Candace writes:

We have just passed the 33 week mark with our second baby girl, and we are having a TOUGH time with names!  We are Cris and Candace, and last name sounds like blackbird.  Our daughter (2 1/2 years old) is C@mpbell.  When we named C@mpbell (middle name Marie), we really didn’t intend to create a family of all “C” names…we just really liked the name C@mpbell.  But, now that we are having our second, we’re facing a dilema.  On one hand, people keep commenting to me that we “have” to choose another “C” name because anything else will sound awkward.  On the other hand, I feel like it might be a little cheesy for us to all have the same first initial – it is definitely not something I would have set out to accomplish!  We’re not sure if we will try to have a third child, but it is still a possibility.

So, my first question is…should we focus only on “C” names??  And, either way, we just need help!  Since C@mpbell is not an overtly feminine name, we aren’t sure which way to go for the second girl.  Also, we live in the Northeast, but I’m from the deep South, so I tend to like names that sound a little southern (but this is not an absolute requirement).

Some of our current favorites…

Quinn (we both really like this name, but we’re stumped on a middle name)
Charlotte (we’re kind of 50/50 on this one)
Sara Kate (to be used as a double name…and if so, should we name her Sara Katherine and call her Sara Kate?)
Lila Kate (same comments as Sara Kate)
Claire/Clara
Marley

We are very open to suggestions, so please help!!

Thanks so much!

 
I would not restrict yourselves to C names unless you decide you like the idea, especially since you might have a third child. Right now, the three C’s are noticeable—but generally parents’ names are not included in the sibling group of their children. If your next child is not a C-name, anyone who asks why you didn’t stick with C’s can be given a blank look and then told “…Oh, no, we didn’t choose a C name on purpose the first time. That was just the name we liked best.”

Quinn seems like a very good fit with C@mpbell, and the hard-C-sound beginning helps her to seem like she fits even better with all the other hard-C names in the family. We did a middle name challenge for the name Quinn awhile back; maybe some of those names will work. I like Quinn Elise or Quinn Louise or Quinn Simone.

Quincy would also work, and that would go nicely with the middle name Kate.

Marley also works well. Marley Kate would be nice.

Charlotte, Sara Kate, Lila Kate, and Claire/Clara all seem too traditional and feminine to pair with C@mpbell. I think I’d look at options more like:

Avery
Darcy
Delaney
Devan
Ellery
Evanie
Everly
Finley
Hadley
Holland
Hollis
Kennedy
Leighton
Lennox
Logan
Madigan
Padgett
Paisley
Peyton
Rory
Rowan
Sloane
Teagan
Waverly
Winslow
Yeardley

Kacie writes:

Hello,

I recently came upon your blog, and I love it!! I’m not a mother yet, but I’m already obsessed with finding the perfect names for future spawn. :-) My fiance and I have a long list of future names we might use, but I’m starting to find that I have a more pressing name problem. I REALLY hope you can help us!!

Since we got engaged, I’ve been internally debating the surname issue. It’s a little complicated. My fiance loves his last name, Ba$$, because he believes it links him to his Italian heritage. He also finds it easy to dictate to other people when anyone asks for his name. It is short, sweet, and easy to spell.

I don’t really like the name because the only other living relative with the same name is his mother, and we both have a strong distaste for her (we won’t get into that whole thing, but she has many issues and did not provide a good childhood for my fiance). I would definitely prefer not to have a link to her.

My last name, Mi$chler, is German, longer, and a little trickier to spell, but it has fantastic associations to my large family, who have pretty much adopted my fiance as one of them (my father is the dad he never had). We are much much closer to my family than his 1-person family.

But he doesn’t want to take my name, mostly due to social conformities, and I don’t want to take his because of his mom (also: really, a fish?). But I want us to have the same last name.

I actually really love the idea of mashing/creating something new, but we’ve tried to mash our surnames together and it always sounds similar to a swear word: Ba$ler (ba$tard), Bi$ch (b!itch), etc.

Is there anything we haven’t thought of? I really don’t know what to do. Please help if you can!

