work too, without the repeating -lo- sound—though it’s still a lot of L.

Stella Maris is so pretty, and I love names that lead to a collection—in this case, it would be fun to collect starfish-themed items. (And I’ve been considering tattoos lately, so my mind goes immediately to how fun it would be to get a sweet little starfish tattoo! or a star over a wave!) I’m a little worried about the name, though, since it’s also used to refer to several other things, including the Virgin Mary. Stella Vita is also wonderful.

The name Stella IS getting more common:

(screenshot from SSA.gov)

But I think that’s a point in its favor: according to the Social Security Administration, Colton is #73 and Chloe is #9. Stella is right now entering that same level of popularity.

The name Hadley is much less common (#216 in 2010), but I like it with the sibling group. I like Haley even more: it’s more coordinated in femininity with her sister’s name, and its multiple spellings bring it closer to the popularity of Chloe.

Bethany writes:

Hello! My husband, Scott and I are expecting our first baby, due October 13th! We found out that we are having a boy and are very excited! The only problem is coming up with a wonderful name that we both like and know he will love as well. My husband and I both want his name to be cute and fun for when he is a little baby and boy and something that transitions to masculine when he is adult. I LOVE LOVE LOVE all old fashioned 50’s names for boys, but my husband is not as keen on them as I am. I loved the names “Graham”, “Reid” and “Grady” but my husband hates all of them. He says they are not “manly” enough. We did however come to an agreement on two names…. “Jack” and “Oliver.” I really wanted to name him Jack after my grandpa who I was deeply close with, who passed away a few years ago. My grandpa’s name was actually John, but everyone called him Jack. However, my sister also recently had a baby boy, born July 12th and they decided to name him Elliott Jack. They used the name Jack as a middle name because her husband’s father’s name was Jack, but now I feel like I can not use it since she did. I also feel she might be offended if I use Jack and we really do not want to step on anyone’s toes. So that leaves us with the name “Oliver” which we both love! However…we have had several people express how much they hate it. We have decided to use “Jonah” as the middle name, because we both like that name and feel it flows nicely. The naysayers who do not like the name (including my own dad) say he will be called “OJ” (which I hate) and “Ollie” (which I don’t really care for but my husband LOVES!) I know if we name him Oliver, my husband Scott is going to call him “Ollie” all of the time.

I should explain how the name Oliver came up as a suggestion as well. For the first 5 months of my pregnancy I was incredibly sick with “morning – all day” sickness. I would see everything I ate again… it was awful. But, for some weird reason the only thing that I always wanted that made me feel better instantly was to eat Green Olives. I eat about a half a jar of green olives everyday! My husband joked that all of the Olives would turn the baby into an Oliver (I thought for sure I was having a girl) and apparently they did because we are having a BOY! Well… the name sort of stuck and now we are in a bind since a lot of friends and family are not on board. We would love any suggestions you would have for us! It’s less than three months away now, and I would love to have his name settled for sure! Please help us!!

Thank you so much!!

P.S. I should also tell you that we have an English Bulldog named Ruby.

There are two basic and widely-experienced issues here: the sister-used-the-name issue, and the some-people-hate-the-name issue.

I think you should talk to your sister. My own temperament wouldn’t stretch to asking her outright if she’d mind if you used the name Jack, so I won’t suggest the direct approach to you either, but you could raise the subject casually and then gauge her reaction. Like, bring up the subject of baby names, mention a few names you’re considering, and then say, “We were thinking of Jack, after grandpa…” and see if she startles or if her eyebrows go mad-shaped or if she says “But WE used Jack!” And then if necessary you can back down quickly (“But then you used it, so THAT’S out! Ha ha! Obviously! Ahem!”) and be no worse off than you are now. Or maybe she will say, “Ohhhhh, how sweet!” or “You totally should!,” and then think how happy you’ll be.

For one thing, she used it as a middle name, and the middle name is just not the same as the first name: people don’t tend to feel as possessive about it, and it’s much more common to have duplications—especially in an extended family where a bunch of people might want to honor the same ancestor. For another thing, she was honoring her father-in-law, perhaps mostly because it was something her husband wanted to do, whereas you’d be honoring your grandfather. It would be hard to argue that once one person has been honored, no one else with that same name may be honored, not even someone from a completely different family. But if she DOES in fact argue that very thing, at least you know for sure she feels that way, instead of possibly giving up the name for nothing.

Or, you could use John. It’s definitely not as satisfying as using the nickname your grandfather mostly went by, but it WAS his given name, and you’ll know it’s “after grandpa.” And it may be better than not getting to name a child after him at all. And John Kaufman has a wonderful sound.

