{"id":15691,"date":"2021-12-31T11:27:53","date_gmt":"2021-12-31T15:27:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15691"},"modified":"2022-03-28T12:37:26","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T16:37:26","slug":"baby-boy-whit-with-an-e-brother-to-fnley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2021\/12\/31\/baby-boy-whit-with-an-e-brother-to-fnley\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Whit-with-an-E, Brother to F!nley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello Swistle,<\/p>\n

Over three years ago, you and your commenters helped cement the name for my first-born son<\/a>. I wasn’t sure how to deal with honor names\/my desire to be equally represented in the naming of the baby. Ultimately, we named him F!nley D@vid Ru$$ with the last name Whit with an e at the end. His first name is his paternal great grandfather, last name is from my husband’s side (though I took his name) and second two names are my father’s name and my mother’s maiden name.<\/p>\n

We are expecting another boy in March and are struggling with names this time, again. Given our first-born got a name from my husband’s family, I’m sort of taking the lead in the first name for this one. To mirror how we named our first one, we have decided to give him my MIL’s maiden name as his 2nd middle name, so his last two names are set as Elliott and Whit with an e at the end. Finally, for a first middle name we are pretty set on honoring my family with either Brocke (my great grandfather) or Brandon (my brother).<\/p>\n

SO! That leads us to the first name, and we are struggling. Our first son’s name is rare-ish, especially for boys, and I love that but I’m struggling to find a similarly-situated name. I love nicknames and more classic names. Are we missing some obvious good choices? Or am I overthinking the less common\/more common combination of names?<\/p>\n

Right now our short list is:
\nCharles (my favorite, but I worry it is too common compared with big bro, the state where we live it’s in the top 10)
\nMalcolm (I loved for a while, but now my OB’s name is that…)
\nHenry (I love this name but it’s soo popular now)
\nLincoln
\nKennedy
\nTheodore (with the presidential names I worry might be laying it on thick with my first’s initials as FDR…? I like tying the name to history, though…)<\/p>\n

Thanks so much in advance!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

F!nley is a name that feels a little more common to me than it actually is: I was surprised when I looked it up on the Social Security Administration’s website<\/a> and saw it was only #304 for boys in 2020. Part of it is that it is also used for girls (#201 for girls in 2020) so that puts more Finleys in the field; part of it is that the name Finn is also in use (#178 for boys in 2020); and part of it is probably just that it’s a name that caught my attention when it came into more common usage, and I just happened to notice it at a rate disproportionate to its actual use.<\/p>\n

Still, I wonder if that same phenomenon might have happened to others? The name Henry is Top 10 now, and yet brothers named F!nley and Henry doesn’t seem surprising to me. But again, some of this is very subjective: I don’t think I know ANY little boys named Henry, so the name still feels fresh and underused to me; someone whose children are in daycare with multiple Henrys and no Finleys (or multiple Henrys AND multiple Finleys) is going to see things differently.<\/p>\n

Has the name Malcolm become associated with your OB for you, so that it no longer seems right for your baby? or is it more the awkwardness of the situation? If it’s just the awkwardness, I think that can be surmounted: I would feel briefly awkward, too, but looking back from this stage of life I can say it would no longer matter to me at this point. I feel a little funny about putting the name Malcolm with your surname, however. (I see I felt a little funny about it last time, too.) I asked Paul for a second opinion, and he says he thinks it’s fine.<\/p>\n

The name Kennedy is an interesting one. In the United States, even though the name Kennedy is strongly associated with a male president and a bunch of other male politicians, the usage of the name leans heavily toward girls: 3,342 new baby girls given the name in 2020, and only 140 new baby boys. The name was #72 for girls in 2020, and not even in the Top 1000 for boys.<\/p>\n

I think my top choice for this baby is Theodore, and I don’t think anyone is going to notice that your first child’s first\/middle initials are FDR and then tie that into your second child’s first name being the first name of another president. F!nley and Theodore; Fin and Theo\/Teddy.<\/p>\n

But it’s true the name Theodore is more common than F!nley: #23 in 2020. Poking around in the 300-ranking range, here are some names that catch my eye:<\/p>\n

Callum (#335)
\nEllis (#325) (no good with Elliott as a middle)
\nEmerson (#267)
\nGideon (#323)
\nLawson (#357)
\nLouis (#260)
\nRory (#330)
\nSimon (#251)
\nSpencer (#316)<\/p>\n

I would be a little tempted if I were you to consider your mother-in-law’s maiden name Elliott for the first name. And that tempts me EVEN THOUGH it would mean BOTH boys had first names AND last names from your husband’s family, which would bug me a lot. It’s just so fun, and I love being able to use maiden names as first names, and I love the names together. F!nley and Elliott! (Or, if we could go back in time, wouldn’t Russ and Elliott be terrific brother names??)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hi!<\/p>\n

Very pleased to announced that very much to the credit of one of your commenters, we went with a total wildcard in naming our second son. A big thank you to \u201cSaraya\u201d who suggested Ciaran. My middle name is the female version of this and given that my first son\u2019s his first name is one of my husband\u2019s middle names, it struck me and I settled on it almost immediately. I loved that it is rare (in the US) and also has such a strong Irish\/Scottish Gaelic connection. We then chose to honor my dad a second time, having lost him the day before I learned I was pregnant, with his middle name Th0mas as the first middle name.<\/p>\n

Ciaran Th0mas Elli0tt Whit (with an e at the end) was born last week! We are so happy he\u2019s here and has the perfect name. <\/p>\n

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

Hello Swistle, Over three years ago, you and your commenters helped cement the name for my first-born son. I wasn’t sure how to deal with honor names\/my desire to be equally represented in the naming of the baby. Ultimately, we named him F!nley D@vid Ru$$ with the last name Whit with an e at the […]<\/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-15691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-455","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15691","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=15691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15831,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15691\/revisions\/15831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}