{"id":13071,"date":"2017-11-07T11:10:08","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T15:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13071"},"modified":"2017-11-12T10:41:39","modified_gmt":"2017-11-12T14:41:39","slug":"baby-girl-sister-to-persephone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2017\/11\/07\/baby-girl-sister-to-persephone\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl, Sister to Persephone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

We are in desperate need of help. We have a four year old daughter with a perfect name; Persephone Jane. We call her Effie, but love PJ as a nickname option if she chooses, too. Some of the many reasons we love her name: the nod to my Greek heritage; the badass myth (she rules hell!); the fact that all four “e”s make a different sound; the fact that it’s obviously very different, but has a reference point; and four syllables plus one syllable just rolls nicely. Unfortunately, we’ve set our bar way too high and are having a lot of trouble naming our second daughter and last child, due in late January. If she had been a boy, we’d have used Sullivan. We’ve had that boy name locked since we were dating but aren’t fond of the female nicknames for it. So far in the running are Ophelia (Ollie) and Delphinia (Finnie). We are a Matt and Jenny born in the 80s, so we want a name that isn’t on the top of any list. I’d love something in the same vein as Persephone, hence our top two choices, but we’re just not sold one way or another. We also love Comisa (Ozzy). I actually love Cossie but I know people will say it Cozzy so I’d rather just go Ozzy) and Coredelise (Lisey). We’ve mentioned Desdemona (Desi) but I don’t love the nickname. We love the nickname Lisey (lie-zee) but aren’t in love with any of the full-length names for it (Lisette, Liesel, Melissa, etc.). When naming Effie, we actually loved the nickname and worked backwards from there, after having dismissed Persephone originally for her being a villain in a terrifying Stephen King novel but then thinking better of it. As for a middle name, we’re currently thinking Lynn in honor of my aunt but aren’t 100% on it. Jane was initially just a toss-in; something simple to counteract the enormity of Persephone and give her a less crazy option if she wanted it later and we liked the J initial for nickname possibilities, but it ended up being absolutely perfect. I can only hope we’ll luck into the same situation again. We’re not afraid of crazy, clearly, and I’ve even tossed out Polemistis, which isn’t even a name but rather just the Greek work for warrior. We’re raising one fearless feminist and can’t wait to start on our second.<\/p>\n

I’m sorry I’ve written you a novel. I’m so grateful for any help you can offer – I’m starting to seriously worry and that’s causing anxiety over the whole idea of having a second child. Really, what was I thinking?!<\/p>\n

Jenny<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I vote for Hermione. I think that name should be WAY more popular than it is, but perhaps we just need to wait a few years for all those Harry-Potter-in-their-formative-years kids to start having children. More options:<\/p>\n

Amaryllis (I think you could get Lisey from this)
\nAnastasia
\nAndromeda
\nAppollonia
\nAriadne
\nArtemisia
\nAthena
\nCalliope\/Kalliopi
\nCleopatra
\nCordelia
\nDiana (Wonder Woman as well as a goddess)
\nEmerald
\nHyacinth
\nLilith
\nLorelei
\nLysandra (could get Lisey from this)
\nMagdalena
\nMinerva
\nMorrigan
\nNightingale
\nOctavia
\nOlympia
\nPhaedra
\nSapphire
\nSeraphina (might be too similar in sound to Persephone)
\nSophronia (in The Five Little Peppers, the nickname is Phronsie, which I LOVE)
\nValentina<\/p>\n

Some sources for further browsing:<\/p>\n

Women Warriors in folklore<\/a>
\nWomen in Greek mythology<\/a>
\n23 Incredible Goddesses Who Kicked Patriarchy’s Ass<\/a>
\nThe Dangerous Woman Project<\/a>
\nRoman Deities<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle, We are in desperate need of help. We have a four year old daughter with a perfect name; Persephone Jane. We call her Effie, but love PJ as a nickname option if she chooses, too. Some of the many reasons we love her name: the nod to my Greek heritage; the badass myth […]<\/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-13071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3oP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13071","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=13071"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13085,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13071\/revisions\/13085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}