Hannah writes:

I have a theoretical question for you about interfaith families’ naming practices. I know that Christians tend to honor people who are still alive, while Jews tend to honor people who have passed away. How would an interfaith family sort out the issue of honor names? One method that makes the most sense to me would be to use the Christian method to honor Christian family members and the Jewish method to honor Jewish family members… but is there a more practical way of doing this?

No babies currently on the way, I’m just curious to hear what you (and the commenters!) have to say on the subject.

In general, Christians use names of people either alive or dead, and there aren’t any standard religion-based rules about it. I’d think that in a situation where one parent’s religion has rules and the other parent’s religion doesn’t, the parents would defer to the side that has rules. If I were one of the parents, I would want to find a compromise that made things feel more balanced: “Okay, we’ll use my religion’s naming rule, but then let’s pick the name from your side of the family,” for example. (Or, since there are likely to be many such compromises over the years, something like “Okay, we’ll use my religion’s naming rule, but we’ll go to your parents’ house every Easter.”)

The big conflict would arise if there were an important naming tradition from one parent’s side of the family that couldn’t be used with the other parent’s side of the family: if, for example, a Christian parent was part of a Sr./Jr./III line-up, but the other parent was Jewish. If religion weren’t in the picture and we were just talking about two conflicting naming traditions (e.g., one family uses family names and the other uses names starting with E), I’d say the options are to combine traditions, to flip a coin, to weigh importance, to bargain, or to ditch both traditions. But when it comes to religious rules, it’s harder to use any of those tactics—and can feel very unfair to the parent who doesn’t feel governed by those rules. It can also put a lot of pressure on a parent who doesn’t feel governed by those traditions anymore EITHER, but knows their family would be shocked if those traditions were ignored.

At some point, too, I think it’s good to check where the line is between religious rules and cultural traditions. That line can get verrrry blurry, as you might expect—but I see a definite difference between “This is important to my religion” and “This is important to my culture.” Both parents come from their own cultures, and neither culture should get to make all the rules or claim priority over the other. (Neither religion should, either, but it’s harder to know what to do when both religions think they’re real and the other isn’t; it’s easier to understand with cultures.)

I suppose as with many things it depends how traditional/strict the particular families are, and how flexibly they interpret the particular rule, and how much importance they put on it being followed or not followed. Does anyone have any anecdotes about this kind of situation? I’d be interested to hear from anyone who comes from a family with religious naming rules, or anyone who named a baby with someone from that sort of family. What did you do, and how did you figure it out and make it fair, and how did both families react?

T. writes:

I love the name Dahlia. …I pronounce it like “dally-uh” (“dal” rhyming with “pal”). However, I know some people pronounce the name “dolly-uh” (and I hate the name pronounced that way). So… which is correct? Or IS there a correct pronunciation? Is it a regional thing? I live in the midwest.

Thanks!

As with Madeline and Caroline and Helena, I find I can simultaneously accept several pronunciations. If I encountered a Dahlia or Dalia on a piece of paper and needed to say it aloud to the person in question, I would say “Dolly-uh, Dally-uh?” And there’s also the issue of whether it’s more like Doll/Dal-lee-uh or more like Doll/Dal-yuh. In short, I wouldn’t be surprised by a variety of possible pronunciations.

The Baby Name Wizard has both Dahlia and Dalia as Dolly-uh. Forvo has four English samples; two of them say dolly-uh, one says dally-uh, and one (the British one) says day-lee-uh. Howjsay has day-lee-uh in what sounds like a British accent. Inogolo has doll-yuh. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has dal-yuh, and mentions that day-lee-uh is usually British.

I think we should have a poll below to find out how most people would say it. Notice that in addition to the separate doll and dal-rhymes-with-pal options, I also included an option for knowing BOTH doll and dal-rhymes-with-pal, since those seem to both be American English pronunciations.

[yop_poll id=”11″]

M. writes:

How would you pronounce the name Greer? I think I could love this little-used one-syllable gem of a name…but would like to know the “right” pronunciation.

Various source are telling me:
Gryer (rhymes with dryer)
Greer (rhymes with beer)
Gree-er (like greeter without the t)
Grair (rhymes with fair)

But I trust YOU, Swistle! :)

Many thanks, should you choose to answer this one!

