Danielle writes:

I am currently at 31 weeks and 3 days into my pregnancy with our 4th child. After 13 weeks of bed rest, we are hoping Baby Girl “_alone” will stay put 6 more weeks, making her grand appearance in late March (due April 16th). We are having an extremely difficult time deciding on a name for this sweet girl due to an unexpected journey to becoming a family.

We lost our first daughter, Finley Grace, in April of 2007 when I was 20 weeks and 5 days pregnant. Then, we lost our second daughter, Caroline Grace, in February of 2008 when I was 24 weeks and 2 days pregnant. Words cannot describe how blessed we felt to successfully welcome our precious boy, Crosby Fox, into this world in December of 2008. What a miracle he is!

I love everything about Crosby, including his name. Crosby is my grandmother’s maiden name and Fox is my mother’s-in-law maiden name. I thought of it as a boy’s name when we were pregnant with Finley. It was the only name I ever really considered using during my 18+ weeks of bed rest with him. Now that we have had the privilege of loving him for 3 years, we love his name more than ever and think it fits him perfectly.

Caroline (my mother is Carolyn) was always my first choice for a daughter, yet, we did not use it with our firstborn. Caught off guard and with little time to process what happened, we used Finley paired with Grace for her name. Finley was a name I liked but didn’t care for it with Caroline. We used Grace, not only because of it’s meaning, but also because it fit with most names we had considered. While we knew we would name our second daughter Caroline as soon as we learned her gender, we did not decide on Grace as her middle name until she was born and passed away. It seemed fitting to give Caroline the same middle name as her big sister.

Herein lies the dilemma. Maybe I have set the bar to high in naming this baby girl but I want to love her name as much as I do her brother’s. I would also like to honor her big sisters in some way if we can find a name we both love. Grace, Gracen, Graycen, and Gracie are beautiful names. I am having a hard time deciding if it is her name. Should I worry it could be hard for her to carry her sisters’ name as she grows to understand the circumstances surrounding their short lives? Would she feel hurt if her name did not include them in some way? Just a few of the questions with no sure answers that I have running through my mind to further complicate the situation!

Here are some of the names we have considered:

Jane Claire (Claire is the middle name of my MIL, SIL, and husband’s grandmother; would probably be a double name but love it on it’s own)

Gracie Jane (probably a double name)

Gracie Blue (not because of Beyonce, but because my son refers to her as “Blueberry”)

Lucy Grace (my MIL is Lucy, might be hard having 2 Lucys…)

Vivienne (Vivie)

Evelyn (Evie)

Amelia

Celia

Layla (family name)

Although it is by no means a must, I like double names and could easily pair Grace with most of the options listed above. I also love Jane and think it could work for a middle name as well. I find myself stuck in a rut with this handful of names and would feel the need to explore more options.

These are names we like but can’t use because of close family and friends:

Margaret
Cora
Charlotte
Harper
Milly

In thinking of a sibling set, I am not totally sure about using another name with an “ie” or “y” sound. I really love the flow of Crosby and Jane Claire but feel bad that it does not “honor” the girls in any way.

We are so torn over Baby Girl “_alone’s” name. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 
This is a difficult issue, and one in which I think it might be a helpful exercise for us to think of the situation from two angles: one in which there are four children in the sibling group, and one in which there are two.

Thinking of the sibling group as having four members, I don’t think she would feel hurt that her name didn’t include her sisters’ names. I think the stickier issue is whether, symbolically-speaking, she might have trouble with the opposite. Your son’s name doesn’t honor his sisters; if now your daughter’s name does, it may convey the feeling that she is a replacement for them, or that her life must compensate for their loss. If they had lived, she would not be named after them, and this seems to me an important point: using them as namesakes emphasizes their deaths. Using The Baby Name Wizard‘s “Would I want this name myself?” test, I answer no: I would not want to explain that I was named for sisters who died before I was born. I would want to choose a different way to honor them.

However: your first two daughters both have the middle name Grace, and if you were writing asking about that, I would certainly recommend continuing that with a third: I think it’s a sweet idea to have sisters or mothers/daughters sharing a middle name. This may give you the honoring/namesake effect you’d like, while including your third daughter in the sibling group with her sisters just as it would have if her two sisters were still alive—and without needing to use her name to memorialize them. And if I imagine being the third daughter, I think I would like sharing that name with them, and perhaps continuing the tradition later on for a daughter of my own.