Thanks!

There’s hyphenating (with both spouses taking the hyphenated name), which I assume you’ve thought of, and it works nicely with the two names: I’d probably go with Ba$$-Mi$chler because I prefer that sound, but both ways work.

I think my favorite mash-together name would be Baschler. It sounds like Bachelor, which isn’t too bad.

If being connected to his heritage is important to him, are there other family surnames further up the tree that he could switch to, or did the Italian heritage only come down through the Ba$$ males?

But if your fiance loves his surname and wants to follow social norms, I think any of these other options will be a tough sell.

I had a similar situation when I married Paul: I loved my surname/family and disliked his. He wasn’t fond of his family either, and was open to other ideas. His favorite idea was choosing an entirely different surname, not connected to either family. We tried out a number of them when giving our name to restaurant hosts. We also considered both taking my name, me hyphenating, both hyphenating, various mash-together options, keeping our own surnames and matching the girls/boys to mine/his, etc.

In the end, I took his name. I was resentful of the social norms, but also found I wanted to follow them and didn’t want to explain an alternate choice. I liked that if someone heard my surname and said, “Oh, is that Dutch?” or “Oh, are you related to the Minnesota branch of the family?,” I didn’t have to say, “Oh, no, not really—we just sort of picked a name.” I liked the idea of being able to say to the kids things like “The Thistle side of the family” and “The Paulsurname side of the family.” I knew we could have more than one surname in our household and it wouldn’t be a huge deal, but I didn’t want to. And I didn’t mind so much having a different surname than my husband, but I didn’t want to have a different surname than my children, or to be the only one in our household with a different name.

It boiled down to ranking the various elements of the choice and choosing the ones that were the highest priority to me—while realizing that every choice had downsides.

I put my own surname in the second-middle-name position (but I use it as the default on any document that allows only one middle name), and we gave it to all the children as their second middle name. I have it spelled out on my license and on my bank accounts: I’m Swistle N. Thistle Paulsurname. If I needed to use a name for a writing column or something, I’d use my maiden name. I also periodically mention how resentful I am of the social norms, which can be soothing.

********

I think it would be interesting to hear everyone’s stories. Did you give up your name, or keep it, or both take something new? Did you struggle with the decision, or was it easy? Have you regretted the choice, or are you happy with it? If you went non-social-norm, has it been a big hassle or no big deal or somewhere in between? If you each kept your own names and then had children, whose name did you give to the children? If you’re not married, what do you predict you’d want to do?

Tracy writes:

Our son was born at home on May 29th and we named him Arlo. However we are stuck on the middle names.

We have three other children:  Isabella Grace, Sophia Pearl, and Soren August Leonard (going both by Soren and Auggie).

We would like to use the middle name of Roman to honor my side of the family. My maiden name is Romano.

Two other family names we have considered are Joseph and Sepp.

We also love the name Theodore and considered it for Arlo’s first name.

So my question is does Arlo Roman Joseph/Theodore/Sepp Wismar work?  They all sound off to me.

Any other suggestions for us?

I have two favorites: I like Arlo Roman Theodore Wismar best for the pure sound/flow of it and because you’d get to use one of your almost-his-name choices—except that I like Arlo Roman Joseph Wismar best because I like family names and I like the sound/flow of THAT combination TOO (and it coordinates with the 2-2-2-2 rhythm of your first son’s name). Arlo Roman Sepp Wismar is fine, but I like the other two better.

Let’s have a poll over to the right to see what everyone else thinks! [Poll closed; see results below.]

Poll results for “Which is your favorite combination?” (297 votes total):

Arlo Roman Theodore Wismar – 134 votes (45%)
Arlo Roman Joseph Wismar – 125 votes (42%)
Arlo Roman Sepp Wismar – 25 votes (8%)
I can’t decide – 13 votes (4%)

Anna writes:

My husband and I are expecting our second (and last) child this fall.  So far, the baby name game has been a bit of a disaster. Our last name starts with “sch.” Our first daughter is named Ava, which we love (even though it is common, it suits her perfectly).  Her middle name has four syllables, with the stress on the second syllable.  That creates a rhythm that my husband adores: dat da da dat da da “sch.”