I just realized I’ve never heard it pronounced aloud, and I’ve never met a Greer. I’ve been going along assuming it was pronounced to rhyme with beer, though if someone described it as “greeter without the T” I could see it that way too: I don’t exactly say Gree-er, but as with the word beer there’s a lengthening of the vowel. I see The Baby Name Wizard has it listed the way I think of it. It’s also that way on Inogolo and Forvo (and there are three more chances to hear it under Germaine Greer), so I’d be ready to say it’s the rhymes-with-beer one—but whenever we do these pronunciation polls we get some surprises. Normally I like to do the poll with separate options for people who actually know someone with the name, but I think with so many possible pronunciations, that would get too long.

[yop_poll id=”10″]

I just finished reading Pure, by Julianna Baggott. It’s apocalyptic/dystopian fiction, and although it’s not young-adult fiction I’ll bet there was a lot of hemming and hawing about whether it should be.

One thing that caught my eye was the names. I remember seeing a special on the making of Star Wars, and whoever was being interviewed about costumes/hair/make-up said that the key to making changes was to not make them TOO crazy: a subtle shift made for a more realistic and believable world than a major change did. He said you should be able to picture how a hairstyle got from here to there. The names in Pure reminded me of this.

The main character’s name is Pressia. I’d be interested to know how it’s pronounced (PRESH-shuh? PRESS-see-ah? preh-SEE-ah?), but what interests me more is that it’s not eye-rollingly weird. It has a familiar double-S and the -ia ending of many girl names. It looks a little like Priscilla, Patricia, Portia, Alicia, Jessica, Tessa, Marissa. Until I was looking at it now, I didn’t realize it also looks a little like Princess, Precious and Messiah—all of which could be appropriate for the themes of the book.

Other girls are named Lyda and Illia and Aribelle and Silva, which could be / are used here and now. Boys names such as Silas, Ellery, Ivan, and Vic add to the feeling that name fashions have just changed gradually over the years as they usually do, not been completely abandoned and recreated from scratch (“Hello, I’m Ahxwzd”).

Another main character’s name is Ripkard: it’s similar to Richard and Ripley. But he’s nicknamed Partridge, which doesn’t make sense to me as a nickname, and it also seemed somewhat girlish; I kept getting him confused with Pressia.

Partridge’s brother has another successful name: Sedge. It’s new, but it worked as a name.

More names (because of names such as Ivan, Silas, and Vic, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that some or all of these names are familiar names in other countries):

Avna – female
Algrin – male
Bradwell – male
Durand – male
Fandra – female
Gar – male
Gorse – male
Halpern – male
Helmud – male
Odwald – male
Otten – male
Tyndal – male
Vedra – female

I think the most successful ones are the ones that take a familiar piece of name and add something else: the Al- in Algrin; the -andra and -dra of Fandra and Vedra; Odwald and Otten that are so similar to Oswald and Otto.

Overall I thought it was neat to think of the effort involved in choosing character names that need to communicate a future Earth: recognizable but believably futuristic.

Christin writes:

We have a baby girl due June 29th. She is our third child and will probably be our last. We have two boys, William (Will), age 6 and Joshua (Josh), age 3. We are having a hard time naming our little girl and hope to get it finalized in the next couple of weeks. Choosing a girl name has been a lot harder than we thought. Our last name is Dockum so we are trying to figure out a name that goes well with that as well as with the names of our boys. My name is Christin and my husband’s name is Kent.

We are looking for a strong name but one that is not completely overused. Since our boys names are traditional, I am torn between sticking with a strong traditional name or kind of going out there a little bit…that’s why I like Whitley.

We have the middle name narrowed down to Jane (my middle name and also the names of both of my grandmothers) or Ann (my mom’s middle name). The first names and name combinations we are considering are as follows:

Lauren Jane
Abigail Jane
Whitley Ann
Ellie Jane
Lydia Ann

Thank you for any help you can give us!

I have two favorites from the list: Abigail and Lydia. I like the way both full forms go with William and Joshua, and I like that each has a nickname (Abby and Lyddie) to go with Will and Josh. I also like those two best with your surname. If you’d prefer all three names to have roughly the same level of popularity, I’d choose Abigail; if you want something a little less common, I’d choose Lydia.

(I hesitate just slightly about Lydia/Lyddie. Because we would not want to substitute a short-i sound for the O in your surname, and because Lydia/Lyddie has the short-i sound and the D-sound, I worry just a little about tongue tangling.)

