Mariana writes:

I am writing to enlist your help in search of the perfect international boy’s name.

I live in Brazil and I am expecting my first, a boy, in September. My husband is also Brazilian. Growing up, I lived in Chile, England and Brazil, and through travel and studies became fluent in French, Spanish and English. As an adult, I spent 15 very happy years in New York, where I built a good career for myself as a graphic designer, and created strong and lasting friendships. I have since relocated to Brazil, but I go back very often, for work, and to see friends. I aso travel extensively for work in Europe, Canada and the rest of the US, and my husband and I have friends in many places. We truly feel the world is a small place and we hope our boy will grow up to be quite a traveller himself. In fact, we plan on enrolling him in a bi-lengual school as soon as possible.

With such an international lifestyle, I have always wanted a name that could work in English, French and Spanish, and of course our native Portuguese. By that I mean a name that could be understood and pronouced easily in any one of those languages, withouth spelling changes or adaptations. And which doesn’t feel immediately “foreign” in other countries.

For girls it was easy – Julia, Helena, Olivia and Alma were at the top of our list. For boys, however, we’re stumped. There’s Gabriel and Daniel (far too many around us already), Oscar (a little odd here in Brazil, and doesn’t go with our last names), and the only one we like, Bruno. My favorite boy’s name, the one closest to my heart, is Pedro – but that has such immediate “latino” implications, which is exactly what I don’t want. I also tend to like short names, rather than longer ones.

To further complicate matters, I have a Rumanian last name, Ochs, and my husband an Italian one, Corsi. We find them impossible to combine! My husband’s name is Gustavo (which we have to shorten to Gus when we’re in the US), and he has a 7-year-old son from his previous marriage named Artur (Brazilian spelling for Arthur).

Any suggestions would be tremendously appreciated!

Are you sure there are too many Daniels for your tastes? It has all the hallmarks of a great name: long roots, good nickname, flexible image (that is, it doesn’t call to mind any particular type of person/profession), easy to spell and pronounce. It works with both surnames, and also with the name Artur.

Gabriel, too, seems like an excellent choice: the long roots! the good nickname! the flexible image! good with the surnames and sibling name! Popular names, yes, but a GOOD kind of common: timeless, enduring, classic, traditional—never-wear-out kinds of names. More than two kids named Maverick in town and things get a little awkward, but you can easily have a couple of Daniels or Gabriels in every classroom.

For further suggestions, I have to turn to my readers: I’ve never even been out of my own country, except for brief drives through Canadian customs and right back out again. I’m hoping some of you are more well-traveled than I, and can offer some helpful suggestions.

Leah writes:

I’ve been lurking around your blog for a few months now so I know what good advice you & your readers usually give and believe me, do I ever need it!

Here’s the deal. I’m due to give birth to our 3rd child in about 2 weeks. Throughout this whole pregnancy (or at least for the past 20+ weeks of it) we’ve believed that this baby was a girl, so of course we picked our name accordingly. And we had such a good name picked out, too. Abigail Elizabeth. Love it. But…

My Dr. ordered a second ultrasound last week to assess placental site (I’d been having some light bleeding, luckily everything is OK though) and while assuring us that everything looks great in there, they also told us that our supposed little girl is actually a boy! My husband and I are thrilled, of course (especially as we already have 2 beautiful girls. Isadora, called Izzy, age 4 and Arabella, called Bella, age 2), but now we can’t for the life of us think of what to call the little guy!

We want his middle name to be Richard after both of our grandfathers, but we CAN NOT agree on a first name that we both really like (there are 2 in the running so far, but that’s it), and neither of us likes Richard enough to make it his first name.

Names we both actually like but can’t use as they’re already being used by close family and friends include: William, Jacob, Scott, Preston, Oliver (so sad about this one, as it’s the one boy’s name that I’ve loved forever, but my sister stole it last year).

Names that we can use and also both agree on are sadly few. In fact there only 2 so far, and I don’t really love either one. They are; Harrison and Camden.

