Linsey writes:<\/p>\n
\nOur baby girl (third and last child) is due in just a few months and we need your help! My first question is: Does it have to be an “M” name?? Our four year old son is named Micah James and our two year old daughter is named Madelyn Kate (husband and I are James and Linsey, FYI). Family and friends are insisting that we have to stick with the “M” theme we have going or this baby will be “left out”. I understand what they mean as most of the names that I like that don’t start with an “M” just don’t seem to go with Micah and Madelyn. I really don’t have a problem using an “M” name except that the girl’s names we like at all are extremely popular. With the last name Wilson<\/span> we don’t want anything too very popular. Micah and Madelyn are actually pushing it. Can you suggest some “M” girl’s names that compliment Micah and Madelyn without being too common?\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\nOne name that my husband and I both love is Evelyn. It’s my grandmother’s middle name and sounds similar to Madelyn. Does that make it seem like a name that fits in with our family or is it too similar to Madelyn? We’ve talked about using my mother’s middle name so that would make Micah James, Madelyn Kate, and Evelyn Kit. Are the girl’s names just too similar? Or does Evelyn stick out like a sore thumb? And is Evelyn gaining popularity too quickly to go with a common name like Wilson<\/span>?\u00a0<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAnother thought is that both my mother and my husband’s mother passed away before we got married. We of course would love to honor them in our naming, but didn’t end up doing so with our first daughter because we just don’t necessarily care for either the name Mary or the name Lezlie. One name that I’ve recently run across is Marilee. This kind of sounds like a combination of Mary and Lezlie and of course starts with an “M” like our other two children. What do you think of it? What middle name to you think would work well with it?<\/div>\n<\/div>\nAny other name suggestions you have would be much appreciated!<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThanks So Much!<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nIt doesn’t have to be an M name, but I see the pressure for it to be one. I think if you don’t use an M name, there may be a little whining about it at first from friends and family, but that it isn’t likely to be a big deal in the long run: hardly anyone cares very deeply what other people name their children, even if they enjoy making a bit of a fuss about it in the anticipation stage. If the third child doesn’t have any reason to believe that he or she was deliberately not given an M name in order to exclude him or her, and if you answer any questions with, “For each child, we just chose the name we liked best,” then two M names in a row doesn’t seem like enough names to establish an unbreakable theme. If, however, you LIKE another M name, then I think it is a fun theme to have.<\/p>\n
Normally I might avoid matching endings for two names, but Evelyn seems like a great way to tie the names together without using another M name, and the front halves of the names have such different sounds. However, I don’t think I’d then use such similar middle names on top of that. If you wanted to please the people clamoring for a matched set, you could do Evelyn Jane: she’d tie in to her sister’s first name and both siblings’ middle names.<\/p>\n
Evelyn is quite popular (#24 in 2011, according to the Social Security Administration, and continuing to rise), but the name Madelyn\/Madeline\/Madilyn\/Madeleine is so popular (combining spellings puts it into the Top Ten), the similar popularity of Evelyn is a selling point for me.<\/p>\n
Katelyn would also work, but is perhaps too strong a sister-name tie since it connects to both the first name and the middle name.<\/p>\n
Jocelyn would work well. <\/p>\n
Marilee seems like it honors neither grandmother (it’s particularly hard to imagine the family of a Lezlie feeling any honor from it), while also leading to spelling issues and Merrily puns. On the other hand, I do think people would be touched by the effort to combine the grandmothers’ names, and Merrily is a very cheerful sort of pun. If you use it, I think Marilee Jane would be pretty, or Marilee June, or Marilee Rose, or Marilee Celeste.<\/p>\n
I’d like to segue into recommending Meredith, but I think the repeating M and D sounds probably make it too similar to Madelyn.<\/p>\n
Mallory might be better. It’s uncommon but familiar. It does repeat the L and Y of Madelyn, but in a very different way. Micah, Madelyn, and Mallory.<\/p>\n
More M possibilities:<\/p>\n
Maeve
Maia\/Maya
Margaret
Maribel
Mariel
Marissa
Matilda
Mina
Mira
Molly<\/p>\nMolly is the traditional nickname for Mary, if that would be a slight and pleasing connection to one of the grandmothers. Perhaps the other grandmother’s middle name could be used. Or I see that the name Lezlie\/Leslie\/Lesley is derived from the surname Lesslyn, which might make a good middle name with a parallel slight connection. Micah James, Madelyn Kate, and Molly Lesslyn. If that’s too rhymey with Wilson, maybe Lynn would be better—though by now we’re so far removed from the honor name, I think I’d just choose something you like: Molly Jane, maybe, or Molly Kit, or Molly Joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Linsey writes: Our baby girl (third and last child) is due in just a few months and we need your help! My first question is: Does it have to be an “M” name?? Our four year old son is named Micah James and our two year old daughter is named Madelyn Kate (husband and I […]<\/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-6077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1A1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077","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=6077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}