{"id":14189,"date":"2019-05-28T08:20:02","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T12:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14189"},"modified":"2019-12-11T22:49:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T02:49:05","slug":"baby-boy-pangan-brother-to-leo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2019\/05\/28\/baby-boy-pangan-brother-to-leo\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Pangan, Brother to Leo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle!<\/p>\n

I am due November 16 with our second boy! Our first son\u2019s name is Leo Iolani (pronounced e-o-lani) Pangan (sounds like penguin without the \u201cw\u201d sound). He shares a middle name with my husband, who is part Hawaiian. If this child were a girl, we were pretty set on using the name Eloise and calling her Ellie or Elle. However, we are pretty stumped when it comes to boy names. It is especially hard because I am a teacher and associate a lot of great names with certain students (and they\u2019re not always positive associations!).<\/p>\n

We have narrowed down the middle name to three possible options\u2014all honor names. We would use Joseph after my maternal grandfather, William after my paternal grandfather, or Rey to honor my husband\u2019s maternal grandparents whose last name was Reyes. I\u2019m happy with all of those choices and would just choose based on what flows best with the first name.<\/p>\n

We want a name that is semi short (or has a shorter nickname), sweet yet still strong, and unique but not too trendy. My personal favorite is Jude, but my husband has vetoed it because it\u2019s his boss\u2019s son\u2019s name and he feels like he already knows Jude. I also love Henry and Will, but I feel like every kid at the park has one of those names right now. We considered Finn and Lincoln for Leo, but decided against both. The ending of Lincoln did not sound right with our last name, and Leo ended up totally being a Leo.
\nBelow are some names with both like:
\n1. Arlo nn Arie\/Ari (my mother responded with the puking emoji when I shared this one\u2014she later apologized)
\n2. Otis (does it sound too much like a dog\u2019s name? I\u2019m thinking yes)
\n3. Kai (this is more of my husband\u2019s choice\u2014he likes that Leo has an Italian first name and a Hawaiian middle name and thinks it would be great if this boy was named Kai Joseph to have the opposite)
\n4. Xander (my husband\u2019s new favorite)
\n5. Silas (I like better than my husband)
\n6. Ellis (my mom\u2019s choice\u2014if we ever did have a girl, this is a bit close to Eloise)<\/p>\n

We are not totally sold on any of those options, but we haven\u2019t heard anything else that pops out to us.<\/p>\n

We may try for one more child down the road, but this could potentially be our last! We appreciate any advice or suggestions you may have! Thank you!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. I love the name Arlo (*reproachful look in your mother’s direction*) and wouldn’t try to get Ari out of it (though would allow it to happen naturally, if it did). Since you may have one more child, I’d think ahead of time about whether two -o endings would make you feel pressured to think of a third -o name.<\/p>\n

2. Otis does not strike me as dog-name-ish, but I remember when I was considering the name Milo for my last child, there were a LOT of people who thought of that as a cat name, so I understand if that same segment of the population has Otis filed firmly under Dog. Still, my recurring wish is that having a name used in a movie didn’t have to rule it out for all other uses: movies often choose names that are just on the cusp of being popular again, and it’s such a shame to see good names seemingly ruined indefinitely for so many people. The movie Milo and Otis came out 33 years ago, and I feel like it shouldn’t still have dibs on those names.<\/p>\n

3. I find Kai Pangan a little difficult to say; not enough to rule it out, but enough to think twice. I like your husband’s thinking on the symmetry, though Joseph doesn’t leap out to me as an Italian name.<\/p>\n

4. I don’t like Xander with Pangan: it’s the repeating -an- in the first syllables, I think. But this sort of thing is extremely subjective: one person can dislike a sound for the exact reason someone else loves it.<\/p>\n

5. I like Silas. The -s blends a little with the P- of the surname, but it doesn’t make an unpleasant or awkward sound\/word. Or maybe the -s\/Pangan sounds a little like “spankin’,” but on the other hand I have said it dozens of times in a row and that would not be typical usage.<\/p>\n

6. Ellis blends quite a bit more than Silas for me, and I’m not sure why; probably it’s that the name starts with a vowel so the sounds are already softer and more blendy. I get Ella Spangan, especially since the name Ella is so much more common than the name Ellis.<\/p>\n

From your list, then, my own clear personal favorite is Arlo, as long as it will not make you feel pressured to continue an -o theme. [Edited to add:<\/strong> @monabenach pointed out that Arlo and Leo are not great together. I don’t think I’d said them together; as soon as she mentioned it, I agreed. They’re tongue-tangley.]<\/p>\n

More possibilities:<\/p>\n

Ari (just Ari, without starting at Arlo; eliminates the repeating -o issue)
\nCasey
\nClark
\nDrew
\nEli
\nEzra
\nFelix
\nFinley
\nFrank
\nFord
\nGeorge
\nHarvey
\nIsaac
\nJoel
\nMax
\nReid
\nWade<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

On November 17, at 11:34pm, our sweet Silas Rey Pangan made us a family of four. Thank you so much for your wonderful comments\u2014I read every single one! Throughout my pregnancy, we grew more and more attached to the name Silas, as our other top contender, Kai, just didn\u2019t seem to fit the feisty little mover in my belly. When he made his grand appearance after only four pushes, we knew it was the right decision. To continue the theme of royalty, our little Leo was joined by his \u201cKing of the Forest\u201d (Silas means \u201cof the forest\u201d and Rey means \u201cking\u201d). We couldn\u2019t be more in love! <\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle! I am due November 16 with our second boy! Our first son\u2019s name is Leo Iolani (pronounced e-o-lani) Pangan (sounds like penguin without the \u201cw\u201d sound). He shares a middle name with my husband, who is part Hawaiian. If this child were a girl, we were pretty set on using the name Eloise […]<\/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-14189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3GR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14189","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=14189"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14471,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14189\/revisions\/14471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}