{"id":10442,"date":"2014-09-10T13:50:35","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T17:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10442"},"modified":"2014-09-10T14:14:14","modified_gmt":"2014-09-10T18:14:14","slug":"baby-girl-jrgnsn-no-middle-names-for-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/09\/10\/baby-girl-jrgnsn-no-middle-names-for-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl J@rg@ns@n; No Middle Names for Girls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,
\nMy husband and I are struggling to agree on a name for our first daughter. We both have a few guidelines that we don’t want to compromise on.<\/p>\n

First, his: he wants to name her what we will call her (he has a sister named Katie, not Kathryn or Kaitlin), and he doesn’t like middle names for girls (in his family, girls take their maiden name as a middle name, which is a fine tradition but I don’t think our name (J@rg@ns@n) lends itself to that as nicely as something like, say, Emery or Lee).<\/p>\n

Mine: I want a name that will look grown up on a resume, diploma or wedding invitation (I personally think Katie looks silly on formal documents), I love the trendy vintage names but I don’t want something too trendy, and I want a name that is easily pronounced and spelled (my name, Janessa, was constantly written and pronounced as everything from Janice to Jessica. I love having a unique name, but wish the spelling\/pronunciation was more intuitive). I’d also like to stay away with names starting with J to avoid last name alliteration, but that’s not a deal breaker.<\/p>\n

I want to use Rose as a middle name, after my grandmother. It’s also my middle name. I don’t know whether we’ll use a middle name or not, but just in case I want a first name that sounds good with Rose (which means one of my favorites, Emily, is out, unless we want a horror movie reference in our baby’s name).<\/p>\n

Here are some first name options we’ve considered:
\nOlivia (after his grandmother; I love it but wish it wasn’t so popular. I’ve toyed with “Rose Olivia”, but it’s hard for me to see Rose as anyone except my grandmother)
\nAbby\/Abigail (I prefer the long, he prefers the short)
\nHannah (after my great-grandmother. This is what I “wanted to name my daughter” since i was about 12)
\nHallie (his sister is having a girl in September and this is her favorite name so we probably can’t use it)
\nEliza (he doesn’t like it)
\nLydia (I’m not sure if I like it)
\nNora
\nAlexis or Alexandra (he doesn’t want to call her Alex and I’m not a fan of Lexi)
\nEmma<\/p>\n

Do you or the readers have any suggestions? Thank you so much!<\/p>\n

Janessa<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I find myself quite bothered by your husband’s family’s naming tradition for girls. It seems to me it makes somewhat gross assumptions\/presumptions about women and their future plans. I suggest that tradition be stopped right now. Either give middle names to all of your children or none of them, leaving out the assumptions about their future marriage plans and future naming choices. I am finding myself almost too irritated to turn my mind to the rest of the question, as I contemplate your husband’s family deciding this extremely personal thing on behalf of all family women. “Oh, they’ll all get married, and they’ll all choose to take their spouse’s surname, and they’ll all choose to keep their maiden names as middle names, because that’s what WOMEN do in OUR family.” No. Assure your husband that your daughters will still be perfectly free to do the First Maiden Married format he prefers, if they choose to, even if they are given a middle name like their brothers—but this decision belongs to your daughters and not to him. We do not name boys as if they are fully complete at birth, but girls as if they won’t be complete until they are married.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All right, I went and had a cup of tea and a few cookies, and am now ready to face the rest of the question. So I’d say the first decision is whether you will give your children middle names or not. Because you have a middle name (which tells me your husband has personal experience already with the concept that women make their own name choices at marriage, and also makes me wonder why your husband would assume your daughters would follow their father’s naming tradition rather than their mother’s) (I guess I am not QUITE over this topic yet), and because you would like to pass this middle name on to your daughter, and because your husband would like to use middle names for sons, I suggest the middle name decision be “yes,” and I’ll proceed that way for now.<\/p>\n

Because your husband doesn’t want to use nicknames but you’d like something non-nicknamey for paperwork, I like Nora, Emma, Rose, and Hannah from your list. All of them COULD be nicknamed by someone determined to do so (Norrie\/Nora-dora, Emmie\/Em, Rosie\/Ro, Hannah-banana), but it’s not the same as, say, Abigail\/Abby or Kathryn\/Katie. If Hannah is your long-term favorite and your husband loves it too, then Hannah Rose seems like a wonderful choice.<\/p>\n

I also think Olivia is great. Again, potentially nicknameable (Liv, Livvie), but not like naming someone Margaret only to get the name Meg. It’s fairly common, yes, but it’s such a pretty name, and the family connection feels well worth it to me. I love how either Olivia Rose or Rose Olivia gives her the names of great-grandmothers from both sides of the family. Both are wonderful choices.<\/p>\n

I love Nora for its low nickname potential (I had to stretch to even come up with possible nicknames), and for its vintage charm. I’m not as fond of it with Rose, or with your surname if there is an “or” sound in the first syllable: NOR-a-JOR.<\/p>\n

Emma is much better with Rose and with your surname, but it’s even more common than Olivia, and with no family connection.<\/p>\n

So my favorites here are Hannah Rose, Rose Olivia, and Olivia Rose—in that order, I think, although so close it was hard to even choose an order. I feel the inclination to stop right there: three great choices, any would be wonderful. But let’s look a little more, just for fun.<\/p>\n

If the repeating “or” sound doesn’t bother you (many of these things are purely personal preference), Cora would be a pretty choice.<\/p>\n

Cora makes me think of Clara. Clara Rose is beautiful, I think.<\/p>\n

Or Sarah. Sarah Rose.<\/p>\n

Hallie makes me think of Alice, and yet the two names don’t seem too similar for cousins. Alice Rose.<\/p>\n

Or Mallory. Mallory Rose.<\/p>\n

Or Ella. Ella Rose.<\/p>\n

Hannah makes me think of Anna. Anna Rose.<\/p>\n

Willa, maybe. Willa Rose.<\/p>\n

Oh, Stella! Stella Rose! I like that a lot.<\/p>\n

Or Greta. Greta Rose.<\/p>\n

Or Eva, though it may be confused with Ava. Eva Rose. I particularly like that one with your surname.<\/p>\n

If Eliza is not quite right, Eloise has similar sounds. I don’t like it as much with Rose, though.<\/p>\n

Lydia makes me think of Sylvia\/Silvia. Sylvia Rose, Silvia Rose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle, My husband and I are struggling to agree on a name for our first daughter. We both have a few guidelines that we don’t want to compromise on. First, his: he wants to name her what we will call her (he has a sister named Katie, not Kathryn or Kaitlin), and he doesn’t […]<\/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-10442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Iq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10442","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=10442"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10449,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10442\/revisions\/10449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}