{"id":10699,"date":"2014-12-02T09:05:21","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T13:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10699"},"modified":"2015-02-24T10:40:49","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T14:40:49","slug":"baby-boy-or-girl-seewald-without-the-s-sibling-to-urban-charles-levi-and-matthias","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/12\/02\/baby-boy-or-girl-seewald-without-the-s-sibling-to-urban-charles-levi-and-matthias\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy or Girl Seewald-without-the-S, Sibling to Urban, Charles, Levi, and Matthias"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m 34 weeks along now, with baby #5 (due 1\/3\/15). Our boys are Urban, Charles, Levi, and Matthias. Gender of Baby #5 is unknown. Our last name is like SEE-wald (without the S). I’m Kim, and my husband is Brian.<\/p>\n

If the baby is a boy, he’ll be Thomas. We haven’t settled on a middle name yet. I’m leaning towards using my mom’s maiden name (Larson) because we’ve managed to honor all our parents EXCEPT my mom with our other boys’ names. My husband, however, is insisting that we should just use her first name, Lynn, because (he says), “Lynn is really a boys’ name.” I say it USED to be a boy name but it is now very much in the girl name camp, and there isn’t any good reason to saddle our kid with a feminine-sounding middle name, especially when Larson is a perfectly respectable name on its own. What do you and your readers think? Am I right that Lynn is too feminine for a boy, even as a middle name?<\/p>\n

As far as possible girl names, I finally got my husband to talk about the whole subject and make his own list. What a depressing exercise THAT was. I had so many lovely names I liked, and he has rejected nearly all of them, including my two favorites (Amy and Noelle). Let me show you his list:<\/p>\n

*Theresa (nickname Tess or Tessa)<\/p>\n

*Natalia – I like this for the Christmas connection, but it sounds too “foreign” to me; also, my best friend has a little girl named Natalie, so unless I loved this name to pieces, I would not go for it<\/p>\n

*Georgia<\/p>\n

*Isolde<\/p>\n

*Margaret (probable nickname Greta) – also on my list, but I don’t know if I love it<\/p>\n

*Marigold – also on my list, but I have a hard time picturing it on a real live person<\/p>\n

*Amaryllis (possible nickname Rilla) – also on my list, but ditto what I said about Marigold, above; Amaryllis flowers are usually forced to bloom indoors in winter at Christmastime, though, so I do like that connection a lot<\/p>\n

*Marietta (nickname Etta) – not on my own list, but I like it enough to consider<\/p>\n

*Lucille (nickname Lucy) – LUCIA is on my list, for the saint whose feast day Scandinavians celebrate on December 13th (I’m part Swedish), but he likes Lucille better; I think Lucille sounds horrible with our last name<\/p>\n

*Hannah – ANNA is on my list, but he likes Hannah better. I have at least FIVE good reasons why I prefer Anna over Hannah (though I don’t dislike Hannah at all)<\/p>\n

*Esther<\/p>\n

*Naomi – nice name, but with our last name it’s WAY too many vowels<\/p>\n

My husband is also perfectly willing to use Irene or Helen (two of our grandmothers’ names) for a first name. I’m not a fan of Helen or any of its variations\/derivatives, but I don’t know if I like Irene enough to use it for a first name. So I’m mostly thinking of these two names (and my mom’s name, Lynn) as potential middles.<\/p>\n

It would be nice if everyone in our family had their own first initial, but if we did this, it would eliminate anything starting with M or L. If I strike out the names on Brian’s list that I don’t care for, that leaves us with …<\/p>\n

Amaryllis<\/p>\n

Hannah or Anna<\/p>\n

Esther<\/p>\n

I wish I was excited about one of these names, but I’m not. So maybe the “every man his own initial” preference needs to go out the window. Still, I find myself so unenthusiastic about our list. Why is that? Is it because this is probably our last baby (due to age – I’m 41)? Is it because IF the baby is a girl, she will be the only one, and I’ve set myself up to think her name needs to be something EXTRA SUPER SPECIAL and there just isn’t any one name that’s going to fit the bill? Is it just pregnancy hormones making me so desperate\/depressed over this topic?<\/p>\n

