M. writes:

Forgive me if you have covered this already, but I am curious if you have an tips on dealing with negative name associations.

Examples:

1. The name Adam has always been a frontrunner on our boy list.  I love it – simple, classic, and (up until recently) a name where someone says “I don’t know an Adam
who isn’t a nice guy”.  BUT – now all I do is associate the name [with a recent crime].

2. I was googling to find out the original spelling for Anneliese (another favourite) – and came across “the real exorcism of Annelise Michel”, and I can’t get her
anguished black and white photo out of my head!

Please help!

A negative association does sometimes completely ruin a name. I can say “Try not to let it,” but what would that solve? If the association now springs to your mind every time, the name is ruined. The best I could advise is preventative measures when possible: if you know from past experience that a single negative association will be impossible to get out of your head, have someone else help with the Googling.

Fortunately, time takes care of most such things. For awhile after a major crime, a hit movie or book, a big scandal, or an unfortunate session on Google, the names of most of the participants will be too strongly associated to use. We’ve had several letters mentioning that the name Grey/Gray has been ruined by the association with the popular 50 Shades of Gray book series—but it’s hard to picture that effect being permanent. New books, movies, crimes, and scandals are always coming along to kick the old ones to the backs of our minds.

Unusual names will have longer-lasting problems: the names O.J. and Adolf still have strong associations, even though quite a bit of time has passed. But Charles Manson didn’t permanently ruin the name Charles, in part because there are so many other people named Charles to weaken that association (though I suspect the name Manson isn’t going to join the surname-name trend). There have been so many other people named Adam, I doubt it will be ruined, either. It may still be ruined for your own use, however, just as the name Charles was probably ruined for people who were shocked and upset by those events at the time.

You could try to manually dilute associations by deliberately looking for other people with a possibly-ruined name. Find every Annalise/Anneliese you can, and look at their nice pictures and read their pleasant and ordinary histories and look through their insufficiently-privacy-controlled Facebook walls. Watch some Adam Sandler and Adam Levine videos, and then read the biographies of Adam Smith and Adam West, and then watch Mythbusters and enjoy a little Adam Savage.  Etc. Each time the unpleasant association pops into your mind, replace it with one of your new images; leaf through them like a little mental deck of cards.

I notice that many teachers have problems with name associations at a more minor level. I answer only a fraction of the letters I get asking for help with association-free names, mostly because there’s no way they can list for me all the names that have associations for them. One solution is to choose a very unusual name, never before encountered—but then if there ever IS an association with that name, it will be an intensely strong one. Another solution is to choose a name so common, there’s no way a single association can stick to it—but then of course there will be many, many new associations made all the time. It’s hard to know what to do. Which is better: a bigger mental deck to flip through, or a deck that doesn’t have to be brought out so often?

I have one anecdote about a negative association that was taken care of by a combination of dilution, an overriding association, and time. My high school boyfriend had a relatively common name; I’m going to use James as a stand-in for that name. We dated quite seriously for two years, and then had a series of terrible break-ups. For years afterward, I couldn’t even think about him without getting furious and upset. And a little over ten years later, I gave my first son the middle name James. There were several things going on: (1) the name James is very common and diluted; (2) my grandfather’s name was also James, and I wanted to name a son after him; (3) more than a decade had passed, and I’d had two serious relationships since then.

Does anyone else have suggestions for dealing with negative associations? Or anecdotes about negative associations fading (or not fading) with time?

Name update! M. writes:

Thank you so much for choosing to answer my email, and for your (and your readers) thoughtful input!!

On January 13, we welcomed our son, Jesse Mathis.

While we didn’t use Adam (I think I wrote you before I was even pregnant, and many new names rotated into the short list between then and Jesse’s birth), your thoughts definitely did assist me when considering all names, including Jesse.

Instead of letting a single image (“is Jesse too ‘bad boy'”?) consume my mind, I had conversations like these with myself: “Yes, there is Jesse James, and Rory’s rebel boyfriend in Gilmore Girls, and an acquaintance of yours with substance-abuse issues…but wait a minute, your high school friend married a Jesse and he is a DOCTOR.  And JESSE TYLER FERGUSON plays your favourite character on Modern Family.  And the name is BIBLICAL.  And CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER was a pretty cute movie…”

Thanks so much again for the good advice!!

