Corrie writes:<\/p>\n
Hi there, I\u2019m PRAYING you can help. I\u2019m due in six weeks but we don\u2019t know the sex. My husband and I are sort of agreeing (ish) on names but I don\u2019t feel like we\u2019ve nailed it yet. Our surname is Butcher (bad times) \u2013 so girl names need to be really pretty and soft to counterbalance it (I quite like the old-fashioned names but with Butcher, it often sounds like a 99 year old woman so we have to be careful!) I also like the idea of giving a daughter my middle name, which is my mum\u2019s maiden name (she gave it to me to continue the name as she\u2019s an only child) \u2013 it\u2019s Lane. The trouble is that the only names we actually agree on are so common and I\u2019d love something a little bit less obvious.<\/p>\n
GIRLS
We both like:<\/p>\nLily Lane
Ella Lane<\/p>\nBut they\u2019re both so common\u2026<\/p>\n
My husband has vetoed:
Romilly (I LOVE this but he won\u2019t budge)
Silvie
Elodie
Gracie<\/p>\nNames we can\u2019t consider because of family: Evie, Amelie, Oliver, Sam, Louis, Maisie, Charlotte, Arabella, Max<\/p>\n
BOYS
We both like good, solid names. I would LOVE to go with something more whimsical\/trendy (Marlo, Auden etc) but there\u2019s no way my husband will go for it. He wants something traditional. It\u2019s just trying to get a balance between traditional but not too obvious. Er, I haven\u2019t even got as far as the middle name for a boy\u2026<\/p>\nWe both like (ish):<\/p>\n
Atticus (Atty for short) \u2013 I kind of love this \u2013 husband less so – but don\u2019t think we\u2019re brave enough to do it
Arthur (Arty) \u2013 this is my husband\u2019s favourite but I\u2019m just not feeling it enough; I don\u2019t really like the nickname
Oscar \u2013 bit obvious
Teddy (full name Edward) \u2013 I love this but my husband isn\u2019t keen \u2013 I think it\u2019s adorable!
Fred\/Freddie \u2013 both like this but it\u2019s so obvious<\/p>\nMy husband has vetoed:
Albert (Bertie for short)<\/p>\nI would really appreciate any guidance \u2013 I\u2019ve been through a zillion books and just can\u2019t seem to crack it!<\/p>\n
Thank you<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Another issue with both Lily and Ella is how much L they have with Lane. But this is less of an issue with a middle name it would be with a surname.<\/p>\n
I’d like to recommend Ivy instead of Lily, but with Butcher it suddenly makes me think of I.V. needles.<\/p>\n
Iris, maybe, instead? Iris Lane; Iris Butcher. Sweet and feminine, and reduces the L problem. In the U.S., it’s significantly less popular than Lily and Ella—but I see in the U.K. stats it’s barely an improvement.<\/p>\n
I see Lydia has fallen there. It’s so close to Lily, but now it’s out of the Top 100. Lydia Lane is fun to say. But does it sound as good there as it does here, where it’s rising?<\/p>\n
This is one reason I am hesitant to give advice for any other country: names have so many associations, and it’s hard to figure out the associations they’d have for another country. Those of us in the U.S. might make a suggestion that leaves you thinking “WHAT on EARTH are they TALKING about??”—or we might give positive\/negative feedback that would only apply to a name used HERE and would be otherwise useless. Do we have any UK readers to lend a hand with this one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Corrie writes: Hi there, I\u2019m PRAYING you can help. I\u2019m due in six weeks but we don\u2019t know the sex. My husband and I are sort of agreeing (ish) on names but I don\u2019t feel like we\u2019ve nailed it yet. Our surname is Butcher (bad times) \u2013 so girl names need to be really pretty […]<\/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-5854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1wq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5854","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=5854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5854\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}