I have been a long time reader even before I was expecting.\u00a0 I am due in six weeks (mid Feb) with our first baby which is a girl.\u00a0 Our last name is Price and we live on the East Coast.\u00a0 We hope to have another child after this one.\u00a0 Naming a child has given me a lot of anxiety, so I didn’t really start thinking about a name until 20 weeks, and I knew the gender for sure.\u00a0 I do like the name Lucas for a boy.\u00a0 For boys names I don’t mind more common names and prefer something masculine.\u00a0 For girls I would prefer if the name not be in the top 10 at least.\u00a0 I lean toward more feminine names and don’t usually like unisex names.\u00a0 I also don’t prefer when people add in a “Y” to make the name look unique or different ie. Jordyn or Emersyn.\u00a0 I personally get confused with a name like Carys.\u00a0 For a long time I could never figure out how to say it.\u00a0 We have had very few contenders for our girl.\u00a0 I would like a name on Monday and then hate it by Sunday.\u00a0 Elizabeth has come up a number of times for us, but I am not sold on it.<\/p>\n
I have listened to what you have said many times that “there will be no perfect name.”\u00a0 It is interesting to me the name we seem to be landing on based on everything I just said in the above paragraph.\u00a0 I like the name Bryn.\u00a0 However with our last name, I didn’t like the a one syllable first and last name.\u00a0 So someone suggested Brynley.\u00a0 The more and more I think about it, it has really grown on me.\u00a0 I like that we could call her Bryn and Brynley.\u00a0 I would like her to have the option to go by Bryn when she is older as well.<\/p>\n
Here is the problem.\u00a0 I can’t decide between the spelling Brynley or Brinley.\u00a0 Brynley just looks so confusing to me with the “y.”\u00a0 Will people constantly be confused how to pronounce it?\u00a0 As a teacher for 10 years I think about this a lot.\u00a0 I liked that my name growing up was easy to say and spell, but with all the crazy names nowadays is everyone having to tell people how to do this?\u00a0 I don’t want people to look at her name and think to say it BRIAN (like the boy)-Lee.\u00a0 That would be annoying to me as a kid.\u00a0 I do<\/i> like the shortened form Bryn and it doesn’t seem hard to figure out.\u00a0 With Brynley the “Y” just seems like we are trying to be different like Jordyn or Emersyn.\u00a0 In the end I just don’t like how it looks, seems like there are two many “y’s” or something.<\/p>\n
Brinley seems to make all these issues go, but it just looks SO masculine to me.\u00a0 I don’t like looking at it.\u00a0 I don’t like looking at Brin either.<\/p>\n
I don’t like Brynleigh or Brynlee.<\/p>\n
Should we go back to the drawing board even if I really like how a name sounds, but don’t like how it looks?\u00a0 Could you give me some advice that might ease my mind with this name and a spelling.\u00a0 Am I crazy and over thinking this?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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If you’re asking my own personal opinion, I greatly prefer the spelling Brinley. It doesn’t look masculine to me, and I get the same “too many Y’s” and “maybe trying to be different” reactions you find you get with Brynley. Also, even though I know Brynley is pronounced the same as Brinley, my mind keeps wanting to say Bry- to rhyme with try and cry.<\/p>\n
But if you hate the way Brinley\/Brin looks, that’s a significant issue—one that I’d say trumps the issues with the Brynley spelling.<\/p>\n
It may be that these issues will mean the name isn’t the right choice. I’m still unhappy that Paul and I had to scratch the name Elliot off our list because neither of us would agree to the other one’s preferred spelling (he preferred Eliot). But it really did come down to that: the name didn’t work for us because of the way it looked.<\/p>\n
Or, maybe it means going back to Bryn. I think Bryn Price is a 1-1 combination that works, like Brad Pitt works, and it lets you use the spelling you prefer without running into the issues that come up when you add -ley. You could choose a middle name that would work nicely for calling her both when you wanted something longer, like Bryn Louise or Bryn Marie.<\/p>\n
Or we could find some similar names. Finley, for example, or Quinn or Wynne, or Brenna. Hey, maybe Brynna? Brynna Price gives you a 2-1 pattern instead of 1-1, and you could still use Bryn. My mind does briefly do that rhymes-with-try thing, but I don’t think it would KEEP doing that. And as with Brynley, I DO know how it’s pronounced: I wouldn’t actually think it might be like brine-ah, it would only be a momentary brain flicker when I looked at it.<\/p>\n
Or there’s Braelyn? Or I’m trying to remember the little girl my mom knows who has such a cute name along similar lines. I’ll email her and add it in here later. It might actually BE Brinley or Braelyn. (Edited to add: It’s Braelyn.)<\/p>\n
Or Kinley is cute, or Kinsley.<\/p>\n
Or Briony, pronounced either BREE-ah-nee or BRY-ah-nee.<\/p>\n
Or Corinne is similar in sound to Bryn, but with two syllables. Corinne Price.<\/p>\n
Or Karenna. Karenna Price.<\/p>\n
Or Katherine would be so pretty. Katherine Price.<\/p>\n
Or Marin? I’m thinking of it pronounced like MARE-rin, rather than like Marin County. Marin Price.<\/p>\n
Mirren is similar and I love Helen Mirren. Mirren Price.<\/p>\n
Or Linnea, with nicknames Linn and Linnie.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth also seems great to me. Elizabeth Price is such a good name. If it’s not quite right, maybe you’d like Eliza or Elsa or Eloise or Ellery. Or you could name her Elizabeth Brynn Price and still call her Brynn sometimes.<\/p>\n
But I think Brynna is my favorite option: an extended version of Bryn, which is what you wanted from Brynley, but without the same issues.<\/p>\n
Let’s also have a poll over to the right to see how we as a group are divided on the spelling Brinley vs. Brynley. [Poll closed; see results below.]<\/p>\n
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Name update!<\/strong> M. writes:<\/p>\n Thank you so much for your help with deciding between Brinley or Brynley.\u00a0 The comments helped me greatly to rethink our name.\u00a0 I was leaning toward Brynley, but when the poll showed that most people didn’t prefer it I had to go back to the drawing board,.\u00a0 I didn’t like it either.\u00a0 However, I still couldn’t get on board with Brinley.\u00a0 I thought maybe it wasn’t our name, but I had really grown to love the sound of it and wanted Bryn as the nickname.\u00a0 We had not been sharing our name ideas with anyone, but I reread a point in the Baby Name Wizard.\u00a0 The author said that it can be helpful to get some feedback by a few trusted people.\u00a0 I ran my issue across three of my girlfriends and my mother, and I had them read the blog.\u00a0 It was interesting how they all liked the spelling Brynleigh.\u00a0 I am not sure why I was so against that spelling to begin with, but it really began to grow on me.\u00a0 So on February 26 Brynleigh Ann was born!\u00a0 I have grown to love the name more and more, and I am really happy with our decision.\u00a0 Our little baby Bryn is such a joy.\u00a0 Thank you for all your helpful comments and for voting!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" M. writes: I have been a long time reader even before I was expecting.\u00a0 I am due in six weeks (mid Feb) with our first baby which is a girl.\u00a0 Our last name is Price and we live on the East Coast.\u00a0 We hope to have another child after this one.\u00a0 Naming a child has […]<\/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-6001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1yN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6001","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=6001"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9067,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6001\/revisions\/9067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}