Nancy writes:

I have a baby name dilemma that I would love for you and your commenters to tackle.  We are expecting our second daughter in May.  We have a two and a half year old named Lucy, I am Nancy, and my husband is Kevin.  Our last name sounds like Strickland.  About a year after Lucy was born I realized that we had accidentally set up the possibility of a fun naming pattern:  K, L, M, N.  We are trying to decide whether to name this next baby a name that begins with “M” and stick with the pattern or not.  I would love your thoughts.  And have any readers chosen to do a pattern like this, or not chosen to, and have any regrets?  I like that it is a subtle pattern that can tie us all together.
Some of our top names do begin with M (Mary, Marie, Miranda, Maggie), but we also like names like Dorothy, Evelyn, Annie, Nora, Celeste (which does not work with the last name), Caroline, and Beatrice.  There is no clear front runner yet.  For what it is worth, we are thinking of having a third child, and using the letter J or O would be fine with us if we do commit to the pattern.  Middle name will be my mother’s maiden name, which sounds like Taylor.
We would love some outside opinions and words of experience on naming quirks like this, in hopes that it will help us make up our mind!
Thank you so much!

It sounds fun to me! My dad pointed out after our fifth child was born that our kids’ initials and ours were ALMOST in a unified clump. If we’d had more children after that, I would have been quite tempted to find initials that filled in the gaps. But if I found a name I loved that didn’t start with one of the letters I wanted, I don’t think I’d be willing to give up the name to get the initial.

I think what I’d do is begin by looking at names that started with the desired initial, and just see if it worked out. If it did work out, it would be fun; if it didn’t work out, it would be fine, no big deal. The biggest downfall from my point of view is that I think I’d feel increasingly stuck: if it DID work out to fill in a gap, and then I had another child, I think I would feel like I almost HAD to continue the pattern, because I’d done it on purpose the previous time and now I was invested in the plan.

Does anyone else have experience with doing (or choosing not to do) a fun little pattern of this sort?

Name update! Nancy writes:

We still hadn’t decided when our daughter arrived three weeks early!  But in the end we just couldn’t pass up the chance to do the naming pattern.  We chose the name Mary.  We just kept coming back to that one as being the one that fit all of our criteria, and I love the added bonus of the pattern.  Thanks to everyone for all your thoughts on it, we were reading them up until the birth!
Thank you!

Gail writes:

We have two boys already, Josiah and Tanner, whose middle names are Lewis and William, respectively, after hubby’s grandfather and my dad. We are due with a girl in April. Our first girl.

Our last name is Roberts.

My first choice is Colby. I know it’s mostly a boy name, but I don’t like it on boys, I like it for a girl. And I don’t want it with an ie at the end either. The problem is finding a middle name that works. I assume it needs to be girly, since the first name is unisex (or maybe even masculine to some people). But Grace is already in the family (and over-used) so that’s out. Not much else seems to work.

Some names I’m considering: Annareese (hubby’s mom {anna} + my mom {teressa}), Emerson, Rae (hubby’s middle name is Ray), Josette.

If we don’t go with Colby (Sadie was my first choice previously, but it’s used by a close friend for her daughter, so I don’t want to use that), hubby likes Carleigh (his dad is Carl). I would also consider Scarlett or Colette for first names, but still have the same trouble with finding middle names.

We usually use the middle name to name our child after someone, but this is possibly our last child, and we can’t, say, name it after his mom and leave my mom out, and vise versa. We could name the baby after his dad, but the only feminine version of Carl we like is Carleigh, which won’t work as a middle name for Colby, and between the two, I’d prefer Colby. I feel like I’ve been trying too hard. I want a name to just pop out at me and love it (like how it happened when I fell for Colby or Sadie as first names). As of now, everything seems like we have to force it to make it work.

My husband tends to lean towards traditional names, and I’m usually the one for the unique. If we used Colby for the first name, I’d be more than fine with a traditional or simple middle name.

Any suggestions???

Thank you so much!

When you named your first son, you used the name of your husband’s grandfather as his middle name, without worrying that it would leave out your husband’s other grandfather and both of your own grandfathers, and without combining names to make sure they were all covered. When you named your second son, you used your dad’s name as his middle name, without worrying that it would leave out your husband’s dad, and without combining the two dads’ names to make sure you got both in (Carliam! Willarl!).

I don’t think there’s any reason why naming your possibly-last baby (especially since either of the first two babies could also have been the last) needs to make any difference to this pattern: go ahead and use one mother’s name, without worrying that it leaves out the other mother, and without mashing their names together. None of the other honorees have had to share.

Or, you could use both names: Colby Anna Teressa Roberts.

