Jane writes:

Hello! We’ve been narrowing down names for our soon-to-be-born little girl. The last name is Germanic/Dutch and sounds like VAHSS-till. I don’t want to give too many specifications because we’d like to be surprised. I’m kind of hoping for a “never once considered” suddenly blooming as The Ultimate Choice. Suggestions?

Boy names are difficult because there are so few; girl names are tricky because there are so MANY. There are so many STYLES: there are the gender neutral ones like Cameron and Bailey, or you can go ultra-feminine like Alissandra and Arabella. There are the modern names like McKenna and Cadence, and there are the old names like Margaret and Victoria. Ack! It can be overwhelming!

Since you aren’t giving any hints about where your preferences lie, what I’ll do is give you a list of my own current favorite girl names. And then I hope readers will do the same, so you’ll have a nice broad spectrum to consider.

This isn’t a complete list of my favorites. These are more the names that jump out at me when I go through The Baby Name Wizard. There are many other names that, if I were to give them a moment’s thought, would be on this list in a heartbeat. My own daughter’s name NEVER CAUGHT MY EYE in a million perusals of baby name books; I never noticed it until I saw it in a magazine when I was pregnant. So, anyway, my partial list:

Anastasia
Angela
Anna
Annabel
Audrey
Beatrix
Bridget
Camilla
Celeste
Clara
Clarissa
Cora
Eliza
Ellen
Elsa
Emily
Eva
Felicity
Fiona
Florence
Genevieve
Georgia
Helen
Hope
Jillian
Joy
Liana
Margaret
Millicent
Minerva
Penelope
Rose
Ruth
Stella

Hm. I seem to prefer the first half of the alphabet.

All right, now your turn, commenters! Leave a list of your favorite girl names for Jane to search through.

I took down yesterday’s “E, L, P, W, and ?” post and the four polls that went with it. The letter-writer emailed me and said she hadn’t realized her question would be posted, and asked to have it taken down.

Kate writes:

My husband and I are due to have a boy in February, and we have fully settled on what his name will be, but the problem for us comes from the nickname. The baby’s name will be Charles Marshall, our last name is very Irish and can also be a girl’s first name, but isn’t really important to the nickname issue.

The problem is, that we both LOVE the name Chuck and would like to call him that. However, when I think of a brand new wrinkly cute little baby, the name Chuck just seems so wrong, and I think a lot of our family and friends will have a hard time using Chuck as his name. I am pretty certain that most of them will lean towards calling him Charlie. Which we are not necessarily opposed to, but I don’t want that to be his name for all of his life.

So, my question is, can you switch nicknames, ie. call him Charlie when he’s small and cute and then switch to Chuck when he grows into it? If so, when would we do that, is there a certain age where that would be appropriate?? I would really like for him to be Chuck by the time he goes to school as that seems to be where you really grow into your identity. Should we just stick with Chuck and force people to like it, I think that eventually he will grow into the name and people will see, as we do, how cute it really is. Or do we tell people his name is Charles, and allow everyone to come up with their own versions of a nickname for him?

Also, do you think that we should tell his name to everyone before he’s born to give them time to adjust to it, or wait till they meet him when there will likely be less controversy over the nickname since everyone will be overwhelmed by his cuteness??

The maxim “Start as you mean to go on” comes to mind. If you think you might encounter resistance to the nickname Chuck, and if you think the path of least resistance for your friends and relatives is the nickname Charlie, you might lose control of the nickname if you don’t seize control of it right from the start. “Charlie” and “Chuck” are so different, I think if you start off with Charlie you may find yourself ending up with Charlie, too.

I think if I were having baby and calling him Chuck, I would on the very first day announce him as “Charles—we’re calling him Chuck,” and then I would immediately give him a set of Funny Baby Nicknames. “Chicken” comes to mind, because it’s cute and fun to say to/about a baby, but it’s so similar to the name Chuck, it lets people sort of EASE into it. But it can be anything that comes to mind when you meet him. “Little Guy.” “Mr. Cheeks.” “Hedgehog.” “Tumsy.” “Frog-Feet.” All of those and more.

