{"id":13527,"date":"2018-07-17T15:18:56","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T19:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13527"},"modified":"2018-07-17T15:24:25","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T19:24:25","slug":"middle-name-challenge-tess-_______-i________a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/07\/17\/middle-name-challenge-tess-_______-i________a\/","title":{"rendered":"Middle Name Challenge: Tess _______ I________a"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

I recently came across your site and would love suggestions for naming our second baby, a girl. Her older brother is Dean Matthew.<\/p>\n

Our last name is a very long, hard to pronounce name that starts with an I and ends with an A, so we tend to like short, easy to pronounce first names.<\/p>\n

My top choices are:<\/p>\n

Claire
\nSarah
\nKate
\nEmma
\nTess
\nNora<\/p>\n

My husband is set on Tess. I like Tess, but I’m having a really hard time coming up with a middle name. As you can see, I like fairly classic kind of old school English names. We’d love your input!<\/p>\n

Thanks!
\nRachel<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The name Tess is a particularly challenging one to pair with other names. Part of it is that it’s only one syllable, and part of it is the S-ending that can run into and combine with other sounds (Tess Sabrina, Tess Emma, Tess Trudy).<\/p>\n

Without a surname to work with, it’s difficult to make any specific middle-name suggestions. But I can tell you some of the methods I use to find candidates.<\/p>\n

First, I say the first and last names together again and again, with a pause between them as if muting a middle name, until I get a feeling for what rhythm of middle name might sound nice. For example, if your surname were Winterborough, I would say “Tess…Winterborough” again and again and see what rhythm filled the gap. In that example, I think something with three syllables and the emphasis on the second syllable would sound nice: Tess Naomi Winterborough, Tess Joanna Winterborough, Tess Rebecca Winterborough. I also like two syllables with the emphasis on the first syllable: Tess Rachel Winterborough, Tess Audrey Winterborough. And so on. This is highly subjective, so different people will like the sound of different rhythms.<\/p>\n

Second, I look for names that make particularly good middle names even if the rhythm isn’t great (the whole name isn’t said all together very often, so rhythm\/sound of the middle\/whole name is a lower priority for me than it is for first\/last combinations):<\/p>\n

1. family\/honor names<\/p>\n

2. names that you really love but can’t or don’t want to use as the first name for various reasons (too popular, too unusual, too hard to spell\/pronounce, too long, not your usual style, not good with the sibling name, friend\/relative used it, etc.)<\/p>\n

3. names of people you admire (writers, actors, activists, historical figures)<\/p>\n

4. names of significant places or concepts (childhood street name, town you married in, virtues)<\/p>\n

In your case, because you are looking for simple first names to balance a complicated surname, I would be inclined to use the middle-name position as a spot for one of the more complicated first names you’ve ruled out for being long or difficult. Tess Magnolia, Tess Genevieve, Tess Minerva, Tess Juliette, Tess Anastasia, Tess Philippa, Tess Winifred, Tess Cordelia—names like that.<\/p>\n

When the first name is preferred more strongly by one parent than by the other parent, or when the first name comes from one parent’s side of the family, I like to use the middle name to balance things out. In this case, perhaps the middle name could be one of the names you liked best but couldn’t use (either because your husband wasn’t keen on it or for some other reason), or a family name from your side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! I recently came across your site and would love suggestions for naming our second baby, a girl. Her older brother is Dean Matthew. Our last name is a very long, hard to pronounce name that starts with an I and ends with an A, so we tend to like short, easy to pronounce […]<\/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-13527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3wb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13527","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=13527"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13532,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13527\/revisions\/13532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}