{"id":14236,"date":"2019-06-24T15:01:54","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T19:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14236"},"modified":"2022-03-03T20:09:15","modified_gmt":"2022-03-04T00:09:15","slug":"baby-girl-gilbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2019\/06\/24\/baby-girl-gilbert\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Gilbert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Swistle,<\/p>\n

My husband and I would greatly appreciate some help in naming our first child, a baby girl due in November. Prior to finding out the sex, we thought we had narrowed down our names: Maren Luna for a girl and Ezra Adair for a boy.
\nMaren: Latin for sea – my husband and I are both obsessed with the ocean and find it very therapeutic, so we loved it
\nLuna: After Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter. I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan and so is my husband, and Luna embodies many traits we would love to see in our daughter (quirky, true to herself and ignores the judgements of others, intelligent, very loyal)<\/p>\n

Ezra: A beautiful Hebrew name (we are Jewish) that we love the sound of
\nAdair: Unique and we like the meaning. My husband has connections to Scotland and it’s has a Scottish origin which we liked<\/p>\n

So, we found out we were having a girl and there we were: Maren Luna! However, that very same day (somehow it took over a month to notice this…) I realized that there is no way I want to name my daughter Maren because it is literally a perfect combination of my husband’s and my name: Mark and Lauren. Mark, Lauren, and Maren… I just can’t do it!<\/p>\n

So, we are back at square one. Names we like but are way too popular for us are:
\nAmelia
\nHazel
\nOlivia
\nCharlotte<\/p>\n

Names I like that my husband isn’t sold on:
\nReese
\nMicah
\nNavi (nah-vee)
\nArielle
\nJuliette<\/p>\n

Names my husband likes that I’m not sold on:
\nAmaya
\nFlora
\nTalia
\nAviva<\/p>\n

While we would love to keep Luna as the middle name, we are more concerned with finding the perfect first name and going from there. And while I realize that none of the names I listed above fit this theme, I loved the sound of Maren Luna with the -en ending on the first name and a more feminine sounding middle name. So clearly we are all over the board. At this point we want at least two children (three tops) and still intend to use Ezra Adair if we have a boy in the future.<\/p>\n

Thank you so much for your insight!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think we should start by making sure you really don’t want to use Maren. On one hand you have told us clearly that there is no way and you just can’t do it, so there’s no reason for me to be sitting here discussing something you’ve been so clear on. On the other hand, if we were in actual fact sitting in my office and having some doughnuts and coffee while talking it over, I would want to pick at it just a little more to be absolutely sure.<\/p>\n

For one thing, I’m not sure what percentage of other people will notice, especially once more children are added to the family (“Mark, Lauren, and Maren” is more obvious than “Mark and Lauren \/ Maren and Ezra”) (although I admit I Really Notice It in either example)—and those who DO notice may think of it as cool\/deliberate: name-combining is the sort of thing some parents go for on purpose. For another thing, sometimes a sudden realization about a name can have more force than it needs to: the surge of adrenaline from “I can’t believe we almost didn’t notice this!” can feel like a disaster averted, when really it’s just nice to have thought of it ahead of time. I’d hate to see you throwing away a name you love and agree on, if it’s the adrenaline talking.<\/p>\n

But if there is no way and you can’t do it, then let’s see what else we can find. From the list of names you like and your husband isn’t sold on, I want to talk for a minute about Micah. Micah has somewhat unisex usage in the U.S. (3,718 new baby boys and 268 new baby girls in 2018), but is still mostly used for boys. If a future possible son is likely to be named Ezra, I wouldn’t use the name Micah for a girl: two male biblical names used together make it seem like the name Micah must be a boy in this case. (And in fact I recommend it for a future boy, if you have two: it would make a perfect little brother for an Ezra.)<\/p>\n

I would have some similar concern with the name Reese, but at a much lower level: that spelling is used mostly for girls in the U.S., and it’s not a biblical name so it doesn’t make that fast connection with Ezra that Micah does. But I am not sure Reese works well as a sister name with the more feminine names on your lists: Talia and Reese, Juliette and Reese, Arielle and Reese, Flora and Reese.<\/p>\n

I would personally cross out Navi: at my house where the Legend of Zelda video games have been played for years, Navi is an object of mockery. “Hey!,” we say in her piping fairy voice when we want to draw someone’s attention to something they already know about. “Hey! Listen! Hey!” But I am not sure how widespread that association would be.<\/p>\n

From your list, my favorite is Juliette. I like that it’s familiar but underused, and I like its similarity to Amelia and Charlotte from your joint list.<\/p>\n

From your husband’s list that you’re not sold on, I am particularly drawn to Flora. That seems to me to be a name that goes very well with the names that are too popular for you, such as Hazel, Charlotte, and Amelia: Flora is appealingly old-timey, and contains the same sounds as more popular names, but seems to have missed the Cora\/Nora\/Theodore\/Eleanor popularity. Her name would mesh well with her peers’ names, while still standing out as a fresh surprise. And I find it charming with a possible future brother named Ezra. Flora is my top favorite for you and I am feeling the impulse to try to force you to love it, so let’s take a break and think of some more possibilities:<\/p>\n

Athena
\nBianca
\nCecily
\nClaudia
\nConstance
\nCordelia
\nCorinne
\nDalia
\nDelphine
\nFern
\nFiona
\nFreya
\nGeorgia
\nIsadora
\nLinnea
\nLiviana
\nLyra
\nMargot
\nMariel\/Meriel\/Miriel
\nMariella
\nMaris\/Meris
\nMeredith
\nMinerva
\nMirren
\nPhilomena
\nPolly
\nRosemary
\nSabrina
\nSimone
\nSylvia
\nWilla
\nWinifred<\/p>\n

From this list, my favorite is Meredith. Underused; keeps the sea meaning, loses the similarity to your own names. Meredith Luna Gilbert. Maybe one day Meredith and Ezra.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Our daughter’s name is Maren Luna.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello Swistle, My husband and I would greatly appreciate some help in naming our first child, a baby girl due in November. Prior to finding out the sex, we thought we had narrowed down our names: Maren Luna for a girl and Ezra Adair for a boy. Maren: Latin for sea – my husband 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-14236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3HC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14236","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=14236"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15776,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14236\/revisions\/15776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}