As for people hating the name, it is a sad thing about baby-naming that EVERY SINGLE NAME has some people who hate it. EVERY name. There are no exceptions: the name you give this baby WILL be hated by some people. This doesn’t mean I’m in the “Screw what everyone else thinks, it’s MY choice!!” camp—far from it. I can easily empathize with their desire to love the name of an important baby in their lives—and I can easily picture how I’d feel if the name of an important baby in my life was one from my “Ug, I can’t STAND that name!” list. But because every name will be hated by some people, it depends on things such as WHO hates the name, and HOW MANY of them there are, and WHY they hate the name, and how likely they are to come around to it with time, and how likely they are to hate ANY name I like. People from other generations classically dislike the names the current generation of parents is using: their complaints are typically that a name is weird, or that it’s old-personish. (We will likely feel the same about the names of our grandchildren, although it helps that we are keeping our baby-name muscles exercised here.) And sometimes people just have completely different naming styles: perhaps you don’t like the names they used for THEIR children, either—and yet they still used those names, perhaps without consulting everyone first.

In the case of your nay-sayers, it sounds like their primary objection is the initials with the chosen middle name. Is this something you could fix without stress? If your reasons for using it are just that you like the name and it flows nicely, are you willing to save that name for a possible future child, and find another name you like equally well that flows nicely but doesn’t start with J? This might not stop the objections, of course: sometimes people who don’t like a name come up with “legitimate reasons” for not liking it—but if those reasons were removed, they still wouldn’t like it. But it’s worth a try, if it’s something you’d be willing to do. There are lots of two-syllable names with a similar flow:

Oliver Eli Kaufman
Oliver Ezra Kaufman
Oliver Henry Kaufman
Oliver Leo Kaufman
Oliver Levi Kaufman
Oliver Matthew Kaufman
Oliver Micah Kaufman
Oliver Noah Kaufman
Oliver Phillip Kaufman
Oliver Riley Kaufman

Or it’s a great place for a name one of you likes that the other one likes okay but doesn’t want to use as a first name. Oliver Grady Kaufman, for example. Or it’s a good place for a family name: perhaps Oliver Scott Kaufman.

Another thing to keep in mind is that people tend to come around to a name even if they disliked it at first. In fact, it’s common for them to say later on things such as “When I first heard the name, I HATED it! *merry laugh of how hilarious this is now that they love it*” and “What are you talking about? I ALWAYS loved that name!” Once an actual little sweetie-biscuit is on the scene, the name has an entirely different feel to it. (In fact, you might find you end up loving the nickname Ollie: we’ve had commenters mention on nickname-related posts that they’ve completely changed their point of view on a nickname they thought they couldn’t stand, once the child was born and turned out to be Exactly Right for that nickname.)

It sounds like you have several really good reasons for using the name Oliver. I think at this point it’s a matter of whether you think your dad and the others will get over it, and/or how important it is to you to have unanimous agreement in your circle about your child’s name. If you decide to use Oliver, I’d suggest saying to your dad (and to others) gently and with a touch of affectionate humor that you just want to give him the heads-up that you’re planning to use the name he doesn’t like, so he should start bracing himself for that. And perhaps you can soothe him with a different middle name (perhaps HIS name would work?).

Also, I have one name suggestion: if you like Graham and Grady and Reid, I wonder if Grant would be manly enough for your husband.

I notice that actress Kate Hudson and musician Matthew Bellamy have not yet named their new baby boy. I think we should help.

Here are the issues, as I see them. Kate Hudson’s first child is named Ryder Russell Robinson. The name Ryder, to me, is in categories like Cool, and Quirky But Not Too Out-There, and Tough But Still a Hippie. Also, the initials are RRR. Also, he has his father’s surname.

A different father this time could completely change the style of the name—but my guess is that it won’t, or won’t MUCH. The name Ryder has increased in popularity since Kate Hudson used it, so she may be looking for something even more unusual this time, or she may be trying to find something that roughly coordinates with its current popularity. My guess is that she will make the same decision this time to use the father’s surname. If she wants to repeat the triple-initial theme, this means the second child would have the initials BBB; if I had to guess one way or the other, I’d guess she wouldn’t do that this time.

My top choice for her is Hudson. I love mother’s-maiden-name-used-as-child’s-name names. Hudson Hawn would be nice, after her mother (the middle name Russell was after her step-father). Hudson Bellamy; Ryder and Hudson.

