{"id":15042,"date":"2020-11-23T09:15:34","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T13:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15042"},"modified":"2020-11-22T15:21:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-22T19:21:49","slug":"baby-boy-stuart-brother-to-finn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2020\/11\/23\/baby-boy-stuart-brother-to-finn\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Stuart, Brother to Finn"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning, Swistle!<\/p>\n

We’re looking for some input on naming our second little boy, due in May 2021! Older brother is Finn Alden, last name is like Stuart. The middle name for this new baby boy will be Albert, which is an honor name from the husband’s side. This is our last baby! I love Finn because it feels sweet, it’s trendy but not “new” by any means. I’m usually fairly old fashioned in my name preferences, though. Below are our name finalists, though open to suggestions too!<\/p>\n

Finalists:
\nDax – short and feels trendy like Finn, but is it too trendy? It doesn’t have the history of the other names on the list. But we do like the sci-fi connections of both Finn and Dax, and the one-syllable-ness sounds good with the mn and ln to my ears.
\nDuncan – feels sweet like Finn; means “dark warrior” while Finn means “white, fair,” which could be a cute contrast (though Albert means “noble, bright”)
\nNewton – husband LOVES this name, but I can’t quite get there though it has the Harry Potter connection. Is it *too* odd? Does Finn & Newton sound too much like “Fig Newton”?
\nJude – my mother’s name is Judy and Judith was always my top girl name pick. But Jude feels a little “cool” for a nerdy family? Also the mn choice Albert is already an honor name from my husband’s side.
\nStanley – love the sound with our last name. Cute for a little one. Don’t know how it will age with him.<\/p>\n

P.S. I would probably name the baby Gilbert (after Anne of Green Gables) if my husband didn’t HATE it.
\nThanks so much!
\nBethany<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Normally I am in favor of using honor names unaltered. But I know not everyone feels the same about that, so I will mention that I notice that your favorite boy name, Gilbert, is similar to the honor name you’re planning to use from your husband’s side, Albert, and I wonder if some compromise could be reached there.<\/p>\n

Speaking more generally, I recommend parents periodically check in on the balance of the names: not with the goal of careful score-keeping and exact equality (there are many legitimate reasons for things to be uneven), but just to see if there are places where one parent might agree that the other parent should have a little more say this time, which can make the naming decision easier overall. So for example, looking at the six names total for both children: Are the surnames from your husband’s side of the family? Is Alden an honor name, and if so, from which side of the family? Did either parent have more say in your first son’s first\/middle name? And so on.<\/p>\n

On to the names. I’m afraid I did go right to Fig Newton. I’m not saying it’s reasonable, I’m not denying that my brain is currently in a heightened state of election\/pandemic-related anxiety that may be altering my sensitivity to such things; I am only saying that yes, when I said “Finn and Newton,” I immediately thought of Fig Newtons.<\/p>\n

And it feels fair to me, too, that Newton and Gilbert would both be eliminated: when a naming decision is difficult, the names that get cut from the first round are the ones that are very high for one parent and very low for the other. In fact, have I talked about that naming exercise recently? Here it is: Each parent writes down all the names under joint consideration, in order of preference. It is fine to rank more than one name the same; for example, you might have a list that looks like this:<\/p>\n

Gilbert 1
\nDuncan 2
\nDax 2
\nJude 3
\nStanley 3
\nNewton 4<\/p>\n

And maybe your husband’s list would look like this:<\/p>\n

Newton 1
\nDax 2
\nJude 2
\nDuncan 2
\nStanley 3
\nGilbert 4<\/p>\n

Looking at those two lists together, we can see that we won’t maximize joint happiness by using either Gilbert or Newton. (Those can be set aside as compromise material: perhaps one parent will agree to a particular first name if they can have their “this was never going to be the first name” choice as the middle name.) We can also see in this fake example that Stanley is a third-tier name for both parents, so it’s unlikely to be the winner when both parents have Dax and Duncan rated as second-tier choices. (I hate to do this to the name Stanley, even as a pretend thing!)<\/p>\n

When I look at the list, two names stand out to me as being particularly good with Finn. One is Duncan, and the other is Jude. For me, the family connection of Jude is enough to tip it: I LOVE the idea of naming your son after your mother, and to me it’s a plus that it balances the honor middle name (and surname, if applicable) from your husband’s side. I do think the name Jude is a little cool, but (1) I also think the name Finn is a little cool and (2) I feel like the honor-name explanation really helps.<\/p>\n

And I think the name Dax has even more of the “Is this a little too cool?” issue, plus it’s a little hard to say with the surname.<\/p>\n

To go back to Duncan: I do think that works beautifully, too. Without an honor connection, I would be very torn between Duncan and Jude.<\/p>\n

I like the name Stanley so much, I want you to use it and I don’t want to take it off the list—but to me it doesn’t fit as well with Finn. It feels like a generational jump and a style mismatch. I would use the name Stanley with brother names like Franklin or Warren.<\/p>\n

Let’s see if we can find some more names to consider.<\/p>\n

Callum; Finn and Callum
\nDean; Finn and Dean
\nDeclan; Finn and Declan
\nEli; Finn and Eli
\nHenry; Finn and Henry
\nKeane; Finn and Keane
\nKeegan; Finn and Keegan
\nLeo; Finn and Leo
\nMilo; Finn and Milo
\nPerry; Finn and Perry
\nReid; Finn and Reid
\nShay; Finn and Shay
\nTeague; Finn and Teague
\nWesley; Finn and Wesley<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning, Swistle! We’re looking for some input on naming our second little boy, due in May 2021! Older brother is Finn Alden, last name is like Stuart. The middle name for this new baby boy will be Albert, which is an honor name from the husband’s side. This is our last baby! I 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-15042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3UC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15042","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=15042"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15046,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15042\/revisions\/15046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}