{"id":12778,"date":"2017-06-09T08:44:11","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T12:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=12778"},"modified":"2017-06-30T18:19:33","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T22:19:33","slug":"baby-girl-or-boy-airs-sibling-to-jacob-avery-and-carter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2017\/06\/09\/baby-girl-or-boy-airs-sibling-to-jacob-avery-and-carter\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl or Boy Airs, Sibling to Jacob, Avery, and Carter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,
\nWe could really use your help! I am three weeks away from having our fourth (and last) child, and we do not know if it’s a boy or a girl. Our older kids are Jacob Daniel, Avery (called both Avery and Avery Jane) and Carter William. Our last name sounds like Airs.<\/p>\n

If it is a girl, we are somewhat settled on Cameron Grace or Cameron Rose, but I have a hesitation with Cameron for a girl, which is that it was given to 6,807 boys in 2016 but only 583 girls. Would she always be mistaken for a boy? If not Cameron, my husband likes Charlotte and Harper but I think they are too popular. I like Emily (maybe too dated), Josie, Sadie and Macy but am afraid that Sadie and Macy are common dog names. I am also not sure about Josie as a standalone name.<\/p>\n

If it is a boy, we have another issue that has come up on this blog before. We really like the name Logan but it was the name of our family’s cat that died about 2 years ago. I have heard people say that it’s fine to use it since the cat is no longer with us, and other people who just think it’s weird. We don’t want to create confusion\/weirdness but we are annoyed with ourselves for using Logan on a cat 13 years ago. Our oldest (11) doesn’t think there is a problem with it. Is Logan still usable? I like Benjamin, Ethan, Evan, Jeremiah, Wesley and Nolan. My husband really likes the name Chase (I think it might be too short), is warming up to Benjamin and doesn’t like Ethan or Evan. He is thinking about Jeremiah, Nolan and Wesley. Middle name options are open but I am thinking about Michael after my brother.<\/p>\n

Names we can’t use: Emma, Marley, Morgan, Lucas, Grayson<\/p>\n

Your help is appreciated!!<\/p>\n

Thanks,
\nKathi<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The difficulty with a name like Cameron is tallying up all the spellings. Here are just the ones that were used for at least 50 boy babies or 50 girl babies in 2016:<\/p>\n

Kamryn: 861 F, 279 M
\nCamryn: 815 F, 186 M
\nCameron: 583 F, 6807 M
\nCameryn: 64 F, 33 M
\nKameron: 59 F, 1436 M
\nKameryn: 58 F, 34 M
\nKamron: – F, 196 M
\nKamren: 17 F, 179 M
\nKamran: – F, 51 M
\nCamron: – F, 241 M
\nCamren: 10 F, 162 M<\/p>\n

Even so, we can see without doing the math that the name is used more often for boys—but still hanging in there for girls.<\/p>\n

Part of the package deal of a unisex name is that people may sometimes mistake it as belonging to someone of the opposite sex, but this seems fairly easy to correct when it happens. And most of the time when there’s doubt (on paperwork when the child is not present, for example), there will be other information available such as the middle name or an M\/F entry. Also, Cameron is a well-known unisex name: many people encountering it will know they need more information before automatically adding the name to the boys’ team or the girls’ team.<\/p>\n

One possible solution is to use a spelling more associated with girls: Camryn, for example. There will still be occasional mistakes, but it will reduce them. I would do this only if you don’t really care about the spelling: I think there will be occasional mistakes no matter what spelling you use—unless you go with \u2640\ufe0fKamrynne\u2640\ufe0f.<\/p>\n

If Harper is too common (and to me, it also sounds too much like Carter), I wonder if you’d like Harlow or Harlowe.<\/p>\n

I wonder if you’d like the name Riley? It’s another one that needs some spelling-tallying:<\/p>\n

Riley: 7110 F, 1706 M
\nRylee: 2947 F, 165 M
\nRyleigh: 1877 F, 10 M
\nRylie: 1003 F, 31 M
\nRilee: 127 F, 17 M
\nRileigh: 127 F, – M
\nRyley: 97 F, 73 M<\/p>\n

Still unisex but, like the name Avery, it’s used more often for girls.<\/p>\n

On the subject of Logan and the cat who is no longer with us: I think you should go ahead and use the name. I think the handful of people who find it weird will get over it, as well they should, and that none of them are likely to care very deeply about it even during the stage when they still find it a little weird. For anyone you haven’t yet asked, I wouldn’t mention the connection: I’m trying to think of the names of my friends’ pets, and I’m having some trouble. If a friend used a name that I remembered was the name of a former pet, I might remark on it but only because I would want to hear more of the naming story, not because I thought it was weird.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Paul and I didn’t use the name Oliver, not because we’d had a cat named Oliver but because Paul said he was certain his mother would never, ever stop saying “Oliver: the boy named after a cat!,” and then Paul so perfectly imitated the little laugh she’d do every time she said it, it immediately killed the name for me. But if you don’t have anyone like that in your life, I say use the name and shrug it off.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, my favorites are Wesley and Nolan: I think they both do a nice job of uniting the styles of Jacob and Carter.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle,
\nWe had a baby boy on Monday and his name is Malcolm Everett.\u00a0 He weighed in at 9lbs 12 oz! Thanks for the naming advice!
\nKathi<\/p>\n

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

Dear Swistle, We could really use your help! I am three weeks away from having our fourth (and last) child, and we do not know if it’s a boy or a girl. Our older kids are Jacob Daniel, Avery (called both Avery and Avery Jane) and Carter William. Our last name sounds like Airs. If […]<\/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-12778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3k6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12778","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=12778"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12822,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12778\/revisions\/12822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}