{"id":15083,"date":"2020-12-07T11:20:42","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T15:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15083"},"modified":"2021-01-27T14:14:42","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T18:14:42","slug":"baby-girl-otherword-mitten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2020\/12\/07\/baby-girl-otherword-mitten\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Otherword-Mitten"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n

I’ll preface this by saying that my actual problem might just be that the prospect of naming a whole entire person is too daunting, having never met the child in question. But possibly I’ve just given myself too many options to consider and that’s what’s overwhelming? At any rate, I’m turning to you, the best naming advice-giver\/therapist on these internets.<\/p>\n

My husband and I are expecting our first (likely only) child, a girl due in about 8 weeks. He and I share a first initial, so we have at least rejected all names beginning with the letter J (including Josephine, which is a favorite and thus contender for a middle name.) She’ll get both our last names, so her last name will sound something like Otherword-Mitten (to hyphenate or not, another thing I have too much time to consider in These Times!)<\/p>\n

When we learned the baby’s sex, we came up with a fairly long list of potential names and have tried out one name a week from the list since. Names we both like go on a list on the fridge with potential middles in a column next to each. We’ve been at it for a while, and maybe the novelty of the game has worn off, but we haven’t come up with a fridge name in well over a month. (This week is Victoria, and we are both meh on it.) One major similarity between the fridge names is multiple nickname options. The name Charlotte (nn Charlie) would, I think, be number one on both our lists, but my parents picked a very, very popular name for me and I’m not interested in doing that for our child, so Charlotte is a no-go.<\/p>\n

The fridge names:
\nLiliana (a name he and I have liked for years and years as a hypothetical, but now feels like maybe it’s lost a bit of its sparkle for me that I’m considering using it for a real person? He still loves it.)
\nPenelope
\nRamona
\nRosalie (I love this, he is less enamored.)
\nTheodora<\/p>\n

Every time we look at the list now, we’re just not enthused. Is it decision fatigue or have we just not hit on the right option? Any help is greatly appreciated!<\/p>\n

Thank you so much,
\nJen<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wait, let’s not be too quick to give up on a name that is #1 for both of you. I can see why you’d feel that way, but the name Jennifer was its own phenomenon: no subsequent name has come ANYWHERE NEAR that level of popularity. I don’t know why I don’t jot this down so I don’t have to look it up every time, but let me see if I can find the peak year for the name Jennifer. Ah, here we go: in 1974, it was used for 4.03% of baby girls born in the United States. Additionally, the name was in the Top Ten for TWENTY-SIX YEARS IN A ROW (1966-1991), and it was #1 for FIFTEEN of those years (1970-1984), and it didn’t even drop out of the Top 50 until 2006, so the Jennifer Saturation was INTENSE and LENGTHY, making it FEEL even more popular that it was—and it was very popular.<\/p>\n

The name Charlotte, on the other hand, has been in the Top Ten for six years, none of those years yet at #1. Its highest usage was in 2019, when it was used for .72% of baby girls. Jennifer was used at 5-6 TIMES that rate. For every FIVE TO SIX Jennifers back then, there is only ONE Charlotte now. When you were in school, I’ll bet you frequently had another Jennifer in your classroom with you, sometimes two other Jennifers. Think back: did you ever have FIVE more Jennifers with you in a single classroom? That is approximately how often there are two Charlottes in a classroom now.<\/p>\n

Of course, those are national statistics: some locations are going to have more Charlottes than that, and in others there will be almost no Charlottes. We’ve all heard\/experienced situations where someone chose, say, Juniper to avoid the popularity of Harper, and then there happened to be three Junipers and no Harpers in that grade. There were THREE Roberts (.48% usage nationally) in Elizabeth’s classroom one year, and three Josephs (.90% national usage) (all three going by Joey, and two of them having the same middle name, and a different two having the same surname initial) in Edward’s class another year: statistics are broad, and local anomalies happen. But IN GENERAL, the name Charlotte is not even in the same orbit\/league as the name Jennifer—NO name is now in the same orbit\/league as the name Jennifer, nor has any name come close in recent years: even extremely popular names max out at about 1\/3rd-1\/4th Jennifer’s usage, and for much shorter reigns.<\/p>\n

