{"id":15196,"date":"2021-01-26T10:48:19","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T14:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15196"},"modified":"2021-05-11T15:07:47","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T19:07:47","slug":"baby-girl-or-boy-molly-ache-elle-sibling-to-george-gil-and-malcolm-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2021\/01\/26\/baby-girl-or-boy-molly-ache-elle-sibling-to-george-gil-and-malcolm-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl or Boy Molly-Ache-Elle, Sibling to George (Gil) and Malcolm (Mac)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello!<\/p>\n

You helped name our second baby 5 years ago and now we have a (surprise) 3rd baby on the way – due in May.<\/p>\n

Our last name is pronounced Molly-Ache-Elle.<\/p>\n

The sibling names are:
\nGeorge Lindsey – called Gil
\nMalcolm Joseph – called Mac<\/p>\n

George is my father in law and Malcolm is my grandfather. The kids\u2019 middle names are my husband (Joseph) and my own (Lindsey) names.<\/p>\n

My husband and I have never had an easy time naming our kids – we come from VERY different naming traditions. His family is catholic and from India – where the naming traditions are very strong and quite narrow. I\u2019m a west coast kid with total free reign on naming.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know the sex, but the boys name has pretty much sorted itself out this time – so now we are trying to negotiate girls\u2019 names.<\/p>\n

Last time around our name option for a girl would have been Margaret Akslen – called Greta. I still LOVE this name and have had a hard time hearing that my husband doesn\u2019t want to just go with this name for this kid.<\/p>\n

My husbands family traditions would have the baby be named Anne or Mary. I am ok with Anne as a middle name but don\u2019t feel close to either name as a first name. And there have been two girls born in his family this year who were named Ann and Joanne.<\/p>\n

I tried to brainstorm a list of names that have a nod to Anne or Mary that I am more drawn to like:<\/p>\n

– Jilliann (sounds too close to Gil)
\n– Annalise and Annaleigh (I like these names but my husband had a negative reaction because of the word anal)
\n– Mariella (feels like a lot with our last name and \u2018ella\u2019 as a nickname is too close to many great kids I already know)<\/p>\n

Names I love if I weren\u2019t bound by traditions:
\nTessa
\nJoelle
\nEvangeline
\nLauryn\/Laurel
\nAnd of course – the name Greta (short for Margaret) is still my absolute favorite<\/p>\n

The middle name would likely be Anne (if the first name doesn\u2019t nod to it) or Akslen (my grandmothers maiden name) depending…<\/p>\n

Any ideas or cautions as my husband and I continue our wrangling? Reference to the last time you helped: Baby Boy or Girl Molly-Ache-Elle, Sibling to George (Gil)<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks for your help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last time I suggested using a traditional\/family name to please your husband, on the condition that you get to choose the child’s everyday-use name (even if it is unconnected to the given name)—which is roughly how things went with your first child, where George is your husband’s father’s name, but you call him Gil. Both names start with G, if we are looking for a way to connect the given name and the nickname, but it’s not even the same kind of G, so I feel like there is some flexibility here. I know you said you’d rather not do that kind of deal again, and I am keeping that in mind—but it feels like it may be the loophole we need to make things work.<\/p>\n

The first thing that leaps out at me is that Evangeline from your list seems like it counts as a nod to Anne from his list. This is probably where I would try to lock down the deal, if I were you. Evangeline Akslen Molly-Ache-Elle; George, Malcolm, and Evangeline; Gil, Mac, and whatever nickname you have in mind for her. I might even compromise on Evangeline Mary Molly-Ache-Elle, if that would get it done.<\/p>\n

The second thing I notice is that Tessa can be a nickname for Therese, a saint name. George, Malcolm, and Therese; Gil, Mac, and Tessa. (She’d also have the option of going by Reese, or of course Terry.)<\/p>\n

The third thing I notice is that the first three letters of Margaret are the same three letters as Mary. Can we not do a bit of a REACH here? “Look, if we erase the top of the -g-, it looks even more like Mary!” I’m holding out some hope that this will be one of those letters we get where the husband didn’t want to use a certain name, but then after the baby is born he changes his mind. Perhaps the baby will just LOOK like a little Margaret\/Greta!<\/p>\n

Or perhaps we could use a double or hyphen first name: Mary Margaret or Mary-Margaret, called Greta; Anne Margaret or Anne-Margaret, called Greta. If family names and traditions are of top importance to him, he may have to bend on other things.<\/p>\n

Annabel is pretty. What could we do with a nickname there? Bella might have the same issue as Ella; Annie is sweet but it seems like if you liked it you would already have mentioned it.<\/p>\n

Maribel is pretty, too, but again I don’t know if the nickname works out, and it is a lot with the surname.<\/p>\n

