{"id":12297,"date":"2016-08-31T09:22:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T13:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12297"},"modified":"2016-08-31T09:34:46","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T13:34:46","slug":"middle-name-challenge-june-_________-mc______-trying-to-honor-a-henrietta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2016\/08\/31\/middle-name-challenge-june-_________-mc______-trying-to-honor-a-henrietta\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle Name Challenge: June _________ Mc______; Trying to Honor a Henrietta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,
\nWondering if you could help me… We’re due in 2 weeks with our 2nd child, a girl this time. For a middle name, I would like to honor my only living grandparent, who also happens to be an amazing lady! My problem is her name is Henrietta Mae. We’ve decided on the name June for the first name, so Mae doesn’t work as a middle. The other piece is my mom passed away 8 years ago, and I always thought I’d honor her in some way. Her name was Catherine.<\/p>\n

With my grandmother still alive, I’m slightly more interested in honoring her. Problem is I can’t find a good way to use Henrietta. Her mother’s name was Mary, as was my grandfather’s mothers name.
\nI was thinking June Mary Cate Mc—–. What do you think? Is that too wordy?
\nThanks so much Swistle!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The missing piece of the letter is this: What is the reason Henrietta can’t be used as the middle name? It seems great to me: sassy and fun and underused. June Henrietta is terrific, and makes me feel happy to see it and say it.<\/p>\n

If I had to guess the reason from context, I’d guess it was that you dislike the name. I would encourage you to consider using it anyway. I greatly disliked my grandfather’s name AND it was the name of my high school boyfriend (a very negative connection at the time). But my grandfather was alive when my son was born, and I knew he’d be so thrilled to have a namesake, so we went ahead and used his first name as my son’s middle name. (I would like to take a minute here to appreciate Paul for being cool with this even with the ex-boyfriend issue.) Every time I tell someone his middle name and every time I fill out a form that requires it, I have a happy warm feeling about using the name. And, to my surprise, 17 years later I realize I have come to really like the name: part of it is that the name is closer and closer to coming back into style, but I think most of it is that the positive association (with my grandfather, with my child, and with the memory of my grandfather’s reaction to having his name used) has worked its charm. My children were asking the other day, do I really LIKE the taste of coffee? And I said I don’t even know anymore: I used to hate it, but now the positive associations with it are so strong, I say “MMMMmmmmmm” with the first sip, and I perceive it as GOOD. This is very similar to the way I feel about my son’s middle name.<\/p>\n

And in the case of Henrietta, I love the name to begin with, and wish it were a name in my own family tree. I realize that doesn’t mean YOU will love the name—but I’ve found that other people’s positive or negative reactions to a name can affect how I feel about the name myself. It may work the same for you, if I and a bunch of commenters are all like “HENRIETTA HEART HEART HEART!!!”<\/p>\n

Or if it doesn’t, and I’m right that the issue is that you dislike the name, and a bunch of strangers loving it doesn’t help, it may help to think about how infrequently a middle name sees the light of day in most families. Some bring it out on a regular basis, but at my house we only see the middle names when we’re doing paperwork or when I’ve roped someone into a discussion of baby names. If you dislike the name, but you very much want to honor your grandmother, I suggest going ahead and just DOING it: after the birth announcements go out, the name won’t come up very often.<\/p>\n

I am a fan of long names and of multiple middle names, so I would also be on board with June Henrietta Catherine Mc_______. (Or if you’re planning more children, I might plan to honor your mother with the next child.)<\/p>\n

But if instead you decide on June Mary Cate Mc_____, I don’t think that’s at all too wordy. I think it has a very nice rhythm and sound. MaryCate could even be a single middle name, if you didn’t want two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle, Wondering if you could help me… We’re due in 2 weeks with our 2nd child, a girl this time. For a middle name, I would like to honor my only living grandparent, who also happens to be an amazing lady! My problem is her name is Henrietta Mae. We’ve decided on the name […]<\/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-12297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3cl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12297","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=12297"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12302,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12297\/revisions\/12302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}