Thinking now of the group of two siblings, I see that Crosby Fox has two honor names. If you were writing to me and you mentioned only him, I would suggest going a similar route for for his sister—though I would also assure you that many people use honor names for a firstborn and not for later siblings, and so it would be fine not to.

I think Lucy would fit the situation beautifully, if you did want to use an honor name. One of my children has the same name as his grandfather, and it has never caused more than a flicker of momentary confusion: very few people need to refer to both by their first names, and it’s rare that the name is used in a context where it could mean either one. Crosby Fox and Lucy Grace: both honor names, and they work well in both the sibling group of two and the sibling group of four.

Claire is another family option on your list. Because Claire Grace is a little choppy (though I don’t think it’s a deal-breaker), and because you like Cora but can’t use it, I suggest Clara. Crosby Fox and Clara Grace. Or there’s Clarissa: Crosby Fox and Clarissa Grace. But changing the name does diminish the family-name tie, so these are more “If you like Claire/Cora, maybe you’d like…” suggestions rather than “Use a family name” suggestions.

Or Layla works beautifully just as it is: Crosby Fox and Layla Grace.

Or you could use Jane Claire (which sounds like it’s your current favorite, and I love it too) as the first name, and perhaps having Grace as the middle name would alleviate the feeling that it should be an honor name. It seems a little choppy to have three 1-syllable names in a row, but I think other considerations easily trump that one. And now that I think of it, the first name would be two syllables, not one: it would be more as if it were Janeclaire Grace _alone.

Looking at your list, the name Violet comes to mind. Crosby Fox and Violet Grace.

Another is Genevieve, with the nicknames Gigi (from the first/middle initials) or Evie. Crosby Fox and Genevieve Grace.

Lucy and Celia make me think of Cecily. Crosby Fox and Cecily Grace.

Your description of how blessed/privileged you feel to have Crosby made me think of the name Felicity, which means happiness and luck. Crosby Fox and Felicity Grace.

Name update!  Danielle writes:

There were so many factors I was trying to weigh before I could confidently decide on a name for our third daughter. It was not until I was admitted and in labor that we finally made our decision!

I am thrilled to announce Jane Claire _alone was born on April 2, 2012 at 1:03 pm.  She weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces and was 19.5 inches long.  She is absolutely perfect and completely healthy.  Crosby Fox is maddly in LOVE with his baby sister!  I was amazed that I was able to carry her for 38 whole weeks!!  What a blessing!  And to make the story even sweeter, we brought her home on her oldest sister’s (Finley Grace) birthday!!  We literally came full circle.  It gives me chill bumps to think of it even today…

I appreciated each and every comment our story received.  It was extremely helpful to hear from those who had lost siblings.  It gave us new insight as to how our daughter may/may not feel regarding carrying on her sisters’ name, “Grace”. The comments also helped release any guilt I may have had for deciding not to carry on the name “Grace”.  I feel confident had we chosen to use the name “Grace”, our daughter would know she was in no way seen as a replacement for her sisters.  Finley and Caroline are a part of our family that we never want to forget.  We talk of them often.  Their foot prints are framed on our mantle and their shadow boxes hang on the wall.  Our conversations aren’t morbid or sad. We just want Crosby and Jane Claire to know about their sisters and how their brief lives impacted so many.  Ultimately, we chose to use “Jane Claire” because no other names seemed like “her” name.  Every other name we considered just didn’t feel right!

EllaJune writes:

So my husband and I, we need HELP. Like a lot of help.
My name is the somewhat absurd EllaJune. husband is Omar. Our kids have my surname (Thorpe) with his (Isaacs) as the second middle (and we refer to our family as the Isaacs/Thorpe family).
We have kids: after years and years of IVF etc I finally got pregnant. We were thrilled. Then we found out we were having triplets and we were excited AND SCARED. we didn’t have a name planned except that we thought we’d give any kids middle names after our favorite kids books (i am a children’s librarian and Omar teaches elementary school language arts). So when the dr started referring to our trips as Baby A, Baby B, and Baby C, we let our general obsessive tendencies…take over, and ended up with three beautiful daughters named Ayelet Minerva, Bellamy Scout, and Carys Eloise. we LOVE THEIR NAMES. for me and I think for Omar, they still give me a little thrill to say.
anyway, now we are expecting a BOY CHILD in March, which used to seem very far away and now seems very very close. this is definitely our last child and we were not expecting to have another baby–obviously, but WHATEVER BODY–and we are going to be, erm, FIXED so that there are no more babies. But we are thrilled to be getting this one. We just dont know what the heck to name him! We love having our ABC girls (they are four now!) and so we are VERY tempted to use a D name for this baby. But will he feel left out if we dont, or if we do, will he feel like an afterthought? Is this is a stupid trend? We dont need to give him a name that is a D AND has a Y but…what do we do?
our middle name ideas are:
Milo
Max
Charles Wallce *maybe our favorite, but this would give the poor kid FIVE NAMES)
Huck
Ferdinand