It’s really too bad all those scary movies ruined the nickname Chuckie, or I’d recommend starting with that and moving to Chuck later on. Another way to soften a one-syllable or not-very-babyish baby name is to add the word “Baby”: “Baby Chuck” is easier to coo lovingly than flat-out “Chuck.”

As to whether to tell everyone the chosen nickname before or after the birth—well, families are different. Some families find it easier to hold back the mouthy feedback if they don’t hear the name until it’s a done deal. Others find it easier if they have some time to get used to the name in private before having to go public with their reactions.

Good luck, Chuck!

My friend SaLy reminded me we haven’t yet discussed the name of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner’s second daughter.

I’ve been thinking about it since I heard it, and…I can’t decide! Can you? On the pro side, it’s like the name Sara/Sarah, but with something different on the end. This is an excellent formula for making an unusual name that still feels familiar—and it leaves a good plain nickname for a baby who grows up more left-brained than right-brained. On the con side, SPELLING OMG. I had to keep looking it up again and Again and AGAIN. I kept wanting to spell it Serephina or Saraphina or Sarephina or Sarefina or Serafina or Sarafina or Serefina. Even after I thought I’d gotten the hang of it, I wrote it Sarephina, then corrected it to Serephina. DANG IT! I’m still not positive I’ve got it right.

So what do you think of the name? Let’s put a poll over to the right. [Poll closed; see below.]

Poll results (306 votes total):
I like it! I’d use it!: 40 votes, roughly 13%
I like it for someone else’s baby: 164 votes, roughly 53%
Neutral / no opinion: 20 votes, roughly 6%
Mild dislike: 62 votes, roughly 20%
Strong dislike: 20 votes, roughly 6%

Catherine writes:

Here’s my dilemma, and I will TOTALLY understand if you do not want to post it because, talk about killing the mood. But if you would like to share with your readers or just respond on your own I would welcome your advice.

I am pregnant with a baby who is not going to live (our third). We are 100% certain of this. We would still like to give him a name. The question is, what. My husband really likes Benjamin, which I think is OK, but kind of boring. I like Sam and Nicholas (I know, equally as boring as Benjamin) and lately am really taken with Simon. The “simple Simon” thing bugs me a lot though. I’ve always liked Theodore because of the nickname Teddy, but my husband never has. A family name that we kind of like but were a little chicken to use (and it doesn’t really go with our other son’s name) is Anton. We had ruled out names that start with J (or j-sound) or end with O because of our other kids’ names and our last name. But maybe that doesn’t matter now.

I think we should choose a more unusual name, because I worry that if we chose, say, Ben, then we will frequently meet little boys named Ben, and that will be hard. Then again, would I feel all “it’s a sign” if we chose an unusual name, and then we run into a boy with that name?

OR, should we choose some kind of angel or commemorative type of name, like Gabriel. I don’t know what other choices there would be (brother-in-law and late father-in-law are both Michael, so I wouldn’t want that).

Anyway this is long and rambly, but I would love your thoughts if you are up for it.

I suspect that you will think regularly for the rest of your life about this baby. Because you won’t have the chance to get to know your little boy, his name will be one of the only things you do have of him. This makes the name choice very important.

I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but with each of my pregnancies I’ve found that some of the names on my list feel like “my baby,” and others don’t. I love the names Carson and Frederick, for example, but does either name feel like My Baby? No. So I don’t use either name myself, even though I love both of them.

I think you’ll be happiest with your decision if you choose a name that FEELS LIKE this baby, a name that brings him strongly to your mind. Do any of the names on your list of possibilities give you a rush of recognition? Do any of them feel like his name?

