Melissa writes:

I have a baby boy due in mid-July. For the entirety of my pregnancy we have referred to him as Baby 2.0.

I have a three-year-old son named Cooper. What my husband and I love about Cooper’s name is that it’s (a) has a family connection, (b) is a last-name as a first-name, and (c) doesn’t have a default nickname (like Matt for Matthew or Tom for Thomas).

There are many last-name as first-names that my husband and I like, such as Jackson or Benson. Our last name is Gibson, though … so most anything ending in -son sounds a bit cartoonish. We also find names ending in -on, such as Ashton, or even -n, such as Gavin, a bit harsh when combined with our last name. This obviously eliminates so many great names.

We’ve researched both sides of our family for another acceptable family name and have come up with nothing. We feel Cooper’s names have pretty well covered any “family obligation,” so we don’t have to consider that in naming Baby 2.0.

We’re currently considering Sawyer. It goes well with Cooper, is the last-name as a first-name, has literary connections, and shares its first letter with my mother-in-law’s name (while Cooper shares its first letter with my mother’s name). However, we just don’t seem to be feeling it.

We also like Maxwell. It’s one of my husband’s best friend’s middle names. Joaquin Phoenix, one of my favorite actors, also played a character named Maxwell California (from 8 mm, a very dark film, but the character wasn’t dark). I don’t mind the default nickname, Max. My only real hesitation with Max is that Jennifer Lopez and Christina Aguilera recently named their sons Max. And I think Max Gibson sounds a bit odd … can’t put my finger on it, though.

The middle name will likely be Pate – it’s my husband’s middle name and his mother’s middle name. Again, it’s not something we have to use. Other possibilities for middle names: Benson (a friend’s last name) or Yaboa (a friend’s middle name, it’s of African decent and pronounced just as it looks YA-BO-A). The more “common” the first name, the more creative we’ll be with the middle name. California is also a contender (my husband is from SoCal), and I love the combination of Maxwell California.

I’m looking for more name suggestions and perhaps some reassurance on the name Maxwell. I’m really hoping he arrives and looks “just like a _____.” But I want to be prepared if that doesn’t happen!

So, there it is. I really love your opinions and the comments from your readers. As a mom with a nameless baby, reading your blog has been a wonderful, educational distraction during my pregnancy.

Okay! *brisk clap* So it sounds like we want to concentrate on surname names here. I think Sawyer is a great choice: the first time I heard it on a baby, I immediately thought “OMG GREAT NAME.” It is terrible with my own surname, but it’s great with yours. (Should we use the word “great” again? GREAT!)

I agree with you that there is something I can’t put a finger on about the name Max Gibson. Is it maybe just too much like Mel Gibson? It doesn’t sound the same, but it’s three letters starting with M and maybe that’s what does it. Or maybe it blends too well and turns into something like Mack Skibson. Still, it belongs in the poll.

I’m curious as always to know what The Baby Name Wizard suggests as sibling names. For Cooper, the book suggests Carter, Brody, Addison, Walker, Davis. Well. Addison is still in the Top 1000 for boys, but it’s #11 for girls so I wouldn’t touch it with an 11-foot pole for boys anymore. Carter is a great name, but it repeats not only the C but also the -er, and I think you’re completely right about avoiding that. Walker, too, repeats the -er. Brody works, and so does Davis. Brody Gibson. Davis Gibson. Nice!

Let’s find some more options.

You can’t get much more surnamey than the name Smith, and I think it’s adorable. Picture a little toddler with sticky-up hair. Smith! It’s like Seth, but with more impact. And I like the repeating short-i sound: Smith Gibson.

Would Everett be to your tastes? It’s one of my favorite surname names. It doesn’t have any tempting nicknames, and I like it with Cooper. Everett Gibson.

Wesley is another good one: a long-standing surname name without the trendy feeling of some of the more recent surname names. I love the nickname Wes. Wesley Gibson.

So here’s our list of possibilities:

Sawyer Gibson; Cooper and Sawyer
Maxwell Gibson; Cooper and Maxwell
Brody Gibson; Cooper and Brody
Davis Gibson; Cooper and Davis
Smith Gibson; Cooper and Smith
Everett Gibson; Cooper and Everett
Wesley Gibson; Cooper and Wesley

Vote in the poll over to the right [poll closed; see below], and/or put other suggestions in the comment section.

[Poll results:
Sawyer: 47 votes, roughly 26%
Maxwell: 4 votes, roughly 2%
Brody: 19 votes, roughly 10%
Davis: 23 votes, roughly 13%
Smith: 35 votes, roughly 19%
Everett: 25 votes, roughly 14%
Wesley: 28 votes, roughly 15%]

[Name Update! Melissa writes:

My little guy was due on July 18 – we were consider Sawyer or Maxwell at the time. Well, he was born on July 4! Happy and healthy at 7 lbs. 14 oz. and head full of light brown hair.

