H. writes:

I am 5 months pregnant with our second daughter and due the first of September. We have a 17 month old daughter named Ivy Frances and we are in love with her name. Plus, your blog definitely inspired us and gave me great direction when it came to naming her. Also, Ivy was one of the only names my husband and I really agreed on as we have very different tastes. Frances is a family name on my husband’s side of several generations. Overall, we had an easy time picking Ivy’s name and unfortunately, it’s not going the same way with the next one.
For our second child, we have decided to go with the middle name Lee. It honors my father who is no longer living as well as his father who is 93 and very much alive and well! There is a possibility we will have a third child but I don’t want to save Lee in the event we don’t…Now to the trickiest part of our baby naming dilemma, our surname! It is Erdlen and pronounced exactly as read. It’s German and a tough one…
So far, these are the two names that my husband and I agree:
Isabel Lee, call her “Isa” although my husband likes “Izzy”
Josephine Lee, call her “Josie” or “Poppy”
Penelope Lee, call her “Poppy”
But I of course have a few more on my list:
Nora Lee (not a fan of Eleanor)
Emory Lee
Willow Lee or Willa Lee
Talula Lee or Tallulah Lee
Esme Lee
Savannah Lee
Zoey Lee
Gemma Lee
Elise Lee
My husband isn’t too keen on the above.
I do like Annabel but “Annabel Lee” is an Edgar Alan Poe poem and I’m not keen on having the relation…
Names we’ve vetoed because of the way it sounds with our last name or popularity amongst friends / family:
Ingrid
Amelia
Sascha
Ruby
Abigail
Ava
Eden
Eve / Eva
Charlotte
Chloe
Georgia
Lily
Mabel
Phoebe
Sadie
Violet
Vivian

If we have a third child and it’s a boy, we would most likely go with a classic family name although I would push for a rock star name like Axel! Ha!
We did consider Josephine “Poppy” with our first child so as much as I love Poppy, I feel bad that it is a leftover for our second. Also, are Poppy and Ivy too similar sounding as sibsets? My concern with Isabel is one, the popularity of the name. Two, the fact that Isabel ends with an L and then there is Lee so you have back to back L’s. Three, we are starting a trend with giving our children “I” names which of course is not intentional. I’m not a fan of the spelling Isabelle and much more prefer Isabel. I noticed when picking names for my first that I was not a fan of names that ended in E because our surname started with an E but now I’m thinking how much does that really matter?
Please help! I know Ivy is categorized as an “antique charm” name and I am wondering if there are other names out there I am missing or what are your opinions on the ones we like thus far? I want something different and creative and it is driving my pregnancy brain crazy! I like that Ivy is a bit common but still stands out and would love to be able to give that to our next one.
Many thanks!

A. writes:

I have a question about proper etiquette for middle names (if in fact there is any)

My daughter just had her first born son and he is the first grandchild to both grandparents. Very early on they decided to name him after his father’s grandfather which made everyone very happy on both sides. The problem now arrises when we were at the hospital shortly after the birth, they were asked by hospital staff (for birth certificate reasons) his full name. My daughter responded with first name as mentioned the grandfather of the father and then the second name was the fathers father and then last but feeling least was my daughter’s father. I can’t explain how much hearing this has sent an emotional wave of total hurt … so much so that I had to leave the room. I would totally understand the reasoning if the first name was in no way family associated, but it was.

I have not said a word to my daughter and I won’t…having a baby is such a beautiful event but also emotional. I will not spoil it for her.

Am I being silly about this? Really need an unbiased opinion.

Thank you

P.S.

My daughters father says it doesn’t bother him and will not admit to it bothering him but I know him very well and I believe it does.

You are asking me what the proper etiquette is in this situation, and I will tell you: Stopping this whole thing right now. While our culture does not have consistent rules for middle name etiquette, it is definitely inappropriate behavior to leave the room of your newborn grandson because your daughter’s father’s name was included in what you consider to be a place of lower honor. (The correct response was gasps of joy and/or tears of happy surprise at the unexpected honor.) The only hope is that everyone else may have interpreted the behavior as something completely acceptable, such as needing to use the bathroom, making room for other visitors, giving the new family of three a little peace, or needing a moment to yourself in your overwhelming joy and relief at your daughter’s successful and safe delivery and the resulting thrill of a first grandchild.