I think you can disregard some of the things you might normally take into consideration, such as how well the name goes with your surname or with the sibling names.

I am hoping others can give advice as well.

S. writes:

I am due with my third child in January. I have 2 girls, Norah Rae and Lucy Mae. Norah came from my grandma, Eleanor and grandpa, Ray. Lucy is named after a great-grandmother on my husband’s side. Lucy’s birthday is May 1st so my husband really wanted her middle name to be Mae. I am not a fan of rhyming middle names – but oh well. Anyway, we are having a hard time coming up with names we both agree on. This time around we don’t want to do a family name so we have a lot of options. For a girl, I like older names, Daphne, Ruby, Daisy. My husband really likes Isabel or Izzy for short. I am not a huge fan of nicknames. He also like Campbell. I prefer names that are 6 letters or less and no more than 2 syllables (we have a longer, uncommon last name).

For a boy, my husband really likes Maddox, but I don’t want people to shorten it to Mad and I have a brother Max, so we wouldn’t go with that. I really like Rex – I don’t think my husband is sold on that one. I also like Brady. We like solid boys names, but not necessarily traditional boys names.

Also, we don’t care for names that end in en, on, or an (because it would rhyme with our last name).

I certainly want a name that goes well with Norah and Lucy. Help!

Girl names first! A few of the ones in my list break either the 6-letter or the 2-syllable rule, but I left them in because I liked them anyway, or because I felt like they SEEMED shorter than they were.

Norah, Lucy, and Audra
Norah, Lucy, and Claire
Norah, Lucy, and Eliza
Norah, Lucy, and Georgia
Norah, Lucy, and Hazel
Norah, Lucy, and Julia
Norah, Lucy, and Molly
Norah, Lucy, and Pearl
Norah, Lucy, and Rose
Norah, Lucy, and Violet

Now boy names. These were harder. For one thing, a lot of the good, solid-but-not-necessarily traditional names end in the -en sound. But how about your husband’s girl-name idea Campbell? I know it’s longer than you’d like, but it’s a good, solid boy name that goes nicely with your girl names: Norah, Lucy, and Campbell.

Because Maddox and Brady are both surname names, and because I think surname names have that “solid but not necessarily traditional” sound, I went through the Last Names First section of The Baby Name Wizard to find a few other possibilities:

Norah, Lucy, and Archer
Norah, Lucy, and Asher
Norah, Lucy, and Baxter
Norah, Lucy, and Campbell
Norah, Lucy, and Carter
Norah, Lucy, and Grady
Norah, Lucy, and Grant
Norah, Lucy, and Jared

Let’s do TWO polls over to the right, one for the girl names and one for the boy names. [Polls closed; see below for results.]

Poll results, girl names (273 votes total):
Audra: 23 votes, roughly 8%
Claire: 99 votes, roughly 36%
Eliza: 19 votes, roughly 7%
Georgia: 23 votes, roughly 8%
Hazel: 26 votes, roughly 10%
Julia: 5 votes, roughly 2%
Molly: 23 votes, roughly 8%
Pearl: 16 votes, roughly 6%
Rose: 21 votes, roughly 8%
Violet: 18 votes, roughly 7%

Poll results, boy names (248 votes total):
Archer: 31 votes, roughly 13%
Asher: 32 votes, roughly 13%
Baxter: 15 votes, roughly 6%
Campbell: 48 votes, roughly 19%
Carter: 39 votes, roughly 16%
Grady: 20 votes, roughly 8%
Grant: 51 votes, roughly 21%
Jared: 12 votes, roughly 5%

Ashley writes:

My due date is January 16, 2009. We’re having a boy, and we’re having a hard time compromising.

Up until the news of it being a boy, we’d always talked about naming our son after my father and my husband (Bo Morgan). The problem, however, is my husband is a Jr. He’d never wanted to do the “III” thing until now. I’m demoralized that my father’s name is no longer an option and really don’t want the confusion of another John in the mix when we live within a 3 mile radius of one another and spend a good deal of time together. I’ve suggested calling him John Morgan, Jack, and I may mention Trip.