Annika, with a nickname of Nika? Maybe a bit much with the surname. I remember this from last time: I kept thinking of names with crisp c\/k sounds and a lot of L and\/or M!<\/p>\n

Would Marilla feel like it honored a Mary? But it too repeats a lot of sounds from the surname.<\/p>\n

Or Rosemary. Nickname Rose or Rosie or Romy or Rory? George, Malcolm, and Rosemary; Gil, Mac, and Romy.<\/p>\n

Could we do a giant double-honor first name, such as Marianna or Annamaria or Anne-Mary, in trade for Greta as the nickname? There’s no name police here. I went to school with a Michael who was called Scott because his parents couldn’t agree, and we all took that explanation in stride. On the first day of class, the teacher would say “Michael?” and he’d say “Here! But I go by Scott,” and the teacher would make a note, and we’d be done.<\/p>\n

In fact, it’s really common for boys to go by totally different names, in part because of the commonness of boys being named after their family traditions\/ancestors and needing a different daily name (and\/or needing a compromise name for the other parent to agree to letting her husband’s ancestors name her baby). In my circle of friends\/acquaintances\/classmates I can think off the top of my head of a Howard called Scott, a Gary called Jason, a Robert called Jay, a Thomas called Adam, etc. No reason in the world we can’t do the same with girls’ names.<\/p>\n

And I am feeling not just sad but also angry that you have a list of names you would like to use if you weren’t bound by tradition—and not even bound by YOUR traditions, but by your HUSBAND’S FAMILY’S traditions. Excuse me, but how did we get to this place where one parent’s family traditions bind THE OTHER PARENT? How do we START the naming process by letting one parent’s traditions narrow it all down, as if that were a real requirement? What if BOTH parents had Strong Important Traditions? If HE wants to use HIS family’s traditions to guide\/narrow HIS name list, then fine! But his name list shouldn’t outrank yours, just because his ancestors tried to call dibs on all future generations of baby naming.<\/p>\n

I can’t tell if Anne and Mary are from his side, your side, or one of each. Another compromise I might suggest is His First Choice of Names from Your Finalist List + His First Choice of Middle Name.<\/p>\n

Last time you mentioned your husband was also open to biblical\/saint names, and I wonder if we might look that direction again, especially with babies Ann and Joanne already in the extended family.<\/p>\n

For biblical names, I love Esther, Ruth, Claudia, Lydia, Lois, Elizabeth, Eve, Susanna (Anne!), Miriam (Mary!), Naomi.<\/p>\n

I don’t know the saints’ stories so I am pulling these from The Baby Name Wizard<\/a>‘s list without taking into consideration what each one is a saint FOR:<\/p>\n

Ada
\nAntonia
\nAugusta (Gussie)
\nBeatrix
\nCecily
\nClaire
\nElodie
\nFelicity
\nFlora
\nGenevieve
\nJosephina
\nJosephine
\nJuliana (Anne!)
\nLouisa
\nMatilda (Tilly)
\nPhilomena
\nSophronia (Phronsie)
\nVeronica
\nVivian
\nWinifred (Winnie\/Freddie)<\/p>\n

Several of these are such favorites of mine I have trouble not pushing them on you (Winifred!! Felicity!! Flora!! Genevieve!! Louisa!! etc.!!). I also love love love Josephine, and I wonder if it would be fun to name a girl for her father, or if we want to deliberately not do that. (It doesn’t bother me that one of her brothers has the middle name Joseph, except that it means honoring him twice, which seems unbalanced. But using an honor middle from your side would help.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Thank you so much for your help with this one! We had a little girl at the end of April. My goal was to go in with two name possibilities to the hospital and after many hours of conversation- we had both agreed on Margaret or Evangeline. I was still secretly hoping for Margaret since I had been advocating for that name from the beginning and really had to wade through my husband\u2019s ambivalent feelings about it. But surprisingly- after she was born we both agreed she just wasn\u2019t a Margaret!
\nWe went back to the drawing board for a bit but eventually came back to Evangeline and I gave in to the middle name Marie to ensure we were honoring some of the family naming conventions. So now she is Evangeline Marie – and we have been calling her EvaMarie! Her brothers are thrilled – as are we.
\nThanks for helping move that name to the front of the list!<\/p>\n

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

Hello! You helped name our second baby 5 years ago and now we have a (surprise) 3rd baby on the way – due in May. Our last name is pronounced Molly-Ache-Elle. The sibling names are: George Lindsey – called Gil Malcolm Joseph – called Mac George is my father in law and Malcolm is my […]<\/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-15196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3X6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15196","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=15196"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15395,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15196\/revisions\/15395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}