{"id":14206,"date":"2019-06-07T11:26:56","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T15:26:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14206"},"modified":"2019-09-13T15:16:49","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T19:16:49","slug":"baby-girl-mrcus-sister-to-clio-and-melusine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2019\/06\/07\/baby-girl-mrcus-sister-to-clio-and-melusine\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl M@rcus, Sister to Clio and Melusine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

I’ve been following you for years, figuring I would never have a reason to write to you–but here I am! Our third girl (and last baby) is due in early August, and I am super resentful to be writing this letter because until two weeks ago we HAD a name for her, but it was stolen!<\/p>\n

My kids have my husband’s last name, sounds like M@rcus but with a k instead of a c. My husband is Nathan and I am Shannon. I kept my maiden name, which is not usable as a first name. We love names that feel ancient, storied, and European, though we aren’t particularly strict about that. More than anything, we like unique names.<\/p>\n

Our daughters are Clio Evangeline (6) and Melusine Rose (4). Since my second daughter was born, I feel like people really react to both of their names with great interest. They want to know who the girls are named after, and I am always excited to talk about Kleio the Greek muse of history and Melusine from French mythology. That said, I don’t care so much about having a big cultural rationale for my third daughter’s name; I happened on both of these names by accident while idly reading up on other names.<\/p>\n

So now here’s the problem. We’ve known this baby was a girl since shortly after the pregnancy was confirmed (routine genetic testing). The same day we got the news of her sex, I happened on the name Saskia and FELL IN LOVE. I love that it has strength and sass. I love that there aren’t already 12 of them in my kids’ elementary school. I love that, like Clio and Melusine, it’s outside the top 1000 for girls born in recent years. I love that this would mean we had one Greek name, one French, and one Germanic\/Slavic. I LOVE THIS NAME.<\/p>\n

Stupidly, I mentioned it to my brother’s wife, who is also expecting a baby due a few weeks from now. She has three other children whose names are all in the top 20, so I felt that it was safe to talk about it–there is just not much overlap between her style and mine. Of course, you can guess what happened next. She came to me two weeks ago and confessed that she too has fallen in love with the name Saskia, and asked whether I would mind if the cousins “shared” it.<\/p>\n

YES I MIND. We spend a lot of time with my family, and I am not comfortable with having to distinguish our kids when we call out loud for one of them. (If I wanted that, I’d name her Sophie or Caroline!) But I had no choice but to give my SIL my blessing for her to use the name if she wants to. And since she is due first, I am almost positive that she will.<\/p>\n

So……..what do I do now? I still love the name, but there is an angry red tinge to my love now. There is a small (1%) chance my SIL will not use the name, but she has already shared her intentions with others, so I think she will. I don’t want my daughter to share it with her cousin.<\/p>\n

It seems that we have to switch, but I am stumped. I don’t have a backup name. Do you happen to have any in your back pocket? Names you don’t recommend often because they seem too weird\/esoteric for other letter writers? Please help.<\/p>\n

Thank you so much!<\/p>\n

Shannon<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is a heartbreaking disaster. I am wondering if there is any room here to go back to your brother and sister-in-law and say “When you asked if I minded if the cousins shared the name, I was taken off-guard and said I didn’t. But I should have clarified that the cousins wouldn’t be sharing the name: if you use it, that takes it off the table for us.” I feel like your brother and sister-in-law should have the information that this is not a matter of BOTH of you getting to use the name. It might not change their decision about what to name their baby, but if I were them I would really, really, REALLY want to know what the consequences would be of that decision, instead of thinking it’s all settled and there are going to be two same-age little Saskia cousins calling themselves The Saskia Squad and so forth, and then being shocked and dismayed a couple months later when you don’t name your baby Saskia, and then realizing it was because of them. (Unless there is some specific reason you haven’t mentioned, such as that your sister-in-law is 100% in charge of naming babies with no input from your brother, I think it’s important that we keep in mind your brother’s involvement in this and not put it all on your sister-in-law.)<\/p>\n

Because there are two issues here: one issue is that someone else is using the name you planned to use; the other is that you’re not okay with a duplicate within the family. Your sister-in-law asked about the second thing, but you answered her as if she was asking about the first thing, and I think it could have made a significant difference in how this is going to play out. For the first issue, I say there is no such thing as “stealing” a name (though, boy, this situation puts me the closest I have ever been willing to use that verb), since a name can be used by as many people as want to use it, and you would not be the first ones to use Saskia either, and so on—and so you will get all my pained sympathy but none of my avenging anger (though, again: I’ve got to say, it’s not as if the name in question was Sophia, and the uncommonness of the name really makes a difference to me). But that brings us to the second issue: there are people who avoid duplicate names at all costs, and on the other end of the spectrum there are people who constantly recommend their own children’s names to other people because they love duplicates, and both extremes and everything in between are perfectly reasonable preferences to have. And you are someone who avoids duplicate names at all costs, and your brother and sister-in-law are apparently near the opposite end of the spectrum, and THAT is where I think we need to see if there is hope.<\/p>\n