If you only want to use one middle name, and if you go with your first choice of first name, I suggest choosing your husband’s mother’s name—to balance things out, and also since your most recent child was given your father’s name and that way both sets of the children’s grandparents are represented. (Which makes a good explanation for the mothers, too.)

Or, use whichever mother’s name sounds better with the chosen first name. Colby Anna Roberts is nice if you don’t mind the initials CAR, and so is Colby Teressa Roberts. I also like Colette Teressa Roberts, and Scarlett Anna Roberts, and Carleigh with either Anna (CAR again, which is kind of neat in this case since it would also be the first three letters of her name) or Teressa.

Or, if you like the sound of Colby Grace, Colby Rae is almost the same sound, so that seems like a good choice. Or you could ditch the family names entirely, and use Colby Faith or Colby Jane or Colby Paige.

Other names similar to Colby and Sadie (not all are good with the surname, but I’m leaving those in anyway for anyone else consulting the post for ideas):

Ashby
Aubrey
Bailey
Brinley
Cadence
Callie
Casey
Chloe
Cleo
Daisy (same sounds as Sadie, rearranged)
Darcy
Emberly
Hadley
Hazel
Kiley
Lacey
Macy
Maisy
Nadia
Paige
Paisley
Peyton
Ruby
Sage
Shelby

Name update! Gail writes:

I can’t believe I’ve forgotten to update until now. Once my husband learned Colby was a unisex name (I had no idea he didn’t already know), he forbade it. We actually ended up with 2 front-runners: Lila Beth and Brinley Gail. She was born on March 22 and we brought Brinley Gail home from the NICU after some complications 8 days later. Brinley was unique enough for my taste without turning my husband off, and we used my name as the honor name we were looking for, so as not to feel guilty about using one grandmother over the other. Thanks for all your help! I hope Brinley does not end up in the top 10 in the next 20 years! :)

Sarah writes:

I’m due with my first child- a girl- in early February, and desperately need your help in coming up with a name! My name is Sarah; my husband’s name is Brendan, and our family name is Burr with a ‘d’. Somehow, in the course of this pregnancy, we’ve become certain that this little girl is mellow and sweet. Thus, we really like short and sweet names for our little lady. But one problem is that we can’t narrow down our list! We like:

Fiona
Violet
Nora
Elinor
Celia
Rose
Eliza
Margot
Charlotte (nn Lotte)
Lucy

a few disjointed thoughts:

We would have named this baby Everett Thomas if she had been a boy. We really favor strong Celtic names for boys (and plan on using these names for any future boys): Seamus, Cormac, and Finlay. For some reason, the same rule doesn’t apply for girls’ names: I ruled out Mairead, which I do love, as sounding a bit “too Irish”, but we both love Margot (said the French, not German way) and similarly my husband ruled out Tegan for not sounding feminine to our American ears. The one Irish name that stuck was Fiona, but my husband isn’t sold on it as being “the one” and neither am I.

We ruled out Chloe, Emma, and Sofie because they’re currently top 10 names. My husband ruled out Jane, which I love, for being “too plain”. My husband think’s Elizabeth is too plain as well, but doesn’t mind Eliza. Catherine was ruled out as a first name because my husband’s sister, who he has a strained relationship with, is named Kathleen (goes by Katie).

Right now my husband’s number one pick would probably be Margot Quinn (middle name being a family name- and he’s said about Margot that “he thinks of her as a Margot, but isn’t sure she’ll look like a Margot”) and my number one would be Nora, or else Rose. My burning question, in addition to “is there some fabulous name we’re missing? One that is a bit traditional, feminine, sweet, but fresh sounding? Preferably a saint’s name, since we’re Catholic?” would be “what middle name could we use for Rose?”

Please help! I’m really waffling about here. It seems like every day I have a new #1, which is making it difficult to even visualize her having a name. Meanwhile, my husband is pretty certain about Margot but would be open to using Rose if we came up with a balanced sounding middle name.

Rose seems like the perfect option to me: short, sweet—but strong and versatile, too, if she ends up being less mellow than expected. For the middle name, I’d consider many of the names from your list (or names that didn’t quite make the list), especially ones you love but don’t want to use as a first name: Rose Emma Burr, Rose Catherine Burr, Rose Mairead Burr.

But when you asked for a sweet, feminine, fresh name that was also ideally a saint’s name, the name that sprang to mind was Felicity. Felicity Rose Burr, maybe, or Felicity Quinn Burr, or Felicity Jane Burr.

The other sweet feminine saint’s name that came to mind was Cecily. Or Camilla, or Flora, or Genevieve, or Josephine. Or Maura gives you a saint and also a moderately familiar Irish name. Or I have a soft spot for the name Winifred, with the very sweet nickname Winnie.