So, after consulting your post about 4 syllable names with the stress on the second syllable, we have been considering the following for a girl:

Stella Penelope

Stella Alexandra

But we aren’t 100% sold on Stella.  We also like Ella and Clara (Clara to a lesser extent).  We like names that end in “a” but that aren’t too sweet sounding.  I love Fiona, but my husband is less sold on that one… but I figure with a three syllable middle name with the accent on the second syllable he still gets his “rhythm!”   Anyway, between looking for a particular rhythm and trying to find a feminine yet strong/fun name – not to mention a last name that is a bit harsh sounding – we are in a pickle.

For boy names, well, we can’t even begin.  I LOVE the name Jack, but that is an absolute non-starter for potential teasing reasons.  If our first child was a boy, she would have been Ryan David – not because we loved the name, but because we couldn’t come up with anything we liked better.  I also like the name Joshua, but we have too many relatives with that name in the area.   We tend to like strong, somewhat traditional (but not too traditional) names for boys and rhythm doesn’t matter to my husband on this one.  Surprisingly, we both like Finn, but feel like it is too much with our last name.

Here’s hoping you have encountered rhythmic namers before and can help!

The first girl name that comes to mind is Lila. Ava and Lila. I like Lila Penelope.

From your list I like both Stella and Ella (Stella seems to me to better fit the strong and not too sweet preference), but (St)Ella Penelope gives me an “(St)Ella Penella” rhyme, and (St)Ella Alexandra has an (St)Ella-Alla, neither of which are dealbreakers (and in fact may tie the names together nicely), but I think I’d go back to the name list for something like (St)Ella Magnolia or (St)Ella Victoria.

I’d also suggest Ruby. It doesn’t end in the A sound, but I think it hits a similar style mark as Ava: more sass than sweet. Ava and Ruby.

Eliza is one of my favorite sass names. Ava and Eliza.

If you like Finn for a boy but it’s not quite right with your surname, would Griffin work better?

If you like Joshua but there are too many in your family already, I wonder if Jonathan would work. It has a similar sound and rhythm.

If what you like about Jack is the snappy sound of it, I wonder if you’d like Declan? It takes away the teasing, and I think Dec Sch___ is far enough away in sound that it doesn’t bring it to mind.

Or Eric might work. Or Alec.

Or maybe something more like Sam or Joe? Joseph would be a nice alternative to Joshua.

Or instead of Ryan, Owen or Liam or Ian or Gavin? I like how Ian is another three-letter-two-vowel name like Ava, and I like how Gavin repeats Ava’s V-sound.

Katie writes:

I LOVE your blog and we need some major baby-naming help! My husband and I are 2 weeks away from having our first child, a boy – due June 5th – and are completely stuck on names! I have been thinking about names for a while now and did not think I’d be in this situation. We just can’t make a decision!

My name is Katie and my husband is Daniel, but goes almost exclusively by Danny (and has since he was very young). Our last name sounds like “Lawson”. Our original criteria for names was…

1. Not super popular (Our last name is relatively common and I don’t want my child to have a common first and last name.)
2. Not girly at all (I would prefer not to have a name that could crossover and ‘go girl’. I know this is hard to predict, but would like to avoid if possible.)

Our current front-runner is Milo. We both really like it, but are worried now since all the buzz about the rising girl’s name Mila. Will the popularity of Mila make Milo seem more girly and/or more like an afterthought? Do you think Milo is too soft? We like that it is uncommon, but not ‘made-up’ or new, but can’t decide if it is just right for our baby.