The issue here seems to be that you are perceiving name-order as communicating rank/love/respect, as well as the lack of those things. With that interpretation, the child’s first name would indicate that the new parents feel the greatest love and respect for the baby’s paternal great-grandfather; second for the baby’s paternal grandfather; and third for the baby’s maternal grandfather. It seems to you that by using her father’s name third, your daughter is communicating that she ranks him lower than the other two men.

This, however, is not how children are named. If you have been here before, you’ve seen hundreds of letters where the parents say things such as, “We really want to use my mom’s name as the first name, but we can’t because it’s bad with the surname” or “…because we feel like we have to use another family name first” or “…because if we used it, we’d feel like we’d also have to use my mother-in-law’s name, which we don’t want to do” or “…because we think it would be confusing” or “…because my sister has dibs” or “…because we don’t want to use that initial” or “…because the name just isn’t our style” or “…because we hate the nickname” or “…because the rhythm is terrible with the chosen middle name” or “…because it’s also the name of my husband’s step-mother, who is awful and we don’t want her to feel honored.” There can be all manner of complicating issues.

Issues of rhythm and sound and style come into decisions about name order more often than issues of ranking. And patriarchal issues can be surprisingly dominant: names from the father’s side of the family can still seem like more appropriate choices for honor names, especially for a boy. Furthermore, parents often save other family names for future babies, and take that into account when naming others: if for example your daughter and her partner were planning to name a future daughter after you or another important female family member from your daughter’s side of the family, they would likely want to balance things by making sure their first son had more names from the father’s side of the family.

Parents may also be weighing things such as “Well, my side of the family is likely to have far more grandchildren, so let’s make sure to use the honor names from yours” and “I’m an only child, so this is the only chance to carry on these names” and “I think my brother has more of a right to use the men’s names from our side of the family” and “Well, we moved to live near your side of the family, so let’s make sure to use names from my side of the family to balance that out a bit.”

And many other parents don’t give it anywhere NEAR this amount of thought, and end up giving names without taking balance into account at all. Parents may love and respect both sides of the family equally, and nevertheless use names mostly from one side, or from more distant (and even less-liked) family members, because those names happen to be in their style anyway. It is not time to score the tally sheet, is what I’m saying, even if we are assuming that honor names are done on a fair point system and need to be balanced, which they are not and need not. Names are connected to the people we’re honoring, but they also stay separate.

Your daughter’s father was honored here; that is the point to keep in mind. You don’t like it that his name was put third, but it is important to remember that the decision about order could have been made with no symbolic intent at all: the new parents could be thinking, “Good, we honored Grampa as we intended to, and we ALSO found a way to honor both of the baby’s grandfathers by using their names as middle names! What a happy surprise for them both!” The choice of order was most likely based on the rhythm or sound of the names, or on some similar issue.

It is also possible that there IS symbolism in it: let’s go to the worst case scenario and assume that they chose this order deliberately in order to communicate their feelings. Let’s say they genuinely DID mean to show your daughter’s father that he was third in their joint affections. In that case, I would say several things:

1. Third is pretty great.

2. There is still only honor in the act of using the name, not insult or hurt.

3. You are right that nothing can be said or done about this (including communicative behavior such as walking out of a room, or withholding a positive comment on the use of the name).

I realize it is hard to do much about feelings: if you feel hurt, you feel hurt; if your daughter’s father feels hurt, he feels hurt. But I strongly advise you to make the effort, to whatever extent is possible: these hurt feelings may be real but they are nevertheless inappropriate, and indulging them will bring you nowhere good. Give yourself a brisk talking-to; reason with yourself; think things through until you have chipped away at the false foundation of those feelings. Give yourself some time, if you need it: as you say, the birth of a baby is a beautiful but emotional event. But by all means, don’t NURSE the feelings and grow them bigger and stronger; don’t try to plant them in your daughter’s father if he doesn’t already have them.

