{"id":13486,"date":"2018-06-27T09:58:36","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T13:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13486"},"modified":"2018-06-27T10:07:37","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T14:07:37","slug":"baby-girl-sister-to-adriana-and-hunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/06\/27\/baby-girl-sister-to-adriana-and-hunter\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl, Sister to Adriana and Hunter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi,<\/p>\n

My girlfriend and I are expecting our second child this coming August and we\u2019ve run into an issue name wise. We have one son together, Hunter Elliot with my last name, which is an alternate spelling of Richards, and she has a daughter Adriana Erin (goes by Adri) who has her last name which sounds like Antonetti.<\/p>\n

We haven\u2019t much discussed baby names yet because she is dead set on naming the baby Alice Valentina, Alice being a name which I happen to hate and think sounds extremely antiquated. It\u2019s a family name of hers which I also find to be a little bit of an issue. Our son is named for a friend of ours (mostly mine) who passed away shortly before he was born, and my girlfriend\u2019s oldest brother who had also passed away fairly recently. Alice and Valentina are two family members of hers who have passed away as well and I don\u2019t have a problem with naming after dead relatives but I don\u2019t want all of our children to be named after dead people, I find it a tad morbid. There is also the fact that when I wanted to name our son a family name of mine she shot it down instantly. I\u2019m from Wales (now living in America) and it was a very distinctly Welsh-sounding name that she rejected because she thought it was too strange sounding, and didn\u2019t like it. I don\u2019t want to be immature and make it seem like I\u2019m saying, \u2018Well you did this to me so you can\u2019t get your way either\u2019 but I do feel similar about Alice, it\u2019s very strange sounding with the names of our other kids.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure if I should just relent or go with Alice, or try to suggest something else to her. I don\u2019t want to upset or offend her, but I\u2019m not exactly too sure how to bring up the issue. In preparation for that conversation, though, I was hoping you could help me find some names similar in sound or meaning to Alice that I could suggest to somewhat honor her relatives. My girlfriend is of Italian background so her family pronounce Alice as Ali-che and she was considering using Ali as a nickname. It would be nice to find a name that could possibly still have the Ali aspect, but would also sound good with Hunter and Adriana as well as our names, Trent and Jo. (I am also of Chinese background and she of Brazilian, so Eastern Asian and Latino\/Portuguese names are not out of the question).<\/p>\n

Thanks so much,
\nTrent<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you hate the name Alice, and if you have tried very hard to come around to the name because it is important to your girlfriend but you still hate the name, then you are right that it is time to have the “I’m sorry, but I can’t come around to this name and we need to take it out of consideration and look together for something else” conversation.<\/p>\n

If she has been aware all along that you are not on-board with the name, this will be one level of conversation; if you have been letting her think that you agree to the name, things will be more fraught. Either way, I suggest bringing it up by asking pleasantly to discuss baby names, in whatever way makes sense for you as a couple. For example, Paul did not want to talk about names while the other kids were still up, and he liked to have some warning so he could get in the right mindset (I liked talking about baby names a LOT more than he did), so I would say, “Hey, can we talk about baby names for awhile after the kids go to bed tonight?” Or sometimes I would suggest that we go out to dinner and discuss it there; it makes for a calmer conversation, plus it’s fun to have a meal out if it’s doable.<\/p>\n

There are two topics to discuss. Well, three. The first topic is the main one: that you have considered the name Alice, but it’s not working for you. The second topic is what other names would the two of you like to consider? And the third topic is the one that needs to be the backbone behind your discussion even if it is not voiced: that the job of choosing a name for a baby is up to both parents, not just one, and that the strength of her desire to use the name doesn’t mean she gets to use it despite your objections.<\/p>\n

I see your issue with not wanting to make it seem like retaliation for her rejection of a name you liked. My hope is that because the process of choosing names often involves lots of name-rejections by both parents, that won’t seem to her to be a natural leap—and that if she DOES make that leap, that your assurance to the contrary will be sufficient. I recommend emphasizing that you know she loves the name and it’s important to her, and that you tried to come around to it because she loves it so much.<\/p>\n

In fact, if she rejected a name you liked without seeming to give it that same consideration, it might be helpful to keep this concept in the forefront of everyone’s minds. Paul had a problem with insta-rejecting names, so what I did with him is say something like: “I have a name for you to consider. I really like the name, so I want you to give it a chance and not reject it right away. I’m just going to SAY the name and then we won’t discuss it for awhile.” Or sometimes I would give him a list of a dozen or so names I liked, and tell him to think about those for awhile and then we’d discuss it next week. This greatly reduced the number of times he said no to a name too quickly (and in one memorable case, caused him to choose as his Top Favorite a name he had previously vehemently rejected).<\/p>\n

I am not sure you need to go into the discussion about the name Alice armed with Ali alternatives; I think it might be enough to go into it armed with the IDEA of looking together for Ali alternatives, so that you can find out what your shared priorities are before you do a lot of searching. In addition, I suggest bringing the idea of looking together for more names of her relatives. That may be a good area for compromise: honor names from her side, but names you DO like. Especially if the other children have honor names, and if this child will have your surname; if this child will have the mother’s surname, then I would be inclined to look for honor names from your side of the family. If possible, I recommend seeing if you can think of the names as “family honor names” rather than “names of dead people.” Or perhaps you can look for names that honor family members who are still living.<\/p>\n

Remember that after you have this discussion, it is not your job or her job to come up with a name she likes as much as Alice; the only job is to come up with a name the two of you can agree on from the non-Alice names that remain.<\/p>\n

Leave Valentina on the table for now if you don’t hate it. For one thing, I think it’s really nice with Adriana: how would you feel about switching the names? Sometimes a name that feels all wrong in the first-name position can seem very nice as a middle name. (I suggest the same for the Welsh name you liked, if there is another chance to use it.) Valentina Alice. Adriana, Hunter, and Valentina. She could still be called Ali (though Adri and Ali seem very similar to me), or Leni.<\/p>\n

I like sibling-name compatibility too, but I recommend drawing the line at trying to find names that sound good with the parents’ names. Parents’ names are usually a generation out of date, and everyone knows you didn’t choose them. Even people who love sibling names to coordinate don’t expect the entire family’s names to go together, and it adds an unnecessary level of difficulty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi, My girlfriend and I are expecting our second child this coming August and we\u2019ve run into an issue name wise. We have one son together, Hunter Elliot with my last name, which is an alternate spelling of Richards, and she has a daughter Adriana Erin (goes by Adri) who has her last name which […]<\/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-13486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3vw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13486","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=13486"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13495,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13486\/revisions\/13495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}