Well. Let’s look at the other names on the list. I do think a certain level of fatigue can set in, and that you’re right that the weight of responsibility makes it harder—and especially if you’re thinking this might be The Only Name You Ever Choose. I don’t know if this will help you, but it helped me: your parental responsibility is to give her a good solid usable name. It doesn’t have to be The Best Name or The Perfect Name or the name that shines out obviously as The One. She just needs something to write on her homework papers, and for you to call out when it’s time for dinner. Think of long-ago generations of parents, who were just like “I don’t know, I guess Mary for a girl, John for a boy.” They did not sweat the way we sweat. They just picked one of the dozen or so names that were commonly used, and they went on with their lives.<\/p>\n

All of the names are your list are good, solid, usable names; you can’t go wrong here. And I don’t see any style concerns to work through: that is, if your girl-name list were Josephine, Charlotte, Avery, and Riley, I would suggest narrowing down your style before starting the naming process, so you don’t get backed into a corner later on if you were to change your mind about having more children. But all the names on your list are of compatible\/adjacent styles: even if you were to have more children, I don’t think you’re going to use Charlotte and then be having another baby and think “Oh no, none of our other girl names work with Charlotte!”<\/p>\n

One exercise I used to narrow down my own list was to imagine the kids sitting around the dinner table, or draped around the living room. Which sorts of names feel like “my kids”? Or I would imagine giving the name at the doctor’s office, or writing it on school registration paperwork. Maybe ALL the names sound a little funny, just because it’s hard to picture theoretical kids—but some names felt more comfortable\/natural than others.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it helps to look for similar names (whatever similarity looks like to the particular parents), if only to rule them out and feel more strongly about the originals. Charlotte might lead me to Scarlet and Violet and Juliet (I remember the no J’s rule, but am including it just as part of the exercise) and Celeste; Liliana to Vivienne and Eliana and Lillian and Jillian and Lydia; Victoria to Veronica and Bianca and Catherine; Penelope to Calliope and Phoebe and Eleanor and Philippa; Ramona to Simone and Fiona; Rosalie to Rosemary and Natalie and Romilly; Theodora to Dorothea and Cordelia and Thomasina and Claudia and Georgia.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it helps to simplify the name: Liliana to options such as Lily and Anna; Penelope to Nell and Elle; Rosalie to Rose and Leigh and Lia; Theodora to Thea. And you can play with those pieces, too: maybe you take the Anna and the Elle and it makes you think of Annabel. Or the Nell of Penelope makes you think of other names Nell can be short for, such as Eleanor. Maybe you’re thinking about how you’d like to use the nickname Lottie for a Charlotte, and that makes you think of Lettie and Etta and Hattie, and you end up considering Violet and Henrietta and Harriet. Or maybe you’re dividing Theodora, and you think of Dora but don’t want to use that, but Dora makes you think of Nora and Cora, and Cora makes you think of Clara, and so on.<\/p>\n

Because you like Josephine and Ramona, I’d like to specifically draw your attention to the names Fiona and Simone. Both are relatively uncommon, yet easy to pronounce and spell. They both seem like they’d work well with a longer surname.<\/p>\n

And Theodora and Liliana make me think of Lydia, which would let you still use Josephine as the middle. Lydia Josephine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Dear Swistle,
\nLiliana Josephine joined us in the wee hours of Saturday morning! We love her and her name and all the many, many nicknames she’s already inspired.
\nThanks again for tackling my question!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle, I’ll preface this by saying that my actual problem might just be that the prospect of naming a whole entire person is too daunting, having never met the child in question. But possibly I’ve just given myself too many options to consider and that’s what’s overwhelming? At any rate, I’m turning to you, […]<\/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-15083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3Vh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15083","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=15083"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15213,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15083\/revisions\/15213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}