Some random boys names that we like, to give you a sense of our style (such as it is)
Nolan
Henry
Jasper
Declan
Mattias
George

Oh. we’d PREFER to have his name have a different number of letters than any of the girls names (6, 7, 5). Um, or ours, if possible (4,8). Do you see how we are SUCH A GOOD MATCH, my crazy obsessive husband and my crazy obsessive self?

Ugh. Soon a baby will be here, and we will be forced to go with Ayelet’s suggestion of Little Dude. Little Dude Isaacs Thorpe. LD!

THANK YOU.

 
I like the idea of using D for his initial, but I suspect it will not be a big deal to him either way. Spin will handle most of it: you can either spin it as inclusion or as specialness.

The different-number-of-letters preference is a challenge that may limit your options too severely. If he can’t have 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 letters in his name, then we are limited to names with 3 or fewer letters, or names with 9 or more letters. Neither are common. I suggest considering the adults separate from the children (as you are already doing with the initials), so that 4 and 8 can also be possibilities.

D names that meet the number-of-letters preference (if the adults’ names are removed from consideration):

Dane
Dash
Dashiell
Davidson
Dax
Dean
Del
Dennison
Devereaux
Dex
Dion
Donnelly
Drew

Names from that list that meet the requirements if the parents’ names are included: Dex, Del, Dax, Devereaux. More D-names with 9+ letters: Demetrius, Dionysius, Diederick, Desiderio.

But I recommend abandoning the letter-count preference altogether, since it’s so unnoticeable. People are likely to notice the A-B-C-D idea all the time, but I would bet five dollars that no one will ever say “Hey, all of you in this family have a different number of letters in your names!” Patterns and sameness are much more noticeable than a lack of patterns/sameness.

In which case it seems like Declan from your list would be great. Declan Thorpe; Ayelet, Bellamy, Carys, and Declan. I like it with Milo: Declan Milo Isaacs Thorpe. If it calms the letter-related impulses, note that now each child (and in fact each member of the entire family) has an average of six letters, and that you have begun and ended with 6-letter names. Darian/Derian/Darien and Darwin and Deacon and Denver would also work for this.

Another possibility is to count total letters: Ayelet Minerva has 13 letters, Bellamy Scout has 12 letters, and Carys Eloise has 11 letters. Would it satisfy if child #4 had a total of 10 letters? Again, Declan Milo fits the bill. Or Dane Jasper would work, or Davis Henry, and so on.

Oh, wait, I’ve been forgetting that the middle names on the list are chosen for their literary ties, so I can’t go all willy-nilly by putting first-name options in the middle-name slot. So then I’d stick with Milo or Max or Huck (or Finn), and find a 6- or 7-letter first name. Or if you like Tom Sawyer as well as Huck Finn, Sawyer would make a good 6-letter middle name to go with any of the 4-letter first names.

Name update! EllaJune writes:

dear Swistle, thank you so much for all of your help and your commenters were so great too! we thought a lot about everything you guys said and finally decided that a Z name was the best- A-Z SO CUTE. also our christmas card next year will say from A-Z and it will be adorable.
anyway, the middle name was definitely the hardest. we thought about lots of the suggestions that we use just charles but that seemed too diffuse for us, with no real relationshop to the book character we loved. but tehn we happened to be watching a rerun of veronica mars, where the moral center of the show is wallace, and the rest as they say is history.
So we are thrilled to introduce:
Zachariah Wallace Isaacs Thorpe
Because that is such a long name for such a tiny baby we are calling him Zac mostly, or sometimes, and wait for it you will die of cuteness-Zac Waldo. we love it.
Thank you!