After reading the comments and seeing the poll, we still just weren’t feeling it. So, I told my husband: Listen, I picked Cooper’s first name and that worked out, so I’m just going to pick something and you’re going to agree. At that moment, a Toyota Camry commercial came on and I said, “Camden.” We both liked it instantly.

Camden and Cooper are quite a bit matchier than we wanted, but we’re not sure we’ll have a third. We figured we’d use it and should a third come along, well, we’ll deal with that then. We also figured, we both loved Cooper, why wouldn’t we love a similar name? Camden is on the softer side, is a last name, isn’t popular (in the 200s on the SSA site), and is similar enough to Caden and Cameron that it’s not too weird. Also, Camden means “winding river” which I thought was so peaceful.

For his middle name, we went with Jack. I know there’s been quite a bit of discussion on the blog about Jack as a middle name, but I couldn’t resist. Camden Jack … reminds me of a nature show host or a pirate. I love Animal Planet and my three year old loves pirates, so we’re all happy!

Thank you!
Melissa

Congratulations!

Stacey writes:

Hi Swistle! My name is Stacey and we just recently found out we are having a baby boy! Since the start of this pregnancy we have only talked about 3 boy names: Lucas, William and Michael.

Recently our neighbors found out they are also having a boy and naming him William because in their family it’s tradition and he will be a third. Understandable.

And even more recently some friends of ours had a baby boy and named him William.

This gets my husband thinking we are not allowed to use the name “William”. (FYI, we would call him Will)

We are not super close with either of these couples. I personally feel if it was an uncommon name then yes, it would seem odd but William is such a classic name that I don’t see it as we are copying, per se. Also, yes we do have couples that we are VERY close too, and in that case I would probably avoid it because our children would be around each other often, but I don’t see that happening with these other couples I mentioned.

What is your opinion on this?

We both like the name Michael, which would be after my brother but we have also thought we would save that name if we have a second boy someday UNLESS this baby pops out and resembles him, then we might change our minds.

I am not feeling the name Lucas. I don’t hate it but it’s just not IT for me.

Any thoughts?

I’m totally with you on the William issue: if the name were Oswald, and your neighbors used it and then some friends of yours used it, I’d say maybe you should reconsider—not because they have exclusive rights to the name, but just because it would be getting pretty silly to have a third Oswald right in a row.

But in the case of a name such as William, I don’t think some mild duplication among acquaintances is going to be a problem. It’s a terrific name: classic, long roots, and I like the nickname Will. I seriously think it’s one of the best boy names. (You might be thinking, “Um, duh, it’s your son’s name”—but it’s only his pseudonym.)

Michael is another truly terrific candidate. It’s been in the top ten forever, and yet there are no Michaels in any of my kids’ classes. And again: classic, long roots, and great nickname. I really don’t think you can go wrong with either William or Michael.

With Lucas, the only thing wrong with it is that you’re not feeling it. I had that same experience with some of the names Paul and I considered for our kids: the name was great in every way—except that it didn’t feel like “My Baby.” It felt like a great name for somebody ELSE’S baby.

Tell your husband not to be silly: use William. And next time, use Michael. What great sibling names!

[Update! Stacey writes: “He arrived August 1st, 7lbs 10 oz and we went with the name Lucas Robert. Initially I wasn’t feeling it but the closer it got the more I liked the name and now I can’t imagine him any thing other than a Luke. Thanks for your help!”]

Queen writes:

Here’s a naming fiend question: What do you think of matching twin names? Evil? OK, if not carried too far? (We will NOT be going for the anagram names Roland and Arnold, for instance. Or rhyming. Gag.)

Baby B is going to be Lincoln (Lincoln Theodore if he is in fact the only boy) and that’s that. For Baby A, assuming her to be a her and not a sneaky boy, we are wavering between Lillian Ruth and Suzanna Ruth. Both of them mean approximately the same thing and would be chosen in honor of the same family members.

I like Lillian/Lilly a little better (my grandmother’s first name is Lillie) even though it is so very popular right now. (The same thing happened to Abigail. I can’t help it if other people have good taste!) Also, Link and Lilly sounds rather cute together.

On the other hand, I think my husband prefers Suzanna slightly. There is no doubt that it would be handy to have a separate first initial to differentiate things. We would use the nickname Zuzu until she got old enough to object, and after that I rather fancy Zanna and hope she does, too. I abhor Suzy or anything that sounds like it, which makes me a tad nervous about using this name.

If Baby A is a boy after all, he will probably be Emmett (Another last name! Gasp! But a traditional usage as a first name. Also it means “truth” in Hebrew.)

Thoughts?

