Middle Name Challenge: Welles _________ Johnston

15 Replies

Hello! We are very excited about our 2nd child. We are naming the baby Welles regardless if it is a boy or a girl. For a girl we like Welles Katherine or Welles Kate but we are totally stumped for a boy middle name. For our first, we used Pierce Robert. Our last name is Johnston. What do you think? Baby is due in spring!

It looks to me as if you may like classic/traditional middle names: your first son’s middle is Robert, and your middle name choice for a girl this time is Katherine. (I prefer Welles Katherine to Wells Kate, rhythm-wise and also because I get a little bit of Well Skate run-together.) Are Robert and Katherine honor names? If so, that’s where I’d look for a boy’s middle name.

If they’re not honor names, then I’d start by looking for names of a similar style. I was combing through possibilities and none seemed quite right until I came to Welles Henry Johnston. That’s my favorite. More possibilities:

Welles Frederick Johnston
Welles Philip/Phillip Johnston
Welles Thomas Johnston

A middle-name-finding strategy I used for my own kids’ names was to go through the baby name book saying each combination rapidly in my head and seeing if any stood out: Welles Aaron Johnston, Welles Abel Johnston, Welles Abraham Johnston, and so on. Not taking a long time over it or even necessarily trying each possibility carefully/individually, just sort of skimming fast while saying Welles ____ Johnston over and over, and seeing what felt like it clicked into place. I didn’t go through the whole name book, but a few that stood out to me:

Welles Alexander Johnston
Welles David Johnston
Welles Davis Johnston
Welles Douglas Johnston
Welles Gilbert Johnston
Welles Griffith Johnston
Welles Hugo Johnston
Welles Kenneth Johnston
Welles Leonard Johnston
Welles Lucas Johnston
Welles Matthew Johnston
Welles Michael Johnston
Welles Nicholas Johnston
Welles Patrick Johnston
Welles Russell Johnston (a little L/S heavy?)
Welles Theodore Johnston
Welles Timothy Johnston

Baby Name to Consider: Winsome

22 Replies

Hi Swistle,

I have no baby to name at the moment but always have names and words on the brain. I’d love to know what you and your readers think of Winsome as a name for a girl. I’ve decided it is about my favorite word in the English language and have started to wonder if it could work as a name. I wondered if maybe the Puritans used it, with their penchant for out-there virtue names, but I can’t find any evidence to suggest so in my limited searching. It seems like nicknames like Winny or Wynn could make it more wearable, but is it maybe still a bit too much?

Thanks,
Jodi

My first association surprises me, because I’m familiar with the word winsome and I like it very much (a winsome smile, a winsome curl, a winsome glance)—and yet my first association when I said it aloud as a name was with wince and wincing. I wonder if it’s because I’m familiar with the word in books but I don’t use it in speaking? I continue to like the way it looks written down, but I liked it less when I said/heard it.

My second association, after I’d said it aloud a few more times, was “win some, lose some.”

My third association was with the name Winston, which is a name I like. But perhaps because it’s a name I’m familiar with, while Winsome is not familiar to me, my tongue tangled over it—as if the name were supposed to be Winston and I were saying it wrong.

The name is very uncommon (I looked in a sampling of Social Security data bases and didn’t find it in a single one, which means in the U.S. it was used 0-4 times in those years), but it HAS been used from time to time: I found references to Winsome Evans, Winsome McCaughey, Winsome Pinnick (Nameberry); and Winsome Sears (The Baby Name Wizard). I suspect that being familiar with one of those Winsomes would dramatically improve the name-like feel of the name.

“Win” is a moderately familiar name segment, though not currently in style: Winifred, Winnie, Winston, Winter, Winslow, Winona, Darwin, Edwin, Irwin. The “some” segment is less familiar for names in the U.S.: Summer and Blossom were the only two I could come up with—but Summer was more common in 2013 than all the Win-/-win names combined. Oh, wait, I forget about -wen/-wan: some of those might count as Win-/-win names, depending on local pronunciation: Owen, Rowen/Rowan, Ewan—even Wendy and Gwyneth and Gwendolyn might increase the name-like quality of the sound.

One thing that makes me nervous about many virtue names is that they seem to set such a clear expectation—and to make the wearer look a little foolish if that expectation isn’t met. A girl named Patience would have reason to assume that her parents expected her to exhibit that trait—and any time she ISN’T patient, she sets herself up for an easy joke. Winsome is less of an issue because the word is less familiar/used than a word like patience, but I still feel it could be a bit of a burden for a serious sort of girl. The definition isn’t particularly appealing to me if I imagine it applied to myself: “Charming in a childlike or naive way” (American Heritage Dictionary). Sweet on a small girl, but less so on an adult.

I feel quite differently about it as a middle name. It’s in the category of names I sometimes wish I’d used for my own kids’ middles: something adventurous and fun and interesting.

As a first name, I think I’d be more inclined to choose Winifred: you could use Winsome as a pet name without committing her to it.

