{"id":11112,"date":"2015-03-18T10:04:35","date_gmt":"2015-03-18T14:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=11112"},"modified":"2015-03-18T10:06:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-18T14:06:00","slug":"baby-boy-neged-with-an-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/03\/18\/baby-boy-neged-with-an-m\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Neged-with-an-M"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello! We are expecting our first baby, a boy, in a few weeks and still have not settled on a first name. The last name sounds like Neg-Ed but starting with an M (the G is hard and it’s 2 syllables). The middle name will be my last name, which sounds like Peench starting with an H. I know that combo doesn’t roll off the tongue, but I really want to use my family name somehow, so the middle name is non-negotiable. I imagine the full name will rarely be said out loud, and the middle name will be reserved for formal occasions like diplomas and passports. Most of the time it will be First name H. Last name. Because our last names are not easy, we prefer classic spellings of all first names.<\/p>\n

We have a list of 4 first names at this point: Eli, Gideon, Ori, and Avery. I should mention that we are looking for names that are Jewish\/from the Old Testament or are Israeli without being too religious (for example, Isaac is out because in Hebrew it is Yitzak, which is a very old school and religious name). We live in the US and I’m American, but my husband’s family is in Israel. What’s most important is how the name we choose works in the US, though we are trying to consider the Israeli perspective somewhat.<\/p>\n

Eli – solid, easy, safe choice. Too popular? Too boring?<\/p>\n

Gideon – A lovely name, which is classic but kind of quirky, from the Old Testament, and not too common. Concerns here: too many Gs in the first + last name? In Israel Gideon (Gidon there) is old fashioned. The meaning (warrior) is not great, but he is doing karate in my uterus right now, so maybe it will suit him.<\/p>\n

Ori – We both love this name, which is Israeli for “my light.” This is a similar meaning to my first name, which is nice. Our concerns are that it is too foreign sounding, and not obvious if it’s a male or female to most Americans. The combo of Ori with the last name, unless one is familiar with Israeli names, could come across as very foreign and totally unrecognizable.<\/p>\n

Avery – Solid American name which we both really like. It\u2019s not biblical, but we would use the Hebrew name Ivri (pronounced Ee-vree) for family in Israel. Ivri means “of the Hebrew”, which is a nod towards his grandfather’s family, who were Hebrew language scholars. Also his grandfather Avi passed away, and Avery could be considered named after him. We prefer not to use his grandfather\u2019s exact name, so Avery is a nice compromise. Our concern here is that Avery is a really popular girl’s name right now!<\/p>\n

Gabriel and Ethan are names that made our short list initially, but ultimately we don\u2019t love them. Also don’t love Elijah. Other names that won’t work for us: Jacob, Daniel, Adam, Ben, Jonathan, Elliot (names of our nephews\/cousins), David (meh), Jonah (an ex), and Noah (too common). We hope to have 2 kids, but may just have this one. If we had a girl, we would probably have named her Naomi or Nessa (which means miracle in Hebrew).<\/p>\n

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on our current choices or new name ideas! We promise to let you know what we choose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think Eli is a very nice name. It doesn’t strike me as too popular, or boring.<\/p>\n

I also like Gideon very much. It is a lot of G and D with the surname, which is the sort of thing some people would avoid and others would seek out; it’s a matter of how it sounds to you. Do you like the way the repeated sounds hit your ear when you say them aloud, or does it feel like a downside?<\/p>\n

I’m interested too to know how Ori strikes other people. I’ve had only one encounter with the name: a girl I went to high school with was named Orianna, and was occasionally called Ori. But I wouldn’t base much on one single exposure to the name, and if I saw Ori on a list I definitely wouldn’t assume girl: I’d be completely uncertain. I have also known a boy named Ari, so I can make an Ari\/Ori connection and see it as masculine. I’m also familiar with the name Omri from the book The Indian in the Cupboard; that too could make the name feel natural to me as a boy’s name. And the name looks a little like Ollie, a name I’m familiar with as a nickname for Oliver. But it also looks a little like Lori and Dori and Tori, familiar as girl names. And it makes me think of Cory and Rory, which are both unisex names. In short, the name looks ambiguous to me, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find it belonged to a girl OR to a boy.<\/p>\n

You’re right that Avery is a unisex name leaning girl. In 2013, the name was given to 9,121 new baby girls and 2,036 new baby boys. Usage is currently holding fairly steady for boys (#196 in 2013) while rising for girls: #12 in 2013, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the Top 10 when the 2014 data comes out in May. If you plan to have more children, it is possible that using a unisex-leaning-girl name for a boy could cause sibling-name selection issues.<\/p>\n

I notice that three of the four names on your finalist list are vowel-heavy with softer sounds: Eli, Ori, Avery. I don’t know anything about how names sound in Israel or what their Hebrew equivalents are\/mean, but that is where I might start if I were looking for more options. Names such as Joel, Seth, Levi, Nathaniel, Paul, Cyrus, Owen, Leo, Oliver.<\/p>\n

I think my top favorite option is Eli from your finalist list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello! We are expecting our first baby, a boy, in a few weeks and still have not settled on a first name. The last name sounds like Neg-Ed but starting with an M (the G is hard and it’s 2 syllables). The middle name will be my last name, which sounds like Peench starting with […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2Te","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11112","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=11112"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11114,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11112\/revisions\/11114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}