My sister has been following your blog for quite some time. I recently learned that my husband and I are expecting our first child in May. As someone who has always been fascinated by names, I am surprised by how difficult this decision has been. We do not know the gender yet and plan to learn the gender at a family gender reveal party in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
Our last name is Mack, yet some of my favorite names begin with an M (Mason and Macy) though we are trying to avoid alliterative names.<\/p>\n
We would love to honor close family members who have since passed on with variations of their names– Carl, Eleanor, and William.<\/p>\n
You may notice from our short list that we prefer unique names as opposed to the very common names such as Michael, David, Jennifer, and Katie.<\/p>\n
Some of our top names for boys are:<\/p>\n
Camden
\nCaleb
\nHudson
\nMason
\nRiley
\nGavin
\nColton
\nAnderson
\nCorbin
\nKeagan\/Keegan<\/p>\n
Some of our top names for girls are:<\/p>\n
Brynn
\nCharlotte
\nMacy
\nRiley
\nElena
\nNora
\nTeagan<\/p>\n
Also, I love Addison but wouldn’t use it as a colleague has used that name recently. I wonder what names are similar to Addison…<\/p>\n
Many thanks,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I think the first thing we should tackle is the concept of unique\/common names. Jennifer and David, for example, are RAMPANT among parents but practically unknown among the wee set. Meanwhile, Mason was the second most common name for U.S. baby boys in 2011.<\/p>\n
It can be difficult to make this switch—to think of the common names from our own peer group (Jennifer, Michelle, Jessica, Brian, Jason) as “the Mom and Dad Names.” It can lead to unpleasant shocks: how can it be that when we’d never met one single Charlotte in our whole lives, our daughter is going by Charlotte M. because there are two in her class this year? We’d have been better off if we’d named her Jennifer: there isn’t a single one of those in the entire school (except for half a dozen of the staff)!<\/p>\n
Do you have friends with children in daycare or preschool? Those class lists can be very helpful for seeing what people are currently naming babies in your area. Or you can browse The Social Security Administration’s baby name web site<\/a>, which is great for finding a name’s current standing or for seeing how it’s trending. For example, here’s what Hudson and Addison have been doing recently:<\/p>\n (screen shot from SSA.gov)<\/p><\/div>\n (screen shot from SSA.gov)<\/p><\/div>\n Next, let’s look for some names similar to Addison. Similarities can be subjective, so there may be some names on this list that won’t seem similar to you at all—but it’s a starting point. And I’m including some that won’t work with your surname (the M ones, just for starters), because this seems like a good reference list for other parents as well:<\/p>\n Abigail![\"(screen](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Hudson-300x297.png\")
![\"(screen](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Addison-276x300.png\")
\nAdeline
\nAdelyn
\nAdrienne
\nAmelie
\nAniston
\nAnnabel
\nAtalie\/Adalie
\nAvery
\nCadence
\nClaudia
\nDelaney
\nEllison
\nElodie
\nEmerson
\nEvelyn
\nGracen
\nHadley
\nJaiden
\nJensen
\nJillian
\nJocelyn
\nKennedy
\nLondon
\nLydia
\nMadelyn
\nMadigan
\nMadison
\nMcKenna
\nMeredith
\nMorgan
\nNadia
\nNatalie
\nPeyton
\nSadie
\nSheridan<\/p>\n
![\"image\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/image.jpeg\")
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