Am I being unfair to inhibit the family tradition, or should my input be just as important? I’ve thought about baby names as long as I’ve thought about my wedding day.

Please help shed some objective light on the subject and point me in proper etiquette’s direction.

Oh, Ashley, this is SO TOUGH! In high school I dated a boy who was a III, and his grandfather had deathbed-style forced my boyfriend (who was ten or eleven years old at the time) (at the time of the grandfather’s deathbed, not at the time my boyfriend was my boyfriend) to promise to name his son IV. But I HATED my boyfriend’s name, and also I think it’s WRONG WRONG WRONG for people to think they have the right to name other people’s children (which is what earlier generations are doing when they try to name anyone except their own children after themselves), and also I think the almost exclusively MALE thing of “handing down The Sacred Name” is egotistical and stupid, especially when it gets carried to a DEATHBED SCENE extreme. As if their own name is such an HONOR as well as a DUTY.

Um, opinionated much? I actually LIKE naming traditions and family names; what I don’t like is the situations they create. My husband’s family has a naming tradition, and when my husband’s parents broke it (they named my husband a name they chose, rather than following The Tradition), my husband’s grandfather refused to acknowledge the new baby. He kept that crap up for A YEAR, and continued to act coolly to his son/daughter-in-law until his death. I mean, can you imagine?? Creating a family feud because you didn’t get to choose to name your grandson after yourself? ICK!

Where was I? Oh, yes. We don’t have quite that situation here, do we, but we do have a difficulty: your husband wants to name his child after himself and his father, and you would prefer not to because you prefer a different name and because of all the confusion it creates to have three people with the same name. Totally understandable. I swear, one of the (many) reasons my relationship with my high school boyfriend didn’t pan out is that I wasn’t willing to deal with the naming tradition thing.

As far as the etiquette of the situation goes, you and your husband are the only two people who are involved in naming this child. While various issues might weigh things in one direction or the other, let’s assume the responsibility/privilege of choosing the name is 50-50. In my opinion, his 2-generation naming tradition doesn’t do anything to give his name choice more weight than yours: this decision still belongs to both of you, not to his parents and his grandparents (the ones who chose his and his father’s names). Basically the situation here is that you’d like to name the baby after your father, and he’d like to name the baby after his father.

And speaking of etiquette and The Right Way, a little-known and rarely-used rule is that suffixes (Sr., Jr., III, IV, etc.) are not permanent. In theory, they are used only for living holders of the name. So when your husband’s father dies, your husband should be John Morgan Sr., and his son should be John Morgan Jr. Only popes and kings are supposed to keep their suffixes. Not that anyone follows this rule (it makes paperwork difficult, and also presents a challenge when people don’t die in chronological order), but I like to mention it futilely whenever the subject comes up, in the hopes that the rule will come back into common usage and perhaps lower the pressure to have a III or IV or VIII or whatever.

Back to your situation (I do seem to keep wandering off), I can think of a few possible compromises:

1. Name the first boy after your father, as discussed, giving him a different middle name than Morgan (perhaps your father’s middle name, or perhaps another name). Agree that if you have a second son, the second son will be named John Morgan III.

2. Name the first boy John Morgan III (perhaps calling him Trip, Trey, John Morgan, J.M., or Jack, to lessen confusion). Agree that if you have a second son, the second son will be named Bo, with a middle name of your choice.

3. Toss out both grandfather names and pick something else.

Let’s take a vote, calling the choices “Option 1,” “Option 2,” and “Option 3.” The poll is over to the right. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Poll results (163 votes total):
Option 1: 33 votes, roughly 20%
Option 2: 38 votes, roughly 23%
Option 3: 92 votes, roughly 56%

Robyn writes:

Up until a month or so ago we’d had the perfect girl’s name picked out for our baby (we don’t actually know if we are having a girl yet but we’ve already had four girls so the smart money is on a girl!). We’d picked the name Sophia Anne and loved it. Sophia has family significance and goes well with our other daughters’ names however recently a little friend at school also named Sophia has been bullying my daughter and that name does not have good associations for her so we need to change it. Please help!

