Steph writes:

I’m wondering what people think of what I like to call “The Y-Spelling Phenomenon”. This is the trend of using the letter Y when spelling names that typically have no Y in them.

Examples (these are ones I’ve actually seen):

— Ryver instead of River (which I have trouble with, because I keep wanting to pronounce it “Rye — ver” (“Rye bread”)
— Madisyn instead of Madison

Some names I personally love spelled with a Y … for example Alyson and Kathryn … but I wonder if that’s because they are more widely used spellings now, and so I’m okay with them because I’ve been exposed to them all my life? Is the “Y” substition the baby naming wave of the future or just a current fad to go along with the need to make popular names “unique’? I’m wondering how many of us who read the blog like this trend, or don’t personally find it to be their taste? Also, what are some of the “Y Spelling Phenomenon” names that other readers have encountered?

I don’t mind it for some names (in fact, I do think at times it can look down-right great!), but I am beginning to feel this is naming fad that’s overused and not necessarily necessary.

How far is it going to go?? “Mykynzy” for Mackenzie??

This whole thing is a future teacher like myself’s nightmare!!

Just something I thought we might ponder!

Good one, Steph! Let’s talk about it! Do you guys like Y spellings and think they make a name “a different name” (that is, you’d say that the name Madison is way overused, but the name Madysyn is a different name and not overused)? Or do you think of it as taking an overused name and making it ALSO difficult to spell? And what Y spellings have you encountered?

[Poll results: What do you think of Y spellings?
I call them “misspellings”: 127 votes, roughly 95%
I like them: 6 votes, roughly 5%]

Leigh writes:

In my desperate attempts to search the Internet for an appropriate name for my soon-to-be born son, I came across your website. My husband and I have gone round and round in our discussions about what to name him, and we’re no closer to a decision than when we started. I am due at the end of August, and I really want to start referring to him as something other than “the baby” so I feel as though I know him when he’s born! I’m a planner by nature, and it’s driving me crazy that we don’t have a name picked out.

There are a few considerations that I have when it comes to choosing a name. First, it has to sound right with our odd last name – Face. That means no “Happy”, “Smiley”, or anything else that’s already a common or cutesy phrase. Second, it shouldn’t rhyme with the last name. That rules out “Chase Face”. Third, I have many names that I won’t consider because they conjure up the image of certain students I’ve had in my teaching career or they are so common that I’ve had ten of them in my classes. I’ve been teaching for ten years, so there are too many to mention, but as examples, no “Tyler”, “Garrett” or “Matthew”.

I really think, rhythmically speaking, that the first name should have at least two syllables to go with the one syllable last name. Ideally, I would like a name with three or more syllables that can be shortened into a two syllable nickname. My husband’s main concern is that it sounds cool when spoken across the loudspeaker at his future Little League baseball games. We have a daughter already and her name is Natalie Elizabeth Face.

I’ve suggested so many combinations to my husband, I don’t know what else to do. He just doesn’t seem to like anything other than Aiden, which to me sounds too much like other modern names (Jaden, Braden, etc.) Maybe if I can give him ideas from non-biased but interested individuals, he will be more open to considering them. I would really appreciate your input! Thanks for any suggestions you may have!

Teaching is a tough profession, baby-names-wise!

You’re hoping for a 3-or-more-syllable name that could be shortened to a 2-syllable nickname, and the one that comes immediately to mind is Alexander, nickname Alex. That’s unfortunately fairly common—but maybe all your Alexanders were bright students with pleasant, respectful personalities.

This discussion has brought to light something I hadn’t realized, which is that most boy nicknames now are one syllable: Timmy and Tommy and Johnny and Ricky sound like children from another era. Still, I did find some boy names with contemporary two-syllable nicknames:

Elias, nickname Eli
Theodore, nickname Theo [suggestion withdrawn; see comment section]
Anderson, nickname Andy
Carlton, nickname Carl
Jameson, nickname Jamie
Tobias or Tobin, nickname Toby
Leonardo, nickname Leo
Jordan, nickname Jordy
Charles, nickname Charlie

Do any of those appeal? You do indeed seem double-cursed: the years and years of former students, plus a challenging surname!