My second choice for her is Dean. James Dean gives the name a rocker/hippie toughness/gentleness that I think goes well with Ryder. Dean Bellamy; Ryder and Dean.

Another possibility is Devon, from the place Matthew Bellamy’s group Muse began. Devon Bellamy; Ryder and Devon.

Or George Bellamy, after Matthew Bellamy’s father George. I think George is the next Max/Sam, and celebrities tend to be on the cutting edge of such things. They jump first, while other people are still thinking “Wait, IS this funky-uncool-cool, or is it still just uncool?” But as Devivo points out, the Republican politicians George Bush and George W. Bush may have ruined the name for rocker-hippie types.

More possibilities in the rocker/hippie area:

Ace
Arrow
Blaze
Canyon
Everest
Ezra
Flynn
Forest
Lennox
Maverick
Orion
Oz
Paxton
Slater
Zane

Claudia writes:

Back in June 2009, your blog helped us pick the name of our first son:
https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2009/06/26/baby-boy-beal/

Henry Konrad Beal was born July 17th, 2009 and we couldn’t be happier with the name choice. It fits him perfect. We are now expecting our 2nd son in just a couple weeks (due date is July 26th) and this time are really struggling to come up with another name. We’ve narrowed our list to 7 first names.

* Anderson
* Eliot
* Graham
* Julian
* Simon
* Theodore
* Truman (the only name we’ve reconsidered using for #2)

For middle names, we have 2 choices and will pick whichever goes best with the first name we select. First is Dane, a version of Daniel which is a family name on my side. The second is Dawson, a relation of David which is a family name on my husbands side.

Please, please, please help us pick as we are quickly running out of time. My husband’s favorite right now is Eliot Dawson and I’m leaning toward Julian Dane but now Simon is creeping up to my top spot.

Thanks!

 
With Henry, my favorites are Eliot, Graham, Simon, and Theodore. My own personal favorite is Simon. Let’s see what everyone else thinks: poll over to the right! [Poll closed; see results below.]

Amanda writes:

We are pretty sure we are expecting a daughter late this fall. We have a daughter who is one named Hope Elizabeth. Our last name is Burleson. I really really love virtue names, and I just love the name Mercy for baby # 2. In case this baby or future children are boys, the only virtue name for a boy I can think of that I like is Justice. Can you or your sweet readers think of anything else? We are moving to an African country where virtue names are very common, so while I do think having all your kids with virtue names is a bit cheesy, I also love it and think it is beautiful and perfect for us.

OH, yes, boy virtue names are so sadly skimpy!

One of my favorites is Merit.

Another is August. I think of it as a month name but it’s also a virtue name: the word august means “inspiring admiration; venerable; of supreme dignity.”

I also like Worth. I think it comes across as a pleasingly old-fashioned name, like Ward.

Sterling works, too, if we think of it as referring to character: one definition of sterling is “thoroughly excellent.”

The Baby Name Wizard mentions Constant, Sincere, Reason, Truth, and Wisdom.

Or there’s Earnest: “serious and sincere.”

Or Loyal.

Or True.

Or Noble.

Or Moral.

Or Reliance, which sounds a little like the more common name Riley.

Pax might work: it’s a word for peace. However, it’s generally used for IMPOSED peace—the kind of peace a stronger country forces on a weaker one (Pax Britannica, Pax Romana). On the other hand, I find that doesn’t keep me from thinking of the word as meaning the regular kind of peace, and the Britannica/Romana addition being the part that makes it forced.

I also suggest Able. There could be some spelling issues because of confusion with the name Abel—but my guess is that the little Abels out there get misspelled as Able, too.

I’m not sure how far you want to drift from mainstream names, but Benevolent is a great virtue name, and has the more familiar nickname Ben if needed. Or Philanthropy, with Phil? I don’t know, these might be getting a little close to names like Peace-That-Passeth-Understanding Jones.

Can you think of more boy virtue names to add to our list?

Jenni writes:

This is not a specific name same request as I already named my baby. I still enjoy reading your blog and wonder if some other readers might benefit from this request. When I was pregnant, I gravitated toward names ending in “S” that are “plural-sounding.” A few examples would be Brooks, Jackson nn Jacks/Jax, Collins, Wells. Many of these are surnames. I find that the plural sound gives a unique quality to a more common name without making it too unfamiliar. I just found it extremely difficult to come up with realistic names that sounded pleasing with the plural-sounding criteria. I would love to hear suggestions for these type of names. Maybe your readers will, too.

