{"id":10490,"date":"2014-09-29T10:21:47","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T14:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10490"},"modified":"2014-09-29T10:35:42","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T14:35:42","slug":"baby-boy-carson-with-an-l-brother-to-archer-suddenly-cant-use-the-name-theyd-chosen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/09\/29\/baby-boy-carson-with-an-l-brother-to-archer-suddenly-cant-use-the-name-theyd-chosen\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Carson-with-an-L, Brother to Archer: Suddenly Can’t Use the Name They’d Chosen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I don’t know if you will get to this before I actually have the baby, as I am getting induced Tuesday, but for reasons I’m not going to go into, we can no longer use the baby name we have been planning on THE ENTIRE PREGNANCY. The name we have been calling him, the name we told our other son, the name we love. :-( I am obviously feeling hormonal and have been crying over this all weekend and just feel like poop about the whole situation.<\/p>\n

So, *brisk clap*, I’d like some opinions on some second choice names that we had eliminated for one reason or another. We also have a two year old son named Archer (who you guys helped name<\/a>!).<\/p>\n

Here are a few names we like and reasons why they were\/are problematic:<\/p>\n

Anders (This would have been our pick, but is it too close to Archer? I don’t want my kids to have matchy matchy names. He would probably get called Andy often which doesn’t bother me, and I like that it throws back to our Scandinavian heritage.)<\/p>\n

Theodore (I like the name, but I don’t like the nickname Theo, which I’m sure he would be called. I do like the nickname Teddy, but I’m not sure it would grow with him.)<\/p>\n

August (Just not sure if I would love it forever, if it’s too trendy, etc.)
\nIf you guys have any other suggestions it would be SO appreciated. Thanks guys!<\/p>\n

– J.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wish right now for an office, with comfortable chairs and a box of tissues and a little table for having tea. I would call you in for tea, and we would sip, and I would feed you petits fours and I would PRY. Because that is my first impulse: to get the WHOLE STORY. I want to know the name that had to be given up, because then I could look for names of a similar style. But then I also want to know WHY it had to be given up, in case what is needed here is a firm discussion of circumstances in which a name does NOT need to be given up, even though in the midst of panic and hormones and dismay it might seem that it DOES.<\/p>\n

Well. You have told us what you have told us, and I must assume that if you say the name is absolutely unusable, the name is absolutely unusable. But my first suggestion is still to consider whether it really is unusable. For example, did a friend\/relative\/celebrity just use the same name for their baby? The name is still usable for you, and your line is “OMG!! I can’t believe it!! That is the name we chose for OUR son! What a coincidence!” And it seems like there are a lot of other situations where the initial reaction might be to strike the name, but where that would not be the only option. Well, we will assume you have one of the OTHER sorts of reasons, the kind where the name is now absolutely unusable.<\/p>\n

If we knew what the name IS (and why it was rejected, so that we know how close the new name can be to the original choice), that could help us choose something else that might make you happy. For example, if the name were Miller, and if you just found out something that makes Miller unusable but Meyer or Mercer or Baker or Turner would work, well then! We’d be halfway there!<\/p>\n

Archer and Anders are indeed similar: both start with A, both have two syllables, both have six letters, both have an -er- sound; and because the -er- is at the end of one and nearly at the end of the other, they come close to rhyming (Archer and Ander). But they also have different A-sounds, some different prominent consonant sounds, and the endings don’t match even though they come close. They are similar, yes, but if you love the name Anders, and if you are down to the wire, I’d say you have a good possibility here.<\/p>\n

In general, when parents strongly dislike the nickname of a name, I do recommend against using it. But I also reassure that right now is a very good time to avoid nicknames: a Theodore would not for sure be called Theo, unless you or he chose it. Teddy might not grow with him, but I don’t see any reason Ted wouldn’t—or of course he could switch back to Theodore.<\/p>\n

August doesn’t seem at all trendy to me. While I can’t assure you that you will love the name forever, I don’t see any reason you wouldn’t. And if you like nicknames, I love Archie and Gus together.<\/p>\n

Any of the three names on your list will serve your son well. If the name you wanted is indeed ruled out (and I do urge you to make VERY SURE it REALLY IS ruled out before you give up on it) (okay, now I will stop with that), you have three very good candidates to take its place. A few more possibilities to consider (some pulled from the Nordic section of The Baby Name Wizard<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Aidric
\nBroder (maybe too much -er with Archer)
\nEmmett
\nEmil (the -l might blend a bit with the L- of the surname)
\nEverett
\nHugo
\nJasper (maybe too much -er with Archer)
\nMathias
\nMiles
\nNiels
\nNiko<\/p>\n

There were quite a few others that I liked but that didn’t quite work with the surname. Soren, for example, seemed rhymey\/sing-song with the -son of your surname. Or Finn: if I say the full name carefully, the -inn isn’t rhymey with the -on; but I found I didn’t say it carefully. And I wanted to recommend Anderson instead of Anders, but that doesn’t work with the -son surname.<\/p>\n

Let’s also have a poll for your three finalists:<\/p>\n

[yop_poll id=”57″]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle, I don’t know if you will get to this before I actually have the baby, as I am getting induced Tuesday, but for reasons I’m not going to go into, we can no longer use the baby name we have been planning on THE ENTIRE PREGNANCY. The name we have been calling him, […]<\/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-10490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Jc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10490","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=10490"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10496,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10490\/revisions\/10496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}