Concentrate on the honor, rather than on what you perceive to be the relative honor. Concentrate on your lovely new grandson, and how wonderful it is that he has so many good family names—not from “our side” or “their side” of the family: the other side of the family is your family too, the two sides permanently linked by the birth of this new baby.

I wonder if we could be of additional assistance by giving examples of honor names we used that did not accurately represent our exact ranking of family members? For example, Paul and I love our grandmothers as much as we love our grandfathers, but we used only two grandfather names—neglecting the other two grandfathers and all four grandmothers. We could have used a grandmother name for my daughter’s middle name, but we tried them out and didn’t like the combinations; also, we had another priority for her middle name (using another candidate that was almost her first name); also, one of my grandmothers had a name with a bad association for me. We could have honored the other two grandfathers with the names of our other two sons, but instead we used other names; in one case, it was because the name was too similar to a first name we were using, but overall it was because we felt we’d “done” grandfathers and were ready to honor some of the many, many other possible candidates. We used my dad’s name as the first name of one of our sons, but didn’t even use my mom’s name as a middle name; this doesn’t reflect a difference in how we feel about my dad and mom, but instead reflects the way my mom’s name sounds odd as a middle name and wrong-generation for a first name, and seemed weird to use once we’d used my dad’s name for another child; it also reflects that we had four boys and only one girl. And my dad is more important to me than my grandfather, but I honored my grandfather first because my grandfather likely had less time, and because my dad’s name didn’t work as a middle name with my first son’s name and I hadn’t yet considered using it as a first name. I gave all the children my maiden name as their second middle name, not because it matters to me less (it was crucial to me to use it) but because it reflected the order of my own name.

There are so many reasons why names are chosen or not chosen, or why they’re used where/when they’re used.

J. writes:

My husband and I are welcoming fraternal twins of undiscovered sex in August. Many of our friends question our sanity at waiting until delivery to discover their sex, mostly because this requires us to come up with four mutually-agreeable names. We’ve only tentatively begun discussions, but two things are clear: we both favor more timeless or traditional names, and they are not likely to be the same ones. My top female contender – Daphne – inspires from him a serious side-eye and Scooby-Doo reference, while his suggestion of Samuel is a no-go for me. For no rational or obvious reason, the name inevitably makes me think of sandaled, dirty feet (apologies to any Samuels out there reading this).

We are both German, English, and Irish; I am also Scottish. Our surname, Martin. The twins will be our first, and most likely only, children.

His father is Charles Gregory, mine Gary Charles. We would like a “GC or CG” boy’s name that recognizes our dads, perhaps a Grant or Graham Charles Martin. For a second boy’s middle name, I would like to incorporate Lawrence, my grandfather’s name. Other male first names on my short list are Elliott, James (Jamie), Benjamin and Harrison. He likes Brooks and Heath.

For our two female names, I tend to like names that are feminine, but gravitate most to ones that also evoke a degree of gravitas (the aforementioned Daphne is perfect in that vein). Other contenders are Madeline (Maddie), Marion, Blythe, Ava, Charlotte (Charlie – again, perhaps, a nod to her grandfathers), Emmeline (Emme), and Annalise. I only have one middle name in mind: Gildea (pronounced GILDE), an Irish surname in my maternal grandmother’s family and her own middle name. My husband hasn’t yet offered suggestions.

Your advice and alternate name recommendations would be most helpful in bringing us to common ground. Please help!

It’s true you’ll need two boy names and two girl names, but I would suggest a different way of organizing the hunt. Instead of looking for four names, I suggest looking for three sets: a set of two girl names, a set of two boy names, and a set of one of each. I’d set it up like this: one page where you jot down all the names you like, one section for boy names and one section for girl names; then another page where you’d start pairing them up, divided into three sections labeled Girl/Girl, Boy/Boy, and Girl/Boy. (Or if that’s not enough room, you could have a page for each.)