Sarah writes:

We are due with a baby girl in early July. She is our fourth child and second daughter- our other three kids’ names are Adelay Isabelle, Elias Marek and Jameson Beckett Isaac. Our last name rhymes with “Dover.” For first names we tend to like longer, three syllable names, kind of old fashioned or elegant but not REALLY out-there old fashioned (i.e. I like Meredith but would probably not consider anything like Gertrude or Winifred) with a cute, more commonly known nickname (our kids commonly go by Addy, Eli and Jamie.) For middle names we don’t have any real pattern- Isabelle was a family name I loved, Marek was a German/Polish name my husband adored but which we had nixed as a first name because of the possible “Mary” nickname, and Beckett was just a name we both really liked and had considered as a first name. Isaac had special meaning to me and I wanted to use it as well.)

I’d prefer a name that starts with a consonant, to even things out a bit, and would prefer not to use the other kids’ first initials, but these are just preferences, not deal breakers.

Something else I thought of today is that I’d really like her name to express a certain meaning- this baby was very much unexpected, and despite my having a lot of issues which make me prone to miscarriage, she somehow stuck with us! We feel like she’s a special gift, a special surprise to our family, and I’d really love it if the meaning of her name could express that in some way.

Lastly, here are a few of the names we’ve tossed around so far, to give you an idea of our style:

Bellamy
Cambria
Calista
Evelyn or Everly
Marlayna
Felicity
Magnolia

A couple of middle name ideas we’ve (I’ve!) come up with are:

Annelise (or just Elise)
Brielle
Bronwen
Isla
Jane
Tansy

We’d love suggestions, or ideas of how to pair up the existing names on our list! Thank you so much!

It’s funny how challenging it is to find a baby name when there are already three named babies! I keep thinking of The Perfect Name and then “Oh…wait…no, that won’t work.”

I feel like PUSHING you to use Felicity: the consonant/non-repeating initial is good; and the nicknames Fliss, Flip, and Lissie are available if not quite as commonly known as Addy, Eli, and Jamie; but what really sells the name is the meaning, which is “happy and lucky.” So perfect for a special surprise gift baby. Felicity Jane seems like a natural choice, or Felicity Brielle and Felicity Elise would work well.

I also checked Baby Names Made Easy: The Complete Reverse Dictionary of Baby Names, and found more candidates (though double-check meanings in several other dictionaries, since these can vary considerably from book to book):

Beatrix (Bee, Trixie): bringer of joy
Marnina (Marnie, Nina): rejoice
Theodora (Thea, Dorrie): God’s gift

(I would also have included Isadora, which seems like a very good fit except for the vowel initial, and also means “gift”—but it means specifically “gift from the goddess Isis.” The “thea/theo” names are a less specific god.)

Another option would be to put the meaning name in the middle name slot, which opens up more options that I didn’t include in the first list because they don’t fit as well with the other children’s names and/or with other preferences:

Adia: gift
Dorothea/Dorothy: God’s gift
Felice: happy, fortunate
Halla: surprise gift
Jesse: gift
Joy: er, joy
Kay: joy
Lacey: happy
Thea: God’s gift

If the name Felicity ends up being a no-go, I then move to pushing the name Magnolia. It’s been on my own list, and I think it has HUGE potential for being a very pleasing name. So many people want girl names that are long with nickname choices, but then they’re tired of Alexandra and Samantha and Cassandra and Elizabeth. Well, then, Magnolia needs to STEP UP. Maggie! Nola! Lia! It fits particularly well in this sibling group, I think, since Addy and Maggie are both very familiar nicknames, but Adelay and Magnolia are much less familiar. And we have the consonant/non-repeating initial M! I’d pair it with a happy/lucky/gift middle name; maybe Magnolia Joy, or Magnolia Felice.

If Magnolia is a little too unusual, I suggest Margaret. Greta, Meg, Maggie, Daisy! So many nickname choices!

Because of Cambria on your list, I suggest Camilla. Darling nicknames, either Cami or Milly. If Prince Charles’s wife is a negative association (I think of her as someone who has shown dignity and grace under very embarrassing circumstances—but the embarrassing circumstances do come to mind), I recommend Camellia. It’s a flower name like Magnolia, and its similarity to the more popular Amelia makes me wonder why it’s not being used as a less common alternative. I like Camellia Joy.