Our living daughters are Rebecca Elizabeth and Emily Karen. We also lost two baby girls named Stephanie and Anna. Our surname starts with a K sounds, so K and C names are a little too alliterative. We want to keep Anne as the middle name (after a dearly loved aunt who didn’t have children of her own). We like names that the child won’t be constantly asked how to spell and that are pretty/feminine sounding.

I wonder if you’d like the name Fiona. It has a similar rhythm and it has the same “oh” and “fee” and “ah” sounds as the name Sophia. It’s pretty, it’s feminine, it’s good with the sibling names and it works with the middle name Anne.

Here are a few others to consider:

Angela Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Angela
Audrey Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Audrey
Julia Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Julia
Laura Anne; Rebecca, Emily, and Laura

I realize I have a lot of A-ending names with the A-starting middle name, and that not everyone will like that. I like the sound of it, and because you chose Sophia Anne I’m guessing you do too. Let’s put a poll to the right to see what everyone else thinks. [Poll closed; see below.]

Poll results (268 votes total):
Fiona: 95 votes, roughly 35%
Angela: 8 votes, roughly 3%
Audrey: 74 votes, roughly 28%
Julia: 68 votes, roughly 25%
Laura: 23 votes, roughly 9%

Name update 05-15-2009! Robyn writes:

I’m sorry its taken me so long to update. To be honest I’m a little embarrassed and feel bad because after all that deliberation we’ve named our baby girl (born April 9th) ….. Sophia! The little girl named Sophia who was being a bully to my older daughter has moved interstate and simultaneously there was another little girl named Sophie that Bec became friends with and she told me one day how much she liked the name Sophia! WELL, I just about fell over and after a quick chat to Paul we were back to having Sophia as the favourite name. Before that we had a few contenders….our favourite of your ideas was Julia. Somewhat bizarrely we had a change on the middle name though. Paul really liked the name Grace and I thought that sounded good with Sophia but as I said before we were keen to honour our Aunt (who was actually named Judith Anne but “Judith” isn’t very pretty which is why we were going wtih Anne). Anyway the compromise was that Sophie (we’re using Sophie or Sophia) has two middle names: Grace Judith. I figure the Judith isn’t so bad when she has two pretty names to balance it and using Aunty Judy’s actual name is better than her middle name. I’m so sorry to have wasted your time but really appreciated your input and the input of the people who commented/voted – thank you!

C. writes:

My husband and I can’t seem to agree on the best name for our 2nd son (due 12/29/08). Our first son will be 2&1/2 when the new baby is born and his name is Julian Jay. We both LOVE Julian’s name and agreed on it right away but we haven’t been able to find that same excitement again for baby #2. We want a name that goes with our last name Mendez and sounds good with Julian, and it would be great if it was Spanish but not too ethnic or hard to pronounce in English.

Names that we are considering are Samuel Alberto (it’s kind of our back-up name, we think it’s nice but kind of ordinary, btw- my father-in-law’s name is Alberto but it’s not imperative that we use that name), and Sebastian- we both like this name alot but we are concerned that there isn’t really a good nick-name (I would really like it to be Sebastian Leif, Leif as in Leif Erikson- my grandmother was born in Norway and I’ve always loved that name and think it would be nice to give a little nod to that part of my heritage however my husband doesn’t like Leif). My current favorite is Roman b/c it is strong, simple, and not too common but also not too weird. My husband’s current favorite is Javier, which is okay I guess but I’d really like to sway him to Roman. Some other names that I’ve liked but my husband hasn’t are: Oliver, Elliot, Benicio, and Matteo. Some names that my husband likes but I don’t are: Alejandro, Santiago, Nicholas, and Guillermo.

