{"id":10844,"date":"2015-01-15T11:19:40","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T15:19:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10844"},"modified":"2015-02-03T09:19:14","modified_gmt":"2015-02-03T13:19:14","slug":"baby-naming-issue-aging-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/01\/15\/baby-naming-issue-aging-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Aging Well"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

My husband and I are due with our first child, a girl, on Jan 31. Our last name is Chenn, but with “a” instead of an “e”.<\/p>\n

She won’t have a middle name.<\/p>\n

My husband and I are partial to gender neutral names and have narrowed our choices down to Alexis and Riley. Riley was our top choice, but I’m worried that it doesn’t “age well” in the sense that it sounds too childlike (can I picture a lawyer named Riley or a Grandma Riley)? Alexis (nn Lexi) recently came into the picture but I’m hesitant because the possessive form of the name (Alexis’ or Alexis’s) is inconsistent and I find that slightly annoying. I also know two people with that name who I would not want my daughter to emulate.<\/p>\n

Other names we have on our list include Quinn, Skyler, and Casey. I also love the name Mia (but he hates it) and he likes the name Caitlin (but I’ve vetoed because: 1. there are too many ways to spell it and I don’t want her to go through life spelling her name for everyone, and 2. It’s traditionally pronounced more like “Kath-leen” in Gaelic so I would be intentionally pronouncing it wrong by giving her that name).<\/p>\n

What do you think? Is Riley too “kiddish” and are my qualms about Alexis unreasonable? Do you have any other suggestions?<\/p>\n

Thank you!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I like putting names through a series of tests, too. I do the careers test: does the name work on a lawyer? a teacher? a clerk? a carpenter? I also like the stages-of-life test: does the name work on a young child? a young adult? a middle-aged adult? an older adult? And I like the “make sure you’re not imagining a celebrity” test (aka the “Blake Lively looks wonderful in everything but that doesn’t mean the rest of us will” test): picture the name on an ordinary child; on a unpopular teenager with bad skin and unflattering clothes; on a plump, plain, glasses-wearing adult; etc.<\/p>\n

Here is where the tests fall short: because name fashions come and go, and because they shift so much from generation to generation, a name can fail dramatically if you run the test while you’re pregnant, even though the name would later on have passed the test easily. When people of approximately my age think about “old man\/lady” names, we might think of Mildred, Ethel, Howard, Donald. But the parents who used those names for their babies back in, say, 1920, were not thinking to themselves, “I love this name, and it will work GREAT on an old person.” If you’d asked them at the time to imagine a Grandma Ethel, it would have been difficult. Ethel is a swinging young person, vibrant and cheeky! But 90 years later, people my age are saying “Ethel? That’s an old lady name!” (and are on the verge of finding our grandchildren given it as a charming vintage revival).<\/p>\n

Riley is an excellent example of the issue. I know NO ONE my age named Riley, nor anyone my parents’ age named Riley, nor anyone my grandparents’ age named Riley, nor anyone my great-grandparents’ age named Riley. I only know children named Riley. This makes sense when you look at how many girls have been named Riley over the years, going back in roughly generation-sized chunks:<\/p>\n

1893: –
\n1923: 5
\n1953: –
\n1983: 36
\n2013: 4,902 (plus another 2,878 named Rylee, 1,709 named Ryleigh, 839 named Rylie, etc.)<\/p>\n

So picturing a Grandma Riley does indeed feel ridiculous: if those 5 in 1923 are not a recording error (in that same year I see 41 baby boys named Elizabeth and 43 baby girls named David), maybe a few of us know an elderly woman named Riley—but most of us have never encountered one. But will it seem ridiculous when all of today’s child-aged Rileys are grandparent-aged? Will the children of that era say, “Wow, sure seems weird to have a GRANDMOTHER named Riley!” Of course not! Fast-forward 80 years from now and parents will be making baby name lists and one of them will say “How about Riley, after my grandmother?” and the other one will say “No way, Riley is SUCH an old-person name. Maybe as a middle.”<\/p>\n