The other day I suggested Phillipa, which I LOVE, but Brian has rejected that, too. My trouble is, I have strong, positive associations with every name I like. I have REASONS for liking the names I like. My husband will reject or like a name without giving any REASONS for his preferences. How am I supposed to get on board with any of the names he prefers if he won’t tell me why he likes them? And then, too, I kind of get my feelings hurt when I tell him all the reasons I love a certain name and then he flat-out rejects it.<\/p>\n

Truthfully, Swistle, I’ve been finding myself angry and resentful a lot when considering this whole “what to name the baby” dilemma. I know that’s terrible; naming a child should be a great joy! But other than our second son, Charlie, who basically got his name by default (grandpa names), my husband has named ALL our kids. He’s gotten HIS way EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. And I love our boys’ names – I do. But I feel like it’s MY TURN and like he should KNOW THAT and SAY THAT and be ACCOMMODATING TO THAT. I agree that both parents should assent to a name; I would not name our baby anything he truly hated. But I have this awful, sinking feeling that he is going to stubbornly cling to his own preferences and persist in rejecting every name I truly love, so that our boy will end up with a girly middle name or our girl will end up with a name I feel just ambivalent about.<\/p>\n

Sorry for the long ramble. Can you help me get some perspective, Swistle, please oh please?<\/p>\n

~ Kimberly<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

I wrote to you about three months ago for advice on naming my fifth child. Guess what?\u00a0 We had a Christmas baby!\u00a0 Born at 11 p.m. on 12\/25\/2014.\u00a0 Another little boy, of course!\u00a0 6 pounds, 2 ounces, and 19-3\/4 inches long.\u00a0 We named him Thomas Larson.\u00a0 I’m attaching a recent picture.\u00a0 He had to spend 19 days in the hospital due to some unforeseen medical issues, but he is doing wonderfully now, and his big brothers all love him to pieces (his dad and I do, too, naturally)!\u00a0 Best Christmas present EVER. :-)<\/p>\n

Thanks so much to all your readers for their great naming suggestions.\u00a0 Especially thanks to everyone who pushed the name Amaryllis for if we had a girl.\u00a0 I really fell in love with that name during the month of December, and two days before the baby was born, I told my husband that was the name I wanted to use.\u00a0 He didn’t object!\u00a0 I did tell him he could choose the middle name, though.\u00a0 So if we’d had a daughter, her name probably would have been Amaryllis Helen or Amaryllis Irene … or Amaryllis Isolde!\u00a0 Who knows.\u00a0 We never did officially settle the matter.<\/p>\n

Since wee Tommy came home, I find myself more open to girl names in general.\u00a0 In other words, I don’t hear every girl name out there and think, “Blah.”\u00a0 Instead, I think, “Ooh, pretty!”\u00a0 If I ever have another baby, I think I would agonize a lot less over what to call a possible daughter.\u00a0 And another boy?\u00a0 Well, the sky’s the limit with names there!\u00a0 I guess you could say I have a greater appreciation for names in general now.\u00a0 I was just in a bad place for a while there when pregnant.<\/p>\n

Life is so crazy these days, but I am looking forward to reading your blog on a regular basis again soon, as time permits.<\/p>\n

Thanks again!<\/p>\n

~ Kimberly<\/p>\n

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

I’m 34 weeks along now, with baby #5 (due 1\/3\/15). Our boys are Urban, Charles, Levi, and Matthias. Gender of Baby #5 is unknown. Our last name is like SEE-wald (without the S). I’m Kim, and my husband is Brian. If the baby is a boy, he’ll be Thomas. We haven’t settled on a middle […]<\/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-10699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Mz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699","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=10699"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11047,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10699\/revisions\/11047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}