{"id":12038,"date":"2016-04-11T09:42:16","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T13:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12038"},"modified":"2016-04-11T09:42:16","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T13:42:16","slug":"baby-boy-j______-brother-to-jameson-jules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2016\/04\/11\/baby-boy-j______-brother-to-jameson-jules\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy J______, Brother to Jameson: Jules?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

I am due in October with my second son. Everyone in my immediate family and my husband’s immediate family’s names start with “J” and there are many, many “J” names in our extended families as well. We therefore decided to continue the tradition and name all our children “J” names, our first son being named Jameson. Although we weren’t pregnant yet, we started discussing potential boys names for the future. We were having a very difficult time coming up with another boy’s name that started with “J” that fit our three criteria: 1) not a given name already used in the family, 2) not overly popular, 3) we love it. We finally came up with a name that we love: Jules.<\/p>\n

The problem is that my sister has four daughters, one of whose name starts with “J”, Julia. One of Julia’s many nicknames is Jules, although she goes by Julia on a regular basis. There will also be eight years and many states between Julia and her cousin-to-be. Everyone in my family, sister included, really likes the name and doesn’t think there should be an issue…except for my brother-in-law. He has told my sister that Jules is his special nickname for his daughter and if we name our baby that name he won’t call the baby by his given name. He even went so far as to “jokingly” state that if we name our child Jules he will buy a dog and name it my given name. Ironically, our second favorite name is Julian, which would inevitably end up being shortened to the nickname Jules, and he doesn’t seem to have a problem with, yet.<\/p>\n

I don’t think my niece Julia will be upset by her new cousin having her nickname since she suggested Julian for my first son’s name, but don’t want to hurt her feelings in any way. I also don’t want to acquiesce to my brother-in-law over his emotional attachment to a nickname that we all use on occasion for his daughter. Lastly, when there are so few names, i.e. one, that fit our criteria, I do not want to settle for a name that I will be second guessing for the rest of my son’s life.<\/p>\n

Please help! I know that I have some time still, but this has been weighing on my mind.<\/p>\n

-Jen\u00e9e Morgan<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Your brother-in-law is being an ass, I think we can agree on that. The question is, what effect if any should this have on your baby-naming decisions?<\/p>\n

What I WISH we could do is just make him see that he’s being an ass, and have him say “Sorry for being such an ass,” and then you go ahead and name your own baby just as he got to name his own baby. He did not name his baby Jules; even if he HAD named his baby Jules, you would still be able to name your baby Jules, because names are not one-time-use items. Presumably Julia Roberts’s parents are not buying a dog to name after your brother-in-law just because he used their daughter’s name.<\/p>\n

Is there any hope of your sister handling the task of making him see that he’s being an ass? Or I wonder if she DOES have a problem with you using Jules, but doesn’t want to say so. It seems a little suspicious that she’s passing along to you what her husband said, apparently without kicking his legs out from under him first.<\/p>\n

Well, let’s assume your brother-in-law does not change his tune. I hate the idea of giving in to his jerky behavior, but there are some things that are not worth the family drama. My vote, then, is for using the name Julian. I like the way it totally gives you the Jules nickname AND is actually CLOSER to the name Julia, but in a way that is evidently flying under your brother-in-law’s radar.<\/p>\n

If that doesn’t work (either you find you are just not happy with the name Julian, or else your brother-in-law suddenly notices it and doesn’t feel at all bashful about preventing you from using another name), I vote for going back to the drawing board. I would go back even as far as “Do we really want to use all J names?” It’s hard to choose names, and it’s even harder when 25 out of 26 initials are eliminated. The new tradition could be “Firstborn child gets a J name,” or “Everyone gets a J somewhere in their name,” or “J-name, then K-name, then L-name…”.<\/p>\n

If you decide J names are your most important preference, and it looks as if that IS the decision, then it may be that another preference will have to give way. There may just not BE any more J names you love that are also unused in the family and not popular. If we were chatting right now in my skyscraper baby-naming office, here’s what I’d give you for this week’s homework: rank the other preferences. If J names is first, what’s fourth? If one preference has to go, which one will it be? Picture a balance scale: if “name we love” is on one side and “uncommon name” is on the other, which weighs more? What if it’s “not already used in the family” and “name we love”? And so on.<\/p>\n

If this is too hard to do (you might think, as I would, that it really depends on the particular name), then I’d suggest eliminating one preference at a time, experimentally, and seeing what kind of lists you get. For example, try kicking popularity out of the running: pretend that all J names are equally uncommon, and see which ones you like best. Next, reinstate the popularity preference, but knock out the requirement that it be a unique name in the extended family. Then, go back to the no-repeats rule, but consider names you don’t love: it can feel a little weird to do, but it happens all the time that someone uses a name they don’t love (because it’s a family tradition or an honor name, because they couldn’t agree with the other parent, etc.) and then they grow to love the name once it belongs to the child. Even with names I loved, it’s funny to think back and remember all the doubts I had about the names before using them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle, I am due in October with my second son. Everyone in my immediate family and my husband’s immediate family’s names start with “J” and there are many, many “J” names in our extended families as well. We therefore decided to continue the tradition and name all our children “J” names, our first son […]<\/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-12038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-38a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12038","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=12038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12039,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12038\/revisions\/12039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}