Then this is how I’d go through your joint list of names when you have one: Take the first name on your list, and see if it pairs up well with any of the other names on the list—boy names or girl names. So for example, let’s say Grant is the first name on your list. Look at all the names on your boy-name list and see if you like any of them with Grant; if you do, put the pairing on your Boy/Boy list. Then look at all the names on your girl-name list and see if you like any of them with Grant; if you do, put the pairing on your Boy/Girl list. And so on for every name on the list. You might think I’d advise stopping when you started to make reverse sets of pairings you’ve already tried (_____ and Grant instead of Grant and _____, for example), but actually I recommend trying ALL of them: order can make a difference in the way the names strike you.

This exercise is going to accomplish a few side things as well. For one thing, it will show you which names you feel strongly motivated to find pairings for, which can tell you something about your preferences. It may also expose some names that are outliers on your list: if a name doesn’t go with anything else you like, it may not be your usual style. And it might give you information about what you like in a PAIR of names: do you feel drawn to twinniness, or do you prefer to avoid it? Sharon/Karen and Timmy/Tommy pairings are out of style, but many parents enjoy slight twinny things such as matched or reversed initials (G.C. and C.G., for example), matching numbers of letters/syllables, A/B names (for Baby A and Baby B), a strong matched vowel/consonant sound, etc.

One nice thing about choosing twin names is that there is even more room than usual for bargaining and compromising. Perhaps you will end up with a boy/girl pairing where the boy name is your first choice but his second, and the girl name is his first choice but your second—things like that.

I find both Grant Martin and Graham Martin a little difficult to say—not to the point of ruling them out, but enough to give me pause. Would you consider Charles as the first name? (I’m guessing you already HAVE already considered it, but let’s discuss it anyway.) It’s a name both of your fathers have, and it is very appealing to take advantage of that coincidence. It has the S-ending of James from your list and Brooks from your husband’s. It’s classic/traditional, meaningful to both sides of the family, and has good nickname possibilities. If you have two boys it would be nice to split up the honor names, but if you have boy/girl twins I think I might choose the honor value of Charles Lawrence over the honor value of C.G./G.C. initials: I like the balance of Charles being your husband’s dad’s first name and your dad’s middle name, and then the middle name being your grandfather’s first name. Plus, I love to say Charles Lawrence: it gives me just a pleasing hint of Charles Wallace from A Wrinkle in Time, without overdoing it.

I’d put your girl-name list into three groups. Madeline/Maddie, Charlotte, and Ava go into the first group: all very popular names (because of multiple spellings, Madeline is more common than it appears on the charts). Emmeline and Annalise go in the second group: less common, but I’d consider them both aligned with current styles. Blythe and Marion are in a third category: much less common, not yet back in style. I might intermix the first two groups, but not the third: I think Charlotte and Emmeline work nicely together, but less so Madeline and Blythe, or Annalise and Marion. Another nice thing about Charles/Charlie (not to oversell it) (too late) is that it works with all three groups: Charlie and Ava; Charlie and Annalise; Charles and Marian.

If you had boy/girl twins and named the boy Charles Lawrence, I’d be very inclined to look for a family name for the girl twin as well: ______ Gildea. Or perhaps she could be the one with the C.G. initials: Charles and Cora, Charles and Claudia, Charles and Cecily, Charles and Claire, Charles and Clara, Charles and Cordelia, Charles and Clarissa, Charles and Celeste.

There are so many decisions to be made, so many lists to write. If it all starts to seem too overwhelming, there’s another method for choosing twin names: pretending they’re not twins. So first you’d think, “Okay, we are having a baby; we don’t know if we are having a boy or a girl,” and you make a list of boy names and girl names and you choose one of each. Then you say, “Oh, and now we are expecting again!” And you look at your chosen boy name, and imagine a little toddler with that name, and now you are expecting a little brother or sister for him, so you make a boy name list and a girl name list and choose one of each again. (Repeat with the chosen girl name, imagining a girl toddler about to have a new brother or sister.) This will still result in all three pairings (a boy and then a girl; a boy and then a boy; a girl and then a girl), but in a way that removes the complication of twinniness.

