{"id":12399,"date":"2016-11-04T10:01:42","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T14:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12399"},"modified":"2017-02-20T17:21:12","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T21:21:12","slug":"baby-boy-martinez-brother-to-elijah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2016\/11\/04\/baby-boy-martinez-brother-to-elijah\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Martinez, Brother to Elijah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,
\nWe named our first son Elijah. Our second son will be born on January 10th. Since we found out the gender, I have been very anxious about his name. My husband and I can agree on girls names but not boys! Gabe likes “Samuel” as the formal name, but would want to call the baby Sam. I like it, but don’t love it. When we had Elijah, my top pick was “Micah.” But when the baby was born we both looked at him and decided he looked more like an Elijah. My top pick this time (that my husband Gabe agrees to) is “Maxmillian” and we would use the nickname Max. I like it–but don’t love it like I love Elijah’s name, but I like it more than Samuel. I have many names I do love, but due to close family relationships–we can’t use as a first name (Dominic, Cameron, Sebastian). Names I love my husband won’t agree to are; Rafael, Jonah, Andre, Mattias, Mateo. My husband’s last name is Martinez which we are using for our children, so he doesn’t want the first name to be too ethnic.<\/p>\n

I still love the name Micah, but it is my little bother’s name who has been estranged from most of the family for several years (he has a controlling wife who has cut off ties with most of his friends and family). I don’t want to honor him in any way by using the name, and since I have only seen him once in 11 years, it wouldn’t be a name conflict (Big Micah, Little Micah). My parents are so upset by the situation (my mom has nightmares about Micah’s wife), I think my mom is opposed to me using the name but is too polite to say. So it has kind of soured me on using the name Micah.<\/p>\n

My husband’s brother named all his 4 kids with the letter “I” which I dislike very much. For that reason I would prefer this second baby have his own initial—not an “E.”<\/p>\n

We both come from big Catholic families. My family is very tall so my parents named us unusual names so we would never be called “Big Bob” if there were kids in our classes with the same names.<\/p>\n

Any help would be greatly appreciated. This boy is coming in 76 days! We are already booked with the hospital.<\/p>\n

Anxious Mom Kendra<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The name Elijah has had an interesting twist to its style path, as have the similar names Noah, Ezra, and Isaiah: they’ve gone mainstream. When I was a child, if I’d thought about what names would be good sibling names for an Elijah, I would have said it HAD to be another intensely biblical name; now, I would say it has to be something similarly hip and modern. It’s a good illustration of how subjective and shifting naming style is.<\/p>\n

I don’t see any possible way to name your son Micah. Your brother’s name is Micah and you want to be absolutely sure not to honor him in any way; certainly naming your son the same name would be perceived as an honor. Your parents are deeply upset over your brother Micah’s estrangement from the family, to the point of your mother having nightmares; a grandson named Micah would be a constant reminder of the other Micah. Absolutely you should not use this name. Can we use a black permanent marker to cross it off the list right this second? I feel like crossing it off on my computer screen. Holy pete, definitely not Micah.<\/p>\n

Are you set on Maxmillian for the longer form of Max? I think I would go with the more traditional Maximilian instead, unless you have a reason for using the other form (e.g., if it’s an honor name). Samuel\/Sam and Maximilian\/Max both seem like nice options. Eli and Sam, Eli and Max. It’s understandable if you don’t love the name Max as much as you love the name Elijah, since the name Elijah is already attached to your dear baby. But if it doesn’t seem quite right, let’s see if we can come up with more options to consider:<\/p>\n

Aidric
\nAugust\/Gus
\nBenjamin\/Ben
\nIsaac\/Ike\/Zac
\nFelix
\nJasper
\nJoseph\/Joe
\nMalachi
\nNathaniel\/Nate
\nRuben
\nSimon
\nXavier<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Dear Swistle, Our second baby boy\u00a0 was born on January 10th at 10:10 a.m. We struggled coming up with a name we both liked, my husband wanted Samuel\/Sam, and I liked Maximilian\/Max (the only name he approved on my list). We avoided using my brother’s name (Micah) because it caused pain to my family due to a long estrangement (Micah’s wife has isolated him from most family and friends, and he has allowed it).
\nWe named our second son Maximilian Dominic Martinez. We almost left the hospital with no name since we couldn’t agree.\u00a0 At the eleventh hour, my husband finally caved on Maximilian and he picked the middle name of Dominic (which happens to be my favorite name and the name of our littlest nephew!).\u00a0 “Max” is the little brother of Elijah Blue (2 years, 4 months old).\u00a0 Eli and Max.\u00a0 We are adjusting to less and less sleep as Elijah wakes up often with Max at night, and isn’t very happy having to share his parents so far. We hope the next child, if we are so lucky to have another child, is a girl —only because we agree on girl names! Thanks for all your help and your readers help!
\nKendra<\/p>\n

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

Dear Swistle, We named our first son Elijah. Our second son will be born on January 10th. Since we found out the gender, I have been very anxious about his name. My husband and I can agree on girls names but not boys! Gabe likes “Samuel” as the formal name, but would want to call […]<\/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-12399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3dZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12399","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=12399"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12559,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12399\/revisions\/12559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}