But I also think it works to have even a significant style difference between boy names and girl names in a family. And in our family, we went Top 50 for boys but Going Out There A Bit for girls, and I’ve been happy with it (I’d worried I’d regret it)—though I don’t think I would have regretted sticking with Top 50, either. I’m not sure I like Whitley as much with your surname, though.

I think I would like Ellie better if it were Ella with the nickname of Ellie, to correspond with the boys’ names. But in both cases, the double-L seems like it might be too much with Will.

Let’s have a poll!

[yop_poll id=”8″]

L. writes:

I have a specific question I was hoping you and your readers could help me out with. Perhaps a poll? My husband and I both really like the name Ari and want to use it for our baby boy due this fall. However, it seems to be a primarily Jewish name, and we aren’t Jewish. Would it be too odd for us to use the name?

Thanks!

Ah! Yes! I would be interested in this too! Periodically we get an email that asks if it’s okay to use a name if the family isn’t ______ (Christian, Russian, etc.), and it seems like the absolute best way to find out is to collect a large number of answers: we’re not exactly a scientific sample here, but it still gives a good idea of the possible reactions and the rough percentages.

I have only two experiences with the name Ari, and neither involved Jewishness: a fellow student at my childhood Christian school was named Ari, and it’s also a common name in my husband’s non-Jewish family tree. So my own contribution to the pool of answers is that although I know it can be Jewish, I don’t at all think of it as Only Jewish, and I wouldn’t be startled if a non-Jewish family used it.

Let’s have a poll!

[yop_poll id=”6″]

Tracy writes:

I’m wondering if you can help settle an ongoing point of contention between my dear husband and myself. You see, we have been struggling with infertility for years now, and though we remain optimistic throughout our treatments, it’s been a trying process. One thing that never wavers, however, is my absolute madness for talking baby names.

It always starts in the car. We’ll be driving along, and knowing that I have a captive audience, I’ll casually bring up a name I’ve been tossing around in my head in recent weeks. He will, of course, as the husbands tend to do, veto my every thought.

Ugh. Men.

Anyway, these conversations always come back to one name. My favorite baby girl name is Violet. I’ve loved it for years, and it reminds me of my grandmother who passed away many years ago. One of my first memories of her was walking in the woods picking the tiny purple flowers and being so proud of the itty bitty bouquet I had put together. We were very close.

My grandmother was named Ruby, but my brother named his firstborn girl directly after her, so that association is firmly in place, and that name is off the table. I like that Violet is a subtle connection to her, and a sweet, vintage name to boot. Plus, I think that Violet and Ruby would make a stellar set of cousins!

The problem is this: Our last name is White, and my husband feels that the Color Firstname Color Lastname combination is comical somehow.

I, for one, do not find it displeasing or funny in the least, but I’m trying to gauge where others are on this matter. When I hear the name Violet White, I think of the flower first, and the very common last name second. She could be Violet Smith, for all that connection is worth to me.

For him, it’s a no-go because he doesn’t want said imaginary girl-child to be made fun of. I say, she will be Violet to her school friends, or even Violet W. in a big class with a name that’s on the rise. I don’t see the issue.

Plus, she may get married and change that name someday! What if she marries someone with the last name Rose? Can we prevent that? Should we refrain from naming her Georgia in case she might marry someone with the last name Brown one day?

It goes on like this… Much huffing and eye-rolling, and then “Fine. We won’t talk about it anymore.” You get the picture.

So my question is this: Not necessarily just in my case, but in general, is the color issue too much for people to accept, both with Violet White, and with other color names? Scarlet, Indigo, Jade, Grey, Rose, Saffron… Are these all off-limits to we of the color-surnames as well?

Please help us settle this, Swistle. You’re our only hope! :)

There is a significant difference between giving a child an amusing name, and the slim future possibility of a child marrying into an amusing name. The difference is that in the former situation, she has a 100% chance of having the name, and it was fully preventable; in the latter situation, she has a very tiny chance of having the amusing name, and there’s no practical way for you to avoid it.

With Violet White, I immediately see the two colors—even though I usually think of Violet as a flower name, not a color name. But I don’t think it would be a disaster to use it: at most, it seems like it would cause mild amusement, but not severe mocking. I’m trying to imagine what kind of teasing could come from it, and I’m coming up with very little. “You have two colors as names, nyah nyah”? “In today’s outfit, you’re more like Pink Yellow har har”?