 
At first I thought this was going to be a matter of entering “names that end in S” into one of those irritating baby name sites that only gives search results ten names at a time—but it quickly turned out that wouldn’t work at all. Names like Carys and Atticus end in S, but they’re not plural-sounding in the same way as your examples.

…Well, or maybe they are. No, wait, they’re not, and I think I know why: I think to be “plural-sounding,” there needs to be a “singular” form (even if that singular is not used as a name, as in Wells/Well). So Collins is plural-sounding because Collin sounds singular; Jacks/Jax is plural-sounding because Jack sounds singular. Atticus is not plural-sounding because there’s nothing that seems like the singular form. Carys could go either way: Cara would be a singular-sounding version, but that still doesn’t make Carys sound plural to me.

What about names such as Miles and Charles and James? I mention them in my post explaining how to make names ending in S possessive (don’t be like my old co-worker who labeled a daycare cubby “Jame’s Cubby”), but I’m not sure they’re the sort of names you mean.

A name I recently thought of is Roberts. We were working on a post where Roberts was the mother’s maiden name, but she was going to use Robert for her son; it occurred to me that Roberts might be a pleasingly fresher version (as well as being her actual name), and fit in well with other current surname names.

I think Williams would work, too: it takes the fairly common traditional first name William and turns it into an unusual surname name.

Jacobs, too. In fact, as I go down the list of boy names, I see a lot of possibilities:

Aarons
Abrams
Adams
Andrews
Banks
Daniels
Edwards
Evans
Fredericks
Hughes
Isaacs (nickname Zax)
Jacobs
Jeffries
Marks (though I might avoid, because of Marx)
Matthews
Michaels (the craft store eliminates this one for me)
Owens
Peters
Phillips (the screwdriver might put me off of this one)
Roberts
Stevens/Stephens
Williams

It seems to me that one key is finding names that are actual surnames: Andrews works, but Joshuas doesn’t. Daniels works; Dylans doesn’t. I think such names are particularly charming when they in fact ARE a family surname.

Names that are not quite what I was looking for but thought might have a similar appeal:

Anders
Baxter (Bax)
Davis
Dexter (Dex)
Ellis
Forbes
Harris
Hayes
Hollis
Jones
Lars
Lennox
Louis/Lewis
Marcus
Paxton (Pax)

Can you think of more names like these to add to our list?

Good news! Amazon.com’s listing for The Baby Name Wizard now includes a product picture that shows the pink dot: that is, it shows the updated 2009 version, rather than the original 2005 version.

This means it’s now completely safe to order—though as you can see, I took a screen shot first just to be sure: back when the revised version first came out, Amazon used that picture but then changed it when everyone started complaining bitterly about receiving the non-revised edition. It sure is hard to say to a customer service person that “it WAS the other picture BEFORE!!”

But anyway, if you were to order it now and receive the unrevised version, the purchase would fall under Amazon’s return policy: you’d get the price of the book and shipping refunded to you, as well as the cost of return shipping. But the fact that they’ve changed the photo makes it likely this wouldn’t be necessary. I might have to order a back-up for my replacement copy.

(Are you secretly hoping, as I am, that there will be another revision soon? Perhaps in 2013!)

Karen writes:

I’m due in October 2011 and we’re expecting a boy. Our struggle with naming him has to do with that we’re a mixed nationality family. My husband is Japanese and I am half American and half German. Everyone in our families except for my mother live overseas, most of our family members don’t speak English. So…we need some ideas for crossover names. For simplicity we’ve decided to focus on a name that crosses over well for Japanese and English (with the hope that if it sounds good in English, it will work in German). By crossover names I mean names that are pronounced the same in multiple languages and can be pronounced easily by all parties. Our other two children are named Kai (boy) and Miya (girl…pronounced MEE-yah). Not sure yet if this is our last child, but we’re leaning toward having more. Our last name is like TOH-tska). We tend to shy away from names that have the sounds L, R, B, V or TH because those sounds either don’t exist (TH) in Japanese or the Japanese cannot hear the difference in the sounds (L/R and B/V). We’d like to have a name that’s not purely Japanese-sounding since we live in the States, so we’ve thrown out names such as Eiji, Akio, Yuji as well as names that have “ken” in them because my husband’s name has that syllable in it already. Currently we’re considering Noah and Eisa (pronounced like the name Asa) but aren’t in love with either of them. If this baby ends up surprising us and is a girl, we’ll likely name her Sofi. Girls names always were easier for us to come up with…! Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated!!!