Let’s see what everyone else thinks:

[yop_poll id=”59″]

Baby Boy Decker

30 Replies

Hi Swistle!

I am a first-time expectant mother and it goes without saying that I am more anxious than I have ever felt. It doesn’t help that I keep fearing my son being called “little guy” forever as we cannot decide upon a name. My boyfriend and I both agree that his name should be unique but not outrageous, which seems hard to do for a boy’s name! His middle name will be Andrew and his last name will be Decker. If we were having a girl the top two competitors were Ryne Faye and Emason Rey (after my great grandfather Emerson Reynolds). Our first contender for a boy’s name was Bentley but while testing it aloud one day we both agreed we no longer had an interest in it at all! After giving it a few months break I came up with Caden which everyone really liked until we realized it is very close to my younger brother’s name, Kasyn. As my due date keeps approaching I fear not having a name for my baby. Please help!!

Thanks, Caitlin

I think it would be fine to have a son Caden and a brother Kasyn; you could even spin it as a partial honor name, if you wanted. A bigger concern is that you’re looking for something unusual, and Caden belongs to “the -adens”: a group of names so large and prevalent, even some people not normally interested in baby names have become aware of them. The name Caden itself isn’t particularly common (though multiple spellings Cayden, Caiden, Kayden, Kaiden, Kaden do add up), but its popularity can feel combined with the popularity of Jaden, Hayden, Brayden, and the recently-top-10 Aiden.

The middle name Andrew is a little difficult to work with, because with your surname you end up with the initials _AD. Depending on how you feel about initials spelling words, this could rule out BAD, CAD, DAD, FAD, HAD, LAD, MAD, NAD, PAD, RAD, SAD, TAD, and WAD. I might be okay with HAD or PAD, and I can picture RAD or LAD being fun, and TAD would give a good nickname option, but I would avoid BAD, CAD, etc. I’m not sure how set the middle name is (that is, is it in stone, or could it be changed for the right first name?), so I’m making my list of suggestions below as if the middle name is still under discussion. If you love a first name that causes the initials to spell an unpleasant word, one option is to add another middle name: Brady Andrew Emerson Decker, for example, or Crosby Andrew Emerson Decker. (Reynolds is another good possibility, as is Rey, though then we get initials such as CARD and BARD and WARD, which at least are fine words to spell.)

Ashton
Brady
Bryson
Cade
Camden
Carson
Casey
Corbin
Crosby
Grady
Holden
Kai
Keane
Keaton
Keegan
Kieran
Lawson
Wilson

I wonder, too, if we could make an honor name out of your great-grandfather’s name, or if there are other family members whose names you could use. Greyson, for example, while possibly more common than you’d prefer, has the -rey- of Reynolds and the -son of Emerson. Reyson would be an uncommon possibility, but it sounds similar to raisin.

I like the idea of Rey, too: Rey Andrew Decker, or Rey Emerson Decker, or Rey Andrew Emerson Decker.

Or I originally had Grey on my suggestion list, but Grey Decker made me think of deck colors, not that that’s a terrible association. Grey Emerson Decker, or Grey Andrew Decker.

Baby Name to Consider: Covington

45 Replies

Hi Swistle,

My name is Kathryn Noblitt (“knob”- litt) and I have been reading your blog for a while. My husband is William and we have two kids, a boy, Miller who is 3.5 and a girl, Reese who is almost 1. I am currently 23 weeks pregnant surprise baby number three, and we aren’t finding out the sex.

We are pretty set on using a family name — both Miller and Reese are family names. If it’s a girl it will most likely be Ellis (Clare or Marie as middle name). If it’s a boy we are having some trouble….our top name for a while has been Sullivan (occasional nn Sully, middle name Patrick) but lately my husband has mentioned wanting to use his middle name, also a family surname, which is Covington. I have always loved the name Covington, and I think it would be a great middle name if we were using a more traditional first name (obviously doesn’t go with Sullivan) but I just struggle to picture it as a first name, especially with its lack of nickname options. I wanted to get your opinion and/or perhaps a poll from your readers on Covington as a first name. Sometimes I can see it and sometimes I cant!

We like surname names and unisex names and, like I said, are pretty set on using a family name which all of the above are.

Thank you for any help you can offer us!!

Kathryn

I share your feeling: I love the sound of it, but it’s a struggle to make it seem like a first name. Many surnames have transferred to first name use, but many others have not. Miller transfers well, Wilson transfers well, Delaney and Avery and Sawyer transfer well; but Covington feels to me more like Lancaster or Clements or Hathaway: there’s no particular reason it shouldn’t work as well as other surnames, but for some reason it isn’t being used as a first name in the United States right now.

To me it sounds like a place: perhaps a castle, or an estate. I can picture saying, “Jeeves, pack my things: we set off for Covington this afternoon.” There is something about the name that brings castles/estates/butlers to mind; it reminds me of the sound of Buckingham and Kensington. (Buckingham is not used as a first name in the U.S., but Kensington was used for 223 new baby girls and 11 baby boys in 2013.)