Ooooo, TWIN names! I found it both highly fun and highly stressful to name my twins. Matching twin names (Timmy and Tommy, Sharon and Karen, Paul and Paula) have been out of style since Timmy and Sharon and Paula were on the list of hot baby names. You do still hear of people doing it, of course, but the current prevailing attitude is Twin Names Should Not Match.

Still, I was hoping for some slight matchiness: same first initial, maybe, or at least same syllables or same number of letters! SOMEthing! The pseudonyms I use for them (Elizabeth and Edward) are misleading, because we ended up with zero matchiness of any kind: the girl name we liked best and the boy name we liked best didn’t have anything in common, and we weren’t willing to give up either name, so we gave up on the matchiness instead. Or perhaps “coordination” would be a more appropriate word: we weren’t trying to MATCH so much as coordinate.

Even though I still think wistfully of alliteration, I do think it’s a good twin-naming exercise to think of the twins arriving as singletons instead of together: which name would you choose for the first baby, born on his or her own, and then what name for the second baby, born a couple of years after that? If you had a son named Lincoln already, what would you name his sister?

As you point out, it is very handy indeed to have different initials: for the baby born after the twins, I leaned heavily toward any name candidate with a yet-unused initial.

If you do go with Lincoln and Lillian, I notice that “Linc and Lilly” sounds like “Lincoln Lilly.” I’d switch the order to “Lilly and Linc”—but that sounds like “Lillian Linc”!

Let’s ask Mairzy!

Although I’ve always actively hoped against having twins, I have to say, I envy you (and Swistle) the fun of twin-naming! This is my chance to have a bit of the fun without actually having two babies at once. (Note: the Queen and I are friends, but I don’t live close enough to babysit… which means I can offer with great abandon because she can’t take me up on it.)

My opinion of twin names — a completely unauthorized opinion but when did that ever matter? — is that they should go together but not match. Tenleigh and George, for instance, do not go together. Suzanna and Lincoln go together very well, but aren’t a package deal. Lincoln and Lillian edge over the package-deal line.

Lincoln is a cool name, and Link a cool nickname. Also, Link and Lilly (I like the double-L spelling) is very cute. But, coolness and cuteness aside, I think you’ll drive yourself crazy with those names. There is every possibility that you’ll refer to your children as “Lill and Linky.” And then there’s the Repeating Initial trap. In my family, none of us has matching or rhyming names. But some of us (my son and I, my husband and daughter) have the same first initial. Labeling things has become a certified headache. If there are going to be more than four people in the household, Avoid Repeating First Letters! Then again, I love my children’s names so much that I don’t know which one I’d change. Hm. Maybe I’d change mine and my husband’s.

Suzanna is a lovely name. I do prefer the Susannah spelling — it’s softer — but Suzanna is legitimate. Plus, you can hope to use Zanna with that spelling. (What sixteen-year-old girl wouldn’t want a cool name beginning with Z?) Nowadays, people don’t automatically jump to nicknames like previous generations did; I don’t think you have to worry about “Suzy.”

If Suzanna turns out to be a sneaky boy… I love last-names-as-first-names. My own son’s name is a surname, although it’s been used as a first name long enough that you don’t immediately realize it. But that’s the type of name I always find myself picking out: one of the top contenders on our boy list is Reid. And it’s an age-old tradition, not necessarily trendy and preppy. As for Emmett… we not only considered Emmett for a boy, but we went a step beyond and were going to use the actual Hebrew word for truth, Emeth. (I’m glad now that Baby turned out to be a girl, because I think we’d have regretted stepping out quite that far.). Emmett is a great name, one of the few gentlemanly boy names left not co-opted by girls (see: Avery, Reese, Vaughn). A word of caution: Emmett is up-and-coming popular. But that shouldn’t discredit such a good name (she says without any trace of bias, having just admitted that she was going to use a form of the name for one of her own children).

To sum up, I like Lincoln and Suzanna best; and if the situation warrants it, Emmett and Lincoln would make a good pair.

And call me any time you need a babysitter!

Thanks, Mairzy!

Let’s make a poll [poll closed; see below] that assumes Lincoln is the only boy, and let’s have a vote on the name for the girl twin: Lillian (Lillian and Lincoln, Lilly and Linc, matching initials), or Suzanna (Suzanna and Lincoln, Zuzu and Linc, non-matching initials).

But even more interesting, I think, would be your thoughts on twin names. What would you do, if you had twins to name? Would you match a lot? a little? not at all? If you used my method of pretending you were naming the babies individually, would you hope for matchiness, or hope for none?

[Poll results:
Lincoln and Suzanna: 64 votes, roughly 63%
Lincoln and Lillian: 37 votes, roughly 37%]

[

Update!

Mairzy writes:
Queen asked me to send an update for her, seeing as she’s now home with four children ages 4 and under. As she put it, “…Brain fog is getting pretty serious around here. Actually they’re both very good babies and either one would be a piece of cake solo. But not being able to part with either, I shall just have to figure out both at once.”

