I’m due any day with a baby girl. For years my husband and I have been set on the name Evangeline Mae for a girl. Recently a family member lost a baby girl and used the middle name Mae. We feel that we can no longer use that name, as it would only open wounds\/cause family conflict. We also LOVE Evangeline Lily, but feel we can not use that name either because of the connection to the actress Evangeline Lilley which all of our family and friends know and love. We’re looking for a short middle name that’s not too unusual. Some middle names we have considered: Marie, Arianna, Rose, Juliana (my husband likes it, but I hate it). Please, please give suggestions! Right now I’m feeling so stressed and distraught that at the last minute we can’t use a name that we have loved and planned on for so long. Thank you!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nI think I would start by looking for names like Mae (in sound or in style), and then by looking for names like Lily (in sound or in style). The mindset, though, is not “Which is better, Mae\/Lily or this new choice?” but rather, “Since we can’t have Mae\/Lily, will this be nearly as good?” Without a surname it’s hard to tell if these will work with the rhythm or with the initials, but it’ll be a list to consider.<\/p>\n
Names somewhat like Mae:<\/p>\n
Ada
\nAva
\nAvis
\nDay
\nFay\/Faye
\nFaith
\nGrace
\nGrey
\nHope
\nJade
\nJoy
\nMabel
\nMacy
\nMaelle
\nMaeve
\nMaya
\nMeagan
\nPearl
\nRae
\nRuth
\nShea\/Shay
\nT\u00e9a<\/p>\n
Some of these may be way too close to Mae, but I included them all so we could mull them over. (I left Kate and Kay\/Kaye out, since Evangeline Lilly plays Kate on Lost. I left out Jane and Lane because they seemed to similar to the -geline\/-line of Evangeline.)<\/p>\n
Names somewhat like Lily:<\/p>\n
Adele
\nCecile
\nCeleste
\nDahlia
\nDaisy
\nElise
\nHelena
\nIris
\nIsla
\nIvy
\nJillian
\nJuliet
\nJune
\nLaney
\nLark
\nMercy
\nMolly
\nNoelle
\nOlivia
\nReyna
\nSadie
\nSelah
\nStella
\nViolet
\nWilla
\nWillow<\/p>\n
I left out Lilah and Layla and Lucy and Libby and Lydia and Ellie and others, because I thought they might be too evocative of Lilly. Some of the ones I left in might ALSO be too evocative of Lilly: it got very hard to draw the line.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong> M. writes:<\/p>\n Thank you Swistle and all of your readers for helping us choose a middle name! We went with your advice and used a middle name similar to Mae, Evangeline Marie. As one of your readers pointed out, we liked that Marie was also french like Evangeline and a classic name. We were between Marie and Grace (as suggested by many commenters) and went with Marie because we have a 1 syllable last name and thought having a 2 syllable middle name would flow better. Again thank you so much! She was born 9\/22\/11.<\/p>\n M. writes: I’m due any day with a baby girl. For years my husband and I have been set on the name Evangeline Mae for a girl. Recently a family member lost a baby girl and used the middle name Mae. We feel that we can no longer use that name, as it would only […]<\/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-5922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1xw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922","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=5922"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9704,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions\/9704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Evangeline\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Evangeline.jpg\")
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"