Megan writes:

My husband and I are trying to decide on a boy name for our first baby due August 12, 2014. We have a lot of finalists, but can’t decide which one is best, or if there is something similar that would be better.

Our last name is like Dawson with an L. My name is Megan, and my husband is Matthew (goes by Matt). We’d love an M name (our dog is named Maebee, goes by Mae), but can’t think of an M name we like (Max is OK, but not our favorite. Mason is too trendy. Too many friends named Micah).

We are pretty confident that we want to use Stone as the middle name. It is my maiden name and we both really like that it is a strong, easy to pronounce name. We’d use it as a first, but are worried about the nickname “Stoner” (we live in San Diego).

We want a name that is unique, but not too different. We don’t want one that is becoming really trendy though. We like classic names, but feel they are becoming too trendy.

Our finalists (and thoughts on each) are:

Finley (nn Finn) – my favorite, but worried it is going to become really trendy in the next few years. However, we are both surfers and love that the nickname is ocean-related. My husband prefers Findley for a girl, so we’re thinking of saving it in case we have a girl as our second.

Mateo (nn Teo) – this is our only M option, but is it weird that we are essentially naming him after my husband without using the same name? We’d call him Teo, which we both really like. We like that it is pronounceable in Spanish since we both speak Spanish and travel in Latin America frequently, but worry about using a Spanish name when we aren’t Hispanic.

Brooks – love this, except it doesn’t go with “Stone” as a middle name since it runs together and sounds like Brookstone.

Beckett (nn Becks) – also worried this is going to become trendy in the next few years.

Rio/Reo – same concern as Mateo about using a Spanish name when we aren’t Hispanic. My husband suggested the alternative spelling “Reo” – his brother was Richard and grandfather was Edward, so we are using their first initials.

Lane – my middle name is Laine, so this would be a spin on that. Not sure about the double LL sound though for first and last name.

Names we’ve considered but discarded:

Tobias
Cameron
Thiago
Oliver (nn Ollie)

We’d really appreciate any thoughts or other suggestions you have.

I suggest Milo. It starts with M, and it’s similar to Mateo and Rio, but without the concerns. Milo Stone ()awson. My one hesitation is whether the -lo of Milo is not great with the La- of the surname. Mi-low-law.

In which case I suggest Miles. Miles Stone ()awson. [Edit: A commenter pointed out that both Milo Stone and Miles Stone sound like “milestone,” and I agree.]

I also love Malcolm. Malcom Stone ()awson.

Or Marcus.

Or Mitchell, though there’s some muddling with the L’s of first and last name. I also thought about Marshall, but with the surname I get Martial Law.

But before we go any further with the discussion of M names, let’s consider the consequences for future children. If you two both have M names and your dog has an M name and you give your first child an M name, will you feel that you need to keep using M names? Since you have only one M name you like for a boy, and since you might want to name a daughter Findley, this has the potential to paint you into a very tight and uncomfortable corner.

The issue of using names from a different nationality is an interesting one. Currently, it seems to depend on the particular nationality (the 1970s craze for Irish names didn’t seem very angsty), the particular community (some communities have a wider or different range of names than others), and the particular names (for example, someone might object to a significant/symbolic name of one culture being used outside that culture, but not mind two figs about run-of-the-mill names being used). Or there can be issues resulting from the traditional relationship of the two cultures.

The name Mateo seems fine to me, culturally-speaking, but I know very little on this topic; perhaps others will have more input. Names ending in -o are currently in style, and I think the fact that his dad’s name is Matthew is a plus, not a minus: it makes it a sort of honor name, and “explains” the use of the name to anyone who might find it surprising.