I’ll put a poll to the right [poll closed; see below], but I hope the rest of you will chime in with more suggestions.

[Poll results:
Aidan: 1 vote, roughly 0%
Elias/Eli: 23 votes, roughly 15%
Theodore/Theo: 28 votes, roughly 18% [suggestion withdrawn; see comment section]
Anderson/Andy: 20 votes, roughly 13%
Carlton/Carl: 2 votes, roughly 1%
Jameson/Jamie: 14 votes, roughly 9%
Tobias or Tobin / Toby: 14 votes, roughly 9%
Leonardo/Leo: 4 votes, roughly 3%
Jordan/Jordy: 2 votes, roughly 1%
Charles/Charlie: 18 votes, roughly 11%
Alexander/Alex : 31 votes, roughly 20%]

Heather writes:

My husband and I have recently decided to start trying to start a family. My husband has a unique name, Lincoln Cash, which was given to him by his parents, at the time he was born his mother named him after two very special and important people in her life. The thing is a couple months ago my husband and I read in our very small town newspaper and baby was born and given my husband exact name. Turns out this baby’s parents are friends of friends or my mothers and had overheard my mother talking about myself and my husband. My husband and I feel offended and disrepected by these peoples actions. His name has great meaning to us as well as his mother and now I fell I have been cheated the opportunity of passing that meaning along to our son. Please respond back to me when possible. I need help getting on and\or whether I’m all bent out of shape for nothing.
P.S. Due to my husband name being so unique he has been approached several times already about whether he has recently had a child. People are thinking that because this baby’s name is Lincoln Cash that it is my husband son. What do we do? Thanks for your time.

Let’s see if we can sort this out, issue by issue. I am afraid you are not going to like any of this.

* Names are many-time-use items. No one owns exclusive rights to a name—and it’s a good thing, too, or we’d be resorting to random combinations of letters and numbers by now.

* If someone younger than your husband has the same name, that is irrelevant to whether or not you can use the name for your child. I will say this again, because this is important: it is irrelevant to your future use of the name. No one has cheated you out of anything; no one has stolen anything from you: they don’t somehow own the name now, nor do they own the meaning of the name you hope to pass on to a future son. Names are many-time-use items.

* People who choose the same name have no obligation to use it for the same reasons. One person’s reasons don’t invalidate another person’s reasons: if another family uses the name with a different significance in mind, it does not suck the significance from your husband’s name. Their use of the name does not make the people your husband was named for any less important to his family.

* Many parents have special reasons for choosing a child’s name. Having special reasons for choosing a name doesn’t create a greater claim to the name. Everyone else is still allowed to use the names, even if they don’t have the same special reasons. They may even use it if they have ZERO special reasons.

* The other family did not name their baby Lincoln Cash in an attempt to offend and disrespect you. Can you imagine them sitting in the hospital, thinking, “You know what would really offend those people? Giving our baby his name! Let’s do it! *rubbing hands together with evil glee*.” Naming a baby after someone is considered a serious compliment and a high honor. At the very least, it’s a compliment to the name. It is never, ever done as an insult. Your reaction (feeling insulted and offended) is inappropriate.

* In answer to your question about what to do when someone asks you if that child is your husband’s baby: you answer, “No.”

The thing is, I believe you agree with me already. I will show you what I mean:

Your husband was not the first to have his name, any more than that new baby is. In fact, you say he was given the names of other people. Did your husband’s mother steal the names of those special and important people, would you say? Did she take away the significance and meaning the parents of those special/important people felt when they named those two long-ago babies? Should the parents of those special/important people have been offended and insulted that your husband’s mother used their babies’ names for her baby, your husband? Should those two special/important people have been furious with your husband’s mother, because now they could not pass on their own names themselves?

Of course not. She did not steal the names. She did not sap the names of significance and meaning. She did not insult and offend the special/important people’s parents by reusing the names they had used for their babies. She did not prevent the special/important people from using the names themselves. She chose a name she liked for her baby. That’s what this other family has also done. And that is what you will do, when you name your future babies.