One exercise that may be helpful is to try the name on your first son, as if it were a sweater you could test on him to see if it would fit his brother. Look at him and think “Covington.” Or look at men and boys of various ages when you’re out in public: try the name on each one of them. Imagine one of them introduces himself to you as Covington. Try calling it out loud when no one’s around: “Covington, come to dinner!” “Covington, have you done your homework?” Pretend to introduce him to someone: “This is my son, Covington Noblitt.” Imagine arriving for his appointments: “Hello! This is Covington Noblitt. We have a ten o’clock appointment.”

As a middle name, I think it’s spectacular: cool, distinguished, and I love preserving family surnames.

As a first name I’m less certain, especially with your surname. Covington Noblitt.

Are you planning to have more children after this one? Sullivan seems like such a hit, it’s hard to imagine ditching it in order to make a middle name work.

Covington works well as a middle name if you have a girl: I think Ellis Covington sounds nice. My only hesitation is that with unisex first names I generally prefer to use “hint” middle names (i.e., names that are used exclusively for boys/girls, to give options and reduce paperwork errors)—but that may not be your own preference, in which case it isn’t an issue and I’d make that the deal: if you have a girl, you’ll use Ellis Covington; if a boy, Sullivan Patrick, and maybe Covington as a middle name for the next child.

Let’s have a poll to see what everyone else things of the first-name-ishness of Covington:

[yop_poll id=”58″]

Name update!

Hi Swistle,

I want to thank you and your readers so much for the help with our naming dilemma. Your comments helped us decide that, as much as we love the name Covington, it was not suitable for a first name. We had decided on Sullivan Patrick for a boy…but we ended up welcoming a new baby girl on January 24th! We named her Ellis Clare…I liked the suggestions of Covington as a middle name for Ellis, but we really wanted something clearly feminine and also a saint/biblical name since we are Catholic. Also I thought it was funny one reader suggested Wilson for a boy…that’s our dog’s name!! Ellis is doing great and her big brother and sister love her! Miller and Reese are in the picture holding her. Thanks again!!

Kathryn

Name Update!

Baby Twin Girls Bedingf!eld

61 Replies

Hi Swistle!

I’m SO. EXCITED. to finally be sending you my own baby name question, after reading your blog for at least 7 years and your baby name blog since its inception.

Even more exciting? TWINS. They’re quite likely identical, so anything that makes their names too matchy or hard-to-keep-separate is out for us (not the same first letter, definitely not rhyming), but I’d love it if there’s some subtle connection.

We have two names that my husband and I both like, maybe love, and have had in mind for a good long time. It kind of surprises me that I latched onto something so quickly, so I’ve resisted closing the case. We’ll probably not decide for sure til we meet them.

Top contenders:
Eleanor nn either Ella or Nora
Beatrice nn Bea — okay with the alliteration, many in husband’s fam have names that start with B. He goes by Bo, so is it cute that her nickname (and full name with nickname) would be so much like his, or weird?

Others that we love:
Madeleine — maybe too close to my name?
Everly nn Eve — maybe too Southern (though we are Southern, and do love the Everly Brothers, but maybe not enough to give them what appears to be a namesake?)
Louisa nn Lula / Lou
Adelaide or Adeline nn Delia / Ada
Olivia nn Ollie — out because someone else in the family has dibs!

Another strong possibility is that we could call one of them Cole, which is my last name; I didn’t change my name when we got married. After some tense conversations, I’ve accepted that the girls’ last name will be the same as my husband’s, Bedingfie!d. (Aside: does ANYONE out there agree with me that giving one my surname and one my husband’s is even an option? I get horrified looks from most people, including my husband, when broaching this, but it’s the only FAIR thing, isn’t it? Won’t identical twins already have enough in common? I do grant that they could consider us to be crazy later on. No matter, pretty much vetoed. Don’t worry, folks who think I’m insane.)

But I’ve always thought Cole could be a very cute girls’ name. I like it when I give my name as Cole and get the impression the other person thinks it’s my first name and I’m all cool girl. But given how much more common it is as a boys’ name (3432 M, 13 F in 2013), I don’t feel like it’s okay to give it as a girl’s first name by itself. We looked at possibilities for names for which it could be a nickname (Colette is my fave, Nicole, maybe Colleen), but don’t love any of them. So maybe just Cole as a middle name to go by? But then should only one of them get my name as their middle? If one is going by it, it would be weird to give it as a middle for both, right? Maybe two middles, one first, one secondary? (Thanks for this post https://www.swistle.com/babynames/2014/08/01/baby-girl-l______-sister-to-daniel-danny-and-thomas-tommy/ on the logistics for your family with two middles!) We have a few family names we love that could get in the middle name game, primarily my husband’s grandmother, Lita, who’s an identical triplet, but also two great-aunts of mine, Ruth and Virginia.

