{"id":16145,"date":"2023-01-15T14:29:10","date_gmt":"2023-01-15T18:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=16145"},"modified":"2023-01-16T08:27:09","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T12:27:09","slug":"baby-girl-vitale-sister-to-cora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2023\/01\/15\/baby-girl-vitale-sister-to-cora\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Vitale, Sister to Cora"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! (and lovely readers)<\/p>\n

I have been reading your blog long since before baby names were even on my radar and I was a single gal. You even helped my friend change her name as an adult<\/a>!<\/p>\n

I am writing because I am due in March with baby girl number 2!<\/p>\n

We are Ally and Ted Vitale (yes, my name rhymes), and we have a daughter, Cora Marilyn-Margaret who will be five when sister comes.<\/p>\n

We went to the hospital with a handful of names (Cora, Margaret, Eliza, Adele) and obviously ended up using two. Margaret was my husband\u2019s grandma who passed when Cora was six months (they did get to meet) and Marilyn was my mother who died when I was in college. We knew we wanted to honor them in some way and landed on both as middle names which maybe shot us in the foot a little bit, but, we didn’t know if we’d have another, etc etc.<\/p>\n

Obviously, we love the name Cora and think it\u2019s pretty darn perfect. Cora and Margaret were definitely the front runners my entire pregnancy.<\/p>\n

This time around, our \u201cremaining\u201d names of Adele and Eliza don\u2019t quite seem to be \u201cit\u201d. Although, for me I think Eliza fits more than Adele does.<\/p>\n

We tend to like vintage names (I think?), names that are not wildly popular (however we can classify that! Social Security registry<\/a>?)\u00a0and names that are short or can\u2019t be easily shortened\/nicknamed. Both my husband and I have longer names and we go by a short nickname. (Allison\/Ally, and Theodore\/Ted–additionally, I am often called Al by close friends, he is Teddy to his family.)<\/p>\n

Names we have ruled out for various reasons (and unfortunately these are hard not usable names): Georgia (absolutely love, would use in a heartbeat, but it our daughter\u2019s best friend’s name, who we see almost daily and are incredibly close with the entire family), Olive, Audrey\/Aubrey, Mila, Vera.<\/p>\n

Names my husband has vetoed: Iris (BUT WHY!), Ruby, Tess, Mira, Camilla\/Camille, Cecily\/Cecilia, Hazel, Mabel, Elsie, Holland, Marin, Rosemary\/Rose, Mary Emmy\/Emme.<\/p>\n

Names he has suggested: Violet (fine, but I find it to be too popular; I also feel this way about Vivan), Lily\/Lilly (same sentiment, personally), Lila, Layla\/Leila (I prefer the Leila spelling), Campbell, Brooke.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Semi short list<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ivy (I feel like this has shot up in popularity and is only gaining strength\u2014this is my husband\u2019s compromise on Iris but I don\u2019t know that either of us are sold)<\/p>\n

Eliza<\/p>\n

Anna\/Anne<\/p>\n

Lila<\/p>\n

Adele<\/p>\n

Mia\u00a0(we are torn here because it\u2019s so popular right now and like that Cora is common but not \u201cpopular\u201d if that makes sense. I am not a “cannot use top XYZ names” person exactly, I think if you love it, you love it and that’s all there is to it, but, I don’t know that we love this name enough)<\/p>\n

Sophie<\/p>\n

Leila\/Layla<\/p>\n

*maybe Haley (this is my \u201cwork wife\u201d\u2018s name so I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s weird? We can\u2019t do the similar Hallie because it rhymes with my first name and our last name, and as the resident name rhymer, we only need one of us)<\/p>\n

The middle name will likely be Kathryn in that spelling to honor my paternal grandmother.<\/p>\n

If we were having a boy, the name would be Theodore as per custom in my husband’s family. I would push for the middle name William in that instance, to honor my dad. Although, to be very frank, I don’t love either of those names for my own child (don’t tell my husband!) and know that both are very popular right now. But, I wouldn’t have a choice, because, tradition. Boy names I would personally have chosen might have been Scott, Aaron, Josh–truthfully I did not give boy names much thought, I am embarrassed to say.<\/p>\n

Are there any in that style that we are missing? What have we overlooked? Is there a hidden gem on that list that I don\u2019t see yet?<\/p>\n