The name Rio feels riskier: it’s much less familiar/common in the United States (98 new baby boys named Rio in 2012, compared to 3,513 named Mateo/Matteo), and Duran Duran’s song about a female Rio still plays frequently on some radio stations (54 new baby girls were given the name in 2012). Spelling it Reo doesn’t strike me as an appealing solution, and the connection to an R from one family name and an E from another family name feels like a reach. I’d also say it falls into the “too different” category you’re trying to avoid: only 5 new baby boys were named Reo in 2012.

Theo is another possibility.

Or Nico.

You mention liking the ocean connections of the name Finley (903 new U.S. baby girls and 473 new U.S. baby boys in 2012), but Finley means something like “white-haired warrior.” Are you thinking of swim equipment fins and fish fins, or is there another connection to oceans/surfing? Another option is the name Ocean, given to 63 new U.S. baby boys and 54 new baby girls in 2012—similar in popularity to Rio. Or Kai is a Hawaiian word meaning “sea,” and might be a good fit for you: not too unusual, not too common (1,925 new U.S. baby boys and 277 new U.S. baby girls given the name in 2012). Or is there another surfing/ocean-related word that has meaning for you: the name of a beach, a famous surfer, etc.?

To narrow down a list of good candidates, I recommend thinking ahead to sibling names—as you’ve done with considering not using Finley because of the possibility of using Findley later for a girl. It’s not as if I’d suggest choosing all the names in advance (it’s hard enough to come up with one name at a time), but it’s a good exercise for narrowing down what it is you most like in a name, as well as for figuring out how important sibling name coordination is to you. We talked a few paragraphs ago about the issues involved in choosing an M name such as Mateo; it would also be a good idea to think about how the name goes with other names you’re likely to choose. Would you feel as if you had to choose another Spanish name for a second boy, or would you feel fine with, say, Mateo and Lane, or Mateo and Beckett, or Mateo and Brooks? I’d apply the same question to the other finalists: do any of them make you feel stuck with a theme, or as if other names on the list are ruled out?

H. writes:

We are having trouble coming up with a name for our third child. It will be a girl. Our first child is Samuel (goes by Sam) and our daughter is Vivian (goes by Vivi as well). My husband’s initials are JFH. I started thinking it would be nice to use his initials. Our last name is two syllable and goes with most names The only J name that has resonated with us is Juliette. So far, I have liked Juliette Faye and Juliette Farah with JF. I also started considering alternative ideas

Farah Juliette
Genivieve Claire

Names that i liked but didn’t work for me after I really thought about them

Madeline
Ophelia
Adelaide
Magdaline
Josephine
Emmeline

But, at the end of the day my husband to date has only liked Juliette. I really love it as well but I can’t believe we can’t come up with an alternative that works with Sam and Vivian. I usually like names that have a nickname option and more than two syllables. We are American, but currently living in the UK. This doesn’t matter other than I am becoming more accustomed to names more common in the UK.

Do you have any advice on possible JH combinations or an alternative girl name that goes with our children’s names? I usually love so many names but with five weeks to go, I feel like I am missing something.

Thanks.

When you say “I can’t believe we can’t come up with an alternative that works with Sam and Vivian,” do you mean you think Juliette doesn’t go with Sam and Vivian (I think it goes very nicely), or do you mean you think it DOES work but you wish you could come up with more equally good candidates? It sounds like Juliette is perfect: you and your husband both love it, it’s more than two syllables, it has the initials you want, and it has several nickname options (Juli, Jules, Etta).

If you decide to drop the idea of using your husband’s initials, I think Genevieve is a very nice option. Have you considered which nickname you’d like to use for it (Gen, Genny, Genna, Evie)? Evie might be too close to Vivi.

Without a surname it’s difficult to come up with additional options. Looking just at the name Vivian, I might suggest Eleanor, Eloise, Helena, Louisa, Lucille, Lydia, Philippa, Silvia, Winifred. Looking at your list of names you liked but they weren’t quite right, I might suggest Adeline and Cordelia.

For more JF combinations, I might suggest:

Jemma Felicity
Jemma Frances
Joanna Faye
Jocelyn Fiona
Jocelyn Freya
Julianna Faye

And I would reconsider Josephine, if you think there’s any hope for it: it’s great with Vivian, and I love the nicknames Jo and Josie.

