{"id":15693,"date":"2022-01-10T10:08:55","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T14:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15693"},"modified":"2022-03-17T12:51:23","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T16:51:23","slug":"baby-boy-slickter-brother-to-eden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2022\/01\/10\/baby-boy-slickter-brother-to-eden\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Slickter, Brother to Eden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I love your blog and am desperately hoping you can help with naming our baby boy due in early March. We have a 3 year old daughter who was easily named when I was 20 weeks pregnant. My grandmother\u2019s name was Edith Virginia and we named our daughter Eden Virginia. My grandma went by Virginia so changing the first name a bit didn\u2019t dilute the specialness at all for me. I love love the name we chose and it gave me so much joy and comfort to name her after my grandma who had passed away shortly before we found out about Eden.<\/p>\n

Anyway fast forward to now we are expecting baby #2 and the naming process is SO SO much harder this time. Our last name is spelled very differently but sounds like Slickter. Maybe I\u2019m overthinking it but I keep hearing \u201clicker\u201d with certain names we try\u2026 I also feel like part of the problem is that I\u2019m still adjusting to the idea of having a boy (and to the knowledge that we\u2019re responsible for raising him to be a good person in our current society). I feel like most boy names I come across I have some sort of negative association with from people I\u2019ve known from growing up\/school\/life. Or the name means something like FIGHTER CONQUEROR TOUGH GUY which I know is probably a silly thing to care about but always turns me off.<\/p>\n

Other helpful info: We aren\u2019t sure yet if we\u2019ll try for a third baby or not. I haven\u2019t let myself think about what girls names we would have considered if this baby was a girl because it makes me a little sad (so many fun pretty names!!!) but other options for Eden were Florence and Winifred (Winnie). I really like nature names for girls but haven\u2019t loved any of the boy options I\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n

Boy names we like but can\u2019t use for various reasons: Benjamin\/Ben, Arlo, Adam (I feel like I can\u2019t use this with already having an Eden- too bible-y), Gideon (also too bible-y with Eden? I\u2019m not religious enough to know but my mom says yes). At the start of my pregnancy I had my heart set on Etienne but my husband gently pointed out I probably liked it because it\u2019s so similar to Eden which seems obvious now but I genuinely didn\u2019t notice before he brought it up.<\/p>\n

Names we are semi considering: Elliot (probably the front runner but since we might try for baby #3 I don\u2019t really want to repeat the E first initial and feel locked in), Jude, Avery, Winston (I still like the nickname Winnie but don\u2019t think I love Winston on it\u2019s own). The baby\u2019s middle name will probably be Michael (husband\u2019s middle name) although we\u2019re flexible if it doesn\u2019t go with the first name we pick.<\/p>\n

I really really have been trying to internalize your advice about not having to feel sparkly magical feelings for a name and that picking a fine name is good enough but I feel so blah about all of our options. I\u2019m hoping maybe hearing a few suggestions from someone whose name tastes I really trust will help something stand out vs just reading through lists in the baby name book. I feel like time is running out and I\u2019m starting to panic! I know some people can go to the hospital with a list and see what fits once the baby is born but I know if I tried to do that we would either leave the hospital with a nameless baby or I would spend the next few months second guessing whatever our last minute pick was. Any help or advice is appreciated!<\/p>\n

Thank you,<\/p>\n

Amanda<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

My own clear favorite of your options is Elliot. When I was expecting our second baby, the name we liked best if he’d been a girl started with the same letter as our firstborn’s name. I would have preferred not to repeat initials at all within the sibling group—but we liked the name enough that it hit the “Are we actually going to give up the name we love and agree on, just because of the initial?? NO!” point. But I too was concerned that we would feel like we had to keep going with the same initial for future kids—or, more accurately, concerned that OTHER PEOPLE would feel that way. So what I’d decided to do (before we found out I was expecting a boy and so the repeating-initial was a non-issue), was take PREVENTATIVE MEASURES. I was going to REPEATEDLY MENTION that the repeating initial was a coincidence we would have preferred to avoid, and that we were not going to keep going with that. I was going to make it so NO ONE could expect it. Possibly I was going to OVERDO IT, considering how little I think most people care about such things. But even just having a PLAN was helpful to me: I would PLAN to not feel pressured; we would DECIDE to not feel pressured.<\/p>\n

I think Avery is really nice, too. I like the way a future Winifred\/Florence would tip the name’s style more old-fashioned, like in Charlotte’s Web.<\/p>\n

I grew up in a Christian environment, and Eden and Gideon seem biblical to me but not TOO biblical the way Eden and Adam do. (And with Eden and Adam, it’s not even so much that it’s too biblical, but more that they come from the same story but one is a place and one is a person, and that feels weird.) But they do seem like kind of a lot of N and D and long-E, so combined with the Kinda Biblical issue I agree I probably wouldn’t use it.<\/p>\n

I like Winston, but of the “we can only use one” pairing of Winston and Winifred, I love Winifred so much more. I am also EXTREMELY KEEN on the name Florence, so I don’t feel complete despair about losing Winifred if you find you are getting happy sparks from the name Winston.<\/p>\n

All right, let’s see if we can find a few more options.<\/p>\n

When I think of Elliot, I also think of Everett and Emmett. For some reason I am finding I don’t like the sound of Emmett Slickter, but I do like Everett Slickter.<\/p>\n

Because Elliot was on my own name list (I think the only reason we didn’t use it is that Paul and I could not agree on spelling), it also makes me think of other names from my own list (which is now at least 14 years out of date, so at some point I am going to have to stop suggesting these names, lest I be the equivalent of the grandmother asking why people aren’t considering Normal Names such as Ashley and Brian):<\/p>\n

Charles\/Charlie
\nGeorge
\nHenry
\nLeo
\nMilo
\nOliver
\nSimon<\/p>\n

Well, most of those are a bust with your surname. I do like Henry Slickter. And I like that “Eden and Henry” has a subtle repeating -en- sound. (If you have another baby and it’s a girl, you could name her Florence! Not that you should feel locked in to something as small and silly as a repeating -en- sound! But if it would be fun! Eden, Henry, and Florence.)<\/p>\n

Or Harvey? Harvey Slickter; Eden and Harvey.<\/p>\n

Or Calvin? Calvin Slickter; Eden and Calvin.<\/p>\n

Frederick Slickter has an interesting repeating sound, and I can’t tell if I like it or not. Also, it would probably rule out using Winifred. Eden and Frederick.<\/p>\n

The eye tends to skip right past it in the name book, so I will draw your attention to the name John. John Slickter; Eden and John. It FEELS so overused, and yet I don’t know any kids named John. When I imagine encountering the name on a baby, it feels like a fresh surprise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Thank you so much for your help! Elliot Michael was born 3\/3. 9lbs 11.5 oz! We went to the birth center still not quite sure about a name but decided pretty quickly after he was born that he was an Elliot (although he\u2019s been here two weeks now and his 3 year old sister still insists his name is Spinny). Thank you again!<\/p>\n

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

Hi Swistle, I love your blog and am desperately hoping you can help with naming our baby boy due in early March. We have a 3 year old daughter who was easily named when I was 20 weeks pregnant. My grandmother\u2019s name was Edith Virginia and we named our daughter Eden Virginia. My grandma went […]<\/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-15693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-457","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15693","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=15693"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15817,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15693\/revisions\/15817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}