{"id":15190,"date":"2021-01-24T12:06:41","date_gmt":"2021-01-24T16:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15190"},"modified":"2021-04-26T09:54:22","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T13:54:22","slug":"baby-boy-mckowan-with-a-g-brother-to-abigail-abby-theresa-reese-josephine-josie-and-elizabeth-lizzie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2021\/01\/24\/baby-boy-mckowan-with-a-g-brother-to-abigail-abby-theresa-reese-josephine-josie-and-elizabeth-lizzie\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy McKowan-with-a-G, Brother to Abigail (Abby), Theresa (Reese), Josephine (Josie), and Elizabeth (Lizzie)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi, Swistle!<\/p>\n

I am so thankful that someone recommended your blog recently, but I sure could’ve used it sooner! We have 4 girls and are currently expecting baby #5 (likely our last) who is due in April. We were shocked to find out that this one is a boy; I was convinced that my husband and I only made girls!<\/p>\n

So here’s the issue: my husband and I have never discussed boy names. He has always refused to talk names until we knew the gender, so we have a long list of girl names but had to start from scratch for boy names. I feel like boy names are so much harder!<\/p>\n

My current favorite is Theodore\/Theo, but then in my relatively small facebook due date group, there are three other moms who are naming their sons Theo! So now I’m worried that Theo is going to be crazy popular. We’re considering using the middle name Joseph so we could use TJ, but I don’t know if I love that. Other names we are considering: Alexander, Nathan, Benjamin, & Christopher. But none of those really feel right at the moment. I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on what would work for our family! \ud83d\udc99<\/p>\n

The important details:<\/p>\n

-Surname is McKowan with a G
\n-We are very big on traditional names with nicknames and would like to continue this with our son’s name
\n-Siblings are: Abigail Jane (Abby), Theresa Ann (Reese), Josephine Margaret (Josie), and Elizabeth Grace (Lizzie)
\n-Girl names from previous lists include: Rebecca (Becca), Catherine (Cate), Cassandra (Cassie), and Julianne (Julie\/Jules)
\n-Boy names that I like but have been nixed for various reasons: Michael, Robert, Patrick, Jonathan\/John, & Joshua<\/p>\n

Thank you so very much!
\nMelissa<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

For decades, the name Theodore has been bopping around in the 200s\/300s of baby name rankings, not really going much up or down. But then recently:<\/p>\n

\"\"

(image from ssa.gov)<\/p><\/div>\n

Meanwhile, look at what the name Theo has been up to (notice the lowest three years are from the 1940s, after which there was a big gap when the name wasn’t even in the Top 1000):<\/p>\n

\"\"

(image from ssa.gov)<\/p><\/div>\n

My own naming style for boys is Top 50 names, so for ME, these charts would be good news: “Yay, the name is finally common enough that I feel I can use it!” But even I would feel a little trepidation at the speed of the rise: maybe it will come to a stop in the 30s! maybe it will peak and start drifting back down! but maybe not.<\/p>\n

I do think it’s a nice level of popularity with his sisters’ names. According to the Social Security Administration<\/a>, the name Abigail was in the Top Ten from 2001 to 2017, and in 2019 was #11. The name Josephine is rising in popularity, and in 2019 was #89. The name Elizabeth has been in the Top Ten or near it for decades. The name Theresa, while not currently in the Top 1000, is familiar and feels more common than it is.<\/p>\n

It bothers me just a teensy bit that the name Theodore would repeat the first three letters of Theresa. The three letters are pronounced entirely differently, and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. The nickname Reese makes it much less of an issue.<\/p>\n

I too find boy names more difficult. With girl names, I look for Love, and have more than I need to choose from, and in fact get overwhelmed by all the wonderful names I won’t get to use. With boy names, I try to narrow it down to a list of Can’t Go Wrong choices (good solid names that feel like they’d work just fine for us), and then let one rise gradually to the top.<\/p>\n

Your boy name list is in the same basic range as mine, with some overlap. I don’t think you can go wrong with any of those. Benjamin is the one that catches my eye: I feel like it has the same traditional\/warm feeling as your girl names, and I find the nickname group particularly charming. Abigail, Theresa, Josephine, Elizabeth, and Benjamin; Abby, Reese, Josie, Lizzie, and Ben.<\/p>\n

But let’s see if we can make the list of candidates a little longer: I’ll add some from my own boy-name list, plus others that seem like they might work well.<\/p>\n

Abigail, Theresa, Josephine, Elizabeth, and:\/
\nAbby, Reese, Josie, Lizzie, and:<\/p>\n

August\/Gus
\nCalvin\/Cal
\nCharles\/Charlie
\nDaniel\/Dan
\nEdward\/Ted\/Ned
\nFranklin\/Frank
\nFrederick\/Fred
\nHenry\/Hank
\nIsaac\/Ike
\nJames\/Jamie\/Jimmy (retro nicknames seem to be coming back into style)
\nJulian\/Jules
\nLouis\/Lou
\nNicholas\/Nick\/Cole
\nOliver\/Ollie
\nWesley\/Wes<\/p>\n

This sounds like something you have already considered and decided on, but just in case, I wanted to mention that it is not uncommon for parents to have different naming styles for boys than for girls. It is possible that you are stuck because you’re trying to use your girl-name style on boy names. Or maybe not: very possibly your boy-name style IS the same as your girl-name style! But if you continue to feel as if nothing is right, it could be a helpful exercise to go back to the name books and pretend for a moment that this is your very first child, and make a list of boy names you like—even if they’re not traditional and\/or don’t have good nicknames. I kept finding names I wanted to suggest, and then reluctantly putting them aside because they didn’t meet one of the preferences:<\/p>\n

Clark
\nDavis
\nDean
\nElliot (same first three letters as Elizabeth)
\nEverett
\nGeorge
\nIan
\nMiles
\nNolan
\nPaul
\nSimon
\nWarren (probably not right after using Elizabeth)<\/p>\n

(And some of those could have nicknames by the method you mentioned of using initials.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

First of all, a huge thank you to Swistle and to everyone who shared opinions and ideas on my post! My husband and I decided to go back to the drawing board and not put any restrictions on ourselves. We decided against Theodore because although I love the nickname Theo, I just didn’t see myself ever using the whole name, and that didn’t sit well with me. We did decide, however, that we still wanted a traditional name with a nickname.<\/p>\n

Our sweet baby was born last week, and we named him Andrew Joseph. We want to let his personality choose the nickname he’ll eventually be called (AJ, Andy, Drew??); we love all the options! Thank you again for your help!<\/p>\n

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

Hi, Swistle! I am so thankful that someone recommended your blog recently, but I sure could’ve used it sooner! We have 4 girls and are currently expecting baby #5 (likely our last) who is due in April. We were shocked to find out that this one is a boy; I was convinced that my husband […]<\/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-15190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3X0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15190","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=15190"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15373,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15190\/revisions\/15373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}