Emily writes:<\/p>\n
Help? We are due to have our third child in four weeks, our one and only daughter as we have two boys already. One would think I’d have a girl’s name left over from the first two rounds, but I feel like I may have outgrown our original girl’s name (Olive). My sons are called Henry and Casper, and I’m looking for something short and sweet but am struggling to find one name that speaks to me. Beyond short and sweet, we’d like to use my husband’s late mother’s name, Eliza, probably as a middle name but possibly as a first name to then use the middle name as what we call her (ex. Eliza Lake B____ton). I wouldn’t mind including my grandmother’s name, Lily, as well, but I’d like to maintain creative license on the name we actually call her. Is four names overkill?! And aside from that, just to make the job even harder the parameters get smaller as I’d like the name not to end in a “y” sound, like Henry, an “er” sound, like Casper, and I’d prefer it didn’t rhyme with our last name, which starts with a B and ends with “ton”. What on earth is left?!<\/p>\n
Names I’ve been mulling over so far….to be used as a first or a middle name with Eliza (and possibly but not necessarily Lily Eliza)<\/p>\n
Tate
Read (a family name)
Lake
Plum
Eve
Olive
Lou
Elery
Indigo (Indigo Lily Eliza B_____ton, call her Indi, such a mouthful?)<\/p>\nPlease guide me, Your Excellency! I’m so thrilled to finally have my baby girl, I just wish I knew what to call her!<\/p>\n
Many thanks<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think four names works fine. My own kids have four names each, and it’s been less of a hassle than I’d expected: even with five kids, I’ve only had to make two total corrections on forms. And it seems like a good solution here, where you have a lot of names you’d like to use. But I think ideally it works best to keep Name Irregularities at one per customer. So if you do give her four names, I suggest having the first name be the one you call her. Or if you do call her by her middle name, I suggest keeping her names down to three instead of “I go by the first of my two middle names.” (Again, this is just ideally: sometimes other considerations are more important, and worth it.)<\/p>\n
I wouldn’t use Lily as the first name with the middle part of your surname [the surname is hidden for the post, but I can see it in the email]: it runs together rhymily for me with all the repeating sounds. I think it can work as a middle name, but I think it works better if separated from the surname by Eliza.<\/p>\n
I’m also not sure if it will work well to use both Eliza and Lily, especially with the similar sounds of your surname, and especially if you also decide to use Olive: that’s four names in a row with LI. Might you have another child later to use Lily, or is it now or never? I seem to be repeating myself a lot in this post, but despite the little hesitations I keep mentioning, I want to re-re-emphasize that (1) some names are more important than the minor issue of repeating sounds and (2) it matters less when we’re talking about middle names. So ____ Lily Eliza B_____ton would be just fine, if this is the last child and it’s important to you to use Lily. Though I think then I’d go with a simple first name (especially with a long surname): more Eve than Indigo. Eve Lily Eliza B_____ton is one of my favorites of the possibilities.<\/p>\n
I also suggest Rose. It’s common as a middle name, but unusual and fresh as a first name. It’s short and it’s sweet; it’s great with Henry and Casper and doesn’t repeat the endings; it’s simple and non-rhymey with the surname. Rose Eliza B______ton; Henry, Casper, and Rose. Downside: probably rules out the idea of also using Lily.<\/p>\n
Another flower name that I think works well for you but again probably rules out Lily: Iris. Iris Eliza B______ton; Henry, Casper, and Iris.<\/p>\n
Another of my favorite short-and-sweets is Cora. Cora Lily Eliza B____ton; Henry, Casper, and Cora.<\/p>\n
And another is Jane. Familiar but still uncommon; similar in sound to Tate and Lake; short and sweet; no repeating endings or rhymes. Jane Lily Eliza B_____ton.<\/p>\n
Or for something even more unusual: Lane, which brings it closer to Lake from your list. Lane Eliza B_____ton or Eliza Lane B______ton.<\/p>\n
Or Grey. Eliza Grey B______ton; Henry, Casper, and Grey.<\/p>\n
I wonder if you’d like Cleo? Cleo Eliza B____ton; Henry, Casper, and Cleo.<\/p>\n
Or Sloane. Sloane Lily Eliza B______ton; Henry, Casper, and Sloane.<\/p>\n
One of my mom’s favorite short\/sweet\/unusual names is Esme (EHZ-may). Esme Lily Eliza B____ton; Henry, Casper, and Esme. I like the way the sounds of Esme and Eliza go together, alternating with the way the sounds of Lily and B_____ton go together.<\/p>\n
More ideas for Henry and Casper’s little sister?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emily writes: Help? We are due to have our third child in four weeks, our one and only daughter as we have two boys already. One would think I’d have a girl’s name left over from the first two rounds, but I feel like I may have outgrown our original girl’s name (Olive). My sons […]<\/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-5882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1wS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5882","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=5882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}