Other names in consideration are…
– Henry (I love, but husband does not… thinks it sounds too ‘rich’ or ‘fancy’, also it may be too common)
– Silas (I’m not sold on this one)
– Lucas/Luke (too common?)
– Walter/Walt (I love, but husband thinks it is too much of a potential tease-magnet..)
– Everett (will it cross-over to the girls?)
– Hayes

Names that we like but can’t use due to friends/family/etc: Evan, Owen, Cole, Elias, Arlo, Jack (due to the Titanic association with our last name), Leo (slight Titanic association…), Chase

For the middle name, we are hoping to use a family name. Options are Michael, Charles, Robert, David, Walter, or Matthew (We would consider these for first names, as we’d love to have even more family connections in the name, but most of them are too common for us.)

Oh and we do hope to have more kids. For a girl, our top pick is Blythe which is pretty rare, so I am not sure how some of these names would match up with that…

So, as you can tell, we are kind of all over the place… Any advice?!? What do you think of Milo??

Thank you for reading.

Milo is one of my own favorite boy names, and was on the Final Three list for my youngest, so it is safe to say I am greatly in favor.

Some of the warning signs for a name “going girl” include: a gentle sound to the name (Noah, for example); having an easy feminine nickname (Ellie for Elliot, for example); the boys being done with it for now (Sydney, for example). Milo has the first but not the second or third.

I think sometimes having a feminine version of a name can encourage people to use the boyish version for girls—but other times it protects the boyish version. To use dated examples, having Paul and Paula seems to make people less likely to use Paul for a girl, not more. Same with Carl/Carla, and Robert/Roberta, and Eric/Erica: it makes it additionally confusing to use the masculine version for a girl, since a feminine version already exists. Instead of the masculine version seeming androgynous, it seems fully boy. [An anonymous commenter brings up a great current example: Oliver and Olivia.]

But does this apply with more modern versions? There’s Kyle and Kylie/Kylee/Kyleigh—and Kylie is rising as Kyle falls. As Kylie is used more and Kyle is used less, what happens to Kyle for girls?

2000: 53 female Kyles; 11,964 male Kyles
2001: 56 female Kyles; 10,566 male Kyles
2002: 45 female Kyles; 10,059 male Kyles
2003: 61 female Kyles; 8,646 male Kyles
2004: 74 female Kyles; 7,818 male Kyles
2005: 38 female Kyles; 6,680 male Kyles
2006: 47 female Kyles; 6,147 male Kyles
2007: 41 female Kyles; 5,346 male Kyles
2008: 30 female Kyles; 4,694 male Kyles
2009: 34 female Kyles; 4,162 male Kyles
2010: 33 female Kyles; 3,560 male Kyles
2011: 57 female Kyles; 3,233 male Kyles

It’s kind of hard to see a big obvious pattern, isn’t it? The name Kyle is going steadily and obviously down for boys, but it’s hopping all over the place for girls.

So how does all this apply for Milo/Mila? Well…that’s why I’m just sort of talking around it, without seeming to make any clear points: I can’t tell. Maybe the increasing popularity of Mila for girls will increase in a parallel way with Milo as the sounds come into style together. Maybe the increasing popularity of Mila will make some parents think of Milo for girls. Maybe the increasing popularity of Mila will make Milo even more solidly a boy name.

If you want my personal guess, it’s that some people will always use “boy names” for girls—but that Milo is not likely to become “a girl name.” There were fewer female babies named Milo in 2011 than there were female babies named Jonathan (12 vs. 20).

And we’ve already had a test period for this as the name Miley/Mylee/Myleigh came into style without causing Milo to become popular for girls.

But the rising popularity of a similar name for girls may make some parents wary of the name, making it less common for boys. Every time a name comes up, someone will mention that they know a baby girl (or three) with that name. There might be hardly any female babies with the name compared to the number of male babies with the name, but the impression sticks: people say “Watch out!”—and parents do. And other parents think, “It’s going girl? I didn’t like it for a boy, but I do like it for a girl!” [Thanks, Nedra, for pointing out a major data fail: something was amiss with my files, and the number of female names in the example I originally used here was significantly different than I wrote. I’ve fixed the error here by taking out the specific example, and I’m looking into finding out what went wrong.]

