Courtney writes:<\/p>\n
My husband and I need help naming our first child, a baby girl, who is due to arrive at the very beginning of April. I’m Courtney and his name is Joel with the last name of F-urn (but it’s spelled like the plant). We cannot agree on any sort of name. We plan on having 3-4 kids, so the thought of naming a sibling is in my head. I love older names (Charlotte) and he loves extremely popular names right now (Sophia and Olivia). One of the problems comes in because I teach high school and I have MANY students who I would never want to name my child after (which is why I am adamantly against Olivia). I love the idea of using family names but between the two of us, the only decent family name is Elizabeth, which is my middle name. Right now I am leaning towards Elizabeth as a middle name because everything seems to go with it and because of the family connection. I am Southern so I am definitely open to the double name; my husband also likes the double names except it seems that everything is paired with Beth. I want to stray away from all the Kaleeys, Baileys, etc. I want a name that is decidedly feminine (no gender neutral names or anything with a gender neutral nickname). One of our other requirements is that it is 2 syllables, since we have a 1 syllable last name. Our favorite name is Lily, but there is no way we could ever name our daughter Lily Fern (as a teacher I would laugh out loud seeing that on a roster).<\/p>\n
His choices:
\nOlivia
\nSophia (and call her Sophie)<\/p>\nMy choices: (I really like the letter C in case you can’t tell)
\nCharlotte
\nCaroline (this is lower on my list)
\nCecilia
\nChloe
\nClaire (although it only has 1 syllable and he veotes it because it’s the name of a Kardashian)
\nEmma (but it is SO popular right now with little girls)<\/p>\nMy hesitation comes in giving my daughter the same initials I have and I don’t want to name my child after myself (which is what my husband’s sister did). I prefer to not be in the top 10 names, but it seems like the styles we like are all on the top 10 list. I feel like I’ve searched through every website and and every book (including the Baby Name Wizard, which I know you recommend). I’m hoping you and your readers can offer some help!<\/p>\n
Thanks so much!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nI am a little embarrassed to have Kardashian trivia easily at hand, but there it is: you have a subscription to People magazine, you pick up on certain things. I don’t think there are any Kardashians named Claire (or as they’d certainly spell it, Klaire). There is, however, a Chloe, which they spell Khlo\u00e9. (The others are Kourtney, Kim, Kendell, Kylie, and Casey who must feel quite left out, but Kris didn’t name her so what can you do.)<\/p>\nSo that would put Claire back on your list, except I agree it’s choppy with the one-syllable surname. Instead I suggest Clara. Clara Elizabeth F-urn. I think sharing your initials and middle name is sweet, without being very noticeable or seeming like an obvious namesake.<\/p>\n
You’re right, Emma is very popular. Gemma, however, is not. Gemma Elizabeth F-urn.<\/p>\n
Because you have Cecilia, I’ll suggest Cecily. Cecily Elizabeth F-urn.<\/p>\n
Cecilia also makes me think of Felicity. It depends on how you feel about alliteration, but I think Felicity F-urn is pleasingly whimsical without overdoing it.<\/p>\n
The suggestion of Sophia always makes me think of Fiona, because of the similar sounds. Then Fiona and Sophia make me think of Bianca, because that’s another one with a similar rhythm. Fiona again depends on how you feel about alliteration.<\/p>\n
A less common version of Olivia is Liviana. It gives you the nickname Livvie—similar to your favorite Lily but without the botanical association.<\/p>\n
Another name with a similar sound is Lydia. The nickname Liddy is again reminiscent of Lily.<\/p>\n
Another name with a good strong V sound is Genevieve.<\/p>\n
Mulling over Sophia and Olivia brought Sabrina to mind. Sabrina F-urn.<\/p>\n
If your favorite name is Lily, I wonder if you would like Milly. It can be short for Amelia, Camilla, or Emeline, all of which seem compatible with the other names on your list.<\/p>\n
Or Lila. I’d caution that I think Lila along with its alternate spellings is heading for the Top Ten—but many names look as if they’re heading that way before hovering nicely in the non-top-ten Top Fifty.<\/p>\n
Or Jillian, with the nicknames Jill and Jilly.<\/p>\n
Or Willa is so pretty. Willa F-urn.<\/p>\n
Another goes-with-almost-everything middle name I like is Louise, especially since then it gives you Lou for nicknames. Gemma Louise becomes Gemma-Lou; Clara Louise becomes Clara-Lou; Lydia Louise becomes Liddy-Lou.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong> Courtney writes:<\/p>\n
I wanted to email you and let you know that we finally decided on a name for this baby. We are going with Lila Elizabeth. I think you are right about it becoming a popular name because we know of a couple other Lila’s being born this year also, which is fine with me. I cannot thank you and the readers enough for helping us decide on a name for this baby.<\/p>\n
Thank you for your help!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Courtney writes: My husband and I need help naming our first child, a baby girl, who is due to arrive at the very beginning of April. I’m Courtney and his name is Joel with the last name of F-urn (but it’s spelled like the plant). We cannot agree on any sort of name. We plan […]<\/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-5850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1wm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5850","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=5850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9625,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5850\/revisions\/9625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}