Marcy writes:<\/p>\n
\nMy husband and I are elated to be\u00a0expecting our third child, gender unknown, due in June.\u00a0 This little one is a surprise, but one we welcome and anticipate with great joy!\u00a0 My husband is still exhausted of the naming talk of a year ago (when we named our youngest), but I am already turning all the options over in my mind.\u00a0 I need a sounding board, and some great ideas.\u00a0 When my friend Amy and I were both\u00a0pregnant with our second\u00a0daughters last year, you helped her choose the name Eliza, and I have full confidence that Swistle is just the place for us to find our third child’s name.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWe have a lot of time, but with 13 nieces and nephews and lots of\u00a0friends with good name taste,\u00a0many of my favorites are already taken (or a too-similar variant has been used).\u00a0 We spend a LOT of time with our extended family.\u00a0 So, while I’m sure others wouldn’t worry a bit about similar cousin names, it would definitely cause concern for us.\u00a0 Most of the cousins attend the same church and are engaged in regular playtime\/activities together.\u00a0 And of course Gram Gram would never figure out who’s who with names too similiar!<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWe would\u00a0love your input for both boy and girl names!\u00a0 We’re wide open when it comes to boys’ names, though something more classic\/traditional likely suits us best.\u00a0 For a girl, her middle name will be Louise, after my mother.\u00a0 I could consider it for a first name as well, but right now I’m leaning towards Louise for the middle.\u00a0 I don’t like the idea of modifying Louise to Louisa or Elouise.\u00a0 I want to keep it as is.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMy name is Marcy<\/span> and my husband is Daniel. Our daughters are named Amelia Mae and\u00a0Norah Lane.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our last name sounds like Sherman.\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAmelia’s name\u00a0rang in at #55 on the SSN list for her year (was #68 on the list when we chose it, and we had no idea it would see such a jump.\u00a0 It was up to #30 by 2011!), and Norah at\u00a0#263 with the\u00a0H (#137 without it, so a bit higher than that combined).\u00a0 Like most folks, I think we’d prefer something outside the top 100, but really we’re open to even a very common name, if it really is the perfect one for our baby.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nA few of our “dont’s”:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
- Rhyming with our names, with sibling names, or with the middle name or last name;\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n
- Name or nn\u00a0too similar to Amelia’s (Millie\/Mil – and her sister calls her Mimi) <\/li>\n
- Name or nn too similar to Norah’s (Nor, Norrie, Noley – her sister’s name for her before she could say it properly)<\/li>\n
- Aything that would be nicknamed Ellie or Emmy or Addie\u00a0(sooo common around here!); <\/li>\n
- Anything that causes a lispy-ness in the transition from the end of the first or middle name to the last name this includes most names ending in s).\u00a0 That SH sound can be rough!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I’ll begin with girls, since we have it a little more together in that arena!\u00a0 Currently under consideration for a girl\u00a0are Vivian\/Vivien\/Vivienne (spelling preference, anyone?), to be called Viv\/Vivy\/Vivie and Josie.\u00a0 Both\u00a0seem to work with Louise\u00a0so it’s not a bad place to start.\u00a0 I do like Josephine for the full name, to be called Josie, but my husband does not like it, preferring Josie as-is.\u00a0I think I could get into Violet too, but I feel like it only flows with Louise if it’s prnounced “Vie-let” instead of “Vi-o-let”.\u00a0 How would most folks pronounce it? <\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\nIn light of our close family and heap of cousins, these favorites of mine are OFF the table:<\/div>\n\n
- Clara (niece named Claire)<\/li>\n
- Anna (niece named Hannah)<\/li>\n
- Ada (niece named Ava)<\/li>\n
- Julia (niece named Julia\u00a0Elizabeth)<\/li>\n
- Eliza (friend’s daughter.)<\/li>\n
- Celia (same friend’s older daughter)<\/li>\n
- Micah (we almost named our first Micah Marie, but changed late in the game to Amelia Mae afte rmy husband and I started swooning over Mae.\u00a0 We now have very dear friends with a baby boy name Micah, so it’s permanently nixed.<\/li>\n
- Abigail (niece name) – Although I wouldn’t choose this with Louise anyway\u00a0becasue of the L at the end<\/li>\n
- Chloe (friend’s daughter)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