So here are the new arrivals, born July 9:

Suzanna Ruth
7lbs, 12oz; 20.5 in

Lincoln Theodore
6lbs, 15oz; 20 in]

Anne writes:

I am having a terrible time coming up with a name for girl #2, due to arrive in June. My first baby’s name is Esme, and I love, love, love this name to pieces. It seems impossible to come up with another girl’s name that seems as special to me and resonates as much.

My criteria are: It has to be uncommon, but not “made up.” It must go with a last name, two syllables, Erdos, pronounced “AIR-dose” (with emphasis on the first syllable–so first names with the emphasis on the last syllable are out, as they make the two names together sound awkward). I don’t want cutesy, but I do want feminine.

Anyway–my top choice right now is Astrid. What do you think? Middle name will be McManaway (family name on my side, and non-negotiable). I’m not too concerned about the flow of the first name with the middle name, since it won’t be spoken aloud very often. The problem is, I like Astrid, but I don’t LOVE it the way I love Esme. Other thoughts I have had were Greer (but doesn’t go with the last name), Henrietta (which I think is adorable, but I fear would not be enjoyed by the baby, who might think it’s ugly and grandma), Luella (which my husband hates), Arden (but waaaay too trendy sounding), Odile (but emphasis on the wrong syllable), Delphine (same), Elodie (love, but hard to say in way that doesn’t sound either too French and snotty or too American and like “melody”), Clementine (but I think people would think this was a joke).

Anyway, any guidance would be much appreciated–I am spending far too much of my time obsessing over this, and really need to get back to work!

I, too, am a fan of the name Henrietta. I’m not quite ready to use it on a baby of my own, but I’d be thrilled if someone else did. I think its time is coming—perhaps when everyone is done with Emma and Violet. The nicknames are darling: Henrie, Hennie, Hen, Ettie. People generally love long girly names with short boyish nicknames (Samantha/Sam, Alexandra/Alex), so why not Henrietta/Henry? Well, you and me and the little bird agree. Maybe we’ll have granddaughters with that name.

Hey, since we agree on Henrietta, I wonder if you’d like another of my favorites that gets dissed as too old-ladyish: Millicent. I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s great with Esme, too: Esme and Millicent. Also, don’t you think people have SOME CHEEK calling names “too old-ladyish” while they continue to say they like “old-fashioned” names like Emma and Violet? ME TOO!

I turned to the name Esme in The Baby Name Wizard to find sister names, and look! Sister names: Elodie, Clio, Ivy, Noa, Fleur. Elodie is the first one! I love the name Elodie and I don’t think it sounds snotty—but then, I pronounce it like Melody without the M. Cute monogram, too: EME.

(I notice, saying these possibilities aloud, that your surname is wily: it combines with first names. Elo-dee-air-dos sounds like one long word—perhaps a vacation destination. So does Astri-dare-dos.)

I’m going to keep looking at sister names in The Baby Name Wizard:

Astrid: Sigrid, Dagmar, Signe, Greta, Margit
Henrietta: Winifred, Cordelia, Beatrice, Matilda, Wilhelmina
Elodie: Esme, Amelie, Sabine, Cecily, Ariane
Clementine: Millicent, Violette, Henrietta, Marguerite, Eloise

Any of those strike your fancy? Look, there’s Millicent! It’s like a SIGN!

Or what about:

Arwen (AME)
Linden (LME)
Ariadne (AME)
Larkin (LME)
Carsten (CME)
Linnea (LME)
Amabel (AME)
Lorelei (LME)
Hazel (HME)

What does everyone else think about a sister for Esme? Vote in the poll at right [poll closed; see below], and/or leave more suggestions in the comments.

[Poll results:
Henrietta: 16 votes; roughly 11%
Millicent: 16 votes, roughly 11%
Elodie: 49 votes, roughly 33%
Astrid: 9 votes, roughly 6%
Arwen: 6 votes, roughly 4%
Linden: 4 votes, roughly 3%
Ariadne: 5 votes, roughly 3%
Larkin: 4 votes, roughly 3%
Linnea: 14 votes, roughly 9%
Lorelei: 17 votes, roughly 11%
Hazel: 9 votes, roughly 6%]

[Updated! Anne writes:

As promised, here’s the verdict: We named our baby, born June 4, Astrid. I was thisclose to choosing Elodie, having consulted with a French friend and everything, who assured me it was pronounced more “Eh-lo-dee” as opposed to “Ay-lo-dee”, which almost got me there, but in the end it was just too similar to Melody, a name I very much do not like. Anyway, now that she is an Astrid it seems to suit her very well and I can’t imagine anything else, though I keep reading sites like these because I find the whole process of naming one’s children to be endlessly fascinating!

Congratulations!]