{"id":10388,"date":"2014-08-21T06:25:04","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T10:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10388"},"modified":"2014-08-21T06:58:59","modified_gmt":"2014-08-21T10:58:59","slug":"baby-boy-stuart-brother-to-easton-henry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/08\/21\/baby-boy-stuart-brother-to-easton-henry\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Stuart, Brother to Easton Henry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

I’m just new to your blog but love the premise of a sounding board for baby names – brilliant!<\/p>\n

I am expecting boy #2 November 3rd and we’re are stuck, in agreement, but stuck on what we consider to be an ‘okay’ name. We love every name on our girls list but have never fallen in love with a boy’s name. Our oldest is two years old now and we still feel that we named him an ‘okay’ name with Easton Henry. Not a great feeling two years later.<\/p>\n

We like solid, no spell check needed, classic names that aren’t on the top 10 list. Our surname is classic and as a stand in we can safely say Stuart which I find almost everything sounds good with making the decision even more difficult.<\/p>\n

We are keep going back to Clark Anderson for baby number two and it’s pretty much the only name on the list. Top of our girls list is Evelyn and I would love to be able to use it for our third and final round. We’ve toyed with other boy’s names such as Harrison, Miller, Arthur but keep going back to Clark. And like I said, we feel okay about it, but it would be nice to have confirmation or have other ideas for similar names and hopefully can fall in love with one with no name regrets.<\/p>\n

Originally we did fall in love with the name Anderson however if shortened to Anders, it’s an S on S name…AndersssssStuart and I try to stay away from that. Also, if shortened to Andy, well it rhymes with my name, Mandy, and am not a fan of that either.<\/p>\n

So there it is…not sure if I’m looking for other ideas or just need someone to say nailed it and feel confident that it’s the name for us but would appreciate any help you can offer.<\/p>\n

Thanks for your help and again, brilliant idea for a blog!
\nI’d love to be able to use my family as a sounding board but really want to keep the name a surprise until his birth day.<\/p>\n

Mandy<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think that if you and your husband have never fallen in love with a boy name, that if you gave your first son a name you considered just okay and even after the name belonged to your son STILL haven’t fallen in love with it, and that if you’ve been trying this whole pregnancy to find a name to fall in love with and haven’t—that it is safe to say it’s unlikely you WILL fall in love with a boy name. You might! It’s true, you might. After 3+ years of looking at boy names, you might suddenly find one you love. But the odds are not stacked in favor of that. At this point I think I’d say, “Well, we just don’t love boy names,” and concentrate on finding “favorite” rather than “love.”<\/p>\n

It sounds like Clark Anderson is your favorite: you might not love it, but if all the boy names in the world were put in order of your preference, that would be the top one. That makes it the winner. I think it’s a great choice: a surname name like Easton; fits nicely with Evelyn if you have a girl next time; and a good solid name that should serve him well in childhood and adulthood.<\/p>\n

If, however, you DID fall in love with Anderson, I think it’s worth revisiting that. The issues you mention seem minor to me—or at least, not worth ditching the only name you’ve ever fallen in love with and going with one you’re just okay with. I agree it’s nice to avoid an -s name with an S- surname if possible, but I don’t hold nicknames (especially when they’re only potential<\/em> nicknames) to the same standards as given names. I agree it wouldn’t be ideal to have an Andy and a Mandy in the family, but I also don’t think it means the name has to be eliminated from consideration: at worst, Andy\/Mandy seems a little cutesy and has the potential for the occasional unimportant confusion (“Oh, I thought you said Mandy! Hang on, I’ll call Andy”). The fact that it does rhyme with your name makes the nickname less likely to be used, I’d think.<\/p>\n

Clark has its own similar issues, such as turning into Clarks with your surname. Clark Anderson Stuart is also a lot of surname for one name. If it’s between Clark Anderson and Anderson _____, I’d say they’re both great names and that the issues with them are about equal; if you love one and find the other just okay, I’d say go with the one you love.<\/p>\n

With Anderson, you could use Clark as the middle name. Or it might be fun to find something parallel to Henry. Anderson Arthur, Anderson Charles, Anderson Edward, Anderson Wesley.<\/p>\n

I would also think back and see if there are any other names you fell in love with but then eliminated for reasons that might not have been enough to be worth crossing them off the list. Every name has its own set of issues, and finding one you love may be well worth accepting those issues.<\/p>\n

If you want to expand your list, I’d start with the Last Names First section of The Baby Name Wizard<\/a> and would add a few more:<\/p>\n

Davison
\nMeyer
\nRobertson
\nThompson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle, I’m just new to your blog but love the premise of a sounding board for baby names – brilliant! I am expecting boy #2 November 3rd and we’re are stuck, in agreement, but stuck on what we consider to be an ‘okay’ name. We love every name on our girls list but have […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Hy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10388","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=10388"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10396,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10388\/revisions\/10396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}