{"id":10967,"date":"2015-02-06T12:02:05","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T16:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=10967"},"modified":"2015-05-13T18:53:54","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T22:53:54","slug":"baby-boy-or-girl-bourgeois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/02\/06\/baby-boy-or-girl-bourgeois\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy or Girl Bourgeois"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi,<\/p>\n

My husband and I are expecting our first baby this August. I am born and raised in NC and my husband has lived in NC most of his life but his dad’s side is Italian and mom’s side Mexican. Needless to say, they aren’t used to a lot of southern traditions like the family names, double names and so on. He is more on board with them so I am not too worried about pleasing everyone except us two agreeing. I want us both to love it! I heard you were the expert, and though I know you can’t respond to every inquiry you get thought I would throw my thoughts your way and see what happened.<\/p>\n

A family name that we both agree on is Caswell (my grandpa’s name but he goes by DC). We love Caswell for a boy and calling him “Wells”, but also love Mary Caswell for a girl because I am a sucker for a double name. My biggest fear with a double name is that it would be forced but not sure what else really goes with Caswell. My maiden name is Jackson which I have always loved for a boy until it became super popular. We both still love Jackson for a boy and calling him “Jack” but just hate there are so many of them. I like names that are different but not weird and just not a million of them.<\/p>\n

Other family name I love (that my husband is still on the fence with) is Talbot. I would love to incorporate this into a double name for a girl but am struggling to make it work. My middle name before taking my married name was Whitworth. Another kidna strange name I would love to shorten somehow :)<\/p>\n

In all this, I hate that we don’t love anything on my husband’s side and have asked him over and over what family names he would like to consider from his side and he has zero. I know it is up to us but feel bad (though they get the last name with all the kids ;)) His side goes from one extreme like Trinidad, his grandfatehr, to very basic David, Joe, Albert kinda thing.<\/p>\n

Besides Caswell and Talbot we have a few “general’ names we love including Harper, Hadley and Emerson for girls. Boys I feel certain we could go with Jack or Wells just on the fence which. I think our biggest reservation to Wells is that although it is short for Caswell it seems strange to call him by a name that starts with a W when it actually starts with a C. We overthink and make everything extra complicated :)<\/p>\n

For a little more background on names of our immediate family: my parents are Julie Ann, Jefrey Brian; brothers are Christoper Taylor and William Andrew. His parents are Rosa Alba and David Lee (his brother is the 3rd so we feel is his name to use, though he had two boys and chose not to). My husband’s full name is Eric Christian and my full maiden name was Meagan Whitworth Jackson.
\nTo sum it all up, I guess my main help request would be help on double names for girls and maybe how else to incorporate Caswell or Talbot in a feminine way and the etiquette or normalcy of how to shorten boy names like Wells. I love how unique Talbot is though my husband thinks it sounds like a 90 year old :)<\/p>\n

The biggest catch all to any name we like that is kinda weird traditional is our last name is Bourgeois…so feel like a lot doesn’t sound well with it. Sounds like “boozh-wah”<\/p>\n

I know that is a lot of information thrown out more so than one general question but would love your ideas if you have time! We find out in about a month the gender and would love to have a boy and girl name settled for that day :) Thanks so much!<\/p>\n

Meagan Jackson Bourgeois<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

While a majority of nicknames come from the beginning of a name, there is also a nice large group coming from the middle or end:<\/p>\n

Margaret\/Greta
\nVirginia\/Ginny
\nAnthony\/Tony
\nElizabeth\/Beth
\nElizabeth\/Liz
\nElizabeth\/Libby
\nAlbert\/Bert
\nRobert\/Bert
\nAlexander\/Xander
\nVeronica\/Ronni
\nVictoria\/Tori
\nPenelope\/Nell
\nOlivia\/Livvy
\nCharlotte\/Lottie
\nAndrew\/Drew
\nRebecca\/Becky
\nAubrey\/Bree
\nEleanor\/Nora
\nGenevieve\/Evie
\nAngus\/Gus<\/p>\n

Whenever a name\/nickname combination is an unfamiliar one, I think it can be harder to make it stick: if you want a Benjamin called Ben, that’s not hard; if you want a Benjamin called Jamie, or a Ruben called Ben, that’s going to be a tougher sell. I think if you were asking about naming him Maxwell and calling him Wells, I’d put that in the “tough sell” category, because the Maxwell\/Max combination is so familiar; because I’m not familiar with Caswell, I would find it easier to go with Wells. I could also see him going by Cas (I’m pronouncing that S as a Z), which seems like a pretty cool nickname.<\/p>\n

I too am a sucker for a double name, and I love both Mary Caswell and Mary Talbot. How hard it will be to pull that off will depend heavily on the naming culture where you live—and it sounds like it’s a good one for that. In my area, double names are extremely rare; the assumption, I think, would be that Caswell or Talbot was the surname. “Hello, this is my daughter Mary Talbot!” “Hello, Mary!” But even in my area, I think with a little extra effort and preemptive explaining I could make it work for at least the elementary years.<\/p>\n

The Mary double name seems most familiar, but I think Sarah would be nice too: Sarah Caswell, Sarah Talbot.<\/p>\n

It is unfortunate that your maiden name has become too common for your tastes, because one of my very favorite things in the whole naming world is when the mother’s maiden name works as a child’s first name. If I were you I think I’d use it, but then I’d look for every opportunity to mention that it was my maiden name.<\/p>\n

Whitworth would make a very appealing middle name for either a boy or a girl, especially since it used to be your middle name. Or Worth is one of the few virtue names for boys, though I don’t think I’d pair it with Bourgeois.<\/p>\n

If you use first names from your side, and the surname from your husband’s side, I think it would be nice if it works out to use middle names from his side—unless he actively doesn’t want to honor people. That is, there’s a difference between “Meh, I don’t have strong feelings about any of the honor names from my side” and “I don’t want ANY of those people honored”\/”I don’t want to use any of those names.” If he’s the former, I’d suggest choosing any name that sounds nice enough with the first name. Mary Talbot Rosa Bourgeois, Jackson Eric Bourgeois, etc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi,<\/p>\n

I wrote you earlier this year about Baby Bourgeois.\u00a0 Since then we have found out it is baby GIRL Bourgeois.\u00a0 We have also since decided on the name Anna Talbot Bourgeois, going by Anna Talbot.\u00a0 We just loved the idea of a double name and after many discussions and suggestions settled on what we loved although many don’t seem to get the purpose of a southern double name.\u00a0 A lot of opinions on the blog also thought our last name sounded pretintious but we cannot change that :)\u00a0 so decided to stick with using the family name Talbot we highly considered for a girl and loved Anna with it.\u00a0 We did love the double name suggestions for a girl using the family name Caswell also but that is still our top baby boy name so decided to save that one for a possible future boy :) We enjoyed reading all of the considerations and suggestions! Anna Talbot will be here mid August!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi, My husband and I are expecting our first baby this August. I am born and raised in NC and my husband has lived in NC most of his life but his dad’s side is Italian and mom’s side Mexican. Needless to say, they aren’t used to a lot of southern traditions like the family […]<\/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-10967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2QT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10967","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=10967"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11323,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10967\/revisions\/11323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}