{"id":12167,"date":"2016-06-16T07:24:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-16T11:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12167"},"modified":"2016-11-22T16:09:54","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T20:09:54","slug":"baby-name-to-consider-fennec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2016\/06\/16\/baby-name-to-consider-fennec\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Name to Consider: Fennec"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I am over the moon to finally have my own question after reading your blog for many years, albeit, it would be even better if I didn’t have a naming conundrum of my own but you get the point.<\/p>\n

My boyfriend and I are expecting our first in November. We are in agreement on a girl’s name but when it comes to boy’s, I am finding myself drawn to a name I would never have thought I would actually consider!<\/p>\n

For the longest time, my all time favourite boy’s name has been Ambrose, but I have always had difficulty pairing a middle name that I liked the flow of with the baby’s last- which will be Bobinson with an R.<\/p>\n

Our second favourite name (and I say “our” because I am not really sure bf would have agreed to Ambrose) was Augustus but again, there are reasons why this name just doesn’t seem right for this baby.<\/p>\n

Enter pregnancy dream #2 about said baby in which I referred to him as Fennec. That’s right- the name of the fox. First thing, I had never heard of this type of fox, I had to google the name when I woke up and found the association. Two, I think the name actually came from The Hunger Games’ Finnick but my dream brain changed it. I have always liked his name. Three, Fox is on my list as one of several nature names that I would have only put in the middle. Four, when I jokingly told my boyfriend what I had dreamt the baby’s name was, his answer was “I love that!”<\/p>\n

So now we are kind of going with Fennec. Is this crazy? Are these pregnancy hormones at work? I would happily put it in the middle name spot but it feels perfect up front- with Ambrose in the middle.<\/p>\n

And lastly, you might ask why not just go with Finnick? Two reasons, I don’t like the rare possibility it could be shortened to Nick and I don’t know if I am alright with naming a child a pop culture name with no other real history behind it.<\/p>\n

Any thoughts on how you would feel to see a baby or adult Fennec? I think for short we could call him Fen (or Fenn). We don’t plan on sharing our naming preferences with anyone prior to the birth as I don’t share naming styles with them and would rather not defend any choices.<\/p>\n

Looking forward to seeing what you and your readers think!<\/p>\n

Cheers,
\nJacqueline<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I would not go with Finnick, either. I do like that it could be shortened to Finn, but it makes me think of the word finicky.<\/p>\n

I am surprised to be saying it, but I think Fennec works. I pictured seeing it on a class list, and I would think, “Wow, THAT’S unusual!”—but it seems like a Real Name to me. That is, I would be thinking, “I wonder if that’s Norwegian?” and not “That’s a crazy thing to name a child.”<\/p>\n

Plus, Fennec foxes are beyond adorable.<\/p>\n

My other association is with Fezzik<\/a> from The Princess Bride, but (1) that’s a highly positive association, and (2) it serves to make Fennec even more name-like, and (3) it is not even the same name, just a name with a similar rhythm\/sound.<\/p>\n

I looked it up in the Social Security data base<\/a>, and I see there were 5 new baby boys given the name Fennec in 2015. There were none in the data base for the previous 5 years. I suspect the combination of The Hunger Games + the recent popularity of foxes may be leading other parents in the same direction. I searched online for “baby name Fennec,” and got a bunch of hits for discussions of the name on baby name sites.<\/p>\n

If I were considering using the name, my main concern would be future sibling names, particularly brother names. If sibling-name coordination is one of your preferences, Fennec could be a hard act to coordinate.<\/p>\n

Let’s have a poll to see what everyone else thinks. Remember that when we do Name to Consider posts, we’re not exactly discussing whether the name is to our own personal tastes (though that of course will factor in), but more whether we think it could work as a name. The comments section is a good place to expand\/explain your vote. Particularly if you vote “definitely no,” we’d appreciate hearing why not: otherwise I tend to chalk those votes up to the phenomenon I’ve noticed where a certain small percentage will choose the contrary answer, no matter WHAT the question is (“Is Emily a stripper name?” – 1,073 no votes and 7 yes votes).
\n[yop_poll id=”68″]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Good morning Swistle,<\/p>\n

Here is our update!<\/p>\n

Thanks again to you and your readers for helping us with our boy’s name but in the end, we didn’t need it as we welcomed a beautiful baby girl to the world.<\/p>\n

Fiammetta Noemi is the name we chose for her and we couldn’t be happier with it.<\/p>\n

We’ll keep Fennec Ambrose on hold for next time \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle, I am over the moon to finally have my own question after reading your blog for many years, albeit, it would be even better if I didn’t have a naming conundrum of my own but you get the point. My boyfriend and I are expecting our first in November. We are in agreement […]<\/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-12167","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-3af","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12167","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=12167"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12433,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12167\/revisions\/12433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}