Camellia makes me think of Romilly. Ooo, I like that for this sibling group. I gather some pronounce it RO-milly (like the Ro in Rose) and some pronounce it RAH-milly (like the Ro in Ross); if I used the former, I would probably use the nickname Romy; for the latter, I’d use the nickname Milly.

Or Rosalie would be very nice. Adelay, Elias, Jameson, and Rosalie; Addie, Eli, Jamie, and Rosie. I like Rosalie Joy, or Rosalie Jane.

I love Meredith, which since you mention liking it but it’s not in your list, I’m guessing is not a candidate. But I love that name, and the nickname Merrie is so cute and happy. Addy, Eli, Jamie, and Merrie: all very different sounds.

Charlotte might work beautifully. Charlie and Lottie are both possible nicknames; I’d probably choose Lottie, not only because I prefer it, but because it makes it clearer which members of the sibling group are boys and which are girls. Addy, Eli, Jamie, and Lottie. I like Charlotte Felice, Charlotte Jane, Charlotte Kay, Charlotte Brielle, or Charlotte Elise.

Cordelia is a name I’ve seen cropping up here and there. Old-fashioned but not TOO old-fashioned, and several good nicknames: Corrie, Delia (plus the more casual Deels).

Or Liviana. It’s similar to the much more popular Olivia and Lilliana, so I’m surprised it isn’t used more. Addy, Eli, Jamie, and Livvie/Livvy.

It seems like we heard a lot about the name Vivienne for awhile, and then almost nothing recently. That’s another one that has some sounds in common with Olivia. Adelay, Elias, Jameson, and Vivienne; Addy, Eli, Jamie, and Vivvie/Vivvy/Vivi.

Penelope is on my own “sad not to use it” list. Adelay, Elias, Jameson, and Penelope; Addy, Eli, Jamie, and Penny/Nellie/Poppy.

Clarissa is another of my pet favorites, and quite similar in sound to Felicity. Adelay, Elias, Jameson, and Clarissa; Addy, Eli, Jamie, and Clary. (I’m not sure I would have thought of Clary as a natural nickname, but then it’s been in TWO novels I’ve recently read, so I must just not have encountered it before.)

Emmeline repeats the E initial, which is too bad because I think Addy and Emmy make a very cute sister pair.

Or would you like Karenna? Adelay, Elias, Jameson, and Karenna; Addy, Eli, Jamie, and Kari. Though I probably wouldn’t nickname it because I like the full version so well. Maybe another nickname, a non-name-based one, would occur naturally.

I knew a girl named Linnea (linn-NAY-ah) in school, and I thought it was such a pretty name. Adelay, Elias, Jameson, and Linnea; Addy, Eli, Jamie, and Linnie.

Name update! Sarah writes:

Our beautiful fourth child and second daughter, Taliana Joy, was born July sixth.  We had finally landed on two names, Talia and Annika, and I liked both a lot but wasn’t having that “aha” moment with either of them, so we kept looking.  One night as we flipped through a name book for the dozenth time, my husband Jim suddenly had a stroke of genius and tried to combine the two names.  He came up with Taliana, which we then found in the name book in the list of variations under the “Talia” entry.  We ended up using Joy as her middle name partly as a nod to my excellent doctor whose own middle name is Joy and partly because its meaning is exactly what I wanted in her name, and turns out nothing said it better than the word itself! Thank you everyone for all your input.  Tali thanks you too.

Amanda writes:

I’m freaking out and am “scheduled” to deliver B/G twins on 2/24 (if I make it that long)! We had “decided” on a girl name way back in the day—Harper–and haven’t really discussed changing it since we found out we had one of each. We thought we were set on her name and struggled with the boy’s name for a while until we settled on Felix. He will be Felix Henry Daniels. Henry is a family name on both sides, and also a name that has become hip again.

We have been going back and forth and have not found a middle name for Harper. With the H__D, I’ve been avoiding vowel middle names. We’ve discussed the following:

Jane, June, Beatrice (I love, he hates), Brynn, a couple other B names to pay tribute to my husband, Brian. I think Harper Jane sounds too much like Harper, Jane. Brian and I met while working at a Victorinox store back in the day, so I liked the middle Victoria….until the Beckham’s named their daughter Harper!

