{"id":13164,"date":"2018-01-05T11:46:53","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13164"},"modified":"2018-01-05T11:46:53","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:46:53","slug":"baby-girl-mchugh-sister-to-francis-frankie-and-cormac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/01\/05\/baby-girl-mchugh-sister-to-francis-frankie-and-cormac\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl McHugh, Sister to Francis (Frankie) and Cormac"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Swistle,<\/p>\n

I had the names picked out for our first two children before my husband and I were even engaged. Our oldest, Francis Theodore (known as Frankie) was named after his paternal grandfather and my grandfather. Theodore came from a beloved uncle who had passed away around the time I became pregnant. Our second, Cormac Peter is named after an author we both adore and Peter comes from my father. Our surname is McHugh and these names blend nicely with the Irish last name. My husband\u2019s first name is very traditional Irish and coincidentally so is mine and together we sound like a cast of characters from a Frank McCourt novel.<\/p>\n

But now, baby three comes along and it\u2019s a girl and we are flummoxed. My background is Scandinavian and often times names are taken from nature. My great-grandmother was named Aurora and the aurora borealis is one of my favorite things in nature, but my husband is less than enthusiastic. I am also drawn to memorable literary characters such as Regan (too popular?), Brett (from Hemingway) and even Austen after Jane.<\/p>\n

Or should we pick an Irish name to keep it cohesive? My husband is drawn to the Irish names: Sinaed, Tristan, Aelish. Together we like: Saoirse, Brigid, Nora and Delaney. We live in a town where Irish names are popular and very common, but I worry this will make her name blend rather than be unique.<\/p>\n

I also like the sound of masculine\/androgynous names for girls such as Aidan and Roan\/Ronan.<\/p>\n

For a middle name we will likely use Elizabeth or Anne after our sisters.<\/p>\n

We have time, baby doesn\u2019t arrive until May. Oh May, that\u2019s another great name!<\/p>\n

Please help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I’m going to browse in the Celtic section of The Baby Name Wizard<\/a>, so it is likely I will be mentioning Welsh and Scottish names as well as Irish, but perhaps that would do. Or perhaps it would be a startling clash, and I would be cheerfully oblivious. Well! Won’t it be fun to find out!<\/p>\n

Before checking this section, I’d thought of Carys—but perhaps that is too close to Cormac, or too many hard-C\/K sounds in the sibling group. Frankie, Cormac, and Carys. No, I kind of like it, especially with the hard-C sound in your surname. Carys McHugh.<\/p>\n

I like Brigid\/Bridget a lot. I have a Bridget in my circle and I find her name so fun to say.<\/p>\n

I think Delaney is great, too, and that’s another one I’ve been able to test out because of having a Delaney in my circle.<\/p>\n

Until recently I would have been more nervous about names such as Saoirse, but then my daughter had an Aoife in her class and it seemed to work out fine. I’m sure she has to spell\/pronounce it for people pretty regularly, but in an area with heavy Irish name-usage it may not be as difficult.<\/p>\n

I think Nora is so good, especially with your surname, but I think you would be disappointed by its popularity (#36 in 2016<\/a>), especially since it is also used as a nickname for the relatively popular Eleanor (#41 in 2016).<\/p>\n

I would add to the list:<\/p>\n

Emlyn; Emlyn McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Emlyn
\nFiona; Fiona McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Fiona (possible initial issues: FAM or FEM)
\nGwendolyn McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Gwennie (possible initial issues: GAM or GEM)
\nMaeve McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Maeve (similar to May)
\nMerrigan McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Merrigan
\nRory McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Rory (similar to Nora) (possible initial issues: RAM or REM)
\nTeagan McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Teagan (similar to Tristan)<\/p>\n

But I also like the idea of turning to the Scandinavian heritage this time; it seems as if the Irish has been well-represented. And it’s fairly common to have style differences between the boy names in the family and the girl names, and Francis\/Frankie doesn’t hit my ear as Irish, so I don’t think it would seem as if she were the odd one out. I’m looking at Nameberry<\/a> for some Scandinavian options, but I don’t know how to pronounce most of them and that’s making it difficult. Well, here are a few I thought might work:<\/p>\n

Birgitta McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Birgitta (similar to Brigid) (possible initial issue: BAM)
\nBridgette McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Bridgette (similar to Brigid) (possible initial issue: BAM)
\nDahlia McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Dahlia (possible initial issue: DAM)
\nJensen McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Jensen (possible initial issues: JAM or JEM)
\nKallan McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Kallan (similar to Celtic name Callan)
\nMalin McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Malin
\nNessa McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Nessa (possible initial issue: NAM)
\nViveca McHugh; Frankie, Cormac, and Viveca<\/p>\n

I like even better the idea of finding a nature name from your Scandinavian family tree: if Aurora isn’t quite right, then another name like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello Swistle, I had the names picked out for our first two children before my husband and I were even engaged. Our oldest, Francis Theodore (known as Frankie) was named after his paternal grandfather and my grandfather. Theodore came from a beloved uncle who had passed away around the time I became pregnant. Our second, […]<\/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-13164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3qk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13164","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=13164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13165,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13164\/revisions\/13165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}