{"id":15961,"date":"2022-08-07T14:32:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-07T18:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=15961"},"modified":"2023-02-06T20:37:31","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T00:37:31","slug":"baby-girl-or-boy-statmiller-sibling-to-tessa-bennett-cora-and-palmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2022\/08\/07\/baby-girl-or-boy-statmiller-sibling-to-tessa-bennett-cora-and-palmer\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl or Boy Statmiller, Sibling to Tessa, Bennett, Cora, and Palmer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hello,
\nWe are due with our 5th (and final) baby in Jan and are having a tough time figuring this one out.
\nOur last name sounds like Statmiller (with a silent d before the second t). We currently have 2 girls and 2 boys and will not be finding out the gender of the baby until he or she arrives.
\nOur children\u2019s names are Tessa Rose, Bennett Joseph, Cora Elizabeth and Palmer Francis. We like unique but not unheard of first names and more traditional for a middle name.<\/p>\n

The trouble we are having is that we don\u2019t want to use a duplicate first letter of the name and all of our children\u2019s first letter has an E sound to it when saying it by itself. (T, B, C, P)
\nAnd would like to continue that since we call them by their first letter when in a hurry or when they are playing sports and we are cheering them on. The other constraint we have gotten ourselves into is each first name is 2 syllables and we would like to stick to that.
\nSo based on that we are down to D, E, G, V and Z which doesn\u2019t leave us much to choose from. Are we being too restrictive and should just pick a name we like? Or do we continue with down the path we have already taken?<\/p>\n

If we were open to not following our naming history here are the names on our very short list:<\/p>\n

Ada Marie
\nLettie Marie<\/p>\n

Harris Alexander<\/p>\n

Any advice and name suggestions would be greatly appreciated!<\/p>\n

Thank you,
\nKatie<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

In my experience, naming got both MORE and LESS difficult as we had more children. It got more difficult because although we weren’t completely opposed to repeating initials, we did PREFER the idea of not repeating, and so gradually we reduced the number of initials we wanted to use. Certain sounds started to seem too repetitive, or at least we would prefer not to reuse them. We wondered about repeating endings and vowel sounds. We ran low on obvious honor names.<\/p>\n

On the other hand I felt, especially with our fifth, that some of the pressure was off: when there are so MANY children, who would expect the parents to be as consistent with their naming style? Who would blame them if they DID repeat an initial? Who would blame them if they stopped a pattern that seemed fun for the first few children but then became burdensome? Who would blame them if they JUST SORT OF RAN OUT OF NAMES?<\/p>\n

Also, I’d seen how my various concerns with earlier names had come to nothing: my hand-wringing, lie-awake fretting about syllables and number of letters and Which Of Two Equally Good Honor Names Should We Use was completely forgotten until I was pregnant again and looking over my old naming notes.<\/p>\n

Here’s where I am going with this. When I started reading your letter, and I got to the part where you want a FIFTH baby to have a name that is two syllables AND a different initial AND TO HAVE THAT INITIAL RHYME WITH THE OTHER CHILDREN’S INITIALS, my mouth actually dropped open. What? WHAT?? I re-read it to make sure I had understood. Why are you playing this game on ULTIMATE HARD MODE when you don’t have to, and when it’s not resulting in any names you like?<\/p>\n

On one hand, I wish to attempt to give you what you want—and we WILL attempt that. On the other hand, I feel you have backed yourself into a completely unnecessary corner. To whatever extent it is in my power, I wish to free you from feeling that you are somehow locked in to giving this baby a two-syllable name, or a rhyming-but-distinct initial. I won’t tell you that NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD would notice or care, because, well, you are currently standing in the midst of a community that does in fact notice and feel interested in such things—but even WE don’t DEEP-DOWN care if all five members of a sibling group have the same number of syllables in their names! Even WE don’t typically look at the first initials of a sibling group and notice if they RHYME or not!<\/p>\n

Obviously, OBVIOUSLY, if these things matter to YOU, that is what is important. But…I am thinking back to all the things that Mattered Very Much to me when I was pregnant and lying awake, and then thinking about how little those things matter to me now, and I am wondering if we can bring you any peace on this. It seems so unlikely to me that in 30 years you will be visiting Ada’s\/Harris’s house and looking at them across the dinner table and wishing you had found a name for them that had an initial that sounded more like their siblings’ initials when you yelled it at a sports event. YES, you are being too restrictive! YES!<\/p>\n