Thanks for your help!

I knew a Sebastian back in my school days. He went by Bas, pronounced more like Baz. It looks kind of contrived when I type it out, but it felt perfectly natural at the time—and also seemed like a cool nickname. If you went with Sebastian Alberto Mendez, you could also call him by his initials: SAM. That would be confusing, though, so perhaps better to do Samuel Alberto Mendez and get the same cute initials with less confusion.

What do you think of the name Hugo? It’s gradually coming back into style, and it’s growing on me more and more. It’s relatively easy to spell and pronounce. Hugo Mendez. Julian and Hugo.

Ooo! You could use Ruben! The instant an acquaintance used the name Ruben for her baby boy, I thought that was one of the best baby names I had ever heard. Unfortunately for me, it is hideous with my surname. It’s good with yours, though! Ruben Mendez. Julian and Ruben. It’s similar to your choice of Roman, but maybe your husband would like it better.

Xavier seems like another good option. Xavier Mendez. Julian and Xavier. It’s similar to your husband’s choice of Javier, but maybe you’d like it better.

Well, let’s put it to a vote. I’ll put a poll over to the right [poll closed; see below], but also feel free to leave additional suggestions in the comment section.

Poll Results (238 votes total):
Samuel: 32 votes, roughly 13%
Sebastian: 67 votes, roughly 28%
Roman: 37 votes, roughly 16%
Javier: 6 votes, roughly 3%
Hugo: 23 votes, roughly 10%
Ruben: 43 votes, roughly 18%
Xavier: 30 votes, roughly 13%

Carla writes:

I came across your blog and it sounds like you might have a solution for my husband and I. We are expecting twins (boy/girl) in a couple weeks. We had originally chosen the names Paul David (Paul being my husbands middle name and his father’s name and David being my father’s name) and Caroline Louise (Caroline comes from the same origin as my name, Carla, and Louise is my mother and sister’s middle name).

My husband has expressed concern with the boy’s name we have chosen because he doesn’t want to think of his father every time he says it and his mother is already assuming that is the name. He has suggested John Philip or Samuel for a first name. Sam was my dog all while growing up so that seems a bit weird to me but I do love the name, and I like John Philip (Philip is my grandfather’s name) but having John and Caroline is a little weird as it just makes me think of the Kennedys. Is that off the wall? Would others make that connection or would that be a good alternative? There are also other reasons we like pretty much all the names we have chosen – in regards to the meaning of names, etc. and Paul David is also the name of Bono (the singer from U2) and we are huge fans so that is kind of cool too. Any suggestions or recommendations? I’d love to get your opinion!

Ah! I have some experience with this, in that one of my children has the same name as one of my parents. And what I’ve found is that I hardly ever think of it. In fact, the only time I think of it is when I’m addressing that child when that parent is in the room, and I suddenly realize that could be confusing. But since I don’t call my parents by their first names, it isn’t an issue: the name has become almost exclusively the child’s name, and I only occasionally remember it’s also my parent’s name. So if I were you, I think I’d go with Paul David.

But I do also love the name John Philip. For me, the John and Caroline thing is okay: the names John and Caroline are so established and classic, I don’t think I’d think of the Kennedys unless someone pointed it out to me.

Let’s have a poll over to the right to show what we think: Do we think they should stick with Paul and Caroline? Do we think John and Caroline has a strong Kennedy association? …Well, that’s a little complicated for the poll. How about this instead: I’ll make the poll just a list of names for Caroline’s brother, and then if you want to you can leave comments in the comment section about the Kennedys, or about your own experience with family namesakes. [Poll closed; see below.]

[Poll results (222 votes total):
Paul: 133 votes, roughly 60%
John: 52 votes, roughly 23%
Samuel: 37 votes, roughly 17%]