If I put it to the “Would I want this name as my own?” test, I do feel weary at the idea of constantly having to respond to people noticing it. But on the other hand there would be some upsides: it makes for a very pretty and memorable name, and it seems like it might be fun to have, and it also seems like it might be fun to play it up with room decor in those colors.

It sounds to me as if the real deal-breaker here is that your husband finds the combination comical. We could take a vote, and we could have near-100% agreement that it was NOT comical, and he would still find it comical. So explaining to him that it shouldn’t be comical, or that it isn’t comical to you/us, isn’t going to change anything. I think this means yes, in your family, color first names will be out—but that doesn’t mean they have to be out for everyone.

It helps when the name is not ONLY a color. For example, I would have to clench my teeth to say that Grey White was a fine name and there was nothing wrong with using it. But Ruby White and Rose White are much less of a problem, because rubies are also gemstones and roses are also flowers—and in fact I think of them FIRST as gemstones/flowers, and notice them as colors only when they’re sitting next to another color.

If Violet were your grandmother’s name, I would be more inclined to fight for this. Because it’s a noun that connects to one of many happy memories, I’m more inclined to suggest that you find another word or name (her maiden name? her middle name? her mother’s name?) that reminds you of her, or perhaps you could use Violet or Ruby as the middle name.

Even though I don’t think it will sway your husband, I do think it would be fun to have a poll:

[yop_poll id=”5″]

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Lesley writes:

Hello! We would love your help in deciding on a name for our baby girl who is due any day now! We’re assuming this will be our last child; we have a son named Oliver Dawson who we sometimes call Ollie. Our son’s name fits him and our family perfectly- we’re looking for just the right thing for our daughter. My name is Lesley and my husband is John; our last name is Porter.

We’re looking for a girl’s name that inspires creativity and strength, may be nature-inspired (but not too granola), and is original without being too different. We will likely use Wren (a name I’ve always loved) as her middle name. If our son was a girl we were going to use the name Lila/Lilah Katherine, but now the name seems a bit too delicate for me, although my husband really likes it. I’m also concerned about Lila/Lilah becoming incredible popular in the coming years.

I’ve always liked “L” names (such as Lily, Lia and Lucy), but worry these are getting too common as well. I love the name Lola (Lola Wren?) but my husband’s not a fan (thanks to The Kinks song). We both really like the name Nola but I’m not sure how it sounds with our son’s name (Nola and Oliver? Oliver and Nola?) or how well it flows with our last name (Nola Porter?). I like the name best as Nola Wren, but who really uses middle names anyways?

Other candidates include Ruby, Elsie (but my husband would insist the actual name be Elsinore, which always makes me think of “snore”), Clover, Gwen, Chloe (but perhaps way too popular now), Clara, Laurel or Leta. We’d love to hear your thoughts or any other ideas that you have.

Could we talk your husband into Elsa instead of Elsinore? I’m not sure the repeating -or- in Elsinore Porter works, which may be contributing to the “snore” issue. Elsa is adorable on a little girl and yet perfectly dignified for a grown woman. Elsa Wren works great, and then you’ve got Elsie for short. Elsa Porter; Oliver and Elsa; Ollie and Elsie. I hesitate only because Lesley and Elsie seem very close—but that might be pleasing.

Lila is only at #163 as of the Social Security Administration’s 2011 data (Lilah is at #306), but it’s made all that progress since entering the Top 1000 in 1998.

(screenshot from the SSA baby name site)

On the other hand, its ranking over the last three years of data (#167 in 2009, #155 in 2010, and then back down to #163 in 2011—plus the relatively tiny climb from 2008 to 2009) makes me wonder if it’s slowing or even stopping: some names go skyrocketing right to #1 (Isabella, for example, which had a similar climb that kept going), and others go alarmingly fast but then…just stop. And the 100-200 rankings are a lovely, lovely place to stop: the names in that range are for the most part common enough that you won’t get “WHAT??” or “Where did you get THAT?” reactions, but you also won’t get “Yeah, we’ve had a lot of THOSE, ha ha!” at first-grade registration. (That is an actual quote from the year I registered one of my kids. The registrar then hastily added, “…Er, it’s a great name!”)

Lila Katherine is beautiful (the possible nickname Lila Kate adds sass), and so is Lila Wren. A few more options similar to Lila:

Dahlia
Delilah
Eliza
Isla
Mila
Willa

My main concern is that some of these are a lot of L with Ollie. But perhaps you would call him Ollie less if it caused an issue, or perhaps you’d call him Ollie only when you weren’t also saying his sister’s name, or perhaps it’s not too much L anyway.

