{"id":13792,"date":"2018-10-01T08:33:08","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T12:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13792"},"modified":"2019-05-14T08:57:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-14T12:57:34","slug":"baby-girl-or-boy-sounds-like-silver-sibling-to-edward-teddy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/10\/01\/baby-girl-or-boy-sounds-like-silver-sibling-to-edward-teddy\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl or Boy Sounds-Like-Silver, Sibling to Edward (Teddy)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle<\/p>\n

We have a toddler named Edward Felix Sounds-like-silver, who goes by Teddy. I love his name so much that I still sometimes get a thrill of satisfaction thinking about it.<\/p>\n

Our next child is due this spring and if it’s a girl our top choice is Beatrice. However I’m slightly concerned that ‘Beatrice Silver’ is too sibilant. Or that it might become Beatrissilver in speech (not sure if that’s a problem though?). Please help, I think I might be overthinking this but I can’t tell.<\/p>\n

We also would welcome any boy name suggestions. Names I like that my partner inexplicably does not:
\nRupert
\nOscar
\nArthur
\nHugh nn Hugo<\/p>\n

Names my partner inexplicably likes that I don’t:
\nPaul
\nMark (partner is not a Christian, I’m not sure where this New Testament theme sprang from)
\nAllen (‘with two Ls’, ok buddy)
\nCallum
\nAndre
\nDavid
\nMartin
\nNathan
\nRay
\nWilliam (I like William by itself but not with Sounds-like-silver)<\/p>\n

Any input much appreciated!
\nKate x<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I just said “Beatrice Silver” a dozen times out loud, and I can’t decide. Here is where I think this kind of issue falls: into the area known as It Doesn’t Really Matter At All, Unless Of Course It Matters To You. Beatrice Silver is a little sibilant, and the -ce runs into the S- a little bit. But it doesn’t make an undesirable word\/phrase (such as in the famous example of Ben Dover) or cause a misunderstanding (the way, say, Liam Mason could sound like Leah Mason or vice versa). And I think what usually happens in these cases is that everyone gets accustomed to putting a pause-and-a-half between the first name and surname, instead of the usual pause: “This is Beatrice. Silver. She has a 9:00 appointment.”<\/p>\n

My usual prescription for this sort of thing is to suggest the parents browse through a yearbook, or watch all the credits of a movie, and notice how many names fall into this same IDRMAAUOCIMTY category: it’s so many of the names! I was looking through my son’s yearbook the other day to see what a typical senior picture looks like, and I noticed name after name that has similar slight issues—and it really doesn’t matter at all. UNLESS, of course, it eternally bugs the parents, in which case it matters and they shouldn’t have done it. But my guess, my GUESS, is that that is rarely if ever the case.<\/p>\n

We had a couple of things like this with our own kids’ names. One kid’s name blends a little with the last name to make a mildly undesirable word such as weep or sulk; I never notice it now, and no one else has ever mentioned it, and I only thought of it now when I was trying hard to think of examples. It only mattered to me during the naming process, and then never mattered again.<\/p>\n

I just re-read and realized the surname SOUNDS LIKE Silver, so I used Blogger Privilege and went back to the email to check out the real surname, and I’d say the issue is even less with the real surname than with the stand-in: the sounds of the real surname offset the sibilance even more than the softer sounds of the stand-in.<\/p>\n

Can you tell I want you to use the name Beatrice? I want you to use the name Beatrice. But I’m leaving room in case the -ce\/S- thing really bugs you, and continues to bug you.<\/p>\n

Okay *brisk clap*: boy names. With Edward\/Teddy, nothing stands out to me from either of the two lists. It’s not at all necessary, but the FUN solution would be to find a full-name that goes with Edward, plus a nickname that goes with Teddy. Or else a name that goes well with Edward AND with Teddy. Actually, the name Paul would be pretty good for that: Edward and Paul; Teddy and Paul.<\/p>\n

Before I start making a list, I would like to note something that seems to be happening in my area: the return of Older Nicknames. Do you remember in the 1990s when suddenly Sam and Max and Charlie and Joe started sounding fresh an in old-man kind of way? It’s almost hard to believe those names used to sound impossibly old-mannish\/old-fashioned\/stodgy, but they DID, and I REMEMBER when they did. And then they started to sound amusingly quirky, the kind of name you might give a dog, or might CONSIDER for a child but in a humorous, counter-culture kind of way (“What if we just name him MAX? or JOE?” “Honey, come on, you have to HELP with this”). And shortly after that, everyone was looking for long forms of those names so they could use them for their kids. And now they’re just ordinary names.<\/p>\n

We have also recently been through a stage of No Nickname Required or Desired, where parents say things like “We want to name him William—but will people call him Billy?” and “We want to name her Elizabeth—but will people call her Beth?” and we have had to say again and again that not only can a kid get away without a nickname in this particular time period (in a way they COULDN’T, really, when some of us were growing up), but even if they DID get a nickname it certainly would be Will or Ellie rather than Billy or Beth.<\/p>\n

ANYWAY, my point is that I have been hearing the next wave of Nickname Revival: names such as Johnny, Billy, Marty, Mickey, Pete, Tommy. The nicknames parents were avoiding are starting to come back into style. Most tellingly, some of my kids’ classmates are nicknaming or re-nicknaming themselves: a Charlie now wants to be known as Chuck; a Thomas wants to be known as Tommy; a Jack now goes by Johnny. Before long we may be receiving letters from parents saying “We want to name him William—but we don’t want him called Will or Liam” and “If we’re going to call him Billy anyway, should we just name him that?”<\/p>\n

Now that you will understand why I am putting James\/Jimmy on the list rather than James\/Jamie:<\/p>\n

Albert\/Bertie
\nAugust\/Gus
\nCharles\/Charlie\/Chip
\nDesmond\/Desi
\nGeorge
\nHarvey
\nHenry
\nJames\/Jimmy
\nJohn\/Johnny\/Jack (too Kennedy with Teddy?)
\nOliver\/Ollie
\nPhillip\/Pip (possibly too whimsical with surname)
\nRobert\/Robbie (I’m not quite ready for Bobby, but I believe it’s on its way)
\nWesley\/Wes<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hello Swistle! Baby Boy Sounds-like-silver was born this Saturday. We\u2019ve named him Albert Ernest (\u201cAlbert\u201d isn\u2019t quite as bold a choice here in the UK as it would be in the US) and are calling him Al. Thank you to you and the commenters for your help!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle We have a toddler named Edward Felix Sounds-like-silver, who goes by Teddy. I love his name so much that I still sometimes get a thrill of satisfaction thinking about it. Our next child is due this spring and if it’s a girl our top choice is Beatrice. However I’m slightly concerned that ‘Beatrice […]<\/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-13792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3As","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13792","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=13792"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14171,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13792\/revisions\/14171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}