And there are some others that we both kind of like but we don’t think they sound good with Richard (Kevin, Brad and George come to mind. I don’t know why, but any of those names paired with Richard just rub me the wrong way)! Names that go with our last name aren’t a problem, at least, as pretty much everything sounds OK with it (rhymes with Lake).

So,we both prefer somewhat classic boy names & if you or your lovely readers could come up with anything better I’m all ears!

Please help!

The names you like for boys are a somewhat different style than the names you like for girls. We have the same situation in our family, and so I struggled a little naming our girl: should we force ourselves to choose names that matched our boy names in style? or should we use the style of girl name we liked? We went with the girl name we liked.

Because the name Oliver was on my list, and because the boy-name style you like is the same as the boy-name style I like, I wonder if you’d like some of the other boy names from our list:

Charles/Charlie Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Charlie
Leo Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Leo
Henry Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Henry
Milo Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Milo
Elliot Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Elliot
Eric Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Eric
Malcolm Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Malcolm

From that list, my favorite candidates are Charles/Charlie, Leo, and Milo. But let’s see what everyone else thinks! Vote in the poll at right, and choose up to two favorites!

[Poll results (228 votes total):
Harrison: 21 votes, roughly 9%
Camden: 7 votes, roughly 3%
Charles/Charlie: 40 votes, roughly 18%
Leo: 32 votes, roughly 14%
Henry: 31 votes, roughly 14%
Milo: 43 votes, roughly 19%
Elliot: 32 votes, roughly 14%
Eric: 6 votes, roughly 3%
Malcolm: 16 votes, roughly 7%]

[Update! Leah writes:

I’m very happy to announce that our little man was born 6 days earlier than expected, at 8:17 a.m. on July 23! He’s 8lbs 7oz and 21 inches of pure perfection.

And as for his name?

Well, I really fell in love with your suggestion of Milo, but the husband kept vetoing it whenever I brought it up. His reason? The freaky 1998 horror movie of the same name. He said he wouldn’t ever be able to look at our son without thinking of the creepy kid in the movie if we named him Milo. I fought hard for this name, but in the end decided it wasn’t worth it if it upset the husband so much (poor guy was almost in tears when I insisted that since I was the one who had to carry and birth the boy I should be able to name him whatever I wanted).

So when I finally let go of Milo I liked the idea of using Charles/Charlie a lot too, but again the husband said no. Apparently Charlie was the name of the kid who used to bully him in grade school & brought back too many bad memories or something. He was never this opinionated when we were naming the girls, who knew he’d be so picky about boys names?

Finally I saw the suggestion of one of your readers (Christa, I think it was) for Owen. At first I didn’t love it (not like I did Milo *sigh*) but the more I thought about it, the more it grew on me, until finally I was convinced it was the name I wanted. Thankfully Hubby didn’t have any bad memories/associations attached to this one, & so Owen Richard he is!

Thanks to everyone for the helpful suggestions!]

Do we do…pet names? Well, let’s see if we do or not!

Katie writes:

I know this is not really what you do, but I’m done having kids. So now it is on DOG NAMES! I was wondering if you and your readers could help us. We are getting a West Highland Terrier (Westie) and need some suggestions. The good news: it doesn’t need to match a middle name (unless we want to) and it doesn’t really matter how it sounds with our last name. Our names are Katie, Matt, Zoë, Aynsley, and Camden – so that is our only stipulation, it can’t sound too much like any of those. We don’t know if it will be a girl or a boy.
Thanks for you help!

Well, the first thing I did was go online and find a picture of West Highland Terriers:

And that was also the last thing I did, because I’m not up to speed on puppy names. I don’t hang out with a lot of young dogs, so I don’t know which names are the Hot Trends, or which ones are So Last (Dog) Year.

But I’ll bet we’ve got some puppy name enthusiasts among us. Go ahead! Name that puppy!

