{"id":13317,"date":"2018-04-02T09:16:24","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T13:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13317"},"modified":"2018-04-05T14:46:17","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T18:46:17","slug":"unsolicited-celebrity-baby-name-advice-chip-and-joanna-gaines-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/04\/02\/unsolicited-celebrity-baby-name-advice-chip-and-joanna-gaines-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Unsolicited Celebrity Baby-Name Advice: Chip and Joanna Gaines Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I don’t need to ask for any personal name advice, but was wondering what advice you would give to Chip and Joanna Gaines, of Fixer Upper fame.<\/p>\n

Their kids’ names follow a strict pattern thus far. Their boys have single-syllable names starting with D and including a “k” sound (Duke and Drake), and their girls have two-syllable “e” names with short middle names (Ella Rose [edited], Emmie Kay).<\/p>\n

They’ve set themselves some pretty strict parameters; where do you think the Gaineses could go with them?<\/p>\n

Would love to hear your thoughts, and perhaps I’ll get to write in with a name question of my own one day! (Although I’m getting married in 3 months, so I’m going one major life milestone at a time)<\/p>\n

Meg<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

OH OKAY that sounds fun. Or rather, it’s fun as an outsider: I would not personally want to have to paint myself out of that naming corner.<\/p>\n

I know they’ve revealed they’re having a boy, but let’s look at girl names anyway. Starting letter E, double letters, two syllables, and so far we have an -a ending and an -ie\/-y\/-ee ending. It would be nice to find another two-syllable E-name with double letters that are not -ll- or -mm-; even nicer would be a different ending sound, but we’ll see how that goes.<\/p>\n

Ebba
\nEcco
\nEddi
\nEdee
\nEffie
\nEileen
\nErinn
\nEsm\u00e9e
\nEstelle (double L, though)
\nEssie
\nEtta
\nEvette
\nEvonne
\nEvva
\nEvvie
\nEvvyn<\/p>\n

Well. I think this is a good moment to reflect on why it can be a good idea during the baby-naming process to think ahead to future sibling names. None of these options is as familiar as Ella or Emmie, and some are very different in style. Some of them are kind of reaching, and some of them are REALLY reaching. Quite a few of them seem too similar to the sister names. And some of them make me uncomfortable to look at. If I had to choose from this list, my favorites are Esm\u00e9e (with the EZZ-may pronunciation) and Etta, but I’m not particularly happy with either of those: Esm\u00e9e seems confusingly similar to \/ different from Emmie, and Etta feels too similar to Ella both in look and sound.<\/p>\n

But it’s not as if we’ve been given instructions by the parents to find another two-syllable E-name with double letters, so let’s expand the search. At this point I think the name ought to begin with E (not because of the two sister names starting with E, but because of two sister names starting with E AND two brother names starting with D), but we could drop or loosen one of the other preferences.<\/p>\n

Edie
\nErikka
\nEva
\nEvelynn
\nEverlee<\/p>\n

I feel as if it just CAN’T be another El- or Em- name, and that rules out…almost all of the E-names. I had Emersyn in this list at first, thinking the third syllable and different ending MIGHT make it different enough from Emmie for parents who don’t find Ella and Emmie too similar—but Emmie is such a natural nickname for Emersyn. Same problem with Ellisyn and Eleanor and Ellery and Emery and many others. If I had to choose from this list, my favorites are Eva and Evelynn, and I think I could be happy with either of those: they are similar enough in popularity and style to Ella\/Emmie, while different enough in sound. I prefer Eva for the two syllables, and I prefer Evelynn for the new ending.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let’s see if the boy-name search is any easier. Duke and Drake: both D-names, both one syllable, both ending in -ke.<\/p>\n

Deke<\/p>\n

That’s it, I think. But as with girl names, no one instructed us to find a name meeting all those preferences, so let’s see what we can find when we remove some of them.<\/p>\n

Darian
\nDash
\nDavis
\nDawson
\nDax
\nDeacon
\nDean
\nDecker
\nDeclan
\nDerek
\nDesmond\/Dezi
\nDevin
\nDex
\nDirk
\nDixon
\nDodge
\nDolan
\nDominick
\nDonnelly
\nDonovan
\nDover
\nDoyle
\nDuncan
\nDylan<\/p>\n

That was much easier. I spent probably a quarter the time finding boy names as I did finding girl names, and didn’t have to mess around as much with alternate spellings. I think they could go with a one-syllable thing: Duke, Drake, and Dash. Duke, Drake, and Dean. Or they could tie in the K-sound: Duke, Drake, and Decker. Duke, Drake, and Declan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle, I don’t need to ask for any personal name advice, but was wondering what advice you would give to Chip and Joanna Gaines, of Fixer Upper fame. Their kids’ names follow a strict pattern thus far. Their boys have single-syllable names starting with D and including a “k” sound (Duke and Drake), and […]<\/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-13317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3sN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13317","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=13317"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13324,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13317\/revisions\/13324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}