Mariana writes:

I am writing to enlist your help in search of the perfect international boy’s name.

I live in Brazil and I am expecting my first, a boy, in September. My husband is also Brazilian. Growing up, I lived in Chile, England and Brazil, and through travel and studies became fluent in French, Spanish and English. As an adult, I spent 15 very happy years in New York, where I built a good career for myself as a graphic designer, and created strong and lasting friendships. I have since relocated to Brazil, but I go back very often, for work, and to see friends. I aso travel extensively for work in Europe, Canada and the rest of the US, and my husband and I have friends in many places. We truly feel the world is a small place and we hope our boy will grow up to be quite a traveller himself. In fact, we plan on enrolling him in a bi-lengual school as soon as possible.

With such an international lifestyle, I have always wanted a name that could work in English, French and Spanish, and of course our native Portuguese. By that I mean a name that could be understood and pronouced easily in any one of those languages, withouth spelling changes or adaptations. And which doesn’t feel immediately “foreign” in other countries.

For girls it was easy – Julia, Helena, Olivia and Alma were at the top of our list. For boys, however, we’re stumped. There’s Gabriel and Daniel (far too many around us already), Oscar (a little odd here in Brazil, and doesn’t go with our last names), and the only one we like, Bruno. My favorite boy’s name, the one closest to my heart, is Pedro – but that has such immediate “latino” implications, which is exactly what I don’t want. I also tend to like short names, rather than longer ones.

To further complicate matters, I have a Rumanian last name, Ochs, and my husband an Italian one, Corsi. We find them impossible to combine! My husband’s name is Gustavo (which we have to shorten to Gus when we’re in the US), and he has a 7-year-old son from his previous marriage named Artur (Brazilian spelling for Arthur).

Any suggestions would be tremendously appreciated!

Are you sure there are too many Daniels for your tastes? It has all the hallmarks of a great name: long roots, good nickname, flexible image (that is, it doesn’t call to mind any particular type of person/profession), easy to spell and pronounce. It works with both surnames, and also with the name Artur.

Gabriel, too, seems like an excellent choice: the long roots! the good nickname! the flexible image! good with the surnames and sibling name! Popular names, yes, but a GOOD kind of common: timeless, enduring, classic, traditional—never-wear-out kinds of names. More than two kids named Maverick in town and things get a little awkward, but you can easily have a couple of Daniels or Gabriels in every classroom.

For further suggestions, I have to turn to my readers: I’ve never even been out of my own country, except for brief drives through Canadian customs and right back out again. I’m hoping some of you are more well-traveled than I, and can offer some helpful suggestions.

Leah writes:

I’ve been lurking around your blog for a few months now so I know what good advice you & your readers usually give and believe me, do I ever need it!

Here’s the deal. I’m due to give birth to our 3rd child in about 2 weeks. Throughout this whole pregnancy (or at least for the past 20+ weeks of it) we’ve believed that this baby was a girl, so of course we picked our name accordingly. And we had such a good name picked out, too. Abigail Elizabeth. Love it. But…

My Dr. ordered a second ultrasound last week to assess placental site (I’d been having some light bleeding, luckily everything is OK though) and while assuring us that everything looks great in there, they also told us that our supposed little girl is actually a boy! My husband and I are thrilled, of course (especially as we already have 2 beautiful girls. Isadora, called Izzy, age 4 and Arabella, called Bella, age 2), but now we can’t for the life of us think of what to call the little guy!

We want his middle name to be Richard after both of our grandfathers, but we CAN NOT agree on a first name that we both really like (there are 2 in the running so far, but that’s it), and neither of us likes Richard enough to make it his first name.

Names we both actually like but can’t use as they’re already being used by close family and friends include: William, Jacob, Scott, Preston, Oliver (so sad about this one, as it’s the one boy’s name that I’ve loved forever, but my sister stole it last year).

Names that we can use and also both agree on are sadly few. In fact there only 2 so far, and I don’t really love either one. They are; Harrison and Camden.