I have been calling Felix by his name for months now, but really always call Baby B Girlie. I am having anxiety about her name now, and wonder if the reason I can’t pick a middle is that I don’t feel settled about the name Harper (which seems increasingly popular). I had a dream last night that she was born and I changed her name to Harlow. I love this name!! What do you think? Is it common to have this anxiety? What does everyone think about Harlow vs Harper?

 
Yes, it is definitely common to have last-minute name anxiety. Because you’re not having the same anxiety about Felix’s name, I wonder if this has more weight to it than the usual end-game jitters. But it could just be that Felix’s name is a more recent decision.

I have mentioned before that I love twin names to have just a WEE name gimmick. In this case, if I were you I would be very tempted to find a middle name starting with F for Harper/Harlow, so that the twins would be F.H. and H.F. I wonder if you’d like any of these:

Harper/Harlow Fairly
Harper/Harlow Faith
Harper Farrow (this gives some of the sound of Harlow)
Harper/Harlow Faye
Harper/Harlow February
Harper/Harlow Felicity (Felicity is the feminine of Felix)
Harper/Harlow Fern
Harper/Harlow Fiona (maybe too much long O with Harlow)
Harper/Harlow Flannery
Harper Florence
Harper/Harlow Frances
Harper/Harlow Frederica
Harper/Harlow Freya

If you want a name to honor your husband, I suggest Harper Brianna.

As for Harper versus Harlow, I think both work great with Felix. I like the sound of Harper Daniels a little more than the sound of Harlow Daniels. Harlow is currently less common than Harper, but I suspect that won’t be permanent; for peer purposes, though, a girl named Harlow born this year will likely have fewer girls sharing her name than a girl named Harper.

Let’s have a poll over to the right to see which name everyone prefers [poll closed; see results below], and I also suggest the post Choosing Between Two Finalists.

Name update! Amanda writes:

Turns out I ended up going into labor the day my Q was posted and didnt get to see the responses!! Felix Henry and Harlow Victoria were born on 2/13/12 @ 2:38am. We were still unsure of the Harlow/Harper issue when I delivered and when asked what her name was, my husband mentioned the two names. When the nurse said she just had another Harper, we went with Harlow. Funny that we did, as H spent a few days in the NICU, right next to ANOTHER Harper! We are happy with our decision and the family is doing well :-)

Nichole writes:

I am due with our second child – another boy! – at the end of May. I am very superstitious about name-stealers and prefer to wait until after the baby is born and named to announce a name. And if my husband had his way, babies would leave the hospital and remain unnamed until their personalities start to show through. So, naming babies is a big deal around these parts! Needless to say, naming our first son was a very tough task. We went to the hospital with an “iffy” first name and just a vague inclination toward a middle name – and no backups whatsoever.

We are both the last in our families to have children, so all male family names were used a decade (or two) ago. I also had a set of very specific criteria for names (which I kind of laugh at now). A friend’s response to our criteria was to consider naming our son after my MIL. In the rest of the world, Cruz is a boy’s name, but in my husband’s Hispanic family, my FIL’s sister goes by it, as does my MIL. So, it was an honor name after my son’s grandmother. It felt so unconventional and we were hesitant. When we finally decided on Cruz, we cautiously tried it out on strangers in our birth class. We got a little braver and told some close friends who were also expecting their first child before finally telling his parents. Everyone liked the name except my in laws. My FIL was hesitant, but my MIL was panicked and not nearly as “honored” as we had expected.

We had shared with my MIL a girl’s name we picked out before we knew we were having a boy. Long (long) story short, literally from the moment he was born, she started to call him by the girl’s name we had picked out until I got testy with her and told her that she’d ruined that name for any future girls, and asked her to call him by his name. She wasn’t trying to be difficult; we found out later that she just never liked her name, particularly the way it sounded on her father’s angry lips. They now exclusively call him “Ezzie”, which is a play on his middle name (Ezekiah), and which we love and use as a NN as well.

For our second boy, we’ve chosen the name August Malachi, in keeping with an honor first name and a biblical middle name. August is an indirect honor to my grandfather, my MIL (again) and my husband – all born in that month. We’ve decided we will try and force the NN from birth as “Kai” – again playing on the middle name – primarily so we can avoid the NNs “Gus” or “Auggie” as much as possible. Both those NNs are borderline dealbreakers for us!) Are there other options for a NN that we’re not considering?