May have more kids later… not sure I can think about it with a house remodel still not finished, and two (!!) newborns en route in the next few months. Due date is December 6, so we hope they’ll stay put at least til November. On the chance we do end up with a boy someday, some boys’ names we like: Milo, Emmett, Hugo, Oscar, Finn.

So — help with middles, any ideas that could trump our faves, any cute connections between names aside from general stylistic compatibility?

Thanks so much! Can’t wait to send pictures! I mean, I can wait, especially as long as we still have sheetrock dust in our house, but I’m very excited about the update to this post!

Cheers,
Marilyn

I think Eleanor and Beatrice are wonderful twin names, and it’s my favorite pairing from your list. I like the subtly matching -ea-. I think it’s cute and not weird to have a father Bo and daughter Bea. If you were to decide it was too similar, my second favorite set is almost a tie: Eleanor and Louisa, with Eleanor and Adelaide/Adeline right behind. The one thing that makes Eleanor and Adelaide/Adeline my second choice is that you’d prefer nicknames for Adelaide/Adeline that I think could be tough to implement, and she might end up Addy. I also like Louisa and Adeline—but again, it sinks lower on my list because of nickname issues.

Cole is dramatically different in style from the rest of your list, and it seems like trying to call one twin Cole immediately creates a tangle of issues. I think my top choice would be to use it as a middle name for both girls (and all subsequent children).

If you were strongly motivated to call one twin Cole, I would suggest this:

1. Beatrice, called Bea, would share ties with her dad’s name because of the similar nicknames/alliteration,

2. So then Eleanor would share ties with your name, by being named Eleanor Cole and called Cole (the Elean- part of her name also sounds similar to the -ilyn part of your name).

I would choose a different middle name then for Beatrice, perhaps Lita (another tie to her dad’s side) or Marilyn (so that each girl would have a part of her mother’s name).

Or if you decided you loved the name Colette, you could have Beatrice (called Bea, a tie to her dad) and Colette (called Cole, a tie to her mom). Perhaps Beatrice Lita and Colette Ruth.

I do think giving twins different surnames is a startling idea. I think it would be a statement not worth the ensuing confusion. The symbolism seems tricky to handle: surnames are packed with meaning, which is why it can be so incredibly annoying/upsetting to give up our own, or to give our children our husband’s family’s name. Applying those issues in such a dramatic and potentially divisive way to twins’ names makes me feel uneasy.

If the girls are going to have their father’s surname, and you have kept your surname, this makes me vote a second time to give them your surname as a middle name. I think it would also be an excellent name to keep in mind for a possible future son. (I think it would be fine to use it as the girls’ middle names AND as a son’s first name. I would think of it as “including your surname somewhere in each child’s name.” If there were to be a second son, I would use it as his middle name. Or I might decide to use it as a middle name for all the children, and not as anyone’s first name.)

Middle names. My favorite option is to use your surname AND an additional middle name, so that preserving your surname doesn’t mean losing the fun of choosing middles. I first thought to ask what Lita’s sisters’ names were, but then realized it would be awkward to use two triplet names and leave out the third. So: Lita, Ruth, and Virginia. I think my favorite would be to use Ruth and Lita, since they’re both four letters.

Eleanor Lita Cole and Beatrice Ruth Cole
Eleanor Lita Cole and Louisa Ruth Cole
Eleanor Lita Cole and Adelaide Ruth Cole
Eleanor Lita Cole and Adeline Ruth Cole

Another option, since the children will have your husband’s surname, is to use both names from your side of the family. This feels roughly even to me: two middles come closer to the impact of one surname.

Eleanor Virginia Cole and Beatrice Ruth Cole
Eleanor Virginia Cole and Louisa Ruth Cole
Eleanor Virginia Cole and Adelaide Ruth Cole
Eleanor Ruth Cole and Adeline Virginia Cole

Name update!

Hi Swistle!

Thanks so much for all your sweet thoughtful input on our daughters’ names. Everyone helped us seal the deal on Eleanor and Beatrice. In light of wanting Bo’s maternal grandmother (an identical triplet) to be a namesake, we looked up my maternal grandmother’s name, Rhea, and realized she’s in Greek mythology as the mother of Romulus and Remus! So we ended up with Eleanor Lita Cole Bedingf!eld and Beatrice Rhea Cole Bedingf!eld. We’re calling them Nora and Bea. Merry Christmas to you all!

Baby Boy Carson-with-an-L, Brother to Archer: Suddenly Can’t Use the Name They’d Chosen

32 Replies

Hi Swistle,

I don’t know if you will get to this before I actually have the baby, as I am getting induced Tuesday, but for reasons I’m not going to go into, we can no longer use the baby name we have been planning on THE ENTIRE PREGNANCY. The name we have been calling him, the name we told our other son, the name we love. :-( I am obviously feeling hormonal and have been crying over this all weekend and just feel like poop about the whole situation.

So, *brisk clap*, I’d like some opinions on some second choice names that we had eliminated for one reason or another. We also have a two year old son named Archer (who you guys helped name!).

