{"id":10819,"date":"2015-01-09T15:31:59","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T19:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10819"},"modified":"2015-06-25T19:53:50","modified_gmt":"2015-06-25T23:53:50","slug":"baby-girl-jenkins-sister-to-abigail-evan-hugh-and-molly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/01\/09\/baby-girl-jenkins-sister-to-abigail-evan-hugh-and-molly\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Jenkins, Sister to Abigail, Evan, Hugh, and Molly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Swistle!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so excited to be writing, and I\u2019m so hopeful that you can lend your ear and help me find a good name for baby Jenkins number FIVE arriving in June! I have a long list of preferred requirements for a name, but they can mostly be summed up in the following guidelines:<\/p>\n

1. Easy to spell when said aloud.
\n2. Easy to understand (i.e. over the phone).
\n3. Not too many matchy\/rhyming names through the sibling set.
\n4. No formal name that defaults to a nickname for everyday use.<\/p>\n

To give you a complete picture, I think I\u2019ll start with my oldest child and explain a few things about what we\u2019ve done so far. Our oldest is Abigail Kate (nn Abby). My husband and I agreed on Abigail pretty easily, but we were at odds about the middle name (I\u2019m bracing myself now because I know you\u2019re not going to like what comes next!). I grew up without a middle name and HATED it\u2026 until I got married and now I LOVE it. When I was a kid I got to imagine up my own middle name, I didn\u2019t feel like I had to give anything up or make a hard choice between keeping my middle or maiden names, or both, when I got married. I simply gained a husband AND an extra name to tag on the back. My husband advocated for a middle name, and I wanted to leave it without. We flipped a coin in a smoothie shop, and you see who won! I don\u2019t hate her middle name, but it\u2019s just a name we both liked with Abigail\/Abby, and if I had it to do over again I\u2019d likely skip it. I\u2019d also just name her Abby, since that\u2019s what we call her 95 percent of the time anyway.<\/p>\n

Our second child, a boy, we named Evan Campbell. I loved the soft simplicity, sort of worn in feel of Evan, and Campbell is a family name on my side with a deep meaning which I was very excited about. It fits my list of criteria, and I\u2019ve been really happy with it. My husband kind of had the final say on both of the first two kids, and we agreed that I\u2019d have the final say on the next two.<\/p>\n

Our third pregnancy was (surprise!) twins! We got a boy and a girl, and I was so so careful with those names. I wanted them to blend well with the others, but pair nicely with just the two of them, but also stand alone well. We debated between Henry\/Claire and Hugh\/Molly. In the end, we decided to go with Hugh and Molly. I would have loved to have chosen Henry and Molly, but I felt it too matchy matchy with an Abby, Henry and Molly\u2026and Evan. For our son, we chose Hugh Douglas, even though Hugh breaks both rule 1 and 2 because Hugh is a family name on my side, and Douglas which is my dad\u2019s name. (And here\u2019s where it gets fun!) For Molly, we chose JUST Molly, as in Molly no-middle-name Jenkins. I felt that I was giving her my middle name, which is to not have one. We often call her Molly Belle because she was so tiny on her first Halloween that she fit into a little Belle dress for an 18\u201d doll, and it\u2019s just sort of stuck. I feel SO MUCH HAPPIER with her fake middle name than I do with Abby\u2019s real one. With Molly I just FELT that her name was meant to be Molly and just Molly, and she\u2019s the first of any of my kids that I\u2019ve felt that way. With my older two, I never could commit 100%, which is why my husband got the final OK. This time I just felt it for the name Molly, which dictated what happened with Hugh\u2019s name, which I was perfectly happy with.<\/p>\n

So. Here we are, with baby number 5 on the way. I\u2019m not sure who gets the final stamp of approval rights this time, but I\u2019m going to go ahead and assume it\u2019s me! We have the slight advantage that these babies have all come in close succession (Abby will be 6 when baby 5 arrives) and also the slight disadvantage that these babies have all come in close succession (leaving less brain power than I once had!) To recap, here\u2019s what we\u2019ve got:<\/p>\n

My husband, Kristopher Michael
\n-I\u2019m not fond of either of his names. I especially dislike that his name is spelled with a non-traditional K, making him Kris instead of Chris to most everyone, and that his middle name is just a name his mom liked for no particular reason.<\/p>\n

Myself, BriAnna no-middle-name
\n-forever explaining the capital A which was supposed to feel a bit like having a middle name as kind of two names put together as one, but really just made cursive in the third grade a little harder to navigate.<\/p>\n

Abigail Kate
\n-I wish I would have gone with just Abby, but Kate with a K could work as a partial, albeit very slight, nod to my husband\u2019s name spelling if we don\u2019t use his name elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Evan Campbell
\n-Family name Campbell.<\/p>\n

Hugh Douglas
\n-Family name Douglas.<\/p>\n

Molly no-middle-name
\n-Because I feel remorse for Abby\u2019s middle name.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve just found out that the baby is a girl! I\u2019ve got a list of choices that I can see working, but nothing that I\u2019m totally sold on. This begs the main question, middle name or no middle name? Many of my family members couldn\u2019t believe that I named one daughter with a middle name and one without, but I felt like if I HAD had a middle name, I could pass that on to one daughter and not the other and that wouldn\u2019t be odd at all. With a third daughter, what happens next? I do know that I feel strongly that if she does get a middle name, it should have meaning and heritage, or else it should be omitted, as therein lays the heritage. Some of the names we are considering for a girl are:<\/p>\n

Claire
\n-This feels maybe worn out from being a top contender last time, although it\u2019s lovely. Maybe Clara instead?<\/p>\n

