{"id":13270,"date":"2018-03-01T08:53:35","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T12:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13270"},"modified":"2018-03-01T22:37:35","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T02:37:35","slug":"baby-boy-or-girl-w-rhymes-with-foreign-sibling-to-jonah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/03\/01\/baby-boy-or-girl-w-rhymes-with-foreign-sibling-to-jonah\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy or Girl W. (Rhymes with Foreign), Sibling to Jonah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

As the arrival of our second baby draws nearer and nearer (any day now), my wife and I are scrambling to assemble a shortlist of names that we feel certain about. We don\u2019t know the sex of this child, but are struggling more with girls’ names than with boys\u2019. The kid\u2019s last name starts with W and rhymes with foreign.<\/p>\n

This is a hail mary. Here\u2019s where we\u2019re at.<\/p>\n

Our first kid is Jonah Robert. Jonah because we loved it, an established but not-too-popular boy\u2019s name with some softness to it. Robert for my wife\u2019s grandfather. Few pronunciation or spelling issues.<\/p>\n

This time around, our shortlist of agreed-upon boy names includes Ezra and Elias (nn Eli). Silas might also be hovering at the margins. I also love Levi (Lee-Vi), though my wife\u2019s colleague has a Levi (Leh-Vee) and it feels too redundant in her circle. Middle names are a little more up in the air, with me feeling Wilder (a tribute to our love of the outdoors) or James (my maternal grandfather), though we feel like James doesn\u2019t work with Elias, and my wife is a little lukewarm on Wilder all around. I also worry a little about the repetitive – “a” sound at the end of Jonah and Ezra, but maybe that\u2019s not something to lose sleep over. Thoughts?<\/p>\n

For girls, we\u2019re basically nowhere. We both dislike frilly names, and I am especially sensitive to the popularity of \u201celle\u201d, \u201cellie\u201d sounds and super trendy names (Harper, Avery – though I like them, stylistically). The closest thing we have to a girl\u2019s name is Willa James (William is the patrilineal name passed down in my family and I get a little thrill from stealing it for a girl). Our only hesitation on this one is with the alliteration, Willa W., and it also has the potential problem of the repetitive \u201ca\u201d sound at the end: Jonah and Willa.<\/p>\n

If it were up to me alone, I would name a girl Paige or Sylvie, but neither appeal to my wife. I also love Corinne, but it rhymes with our last name. no go. We also like Georgia, but Jonah and Georgia feel too close to the same name. Naomi is also hovering as a possibility, but it just doesn\u2019t feel like \u201cthe one\u201d to me.<\/p>\n

On my list, but nixed by my wife are:
\nSarai,
\nBlythe,
\nMerritt,
\nHeather,
\nAinsley,
\nRaleigh<\/p>\n

I would happily use a more-popular, but traditionally male name for a girl: Henry, Brett, Ezra, Chase, Walker – with the right middle name (I love Walker Leigh). We both like Elliot for a girl, but know that it would be shortened to Ellie.<\/p>\n

My wife is all-in-all pretty ambivalent about girl\u2019s names. She can\u2019t find many (any) that she likes. Her \u201cfavorites\u201d if you can call them that, have been the too-popular, but semi androgynous Harper, Avery-type.<\/p>\n

It feels a little like the field is wide open, but hopefully this has given a little bit of insight to our style and preferences. Maybe you and your readers have a winner up your sleeves?<\/p>\n

With hope
\nMeg.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Especially when things are down to the wire, I like to be able to swoop in with strong opinions: “This not that!” “That not this!” “I KNOW THE VERY NAME YOU SHOULD USE!” But I’m not feeling strong opinions here. I will give my mild opinions anyway.<\/p>\n

I think two names ending in the -a sound (Jonah and Ezra or Jonah and Willa) is fine; if I had several favorite names and couldn’t decide among them, the matched ending would knock one of them down a point for me—but it wouldn’t knock anything out of the running. I think Elias James sounds fine, and that an honor name is more important than a perfect sound—especially when it’s so nicely equivalent to your first child’s honor name. I agree about the similarity of Jonah and Georgia: visually they’re quite different, but when I say them together I hear how similar they are. I think the alliteration of Willa W. might be something I’d avoid or might be great (and same initials as Wonder Woman!); but it doesn’t matter if I think it’s great, if you think it’s meh. I do really like the idea of taking a William naming tradition and making it a Willa (or a Willemina\/Wilhelmina), and I also like the name itself with your preferences: not frilly, not trendy.<\/p>\n

I’m not crazy about Willa James: the sound is good, but “using traditionally male names as girl middle names” is a trend right now, and I find I’m already weary of it. I’m not sure what message it sends, when there is no equivalent trend for using traditionally female names as boy middle names. (But perhaps you DO know what message it sends, and it’s a message you like. As I say, my opinions here are mild.) Also, since you would also be naming her after the men in your family with the name Willa, it feels as if “honoring the men” has been fully covered. Have either of you a grandmother you’d like to honor? Or if using Willa already satisfies the wish for a family name, perhaps the middle name could be used as a place for a name you both love but it felt too trendy for a first name. I think Avery and Harper in the middle name position can have a fresher, more surnamey sound: they suddenly sound like family names instead of Top 20 Popular Choices.<\/p>\n

