{"id":10055,"date":"2014-07-03T06:13:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T10:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10055"},"modified":"2014-11-20T12:52:57","modified_gmt":"2014-11-20T16:52:57","slug":"baby-girl-dur-sister-to-sebastian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/07\/03\/baby-girl-dur-sister-to-sebastian\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Dur, Sister to Sebastian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

I love lurking on your baby names blog and am hoping you and your astute readers can help me come up with a name for Baby #2. We just found out she’s a girl, and she is due in mid-November.<\/p>\n

Our last name is a real challenge! It’s a one-syllable name that starts with D and rhymes with “fur” (as in animal fur). Because of our clunky last name, I think the first name needs to have a minimum of two syllables, and preferably more, to balance it out. The other problem is that many names become words when attached to our last name (think Bender (Ben), Leader (Lee), Colander (Colin), etc.). This is a bigger problem with boy names than with girl names, but happens with certain girl names, too (Cora becomes “corridor” in some accents, for instance).<\/p>\n

Our firstborn is a boy named Sebastian. Things we particularly love about his name: three syllables, doesn’t naturally nickname to anything that sounds weird with our last name, is an “old” name with some historical weight, and has pronunciations in multiple languages so it should travel well with him in the future, hopefully. Oh, and we like the literary association with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (my husband and I are both big readers, and I love theatre).<\/p>\n

If this baby had turned out to be a boy, we were kicking around the names Julian, Byron, Beckett, and August. We do hope to have three children ultimately, so these are still on the table for a potential future boy.<\/p>\n

As for a name for this baby girl, we both love the name Joanna. It has been a long-time favorite of mine, for many of the same reasons I love Sebastian (literary\/theatre associations, a name with a long history, will travel well with its multiple pronunciations). And my husband is enamored of the idea of calling her Joey or Jo-Jo as a nickname. He likes girl names with a masculine nickname. However, it dawned on me the other day that one of the names we always joke we can never name a baby is Jan(n)a, because she’d be Jana Dur…do you hear it? Is Joanna Dur just too close to the same association as Jana Dur? I’d love to think that extra syllable and the O nixes the broom closet association for anyone but overly-critical me, but now that I’ve heard it I can’t unhear it. My husband is also concerned that people would call her “Jo [Dur],” which sounds an awful lot like “Joe Dirt”, the title of a David Spade comedy circa 2001. Obviously that wouldn’t be an association for her peers, but it probably is for many of ours (and it’s not a positive association, in my opinion). What do you think? Do we need to give up on the idea of using Joanna? We really do love it…<\/p>\n

Our runner-up name (which is actually starting to become more appealing in my eyes) is Louisa. I like it for most of the same reasons I like Joanna. I have also always liked the name Lula, and think it could work as a nickname for Louisa. My husband also likes the name a lot, and likes that she could be Lou or Lula. (I do realize that Lou [Dur] is “looter,” but that doesn’t bother me, mostly because how often do you actually hear someone being referred to as a “looter”? It’s just not a common word, I don’t think.) I wonder if Louisa is just going to be super polarizing, though. I definitely don’t need everyone in the world to love or even like my child’s name. Sebastian has turned out to be pretty polarizing, with plenty of people telling me how much they adore it, but others–typically relatives from the older generation–struggling with it. I think Louisa is lovely, and if it’s going to get a mixed reaction similar to Sebastian, I am fine with that. But is Louisa a Bertha\/Gladys\/Lois? (In other words, is it an old lady name that is still firmly an old lady name and that’s going to get primarily a “Why did you do that to your child?!” reaction? I am not sure I want to be that much of a trailblazer!)<\/p>\n

Here are some other names we seriously considered but ultimately vetoed:
\nRosemary (we both love this one, but my husband doesn’t think he can get past the Rosemary’s Baby association; we are still very seriously considering it for the middle name slot)
\nCharlotte (just can’t handle how popular it has become in our region–our son’s name has turned out to be more popular than I would have liked, and Charlotte is way more popular than Sebastian around here; this is also a front-runner for the middle name slot, though)
\nLayla (husband likes this one a lot, but it is such a different style from Sebastian, and is a bit too trendy)
\nWilhelmina (husband thinks it’s a mouthful, but does like the nickname Minnie)
\nRosanna (seems like it should be a perfect mash-up of Rosemary and Joanna, but I just don’t like it for some reason…maybe the Toto song ruined it for me)<\/p>\n

So, thoughts on Joanna and\/or Louisa? We still have approximately 20 weeks to go, so I’m also open to other suggestions of long names with the potential for masculine\/androgynous\/peppy nicknames.<\/p>\n