Jane
\n-Jane Jenkins? Too much? Not Enough?<\/p>\n

Beatrice (nn Bea)
\n-I think this is DARLING, but for everyday use Abby and Bea is just too similar to be workable, and I don\u2019t like Tris. If I HAD to choose a middle name, I think I would choose Bea, because Abby Kate has the K for Kristopher, and _____ Bea has the B for BriAnna.<\/p>\n

Lucy<\/p>\n

Hazel<\/p>\n

Alice<\/p>\n

Nora<\/p>\n

Ruby
\n-This is my husband’s suggestion, but I like it.<\/p>\n

Ahhh! I feel better now that that\u2019s all out there. Swistle. Help! I\u2019m a planner and would love to put a name to this sweet surprise baby to help her feel more real. I\u2019m open to suggestions as well as your input about what we\u2019ve got on the list so far\u2026 and go easy on me about the middle names! J<\/p>\n

Grateful,
\nBriAnna Jenkins<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

You were right, I AM feeling all squirrelly about the middle name situation! But I WILL go easy on the topic: if it had come up back when you were naming Abby, or when you were naming Molly, I might have gone Full Swistle on it—but at this point, we are working with a set of already-made decisions, and I feel like you could go either way on the next decision.<\/p>\n

If you DON’T give her a middle name, I like that the exception to the pattern is the firstborn: firstborns OFTEN have things about their names that are different, because of being firstborn. I also like that Molly wouldn’t be the odd one out: a 3-2 split seems so different than a 4-1 split.<\/p>\n

And if you DO give her a middle name, I like that she has a middle name. It’s not that I think middle names are so crucial (I wouldn’t be the least bit squirreled-up if none of the children in the family had them), but I will say again (just once, because I know you already know) how much I dislike the idea that a girl’s name is not complete until she’s married (with the implied presumption, intentional or not, that she WILL marry and WILL change her name), while a boy’s name is complete from birth. I think you really could keep Molly from feeling left out with the “you have the same middle name as Mommy!” concept, even though I think passing on the absence of a name is not quite the same as passing on a name: YOU feeling it’s the same is what would be important here. A good happy-parent naming story is valuable and important, and you’ve got one. You can play with her the “choose your own middle name” game, have family jokes where you’re Mommy Belle and Molly Belle, and so on and so on. The question, I think, is “Can this odd-man-out situation be considered SPECIAL instead of LEFT OUT?,” and the answer here I think is yes.<\/p>\n

In short, I think both ways can be right.<\/p>\n

If you decide NOT to give her a middle name, you probably don’t need me anymore. Clara Jenkins is wonderful, and probably my top choice from the list. Jane is one of my favorite names, and with Jenkins I think it has a certain flair. I like the way Lucy and Ruby give all three girls names ending in -y (if we count Abby as Abby instead of Abigail), while neither boy has that. Nora Jenkins is another hit, I think, and I like it with Abby and Molly. Alice seems a little similar to Abigail\/Abby; Ruby seems a little similar to Abby; Hazel seems a little different in style than Abby and Molly; but all seem like fine candidates.<\/p>\n

If you DO give her a middle name, then this is the point at which I would turn my attention from your very good finalists list to the middle name issue, in case the middle name helped us narrow down the first name. I like your idea of Bea, to be a little bit after BriAnna the way Kate is a little bit after Kristopher. I also like the idea of using Anna, since that was sort of a stand-in for your middle name: you’d have one daughter with your actual childhood middle name (nothing) and one with your sort-of childhood middle name (Anna). Or, if you’ve made your maiden name into your middle name, I like the idea of passing on your actual current middle name. (And if this is the case, it seems worth noting that you now DO have a middle name and are no longer BriAnna no-middle-name—and that it was upon acquiring a middle name that you finally stopped hating not having one.)<\/p>\n

To add more options to the list, I would use whatever method you used for finding your sons’ middle names. Part of your regret over Abigail’s middle name seems to be that it was just something that sounded nice, instead of being a significant family name like your sons’ middle names. Are there women in the family you’d like to honor? More family surnames to consider?<\/p>\n

Once you have a little list of significant names, try them out with the list of first names: sometimes pairing the right middle name with a first name can make the whole thing click into place. Or perhaps that exercise will demonstrate that you really, really don’t want a middle name, in which case you can revert to that plan.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hello Swistle!
\nI’m so happy to be writing to update you on the arrival of our little surprise baby number 5! We definitely needed your help because this was the longest any of our kids have gone nameless and we were still discussing names while we were in the hospital after she arrived. In the end, we owe her name to a reader comment! In my original letter I mentioned both Claire\/Clara and Nora, and reader Megz suggested Cora. I loved that Cora didn’t have the “does it have an H or not?” problem that Nora has, but also has the hard C start of Claire and Clara. As I reread my original letter to you, I’ve realized that Cora also hits every single one of my requests that I made for the ideal name. Hooray! Ultimately we decided not to have a middle name at all, but were still deep in the throes of figuring that out at the hospital. Our final three choices were Cora, Cora Bea or Cora B. In the end I was just happiest going without, and my husband gave me last picks. So! I’m so pleased to introduce you to our newest addition, Cora Jenkins :)<\/p>\n

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Hello Swistle! I\u2019m so excited to be writing, and I\u2019m so hopeful that you can lend your ear and help me find a good name for baby Jenkins number FIVE arriving in June! I have a long list of preferred requirements for a name, but they can mostly be summed up in the following guidelines: […]<\/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-10819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Ov","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10819","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=10819"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11435,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10819\/revisions\/11435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}