M. writes:

I have been searching your blog frantically the past couple of months and love all your suggestions but none have been the right fit for me so I am writing you as a last ditch effort to find that “perfect” name.
I am due with our second daughter at the end of May and I feel like it is crunch time for a name decision. My husband has a very noncommittal mentality of “oh it will just come to us… and let’s just wait and meet her first”… this makes me want to scream. I feel like if we wait then we will end up settling for a subpar name that we both agree on but don’t absolutely love. I’m OK with having 2 in mind and then making the final decision when we meet her, but we can’t seem to narrow it down.
Our first born daughter is Georgianna Marie and she goes by Georgi. It fits her perfectly! Georgianna is a family name and it was an instant decision for me when I found out she was a girl but it took my husband awhile to adjust; at first he thought it was a “grandma” name (now he LOVES it :)). Our last name is Herlocker, I really don’t consider the last name as being one that “flows” with anything… it just seems harsh. If it had been a boy I really liked double H names; ie. Henry Herlocker but I do not like any H girl names so that doesn’t work.
I would like a girl name that is similar in style to Georgianna; a long classic name with a shortened, fun nickname but this has proven to be more difficult than I anticipated.
We have crossed off….

Charlotte/ Charlie because we live close to Charlotte, NC and he does not like “place names”
Josephine is my middle name and my great-grandmothers name but the “J” sound in Georgi and Josie is too similar. For this reason we also want to stay away from Genevieve.
Penelope/ Penny… it seems to be making a major comeback and is really popular in our area
Alexandra/ Alex… my husband’s name is Alex and he hated the amount of Alex’s he had in his classes growing up.
Samantha/Sam

Our two favorite middle name options are Rose and Sage ; both family names and both work well with most any first name and with our last name. We toyed with the idea of Rose or Sage as a first name option but both felt like they worked better as middle name. Still haven’t crossed them off of our first name list though. Here are our top names right now:

Margaret Sage Herlocker (nn Margo) I think Margo and Georgi sound nice together but my husband thinks Margo Herlocker is not “cute” enough.
Eleanor Rose Herlocker (nn Nora) we like this option we aren’t thrilled about it
Elliott Rose Herlocker (no nn) I worry that Elliott is too trendy and doesn’t go with the classic, traditional family name Georgianna. This is my husband’s top name choice.

Other name options; Laura Rose (my mother’s name but no nn and I can’t imagine calling a baby Laura), Liselle, Louisa (nn Lou), Clementine (nn Clem).

Please help! We would love any and ALL suggestions and would immediately update on our name decision.

Update (and photo!) on Baby Boy Wrightmen, Brother to Bennett; An Honor Name Issue!
Update (and photo!) on Baby Naming Issue: How Do You Name a Second Child When the First Child’s Name Isn’t Your Style?
Update on Baby Boy or Girl Fleece-Smith, Sibling to Charlie and Lucy (Faye)!

L. writes:

We’re about to welcome our third child, and second daughter – and we’re stumped on a name. Our last name rules some unusable – Gucci with an M – for instance I love the name Harry for a little boy – but put it with our last name, and it just sounds wrong. Le sigh.

When we were pregnant with our first (son) we loved Eleanor (nn Nora) – which was a family name. We also loved Claire Elizabeth, and Greta Elizabeth. But alas – we had a boy – and William Thomas (nn Will) it was (both family names!)

Fast forward 20 months – and our first daughter arrived – We had met so many Nora’s since we’d had Will – that was off the table – We felt Claire was a little too traditional, and while I still loved and adored Greta – my husband was over it. We considered names like Scarlett (which almost won!), Vivienne, Thalia, Elise. My husband was 100% for Colette – but I never warmed to it. Ultimately we chose Annika Catherine – partially for Scandinavian heritage on my side, but mostly just because we liked it – and Catherine was a family name. We love the name but don’t love the two very distinct pronunciations – we say Annika (Ahn-i-ka vs, Ann-i-ka).

