Monica writes:<\/p>\n
I am due with our second child at the beginning of February. We do not know what we are having, and cannot come up with a boy\u2019s name. We have a 2 yr old daughter named Bianca Jolien. We call her \u2018B\u2019 or Bia. If the baby is a girl, she will be Daphne (unsure of middle name). We could easily agree on a girl\u2019s name; however, we are having difficulty coming up with a boy\u2019s name. It may be because I have too many \u2018rules\u2019. I don\u2019t want the name to start with a \u2018M\u2019 as my husband is Martin and I am Monica, I want the name to be more than one syllable as our last name is one syllable (sounds like \u2018Spam\u2019), and I don\u2019t want a trendy or overly common name, but also not a name that is too unheard of. Every name I come up with, my husband says it in Dutch, and it does not work. Having said that, I don\u2019t want an exclusively Dutch name (like Jaap or Cees)! Like I said, I have lots of \u2018rules\u2019! <\/p>\n
A commonly used boy\u2019s name in Holland right now is Lucas, which I like, and especially like the nn Luke. I\u2019m not sure though because it ends with \u2018S\u2019 and our last name starts with \u2018S\u2019. What are your thoughts? Yes, generally we will use Luke, but officially it will be Lucas \u2018Spam\u2019. I\u2019m afraid it sounds too much like Luca \u2018Spam\u2019 when spoken. I don\u2019t want to simply name him Luke as I\u2019d like him to have the option of using Lucas when he is older.<\/p>\n
Names we have considered, but aren\u2019t convinced:<\/p>\n
Kiefer \u2013 Husband likes, I used to like it too, but now feel it is too \u2018different\u2019.<\/p>\n
Willem \u2013 Dutch form of William. I like the nn Will, but worry about how common this will be, and really dislike the nn Willy.<\/p>\n
Wilco \u2013 same as above, it is a commonly used name in Holland, but worry it is too different.<\/p>\n
Graydon \u2013 like the nn Grady, not crazy about Graydon<\/p>\n
Henry \u2013 don\u2019t like the nn Hank, and hubby isn\u2019t crazy about the name<\/p>\n
Callum<\/p>\n
Griffin \u2013 love the nn Finn, but a friend recently named her son Griffin<\/p>\n
We are planning on having only 2 children, so as of now, it\u2019ll be Bianca and Daphne or Bianca and Baby Boy…HELP!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think Willem is a wonderful choice, and I think you can avoid Willy unless he himself chooses it, which seems unlikely. The main downside of the name, I think, is that the popularity of the name William could create constant misunderstandings and misspellings as people assume you’ve said\/written William.<\/p>\n
I agree with you about names running into each other. I think if I loved a name above all others and with the passion of at least one or two suns, I would use it anyway, and then I would practice saying the name distinctly, with a pause: “Lucas. Spam.” Or, as I imagine going up to the reception desk at school or at the doctor’s office, I might say, “This is Lucas. Lucus Spam.” Yes, I think that would work fine. But the issue would knock the name lower on my list.<\/p>\n
The name Wilco has seized my imagination. It seems just wonderful. It has the easy nickname Will, but without Willem’s problem with being confused with William. It’s distinctive and Dutch and easy to explain to anyone whose eyebrows go up (“My husband is Dutch; it’s a common Dutch name”), and especially with that -o ending I think it has huge potential for crossover to U.S. usage. My guess is that the only reason it HASN’T crossed over is that people haven’t heard of it. Or possibly because the -co ending might sound a little corporate? But that’s not what comes to mind with Marco or Nico or Rocco. In your particular family, I wonder if it’s too many C+vowel endings: Monica, Bianca, and Wilco.<\/p>\n
If you like Finn but can’t use Griffin, there’s also Finnegan, Phineas, Fintan, or straight Finn.<\/p>\n
If you like Grady, I’d go directly to that: it’s a stand-alone name, and I think Graydon sounds like a Braden-offshoot name invented to give Grady a more formal version.<\/p>\n
I don’t like the matching M-endings of Callum Spam. I wonder if you’d like Calvin? Calvin Spam; Bianca and Calvin; Bia and Cal.<\/p>\n
I love Kiefer best. It’s energetic and unusual, but familiar and completely fits in with the current fashion for surname names, as well as fitting beautifully with Bianca. Kiefer Spam. Bianca and Kiefer. I love that so much, it’s tempting to pressure you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monica writes: I am due with our second child at the beginning of February. We do not know what we are having, and cannot come up with a boy\u2019s name. We have a 2 yr old daughter named Bianca Jolien. We call her \u2018B\u2019 or Bia. If the baby is a girl, she will be […]<\/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-5835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1w7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835","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=5835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}