{"id":10458,"date":"2014-09-15T10:16:51","date_gmt":"2014-09-15T14:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10458"},"modified":"2014-09-15T10:16:51","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T14:16:51","slug":"baby-boy-gray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/09\/15\/baby-boy-gray\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Gray"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello! I have been following your blog for a few years, and so I’m sort of excited to now find myself in a baby naming rut.<\/p>\n

I just found out (yesterday!) that our first baby will be a boy! He is due to arrive at the end of January. My husband and I had a boy name and a girl name picked out. I absolutely loved our girl name: Lucy Elizabeth, and I still hope to use the name if we have a girl in the future. Our boy name we had picked was Jesse Matthew (Matthew after my husband).<\/p>\n

The problem is now that we know we’re having a boy, I’m not thrilled with the name Jesse. Maybe I am just sort of disappointed I have to table Lucy for awhile, but my husband feels equally lackluster. We still like the name, but we don’t love it. I know, I know–you don’t need to love the name. But we still want to explore other options. Plus, I have a hard time picturing a baby Jesse. I picture Uncle Jesse from Full House or some other long-haired musician\/ motorcycle rider\/ hipster. Maybe this is just because I don’t know any child named Jesse?<\/p>\n

I tend to like old fashioned names that are not super common. I teach, so I want to avoid names that I hear all the time (and have many student associations for). I have never taught a Lucy or a Jesse. My husband, however, likes more traditional and common names and finds my names weird\/ odd, but he can’t give me any concrete names that he does like.<\/p>\n

Boy names that I like that he’s rejected are:
\nAbraham (Abe)
\nAnderson
\nSimon
\nTheodore (Theo)
\nGabriel (Gabe)<\/p>\n

Other girl names I like as a pairing with Lucy if we end up with two girls in the future (we plan on having 3 children) are:
\nTheresa (Reese)
\nPenelope (Nell)
\nViolet
\nBeverly (Bee)
\nAnnabel<\/p>\n

I do like names that are 2+ syllables since our last name (Gray) is only one syllable, and the middle name will definitely be Matthew, after my husband.<\/p>\n

Any other boy options you could suggest would be greatly appreciated. Are there Lucy\/Theresa style boy names that are “normal” enough for my husband and unique enough for me?!<\/p>\n

Thanks so much,
\nJamie<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lucy and Theresa\/Reese seem quite different in style to me. Lucy is a vintage revival with a British feel to it (Penelope, Violet, and Annabel fall into this category as well). Theresa peaked in the 1950s-60s, belonging more to the Linda\/Cynthia\/Sharon era. Reese is a modern unisex nickname; Lucy is also a nickname name, but the styles of Lucy and Reese are as different as the styles of Lucy and Theresa.<\/p>\n

There’s no reason those two names can’t be used for sisters: many parents choose names of different styles for their children. But the reason I mention it is that it makes it difficult to find boy names in the Lucy\/Theresa style: I could find you names that are like Lucy, and I could find you names that are like Theresa, but far fewer names are compatible with both styles. This may be why you’re finding yourselves stuck, as well.<\/p>\n

The bulk of the names on your girl-name list and on your boy-name list are of the Lucy style, so I think I would start by looking for more boy names of that sort:<\/p>\n

Charles\/Charlie
\nEdmund (perhaps too Narnia with Lucy)
\nEdward\/Ted\/Ned
\nElias\/Eli
\nElliot
\nEmmett
\nEverett
\nFelix
\nGeorge
\nHenry
\nHugo
\nJasper
\nJulian
\nLeo
\nLouis
\nMilo
\nOliver
\nOscar
\nOwen
\nPhilip (Pip)
\nSebastian
\nWesley
\nWilliam<\/p>\n

If your husband prefers more “normal” names, I’d lean toward the William\/Owen end of the list—but then of course we’re probably getting into your classroom lists. This may be an area where one of you will have to give way: either he will have to understand about encountering the name in the classroom, or you will have to understand that the names you never hear in class are by definition going to be too unusual for him.<\/p>\n

It’s possible, too, that your husband needs a refresher course in naming styles. This issue seems especially common with men: they think of the names of their peers as “normal names,” without realizing those are now the Dad Names and there is a new normal. If this is one of his issues, it can help to mention the names of HIS parents’ generation and ask him to imagine if his peers had had those names as children. Or it can help to have him browse some class lists or the Social Security name list, just to see what names are most common now.<\/p>\n

It also sounds as if it’s time for him to make a list of his own. If he’s insisting on a “normal” name but can’t come up with any he likes, a trip through a baby name book may help in one direction or another: either he’ll realize the sort of name he’s looking for is not actually his style, or he’ll find some names to suggest and you can work from there. (This will also show you if he is thinking of his own peers’ names as the normal ones.) I think too that a parent who has been doing nothing but vetoing can become more reasonable to work with after he\/she sees how much effort it takes to come up with possibilities and how it feels to have them vetoed.<\/p>\n

I wonder if you would like the name John. In some areas of the country it’s quite common, but where I live it’s a surprising choice on a child—like Mary for a girl, where the name seems so familiar you’d think there’d be one in every classroom, but actually there are two Noahs, two Aidens, two Williams, two Connors, a Kyle and a Kylie and a Kaylie, and no one named either John or Mary in the whole grade. John Gray is a very handsome name, I think, and wonderful with Lucy. It may hit that sweet spot of familiar enough for your husband, but scarce enough in the classroom for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello! I have been following your blog for a few years, and so I’m sort of excited to now find myself in a baby naming rut. I just found out (yesterday!) that our first baby will be a boy! He is due to arrive at the end of January. My husband and I had a […]<\/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-10458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2IG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10458","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=10458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10459,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10458\/revisions\/10459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}