The very few people we’ve shared our chosen name with have not had what I would call positive responses. A close friend asked “can we reopen the name for discussion?”, which made me laugh, but also made me worried. Once again, we have absolutely no backup names and no “short list” to speak of. My husband doesn’t feel like we need a backup name and is convinced that it’s THE name, but I’m starting to worry we need a backup, just in case. I feel a slight sting every time I see or hear Cruz’s name used in any context other than a given name (as surnames, street names, etc.). It’s a bit ubiquitous for my taste and I worry over the same thing with the name August. We consistently have good reactions to Cruz’s name, but the reactions we are already getting to August make me hesitant. I would love to hear what your other readers think!

Thanks so much!

I suggest switching the names: Malachi August. Here are my reasons:

1. Trying to get people to call a child a nickname of the middle name seems like a tough sell. In Cruz’s case it happened out of necessity, as a solution for a difficult situation, but it’s not something I’d try to do on purpose unless I had a very compelling reason (such as being forced to use a family first name I hated).

2. It seems like an especially tough sell if you want them NOT to use the natural nicknames of the first name. If you strongly dislike the nicknames Auggie and Gus, putting August as the middle name avoids that issue while still using the honor name. And the middle name slot is a great place for an honor name. And you WANT to call him Kai!

3. The name Malachi is currently more commonly used in the U.S. than the name August, but if it bothers you to hear incidental mentions of the name, you will definitely hear the word August used more often. And the number of emails we’re getting here from people who want the nickname Gus makes me think the name is likely to get more common—and that the nickname Gus will get more intuitive.

4. It would be nice to have a consistent pattern (honor name, then biblical name), but with only one child a pattern hasn’t been firmly set—especially since I can’t find the name Ezekiah in an (admittedly brief) online search of the Bible. I suggest changing the pattern from “honor first name and biblical middle name” to “one honor name, one biblical name.”

August and Malachi are both great names, but it sounds like for your family it makes more sense to have Malachi in the first name slot. Let’s have a poll over to the right to see what everyone else thinks. [Poll closed; see results below.]

Name update! Nichole writes:

Just wanted to update you on the arrival of our second baby boy.  We carefully weighed our options after reading all the comments & suggestions we received from the post.  Then, on the very same day, we both had a dream about this boy and knew exactly what his name was supposed to be.   August Malachi came into the world following a fast & furious labor.  We think it suits him perfectly (even if the peds office just told us the name is very popular locally). He will go by August with nn being Mal or Kai.   Thanks so much!

JoLee writes:

We are due with our second boy in six weeks, and we still don’t have a name. Our older boy is named Beckett Wallace. We love his name and frequently call him B, so names that start with B are probably not going to work for his brother. My name is JoLee and my husband’s name is Nathan.

Our last name is Stevens with a ph. Because we have such a common last name, I want a first name that is distinctive and interesting. (Personally, I have always really loved having such a unique, but not way-out there, name.) The biggest issue that we are having is that a lot of names don’t sound that great with Stevens. Because Stevens has an S at the beginning and at the end, names that start with S (like Soren, a family name I really like) don’t work well, and names that end in an S (like Thomas) or another soft sound tend to blend into Stevens. Also, most names that end in -an, -en, -in, -on sound really rhyme-y (like Ethan and Soren). Of all the sound issues, I think the rhyme-y one is the worst offender.

Here are some possibilities we’ve considered:

August: My husband and I both really like August, maybe more than any other name on the list. It has loads of good nicknames. However, the -st at the end of the first name and the St at the beginning of our last name is a real sticking point for us. It’s even worse than an -s S combo.

Felix: I love Felix. It’s one of the only names from the beginning of my name search that has stuck around. It too has the -s S problem.

I seem to be really drawn to names that have a softer ending, so much so that I think I might have to overlook the -s S issue.

Quincy: We thought long and hard about this one too, but we can’t seem to fully commit. Maybe the name is too gender neutral for us? I know two girls named Quinsey. Or maybe it seems a little cutesy? I’m not sure. I think that names ending in -y sound good with Stevens. I’ve also pitched Rory and Cassidy, but I don’t think that either were ever strong contenders.

I also think names that end in an -o sound good with Stevens. My favorites are probably Hugo and Winslow. Is Winslow too out there?

