{"id":12343,"date":"2016-10-03T08:52:31","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T12:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12343"},"modified":"2017-02-12T20:19:45","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T00:19:45","slug":"baby-naming-issue-how-do-you-know-if-a-name-is-a-passing-fancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2016\/10\/03\/baby-naming-issue-how-do-you-know-if-a-name-is-a-passing-fancy\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: How Do You Know if a Name is a Passing Fancy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I love your blog! As a fellow baby-name enthusiast I’m surprised at how hard I find naming my own babies to be, though. I have one son, Everett, who we call Ev most of the time. I’m now expecting another baby in January. (We’re keeping the gender a surprise.) Our last name is P0tter.<\/p>\n

We are pretty set on our boy names, but while brainstorming baby girl names, I’ve returned again to the same or similar names many times. None have really felt exciting to me or like The One–maybe because I’ve been thinking about this too long! The names on my list are:<\/p>\n

Nina
\nLila
\nIsla
\nAnnabel (family name but my enthusiasm for this one is waning)<\/p>\n

As I mentioned all of these have been on my list for a long time. I’d say in general they are representative of our style for girls–feminine, classic but not necessarily traditional. (I also love nature names but feel those would be better in a middle slot.)<\/p>\n

But I’ve just recently thought of a new-to-me name that I’m excited about: Romy<\/p>\n

I really like it! I can see it on a little girl, a teenager, and an adult woman with many different careers. I think it’s feminine though my husband (who also likes it) says it feels a bit unisex to him. (Generally I’m not into unisex names.) But I’m nervous about it being a flash-in-the-pan choice for me. I guess I’ve been thinking about it so much I just don’t trust my instincts right now (plus, hormones).<\/p>\n

Would love your thoughts on the name Romy and if it seems like an outlier, and general advice or assurances about knowing when a name is right.<\/p>\n

Thank you!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is so hard to know if a name will endure or if it’s a passing enthusiasm. I’d love to say that if you give the name to a child, that will cement it into place: even if the name WOULD HAVE been a passing enthusiasm, using it on a child locks it in. And I do think that’s USUALLY the case—but we’ve heard too many stories of name regret to count on it as a sure thing.<\/p>\n

There are two rules of thumb I used to figure this out for my own babies’ names. The first was to give it the literal test of time: there were plenty of names that I liked for a few hours or a few days or a couple of weeks, but far fewer that endured. This test doesn’t work if you think of a name a week before your due date, but in this case you have a few months. I would just let the name simmer and see if your feelings for it grow stronger or weaker.<\/p>\n

The second rule of thumb I used is the one you mention: I’d check to see if the name was similar to other names that had endured for me, or if it was an outlier. For years and years, the same names would appear on any baby name list I made: Elizabeth, Margaret, Clarissa, Clara, Josephine, Eloise, Eliza, etc. If I suddenly had a passion for the name Genevieve or the name Emerson, putting it with the others could give me a fairly good idea of whether I was looking at a commitment or a fling: Genevieve fits, but Emerson does not.<\/p>\n

This isn’t to say that an outlier can’t turn out to be The One, or that you should ignore your actual feelings: that is, I wouldn’t say to myself, “The name Emerson doesn’t fit with the other names on my list, so despite my ever-increasing feelings of love, I must rule it out.” No. But I have found that IN GENERAL, a name that doesn’t go well with my Enduring Favorites is a name that is more LIKELY to turn out to be a passing crush. And since I wanted four-or-so children, and one of my naming preferences is for their names to go well together, this rule of thumb also helped me avoid painting myself into a corner: if I’d chosen an outlier name such as Emerson for a firstborn, I would have felt a little stuck.<\/p>\n

So let’s look at your list: Nina, Lila, Isla, Annabel-but-enthusiasm-waning. The first three are very similar to each other, especially Lila and Isla. I’d say Romy isn’t a clash, but it’s not a match either. It’s not a style fit with Everett, either, but it’s so common for parents to have different naming preferences for boys\/girls, that kind of thing doesn’t catch my attention the way it does with two sisters or two brothers.<\/p>\n

Are you planning more children? If so, play around with sibling group names, using the names from your lists to name subsequent children. Whether names “go together” or not is so subjective. What do you think of Everett, Romy, and Nina? Everett, Romy, and Lila? Everett, Romy, Oliver, and Isla? And so on. If the combinations all sound good to you, then Romy is less likely to be an outlier for you, and unlikely to leave you feeling stuck.<\/p>\n

And I’d love to hear commenters’ stories of how they figured it out, as well as specific examples of times a name was\/wasn’t a passing fancy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I wrote a couple months ago wondering about how to tell if a name is just a passing fancy–specifically, I was newly smitten with the name Romy.<\/p>\n

Well, we did end up having a girl! And it took us a full week to finally choose her name. I was actually thinking I liked Nina best, but when she was born she looked nothing like a Nina. We tried Romy out (we both still liked it a lot) and Sylvie and even Winona for a few hours. But we finally chose a name we thought suited her best, and which actually was another recent addition to the name list, very different in style than I would have normally been drawn to. Ultimately it just felt right–which is the feeling I wanted while name hunting before she was born, but probably isn’t possible (for me at least!) until the baby arrives!<\/p>\n

Here she is: Georgia Francesca. We love her name! Thanks to you and your readers for your help.<\/p>\n

Best,
\nKrista<\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle, I love your blog! As a fellow baby-name enthusiast I’m surprised at how hard I find naming my own babies to be, though. I have one son, Everett, who we call Ev most of the time. I’m now expecting another baby in January. (We’re keeping the gender a surprise.) Our last name is […]<\/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":true,"_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-12343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3d5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12343","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=12343"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12546,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12343\/revisions\/12546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}