{"id":14007,"date":"2019-02-15T12:08:33","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T16:08:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14007"},"modified":"2019-05-20T13:13:49","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T17:13:49","slug":"baby-girl-or-boy-________-row-oburn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2019\/02\/15\/baby-girl-or-boy-________-row-oburn\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl or Boy ________ Row O’Burn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Swistle! I’ve been following your blog for so. many. years, through numerous fertility issues, through a breakup, though years of not even trying to conceive and through a miscarriage that I never thought I’d actually need anyone’s advice because during all this time, I was honing all my name nerdiness by reading your blog and and following name trends and data. But now that I am preparing to name an actual real life human I desperately need your help. This is serious business!<\/p>\n

My partner and I are over the moon that we are expecting our first (and probably only), baby due in April, gender unknown. I would like to have a few solid names for each gender so we can say them out loud to this little one before making the final decision. We have finally decided on a last and middle name. This took months of discussion and thought, as we do not share a last name. We decided to use my last name for this baby’s last (sounds like O’Burn), and his mother’s maiden name as this baby’s middle (Row, spelled differently). I am so happy about this! So much woman power in this babe’s name!<\/p>\n

For girls, our top contenders are:
\nRamona
\nMarigold “Goldie”
\nLoretta<\/p>\n

I love this every name on this list. There are a few issues with these names, however. His favorite is Ramona, but it was also the name of my lovely cat, who died 5 years ago. It just feels like my cat’s name.
\nI love Goldie, and would probably call her this exclusively with Marigold as a backup but the issue with this name is that all but 2 of our 7 nieces all have an -ie or a -y ending to their names and this bothers me a little because: 1. Goldie so rhyme-y with of their names and 2. All these names sound a bit diminutive. He is lukewarm on Loretta.<\/p>\n

For boys, our top contenders are:
\nRemy
\nHayes
\nEero<\/p>\n

I don’t love this list like the girl list. The issues with these seem like dealbreakers: I’m afraid that Remy (partner’s favorite) and Hayes are too trendy, and that while Remy\/Remi\/Remington is unisex, it’s leaning more heavily toward the girl’s side, especially with all the alternate spellings (is this a problem? I can’t decide). The -y ending doesn’t bother me on a boy for some reason.
\nThen there is Eero. I LOVE it so much, he’s unsure. I’ve love Arrow too, but prefer Eero (it’s not a weapon, doesn’t feel trendy, and the Saarinen reference is a pleasing one). The issues here are: 1. Spelling\/ pronouncing issues, which I think won’t bother me so much (as there are more common names like Aaron, Madelyne, Louis where pronunciation and spelling can be up for interpretation\/confusion), but I don’t want to saddle the babe with a lifetime of irritation over this. 2. Eero Row is repetitive. Initially this bothered me but my partner likes them together, however, he’s not in love like I am with Eero.
\nAre their other boy names that are just as cool and uncommon but with less issues? I know that the perfect name doesn’t exist, but can you and your readers help give your opinions on these issues\/recommend other boy names?<\/p>\n

Other names I like but can’t\/ won’t use:
\nCleo
\nSunny
\nVita
\nZola
\nClark
\nFrederick\/Freddie
\nSoren
\nTeddy<\/p>\n

Other names he likes:
\nArcher
\nArlo
\nHugh\/Hugo
\nJude
\nOliver<\/p>\n

Thank you so much for any advice and I promise to send an update (those are my favorite)!<\/p>\n

Best,
\nMelissa and Niko<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

My first impulse was to push you to like Arlo: it’s a great name, and it has almost all the upsides of Eero without any of the downsides. My main hesitation is that I don’t like the -o ending with the O- surname; I don’t like it with Eero, either. Arlo O’Burn. Eero O’Burn. Combined with the -ro\/Row issue of first and middle, Eero Row O’Burn would be completely out for me: my mouth and ear can’t make heads or tails of it. Arlo Row O’Burn has a similar set of difficult sound combinations. I don’t like to say them or hear them. I realize this sort of thing is highly subjective, however, and that someone else might love the repeating sounds.<\/p>\n

Hayes feels contemporary to me, and it’s part of the surname-name trend, but I don’t know if I would call it trendy or not. It feels pleasingly old-fashioned, too—like, I would not be surprised at all to encounter an elderly gentleman named Hayes, whereas I would be surprised to encounter an elderly gentleman named Cayden. It does blend into the surname, but I think you’d just get used to putting a little pause there.<\/p>\n

Let’s look at the current usage of Remy. This is from the Social Security Administration<\/a> for babies born in 2017 (the 2018 data will be available in May):<\/p>\n