The name Nora makes me think of Cora, one of my favorite sweet names, and Cora makes me think of Clara. Those might have too much R with the surname, though. Oh…and Cora Burr-with-a-D might sound like corridor.

Willa would also be sweet, or Molly, or Faith, or Laurel, or Rosemary.

If Chloe is too popular, Cleo or Phoebe.

I’d also suggest this post: Narrowing down a list.

Name update! Sarah writes:

Writing in to update that I finally had my baby girl! We named her Margot Jane, a compromise between my husband’s favorite (Margot) and one of my favorites, which he’d initially vetoed as a first name (Jane). We are smitten with her! Thanks to you and your readers for helping us name her. We’re already brainstorming sibling names. :)

J. writes:

We are struggling with coming up with a boy’s name we like for our next child, a boy, due in the spring.  Our son is named after his grandfather’s, Henry Palmer–and, we actually used his grandfather’s middle names because their first names DID NOT work  It’s a classic name and we discovered after his birth and naming that it was becoming quite popular in our demographic, much to our annoyance.  That said, we still love his name and it suits him perfectly.  We want our next DS to have a name that’s equally connected to both of our families.  BUT, the thing is, the only names we have on the male side of our families that we liked we used for our older son.  Thus our options are–using a male name w/o the familial significance (which I’d prefer not to do); using a male name (of a family member) that we don’t like; or male names of family members we never really knew or felt connected to; or names that NO one else would like.  We have three main criteria–we must have a “reason” for the name (eg family name; favorite disciple) and it must go with Henry and our last name (rhymes with Virus, starts with K sound).

That said, these are the family names we have to work with: Kermit, Gordon, Forrest, Bartholomew.  So far, our list for consideration includes: Peter, Kermit, Bartholomew and Forrest.  Peter would be our first choice by a long shot, it’s the name of my partner’s favorite disciple, but it also happens to be the name of a disliked, distant relative.  We thought about going with the names of favorite theologians–but my favorites are Reinhold and Martin (Buber), neither of which really work for us.   Oh, and if we did go with one of the odder choices I worry that our next child may be resentful that his brother got a perfectly normal, mainstream name (which is why we aren’t just going with Kermit…).

I know you’re flooded with questions but if you have the time (and we’re interesting enough)…

I can see how you’re stuck: you want a name that has family significance AND that you love—but there AREN’T any names that meet both preferences. You find the name of someone you love, but you don’t love the name; so then you find a name you love, but it doesn’t have the right kind of family significance. At such times I think we have to stop spinning, throw our hands up, and say, “What we want does not exist. And so, given that situation, what is our second choice?”

I think it’s going to come down to which is more important to you: using a name you love, or using a name with positive family significance. This is a common choice to have to make: it’s rare that the people important to us coincidentally have names that match our own personal tastes. This is why those families with a Grandma Ellie are all fighting to honor her, while Grandma Mildred’s name goes completely uncontested—despite the fact that Grandma Mildred was awesome in every way and Grandma Ellie was an irritable old bat. It’s one of the things that make honor names so honor-y: we use them for love and significance, not because we would have chosen the names anyway.

If I were you, I would go with a first name you love. The love becomes the reason for using it, and a very nice reason it is, too: “We gave you this name because we loved it so much.” And perhaps you will find a name you love that has significance of a non-family variety, as with the idea of using disciple/theologian names. (I suggest Lewis, if you like C.S.; or George, if you like MacDonald.)

Then in the middle name position, I’d use the name of a beloved family member (if the child has one parent’s surname, then I’d use a name from the other parent’s family to give him the connection to both sides you’re hoping for), accepting the dislike of the name as the cost of honoring someone important. Or, if you don’t want to accept that cost, I’d use another name you love.

If the relative named Peter is a distant one, I think the favorite-disciple thing can trump it. If anyone in your family says, “Oh, after second-cousin-once-removed Peter?,” you’d just say, “Oh! No, it’s after Partner’s Favorite Disciple.” Peter is not such an uncommon name that there has to be an obvious connection, and Henry and Peter is a nice combination.

Edited to add: I just had one final thought: you mention looking at the names of male relatives, but are there any names of female relatives that would work (unisex names, names with feminine/masculine versions, surnames)?

Name update! J. writes:

Peter Bartholomew !!!

Sorry it took us three and a half months to send an update–but since you just solved a dear friend’s naming dilemma (thank you for settling the Emil question!!!) I realized I hadn’t sent an announcement of our final choice!