Lia is very pretty too, and less common than Lila.

I also think Laurel is wonderful, and surprisingly underused. I find it a little difficult to say with Porter, though.

Laurel and Lila make me think of Lorelei. Lorelei Porter; Oliver and Lorelei.

I think Nola goes very nicely with Oliver. I think it runs together a little bit with the surname, but it doesn’t create any displeasing or confusing combinations. And I think very quickly you’d start automatically putting a tiny half-pause between the two names (“Hi! We have a nine o’clock appointment; this is Nola, Porter”), which would completely eliminate any issue.

While I often say that a middle name is a safe place to put a not-very-liked honor name since middle names rarely see the light of day in normal use, the middle name position is also a great place to put a name you’d LIKE to use. If your favorite is Nola WITH Wren, it’s only three syllables total—I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up using the first-middle combination like that. I think it’s a very pleasing combination to say (if I were with you and you used it, I think I’d pick up on it in about 2 seconds), and I like that it gives you a chance to use the name you’ve loved so long.

I also think Nola Katherine would be very pretty.

Nola makes me think of Nadia. Nadia Porter; Oliver and Nadia.

The name Marin/Maren has sea/nature connotations, and also has Wren built into the sound.

Karenna has the Wren sound, too. Karenna Lee would have part of your name in it, or maybe there are other names that seem too common or otherwise unworkable as the first name but would be perfect as the middle.

Nola and Lola and Clover make me think of Violet. Violet Porter; Oliver and Violet; Ollie and Vi, or Ollie and Lettie. Not very good with Wren, though, I don’t think, but not terrible.

I also think of Simone. Simone Porter; Oliver and Simone. Again, unfortunately not very good with Wren.

Also Naomi. Naomi Porter; Oliver and Naomi. I love the combination Naomi Wren.

Nola and Lola and Gwen make me think of Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn Porter; Oliver and Gwendolyn; Ollie and Gwennie.

An L name from my own finalist list is Liana. Liana Porter; Oliver and Liana.

And I love Linnea. Linnea Porter; Oliver and Linnea; Ollie and Linnie.

Or Lena would be pretty. Lena Porter; Oliver and Lena.

Or Lydia. Lydia Porter; Oliver and Lydia; Ollie and Lyddie.

I love the name Clover so much. I wish it would have worked out to use something like that for my daughter’s middle name. If you go with a first name that doesn’t fit with Wren, Clover would be the very next name I’d try.

If Chloe is too common, I suggest Cleo. It’s funny how two names can be so similar (a mere vowel swap apart) and yet one is Top 10 and the other isn’t even in the Top 1000. Cleo Porter; Oliver and Cleo.

Chloe and Ruby make me think of Phoebe. Phoebe Porter; Oliver and Phoebe. I wish it didn’t give the initials P.P.

A name like Magnolia might give you everything you’re looking for: nature but not too granola, creative and strong, unusual but not weird; and with nicknames of Lia, Lola, and Nola as well as Maggie. Magnolia Porter; Oliver and Magnolia; Ollie and Maggie, or Ollie and Lia, or Ollie and Nola.

I wonder if the literal use of the suffix -son might be an another interesting baby name option for some families.

Perhaps if the parents like the idea of a Jr., but neither of them particularly want to use Robert: too common, not modern enough. Their son could be Robertson: a family-related honor name, a Jr.-type concept, and an in-style surname name all in one.

Or maybe if the parents are conflicted about a family naming tradition: they’d hate to abandon it, but on the other hand the dad felt it was a headache sharing a name with his dad, and he wants his son to have his own name. Perhaps they won’t have a Thomas Scott Andrews IV, but they can taper it off by calling him Thomason.

This naming idea has an issue we don’t run into when Peter has a son named Peter: using the -son could seem to exclude the other parent. Peterson is Peter’s son but he isn’t ONLY Peter’s, and/or we wouldn’t want to imply that Peter was the only important parent. And yet we’re not going to use Sarahson or Ashleyson, any more than we’re going to use Robertdaughter or Thomasdaughter.

The other issue is that it can only be done once: David can have a David Jr. who can have a David III, but David’s son Davidson is not going to name his own son Davidsonson. That part’s okay with me, though: Davidson could have a Davidson Jr. if he liked, and in fact I like that it’s a way to do a Jr.-like name WITHOUT putting pressure on the next generation to continue it.