{"id":10754,"date":"2014-12-19T10:08:23","date_gmt":"2014-12-19T14:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10754"},"modified":"2015-06-01T05:58:28","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T09:58:28","slug":"baby-girl-smith-sister-to-saylor-and-grayson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2014\/12\/19\/baby-girl-smith-sister-to-saylor-and-grayson\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Smith, Sister to Saylor and Grayson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

We need help on a baby name! The closer it gets the further we feel. I know it’s a case of over thinking and we might need to take a step back. But I am starting to panic that the big day will arrive and we will have nothing. I am dying to find a name we are excited about and start bonding with.<\/p>\n

Our current children are:
\nSaylor Grace (girl) and Grayson Davis (boy – mostly goes by Gray). We are expecting our third and final – another girl!<\/p>\n

So we need a sister for Saylor and Gray.<\/p>\n

Our last name is Smith. Because of this, we really like names that are not trendy\/popular\/common. My husband was literally one of 3 Matt Smith’s in his high school. And I would prefer for her not to be known as “Emily S” (for example) in her kindergarten class.<\/p>\n

Also, we would like to use the middle name Ellen if possible to honor my sister.<\/p>\n

We are struggling to find a name that fits well with Saylor. I know people will have mixed opinions on this name but we love it and it fits our girl perfectly – she is spunky, smart, independent, cute, confident, and strong willed. We like that we have only come across a handful of them. We are NOT looking for a nature name like Clover or something.<\/p>\n

At first we thought we were set on Hadley, and it is still my husbands first choice. But I worry that the ‘ey’ ending makes it way more feminine than Saylor. I think I can get over that for the right name. But I also strongly worry that Hadley is gaining in popularity, especially where we live.<\/p>\n

I have always loved the name Maren. But I am struggling with the spelling. Maren, Marin, Merrin, or Maryn. (Maryn fits best visually with Saylor and Gray but I’m worried about the y being trendy. Although it doesn’t feel trendy to me with Saylor, probably because I’m her mom).<\/p>\n

Other names on our list that we don’t BOTH necessarily love but haven’t vetoed:<\/p>\n

Merritt
\nFinley
\nLainey
\nMaisey
\nHazel
\nFarrah
\nEllis
\nArden
\nKaris or Charis
\nTessa<\/p>\n

And sometimes I just want to chuck it all and name her Lucy. I like the name! But then I remember: Saylor, Gray, and Lucy really don’t fit together.<\/p>\n

I know that Piper, Morgan, or Payton would probably fit but I can’t make myself love any of these. I love Marlo but my husband does not.<\/p>\n

Would love your thoughts or any other suggestions. Thank you so much!
\nErica<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

One thing I notice is that all four names you’ve used so far feature an -ay- sound: Saylor, Grace, Grayson, and Davis. I don’t think you need to continue this (unless that would be fun), but it tells me that you like that sound. If you did want to go with that, you already have three names of that sort on your list: Lainey, Maisey, and Hazel. My favorite of the three as a sister name for Saylor is Lainey, so I’d probably vote for Lainey Hazel. Or if you wanted a rhythm similar to Saylor’s name, you could do Lainey Kate, Lainey Paige, Lainey Kay, Lainey Mae, etc. Oh oh oh, I just had a fun idea: since you’ve used both Grace and Grayson, you could do Lainey Grey. Probably too much since Grayson goes mostly by Gray, but it still seems fun to me. Well, I see you’d like to use the middle name Ellen anyway, so then it would be Saylor Grace, Grayson Davis, and Lainey Ellen.<\/p>\n

With Saylor, I like the sister name Hadley even more. I don’t think the ending makes it more feminine than Saylor. Saylor\/Sailor is a name currently used mostly for girls in the U.S. (409 new baby girls and 46 new baby boys in 2013), and because the only one I know of is Christie Brinkley’s daughter, it hits my brain as “girl”: I might not use a super-ultra-feminine sister name with it, but Hadley feels to me like the same basic level of femininity. You’re right, though, about its increasing popularity:<\/p>\n

\"(screen

(screen shot from SSA.gov)<\/p><\/div>\n

I think it feels even more popular because of all the other popular -ad- names: Madison, Addison, Madelyn, Adelyn, Maddie, Addie.<\/p>\n

Unless you wanted to deliberately play up the marine theme (and you very well might, if the sea is important to you), I don’t think I’d use Maren with Saylor. If you do use it, the spelling Maryn makes me think first of the pronunciation with the emphasis on the second syllable (which may be what you’re going for): ma-RINN. Ever since someone told me that Marin County in California is pronounced that way, the spelling Marin is another that makes me think ma-RINN. Maren, probably because of its similarity to Karen, makes me think of the MARE-in pronunciation, as does Merrin.<\/p>\n

If you love the name Lucy, I don’t see any reason you can’t use it. I too prefer sibling names to coordinate, but I’d definitely consider that a preference rather than a requirement, and I’d reconsider for the right name. However, another of your preferences is low popularity, and the name Lucy is more popular than Hadley: #66 in 2013, and that doesn’t even count all the Lucilles and Lucias and Lucianas going by Lucy.<\/p>\n

A name that comes to mind is Padgett. Padgett Ellen Smith; Saylor, Grayson, and Padgett.<\/p>\n

Another is Larkin. Larkin Ellen Smith; Saylor, Grayson, and Larkin.<\/p>\n

Another is Darcy. Darcy Ellen Smith; Saylor, Grayson, and Darcy. That gives you a Y per child.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

This update is overdue but I wanted to let you and your readers know that our baby girl arrived in March. We named her Hadley Jane Ellen.<\/p>\n

As we got closer to her arrival, Jane became a name very high on our list because of it’s meaning (God’s gracious gift) and how fitting this was for her life.\u00a0 Jane is also my middle name. We were still drawn to Ellen to honor my sister and we still loved Hadley and felt it fit the most with her siblings. So we went with two middle names!<\/p>\n

Hadley is just precious and we all love her to pieces! Thanks to everyone for their input.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_8443-30\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle, We need help on a baby name! The closer it gets the further we feel. I know it’s a case of over thinking and we might need to take a step back. But I am starting to panic that the big day will arrive and we will have nothing. I am dying to […]<\/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-10754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Ns","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10754","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=10754"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11372,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10754\/revisions\/11372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}