{"id":10374,"date":"2014-08-12T06:53:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-12T10:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10374"},"modified":"2014-09-23T06:02:21","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T10:02:21","slug":"baby-girl-ronsen-with-a-j-sister-to-charlotte-mae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/08\/12\/baby-girl-ronsen-with-a-j-sister-to-charlotte-mae\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Ronsen-with-a-J, Sister to Charlotte Mae"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

I am almost 34 weeks pregnant with our second daughter. She is scheduled to arrive via c-section on 9\/15\/14. Our last name is Ronsen with a J, it is Norwegian.
\nOur first daughter is named Charlotte Mae. Mae is also my paternal grandmother’s middle name, and after we had chosen it, we found it is also the middle name of one of my mother-in-law’s grandmothers. Charlotte was not nearly as popular in 2010 when we chose it as it has become.
\nWe did not know her sex until her arrival, so had she been a boy, her name would have been Matthew William (Father in law’s middle name is also William).<\/p>\n

Husband wants to continue the idea of a family middle name. He thinks that this time the middle name should come from his side since it “just worked out” that last time the middle name was on both sides. I disagree because the baby has his last name, so I don’t think we automatically have to throw out middle names from my family since the last one was technically from my family.<\/p>\n

I love:
\nEmeline (He pronounces with long i, I prefer with short i. I am not sure which of us is correct, or if another spelling would get the short i sound)
\nAnnelise (He suggested Annabelle, but I don’t like Annabelle)
\nCaroline (He rejected last time, but I still have love in my heart for this name)
\nCatherine (I am not sure if I like the flow of this with our last name, but it is a long time favorite of mine)<\/p>\n

He has suggested:
\nSarah (I don’t hate it but I don’t love it either. I feel like it is too plain with Charlotte)
\nSusan (No, just no)
\nEmily (Too popular for my taste- this is his suggestion in response to Emeline)
\nErica (To me, Erica is a mom name- I have a co-worker named Erica and friends from college named Erica).<\/p>\n

Family middle names:
\nKay (my middle name, my mother’s middle name)
\nElaine (my grandmother’s middle name)
\nJane (my grandmother’s middle name)
\nElizabeth (his grandmother’s middle name)
\nMatilda (his grandmother’s middle name)
\nLouise (a name that appears on his family tree)<\/p>\n

I come from a large family, and we have large circle of friends, so the following that could have been contenders are already in use:
\nEmma, Madelyn, Grace, Audrey.
\nI don’t care for alliterative names, so despite the fact that I love Josephine, I don’t want to use it.
\nWe are not nickname people, so the baby will be called by her first name, so we wouldn’t name her “Elizabeth” and call her “Liz” or “Beth” for example.<\/p>\n

Thank you!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your husband’s list could indeed use a little freshening up. Erica is a Mom Name; Susan is a Grandma Name; Emily is still used but has passed its long, long peak. Sarah has potential, I think. I agree it seems a little plain with Charlotte; but on the other hand, for me it spins Charlotte from “We chose a fashionable name” to “We chose an old-fashioned classic.” If you used Sadie as a nickname for Sarah, I think you’d have a very nice pairing—but you’d prefer not to use nicknames, so I agree it sounds like this is not the right choice.<\/p>\n

Would it help to make the name Sarah a little longer? Something like Saralyn or Sarah Grace? I wonder if Serena or Sabrina would work. I particularly like Sabrina: Charlotte and Sabrina. Serenity comes to mind, but doesn’t feel quite right to me with Charlotte.<\/p>\n

Seraphina\/Serafina is a possibility. The popularity gap displeases me a little, but it’s similar to Sarah from your husband’s list while being more up-to-date. It also reminds me of Josephine.<\/p>\n

I pronounce Emeline with a long-I. The different ways to pronounce it is definitely part of the package deal of this name. We did a post on it<\/a> awhile back, and it appears there are three ways to pronounce it: long-I, long-E, and short-I. I wish I’d done a poll back then so we could see what the percentages were, but the short version is that you’d have to be okay with regularly correcting the pronunciation and hearing it pronounced incorrectly. If you want the short-I sound, I’d recommend spelling it Emelyn or Emmalyn (3 syllables, similar to Evelyn and Madelyn), or Emlyn (2 syllables).<\/p>\n

Evelyn would be another good option, in fact. Charlotte and Evelyn.<\/p>\n

Because you like Annelise and he likes Susan, I wonder if Susanna\/Susannah would be a good fit. I think it’s wonderful with the name Charlotte.<\/p>\n

I might also consider going straight to Anna. You could then call her all the Anna- names (Annelise, Annabel) as fun casual pet names for her.<\/p>\n

Caroline and Catherine both seem like good choices. It’s worth bringing up Caroline again even if he rejected it last time: I put William’s name on our second-baby name list even though Paul rejected the name the first time—and Paul picked it immediately. I think Catherine is very nice with your surname.<\/p>\n

I agree that middle names from both sides of the family should still be in the running, though I do like the idea of leaning toward one from your husband’s side this time. I would say I agree with both of you: I agree with him that Charlotte’s middle name honors your side of the family (the connection on his side is not only coincidental but remote), but I also agree with you that using his family’s surname is part of the equation. So overall, I’d prefer to pick a name from his side, but wouldn’t say it must be from his side or that names from your side should be automatically excluded from consideration. It would be nice if an equivalent to Mae could be found: a name that was used on both sides of the family.<\/p>\n

I like the idea of using Kay, since it’s your mother’s middle name and yours. I can’t decide if I like it or not that Mae and Kay are so similar. Are you hoping to have more children? Would Mae\/Kay make you feel like you had to choose a third similar name for a third daughter?<\/p>\n

The similar endings of your favorite names (-line, -lise, -line, -rine) seems like a good place to look for more options:<\/p>\n

Adeline
\nCorrine
\nElise
\nEvelina
\nGwendolyn
\nJocelyn<\/p>\n

Because your husband likes the names Sarah and Erica and you like Caroline, I might keep my ear out for more options with that “air” sound. Wait, that makes me think of a great one: Clara. It sounds like Erica and Sarah and Caroline. It’s vintage revival like Charlotte. I love it. Charlotte and Clara.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

The day before her arrival, we finally agreed on a name for our baby girl. Daddy couldn’t go into the delivery room without a name, so over our last dinner out we hashed it out.<\/p>\n

Thank you to you and your readers for your suggestions.<\/p>\n

Susannah Kay arrived on September 15, 2014 at 10:32 AM.<\/p>\n

We couldn’t love her (or her name!) more.<\/p>\n

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Dear Swistle, I am almost 34 weeks pregnant with our second daughter. She is scheduled to arrive via c-section on 9\/15\/14. Our last name is Ronsen with a J, it is Norwegian. Our first daughter is named Charlotte Mae. Mae is also my paternal grandmother’s middle name, and after we had chosen it, we found […]<\/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-10374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Hk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10374","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=10374"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10471,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10374\/revisions\/10471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}