So far there’s no indication that Everett is going to turn into a girl name, either. The Social Security database shows 14 female babies named Everett in 2011, and another 6 named Everette. That’s nothing, relatively speaking: even Henry was given to 7 girls, and 22 were named Matthew. The similar name Evan was given to 99 baby girls. (Hayes was given to 286 boys and 16 girls.)

If it were me, I’d consider Milo and Everett both safe choices, and I think both go well with Blythe. If you want to play it extra safe, your traditional middle name options are great for that: if the unexpected occurs and the first name becomes popular for girls, there’s a good completely masculine middle name to go by instead. (Or maybe not: 9 baby girls were named Charles in 2011! And another 9 baby girls named Robert! And 18 named David, and 36 named Michael!)

Other names that sprang to mind while writing the post: Simon, Isaac, Oliver, Warren, Emmett, Felix, Malcolm.

K. writes:

Our second baby girl and third child is due any time and we can not decide on her name.  My doctor was ready for me to go to the hospital today, but I am worried that I havent decided on her name!

Our 4 year old son’s name is Owen Grant (he goes by both names) Jakob and our 2 year old daughter is Olivia Katharine Grace.  Grant is a family name as are all three of Olivia’s names.  They are actually my mother’s name, my grandmother’s and my great grandmother’s so I always knew I what I  wanted to name a daughter and it helped when she was born looking just like my grandmother.

While we were deciding though, I was really torn that Olivia was a top 10 name, but I decided that it was a family name and I had always wanted to use it so I went with it anyway.  I love her name and do not regret it, but because Sophia is not a family name, I worry that it will just seem like I picked a really common name.  (I certainly dont want to have the Jennifer of her generation)  BUT,  I think that Sophia has a similar feel to Olivia (elegant, classic, regal) and I do like that it has the O that both of the other kids have.

The fact that both of their names began with O was simply chance.  I always knew I wanted to name a baby girl Olivia  and I just loved Owen.  I always knew I would use Grant.  So, I am definitely not looking for a name that starts with an O.  I do want a name that ties to their names though.  Olivia also goes by Livi, Liv and Livia- we use all the variations and love them.  Owen Grant loves his name and will correct people who dont use both.

So, our finalists are:
Sophia Elizabeth Kate  (my Great Grandmother was Katharine Olivia and she went by Kate)
Sophia Elizabeth Blair  (Blair was my the middle name of my maternal grandfather but my husband doesnt totally love it)
Vivienne Elizabeth Kate   (Elizabeth was the name my mother had wanted to use for my middle name and I always remember knowing that growing up- she definitely had naming remorse even asking if i wanted to change it as an adult)
Vivienne Elizabeth Blair

I think my husband doesnt care nearly as much if Sophia is ultra popular so he has a slight preference for it, but he is open to either name.

The last two eliminated from our short list were Lila and Corinne.  My husband’s last name starts with K  so I felt like Corinne K_____ was too much of a mouthful and the Corinne kind of got swallowed.  Also I really dont care for Cora or Cory as nicknames.  (Also I realized that our children speak spanish with our nanny and our nanny couldnt pronounce Corinne easily at all while all the other names seemed fine in spanish).
Livi and Lila are sweet together, but where we live I know as many or more Lila’s as I do Sophia’s so I decided between the two, Sophia was my preference.

I like that Vivienne is not as common but I wonder if its a little too much to have Livi and Vivi for nicknames.  I thought we might also be able to use Evie for a nickname for Vivienne.

I also like Leighton and Ashton but I worry that because they are general neutral, they just dont have the same feel or elegance as Olivia’s name.

My husband does not like any of the nicknames for Elizabeth which is why it isnt a first name contender.

I notice that other people mention their heritage, ethnicity, etc.  We are basically of European heritage and both of us and both of our kids are blonde.  We are hoping this little girl might have red hair which also runs in the family.

Any help you have would be great!!     Then I would feel like I was ready to go to the hospital.

Thank you!