Here are a few names we like and reasons why they were/are problematic:

Anders (This would have been our pick, but is it too close to Archer? I don’t want my kids to have matchy matchy names. He would probably get called Andy often which doesn’t bother me, and I like that it throws back to our Scandinavian heritage.)

Theodore (I like the name, but I don’t like the nickname Theo, which I’m sure he would be called. I do like the nickname Teddy, but I’m not sure it would grow with him.)

August (Just not sure if I would love it forever, if it’s too trendy, etc.)
If you guys have any other suggestions it would be SO appreciated. Thanks guys!

– J.

I wish right now for an office, with comfortable chairs and a box of tissues and a little table for having tea. I would call you in for tea, and we would sip, and I would feed you petits fours and I would PRY. Because that is my first impulse: to get the WHOLE STORY. I want to know the name that had to be given up, because then I could look for names of a similar style. But then I also want to know WHY it had to be given up, in case what is needed here is a firm discussion of circumstances in which a name does NOT need to be given up, even though in the midst of panic and hormones and dismay it might seem that it DOES.

Well. You have told us what you have told us, and I must assume that if you say the name is absolutely unusable, the name is absolutely unusable. But my first suggestion is still to consider whether it really is unusable. For example, did a friend/relative/celebrity just use the same name for their baby? The name is still usable for you, and your line is “OMG!! I can’t believe it!! That is the name we chose for OUR son! What a coincidence!” And it seems like there are a lot of other situations where the initial reaction might be to strike the name, but where that would not be the only option. Well, we will assume you have one of the OTHER sorts of reasons, the kind where the name is now absolutely unusable.

If we knew what the name IS (and why it was rejected, so that we know how close the new name can be to the original choice), that could help us choose something else that might make you happy. For example, if the name were Miller, and if you just found out something that makes Miller unusable but Meyer or Mercer or Baker or Turner would work, well then! We’d be halfway there!

Archer and Anders are indeed similar: both start with A, both have two syllables, both have six letters, both have an -er- sound; and because the -er- is at the end of one and nearly at the end of the other, they come close to rhyming (Archer and Ander). But they also have different A-sounds, some different prominent consonant sounds, and the endings don’t match even though they come close. They are similar, yes, but if you love the name Anders, and if you are down to the wire, I’d say you have a good possibility here.

In general, when parents strongly dislike the nickname of a name, I do recommend against using it. But I also reassure that right now is a very good time to avoid nicknames: a Theodore would not for sure be called Theo, unless you or he chose it. Teddy might not grow with him, but I don’t see any reason Ted wouldn’t—or of course he could switch back to Theodore.

August doesn’t seem at all trendy to me. While I can’t assure you that you will love the name forever, I don’t see any reason you wouldn’t. And if you like nicknames, I love Archie and Gus together.

Any of the three names on your list will serve your son well. If the name you wanted is indeed ruled out (and I do urge you to make VERY SURE it REALLY IS ruled out before you give up on it) (okay, now I will stop with that), you have three very good candidates to take its place. A few more possibilities to consider (some pulled from the Nordic section of The Baby Name Wizard):

Aidric
Broder (maybe too much -er with Archer)
Emmett
Emil (the -l might blend a bit with the L- of the surname)
Everett
Hugo
Jasper (maybe too much -er with Archer)
Mathias
Miles
Niels
Niko

There were quite a few others that I liked but that didn’t quite work with the surname. Soren, for example, seemed rhymey/sing-song with the -son of your surname. Or Finn: if I say the full name carefully, the -inn isn’t rhymey with the -on; but I found I didn’t say it carefully. And I wanted to recommend Anderson instead of Anders, but that doesn’t work with the -son surname.

Let’s also have a poll for your three finalists:

[yop_poll id=”57″]

Baby Girl Heintz, Sister to Isabelle and Caroline

36 Replies

Hi Swistle,

We are expecting a sweet baby girl in early-November. We are in a naming conundrum! We have two daughters already, Isabelle Claire and Caroline Lurah. It should be worth noting that Lurah is a family name from my husbands side – the other names are just ones that we liked. Naming 3 girls is just as complicated as I expected!

My husband insists that he essentially named the other two girls, so he has been pretty hands off with naming this one. As you can imagine, this makes me very anxious to pick the “right” name with minimal input from him. Ultimately, he can veto a name he absolutely does not like, we haven’t had many of those – but there are a number of names I know that he is not a fan of). I will add that I want the names to somewhat flow together, or be of the same genre. Basically I’ve just picked from names that we’ve had on our girl list along the way; adding just a few.

