{"id":13508,"date":"2018-07-10T09:48:36","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T13:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13508"},"modified":"2018-11-30T17:39:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-30T21:39:47","slug":"baby-boy-smith-brother-to-zane-and-julian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/07\/10\/baby-boy-smith-brother-to-zane-and-julian\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Smith, Brother to Zane and Julian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I’m hoping I can get some help with naming our third baby boy, due in October. My husband and I are struggling so much with this, it’s almost unbelievable. I wrote you a novel, and I’m excessive with parentheses, so feel free to edit as you like.<\/p>\n

Our first son is Zane David – my husband’s family is from an area around Zanesville, OH and long before we had kids we visited the Zane Grey museum there. Both of us said “huh, that’s a cool name” and didn’t think much more about it, until we started trying to find names for the baby. Part of the problem with naming our babies is that my husband has wildly different tastes than I do, and it makes everything difficult. We finally settled on Zane, and David is my father’s name. We really like his name, and it suits him VERY well.<\/p>\n

When our second son came along, we struggled again. I really liked the name Julian and put it out there as a strong contender. My husband didn’t like it AT ALL, and I heard no more about it for a number of weeks. He’d occasionally float other names, and I’d make a Marge Simpson noise, and we’d move on. Then, suddenly, he decided he liked Julian after all, and actually even started telling people that was what we were calling him. I was surprised, but since it was the name I wanted anyway I was cool with it. His middle name is Stephen, after my father-in-law. The middle name was decided after my FIL was diagnosed with cancer (sadly he passed on last month, three years after his initial diagnosis). We mostly call him Jules, if it matters.<\/p>\n

Now we have the third boy, and are struggling again, this time with both first AND middle names. If we had a girl, she would be Edith Grace or Edith Caroline – but he is very definitely a boy, so we’re stuck! At one point my husband was telling people he was going to convince me to name this one “Trace” because it sounds like tres and he’s the third – I shut that down immediately! Trace would be an excellent name for the Palin family to use, but it definitely doesn’t fit with our names.<\/p>\n

Complicating factors:<\/p>\n

1. My MIL and I have a . . . fraught relationship. Also, when husband and I were first married, we had found a name we really like (Edmund), and she proceeded to crap all over it loudly and at length (which ended any discussion of names with her EVER until after the name is absolutely decided upon and final. She did not like the name Julian.) She named her children with all A-names, claiming it was just a coincidence (Sure, Jan.). I refuse to consider any A-names as a consequence. If that were not the case, Alexander would probably be a strong contender. I also will not use any Z- or J-names, for the same reason. Jasper would be a good name, otherwise.<\/p>\n

2. My father’s family has a tradition of using the name Bryson. It was my grandfather’s middle name, my dad’s middle name, and my brother’s first name. Neither of my brothers have chosen to use it, and both are finished having kids. This is the last grandchild (for both sides; we actually have the only grandchildren on my husband’s side), and my mother has been pressuring me to use it since I was about 20. As soon as we found out this baby is boy, she ramped up again on the pressure. I would actually not mind using it as a middle name, although I have some residual contrariness that makes me slightly reluctant. My husband is neither here nor there on using it as a middle name.<\/p>\n

3. I really feel like I ‘mismatched’ my sons’ names; Zane is an older name, but sounds trendy\/new, and Julian’s feels really traditional. Neither are regionally popular where I live. I’d like, ideally, to be able to balance out the sibling set.<\/p>\n

I would say that my taste in names runs to 1920’s-ish sounding names. My current proposed names are:<\/p>\n

Wesley (small issue: if my younger brother had had a son, he would have been Wesley Bryson, but they are one-and-done, and they had a girl)
\nMalcolm
\nSpencer
\nFelix (I really love this one)
\nWilliam (family name on my husband’s side)
\nIsaac
\nGavin<\/p>\n

My husband’s:<\/p>\n

Luke
\nBennett
\nCalvin<\/p>\n

My husband likes Felix okay. I like Calvin okayish. But neither of us are wild about the other’s choices, and he told me the other day that he “keeps hoping he’ll just come across a name and realize ‘that’s it!'” which tells me that he’s really not enthused about any of my choices. He has floated his own name (Aaron) as a middle name, which I really don’t care for, but haven’t said anything about yet.<\/p>\n

Names I just generally really love but are probably not going to work for various reasons:<\/p>\n

Simon
\nJasper
\nAlexander
\nGraham<\/p>\n

I’m starting to get very antsy. We had both of our boys named by the 6-month-ish mark the last two times, and there is no sign we’re going to get this figured out soon. I am sure hoping you can help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gurl I hear you on the fraught mother-in-law relationship. We don’t want to reconsider Edmund, do we? Such a great name. Too bad she doesn’t like it. Fake sad-face emoticon.<\/p>\n

Here is what I think: use Jasper. If you had just one child and had used a J name for him, I would agree that you might want to avoid anything that looked as if you were following in your in-laws’ all-same-initial footsteps. But with a Z in there, I think you’re good. And I think Jasper may be the name you’re looking for to bridge the gap between Zane and Julian. But imagining my own mother-in-law, and the way she would have said smugly, “See, that’s how it happens!” about the matching initials of even just two of the kids, and would have said it frequently—well, if Jasper has to be out, it has to be out.<\/p>\n

After Jasper, I think Felix is the frontrunner for me. Zane, Julian, Felix. I might actually like that better than Zane, Julian, Jasper. Yes, I think I do. Yes. That’s where I would put my efforts: seeing if your husband repeats the thing he did with the name Julian.<\/p>\n

But I also really like Calvin in this sibling set. Zane, Julian, Calvin; Zane, Jules, Cal.<\/p>\n

And I don’t think Zane and Julian are mismatched. They might not be the exact same style, but I think they’re adjacent\/compatible styles.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what you should do about the Bryson thing. Family name traditions can be fun, but, in my opinion, ONLY when they are purely opt-in and there is no pressure\/pushing\/nagging. The MINUTE there is hinting and pushing, I go into “YOU NAMED YOUR OWN BABIES AND I GET TO NAME MY OWN BABIES” mode and start to think naming traditions should be methodically squashed to avoid letting earlier generations think they get to make that kind of decision for later generations. I suggest the next time your mom brings it up, you say, in whatever way makes sense for your relationship and the way you talk to each other, something like “Mom, you know I have a contrary streak, and when you push for this it makes me want to not use the name just on principle.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name update:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

Name update: We had almost settled on Bennet (my husband was stubborn) when Stan Rogers came up on my playlist, singing “Barrett’s Privateers” and I asked my husband “what about Barrett? We could call him Rhett.” He looked at me and said, “We could call him Bear,” and we both started smiling like idiots at the thought. <\/p>\n

Anyway! Barrett Bryson was born on October 10, and he is healthy and beautiful and both of his brothers are smitten with him. Thanks for your help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle, I’m hoping I can get some help with naming our third baby boy, due in October. My husband and I are struggling so much with this, it’s almost unbelievable. I wrote you a novel, and I’m excessive with parentheses, so feel free to edit as you like. Our first son is Zane David […]<\/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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3vS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13508","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=13508"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13896,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13508\/revisions\/13896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}