{"id":14538,"date":"2020-02-13T08:20:18","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T12:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=14538"},"modified":"2020-02-13T15:27:09","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T19:27:09","slug":"baby-boy-mcintire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2020\/02\/13\/baby-boy-mcintire\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy McIntire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greetings, Swistle:<\/p>\n

My husband and I are expecting a boy towards the end of February. We plan to have only one child.<\/p>\n

We briefly discussed names before we found out the gender at 12 weeks but we both had initially agreed on Vesper or Vespera for a girl. Middle name for a boy or girl would be an honor name.<\/p>\n

Since then, we have been lost. I have become obsessed with finding the \u201cperfect\u201d name and he finds a name he likes, attaches to it for a few weeks, and then gets bored with it. I am now 34 weeks pregnant and he wants to just choose a name when the little guy is here but I find the idea daunting and think it\u2019s important to at least have a short list of names.<\/p>\n

My name is a misspelled variation of a trendy 80s girl name. His name is a nickname variation of a classic boys name. Both begin with A and last name is McIntire. Neither of us want anything remotely common, but I prefer something still established and \u201cusable\u201d with a nickname variation that\u2019s not too weird for a resume and he ventures into names that I consider not usable at all. We are in the United States and my ancestry is mostly Scottish, Irish and English while his is mostly Scottish, German and Spanish.<\/p>\n

Current front-runners are Lucian\/Lucan or Finan\/Finnan. Lucian is derived from Latin, Lucan and Finan are Gaelic. My hesitation is whether they are too weird and whether the LO will be swimming in a sea of Finn\u2019s in a few years. Lucas is classic but it seems Finn is trendy.<\/p>\n

Other names that have not been completely vetoed are Killian\/Cillian and Cassian. His favorites are Aquila, Quill, Achilles and Acacius. I also like Caius, Eamon, Cormac, Leander and Malakai but most don\u2019t really work with our last name. My parents have resorted to calling the baby Jack and I love the name but it is way too popular for my taste and also doesn\u2019t work with our last name.<\/p>\n

Please help us. I will be happy to send an update if this child ever has a name.<\/p>\n

Kind regards,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was very amused by the subject line of your email (“An Impossible Couple Seeks a Boy Name”) and hope this post will not be far too late to help.<\/p>\n

There is a certain joy in choosing a baby name without taking sibling names into account, and I am feeling that joy here. I think you have a lot of good\/cool choices to work with.<\/p>\n

I think the most difficult thing about naming the first child is really CONCEPTUALIZING the baby as a person. This is one use for The Starbucks Test, which is where you take one of the names you’re considering for the baby, and say it to the barista as if it were your own. It helps to bridge that gap between names that are cool and fun to think about, and names that work for a real actual person living life and ordering coffee. I think this is the sort of thing that may assist a baby-namer of your husband’s variety: it’s one thing to suggest Achilles\/Acacius when you’ve grown up as, say, a Matt, and quite another to say it with your own voice to someone who has to write it on a cup.<\/p>\n

Which is not to imply I think Achilles\/Acacius should be off the table. No: name variety is lovely and I am fresh from seeing many, many classroom valentines-exchange lists containing many surprising names. It’s more that I think it’s a good idea to go into such a choice with a firm grasp of the context in which the name will be used once it is off of the ideas list and onto the actual person. “Can you change Achilles’s diaper?” and “Acacius, how many times do I have to tell you to put the toilet seat down??” and “Dinnertime, Aquila!”<\/p>\n

Here’s another exercise for getting names to click out of the theoretical: Go to a public place where there is a wide variety of people of a wide variety of ages\/types (a mall is perfect, if you have one near you). Bring your name lists with you, and sit where you can see lots of people (near the food court is my favorite). One at a time, take a name from the list, and apply it to a bunch of people of various ages. “That baby’s name is Killian. That toddler’s name is Killian. His father’s name is Killian. That elderly man’s name is Killian. The custodian’s name is Killian. The clerk at the crepes stand is also named Killian.” Does the name WORK? Do you think, “Yeah, that fits a nice variety of people!”<\/p>\n

I know you’ve heard me say this a million times before, but I strongly encourage shifting the goal away from perfection if at all possible. Especially when you are naming just one child, I think there can be a feeling almost as if there is One Best Name, and that this is your one chance to use it, and that you must find it. But there are lots and lots of names that would work well for any given baby, and the parents’ only real responsibility is to choose something the baby can later write on their homework and say to the barista and give to the receptionist when they arrive for their appointment. A name can be a delightful, meaningful, beautiful thing, but it is at its heart a PRACTICAL thing, and so as long as you are making a good faith effort to give him a good, useful name, everything is going to be fine.<\/p>\n

Lucian, Lucan, Finan, Finnan, Finian—those all seem to me to fit the bill. It’s hard to predict which names will rise to the point where their popularity may cause you regret; at some point I think the only thing to do is pick your favorite and hope for the best.<\/p>\n

If you wanted to add more contenders to the list (and perhaps at this late point that would be unhelpful), I notice a LOT of K\/Q\/hard-C and L sounds in your lists. I might skim one more time through the boy-name section of a baby name book, saying each one aloud briskly and scanning for those sounds. Aidric, Alec, Arlo, Brannock, Brecken, Broderick, Calder, Callan, Calvin, Clark, Declan, Kellan, Lachlan, etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings, Swistle: My husband and I are expecting a boy towards the end of February. We plan to have only one child. We briefly discussed names before we found out the gender at 12 weeks but we both had initially agreed on Vesper or Vespera for a girl. Middle name for a boy or girl […]<\/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-14538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3Mu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14538","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=14538"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14544,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14538\/revisions\/14544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}