{"id":12320,"date":"2016-09-13T09:24:36","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T13:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12320"},"modified":"2016-11-05T20:22:31","modified_gmt":"2016-11-06T00:22:31","slug":"baby-naming-issue-trying-to-get-the-nickname-mo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2016\/09\/13\/baby-naming-issue-trying-to-get-the-nickname-mo\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Trying to Get the Nickname Mo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

Long time reader, and like many who frequent this website, I never thought I would need your help, but oh.my.word could I use some help from you and your amazing readers.<\/p>\n

We are currently about three weeks out from meeting our baby, gender unknown, due the first week of October. We want to go in with two fantastic girl names and two equally fantastic boy names. Our girl’s names are:<\/p>\n

Josephine Rose nn Posey (we love this for so many reasons, middle name is after both our grandmothers, first name is a nod to her dad)
\nEleanor Patricia nn Nora (I had a dream this was her name, middle name is after my mom, not sure how it sounds with our last name)<\/p>\n

And our boy’s names are:<\/p>\n

Montgomery Christian nn Mo or Monty (is this too “big” of a name for a little baby? Too many syllables and law-firm sounding?)
\nCosmo Christian nn Mo or Cos (Seinfeld connection too strong?)<\/p>\n

It’s the boy’s names that are tripping me up the most. My husband and I kind of trapped ourselves into a corner when deciding we wanted his nickname to be Mo, after my sister, who has the nickname of Mo (full name Maureen). We like the namesake, but is it worth it if I don’t love the names as much as I love our girl’s names? We haven’t even made a list of any other names we like outside of the “Mo” realm. My husband loves Cosmo, and some days I like it and others I feel it is too “out there” (get it?). We toyed with Milo for a bit, but it doesn’t feel like it even needs a nickname, plus it seems a bit “trendy” next to other names we like. We do not like Morris, Maurice, Moses, etc. I do like Amos, but husband said absolutely not.<\/p>\n

I sometimes even find myself hoping this is a girl SOLELY because I like our girl options better. Eek!<\/p>\n

We don’t want anything ending in “n”, as our last name ends in “n” and those particular names sound too rhym-ey to me. We tend to like British names, older names with a history, and surname names.<\/p>\n

Which of our two boy’s names sounds better with Josephine Rose nn Posey, as this will most likely be our girl’s name we use down the road? Are there any full names for “Mo” that we are missing? Should his name just be Mo or Moe?<\/p>\n

Also, a bigger questions, are we overcomplicating this whole name thing with giving our kiddos nicknames before they are even born?<\/p>\n

Thank you SO MUCH, I appreciate any insight from you and your readers, and I can promise an update (with photo), as those are my most favorite thing to read!<\/p>\n

xo Kim + Joe Lauren-with-a-D<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here is my first question: Who if anyone has been told about your intention to honor your sister? It does sound to me as if you’ve trapped yourself unnecessarily, and so if no one knows about the idea to use Mo, I suggest releasing yourself from that restriction and see how that feels. Throw out the boy-name list and start over. Perhaps another way can be found to honor your sister, or perhaps a future daughter could have the middle name Maureen, or perhaps Mo\/Moe could be used as a boy’s middle name.<\/p>\n

Cosmo-called-Mo and Josephine-Rose-called-Posey feels like a lot of long-O and S-as-Z sounds. Mo and Posey is either adorable or too matchy (particularly with a father named Joe), depending on your own preferences. I think the worst would be to use a name you don’t love just to get an honor nickname, and then find that for you it rules out your favorite girl name.<\/p>\n

If your sister has already been told of your intentions and so it would be very difficult to change course at this point, my favorite would be to use Mo\/Moe as the middle name. It’s cute, and no one will think it’s odd that you didn’t give a boy the middle name Maureen. You could then either call him Mo(e) or not, as you prefer.<\/p>\n

Another way to get the nickname is with the initials M.O.: Malcolm Oliver, nickname Mo; Miles Oliver, nickname Mo. This is getting very reachy, honor-wise (initials<\/em> spelling the nickname<\/em> of the honoree), but sometimes what parents need is a way out of the corner.<\/p>\n

Or could you instead honor your sister by matching her first two initials? Again, this is a reach, but sometimes we take what we can get.<\/p>\n

Or you could name him whatever you want and then call him Mo. People do this all the time. It isn’t an idea that comes to my mind often, but I think of it every time I hear a very reachy explanation for a child’s nickname: “Her name is Louisa but we’re calling her Zoe: the Z-sound in Louisa plus the O of Louisa plus the E from her middle name Elizabeth!” I’d be so much quicker to adjust to “Her given name is Louisa, but we call her Zoe.” Or just “This is Zoe.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

After all the angst over the boy name, we had Josephine Rose, or Posey, on October 4th. We’ve had great feedback on her name, with a few confused looks mixed in, but once we tell them Posey is a nickname for Josephine, they seem to get it. :)<\/p>\n

Thanks all of you for your help and suggestions, I relished each and every one!<\/p>\n

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Hi Swistle! Long time reader, and like many who frequent this website, I never thought I would need your help, but oh.my.word could I use some help from you and your amazing readers. We are currently about three weeks out from meeting our baby, gender unknown, due the first week of October. We want to […]<\/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-12320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3cI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12320","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=12320"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12409,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12320\/revisions\/12409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}