{"id":11519,"date":"2015-08-03T06:37:33","date_gmt":"2015-08-03T10:37:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=11519"},"modified":"2016-04-20T14:56:33","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T18:56:33","slug":"baby-boy-mulligan-with-an-i-brother-to-teresa-nora-and-finn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/08\/03\/baby-boy-mulligan-with-an-i-brother-to-teresa-nora-and-finn\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Mulligan-with-an-I, Brother to Teresa, Nora, and Finn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

We are expecting our fourth child, a boy, the first week in October. We currently have two girls (Teresa Brigid and Nora Merian) and one boy (Finn Ricker). My name is Tara and my husband is Marcus, goes by Marc. Our last name is Mulligan but with an i instead of a u. This is most likely our last child.<\/p>\n

We are having the hardest time naming this baby! I’ve never made it this far in a pregnancy without a clear finalist before. I have many boy names that I love but each of them has some issue holding me back from using them.<\/p>\n

I’m hoping you can either help me realize some of my hang ups are not a big deal or help us brainstorm some great names that we might not have thought of yet.<\/p>\n

Middle name will be an honor name, preferably Paul, Marcus or David.<\/p>\n

Here are our favorites:<\/p>\n

Cormac – I love this name but worry that he will spend his life with people hearing his name as Cor MacMulligan. My husband doesn’t think this is a big deal. Am I over thinking this one? Is this an issue that will bug him his whole life or just be a minor inconvenience? Possibly I can get over this issue but would like some outside opinions on it.<\/p>\n

Eamon – We both like this one but my husband is a bit worried that it will be difficult for people to pronounce. It feels easily pronounceable to me, but that might just be because I grew up knowing how to say it.<\/p>\n

Cashel – We both like this one, but I don’t love the nickname Cash.<\/p>\n

Nolan – Is this too similar to Nora?<\/p>\n

Clive – This is a recent addition to the list. I like that it is one syllable like Finn.<\/p>\n

Hugh – Does this one “fit” with the names of our other children?<\/p>\n

Can you help us out? Any other suggestions that might be “the one”?<\/p>\n

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

 <\/p>\n

I will give my opinions on the various issues, and then the commenters can do the same. (Commenters: feel free to comment on just one or some of the issues, if you prefer.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. Cormac Mulligan \/ Cor MacMulligan. I think this one is fine. “Cor” isn’t a familiar name on its own; I think you’ll easily adjust to putting a tiny pause between the two names; and there are no upsetting or distressing results if the names DO blend.<\/p>\n

I notice that Cormac shares a major sound with Nora. I think this would be all right (this is the sort of thing that I think matters less as the sibling group gets larger), but it’s the sort of thing I like to think about ahead of time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. Difficulty of pronouncing Eamon. I know how to say it, but I had to learn it. I remember practicing it, I think while reading a Maeve Binchy novel. I think that this is a good era to be born with a potentially-difficult-to-pronounce name: people are more accustomed to needing to do so.<\/p>\n

One slight concern is that both Finn and Eamon are a little rhymey with your surname. My thought process went like this: “Eamon is a little rhymey with the surname. Oh, but Finn is too, so they’re okay with that. But TWO names that are a little rhymey may draw more attention to it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. Cashel \/ Cash. This is also a good era to have a name you don’t want nicknamed. However, that involves the cooperation of the child himself. So here is where I draw my own line, with nicknames: Do I actively dislike the nickname, so that I wince at the thought of the child growing up and deciding to use it? Then the name is probably not a good fit. Do I instead just prefer the nickname not be used, but I feel que sera sera at the thought of it ending up being what my child is called? Then it may be well worth the risk.<\/p>\n

I also take into account the likelihood of the particular nickname being used. That is, if the name is Isabella, I think Izzy and Bella are more likely than if the parent is concerned about Zabby or Ella. With Cashel\/Cash, the nickname Cash feels instinctive and almost irresistibly cool, like Dash for Dashiell; I immediately picture all his high school friends calling him that.<\/p>\n