Remy: 497 F, 678 M
\nRemi: 1262 F, 186 M
\nRemmy: 20 F, 60 M
\nRemmi: 50 F, 5 M
\nRemington: 754 F, 1497 M
\nRemmington: 27 F, 20 M<\/p>\n

I don’t know what I’d advise. I was not expecting the numbers to look like that: I don’t know anyone named Remy\/Remi, so I had very little to go on, but for some reason I was expecting to see it less unisex than that, with heavier usage for boys. Usage of Remy and Remington is rising for both boys and girls; this may be a name like Avery or Riley or Cameron, where we will expect it for either sex.<\/p>\n

I’d love to find some names without so many overlaps in sound: Row O’Burn already has the repeating long-O and the repeating R; Remy adds a third R, Eero adds a third R and a third long-O.<\/p>\n

Calvin
\nDavis
\nDawson
\nEmmett
\nFelix
\nGage
\nLawson
\nMalcolm
\nThompson
\nWesley
\nZane<\/p>\n

An option that doesn’t avoid repeating sounds is Harvey. I love it so much. Harvey O’Burn. Harvey Row O’Burn.<\/p>\n

Another pet favorite of mine that repeats a sound: Alfred. Alfred O’Burn. Alfred Row O’Burn.<\/p>\n

Or I think Alistair is nice. Alistair O’Burn. Alistair Row O’Burn.<\/p>\n

Or Merrit. Merrit O’Burn. Merrit Row O’Burn.<\/p>\n

Here’s one that leans into the sound repetition but with some nice strong consonant sounds to give it structure: Gibson. Gibson O’Burn. Gibson Row O’Burn.<\/p>\n

Or Franklin. Franklin O’Burn. Franklin Row O’Burn.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Turning to girl names. Ramona is again a lot of repeating sounds: Ramona Row O’Burn; three Rs, three long-Os. It is too much for me, but I’ll say again that I know such things are very subjective, and it would not surprise me to hear that the overlapping sounds were a delight to someone else’s ear. It does seem to me like much less of an issue than with Eero Row O’Burn, I think because the name Ramona is very familiar and also because it has some nice strong consonant sounds to help break up the Rs and Os.<\/p>\n

My top favorite from your list is Marigold. Three Rs and three Os again, but the O sound is not obvious, and it helps that the R is not the first initial. Also, again we have some nice strong consonants to break things up. Goldie is adorable, and I don’t care two figs about the cousin names ending in -ie. The diminutive nature of the nickname is another story. I will say that Goldie does not have the lightweight\/silly sound that draws my attention to a diminutive ending, and for me that makes a big difference. It also makes a big difference to me that it’s the nickname and not the given name.<\/p>\n

The girl names on your list make me think of:<\/p>\n

Agatha
\nCeleste
\nCordelia\/Delia
\nEsther
\nFlorence\/Flora
\nFrances\/Frankie
\nGloria
\nHarriet
\nHazel (similar to Hayes)
\nHenrietta\/Hennie\/Etta
\nImogen\/Midge
\nIvy
\nLouisa
\nLouise
\nMabel
\nMagnolia\/Nola
\nMargaret\/Greta
\nMarilla
\nMatilda
\nSabrina
\nTheodora
\nWinifred\/Winnie\/Freddie<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Thank you, Swistle, for posting my question, and thank you to all the commenters for all their thoughtful responses. I immediately added Swistle’s suggestion of Imogen\/Midge (love!) to our girl list, and a reader’s suggestion of Desmond\/Desi\/Dez to our boy list. Then, a bit reluctantly, I let go of Eero, as the overwhelming response from your readers was that this name would not only cause confusion over pronunciation\/spelling, but also it doesn’t sound pleasing with the last name. Thank you for talking me down from that ledge. Eero will always be a name I love but sadly will never use. <\/p>\n

Well, our little boy was born on April 17th and it took us 5 days to decide on his name. To my surprise, none of the names we considered during these 5 days were the names I wrote to you about! We finally decided on Quincy Row O’Burn. I stumbled upon Quincy while researching Desmond (thank you to the reader who suggested this!), and I love love love it. It’s so fun to tell people his name — we’ve gotten such positive responses to it — some people even sing his name back to us. We love it. It’s perfect. Also, I really appreciate the ease with which people recognize and appreciate his name, which wouldn’t have happened with a name like Eero.<\/p>\n

Thank you!
\nMelissa, Niko and Quincy<\/p>\n

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

Swistle! I’ve been following your blog for so. many. years, through numerous fertility issues, through a breakup, though years of not even trying to conceive and through a miscarriage that I never thought I’d actually need anyone’s advice because during all this time, I was honing all my name nerdiness by reading your blog and […]<\/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-14007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3DV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14007","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=14007"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14180,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14007\/revisions\/14180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}