Names that I like, along with the rationale why they aren’t -the one-:
— Madeline (this is currently our first pick, however I have a first cousin with this name, while we live in different states and she will be 17 yrs older than this baby, I can’t completely convince myself that using this name is ideal. I have discussed the name with her mom and they are over the moon if I were to use it. Our family is not huge, I have about 10 first cousins total – but I get the feeling that my other family members think it is a little weird to use it.)
— Mary Kathryn (husband really dislikes hyphenated names; I don’t like Mary as a stand alone name.)
— Kathryn (husband has a second-cousin named this and he is not interested in repeating this name.)
— Palmer (not sure that it flows with the other 2 daughters names since it is more of a unisex/ or surname. considered pairing it with a feminine middle name like Kate – but husband thought that a nickname wasn’t ideal as a name-name).
— Brooke (ideally we would have gone with Brooke; we would have been done and done. We’ve had this name as a runner up for daughter #2. However, about 2 years ago my husbands mom got remarried and her new last name is Brooke and her husband goes by Brooke).
– -Georgia (hands down, my all time favorite girl name. Would have used it for the first 2 girls IF the husband was on board. This may be his least favorite name, but he has mentioned he wouldn’t veto it this time around. With that said, my only conflict about using it is that I would then have two daughters nearly-named after states as Caroline could easily be thought of as Carolina.)

I love the idea of using family names, but unfortunately we don’t have any that we like or even convince ourselves to use as a first name.

Please! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Desiree Heintz

First: do you agree that your husband named the first two girls, and do you agree that this means you should have/get to do the work of naming the third on your own? I think I would start with that. My feeling is that unless that was the deal (“I’ll handle it this time but then you do it next time, okay?” or “How about I get my choice this time, but then you get your choice next time?”), both parents are still responsible for the work of naming. (Unless of course you would LIKE it to be up to you this time.) Perhaps this can be given an amiable spin: he did such a good job with the first two girls’ names, you would really like him to work with you on the third; this is a special parental responsibility and you would like to do it as a team; etc.

It depends in part on what the circumstances were surrounding the choice of the first two girls’ names. Did he get his way on names you weren’t initially crazy about, so he’s graciously backing down to give you a fair chance? (In which case, I’d steer you directly to the name Georgia.) Did you both put in equal work on the names, but the final choices happened to be ones he originally added to the list so he considers them “his”? Or did he in fact do much more work on it, researching and list-making and bringing name suggestions to the discussion and so forth, while you did in fact do much less? (If needed, you could bring out the “Okay! And with the first two I did ALL the BUILDING of the baby in my OWN BODY! So THIS time I’ll choose the name and YOU be pregnant!” But perhaps you are a less argumentative/resentful pregnant woman than I was.)

Let’s go through your list so far. Madeline sounds great to me: very compatible with Isabelle and Caroline. I like that all three have three syllables, and all three have an L sound. I wouldn’t be concerned about the cousin with the same name: the actual input you’ve received is of the thrilled variety, and the only negative input is what you feel others might think: this is not only unconfirmed but also possibly irrelevant (i.e., if they DO think it’s a little odd, is that enough of a reason not to use a name, or is that something you think they’ll dwell on for about 30 seconds after hearing the birth announcement and then never think about or care about ever again?). It’s extremely common for names to be used multiple times within a family, and you say you’d like to use a family name. My only hesitation is the matching -line endings of Caroline and Madeline: if they’re pronounced the same, it seems too matched; if they’re pronounced differently, it seems confusing. This would not be enough for me to rule it out, but it would be a mark against it.

Mary Kathryn and Kathryn both sound like they’ve been vetoed.

If I had veto power, I would veto Palmer. It’s such a clashingly different style from the first two girls’ names. Perhaps as a middle name if you love it.

Brooke sounds as if it’s out of the running.

Georgia is interesting to me. It’s your favorite. Your husband’s position is that he chose the first two girls’ names, and it is your job to choose the third girl’s name, and he will not veto this one. I would be torn here, if I were you: Do you keep looking for a name you both love, or do you say, “Great! You want me to choose? This is what I choose!” It is your hands-down, all-time-favorite girl name and your husband is saying go ahead, so I think if I were you I would go ahead. As a middle name, perhaps, if you decide not to use it as the first.

I think it’s possible a few people would notice and point out that Caroline could be turned (with pronunciation, spelling, emphasis, and syllable changes) into Carolina, which would indeed be the name of a state if we also added “North” or “South” to it—but I don’t think of it as a glaringly obvious issue, or as a negative one. Certainly not enough of an issue to rule out using your favorite name. At worst, it’s a little bit cute/interesting.

More possibilities to consider:

Adelaide; Isabelle, Caroline, and Adelaide
Amelia; Isabelle, Caroline, and Amelia
Anneliese/Annalise; Isabelle, Caroline, and Annalise
Audrey; Isabelle, Caroline, and Audrey
Eleanor; Isabelle, Caroline, and Eleanor
Evelyn; Isabelle, Caroline, and Evelyn
Genevieve; Isabelle, Caroline, and Genevieve
Josephine; Isabelle, Caroline, and Josephine
Lillian; Isabelle, Caroline, and Lillian
Mallory; Isabelle, Caroline, and Mallory
Margaret; Isabelle, Caroline, and Margaret
Meredith; Isabelle, Caroline, and Meredith
Miranda; Isabelle, Caroline, and Miranda
Natalie; Isabelle, Caroline, and Natalie
Sabrina; Isabelle, Caroline, and Sabrina
Vivian; Isabelle, Caroline, and Vivian

Baby Girl or Boy Am0s

34 Replies

Hello Swistle!