I am very, very, very, very interested in baby names, and would have looked at your children’s names carefully and repeatedly and with far more attention than the typical person who will encounter their names, and I don’t think it would ever have occurred to me that all the first initials rhymed; I’m not sure I would have noticed that all the names had two syllables. In fact, let me ask you this question and hope it doesn’t backfire: How much time have you spent noticing and thinking about the syllables\/initials of the sibling groups of your friends and relatives? If you’re like me, you might say, “Well, ACTUALLY: SOME!!” But…like, LOTS? Have you ever thought about whether their initials rhyme? Did\/do you CARE if their initials rhyme?<\/p>\n

If anything, I would think that if you commonly holler the children’s initials, you would NOT want another one that sounds so similar to the first four. If anything, I would think that after four two-syllable names in a row, you might wish to break up the rhythm a little. Think of the charming storybook rhythm of a sibling group that is “DAH-da, DAH-da, DAH-da, DAH-da, and DAH.”<\/p>\n

Okay brisk clap<\/em>! Your FIRST assignment, together or separately or both, is to make a list of names but with NO THOUGHT AT ALL to all your self-imposed constraints. Put down names that duplicate an initial! Put down names that use initials that don’t rhyme with E! Put down names that have more or less than two syllables! Put down names that don’t even go well with the other sibling names! Put down names you can’t use because someone close to you already used it, or because there is a bad association, or because it sounds much too similar to one of the other kids’ names! Just make a list of every single name you like\/love. EVEN IF you do decide not to repeat an initial, you might notice something about the repeating-initial names that helps you find a non-repeating-initial name. EVEN IF you do decide it’s important to you that the baby’s first initial rhymes with their siblings’ first initials, you might notice something about the non-rhyming-initial names that helps you find a rhyming-initial name. And so on.<\/p>\n

It may also give you a better feeling for the PRICE of meeting preferences. If you were to put every name in the world in order from the one you liked most to the one you liked least, how far down your list would you be willing to go to get an initial you prefer? When you weigh, say, your top 1% of names against the names that meet your requirements, which do you WANT MORE? It seriously does come down to the weight of preferences: there are names I would score higher than names I used, but other preferences DID weigh more. It cost something to use those names, but it was worth the price to me. On the other hand, at some point those preferences started weighing relatively less: I WASN’T willing to use a name I liked Much Less, just to meet a preference I was free to choose not to follow. You may find, for example, that the price of meeting all your preferences is choosing a name you don’t really like, and you may find you’re not willing to pay that price. If you remove a preference, does that make the cost more reasonable? What if you remove another preference? And so on.<\/p>\n

If you find a name you love that starts with a non-rhyming initial, I wonder if you could do a MIDDLE name with a rhyming initial and make that work? T, B, C, P, and L-V, for example.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, we will also get to work. My plan is to go ahead and try to solve the naming puzzle with all restrictions in place, because that’s like a game, and name games can be fun.<\/p>\n

So: Game Mode. The only available initials are D, E, G, V, and Z; the name must have two syllables.<\/p>\n

Daisy
\nDarcy
\nDella
\nElla
\nEsme
\nEstelle (kind of a lot of ST and LL with the surname)
\nEtta (maybe too close to Bennett)
\nEva
\nGemma
\nGinny
\nGreta
\nVera
\nZara<\/p>\n

Dalton
\nDavis
\nDeclan
\nDesmond
\nDevin
\nDuncan
\nDillon\/Dylan
\nEaston
\nEllis (might combine with surname to sound like Ella Statmiller)
\nGarrett (may be too similar to Bennett)
\nGilbert
\nGordon
\nGrady
\nGriffin
\nVincent<\/p>\n

I think my own favorites are Greta and Davis. Greta Statmiller; Tessa, Bennett, Cora, Palmer, and Greta. Davis Statmiller; Tessa, Bennett, Cora, Palmer, and Davis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Hello!
\nI am writing to update you and thank you for the name help. After reading your response and readers responses it gave me relief from all the self imposed restrictions.
\nI was pretty convinced we were having a girl and focused on that. When we had a boy it came as quite a surprise and left us trying to decide on a name. We took your advice and made a list of names with no constraints. To our surprise there was no names we agreed on that fit our \u201crules\u201d but we happily agreed on one name! <\/p>\n

Albie Robert<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nTo us it works well with his siblings names with still being fresh to him! And if we HAVE to use a rhyming sound we can call him E for his syllable.<\/p>\n

Thank you for helping free us from our naming constraints! <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello, We are due with our 5th (and final) baby in Jan and are having a tough time figuring this one out. Our last name sounds like Statmiller (with a silent d before the second t). We currently have 2 girls and 2 boys and will not be finding out the gender of the baby […]<\/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-15961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-49r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15961","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=15961"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16173,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15961\/revisions\/16173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}