{"id":12189,"date":"2016-06-27T11:12:10","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T15:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12189"},"modified":"2016-08-18T19:11:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T23:11:36","slug":"baby-boy-or-girl-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2016\/06\/27\/baby-boy-or-girl-b\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy or Girl B."},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle!
\nI started writing this a month or so ago and never finished thinking we had plenty of time since we are due in 10 weeks however this past week I was hospitalized with preterm labor and will be here until this baby is born. We are hoping for a few weeks but it could be any day now so we are running out of time! A few things about us that might help with the naming process… we don’t want a cutesy name but are a fan of the classics, we think a name needs to fit a baby and an adult, and our last name starts with a B. This is our first child and we are not finding out the gender!<\/p>\n

We are stuck on boy names….we went through the family history and the only name we liked was my dad’s middle name Franklin, which we would only use as a middle name. For some reason I am getting caught up on the fact that a lot of the names we like don’t have nicknames even though we agree we don’t need one. We tend to nickname everything so having SOME kind of nickname just seems to make sense.<\/p>\n

Names I like:
\nClarke
\nCrawford
\nHenry
\nShepherd<\/p>\n

Names he likes:
\nHolden
\nCrawford
\nKellan<\/p>\n

Names from our list that we ruled out:
\nElliott
\nWade
\nCollin<\/p>\n

We have the name Crawford overlapping but somehow it just hasn’t felt right. We don’t have a leader and are open to suggestions! For reference, we have the names Anna or Lydia picked out if it is a girl.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you guys tend to nickname everything, nicknames will evolve naturally even if the name doesn’t have a natural nickname. Paul and I are big nicknamers, and all five kids have multiple nicknames, and most of those nicknames have nothing to do with the child’s actual given name. Henry’s main nickname is a two-initial name (like PJ or JD) that isn’t the same as his actual initials. Elizabeth’s main nickname is Pinky. These things just happen.<\/p>\n

True, a family nickname is not the same as a nickname the child can use at school, and so if that feels important to you, it may be appropriate to reevaluate the “it doesn’t need a nickname” agreement.<\/p>\n

With a possible future sister named Anna or Lydia, my favorite from both lists is Henry. I find Henry Holden and Henry Crawford appeal to me, but Henry Franklin is great too.<\/p>\n

I wish Franklin could be a first-name option. It shares sounds with many of the other names on your lists; it’s classic and non-cutesy; it’s adorable on a baby but great on an adult; it’s great with Anna\/Lydia; etc.<\/p>\n

I think at this point, where you each have a list and the only overlap doesn’t feel like The Name, I’d do the “similar names” game: writing down each name from your lists, and then seeing if you can brainstorm names that are similar to those names in style or sound or general feel. The names that feel similar will vary considerably from person to person, but I’ll show you how it would look if I did it:<\/p>\n

Clarke<\/strong>
\nReid
\nGrant
\nMarcus
\nBrooks
\nCalvin
\nClay
\nKarl
\nCarson
\nHenry<\/strong>
\nSimon
\nWesley
\nEverett
\nCharlie
\nMilo
\nOliver
\nLeo
\nGeorge
\nShepard<\/strong>
\nFletcher
\nMiller
\nArcher
\nDeacon
\nSpencer
\nCrawford<\/strong>
\nLawson
\nSawyer
\nHawkins
\nAugust
\nDavis
\nHolden<\/strong>
\nNolan
\nMalcolm
\nTruman
\nHudson
\nWilson
\nCole
\nKellen<\/strong>
\nKeller
\nDeclan
\nLincoln
\nCorbin
\nEmmett
\nCallum
\nIan
\nKieran
\nStellan
\nKeaton
\nBennett<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another fun exercise is to get your hands on a copy of The Baby Name Wizard<\/a>, look up each name on your list, and pick your favorite name from the suggested brother names; then look up THAT name and so on. For example, let’s say we look up Clarke. Suggested brother names for Clark are Ward, Carlton, Hal, Lewis, Clyde, and Stuart. Don’t worry if you wouldn’t choose any of those; just pick the one you like BEST. Let’s say you choose Lewis. We look up Lewis; Lewis doesn’t have its own listing, but Louis does and I like that spelling better anyway. Brother name suggestions for Louis are Arthur, Jules, Edward, George, Theodore, and Charles. Let’s say your favorite from that list is George, so then you look up George and etc. etc. etc. If you get to a dead-end or a loop, you can go back and try another brother name for Clark. You could also start by looking up brother names for Anna or Lydia.<\/p>\n

What I find is that this game helps me narrow down my style (“Hm, I seem to keep ending up with Timeless names and Ladies and Gentleman names”), helps me identify outliers (“No matter which path I follow from this name, I don’t find any names I like”), and helps me beef up my list in general.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Name update: After a month in the hospital, our little boy came in fast on July 11th.\u00a0 By then he already had a name to me, so Henry Franklin was born at 4 pounds and 32 weeks. I knew I made the right choice when we told my dad and he left the room crying! Henry just came home after 36 days and he’s doing great!\u00a0 Thanks for all of the suggestions!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! I started writing this a month or so ago and never finished thinking we had plenty of time since we are due in 10 weeks however this past week I was hospitalized with preterm labor and will be here until this baby is born. We are hoping for a few weeks but it […]<\/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-12189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3aB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189","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=12189"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12276,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189\/revisions\/12276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}