And there are some others that we both kind of like but we don’t think they sound good with Richard (Kevin, Brad and George come to mind. I don’t know why, but any of those names paired with Richard just rub me the wrong way)! Names that go with our last name aren’t a problem, at least, as pretty much everything sounds OK with it (rhymes with Lake).

So,we both prefer somewhat classic boy names & if you or your lovely readers could come up with anything better I’m all ears!

Please help!

The names you like for boys are a somewhat different style than the names you like for girls. We have the same situation in our family, and so I struggled a little naming our girl: should we force ourselves to choose names that matched our boy names in style? or should we use the style of girl name we liked? We went with the girl name we liked.

Because the name Oliver was on my list, and because the boy-name style you like is the same as the boy-name style I like, I wonder if you’d like some of the other boy names from our list:

Charles/Charlie Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Charlie
Leo Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Leo
Henry Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Henry
Milo Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Milo
Elliot Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Elliot
Eric Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Eric
Malcolm Richard; Izzy, Bella, and Malcolm

From that list, my favorite candidates are Charles/Charlie, Leo, and Milo. But let’s see what everyone else thinks! Vote in the poll at right, and choose up to two favorites!

[Poll results (228 votes total):
Harrison: 21 votes, roughly 9%
Camden: 7 votes, roughly 3%
Charles/Charlie: 40 votes, roughly 18%
Leo: 32 votes, roughly 14%
Henry: 31 votes, roughly 14%
Milo: 43 votes, roughly 19%
Elliot: 32 votes, roughly 14%
Eric: 6 votes, roughly 3%
Malcolm: 16 votes, roughly 7%]

[Update! Leah writes:

I’m very happy to announce that our little man was born 6 days earlier than expected, at 8:17 a.m. on July 23! He’s 8lbs 7oz and 21 inches of pure perfection.

And as for his name?

Well, I really fell in love with your suggestion of Milo, but the husband kept vetoing it whenever I brought it up. His reason? The freaky 1998 horror movie of the same name. He said he wouldn’t ever be able to look at our son without thinking of the creepy kid in the movie if we named him Milo. I fought hard for this name, but in the end decided it wasn’t worth it if it upset the husband so much (poor guy was almost in tears when I insisted that since I was the one who had to carry and birth the boy I should be able to name him whatever I wanted).

So when I finally let go of Milo I liked the idea of using Charles/Charlie a lot too, but again the husband said no. Apparently Charlie was the name of the kid who used to bully him in grade school & brought back too many bad memories or something. He was never this opinionated when we were naming the girls, who knew he’d be so picky about boys names?

Finally I saw the suggestion of one of your readers (Christa, I think it was) for Owen. At first I didn’t love it (not like I did Milo *sigh*) but the more I thought about it, the more it grew on me, until finally I was convinced it was the name I wanted. Thankfully Hubby didn’t have any bad memories/associations attached to this one, & so Owen Richard he is!

Thanks to everyone for the helpful suggestions!]

Do we do…pet names? Well, let’s see if we do or not!

Katie writes:

I know this is not really what you do, but I’m done having kids. So now it is on DOG NAMES! I was wondering if you and your readers could help us. We are getting a West Highland Terrier (Westie) and need some suggestions. The good news: it doesn’t need to match a middle name (unless we want to) and it doesn’t really matter how it sounds with our last name. Our names are Katie, Matt, Zoë, Aynsley, and Camden – so that is our only stipulation, it can’t sound too much like any of those. We don’t know if it will be a girl or a boy.
Thanks for you help!

Well, the first thing I did was go online and find a picture of West Highland Terriers:

And that was also the last thing I did, because I’m not up to speed on puppy names. I don’t hang out with a lot of young dogs, so I don’t know which names are the Hot Trends, or which ones are So Last (Dog) Year.

But I’ll bet we’ve got some puppy name enthusiasts among us. Go ahead! Name that puppy!

Well, OBV we have to talk about the new baby twins of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. What do you think of the names? The boy is Knox Leon, and the girl is Vivienne Marcheline.

Boy names in their family: Maddox, Pax, and Knox.
Girl names in their family: Zahara, Shiloh, and Vivienne.