{"id":13685,"date":"2018-08-23T08:33:25","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T12:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13685"},"modified":"2018-08-23T08:33:25","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T12:33:25","slug":"baby-girl-or-boy-care-again-sibling-to-connor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/08\/23\/baby-girl-or-boy-care-again-sibling-to-connor\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl or Boy Care-again, Sibling to Connor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

I have been a longer time reader and in need of some solid naming advice from you and your readers!<\/p>\n

We are due with second baby in October and we will keep the sex a surprise.<\/p>\n

Our first son\u2019s name is Connor Brant Care-again with a K. Connor is a name we both agreed on and middle name is a combination of our Father\u2019s names, Brian & Anthony.<\/p>\n

Last time, we had agreed if we had a girl, her middle name would be another \u2018combo\u2019 name honouring our Mothers, Carol and Janis- Caris. We have agreed to use this middle name again if Baby #2 is a girl.<\/p>\n

Here comes the problem, if we have a boy, how can we still honour our Mothers?<\/p>\n

My husband proposed using my maiden name, Mc-IrishName (which is my Father\u2019s last name) for Baby Boy #2. Although I thought it was such a sweet gesture when he shared this, it made me feel like we would be leaving my Mom out. PAUSE for back story:<\/p>\n

1. My parents are divorced and my husbands parents aren\u2019t; I think\/know my Mom would feel slighted if my Dad was honoured twice and she\/her family wasn\u2019t (especially since she is aware that Caris will be used for a girl).<\/p>\n

2. My MIL has been honoured already with other grandchildren so I don\u2019t think it would phase her if we did not chose to honour her and her family. However, if we only honoured my Mom\u2019s family, I think it would appear odd that we honoured 3 out of 4 grandparents.<\/p>\n

So, I am left with this, can we use Caris as a boy\u2019s middle name? Or, should we consider using maternal grandfather\u2019s names? The names are:<\/p>\n

Mine:
\nJan (dutch name for John; pronounced sort of like \u2018yawn\u2019) VanV-dutch name
\nMy maternal uncle is John.<\/p>\n

Husband:
\nWilliam Sr. Martin
\nHis maternal uncle is William Jr. (Bill).<\/p>\n

Ideally, I would like my son to have to one middle name but I realize this may not work. I have two middle names. Back story #2: I was born with one middle name however when I was 2 years old my Mother added a second middle name, Jane, into my name to honour her dying Mother\u2019s request. My grandmother (Joyce) had a ring with her birthstone & J engraved in it. It was passed to my Mom (Janis) who is also born in same month as my Grandmother. I also happen to be born in that month and therefore my Grandmother mentioned in one of her last conversations with my Mother that she would like me to have the ring but it was too bad I did not have a \u201cJ\u201d name. Fast forward, my mom added Jane into my name. So perhaps it would be nice for our son to have 2 middle names?<\/p>\n

The last bit of info I guess I should include is we have not settled on a boys\u2019 first name. Top contenders are Riley, Archer (Archie),Grady, Brody, Sawyer or Lachlan.<\/p>\n

I hope you can help us!
\nTake care,
\nAmanda & Pete<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

After reading the letter, my first answer to the question “If we have a boy, how can we still honour our Mothers?” was “Don’t. Honor someone else instead.” You have a perfect way to honor them if the baby is a girl, and that symmetry is very pleasing so I hope it works out that way, but that doesn’t mean you have to twist yourselves up to find something the same if the baby is a boy. It’s not that you CAN’T, and in fact I love the idea of honoring women in boys’ names, but it doesn’t sound as if anything is working out in this particular case.<\/p>\n

One option not mentioned in the letter, perhaps for good reason, is to use your mom’s maiden name. You mention all the problems with using your own maiden name, and I agree with all of those: your dad has already been honored, your mom could feel quite slighted by that considering they’re divorced, etc. Is your mom’s surname a possibility or is it no good as a name? (My family is Dutch, so I know those VanV names vary widely in usability.) Or are there other names\/surnames from your mom’s branch of the family tree? I think “leaving out” your mother-in-law makes sense in this situation, and would not seem odd to anyone in the long run: it’s clear to you in the midst of the naming process that you’re honoring three-fourths of the grandparents, but that’s not something that will remain clear over time, especially if you have more children and use more honor names.<\/p>\n

Wait—perhaps you could use Janus, the masculine version of your mom’s name and also a pretty cool mythological guy. Was your mom named in part for her dad Jan? And was your middle name Jane chosen with Jan\/Janis in mind? That would make it extra appealing to hand down another version of the name: Jan to Janis to Jane to Janus. This is my favorite solution, and I love how it hands a name back and forth between men and women in the family. I feel excited about it in a way that makes me not want to consider any other options. Honestly, I considered putting my foot down and insisting, or emailing you every day in an attempt to wear you down. Instead I will now subtly try to talk you into it by mentioning it again and again as if it’s a done deal.<\/p>\n

For first names, I think you have a lot of good options, and that they all work fine with the middle name: Riley Janus, Archer Janus, Grady Janus, Brody Janus, Sawyer Janus, Lachlan Janus. I am slightly less in favor of the ones with repeated endings: Connor and Archer, Connor and Sawyer. Not enough to rule those out, just enough to knock them lower on the list. I find Lachlan a bit of a challenge with the surname: Lachlan Care-again almost rhymes, and has a tumbling feel in the mouth; for me, it’s enough to knock it off the list, but I wouldn’t expect that to be the same for everyone. And I’m feeling unusually opinionated and bossy today, so if it were up to me I would also take Riley off the list: according to the Social Security Administration<\/a>, it’s currently used much more often for girls in the United States (6,343 new baby girls and 1,454 new baby boys named Riley in 2017, and that doesn’t even take into account all the Rylees and Ryleighs and so forth), while the name Connor is used almost exclusively for boys. Your spelling of “honour” makes me think you may not live in the U.S., though, so this may not be a factor.<\/p>\n

Let’s see, so that means my own favorites with Connor are Grady and Brody, then Sawyer, then Archer. My own top favorite is Grady. Connor and Grady. Grady Janus Care-again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! I have been a longer time reader and in need of some solid naming advice from you and your readers! We are due with second baby in October and we will keep the sex a surprise. Our first son\u2019s name is Connor Brant Care-again with a K. Connor is a name we both […]<\/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-13685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3yJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13685","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=13685"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13699,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13685\/revisions\/13699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}