Fastforward another 13 months and we’re faced with the same baby girl naming dilemma. We expect her in 2-3 weeks and are desperate to find a name we love -we have a list – but keep searching – which tells me the perfect name is out there and hasn’t been found!

Current list:

1. Scarlett (a. grace  b. elizabeth  c. eleanor)
2. Sloane
3. Sienna
4. Clara
5. Natalie
6. Tessa
7. Gia

We’d like to incorporate a family name – preferably Bevan – as a middle but have the following since Bevan doesn’t always flow with names:
Elizabeth, Eleanor, Deyette, Helen, Angelina, Marjorie

Eliminated names:
Loralei
Grace
Arden
Ella
Leila/Leyla
Emerson
Brooklyn
Juliette
Marina
Karina
Lydia
Lila
Lea
Sonia
Piper
Rowan
Larkin
Neve
Aya
Skylar
Royce
Aria
clea
Skye
Kaia
Breelyn
Elle
Eliana “Lia”
Caroline
Colette
Greta

Maybe it’s naming exhaustion – or pregnancy brain – but 3 times in 3 years – I’m coming up empty! HELP!

Emily writes:

We are adrift in a sea of likable names with absolutely no respite on the horizon. You helped us name our would-be little girl last time; this time we know for a fact that we have a little boy joining us the first week of August and we are starting to panic. I know we have four months left but naming the baby, and calling them by their name, has become a very big part of our bonding process (including adding their name to our bedtime prayers and starting on a name quilt) and right now we feel disconnected.

Our first child is Willi@m Br@dley, but we call him Liam (almost all the time). I love, love, love his name. He was named for my husband and my father and his name just makes me happy. For boy number two we wanted something that fits nicely as a full name with William and has a nickname that goes nicely with Liam (so I’m not yelling incongruous names down the street). Your help would be so, so valuable to us since we feel completely and utterly lost.

For some context if we ever have a girl she would be Eleanor Ruth (we changed the middle from Delaney when we decided we really wanted family names) and we’d like to have no more than four children. We’ve given up all hope on a family first name for Boy #2, though we do still try to accommodate my other completely arbitrary naming “rule” that their first and middle name adds up to no more than four syllables (Emily Gr@ce, @aron Willi@m, Willi@m Br@dley, ……..)

We like…
Theodore, but don’t like the nicknames (Theo, Teddy, Ted, TJ)
Elijah, but my husband just isn’t sold
Oscar, but calling him Ozzie for a nickname seems like we’re trying too hard and Oscar just didn’t stick
Killian, but don’t want him to have to reference a beer for his whole life
Lachlan, but it didn’t “test drive” well (nn: Lachy [locky])
Charles, but we don’t want to seem like anglophiles
Louis, again, it didn’t “test drive” well
Edward, but there’s a negative family connection
Thomas, but we don’t like Tommy (or Freddy for Frederick, Phil for Phillip)
Edwin, which my husband says sounds too “old man”
Ezra, we’re afraid it’s too short next to his brother’s name
Micah, just doesn’t seem to fit (William, Micah, Eleanor)
Aaron, my husband never liked his first name so he doesn’t want to use it for baby #2
Levi, same issue as Ezra

Samuel Willi@m and Jackson C@rl are my brothers but we love their names. We’d like to use Jackson as a middle name if possible but that’s not set in stone either. Other family names we’ve considered for the middle are Russell, Sterling, Joseph, or Ward. None of them were deemed likable enough (or there were other reasons) for not using them as first names.

My husband’s favorite is Howard (for family and literary reasons) but I have threatened to do everything short of kidnapping the baby in order to not name him Howard. My favorite was Tobias (nn: Toby) but my husband said that’s an absolute no-go for him. This caused us to agree to veto both names completely and not bring them up again so they’re both off the list.

As you can see we’re all over the place. Even reading through each and every one of the Baby Name Wizard name style lists hasn’t helped. Please point us in the right direction!

Thank you so much for your help.

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