{"id":13819,"date":"2018-10-19T11:04:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T15:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13819"},"modified":"2019-02-20T17:30:03","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T21:30:03","slug":"baby-boy-dallau-brother-to-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/10\/19\/baby-boy-dallau-brother-to-james\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Dall-low, Brother to James"},"content":{"rendered":"

Swistle,
\nWe really need your help in thinking of a name for our son, who is due in a few weeks.
\nOur first son’s name is James Nolan, so ideally it would be a name that went with James (but what doesn’t?).
\nWe are stuck between Ford, Shepard, and Elliot. Eliot is a family name – I always thought I would save it for a girl, but what if my third and fourth babies are boys as well?! Better to use it now? It’s my mother-in-law’s maiden name, who passed away, but we named James after her – so I don’t feel like I HAVE to do a double honor. I’d rather give my family a shout out since we did not for our first baby. The middle name we want to use would be to honor my beloved stepfather, whose name ironically is Richard Burton. So we could do Ford Richard, Shepard Burton, Elliot Burton…some cool options there with a name like that!!!
\nMy problem is that this baby doesn’t really feel like any of those names. How do you name a baby if you can’t get a sense of their personality? Do we wait? I hate game time decisions.
\nAre there any names along those lines we should consider?
\nI’m fine with you putting our last name because as you can see – it’s a doozy. It rhymes with HELLO.
\nAny help you could give that could help us name this baby before we enter divorce court (my husband suggested the name Doug last night. DOUG. Which is lovely but not the name of my child)….would be so appreciated!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let’s look at each of the three options with the older brother’s name:<\/p>\n

James and Ford
\nJames and Shepard
\nJames and Elliot<\/p>\n

To me, Elliot is the most natural fit of the three: Ford and Shepard both look to me like jumps away from James in style and popularity (though definitely not style clashes). But if you think you’d be considering names more like Ford and Shepard for all the rest of the children, then I don’t want to make any effort to bring you away from that. Elliot would make a nice bridge name: a James, then an Elliot, then on to Ford and then Shepard.<\/p>\n

I found when I was proof-reading that I had a change of mind on Ford: it fits well with James, I think, but changes the spin. James and Elliot are two classic gentlemen names. James and Ford are two one-syllable surname names. But I am not sure about Ford with the surname: not only do the -d\/D- sounds bump\/blend into each other, but it made me think of the possibly-too-obscure-to-matter word “bordello.” I notice Shepard, too, has the -d\/D- issue. Even Elliot has a similar issue: the -t\/D- does something similar when I say the name aloud. I don’t think it’s a dealbreaker, but it’s something I like to think about ahead of time.<\/p>\n

I think I might like to see what other end-letters do with the surname. The -s (-z) of James is nice with it. Charles would be similarly nice. But I am not as drawn to a soft -s such as Thomas or Louis: the soft -s starts sliding into that D- to make a -st- sound.<\/p>\n

Henry would be nice. Henry Burton Dall-low.<\/p>\n

Or Philip. Philip Richard Dall-low.<\/p>\n

Wait, is the name more like DELL-lo or more like dell-LO? It occurs to me that I’ve been saying DELL-lo, but that dell-LO is more likely. If the emphasis is on the first syllable, I find some names have a whimsical bouncing rhythm: Simon DELL-lo, for example, is the rhythm and sound of limoncello or lemon Jell-o. But if it’s more like Simon dell-LO, it loses nearly all the whimsy. Caleb DELL-lo is a little bit funny for a reason I have yet to put a finger on, but Caleb dell-LO is nice. And Ford dell-LO is not nearly as close to bordello as is Ford DELL-lo. And even a lot of the -d\/D- and -t\/D- and soft -s issues are considerably lessened if the rhythm is dell-LO: I go from thinking Louis DELL-o is not great to thinking Louis dell-LO is pretty terrific. Which makes me think it is probably dell-LO. And also the more I look at the three options, the more I think all three go well with James.<\/p>\n

Well. I should probably delete everything and re-write, but instead I will soldier on and put down some more names I think sound nice with at least one version of DELL-lo\/dell-LO.<\/p>\n

Alexander
\nAnderson
\nBenjamin
\nCalvin
\nClark
\nFrederick
\nGeorge
\nGrant (-t\/D-)
\nIan
\nJohn
\nLouis
\nOliver
\nPaul<\/p>\n

To help decide whether to use Elliot for a boy or for a girl, I’d look at your other girl-name options: if you were to have two girls after two boys, what sorts of girl names would be on your list? Elliot is a unisex name with usage currently leaning more heavily towards boys in the U.S.; here are the 2017 numbers from the Social Security Administration<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Eliette: 50F
\nEliot: 32F, 173M
\nEliott: 72M
\nElliette: 104F
\nElliot: 493F, 2416M
\nElliott: 575F, 2421M
\nElliotte: 56F<\/p>\n

Are your other girl-name options similar to Elliot? That is, do they lean toward Harper and Avery, Quinn and Riley? Or are your other options more like Margaret and Katherine, or Amelia and Charlotte, or Penelope and Cecily? If I think of siblings named James, Ford, Elliot, and Cecily, I assume James, Ford, and Elliot are boys; if I think instead of siblings named James, Ford, Elliot, and Quinn, I know I need more information before I can make a guess.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Swistle, thank you so much for your help! Your readers’ input really helped us name our sweet boy, who came on December 12th! This is Ford Richard :)
\nHe has such a stoic, sweet personality – Ford was the perfect name for him.
\n\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Swistle, We really need your help in thinking of a name for our son, who is due in a few weeks. Our first son’s name is James Nolan, so ideally it would be a name that went with James (but what doesn’t?). We are stuck between Ford, Shepard, and Elliot. Eliot is a family name […]<\/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-13819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3AT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13819","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=13819"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14023,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13819\/revisions\/14023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}