I want to find a way to give your brother and sister-in-law the following information about the name: that actually you DO mind if the two cousins share it; and in fact, sharing Will Not Happen. I am someone who likes duplicate names (though if I think about it, I think I like it only if I am the one who used the name first), and if I knew someone else was the same, I would feel happy about our kids sharing a name. But if I knew someone else was an avoid-duplicate-names-at-all-costs person, I wouldn’t feel happy about our kids sharing a name, because I’d know the other person was unhappy about it and possibly resenting my child for having that name. It just makes a huge difference, and I would REALLY WANT TO KNOW. And from your letter, it sounds as if your sister-in-law was going directly for this second issue with her question: she didn’t ask if you minded if she and your brother used the name for their baby, she asked if you minded if the cousins SHARED the name. And you DO mind. You mind VERY, VERY MUCH. But what you SAID is that you DON’T mind, so right now SHE THINKS you don’t. She may be like “Yay, how great that we can use the name TOO, without stealing it away from them!”<\/p>\n

I think you were absolutely right not to try to lay exclusive claim to the name, and I admire you for it because that is SO HARD when it’s a very unusual name and they only even KNEW about the name because you mentioned it to them. But it is okay to MIND, and it is okay to SAY you mind, if you can do it in a loving tone of voice, and in a way that makes it clear you know the difference between “telling them they can’t use the name” and “minding,” and also in a way that communicates that if they go ahead and use it anyway it’s not going to create a blood feud. I don’t know if I can come up with a good way to say it (it’s so common for me to come up with something on paper, and then try to debut it with my voice and find I have failed at writing anything close to workable dialogue), but the GIST would be something that conveys to them your deep belief that they get to name their baby what they want to name their baby, and that you know the name Saskia doesn’t belong to you—but that it is your own preference to avoid duplicate names, and so if they use the name, you won’t be using it. My hope is that they are empathetic people who understand the other end of the duplicate-name spectrum, and that this will make them re-think the decision. My fear is that without this information, they may make a decision they will regret when your true preferences come to light in August, but that by then it will be too late to do anything about it, and EVERYONE will be unhappy. (And of course they might still decide to use the name even with the new information, but then at least we will all know they went into it knowing what the situation was.)<\/p>\n

One more thing: The worst outcome here for your brother and sister-in-law would be if they were to sacrifice their favorite name because they realize how much it means to you, and then you don’t use it after all. It doesn’t sound like that’s likely here, but I am familiar with the idea of a name getting ruined by something like this, so I wanted to mention it just in case the name was one of several finalists, and\/or you feel it’s now sullied for you no matter what by this upsetting situation. If you can no longer use the name, it’s a crying shame but I’d say it means don’t go any further on this with your brother and sister-in-law, and try to be glad that at least the name is still in your life via your dear little niece.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, let’s see if we can feel a little better by thinking about other name options. The name Saskia appears only once in The Baby Name Wizard<\/a> (did everyone know there was a revised 4th edition? thank you to the readers who let me know!), and it’s in the German and Dutch section, so I’ll start there:<\/p>\n

Aleydis
\nHannelore
\nHildegard
\nIngrid
\nLiesl
\nLiselotte
\nSigrid
\nValeska
\nWilhelmina<\/p>\n

More possibilities, from other sections and additional books:<\/p>\n

Alyona
\nAmaryllis
\nAndromeda
\nAnezka
\nAraminta
\nAriadne
\nArtemisia
\nBirgitta
\nCirce
\nClotilde
\nDelphina
\nEliska
\nEsmerelda (too reminiscent of Imelda Marcos?)
\nEugenia
\nHephzibah
\nIolanthe
\nLeocadia
\nLysandra
\nMyfanwy
\nOctavia
\nOttilie
\nPersephone
\nSophronia (the one in Five Little Peppers was nicknamed Phronsie)
\nTheodosia
\nVerica
\nXanthe
\nZipporah<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Sorry this update is so long overdue — the three-kid life is NO JOKE! <\/p>\n

As I mentioned in the comments to the original post, I did text my SIL and let her know we would not be using the name if she used it first. If it’s not obvious from my original letter, she and I are very different sorts of people and she still doesn’t get what the big deal was. In her peer group, the question is not “What will we name the baby?” but “Which of the 20 most currently popular names do we like best?” and if someone already used the name you liked, well…put it this way: at her daughter’s birthday party there were two other girls who shared the birthday girl’s name, and they all went by firstname middlename. So she didn’t see why I would prefer for my Saskia to be the only Saskia in our immediate circle. <\/p>\n

But I digress. She did not use Saskia. It turned out she was unable to talk my brother into it anyway, and they went with the name that’s currently #10 for baby girls. <\/p>\n

The whole drama ruined my feelings about Saskia, so we have set that name aside for a future pet, though that is a discussion for another day when I find my sea legs. Both families are DONE having kids, so this will be our last time going through all of this.<\/p>\n

And in the meantime, Isolda Susanne joined our family on August 8, four days after her due date, and she is perfect! (But now SIL has found another way to ruffle my feathers: calling her “Izzy,” a nickname we hope doesn’t stick.)<\/p>\n

P.S. ALSO, I would be remiss if I didn’t add that we ALMOST took one commenter’s suggestion of Bellona, which I still dearly love, until Clio (7) frowned at us and said “bologna?” obviously believing we were planning to name her sister after deli meat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle, I’ve been following you for years, figuring I would never have a reason to write to you–but here I am! Our third girl (and last baby) is due in early August, and I am super resentful to be writing this letter because until two weeks ago we HAD a name for her, but […]<\/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-14206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3H8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14206","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=14206"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14345,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14206\/revisions\/14345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}