{"id":11703,"date":"2015-11-06T11:04:38","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T15:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=11703"},"modified":"2016-08-13T09:43:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T13:43:07","slug":"baby-girl-or-boy-gaulton-sibling-to-isabella","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/11\/06\/baby-girl-or-boy-gaulton-sibling-to-isabella\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl or Boy Gaulton, Sibling to Isabella"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi there Swistle!<\/p>\n

I’m a huge fan of your blog and I find myself in a situation where your help and guidance would be amazing!<\/p>\n

I’m due with my second child in May 2016, very early on to have a name issue but I’ll explain. My first child is Isabella Pamela, our last name is Gaulton. To most of my family and myself her name is perfect. So when I announced I was pregnant again to them all the response I got from nearly everyone was “congrats! So happy for you! You’ll never find another name as perfect as ‘Isabella'”. Now nothing I see seems to measure up.<\/p>\n

Pamela is a honor name in my family and similarly this child (gender will be a surprise) will have an honour middle name as well. It will be Arlene for a girl or Ryan for a boy.<\/p>\n

My husband and I love ultra feminine names for girls and masculine names for boys, also our last name is slightly harsh sounding so flow is a concern of ours<\/p>\n

Please help us come up with something. I feel panicked whenever I think of picking a name because we want this baby to have a name that is as beloved as our daughter’s is.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your time!<\/p>\n

Therese<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

One reason the name Isabella may seem incomparable is that it is now connected to your much-loved little girl. No other name will measure up, until it too is connected to a much-loved child. I suggest abandoning the quest to find a name you like as much as the name Isabella, and switching the focus to finding the name you love best of all the remaining, not-Isabella names.<\/p>\n

If possible (and I know it may not be possible), see if you can disregard the concept of whether everyone else will think the name is as good as Isabella’s. It is odd that so many people responded as they did to the news of your pregnancy. Either your circle is unusually interested in baby names (and has an unhelpful way of expressing it), or it is possible that stress is making it feel as the percentage was larger than it was.<\/p>\n

In any event, people generally care less about other people’s children’s names than they may seem to. If, for example, the worst happens and you choose a name that others feel really isn’t as good as the name Isabella, no one will lose sleep over it. Even I (and I think it is clear I care quite a bit about baby names, and do think they’re important) don’t DEEP-DOWN care what other people name their children. I have a brief reaction to the name, appreciative or not, and then I don’t give it much thought after that. Maybe a wince from time to time at a particularly disliked one, or a fresh surge of appreciation for a particularly liked one, but not much more than that. And it sounds as if your circle is already prepared to be disappointed in the name, which could take off some of the pressure.<\/p>\n

The way you spelled the word “honour” makes me wonder if you are in the United States or not. In the U.S., the name Isabella has been in the Top 10 for baby girls for more than a decade now, and was the #1 most popular name for girls in 2009 and 2010. If you live in an area where the name is much less common, this advice will be useless; but what I’d suggest is looking for similarly popular names. The upside of a popular name is that it is POPULAR: many people love it. If your primary concern is finding another name that many people will love, then the popular names are the way to go. For a U.S. baby, I’d be suggesting names such as:<\/p>\n

Amelia
\nArianna
\nMadeleine
\nOlivia
\nSophia
\nVictoria<\/p>\n

I’d consider the name Olivia nearly perfect: similarly popular, same number of syllables, very feminine. Olivia Gaulton; Olivia Arlene Gaulton; Isabella and Olivia.<\/p>\n

Less common but still in the style I’d suggest:<\/p>\n

Adelaide
\nAnastasia
\nAnnalise
\nAubrianna
\nCarolina
\nClarissa
\nEmmeline
\nEvelina
\nFrancesca
\nGenevieve
\nJosephine
\nJulianna
\nLilianna
\nNatalia
\nSabrina<\/p>\n

I skipped many -ella names (including Elianna, which I’m still wavering on), because of not wanting to duplicate the ending of Isabella, and this made me feel even more inclined toward names ending with -anna: it’s similarly feminine, but different enough for a sister name. I was uncertain about Lilianna: too many shared sounds, or not? I’m not sure. It passed my “Would I raise my eyebrows if I heard of siblings with these names?” test (“No”), so I kept it in. Maybe I should have kept Elianna, too, I don’t know.<\/p>\n

With the middle initial A and the surname initial G, I’d keep alert to initials that may spell things. For example, if you’re not open to a different middle name, I’d say Victoria and Francesca are right out. I would also avoid GAG, HAG, NAG, RAG, and SAG. I feel less strongly about BAG, JAG, LAG, MAG, TAG, and WAG, but would still want to consider the issue before settling on a final choice.<\/p>\n

I don’t feel as if I have enough information about your boy-name style to make a good list. If you like masculine, popular names, I might suggest names such as Jacob and William. If you like longer names for boys as well as for girls, I might suggest Benjamin, Jonathan, Alexander. If you like gentleman names, I might suggest Everett and Theodore and Oliver.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Good Morning!<\/p>\n

I wrote you asking for help with naming a sibling for my daughter Isabella Pamela. You gave me so many wonderful suggestions, as did the lovely commenters of your blog. My husband and I decided to name a girl Olivia Arlene…then we had a beautiful baby boy!<\/p>\n

Anderson Ryan came into the world June 5th,2016 weighing in at 10lbs 13oz and just over 22 inches long.<\/p>\n

Thank you so much for your help and I continue to read your blog- it’s bad for baby fever \u263a\ufe0f<\/p>\n

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

Hi there Swistle! I’m a huge fan of your blog and I find myself in a situation where your help and guidance would be amazing! I’m due with my second child in May 2016, very early on to have a name issue but I’ll explain. My first child is Isabella Pamela, our last name is […]<\/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-11703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-32L","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11703","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=11703"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12269,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11703\/revisions\/12269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}