I’ve been following your blog for a long time, well before marriage, children, and the like. I never imagined needing your assistance, given my long lead time on coming up with a name, but here we are, seven weeks out from the due date (11/7), and I’m getting cold feet (about the name, not the child. Whew.)

We are keeping all names close to the vest, so I find myself unable to talk through any of this with someone, and it’s beginning to play with my 3rd trimester brain. I would so appreciate your thoughts. We are not finding out the gender and would like to go in with 2 names for each and see what the wrinkly little person looks like. We’re good on boys; need some help & possible reassurance on girls.

I am a Sarah and my husband’s name is Michael, nn Mike. (Yes, why we are two children of the mid-80s!) My name is a family name, after my father’s sister who passed away (she went by Sally). Both our middle names are our mothers’ maiden, which is a traditional special to us that we thought we’d continue, though it hasn’t happened in our picks thus far. My maiden name is She@n, pronounced Shee-h@n. Mike’s middle & his mother’s maiden is Un, a name with origins in China. We are from Catholic families (mine Irish, his Filipino) and as such, have some names that are very common to us that are off limits because we do. not. need. another. Patrick.

We feel pretty confident about our boy names: Oliver Hind3ry Am0s and Theodore Francis Am0s. Oliver is a name we discussed about in hushed tones and excitement the night we got engaged, when we spoke about our potential baby names for the first time. Hind3ry is my middle name, my mother’s maiden, and a side of the family that to which I am extremely close (much closer than to the She@n side). It would ‘sub’ for our maiden name tradition. Theodore (nn Teddy or Theo) is a name we are drawn to and in doing genealogy research, found out my husband’s great grandmother was named Teodora. Francis is my grandfather’s middle name, and he was such a special man that it’d be wonderful to have my son share part of his name. Putting the honor in the middle feels like a special secret between the generations.

Girls… enter the cold feet.

We had settled on Margaret Un Am0s. My mother and sister are both Margarets (Margie and Megie, respectively) and it’s a beloved but not overused name in my family. (Most, if not all, have gone by nicknames, including Peggy). Since it would be an honorific first name, I would not use my maiden or my middle name/mother’s maiden, as then it would be the exact name of either. (Bridge too far.) She would share a middle name with my husband and have matching initials, MUA, with him and her paternal grandmother. It’s good, right?

The hang-up with Margaret is the nickname. I had, for years, liked Molly for Margaret, even though I know it’s not traditional. (I’m blatantly stealing the nickname from Mary, but see Catholic roots above. No more Mary’s please!) But now I’m getting nervous. It feels so… cutsey. I think the “y” ending is throwing me. Can we have a Judge Molly? A President Molly? A Molly who walks into a boardroom of older men and is taken seriously? How much, if any, attention should we pay to the slight drug association? Many of the common nicknames of Margaret (Meg, Peg, Maggie, etc.) are off the table for various reasons. My husband has veto’d Greta. Is ‘Mim’ too out there as a possible nickname? On a scale of one to very, how desperate do I seem?

The other girl name is Audrey Amos. I do love this name, have a dear childhood friend as the only Audrey I know, & enjoy the alliteration since I was a Sarah She@n for so long, but we are stuck on the middle. Audrey She@n Am0s sounds so serious – I think? Hind3ry is too many “y’s”. Adelia is a family name from waaaay back and I do like it, but it just doesn’t feel as special as I have no ‘real’ personal connection to the ancient Adelia.

I have, in the past, liked more unisex names for girls, like Emerson and Addison, but they are not my husband’s cup of tea. I’d love to honor my grandmother, Wanda, but I just can’t with the Wanda.

We plan on having 3-4 children and unused names from this round will likely be future contenders.

I hope you have time to read my novella and share with your blog. I simply cannot think my way out of this one!

In your debt,
Sarah

The very reason many parents give for using a full name on the birth certificate is that the child then has something to fall back on later if the nickname is not serious enough. So for me, “Is Molly serious enough for future serious professions?” is not even a question that needs to be addressed: if it is not serious enough, she will be able to use Margaret. Judge Margaret, President Margaret, Margaret walking into the board room. No problem here.

The drug association, I also dismiss. It is fully possible that there are people whose first association with the name is drug-related, but I doubt this applies to a significant segment of the population. Even people who DO first associate the name Molly with drugs are surely also familiar with it as a girls’ given name, and so would not react as if you’d named your daughter Cocaine or Marijuana. Names such as Jack and John have far worse slang associated with them, and yet the names persevere.

A bigger concern for me is that you say all the usual nicknames for Margaret are off the table for one reason or another. Many children do go their entire lives using the nickname their parents selected—but many others choose a different nickname. However, maybe the nicknames are unavailable for reasons that your daughter will agree with, or maybe you mean they’re off the table as PLANNED choices but would be completely acceptable as just-came-about-on-their-own ones—things like, “My sister goes by Meg, and that would be confusing,” where it would not be the nickname you’d choose, but it would be completely fine if your 17-year-old Molly decided to be Meg when she started college.