Thanks so much!<\/p>\n

Ashley<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I can definitely say Joanna Dur so that it has a hint of janitor about it, but I have to deliberately say it to the wrong rhythm to get there: jo-ANNa-dur instead of joANna (*slight pause*) DUR. And even doing that, it still only sort of sounds like it. Plus, as I understand it after being corrected embarrassingly in conversation by someone who held that job, the job title is now custodian (though that helps little if the word janitor is still in regular usage).<\/p>\n

If the name were Jo Dur, the movie Joe Dirt would never have come to my mind—but then, I don’t have any memory of hearing about that movie, though I must have at the time.<\/p>\n

I don’t think Louisa is a Bertha\/Gladys\/Lois. The names Louise and Louisa have come up many times around here, but I just checked the archives and Bertha\/Gladys never have. (I couldn’t check Lois because the search results included all the Elois<\/strong>es.)<\/p>\n

Now let’s check the Social Security Administration’s data base to see the current usage of the names. Here’s how many new baby girls were given each name in 2013:<\/p>\n

Louisa: 241
\nLouise: 196<\/p>\n

Bertha: 26
\nGladys: 69
\nLois: 78<\/p>\n

So I wouldn’t put Louisa in the same category as Bertha\/Gladys\/Lois—and the number of times I’ve seen it on other parents’ lists makes me think we may see more of it soon.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, neither would I put it in the same category as Sebastian: in 2013 there were 7,495 new baby boys named Sebastian. Louisa hasn’t been in the Top 1000 since 1969, but the name Sebastian is in the Top 50 now: #45 in 2013. Girl names of similar popularity to Sebastian would be Arianna, Scarlett, Claire, and Alexis by ranking, or Evelyn, Natalie, and Grace by birth numbers. Evelyn seems like the best name of the group for comparison: it’s a popular vintage revival that has raised a few grandparent eyebrows.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at the name Joanna, while we’re at it. It was #342 in 2013; 938 new baby girls were given the name; another 557 were named Johanna (Johanna was #531).<\/p>\n

The name Josephine is more similar to Sebastian: it was #160 in 2013, given to 1,996 new baby girls. And Josephine would be a very nice option, if it meets the other preferences. Sebastian and Josephine seems like excellent sibling names to me, and Josephine eliminates the janitor issue if not the Joe Dirt issue. You’d still have the nicknames Jo and Joey, and you’d add Josie and Fina.<\/p>\n

Similar to Louisa is Eloise: it was #338 in 2013; 944 new baby girls were given the name.<\/p>\n

Or Eliza: it was #200; 1603 new baby girls were given the name.<\/p>\n

I think all this discussion makes it look as if I’m leaning away from Joanna\/Louisa, but actually I think both are great names and great candidates for this baby, and I don’t think any of the issues raised are enough to rule them out. But I feel from your letter as if you might come down on a different side of that decision.<\/p>\n

We recently made a list of longer girl names with short boyish nicknames for another post<\/a>, so I’m going to copy that list here:<\/p>\n

Antonia\/Toni
\nAugusta\/Gus\/Gussie
\nBernadette\/Bennie\/Bernie
\nCalista\/Cal
\nColette\/Cole
\nDanica\/Danny
\nFrancesca\/Frankie\/Frank
\nGeorgia\/Georgie\/George
\nGeorgianna\/Georgie\/George
\nJosephine\/Jo
\nKatherine\/Kit
\nLouisa\/Lou
\nPhilomena\/Phil
\nMatilda\/Mattie
\nTheodora\/Theo
\nThomasina\/Tommie\/Tom
\nVeronica\/Ronnie\/Ron
\nWinifred\/Freddie\/Fred<\/p>\n

Cole Dur turns to Colder, Danny is getting uncomfortably close to Dander, Theo Dur turns into Theodore—but after that I start to feel like I’m reaching. For example, I suppose Mattie could turn into Matt and then Matt Dur could sound like Matter; I suppose Phil Dur might sound like filter, but not much teasing potential there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name update!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I wanted to thank you and your readers for your help in naming our baby girl. Louisa Hazel was born on November 8th. We settled on the name Louisa shortly after writing to you. I think I just needed to hear from others that our choice wasn’t too unusual. Her name suits her perfectly, and when we announced her name reactions from friends and family were overwhelmingly positive. So far we just call her Louisa, although her big brother calls her “Baby Weeza,” so that has caught on as well. Thanks again for the help!<\/p>\n

Ashley<\/p>\n

P.S.-A picture is attached.<\/p>\n

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Dear Swistle, I love lurking on your baby names blog and am hoping you and your astute readers can help me come up with a name for Baby #2. We just found out she’s a girl, and she is due in mid-November. Our last name is a real challenge! It’s a one-syllable name that starts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Cb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10055"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10674,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10055\/revisions\/10674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}