I think the problem with finding a girl name is that you have your tastes, and you have your preferences, and they are opposed: your preference is to avoid your tastes. You both like Harper and Avery and Elliot, but you don’t want to use names like those. There are at least three good options here:<\/p>\n

1. Come to terms with your tastes, and use the names you like best without worrying about their trendiness\/popularity.<\/p>\n

2. Trade how much you like the name for a reduction in trendiness\/popularity. Weigh it on the scale, and decide you are willing to choose a name you don’t like as much, in order to meet your preferences. This works best if you KNOW you are doing it: otherwise you can get stuck in the “How about non-trendy name X?”\/”But I don’t like it as much as Avery\/Harper\/Elliot”\/”But those don’t meet our preferences” cycle. You would know going into it that you wouldn’t like the name as much, so you’d be looking for the name you like most among that names that DO meet your preferences.<\/p>\n

3. Find names that are in the style of Harper\/Avery\/Elliot, but less popular. The style itself will still be in fashion, but popularity can make the trendiness more or less apparent. (There is a risk, however, that others will also find those less-popular choices and then those names will become increasingly common.)<\/p>\n

With a brother named Jonah, I’d be looking for more hip biblical names for boys, as you’ve done: Ezra, Elias, and Silas are all great choices. Interestingly, biblical names do not seem to have come similarly into style for girls. I think it’s that there are way fewer of them to chose from, and many of them don’t have that biblical SOUND the way Jonah and Ezra do. Still, I will pick through the list in The Baby Name Wizard<\/a> and see what we’ve got (note: I will not be checking any of these names for their stories, to make sure they’re GOOD stories).<\/p>\n

Claudia
\nDelilah
\nEsther
\nJudith
\nJunia
\nLois
\nLydia
\nMartha
\nMiriam
\nNaomi
\nPhoebe
\nPriscilla
\nRuth<\/p>\n

I love love love the name Esther, and I think it’s great with Jonah. Jonah and Esther.<\/p>\n

Naomi was already on your lists, and I love that name too. I think it’s so underused. Jonah and Naomi.<\/p>\n

Claudia is a name I would have considered for my daughter, except that it is the name of Paul’s high school girlfriend. Jonah and Claudia. Both end in the -a sound, but the extra syllable of Claudia helps separate the sounds.<\/p>\n

I’ve liked the name Judith better ever since someone pointed out the nickname Jude. Jonah and Judith; Jonah and Jude. But if you’re planning to have more children, I wouldn’t do this if it would make you feel trapped into using all J names.<\/p>\n

I would love to look at a class list and see a Lois. Jonah and Lois. I like the repeated long-O sound.<\/p>\n

Ruth sounds like the name of a woman who gets things done. Jonah and Ruth.<\/p>\n

And I love Lydia, especially with your surname. Jonah and Lydia. (Another -a ending.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Speaking of the names Ruth and Lydia, I am also interested in Solid Vintage Revival names for you—names like Sylvie and Georgia from your list. I think they sound especially wonderful with your surname.<\/p>\n

Agatha
\nCamilla
\nCordelia
\nEloise
\nEsther
\nFrances
\nLouisa
\nLydia
\nMargaret
\nMarilla
\nMartha
\nMatilda
\nRuth
\nSylvia<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Options more along the lines of Harper\/Avery\/Elliot:<\/p>\n

Aubrey
\nBeckett
\nCallister
\nCampbell
\nCarys
\nCasey
\nDarcy
\nDelaney
\nEmberley
\nEmlyn
\nEverly
\nFinley
\nHollis
\nJennings
\nKaye
\nKeaton
\nLane
\nLarkin
\nLeigh
\nMiller
\nMirren
\nReese
\nRory
\nTeagan
\nSloane
\nSterling
\nWaverly
\nWinifred
\nWinslow<\/p>\n

Some of these are not to my own tastes with the name Jonah. Jonah and Callister, for example, or Jonah and Sterling. I leave them in anyway, because parents are on a spectrum of how much they want sibling names to coordinate, and you may be on the other end of the spectrum from me. Plus, it’s common for parents to have a different naming style for girls than for boys.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I want to mention that it’s possible that there IS no girl name you will both love and feel strongly about. I had to come to terms with that for boy names: I had a ton of girl names I felt in love with, but for boy names I ended up looking for names that felt Satisfying and Good, and I didn’t look for Strong Certain Love Feelings because I just didn’t HAVE any.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle, As the arrival of our second baby draws nearer and nearer (any day now), my wife and I are scrambling to assemble a shortlist of names that we feel certain about. We don\u2019t know the sex of this child, but are struggling more with girls’ names than with boys\u2019. The kid\u2019s last name […]<\/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-13270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3s2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13270","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=13270"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13277,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13270\/revisions\/13277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}