You don’t specifically mention the nickname Daisy, though that may be included in “etc.” That one has some of the appeal of Molly, and seems like a particularly fun, Little-Womenesque choice in a family where there is also a Grandma Margaret and an Aunt Margaret.

Mim seems as connected to Margaret as Molly does, so I don’t see any reason you couldn’t use it—but I don’t see the advantage of using it instead of the nickname you prefer. One advantage of Molly is that a lot of people are confused about which seemingly unconnected traditional nicknames (Peg, Polly, Molly, Sally, Daisy, Jack) go with which full names, and my guess is that a fair number of people would think, “Oh, right, Molly is one of those seemingly-unconnected nicknames for Margaret”: I did it myself for a moment, and I’m more interested in names than the average person.

By the way, I like your whole concept of expanding the mother’s-maiden-name-as-middle-name tradition to include more maiden names. I think traditions end up being most pleasing and least burdensome when they’re FLEXIBLE. I think if I were you, I’d use a different family maiden name for each child—for the fun of it, and also to preserve as many family surnames as possible. Since the children will have their father’s surname, I’d be inclined to choose more names from your side of the family, but I wouldn’t be opposed to choosing an equal number from each side. (I would, however, be careful not to choose more from the father’s side.)
Audrey is also a great choice. I don’t think Audrey She@n Am0s is any more serious than Margaret Un Am0s, so that’s what I’d go with. Audrey Un Am0s seems like another good option. Or if you decide not to use maiden names for everyone’s middle, Audrey Frances would be a nice way to honor your grandfather. (But I’m very fond of the idea of a bunch of maiden names.)

I do think it’s most likely that this is cold feet rather than serious hesitation. Margaret and Audrey are both wonderful names with significance for you, and they go beautifully with Oliver and Theodore.

Name update!

Hi Swistle!

A quick update from the newborn haze: Margaret (Molly) Un Am0s made her way into the world on 11/09. The minute she landed on my chest she was a Molly; I just KNEW. (We didn’t even talk alternatives. After the difficult labor, my husband would have let me name her ‘Bob’ if I had wanted.) Thank you for all the thoughts, support, and wonderful nickname suggestions for Margaret. This blog and your readers are the best.

Cheers,
Sarah & Mol

Baby Boy Cabrera, Brother to Jude and Jonah: Do They Have to Choose a J Name?

30 Replies

Hello Swistle! We are having a major name dilemma for our third boy coming this thanksgiving. Our first is named Jude, our second Jonah. We didn’t set out to name them both with the same initial, we just liked the names. My name also starts with a j, however my husbands does not. We would like a biblical name, as our other boys. We also would like to stay away from very common names (Jacob, James, John).
Can we pick a name that doesn’t start with a j? I go back and forth, I don’t want him go feel left out, but I don’t want to settle on a name we don’t love. We probably will have one more child. If we were to have a girl we had Lucia picked out. Our last name is Cabrera.

Some names we have considered:

Gideon
Titus
Jacoby (same meaning as Jacob)
Luca (Italian for Luke)

We just haven’t found “the one”. Please help us! Thank you!

Julie

Certainly you can name him a name that doesn’t start with J. And if you’re already out of J names, and you’re planning a fourth child, this is definitely the moment to stop: after two it’s still easy to say “Oh, we didn’t match the initial on purpose, it was coincidence,” but after three it’s much more difficult. And if you do have four children, two children out of four with matching initials is much less noticeable/excluding than three children out of four; I don’t see any reason he’d feel left out if he and the fourth child both had names that didn’t start with J.

Since your name starts with a J, one option is to use your husband’s initial for the next child. This gives you an easy explanation for the few people who notice, and also give you an explanation in case the child requests one. But I don’t think you NEED anything beyond, “No, we just chose our favorite name each time.” For children, you can also play the same/different game: “Jude and Jonah both start with J; Gideon and Jude both have a -de-; Gideon and Jonah both have an -on-; Jude has 4 letters and Jonah has 5 letters and Gideon has 6 letters; Jude has 1 syllable and Jonah has 2 syllables and Gideon has 3 syllables…” and so on. The idea is to point out that a matching initial is not the only way in which names can be similar/different.

From your list, my strong favorite is Gideon. Luca would rule out Lucia if you had a girl, and neither Luca nor Jacoby reads biblical to me. Gideon is underused and decisively biblical.

Keeping in mind that I am consulting the Biblical section of The Baby Name Wizard and not looking up what type of Bible story each of these names is associated with, here are a few more I like with Jude and Jonah and with Cabrera:

Cyrus
Eli
Levi
Silas
Simon

If you do decide to stick with J names, I like Joel.

I also like Jared, which I see on the list of biblical names but which doesn’t sound biblical to me.