Well, OBV we have to talk about the new baby twins of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. What do you think of the names? The boy is Knox Leon, and the girl is Vivienne Marcheline.

Boy names in their family: Maddox, Pax, and Knox.
Girl names in their family: Zahara, Shiloh, and Vivienne.

Rachel writes:

I have two kiddos; Lucy Allison and Asher Scott. Seriously, I thought we were being all original when we gave them those names. Sad, no? At least they’re classics.

So, we are thinking about having a third and I must know…

Is naming a child Moses a bad idea?

I remember when I was in high school, and heard for the first time of a baby being named Noah. I was SO SURPRISED. This is not the way I would have put it at the time, but my reaction was basically “OMG, religious much??” Like, why not just name him Peace That Passeth Understanding Smith and be done with it?

And of course now a scant twenty ten (*cough*) years later, Noah is a perfectly ordinary name, used by even completely non-religious people, and there were two Noahs in my son’s class last year. The names Isaac and Isaiah and Elijah are similar: formerly they would have been used only by particularly religious families, and now they are used by anyone.

I have a feeling Moses will be the same way. Right NOW it sounds a little…celebrity, because of Gwyneth Paltrow—but I suspect that will wear off and then we will have another name to add to the boy category. And thank goodness, because that category is MIGHTY SKIMPY.

Let’s discuss the baby name Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban chose: Sunday Urban.

Sarah writes:

I need baby name help and I know that you are an expert so I would love some ideas. Our surname is one syllable and starts with G. We are expecting a baby girl in August and we already have a 2 year old boy- Lance Edward (initials spell LEG and though he has the same first and middle name of Lance Armstrong, he isn’t named after him). Lance is named after Lance Mountain my husband’s favorite skateboarder and Edward is my grandfather’s name.

I have consulted the Baby Name Wizard book for sibling names that go with Lance, but I didn’t really like their suggestions. My maiden name is Hannah which I originally wanted to use but the husband vetoed it. Other family names my husband didn’t like, but I did were Emma and Anna. We each kind of have names we like, but aren’t 100% sold on them and are open to any and all suggestions. I like the name Lily (lance and lily, it sounds nice together, and I don’t mind the names being kind of nursery rhyme like- like jack and jill) and he likes Olivia (i do like olivia, but I don’t know if I am ready to commit to it). I have been trying to find middle names that went with either name to see if I would prefer one name over the other, but no such luck.

I worry that both Olivia and Lily are too common of names and I don’t want our daughter to be like me growing up, Sarah was really popular growing up and I hated being one of many Sarah’s in school because unlike all my other friends I was always known as Sarah Hannah and not just Sarah and also my husband’s name Jeff was fairly common and what is even weirder and off topic is how many couples we have met that are Jeff and Sarah, it is kind of freaky! Anyways, I like Olivia and Lily, but I am open to all suggestions or if that is too much to ask for I will be happy with middle names for Lilly or Olivia.

Thank you so much for your time and for your consideration.

Okay! So you want to avoid overly-common. I’m going to open a new browser window for The Social Security Administration’s Baby Name site, because that’s my favorite tool for seeing which names are likely to get more common, and which are likely to get less common.

The name Olivia is in the Top Ten right now, and has been since 2001. The name Lily is less common (#27 in 2007) but on the rise:

1990: #583
1995: #319
2000: #124
2005: #39

As you know, I’m not opposed to common names. But I also understand wanting to avoid them. Here’s the problem: it looks to me as if you LIKE common names, as I do. Here are the names you and/or your husband like, with their 2007 popularity rankings:

Olivia: #7
Lily: #27
Hannah: #9
Emma: #3
Anna: #25

Lily and Anna look like your best bets for “no repeats in the classroom,” although of course there are always flukes: in Rob’s class last year there were two Noahs, a name ranked #24 the year Rob (and those Noahs) were born—and yet there were NOT two Jacobs (#1 that year), Michaels (#2 that year) or in fact two of any other more-popular name.

