{"id":14269,"date":"2019-07-19T09:04:38","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T13:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14269"},"modified":"2019-07-22T06:45:46","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T10:45:46","slug":"baby-girl-hirchert-sister-to-annabelle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2019\/07\/19\/baby-girl-hirchert-sister-to-annabelle\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl or Boy Hirchert, Sister to Annabelle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Swistle and readers!<\/p>\n

I wrote to you<\/a> eight years ago requesting help for choosing a middle name for our daughter. She is now a spunky 7.5 year old and Annabelle Jane suits her perfectly. We had planned to call her Annie, but for some reason it never stuck and she is, definitively, Annabelle. She loves her name and so do we!<\/p>\n

I had to chuckle at my sweet 26yo first time mom self when rereading my old request, because I had so many other names picked out. Flash forward several years of infertility later, and I am finally pregnant with our miracle second baby thanks to IVF. I’m currently 33 weeks and we don’t know the sex of this baby. Our naming tastes have changed and evolved a bit over the years, so we’ve scrapped the other names we had chosen and have new ones for this baby. If it’s a boy he’ll be Theodore Jon (nickname Teddy\/Theo which we love, Jon is my late father’s name). A girl was going to be Elizabeth Rose (possible nickname Libby).<\/p>\n

My MIL brought my husband’s old baby book to us as a sentimental gift this past weekend, and as I was looking through it I saw something I’d somehow in 18 years of being together never noticed- her middle name is Elizabeth. My husband hadn’t made the connection either. Let’s just say that while we’re on decent terms, neither of us want to name the baby after her or have her think we did (and explaining specifically that the name isn’t for her seems rather awkward and rude!).<\/p>\n

So I’m back to square one with a girl name. Some other names I’d tossed around this time around were Josephine, Eleanor, Margaret, Vivian, Evelyn, Penelope, and Amelia, and Matilda. My husband loves (and I like) Adelaide, but we think it might be too close to Annabelle. I tend to lean toward toward the antique\/classic\/vintage names, and my husband tends to favor more modern names like Mackenzie (although really he has few ideas of what he likes and lots of “I don’t like that but I don’t know why).<\/p>\n

I’d love some suggestions! We have several possible middle names and would like to stick to a one syllable middle, so mostly I just need a new first name! We are Jennifer and Kyle from the 80s, and so would prefer something a little less popular! Our last name is Hirchert, pronounced HER-kit.<\/p>\n

Jennifer Hirchert<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I am a little happy the name Elizabeth got bumped: I hope I don’t have to assure anyone how dearly I love the name Elizabeth, but WITH ANNABELLE, I prefer some of the other names on your list. The name Annabelle has a whimsy\/charm I’d like to see repeated in a sibling name, and I think the strengths of the name Elizabeth lie elsewhere. Particularly since you’re looking for something a little less common, and the name Elizabeth has been out of the Top 25 only one time (1948, when it dipped to #26) since searchable Social Security Administration<\/a> online records begin in 1900—and it has spent a LOT of those years in the Top 10.<\/p>\n

The names that first catch my eye from your list are Josephine, Penelope, and Matilda: they all have that touch of whimsy I’m looking for. I think you might find Eleanor, Evelyn, and Amelia more common than you’d like: Evelyn and Amelia are both currently in the Top 10, and Eleanor is making a beeline for it. Though this is where I ought to say that Penelope too is getting increasingly popular, and is currently a little more popular than Eleanor (Eleanor was #32 in 2018; Penelope was #26). I continue to stand behind Penelope anyway for three reasons: (1) I personally know fewer Penelopes than Eleanors so it FEELS less common to me, which I realize is irrelevant and subjective; (2) the name Penelope was high on our list if Henry had been a girl, which I realize is irrelevant; (3) Penelope has the type of whimsy I’m looking for, while Eleanor does not.<\/p>\n

I would say that Eleanor is type-of-whimsy-ADJACENT, however: Annabelle and Eleanor pleases me considerably more than Annabelle and Elizabeth. Hm, I am talking myself into Eleanor now. I find I very much like to say “Annabelle and Eleanor.” Vivian is similar to Eleanor for me: it is not quite the whimsy I am looking for but it is adjacent to it. Annabelle and Vivian is a combination I’d put in the same appealing category as Annabelle and Eleanor: something about the dignity of Eleanor\/Vivian gives me a little rush paired with the more whimsical Annabelle, but I don’t get that when I pair Annabelle with Elizabeth\/Margaret. I think it’s that Eleanor\/Vivian are more recent revivals and still have that little smack of surprise for me. Though so does Margaret, so I’m not sure exactly what the difference is.<\/p>\n

Would Eliza be far enough removed from Elizabeth to avoid seeming like a tribute? It’s the same first five letters but has a very different sound\/style. If your mother-in-law’s FIRST name were Elizabeth it might still seem like a tribute—but since it’s her middle name, and since Elizabeth is such a common name, it seems like it might be safe. Annabelle and Eliza. I love that.<\/p>\n

More possibilities:<\/p>\n

Beatrix
\nCecily
\nClarissa
\nCordelia
\nEmmeline
\nFelicity
\nFiona
\nGenevieve
\nIvy
\nLouise
\nLydia
\nMarigold
\nMeredith
\nPolly
\nSabrina
\nViolet
\nWinifred<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello Swistle and readers! I wrote to you eight years ago requesting help for choosing a middle name for our daughter. She is now a spunky 7.5 year old and Annabelle Jane suits her perfectly. We had planned to call her Annie, but for some reason it never stuck and she is, definitively, Annabelle. She […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3I9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14269","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=14269"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14271,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14269\/revisions\/14271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}