{"id":14428,"date":"2019-11-15T08:05:47","date_gmt":"2019-11-15T12:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14428"},"modified":"2019-11-15T08:05:47","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T12:05:47","slug":"baby-naming-issue-too-many-matthews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2019\/11\/15\/baby-naming-issue-too-many-matthews\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Too Many Matthews?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

My husband and I currently have 4 children, and while I\u2019m not pregnant yet, we\u2019re actively trying for #5. If we\u2019re blessed with a girl her name will most likely be Eleanor. Our current daughters are Evelyn, Annabel, and Amelia.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t shy away from popular names (clearly), but I have to LOVE the name. Girl names are very easy for us to love. Evelyn was named years before she was born, even before my husband and I got married! I\u2019ve loved Annabel since I was young and Amelia was my husband\u2019s second favorite girl name. We joke that if we have 20 girls we would love every single name!<\/p>\n

My son\u2019s name is David. We didn\u2019t have a name for him while I was pregnant and he didn\u2019t get named until he was 24 hours old. (He\u2019s Child #3. Had he been a girl he would have been Amelia.) He\u2019s named for my husband\u2019s father. The name was never on my list. In my hormonal state I agreed when my husband countered every name I gave him with, \u201cbut what about David?\u201d After seeing the tears of joy in my father-in-laws eyes when my husband introduced them, there was no going back. It took me 6 months to get used to the name. He\u2019s now 3 and while it\u2019s his name, I still don\u2019t love it.<\/p>\n

On to my question. One of my favorite boy names is Matthew. I just love the way it sounds and enjoy the nn Matt. It would be the perfect name, but it\u2019s my husband\u2019s name, my brother\u2019s name, and David\u2019s middle name. Would it be too weird to also have another Matthew? He wouldn\u2019t be a Junior because he wouldn\u2019t have my husband\u2019s full name. The middle name would be either Henry or William, neither of which are options for first names. Would he be a II?<\/p>\n

The boy name we had for Amelia was Elijah. I still like it, but when I mention it to the two oldest their response is, \u201cbut that\u2019s a girl name!\u201d<\/p>\n

Thanks a bunch!
\nRachel<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have three things to say.<\/p>\n

First is that I was going along thinking that was not too many Matthews, and then I reached a tipping point and thought no, that’s too many Matthews. The tipping point happened when you mentioned that it is also the middle name of the child whose first name you had to struggle to like, and whose first name you still don’t love. I think he should get to have Matthew, and not have to share the only part of his name you love with his younger brother. (If you did use Matthew DifferentMiddle, he would not be a II: II, like Junior, is used only if all the names are exactly the same.)<\/p>\n

Second is that the children are wrong, and Elijah is a boy name. We can make this a teaching moment for them. “What? No: while some names do change in usage over time, and so we don’t usually say that a name is ‘a boy name’ or ‘a girl name,’ Elijah has been used almost exclusively for boys for thousands of years. You may be thinking of similar-sounding names used for girls, such as Eliza.”<\/p>\n

Third is that with any future babies, your husband may NEVER AGAIN do his “But what about ____?” name-pushing\/countering technique, ESPECIALLY not right after you’ve given birth. I’m serious: NEVER AGAIN. I will come over there and deal with him myself if need be. That was a jerk strategy, and the fact that it worked may encourage him to try it again. Furthermore, I vote that if you have another boy, the name is your choice and, ideally, consists of two names that bring tears of joy on YOUR side of the family this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle, My husband and I currently have 4 children, and while I\u2019m not pregnant yet, we\u2019re actively trying for #5. If we\u2019re blessed with a girl her name will most likely be Eleanor. Our current daughters are Evelyn, Annabel, and Amelia. We don\u2019t shy away from popular names (clearly), but I have to LOVE […]<\/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-14428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3KI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14428","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=14428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14429,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14428\/revisions\/14429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}