Where was I? Oh, yes: I was saying that I would not be very concerned about a currently-popular name fitting an older person. If you were to suggest a name such as Boopsie because you’d always thought that was an adorable name for a baby, I might gently remind you that babies are babies for only a very short time, and after that they need names that work in childhood and adulthood. If you were wondering if I could picture a lawyer named Boopsie, I would have to admit it was a stretch. But if you are looking at the names popular for this generation of babies, and you are feeling concerned because they seem to fit young children but not lawyers or senior citizens, then I say the tests are only helpful to a certain extent. The name Riley was the 45th most popular girl name in the United States in 2013, and that doesn’t even count all the other popular spellings; the name will age along with everyone who has it, just as Ethel has, just as Barbara has, just as Jennifer has.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the other popular spellings, however, I’d say Riley is up there with Caitlin in terms of spelling issues. Just looking at the spellings given to 100 or more baby girls in 2013, we have:<\/p>\n

Riley (4,902)
\nRylee (2,878)
\nRyleigh (1,709)
\nRylie (839)
\nRileigh (185)
\nRilee (130)
\nReilly (102)<\/p>\n

If you wanted to reconsider Caitlin, but the pronunciation issue bothers you, there are two sources for the name. One is the Gaelic, which, as you say, was originally pronounced more like kat-LEEN. The other is a classic combination source such as Maryanne and Annemarie: Kate + Lynn is Katelyn, and is pronounced as you’d prefer, with no “pronouncing it wrong” issue.<\/p>\n

On to Alexis. The issue of making a possessive or plural out of a name ending in S is one of the reasons I hesitate over using such names myself, because errors of that sort me want to pull out my teeth. I know I’ve told this story before, but when I worked in a daycare, a co-worker once made baby James’s name possessive by writing “Jame’s,” and I have never quite recovered. And recently my high-school-aged son told me after I proofread his paper that his English teacher told him it is now considered correct to make a name ending in S possessive by just adding an apostrophe; if this is true, and not just a teenager refusing to admit he’s wrong, I will be driven crazy not only by people getting it wrong but also by having to adjust to a new rule.<\/p>\n

BUT: this is why I say every name has a set of issues and it’s a good idea to find the ones that drive you less crazy. In my case, a name ending in S is likely to produce decades of irritation; for someone else, only decades of shrugging, because it isn’t one of their hair-tear issues. If the people getting the possessive wrong is only slightly annoying, then it may be something you chalk up to being part of the package deal of the name, and nothing more serious than that. But if seeing Alexis’ and, heaven help us, Alexi’s, will make you grind your teeth, then I think that’s a legitimate reason to be concerned about using the name. Adding in two people named Alexis who are not positive associations, you may have a name you like very much but that isn’t a good fit for your family.<\/p>\n

If you’d like the name Riley, but would like to reduce issues of popularity and spelling, I suggest Rory.<\/p>\n

I think Avery might be a good fit for you. It’s a unisex name, but it doesn’t seem as youthful as Riley. I can more easily picture a lawyer named Avery.<\/p>\n

Or Ellis. It fits so nicely with the Ella\/Isabella sound (and has the nickname Ellie if she wants something more decisively feminine), but is much less common and much more unisex.<\/p>\n

Or Hollis. It has the nickname Holly, if she wants it.<\/p>\n

Devany is a name I’ve heard only once on an actual child, and it was a pleasant surprise.<\/p>\n

Or Hadley.<\/p>\n

Or Teagan.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

Thank you for responding to my email and assuaging my fears about names not aging well. Baby girl Riley was born on Feb 1, 2015. We knew that we had the right name for her when she weathered 35+ hours of labor like a spunky little champ.<\/p>\n

I’ve attached a picture! Thanks again for your help!
\nMama Chenn<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4928\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle, My husband and I are due with our first child, a girl, on Jan 31. Our last name is Chenn, but with “a” instead of an “e”. She won’t have a middle name. My husband and I are partial to gender neutral names and have narrowed our choices down to Alexis and Riley. […]<\/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-10844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2OU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844","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=10844"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10935,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844\/revisions\/10935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}