I guess we are hoping to find a “wow” name and we just aren’t there yet.<\/p>\n

Thank you so much! I’m looking forward to your insight and that of your readers!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Give Swistle a moment to enjoy her smelling salts and lounging couch after reading the part about how you would not have had a choice in your own baby boy’s name because your husband’s family has a tradition of THEM getting to choose the name. What if YOUR family ALSO had a tradition of getting to choose the name, THEN what? Well, you’re not having a boy, you’re not having a boy, we do not even need to address this, we can move on.<\/p>\n

(But!! And I know you were speaking lightly, but I feel that SO MANY it’s-almost-always-women have their naming rights taken from them by these it’s-almost-always-male naming traditions—and that many of those usually-women REALLY DO feel there is no argument against it. Let me just say it for anyone who needs to hear it: THERE IS AN ARGUMENT AGAINST IT, AND THAT ARGUMENT IS “I DON’T WISH TO PARTICIPATE IN THAT TRADITION”! A tradition is IN NO WAY an inalienable right or unbreakable law; it is an invitation to follow a pattern. And couples routinely have to pick and choose among MANY traditions from BOTH sides of the family, keeping some and declining others! Many couples discover that a holiday tradition from one side of the family is in conflict with a holiday tradition from the other side of the family, and in those couples one person cannot shrug and say “Well, we have to do it my family’s way because it’s tradition; you and your family and your traditions don’t factor into this decision.” If anyone reading this is planning to co-parent with someone who thinks they would get 100% dibs on naming a shared baby Because Tradition, there’s a BIG CLARIFYING DISCUSSION that needs to happen, ideally before any permanent decisions are made.)<\/p>\n

Okay. Okay. This is a baby girl. We are going to talk about a name for a nice little baby girl. Cora and _____, Cora and _____. Well, I absolutely love Eliza. Like, if you said “Swistle, please name this baby whatever you want,” I would name her Eliza Kathryn Vitale. What a lovely name. Or I might want to give her a hyphenated middle name like her sister, especially if you end up with an extra name you don’t have a place for and would be sad not to use, or if you have another honor name. Eliza Iris-Kathryn Vitale. Eliza Allison-Kathryn Vitale. (Or if I chose another first name: Ivy Eliza-Kathryn Vitale.)<\/p>\n

My second favorite is Ivy. I think it’s wonderful with Cora, and I like that both names are familiar and easy without feeling overused. I do agree with you that Ivy seems to be suddenly getting more popular—though when we were considering the name for Henry before we knew he was a boy, my feeling was that I couldn’t use it UNTIL it became more popular. At 2007 usage levels, kids were still reacting with incredulity to the name and then immediately saying “Poison Ivy, poison Ivy, she’s poison, don’t let her touch you!!” while screaming and running away from poor Ivy on the playground. (In my imagination. That is: the children I surveyed ((mine)) about the name Ivy came up with that playground game idea in under five seconds, but the game was not actually played in my sight, nor did we know anyone named Ivy.) At current usage levels, I think children will still come up with the game, but there will be more than one Ivy on the playground, and they will form a little gang to play together and roll their eyes at dumb game ideas until the other kids get bored and knock it off.<\/p>\n

And my third favorite is Anne. I think that name is overlooked right now, and would give people a fresh pleasant surprise when they heard\/saw it.<\/p>\n

From your husband’s veto list (and we know from experience that those vetoes sometimes unexpectedly reverse), I’d particularly want to keep trying to save Hazel, Rose, Iris, and Mabel.<\/p>\n

It is interesting to me that he likes Violet and Lily, and you like Rose and Iris and Hazel, and you both like Ivy. It feels as if a good flower\/plant name is within our reach. Fern? Briar? Calla? Dahlia? (Calla and Dahlia might be too rhyme-ish with the surname, and Calla too similar to Ally.) Daisy? Holly?<\/p>\n

Or with Ruby as inspiration, what about Pearl? Cora and Pearl. I think Pearl has that simple\/lovely\/vintage\/familiar-but-uncommon thing going for it.<\/p>\n

More names to consider:<\/p>\n

Ada
\nBianca
\nCeleste
\nClaire
\nEloise
\nEsther
\nFiona
\nFrances
\nGemma
\nGreta
\nGwen
\nJane
\nJune
\nLina
\nLois
\nLouise
\nLydia
\nMay
\nRuth
\nStella
\nSylvia
\nWilla
\nWinifred<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle! (and lovely readers) I have been reading your blog long since before baby names were even on my radar and I was a single gal. You even helped my friend change her name as an adult! I am writing because I am due in March with baby girl number 2! We are Ally […]<\/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-16145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-4cp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145","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=16145"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16152,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16145\/revisions\/16152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}