{"id":11777,"date":"2015-12-07T13:21:31","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T17:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=11777"},"modified":"2016-11-20T15:55:15","modified_gmt":"2016-11-20T19:55:15","slug":"baby-name-to-discuss-cole-for-a-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2015\/12\/07\/baby-name-to-discuss-cole-for-a-girl\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Name to Discuss: Cole for a Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

I have been reading your blog for about over a year now. My husband and I recently found out we’re expecting our first little one!! We still have a while to wait before we find out the gender but we have always talked about potential names!
\nWe have always loved the name Cole for a baby girl. Her middle name would be Leann, a family name and definitively feminine.<\/p>\n

Our only concern is future sibling names. If we name a baby girl a traditionally boy name, how can we find a name more masculine for her brother someday? When we pair any boy names we like with a sister named Cole we can’t decide if it sounds funny or not. Also, if Cole has a baby sister one day, are we stuck with naming her a traditionally boy (or at least unisex) name? Would Cole and “something very feminine” be funny as a sister sibling set?<\/p>\n

We LOVE Cole! Just don’t want to have extra difficulty naming baby #2 when that time comes :)<\/p>\n

I included our current top boy names for reference as well.<\/p>\n

Lane
\nJonah
\nBrooks
\nMitch<\/p>\n

We would appreciate your thoughts tremendously!!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think you’re wise to think about these issues ahead of time. There’s no rule that says you can’t have a pair of sisters named Cole and Isabella, or a sister-brother set named Cole and Addison, but I do think it makes things easier to go into it knowing ahead of time what your own priorities and preferences are.<\/p>\n

I suggest starting by making a list of other names you like for girls (or taking a look at that list, if you already have one). If you end up with a list of Brandon, Brady, Finn, Owen, and Clarissa, we are all set: feminine names are outliers for you, and “boy names for girls” is your basic style. If, however, your list is Clarissa, Annabella, Madeleine, and Josephine, then “boy names for girls” are outliers for you, and using one of them may make you feel painted into a corner for future children if one of your preferences is for sibling names to coordinate.<\/p>\n

In the United States in 2014, the name Cole was given to 9 new baby girls and 3,404 new baby boys. Every name has its own package deal of pros and cons and issues, and part of the package deal of giving the name Cole to a girl will be needing to regularly correct the assumption that she is a boy. It won’t even be the way it is with unisex names such as Cameron and Riley, where most people are aware that the name can be given to boys or girls; it will be more like the names Wesley (43 girls, 3,112 boys) and Miles (19 girls, 3,639 boys), where people assume boy without thinking about it.<\/p>\n

Many parents enjoy this factor of surprise, and in fact it can be one of the main things they like about a name. So what I’d ask you, if we were sitting sipping coffee in my office, is do you think that describes the two of you? That is, is one of the things you like about the name Cole that it is “a boy’s name for a girl”? Or is it that you love the name Cole for a girl, but you’d be happier if Cole were considered a unisex name or a name for girls?<\/p>\n

If your list is mostly “boy names for girls,” and a point in Cole’s favor is that it’s usually used for boys, then I think you’re all set: correcting people will be fun, and you will be able to find plenty of similar names for future daughters. (But I find myself hoping you have trouble and we can help; that would be a really fun list to make!) Perhaps you could give each daughter a traditionally-boy first name and a traditionally-girl middle name, as you’d be doing with the name Cole Leann. Brothers seem like less of an issue: I don’t think you could choose any name for a boy that would make it clear that Cole was a girl, and it’s common for parents to have a somewhat different naming style for daughters than for sons, so I think you could just go with your own preferences.<\/p>\n

But if your list is mostly names traditionally used for girls, AND you’d like sibling names to coordinate, AND you would like the name Cole better if it were traditionally used for girls, then I am going to list some options you may very well have already thought of.<\/p>\n

One option is to use Cole as the nickname for Colette. (You could also use it as a nickname for Nicole, Nicolette, or Colleen, but those names seem less current.)<\/p>\n

Another option is to feminize the name: Coley, for example.<\/p>\n

Another option is to see if you can pinpoint what it is you like about the name Cole, and look for traditionally-girl names that share those characteristics. It’s hard to give examples, since it will depend entirely on what characteristics you pinpoint, but here’s my attempt: Magnolia, Elle, Claire, Noelle, Paloma, Ione, Jolie, Joelle, Kay, Romy, Viola, Kaley, Lola, Nola, Zola.<\/p>\n

Do you like Cole for a boy, or only for a girl? If you like it for boys as well, another option is to use it for a boy, either on its own or as a nickname for Coleman, Coleson, Nicholas, etc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle,
\nSorry it’s taken so long to update!!! Little baby girl Kole Leann arrived in August! Her name fits her perfectly!! Your response and the replies from readers really helped us with our final decision. It prepared us for the responses some people may have and encourage us to go with our gut!<\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle! I have been reading your blog for about over a year now. My husband and I recently found out we’re expecting our first little one!! We still have a while to wait before we find out the gender but we have always talked about potential names! We have always loved the name Cole […]<\/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":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-to-consider","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-33X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11777","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=11777"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12415,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11777\/revisions\/12415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}