{"id":6097,"date":"2012-09-05T09:21:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T13:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2012\/09\/05\/baby-naming-issue-is-harriet-harri-usable\/"},"modified":"2013-05-09T16:56:14","modified_gmt":"2013-05-09T20:56:14","slug":"baby-naming-issue-is-harriet-harri-usable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2012\/09\/05\/baby-naming-issue-is-harriet-harri-usable\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: Is Harriet Harri$ Usable?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lucy writes:<\/p>\n

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My husband (Brian) and I (Lucy) are expecting our second child in March. We will wait to find out the gender until the day he\/she is born. Even though it’s quite a ways before the baby is due we are already discussing names and trying to figure out the perfect one. We love family\/honor names and plan to use a family name for both the first and middle name. Our first child, Eln@ F@e, is named directly after both of her maternal grandmas.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
If this next child is a boy, naming him will be easy. We will use George Austin. George is an important and personal name from both sides of the family. Austin is my Grandma’s maiden name and mom’s middle name.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
If this child is a girl we are deciding between Virginia Greer (middle name not definite yet) and Harriet. If we use Virginia we will mostly use the nicknames Ginger or Gigi. If we use Harriet we would call her both Harriet and Hattie. \u00a0I like the sound of Hattie Harri$, but obviously Harriet Harri$ has some definite problems. \u00a0(The family member we would be naming her after was also named Harriet Harri$). \u00a0We know that a middle name could possibly soften the problem here, but don’t want to have to always say her first and middle together since Harriet is already three\u00a0syllables. \u00a0We realize that if we use Harriet we are just\u00a0embracing the fact that she will have the “John Johnson” or “Jack Jackson” issue her whole life or until she gets married, but I’m wondering how bad that is? \u00a0The middle names we are currently considering, but aren’t sure we like yet, are Christine, Joanne, & Luella. \u00a0Do these help, or can nothing help the situation?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Any advice would be super appreciated! \u00a0Thank you!<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One of my favorite books to read to younger kids is Harriet, You’ll Drive Me Wild!<\/a>, by Mem Fox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
(photo from Amazon.com)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This book made me love, love, love the name Harriet Harri$. It is so fun to say. When dealing with my own 5-year-old Henry, who is currently in a “difficult stage” (where “difficult stage” is said with clenched teeth and audible air quotes), I find this section of the book goes frequently through my mind: “Harriet, my darling child. Harriet, you’ll drive me wild. Harriet, sweetheart, what are we to do? Harriet Harri$, I’m talking to you!”<\/p>\n

So because of that, the name sounds right and good to me, and in fact particularly appealing. It doesn’t seem like the equivalent of John Johnson or Jack Jackson; it seems more like Maribeth Marek or Abigail Abner.<\/p>\n

Here is the main issue I would be concerned about: SO MANY opportunities for the nickname Hairy. But perhaps with the surname Harris, there is no avoiding it anyway?<\/p>\n

I think you’re wise not to rely on the middle name to fix the situation: middle names are so rarely used, or even known. But in my opinion, there’s no situation to fix anyway: it’s a striking and distinctive and appealing honor name. If anyone DOES act funny about it, saying “Harriet Harris is a family name” seems like it would nip that in the bud.<\/p>\n

What does everyone else think?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name update!<\/strong> Lucy writes:<\/p>\n

We had a baby GIRL on March 19th! My husband and I were so appreciative of your and your readers help! A good portion of your readers supported us in using Harriet Harris, but some really discouraged it. So, some of your readers will be disappointed, because we ended up going with Harriet and named our sweet girl Harriet Joanne Harris. Her first name is very meaningful to us, as she is named after an aunt of my husband that died as a teenager. Her middle name, Joanne, is after my grandma, one of the most wonderful women I know! We are so in love with her and her name!!<\/p>\n

We use both Harriet and Hattie (but not Hattie Jo…so not a fan of that!) equally. Her almost-two-year-old sister only calls her Hattie and it just sounds so cute coming out of her little mouth. I hope they will be good friends!<\/p>\n

Thank you so much your help!!
\n\"IMG_4513\"<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lucy writes: My husband (Brian) and I (Lucy) are expecting our second child in March. We will wait to find out the gender until the day he\/she is born. Even though it’s quite a ways before the baby is due we are already discussing names and trying to figure out the perfect one. We love […]<\/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-6097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1Al","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6097","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=6097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7594,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6097\/revisions\/7594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}