And finally, I take into account (as far as it is possible to do so) the idea that my own feelings may change. We’ve had just enough parents here saying things such as “I NEVER wanted her called Izzy, but she is TOTALLY an Izzy!” that it has drawn my attention to this interesting phenomenon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4. Nolan \/ Nora. Visually, the two names seem quite similar to me. When I say them aloud, they don’t seem too similar at all: the only similarity is that they begin with the same letter and have two syllables. I think this is a small issue, definitely worth dismissing if you are able to do so and if the name Nolan is the right one.<\/p>\n

Nolan, like Eamon and Finn, is a little rhymey with the surname.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6. Hugh. I don’t see any reason it doesn’t fit with the others. I also like Hugo.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5. Clive. I deliberately switched #5 and #6, because Clive is the name that would make me wonder if it were a good fit with the others. Teresa, Nora, and Finn are all familiar names; Clive is much less familiar to me.<\/p>\n

The name Theresa\/Teresa is not currently common (both spellings appear to be on the verge of leaving the Social Security Administration’s Top 1000). But because it was so widely used in recent years (Theresa was Top 100 from 1941 until 1977; Teresa was Top 100 from 1948 until 1981), it’s a name most people are familiar with. Nora is currently popular, at #49 in 2014 (and that doesn’t take into account the Eleanors going by Nora). Finn is currently rising in popularity, moving from #835 in 2000 to #234 in 2015 (again, this doesn’t take into account the boys using it as a nickname for Finnegan, Finley, Phineas, Griffin, etc.).<\/p>\n

But the name Clive hasn’t been in the Top 1000 at all, not since 1900 when the online Social Security records begin. It was given to only 77 new baby boys in 2014. For comparison, 1,567 new baby boys were named Finn that same year, and 4,708 new baby girls were named Nora.<\/p>\n

To be fair, the name Hugh is also uncommon. But 251 new baby boys were given the name in 2014, and it’s been in the Top 1000 continuously since the Social Security records start in 1900. Its highest popularity in the data base was in 1900, when it was at #88, which makes me think it’s ready for a comeback soon. And it helps that I happen to know a child named Hugh; I admit that before meeting him, I would have thought of it as a more surprising choice.<\/p>\n

And Clive, though not currently very common, is RISING in usage; here are the number of baby boys given the name, looking at every 5 years starting in 1964:<\/p>\n

1964: 17
\n1969: 7
\n1974: 10
\n1979: 13
\n1984: 18
\n1989: 11
\n1994: 16
\n1999: 17
\n2004: 20
\n2009: 56
\n2014: 77<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think you have a lot of good candidates to choose from, so I’m reluctant to add to the list. But here are the names I thought of while writing the post:<\/p>\n

Casey
\nCorbin (a little rhymey with the surname and with Finn)
\nDeclan (a little rhymey with surname)
\nEmmett
\nHugo
\nIan (a little rhymey with surname)
\nLyle
\nNiall
\nReid
\nWesley<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

Thank you so much for your response and all the reader responses, they were so helpful! At the last minute my husband changed his mind about the name Conor, which I’ve loved since I was young and still wanted to use despite the popularity it has seen. I thought he had totally vetoed it, so didn’t include it in my list of names when I emailed you. Conor Davin was born October 3, 2015. A few days later we found out he had a Congenital Heart Defect and he had heart surgery at 5 days old, but is doing so awesome now. Life has finally calmed down enough for me to remember to send a naming update!<\/p>\n

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Hi Swistle! We are expecting our fourth child, a boy, the first week in October. We currently have two girls (Teresa Brigid and Nora Merian) and one boy (Finn Ricker). My name is Tara and my husband is Marcus, goes by Marc. Our last name is Mulligan but with an i instead of a u. […]<\/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-11519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2ZN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11519","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=11519"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12070,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11519\/revisions\/12070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}