Lisa writes:<\/p>\n
We are due to have our 4th child in two weeks and have yet to come up with a girl name that we can agree on\/fall in love with. My husband is of Irish heritage and he really loves Irish type names for girls: Erin, Shannon, Caitlin, Bridget, etc\u2026 As the youngest of seven children, his older siblings have already used these Irish type names for their kids. The one name he loves is Maggie, short for Margaret. I\u2019m not in love with it-I hear a ringing of \u201cMaggie Moo\u201d in my head whenever I try to talk myself into liking it. Also, I don\u2019t think an old fashioned name such as Margaret jives with our other children\u2019s names. We have two daughters and a son: Madison Mae(Maddie), Logan Clara, and Conor Martin. All the middle names are family names. I love surnames as first names and unisex names for girls. <\/p>\n
I\u2019ve considered:<\/p>\n
Finley Holly (Holly is my mom\u2019s name)<\/p>\n
Adelaide Elsie (using Adel or Layla for short-hubby is not in love with Adel)<\/p>\n
Tobin Holly (Tobin is his grandmother\u2019s maiden name & traveled here from Ireland)<\/p>\n
If we have a son, our list includes:<\/p>\n
Declan Sean or Patrick<\/p>\n
Beckett Sean<\/p>\n
Brodie Patrick<\/p>\n
Our last name is Irish starting with a Con and ending in an \u2013ly (sounding like lee). I\u2019m desperate for your input and suggestions. I don\u2019t share our list with anyone because I hate the negative associations people love to share, \u201cin fourth grade a girl by that name used to tease me and I\u2019ve hated it ever since\u201d\u2026.blah-blah-blah! Thanks so much for your time!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The name that makes this such an intriguing puzzle is Logan. Madison is an all-girl name in the top ten. Conor is an all-boy name, #30 for boys when spellings are combined. But the name Logan is mostly boy: about 96% of Logans born in 2010 were boys, making it #17 for boys—a rank comparable with Madison’s and Conor’s when used for a boy.<\/p>\n
It isn’t that someone would be shocked to find out that a Logan could be a girl (it’s #484 for girls), but they would be statistically more likely to assume boy, and this assumption would be supported by a sibling group where the other children have gender-unambiguous names. As a boy’s name, Logan fits perfectly with Madison and Conor in both style and popularity; as a girl’s name, Logan breaks the style and popularity pattern—and breaks it in a dramatic way. For a comparison in a different style, it would be like a family having an Amanda, a Leslie, and a Jeremy—where Leslie is a boy.<\/p>\n
So this presents us with an interesting dilemma: Do we work with the name style you’ve set, which will further isolate Logan’s name by piling up more false evidence that the name is a boy’s name? Or do we add a second startling choice, which will have the counter-intuitive effect of making the sibling group MORE cohesive? A sibling group of Josephine, Kadence, Edward, and Vivian causes Kadence to stand out like a sore thumb; but a sibling group of Josephine, Kadence, Edward, and Riley merely tells us that the family likes a variety of naming styles.<\/p>\n
This is more complicated in your case, however, because of the name Logan SEEMING to fit beautifully, until we find out it’s the opposite sex we have been led to expect by the beautiful fit. It’s like trying to find a fourth for Amanda, Leslie, and Jeremy. The first three names SEEM to coordinate beautifully, so adding a Kadence at the end wouldn’t create that mixed-group feeling: it would instead result in two surprises instead of one. I think this is what Margaret is like in your group: it creates a second stand-out choice, instead of helping to unify the group. (Also, Maggie is very close in sound to Maddie.)<\/p>\n
From your girl name list, I think Finley works best. One downside of Tobin is that it is currently never given to girls in the United States; it might work better as a candidate for your tradition of family middle names. Adelaide has several downsides: it’s all-girl like Madison, which further isolates Logan; it’s antique-revival rather than modern\/surnamey like Madison and Logan; and Addie is a common nickname for it, and you have a Maddie (even if you choose a different nickname, she or her friends may choose Addie later on). Finley seems perfect: it’s given to boys and girls, and so it bridges the gap between Madison and Logan. I hesitate because of the doubled -ly ending with the surname, but because the name Conor doubles the first syllable, I assume it isn’t an issue that bothers you.<\/p>\n
Brodie and Beckett both seem like good choices from your boy name list: they’re mostly boy, but given occasionally to girls. In fact, I’d recommend considering both for your girl name list. Madison, Logan, Conor, and Beckett sufficiently neutralizes my assumptions about who’s a boy and who’s a girl.<\/p>\n
Another possible option is Braden\/Brayden. It’s mostly boy, like Logan and Conor, and it fits with the style of the other names. It would work in this sibling group for either a boy or a girl. (As a girl name, it has the effect of isolating Madison, but I’m less concerned with “the only girl name never mistaken for a boy’s” than I am with “the only girl name continually mistaken for a boy’s”.) Or Hayden would work well. Or Payton\/Peyton. Or Greyson\/Gracen. Or Morgan, Brennan, Kieran, Rowan, Keegan, Keaton, Quinn, Riley. Any modern and\/or surnamey name that works for boys and girls seems like a good option for either a boy or a girl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lisa writes: We are due to have our 4th child in two weeks and have yet to come up with a girl name that we can agree on\/fall in love with. My husband is of Irish heritage and he really loves Irish type names for girls: Erin, Shannon, Caitlin, Bridget, etc\u2026 As the youngest of […]<\/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-5896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1x6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5896","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=5896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}