{"id":15419,"date":"2021-05-26T09:57:26","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T13:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15419"},"modified":"2021-05-26T14:45:33","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T18:45:33","slug":"baby-girl-or-boy-w00d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2021\/05\/26\/baby-girl-or-boy-w00d\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl or Boy W00d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello<\/p>\n

I am so excited to be able to email you a baby naming question! I have been reading your blog for years. After being together for 12 years, and talking about baby names almost that whole time, my partner and I are expecting our first baby in early October.<\/p>\n

I am Emily and my partner is Scott. Baby will have last name W00d. We are not finding out the sex until birth.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve found the surname can be tricky to match names with and we\u2019re definitely after a minimum 2 syllable name to go with it. We\u2019ve got a few names for each sex on the shortlist but we\u2019re not entirely sold and would like some more top contenders for firsts and middles to choose from after giving birth. We have been poring over lists and have not come across a new name to add since before I was pregnant.<\/p>\n

Our style seems to be Grandpa\/Grandma names with our girl names leaning more eclectic.<\/p>\n

Our current short list for girls is:<\/p>\n

– Norah
\n– Veda (Vay-DUH). I know this spelling will likely be mispronounced but it\u2019s just how I have always seen it in my head. I am worried that if we were lucky enough to have a second baby that our other girl names would clash with this.
\n– Violet, we have loved this forever but it now feels a bit overused, and not so fresh to us any more. Could be a middle name.<\/p>\n

Middle name contenders:
\n– June, My late Nan\u2019s name.
\n– Primrose, my partner absolutely adores this as a first name. It\u2019s a bit too out there for me and I don\u2019t like to be nickname Rose\/Rosie nor the combination with the surname.<\/p>\n

Names we have like the sound of but not quite enough to use are Luna, Lola and Delilah. Partner loves Layla and Summer but I\u2019m not keen on them.<\/p>\n

We are steering away from any names starting with an El\/Ella sound due to a niece\u2019s name. Otherwise I would have had Eleanor and Luella on the list too.<\/p>\n

Our current short list for boys is:
\n– Calvin
\n– Walter. Love the WW sound but worried about the nickname Wally- Wally W00d?!
\n– Marshall, this may also be a middle name contender.<\/p>\n

The only other middle name in contention at the moment is Scott for my partner. He also has his Dad\u2019s first name as his middle name.<\/p>\n

Names that I love that my partner has vetoed:
\n– Otis
\n– Casper
\n– Felix
\n– Arthur
\n– Theodore ( as well as any name that leads to nickname Ted)
\n– Angus<\/p>\n

I\u2019d so appreciate if you\u2019re able to answer my question. Thank you :)<\/p>\n

Emily<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

For girls, I think pronouncing Veda vay-DUH would be an ongoing permanent hassle (I am not even sure I quite know how to pronounce it that way—it’s like trying to pronounce Norah nor-RAH) [edit for clarification<\/strong>: it’s the emphasis on the second syllable that’s the issue here, not the vay- or the -duh], and it sounds like you are a little tired of Violet and also Violet W00d is fairly noun-y, so it seems like Norah is the winner from that list. Then it’s a matter of choosing the middle name, which is a delightful task because everything sounds good. Norah Violet! Norah June! Norah Primrose!<\/p>\n

If I were you, I might want to save June for a possible future first name (I know you are looking for more syllables, but I think June W00d works very nicely, and Norah and June is a lovely sister pairing), and so I would choose between Violet and Primrose. Except, hm, I am very keen on using honor names, and so if you KNOW you won’t use June as a future first name, then I would use Norah June now. Particularly if the child’s surname is your partner’s family’s name, it’s nice to get in a name from your family as well. Another option is to use as a middle name whichever parent’s family surname is not being used as the baby’s surname.<\/p>\n

For boys, we have a similar situation: Walter feels like it’s out (Wally W00d immediately snaps into place as A Name I Would Not Want for Myself), and it feels like you’re less enthusiastic about Marshall, so it seems like Calvin is the winner from that list. Then it’s the fun of choosing a middle name. I am disinclined toward using your partner’s first name as the middle name if you’re already using your partner’s family name as the surname. I like Calvin Walter as a way to get the name Walter without the Wally W00d issue. I like Calvin Marshall, too. And just as we considered your partner’s adored Primrose as a middle name candidate, the names on his veto list are good contenders as middle names for Calvin. Calvin Casper! Calvin Felix! Calvin Theodore! Etc.<\/p>\n

I’d also suggest looking for middle names from your side of the family, again to balance the use of your partner’s surname. (If I am mis-guessing that you’re using his surname for the baby, and I might very well be since you’re looking for multi-syllable names even though your partner’s first name is one syllable, let me know and I will re-write the post to adjust for that.)<\/p>\n

One more thing. You mention you’re finding the surname W00d difficult to work with. I want to make sure you have considered the possibility of using the other parent’s surname for the baby. It seems like such an obvious thing to consider, but many parents never really think of it as an option, even when the chosen surname is ruling out many of their favorite first names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello I am so excited to be able to email you a baby naming question! I have been reading your blog for years. After being together for 12 years, and talking about baby names almost that whole time, my partner and I are expecting our first baby in early October. I am Emily and 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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-40H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15419","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=15419"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15426,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15419\/revisions\/15426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}