Rana writes:

We just found out we’re pregnant with our first child and need some help with names!!!

My husband and I both LOVE Savannah for a girl and Jack for a boy. But I want to consider other names that are maybe a bit less popular, while he is absolutely convinced we should use Savannah and Jack!

Here is our name list.

Girls:
Savannah Grace – both ADORE
Estella Grace – I absolutely LOVE this name, husband does not, but can be convinced
Ellary Grace nn Ella – again I love, husband not so much
Lilliana Grace nn Lilly- we both like this a lot too but is it too popular? Also, our puppy’s name is Tilly!
Noella Grace – I like this more every time I say it, my husband doesn’t like the No part of the name!

Boys:
Jack Benjamin – both ADORE this, but I’m afraid its so popular
Benjamin ? – we can’t seem to find a middle name for this ?
Augustin – I love this my husband thinks its strange!
Charleston nn Charlie – We both like this a lot, is it too strange though? Wdyt of it?

How much should we take popularity into account and what do you think of the above names, individually and compared to each other???
Any more suggestions based on our styles?

Thank you so much for your help!

 
This is an enviable situation: both parents are agreeing on two names they both love.

I would not worry about popularity, if I were you. No, no: stop worrying about it. These are the names you like best. Even if you liked Isabella best (that’s the most popular girl name in the U.S. according to the Social Security Administration), I would still push you to use it and not to worry about the popularity: at #1, it’s still only used for 1.17% of baby girls—or about 1 girl named Isabella per 5 or 6 classrooms (assuming 15 girls per class). That’s not too bad. It’ll vary a bit: the statistics are national, and some areas might have almost no Isabellas, which makes other areas more Isabella-rich. Maybe an area would have six times the national average of Isabellas—or one whole Isabella per class. See also: Even the Top 10 is Not Necessarily the Kiss of Death.

But the name you like is not Isabella, it’s Savannah! That was #46 (and falling) in 2010, given to .2736% of baby girls born that year. That’s approximately one Savannah per 25 classrooms. Barely popular at all!

Jack is a little harder to track: many boys are given other names and then CALLED Jack. We can estimate a little:

• .42% of baby boys named Jack in 2010,
• plus .56% of baby boys named John, of which some percentage is called Jack,
• plus .58% of baby boys named Jackson, of which some percentage is called Jack.

Let’s go for worst-case scenario, in which ALL the baby boys named John and Jackson are in fact called Jack. We know this isn’t the case, but it’ll show us that the actual percentage resides at some point BETTER (i.e., lower) than that, and it will also help compensate for all the little boys who are called Jack but don’t fall into one of our categories above (for example, I know a little boy whose name is Richard John, but he’s a IV and he’s called Jack). In our worst-case scenario where all the Johns and Jacksons are called Jack, approximately 1.55% of boys in the U.S. would be called Jack—or one Jack per four or five classrooms (again, assuming 15 boys per class). And that’s IF there are way more Jacks than there actually are, so the actual situation is BETTER (i.e., fewer Jacks) than that.

Use the names you love! They are not too popular!

But of course it’s a little disappointing to have the names chosen so early when it’s so much fun to keep looking! Susannah/Susanna is similar to Savannah but virtually unused—and with cute nicknames. I love Sukie as this generation’s Susie, but don’t underestimate the vintage charm of calling a little girl Susie Q. And if you like Jack and Benjamin, I wonder if you’d like Jonathan, nickname Jon?

Now, as to what I think of the other names on your list and your style overall, I have the advice for you that I give to all first-time baby-namers: try to figure out now which names on your list are your actual style and which names are outliers you happen to like even though they don’t fit your usual style; and see if any names you’re considering would rule out any of the other names you’re considering (different styles, duplicate sounds/initials, wildly different levels of popularity).

If you have a boy and name him Jack, will that rule out the name Charleston for you later on because of it being such a different style and so much less common? Or will it be fine because you’ll mostly call him Charlie, which is pretty much a perfect-beyond-perfection brother name for Jack? If you have a baby girl this time and name her Savannah, will that make you feel like you couldn’t use Lilliana later, since they both end in the same sound? If you used Estella this time, would you not want to use Ellary next time because of the repeated initial and ella sound in both? And so on.

It isn’t that you MUST give your children compatible names—not at all. It’s only that if you would LIKE to give them compatible names, this is the moment you are setting your course. We all have names we like that fall outside our usual style (I think of them as “I hope someone I love will use it for THEIR baby!” names), and the trick is to identify those names before inadvertently locking yourself into finding sibling names for them.