 
Sophia is a masterful choice: well-coordinated with Owen and Olivia in both popularity and style, and with the additional satisfying touch you mention of not starting with an O but still having a strong O sound. Olivia and Vivienne have so many short-I and V and long-E sounds in common, they almost seem like scrambled-letter versions of each other; and I agree that Livi and Vivi is too much. Sophia is indeed a popular name, but it would take three to four times the current number of Sophias to match the popularity of Jennifer at its peak.

Elizabeth is a great middle name: the family story, but also being beautifully coordinated with Olivia’s middle name Katharine.

I could go either way on the second middle name: it’s not quite balanced to have a second daughter named for the same namesake (especially for a great-grandparent)—but on the other hand, Kate is so perfect as the coordinating name for Grace, and your husband prefers the name Kate to the name Blair. If you didn’t mind changing the rhythm, I wonder if you’d like something like Sophia Elizabeth Lila or Sophia Elizabeth Corinne. Or you could use Sophia Elizabeth Vivienne and get both name options in there. Or are there any other female family names, maybe on your husband’s side?

There might not be time for this, but it may also be helpful to have a poll over to the right with your four candidates, so let’s do that. [Poll closed; see results below.]

M. writes:

So this is my story…its long and full of drama!

I have a 20 month old little girl. When I was pregnant with her, my sister in law and close friend were both pregnant as well. Of course, we all had our list of names. When we started coming out with our names, we noticed we had a few of the same we liked. My top choices were: Gianna, Lola, and Isabella. Well, now all the babies are born. My daughter is Gianna, my sister in law named her daughter Marybella, and my friend named hers Lola. My friend has since moved to Miami, we see them about once a year.

I have a long history with loving the name Isabella and anything Bella. My sister in law knew that and from the beginning, she told me they were going with Cecilia. Then, all of a sudden, it changed to Marybella. I was a little upset because the whole time she told me something else, and if I had another girl, she would be Isabella or Bella.

Here we are, and I am pregnant with twin girls and my sister in law is pregnant with a little girl as well, we are 2 days apart in our due dates. I was stoked as I thought I would get to use all my favorite names when I pregnant the first time! I was going with Lola and Isobel (nn Bella). I am 27 weeks pregnant BTW. I was set on those names. My sister in law didn’t care, because she knew when she named Marybella, that if I had another girl, Bella would be in the name. BUT my friend who lives in Miami, cares, I live in Texas. I decided to go ahead and talk to her about us choosing the name Lola for one of the twins and she wasn’t happy. She said she didn’t own the name, but that she wanted something unique and put a lot of thought into that name. When I was pregnant with Gianna and we were thinking about using Lola and they were too, they didn’t care. Now it’s an issue. I don’t know what to do because I was set on that name to go with Isobel. From the first kick I felt, I called her Lola. Am I wrong to use that name? I’ve tried to think of variations where we could use the nn Lola, but I’m so torn! HELP!!

Hm. It is hard to know what to advise here, because it seems to me that it should be fine for you to use Lola (your friend knew it was one of your top choices even before she named her daughter; your friend now lives far away; the name Lola was #221 in 2009 and #211 in 2010, so not an ideal choice for uniqueness; you guys had agreed you didn’t mind if you both used the name), but it is not clear in this way to your friend, and that’s the important person for it to be clear to here. And she’s said she doesn’t want you to use it and, depending on how you brought the topic up with her (did it sound at all like asking if it were okay to use it?), may now feel even more upset if you go ahead and use it despite her feelings. Tricky situation.

It’s possible and understandable that she may have changed her feelings about sharing names in the last year or two, and/or since having a child with the actual name (as opposed to just considering candidates). And there could be other things we don’t know: maybe your daughter was born first, and although she knew the name Lola was on both your lists and she wasn’t going to fight you for it, she had decided not to use Lola after all if you ended up using it. Or maybe her daughter was born first, and she’d thought she was okay with name duplication until she found herself holding her breath hoping you didn’t use the name as well. Or maybe she would have thought it was kind of fun if you’d both had daughters named Lola the first time around, but is less keen on it with a 2-year spacing.

