{"id":12364,"date":"2016-10-18T11:46:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T15:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12364"},"modified":"2016-10-25T06:06:15","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T10:06:15","slug":"baby-girl-givens-sister-to-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2016\/10\/18\/baby-girl-givens-sister-to-davis\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Givens, Sister to Davis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! Love your blog. I read it when I was pregnant with my first child and have really enjoyed coming back this time around.<\/p>\n

Baby Girl Givens is due in early February of 2017. Her older brother is Davis Henry.<\/p>\n

My husband has a very specific (& rigid I might add!) list of names he likes and approves. His favorite on the list is Ellis, and he is also open to Ellison. I like both, but don’t love them, and have a few concerns. One, if we have a Davis and an Ellis, does it sound like two boys? And, although we’re not currently planning on it, what if we were to have a third? Would it have to be Davis, Ellis and Ferris or another is-ending name? With Ellison, I feel like she would be called Ellis anyway, so we are presented with the same challenges. And, as you’ve discussed previously in this forum, I think Ellison is easily confused with Allison.<\/p>\n

Other first names deemed acceptable per my husband include the following (as you’ll see he likes simple and classic for the most part!):
\nAda (this is his second choice – too popular?)
\nClare
\nCora
\nReese
\nRuth
\nNora<\/p>\n

For middle names we are pretty set on using a family name, either Ann or Victoria and I’m going to toss in Josephine as well.<\/p>\n

Thanks so much for any thoughts \/ help \/ wisdom you can offer here!<\/p>\n

All the best,
\nKristen<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If one parent is highly rigid and picky, my suggested strategy is this: the rigid\/picky one makes a reasonable list of acceptable names; then other parent chooses their top three from that list; then the parents work together to choose a joint favorite from those three, perhaps using the middle-name choice to help make things even more fair (for example, if he ends up with his first choice of the three names you chose from his list, you get your first choice of middle name).<\/p>\n

If I have misunderstood the situation, and actually both of you added names to that list, then it looks like it is just time for more discussion. If Ellis\/Ellison isn’t working for you, how do you feel about his second choice of Ada? What is YOUR first choice, and how does he feel about that? Which names would each of you like to cross off the list? In which order would each of you rank the names on the list? Did one of you have more of a say in your first child’s name, and can that be compensated for this time around? Maybe do some exercises where you each choose your top three and look for overlap, or where you each remove your bottom three and see what’s left, or try combining finalists with possible middle names to see if that helps a first name pull ahead of the pack. And so on.<\/p>\n

Davis and Ellis feel too similar to me. Davis and Ellison feel less similar, and are more clearly a brother\/sister pairing: in the U.S., Ellis is a unisex name used more often for boys, while Ellison is a unisex name used more often for girls. I think the name Ellison would be more likely to be shorted to Ellie or Ella than to Ellis, and\/or that you could encourage the nickname to go that way.<\/p>\n

I think any of the other names on the list could work as well. But I would be interested to know what YOUR favorite names are, and which if any you like from your husband’s list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! Love your blog. I read it when I was pregnant with my first child and have really enjoyed coming back this time around. Baby Girl Givens is due in early February of 2017. Her older brother is Davis Henry. My husband has a very specific (& rigid I might add!) list of names […]<\/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-12364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3dq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12364","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=12364"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12374,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12364\/revisions\/12374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}