We’re struggling a little (okay, a LOT)\u00a0more with a boy’s name.\u00a0 With our previous pregnancies, names considered for a boy were Cael Arthur (after my grandpa, Arthur), Grayson Paul (decided we really just like Gray, not Grayson or Grady as much), Charles (after my other grandpa) and Wilcox (my mother in law’s maiden name).\u00a0 <\/div>\n<\/div>\nCael is out now due to nephews named both Kade and Caleb.\u00a0 I liked the name, but it was really my husband’s pick. And Wilcox is already used as\u00a0well. <\/div>\n<\/div>\nGray is still in the mix, as well as Charles and Paul (Daniel’s middle name).\u00a0 Although I actually prefer to use Daniel over Paul if we use my husband’s name.\u00a0 I love the name\u00a0Daniel!\u00a0 :)\u00a0 Of course I’m not sure what’s best to pair it with.\u00a0 If we use it, I’d like it as a middle name instead of a first, to avoid confusion.\u00a0 We also like Henry.\u00a0 I Iike Mac\/Mack (a nod to my maiden name, which is an Irish Mc name), but it’s so much more casual than most of the other names we like.\u00a0 It’s probably not for us. I have just as I sit and type decided I like Benjamin, too. But we just aren’t LOVING anything yet, and the list of names we like doesn’t seem to be producing any amazing combinations.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nI’ve listed a mix of\u00a0my nephews’ first and middle names below.\u00a0 These are names we’d like to avoid. I\u00a0think we can avoid the names on the Friends list too, though it’s less of a priority:<\/div>\nFAMILY: Kade, Reed, August,\u00a0Wilcox, Shepard, Wiliam, Adam,\u00a0Joel, Wade, Kenneth, Caleb <\/div>\nFRIENDS: Micah, Jack, Christopher, Edison\/Eddie, Isaac<\/div>\n<\/div>\nMy husband has vetoed James (he’s not sure why, since we both like the name, but he just knows that’s not it!) and Benjamin (I just asked him – same as with James – it’s just not THE name, even though it’s a name he likes). Finneus\/Finneas\/Phineas. I suggested Finneus Gray – which he says sounds like a storybook character and not a real person. :)\u00a0 We also would not likely choose anything like Cooper, Carter, Parker, Hudson, etc.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nI actually love August (a family name and one of the nephews’ names).\u00a0 It’s obviously taken, but something with that vibe might be nice.\u00a0 And I love Wiliam, as well as its nickname, Will.\u00a0 It’s nice to find a name that can sound both formal and a little serious (August\/William) and also ornery (Gus\/Will).<\/div>\n<\/div>\nI sincerely hope you can help us wade through this mire of names before our heads explode trying to work it through on our own!<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThanks so much for your consideration!<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nand<\/div>\n\nI realize we’re still a long way from our due date, and I’m really trying not to get all Shawshank Redemption on you by sending a new email every day\/week\/month, but as a quick update, I wanted you do know that my husband has now vetoed ALL of the girl names on our current list, save\u00a0Josie.\u00a0 Which I do like, but am not convinced enough to commit to.\u00a0 EXHAUSTING.\u00a0 You can see why we need to get an early start on this! :)\u00a0 Anyway, I will do my best to restrain myself from begging\/pleading\/groveling for assistance (at least until we find out the gender :)).\u00a0 I am having so much fun reading your site for inspiration in the meantime! <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nName update!<\/b> Marcy writes:<\/p>\n
I really enjoyed all the feedback and ideas from you readers and from your many other posts! Thanks for posting my question! Your method of listing out all of the name options as well as listing the names within the sibling set was easy to put into practice on my own and extremely helpful to us.<\/p>\n
We found out a week ago that we are having a girl, our third!\u00a0 We are thrilled!<\/p>\n
Despite working around a long list of “taken” names we liked, as well as sorting through our sometimes different naming preferences, my husband and I managed to produce a list of five names that pleased us both.\u00a0\u00a0 We finally landed on June Louise, which we both LOVE!<\/p>\n
June entered the game late, since I had to decide if a June born in June was perfect, too cheesy, or maybe just didn’t matter.\u00a0\u00a0 Once I settled on it being perfect (my husband’s great Aunt June was a June born in June, also!), June quickly rose to the top of our mutual list, and won out over the others [the full list of names we could agree on included: Caroline Louise, Miriam Louise (my 2nd pl vote), Mariah Louise and Halle Louise (his 2nd pl vote)].<\/p>\n
My pets that didn’t pass the husband test included: Louise Adele (I love, love, love this, but I don’t feel sad about not using it, since I’m now certain this baby is June!), Vivian Louise (the name I wanted for our next girl before we were even expecting, but that husband never loved) and Magnolia Faye (I think this felt too southern and unusual to the mister, but I discovered it on your site and couldn’t help but swoon!\u00a0 I also didn’t want to give up Louise, but I liked Magnolia much better with Faye, and I my husband actually does like Faye).<\/p>\n
Thanks so much! <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marcy writes: My husband and I are elated to be\u00a0expecting our third child, gender unknown, due in June.\u00a0 This little one is a surprise, but one we welcome and anticipate with great joy!\u00a0 My husband is still exhausted of the naming talk of a year ago (when we named our youngest), but I am already […]<\/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-6039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1zp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6039","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=6039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}