These things can get kind of complicated, is where I guess I’m going with this. And it’s easy for an outsider to say “Psh, you should use it! It’s fine! She shouldn’t be upset!”—but of course much harder when you’re on the inside and it’s your actual friend and actual relationship and “should” doesn’t seem to be applying as expected.

So in the meantime, I’d be looking at other similar names to see if there were any I liked as much; there are so many good ones with similar sounds/styles:

Cleo
Delilah
Elodie
Ione
Isla
Leila
Lila
Lyra
Marlo
Mila
Nola
Paloma
Rose
Selah
Stella
Thea
Viola
Willa
Willow

If you don’t like any other name as much as you like the name Lola, you may need to make the decision to go ahead with the name despite your friend’s feelings about it. In which case I think I would be understanding of her feelings, but would gently persist in saying that the name had been on my list since the first pregnancy, and that I was so pleased to get a chance to use all three of my favorites, and that I hoped it would be fun for us to each have our own little Lola.

Michaela writes:

I am due with our first baby (a boy) on the 29th June.
I had “my” boys name in my head for years, Leonardo (after da Vinci, not DiCaprio), with Leo as a NN. It was the only name I had found that I like that I thought sounds good with our surname.
Unfortunately, by complete coincidence, my sister loved the same name, and my beautiful nephew Leo was born a couple of months before I got pregnant. She had no idea how I felt about the name when she chose it, so it is sadly a case of first in, best dressed and no hard feelings.

I thought about using Leo anyway but my sister and I are very close and our kids will spend a lot of time together. I want my bub to have his own name, so have regretfully had to let the name go.

My problem now is that I can’t find another name that my husband and I both like that goes with our surname – Evans.

Seems like a simple enough name to match, but I feel that every name I think of sounds like it runs into our surname, e.g Lucas Evans sounds like Luca Sevens, Kieran Evans sounds like Kira Nevans. My husband and I both like classic names but want to steer clear of anything too on trend or super popular. I have an (until recently) unusual name with an unusual pronunciation and have spent my life correcting people on both spelling and pronunciation and don’t want to subject my little one to the same inconvenience. (in case you are wondering, is spelt Michaela and pronounced Mic Carla, not Mic Kayla)

A surprising finalist (the only one we have so far) is Joseph, which I was happy to see wasn’t as popular these days as I thought it would be. However, I am still concerned about it running into our surname. Does Joseph Evans end up sounding too much like Joseph Fevans, or am I just overthinking this waaaay too much?

Our little one’s middle names will probably be William (after my grandfather) and also maybe (a very uncertain maybe) Glyndor after hubby’s grandad. That gives us a 2-2-2 or 2-2-2-2 rhythm, which I know isn’t ideal but considering how much trouble we are having just finding a first name, it is a whole other issue I’m not quite ready to worry about just yet!

I would love to know your thoughts on run-on sounding names – do you use a full name enough to make that a deal breaker?

The main thing I worry about with run-together names is the inadvertent creation of an incorrect (and sometimes embarrassing) name or word—as with your example of Kieran Evans becoming Kira, or with the classic example of poor Ben Dover. But even when a name could/does create a new name, it’s still not necessarily an issue: Faith Evans could be misheard as Fay Thevans, and yet I never did mishear it that way.

With Joseph Evans, no incorrect or embarrassing name is created. If the surname is sometimes heard as Fevans (and I think there is low risk of this, since Fevans is a very uncommon surname while Evans is familiar), that seems like a very minor issue: most people have to spell their surnames when giving them, and most surnames are regularly misspelled or misheard. And this particular mis-hearing isn’t embarrassing in any way.

As for the syllables/rhythm, it’s a matter of personal taste. I myself like the 2-2-2 rhythm to the point of gravitating toward it, so I think Joseph William Evans is a great name. The only issue I see is that he will not be able to use his monogram if he does the old-fashioned style (first initial, surname initial, middle initial). But I am not seeing much of that monogram style in my own circles, and perhaps you don’t see much of it in yours either. It’s rare for me to even remember to check for issues there.

Because you liked the name Leo and felt that name worked well with your surname, I’d also suggest Milo. Milo William Evans.