Names that end in -er also sound good with Stevens, but I don’t like very many -er names. I’m not sure why exactly. My husband likes Alexander and Spencer. Both are too common for me. I know that Spencer was only #227 in 2010, but it’s much more common in my community. I know at least half a dozen Spencers. I could perhaps grow to like Fisher or Thatcher, but I’m not crazy about giving my child a “real word” name. We also considered Jasper.

Frederick is a family name that I think sounds good with Stevens. My husband is not keen on the nickname Fred.

Pascal is a name that I recently saw you recommend to someone else, and I think it would be a good one for us to consider too. We really wanted a Cal, but Calvin sounds too rhyme-y with Stevens, and we couldn’t find another Cal- name that we liked as well, although we considered Calloway for a while. Perhaps a Pascal could use Cal for a nickname. Or perhaps not. I’m thinking about this name for the first time as I write this.

My son’s middle name is a family name. Wallace is my husband’s middle name and the name of one of his grandfathers and one of my grandfathers. With all the Wallaces in our families, we actually chose Wallace before we chose our son’s first name. I think we will try to choose another family name for this boy’s middle name, but we aren’t as set on doing that. Honor name possibilities include: Parry, Alexander, Frederick, Russell, or maybe Donovan (as a variation on Donna, my mother’s name).

It seems likely that this will be our last child, but if we ever did have a girl we really love the names Beatrice and Portia. If we could actually commit to either is another issue entirely. I’ve loved Beatrice for years and Beckett would certainly have been a Beatrice if he had been a girl. Using the name Beckett might have made Beatrice impossible to use, but I decided I could give up Beatrice for the real boy instead of hanging onto it for the imaginary girl. My husband I both love Portia, but we worry that it is too close to Porsche.

Thank you, thank you Swistle!

 
Winslow leaps out at me from your list. Winslow Stevens; Beckett and Winslow. It’s true it’s very unusual in the U.S. for boys (only 18 baby boy Winslows born in 2010), and in fact I’ve started recommending it for girls because of Winnie/Willow. Still, I love it with Beckett, and with your surname, and so far it’s NOT being used for girls (not even in the Social Security database for girls in 2010).

My first thought for the August-ends-in-st problem was to try Angus or Augustus—but both end in S. There’s also Augusten, but that ends in -en.

Let’s see, unusual -er names. Oscar Stevens; Beckett and Oscar.

Alistair Stevens; Beckett and Alistair.

I’d like Casper to overcome the friendly ghost the way Oscar is overcoming the grouch. Casper Stevens; Beckett and Casper.

Miller is one of my favorite -er boy names. Miller Stevens; Beckett and Miller.

Keeler works well, too, I think. Keeler Stevens; Beckett and Keeler.

Or Coulter. Coulter Stevens; Beckett and Coulter.

I recommend the name Milo frequently; it seems to me to be at that perfect “unusual but not difficult, quirky but not weird” point. Plus, it came close to being my youngest son’s name, so I feel a little sentimental about it. Milo Stevens; Beckett and Milo.

For a y-ending, I like Grady. It’s surnamey like Beckett, and I think it sounds great with the surname too. Grady Stevens; Beckett and Grady.

I think the world may be ready for Murphy again. Murphy Stevens; Beckett and Murphy.

I saw a birth announcement for an Oakley a few months ago. Oakley Stevens; Beckett and Oakley.

Wesley is one of my favorite y-ending boy names, in a large part because of the nickname Wes, which I think is one of the best boy nicknames of all. If he goes by the nickname, there’s the -s/S problem; does that rule it out? Wesley Stevens; Beckett and Wesley.

Calloway makes me think of Campbell. Campbell Stevens; Beckett and Campbell. Cam for short.

I do think Cal might work as a nickname for Pascal. Pascal Stevens; Beckett and Pascal; B and Cal.

One more suggestion, sort of from nowhere: Reid. Reid Stevens; Beckett and Reid. People vary considerably on how they feel about repeating sounds; in this case, I like the repeating long-E.

 
Name update! JoLee writes:

Felix Parry Stevens joined our family on February 26th. At the time of his birth we had narrowed down the name choices to two: Felix and Winslow. For three days he didn’t have a name because we felt like he could easily pull off either option. Finally we had a chance to sit down together and decided Felix was the right choice. We love the name more and more every day. Thank you Swistle and readers for encouraging us to use a name we loved even if it didn’t sound perfect with our last name. And thank you all for giving lots of love to the name Winslow. It was very nearly this little boy’s name.