If you want something SIMILAR to the names on your list but less common, how about:

Annabel (#798) (Annabelle is #196)
Clara (#228)
Eliza (#334)
Fiona (#352)
Flora (not in the Top 1000)
Georgia (#296)
Josephine (#224)
Lena (#453)
Violet (#231)

A caution: these names are rising in popularity. The names on your list fall into The Baby Name Wizard‘s “Antique Charm” category, and that’s where most of the names from that list of suggestions fall, too. That style of name is popular right now, and it’s hard to tell which name will be the next Isabella (from #895 in 1990 to #2 in 2007) or Ava (from #953 in 1990 to #4 in 2007).

Let’s look at the names with the sibling name (I won’t include the names from your list that either you or your husband have rejected):

Lance and Lily
Lance and Olivia
Lance and Annabel
Lance and Clara
Lance and Eliza
Lance and Fiona
Lance and Flora
Lance and Georgia
Lance and Josephine
Lance and Lena
Lance and Violet

I agree with you about Lance and Lily together: I think it’s sweet without being sing-songy. The names both start with L, but after that they’re completely different and so they avoid matchiness. If you plan on having more children, will this make you feel trapped into using only L names? If not, then I think Lance and Lily is great.

I also like Lance with Clara, and with Eliza, and with Fiona, and with Lena. I would choose a favorite, but I can’t: I think Lily, Clara, Eliza, Fiona, and Lena are ALL great.

Let’s vote! The poll is over to the right. [poll closed; see below]

[Poll results:
Lily: 58 votes, roughly 35%
Olivia: 19 votes, roughly 11%
Clara: 33 votes, roughly 20%
Eliza: 26 votes, roughly 15%
Fiona: 16 votes, roughly 10%
Lena: 16 votes, roughly 10%]

The Pay it Forward contest is over. My computer geek brother made me a customized random number generator, and I used that to choose Mrs. M.

Congratulations, Mrs. M! Email me (swistle at gmail dot com) with your mailing information, and I’ll get your book on its way to you!

I am entering my own Group Effort Pay it Forward Contest. That is, I am running a Pay it Forward contest on this Baby Names site, and it is a separate contest from the one you can also enter at the Swistle site.

The complete and overly-exhaustive rules are over through that link, but the basic idea is that to enter this contest, you leave a comment on this blog before noon on Friday July 4th, U.S. Pacific Time. If you win, I send you a prize. When you get the prize, you run a Pay it Forward contest on your own blog. If you don’t have a blog, I will choose a second commenter, and that will be the winner of your Pay it Forward contest.

The prize for the Baby Names Pay it Forward will be a copy of Laura Wattenberg’s excellent baby name book The Baby Name Wizard. If this isn’t a prize you’re interested in, don’t despair! Go over to the list of other participants—there’s sure to be a prize or two in there you’re interested in winning.

The comment can be anything (“Me me me!” “You are SO RAVISHINGLY BEAUTIFUL!” “I am entering”), but if you feel tongue-tied, why not leave the most unusual baby name you’ve ever encountered?

Lola writes:

In your opinion, what type of rule applies to male/female form of a name within a family?

I’m expecting a baby girl in a few months and we like the name Danielle. Our 10 years old nephew’s name is Daniel (nickname Dani). We are a close family, we live 1/2 hour away and spend most holidays together. On the other hand, they will be 10 years apart…

Thank you for your input!

This is especially tricky since they’re using the feminine nickname (Dani) instead of the masculine (Danny).

Here is the thing: If I were you, I think I would choose not to use the name Danielle in this situation. But so much depends on how fond you are of the name Danielle. Is it the name you’ve cherished all your life, the only name you both agree on, and the name that makes you think, “That’s my baby”? Or is it “a name we like”?

I don’t think it’s worth the hassle, but I can see how someone else could think otherwise. What do the rest of you say about it? Would you use the name Danielle in this situation?