{"id":15474,"date":"2021-06-19T10:10:56","date_gmt":"2021-06-19T14:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15474"},"modified":"2021-06-23T14:15:20","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T18:15:20","slug":"baby-boy-or-girl-kormushoff-remi-sunshine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2021\/06\/19\/baby-boy-or-girl-kormushoff-remi-sunshine\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy or Girl Kormushoff; Remi Sunshine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Swistle community,<\/p>\n

Thank you for considering our baby naming adventure!<\/p>\n

To say we are thrilled to welcome this baby at the start of August is an understatement. Our journey to this point was a long and hard one and we are so grateful to have this little one in our family at long last. This is our first and I have been baby crazy for oh say 20 years with a long list of names I loved to refine through the years. Through all the years I had the tendency to think about names in groupings – a little duo of a first and middle name.<\/p>\n

That’s where the fun twist comes in. To shorten a long and personal story, during an especially dark time of the TTC (trying to conceive) journey my cousin who is like a sister had a dream that I had a baby named Remi Sunshine. I latched onto her dream and it pulled me through an extremely tough time – I made Remi Sunshine all my passwords, my visualizing exercises and my efforts to have some trust and faith that our Remi Sunshine would make their way to us had me using this name for 5 months before I got pregnant…and then once pregnant I knew this was our little Remi Sunshine. I’ve been through so much with this name I can’t leave it behind now, and luckily my husband is on board to incorporate Remi or Sunshine as either the first or middle name.<\/p>\n

This makes my list pretty tricky since so many of my favorites had already been considered a pair.<\/p>\n

We are both fans of the name Remi for either boy or girl and I do think Sunshine could be really sweet for a girl. Baby’s last name will be my husband’s last name, Kormushoff, so not exactly a free flowing last name.<\/p>\n

We’re having a hard time deciding whether to incorporate Remi as a first or middle name, though we at least know that if it’s a girl Sunshine feels best as a middle name.<\/p>\n

Our favorite boy names:
\nCalvin
\nAugust (Gus)
\nHugh or Hugo
\nLouis
\nRoman<\/p>\n

Our favorite girl names:
\nLouisa
\nGemma
\nWilla
\nGeorgina
\nGenevieve
\nMarigold
\nMirabel
\nOphelia<\/p>\n

We are open to additional names to consider (particularly boy names because we find those harder) and would love thoughts on how to combine Remi or Sunshine for a name that feels like its own intentional duo.<\/p>\n

Thanks so much!
\nBrenna<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

I gave this a little time to simmer, and I can tell you that for myself, if this were my situation, I think there are three ways to handle this that would satisfy me.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Give the child the first\/middle names Remi Sunshine.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \n

    Give the child “Remi Sunshine” as the middle name. A child who doesn’t like any part of that middle name can drop one or the other on forms as they get older, but the whole name, as you have been using it, is included and intact. Calvin Remi Sunshine Kormushoff. Louisa Remi Sunshine Kormushoff. (Don’t be alarmed by HOW MUCH NAME this is. Middle names are used on the birth certificate and birth announcements, and then it’s pretty much just First Last from then until high school graduation. My daughter’s name, for example, is 30 letters long, divided among four names, and no one has ever said “Wow, that’s a lot of name!”—in large part because they only know her by her first\/last.) (Not that “a lot of name” is a bad thing, even if someone DID think\/say it! Think of the royals and their fabulous names that never quit!)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Give the child a name that does not include Remi or Sunshine, but then call the child Remi Sunshine interchangeably with their given name, as a special nickname that others may or may not pick up on. I’d probably make it a whole THING: personalized wall art with that nickname; “Remi Sunshine” on a baby blanket; etc.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    For ME (and this is going to be HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE, and it’s only YOUR OWN subjective that matters here, but input from others can help clarify your own feelings), it would not satisfy me to, for example, use Remi as the middle name without Sunshine, or Sunshine without Remi; the special name, to me, feels like it is “Remi Sunshine,” the whole thing.<\/p>\n

    In your case, since you say you’ve always imagined names in first-middle pairings, that second idea (using “Remi Sunshine” as the middle name) may not be what makes you happy. Or you might find that breaking up the firsts\/middles (especially when this is no longer a fun pre-baby game but is instead a two-parent job for a baby on the way) is one of the things you’re willing to do to make baby-naming work for this child and for this particular special name. It happens for most of us that there comes a point when two preferences are in opposition to each other, and in those situations the preferences need to be weighed: which is more important to you, giving this baby the name Remi Sunshine, or sticking with specific name pairings you came up with before the dream, before this baby?<\/p>\n

    I would like to add a possibility that you have likely already considered, but that many women don’t DEEP-DOWN consider until much later when they wonder why they didn’t: it doesn’t have to be your husband’s family surname. It could be yours, if yours is nicer and\/or works better. It’s not too late for this idea, even if you took your husband’s family surname when you married; that’s a decision that can be re-made at any time.<\/p>\n

    Because I had to look it up, I want to give some U.S. usage data about the names Remi and Sunshine. I think of Remi as a boy name (despite not knowing any children named Remi), but in the U.S. its usage<\/a> is currently unisex leaning girl: 2,185 new baby girls and 312 new baby boys named Remi in 2020; the spelling Remy was used for 610 new baby girls and 865 new baby boys. (Did the dream specify the spelling? or is “Remi” your cousin’s interpretation of the spelling? or is it YOUR interpretation of the spelling?) The name Sunshine, which could theoretically be a neutral noun name, and certainly should be usable as a middle name for boys alongside a trend of giving baby girls middle names such as James, was used in 2020 for 71 new baby girls, and there is no recorded use of it for boys (though of course we don’t know about middle-name usage). For better or worse (it’s worse), we as a culture think light pretty names are great for girls but not for boys. Still, I would feel comfortable using it as a second middle name for a boy, especially with the story to explain it. If he feels the negative pressure our culture asserts on topics such as this, then on the rare occasions when “What’s your middle name?” comes up, he can just say “Remi.” (But frankly, I would find it entirely charming to find out that a man’s second middle name was Sunshine, especially if he was kind of charmingly bashful about it, like he knew the information would surprise and delight.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Dear Swistle community, Thank you for considering our baby naming adventure! To say we are thrilled to welcome this baby at the start of August is an understatement. Our journey to this point was a long and hard one and we are so grateful to have this little one in our family at long last. […]<\/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-15474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-41A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15474","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=15474"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15490,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15474\/revisions\/15490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}