Hugo is another similar choice. Hugo William Evans.

Or there’s Arlo or Nico or Matteo or Theo.

I also like William in the first name slot. William Glyndor Evans.

Even if you did choose a name that ran together a little, it would be okay, I think, as long as it didn’t create a name that might embarrass him: that is, I wouldn’t use Kieran/Kira, for example, but I don’t worry so much about Lucas/Luca. You would introduce him carefully: “Hello, I’ve brought Lucas for his appointment. Lucas [pause slightly longer than a space, not quite as long as a period] Evans.” It would quickly become habit, that tiny extra careful spacing. I do it myself, because I’ve found that people can hear my name as Krista if I’m not careful to pause, and because I used to work in a pharmacy and found that almost all first/last names blend together when they’re not familiar to the person wondering whose prescription she’s looking for.

K. writes:

My boyfriend and I are 20 weeks pregnant with a baby boy, due in late September.

The last name will be Puente, and I’d like to use David as a middle name to honor my father.  We’ve had long discussions about names and we have a list of 8, although I don’t feel strongly about any of them, and this list is definitely open to additions.  Here’s the list so far:

Alexander
Jordan
Joshua
Josiah
Nicholas
Noah
Samuel
Shawn

I’m caucasian, my boyfriend is Hispanic, and he doesn’t want a name that’s “too white”… which takes away most of the “surnames as first names” list I tend to love!  We’d like to avoid a first name starting with K, as both of our names start with K and I’m not a fan of that much matchy-matchy.  Somehow though, hard C’s are fine :)

My boyfriend really likes Samuel, which I don’t have a problem with except I love Samantha, nn Sam, for a girl, and I’m not sure I want to take away that option— even though we may or may not have any more kids (this one is a miracle baby, and high risk), and even if we had a girl there are plenty of other names I love too.

I love the way you can look at some names and come up wtih more of the same style, so I’m really hoping you can help us out!

I think “name that would rule out another name” decisions are some of the most difficult to make. There are so many gambles and unknowns involved. I’d start by deciding which name you’d prefer to use if you knew for a fact that you would have a boy and also a girl. You may decide you like Samuel better anyway, in which case problem solved. But if you prefer Samantha, it’s a matter of putting things on a scale: on one side, how much you love the name Samantha; on the other side, things like maybe not having a girl to use it on, having other girl names you also like, how much you like the name Samuel, and how much you think you’d regret not using Samuel if you never had a Samantha.

Looking at your list, I wonder if you’d like:

Aaron
Adrian
Benjamin
Daniel
Darian
Ezra
Hugo
Joseph
Marcus
Micah
Nathaniel
Ruben
Simon
Xavier
Zachary

Ashley writes:

I would love your (and readers help) naming our second son, who is due August 25th.  Our first son is named Reuben Harm.  I love the softness of the name Reuben, but that it’s still a masculine name.  His middle name is after my father (it’s the Dutch form of Harry).  We’d like the second to have the middle name Alfred, after my husbands father.

The problems we’re having naming our second son is:
1.  A lot of the names we like rhyme with Loewen.  Because if the rhyming factor, we would prefer not to have a name with a strong “u” sound or “en” ending.
2.  For flow, an “L” at the end of a name doesn’t really work either.
3.  We have a lot of nephews with great names:  Nathanael, Isaac, Toby, Levi, Eli, Benjamin, Jonas, Asher, Callum, Ronan, and Aaro.
4.  I’m not a nickname person.  It just doesn’t come naturally to me.

Names like and could work:
1.  James Alfred (my favourite so far, my only qualm is that it’s quite more common than Reuben, and “Reuben James” is a song).
2.  Josiah Alfred (it’s okay, maybe a little too Biblical for me).

Names we like that don’t work:  Hugh, Samuel, Simon, and Owen (the worst!)

Vetoed names my husband likes:  Carson and Calvin (I just don’t like the hard “C”).

Vetoed names I like:  Edmund and Henry

Please help us find a nice, soft, yet masculine name.  :)

Thank you!