Rachel writes:

My sister has been following your blog for quite some time. I recently learned that my husband and I are expecting our first child in May. As someone who has always been fascinated by names, I am surprised by how difficult this decision has been. We do not know the gender yet and plan to learn the gender at a family gender reveal party in the coming weeks.

Our last name is Mack, yet some of my favorite names begin with an M (Mason and Macy) though we are trying to avoid alliterative names.

We would love to honor close family members who have since passed on with variations of their names– Carl, Eleanor, and William.

You may notice from our short list that we prefer unique names as opposed to the very common names such as Michael, David, Jennifer, and Katie.

Some of our top names for boys are:

Camden
Caleb
Hudson
Mason
Riley
Gavin
Colton
Anderson
Corbin
Keagan/Keegan

Some of our top names for girls are:

Brynn
Charlotte
Macy
Riley
Elena
Nora
Teagan

Also, I love Addison but wouldn’t use it as a colleague has used that name recently. I wonder what names are similar to Addison…

Many thanks,

I think the first thing we should tackle is the concept of unique/common names. Jennifer and David, for example, are RAMPANT among parents but practically unknown among the wee set. Meanwhile, Mason was the second most common name for U.S. baby boys in 2011.

It can be difficult to make this switch—to think of the common names from our own peer group (Jennifer, Michelle, Jessica, Brian, Jason) as “the Mom and Dad Names.” It can lead to unpleasant shocks: how can it be that when we’d never met one single Charlotte in our whole lives, our daughter is going by Charlotte M. because there are two in her class this year? We’d have been better off if we’d named her Jennifer: there isn’t a single one of those in the entire school (except for half a dozen of the staff)!

Do you have friends with children in daycare or preschool? Those class lists can be very helpful for seeing what people are currently naming babies in your area. Or you can browse The Social Security Administration’s baby name web site, which is great for finding a name’s current standing or for seeing how it’s trending. For example, here’s what Hudson and Addison have been doing recently:

(screen shot from SSA.gov)

(screen shot from SSA.gov)

Next, let’s look for some names similar to Addison. Similarities can be subjective, so there may be some names on this list that won’t seem similar to you at all—but it’s a starting point. And I’m including some that won’t work with your surname (the M ones, just for starters), because this seems like a good reference list for other parents as well:

Abigail
Adeline
Adelyn
Adrienne
Amelie
Aniston
Annabel
Atalie/Adalie
Avery
Cadence
Claudia
Delaney
Ellison
Elodie
Emerson
Evelyn
Gracen
Hadley
Jaiden
Jensen
Jillian
Jocelyn
Kennedy
London
Lydia
Madelyn
Madigan
Madison
McKenna
Meredith
Morgan
Nadia
Natalie
Peyton
Sadie
Sheridan

Your lists look good to me. If it’s mostly hard to PICK something, I suggest leafing through Baby Naming Advice for First-Time Parents to see if any of the advice applies. Sometimes it can help to make little mock groups of sibling names, to see which groups sound more like your family: is it easier to imagine being the parents to Camden, Riley, and Teagan, or to Caleb, Charlotte, and Nora? If you choose Riley for a daughter, does that rule out a very feminine name such as Charlotte for a future daughter? and if so, which style do you prefer?

I notice a lot of -son names on your list: Mason, Hudson, Anderson, Addison. And then I added some more to the like-Addison list. If you plan to have more than one child, and if you would rather not duplicate endings, this is an area where I’d suggest spending some time making sure you’re using your very favorite of the -son names.

Because you like the name Mason and Caleb, I might add Cason. Maybe Cason William Mack.

Instead of Macy, I wonder if you’d like Lacey or Darcy or Lucy?

And as with the -son issue, if you choose Keegan, that rules out Teagan and vice versa. Which would you prefer to use? Or would you want to consider Reagan or Regan for a girl? Elena and Nora are both similar to the honor name Eleanor; would you want to use Eleanor as the name and one/both of those as nicknames?

A baby-naming tactic I use is to make some lists, as you have—but then wait until I know the sex of the baby before getting serious. I find it very clarifying to be dealing with only one set of names, and with a baby who now seems more vivid to me as a little boy or as a little girl. (And then if there is a surprise at delivery, you still have the other list to work with.)

Name update! Rachel writes:

Last year you offered my husband and I great advice as we were choosing a name for Baby Mack. On May 5, 2013, we welcomed our sweet Kensington Elena. I look forward to your future posts. Many thanks,