{"id":6132,"date":"2012-07-25T06:43:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-25T10:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2012\/07\/25\/baby-girl-bry-nothing-stands-out-as-the-name\/"},"modified":"2014-06-18T11:55:52","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T15:55:52","slug":"baby-girl-bry-nothing-stands-out-as-the-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2012\/07\/25\/baby-girl-bry-nothing-stands-out-as-the-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl Br@y; Nothing Stands Out as The Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexandra writes:<\/p>\n

I’m a long time blog reader and am pregnant with my first baby, a little girl. My husband and I are thrilled and cannot wait to meet her in early November but are having trouble thinking about names. I actually had a nightmare that our poor baby girl was nameless for several months after her birth. We can’t have this happen!<\/p>\n

Since I’ve been reading your blog for a long time one of the first things I did once we started to think about names was to go out and buy the “Baby Name Wizard” book<\/a> and re-read your post, “Baby Naming Advice for First Time Parents<\/a>.” We took your advice and started to think about our naming style and future sibling names. Pretty much right away it was clear to us that our naming style was antique charm. I like almost every name on the list! However, here is the issue, while I seem to like all these names, none of them are standing out to me and none are entering into the love category. If this baby were a boy we would have named him Leo or Everett (love these both). Our last name is Br@y which doesn’t pose too many limitations.<\/p>\n

We don’t have many name restrictions in mind so are not sure why this is so difficult! We are also both Canadians with a French Canadian background so prefer the French spellings of the names in the antique charm style. The only thing I will say is that we don’t want a name that is too popular (i.e. top 10). The top 10 in Canada and the US are actually very similar so we’ve been consulting the SSA website.<\/p>\n

Here are a few of the names that we like from the antique charm style:<\/p>\n

– \u00a0 \u00a0Nora
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Evelyne
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Vivienne
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Lucie
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Leila<\/p>\n

For middle names we would like to use a family name. Some options (but we really haven’t even gotten this far yet):<\/p>\n

– \u00a0 \u00a0Catherine
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Marie
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Cynthia
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Barbara
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Rose
\n– \u00a0 \u00a0Irene<\/p>\n

Please help us get out of our rut! None of these names seem like our baby and I can’t seem to think of any new possibilities outside of this naming style. Thanks so much!<\/p>\n

P.S – We promise to send an update with an adorable baby photo. :-)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

When The Baby Name Wizard<\/a>‘s Antique Charm category is not quite the thing, I often find success in the Exotic Traditionals and Ladies and Gentlemen categories: they feel to me like more extreme versions of the names in Antique Charm.<\/p>\n

I would also play the game I like to play with that book: I look up each name on my list, and then I look at the sibling names suggested by the author for that name, and I pick one brother or sister name and go look up THAT name and look at THOSE sibling names—and so on. It’s Choose-Your-Own-Adventure baby naming! Sometimes I find myself in a loop of names I love, which tells me I’ve got a good consistent list; sometimes I find new candidates to consider; sometimes I find that I’m disappointed\/glad to see certain names mentioned, which tells me more about my preferences; sometimes I dead-end in an area where none of the names appeal, so I start over with a new name.<\/p>\n

Another game I play is to brainstorm names similar to the ones on my list—either off the top of my head, or by looking in a baby name dictionary, or by searching the name database for name segments (ora, lyn, enne, cie, lei, etc.). So for example, your list of five might turn into something like this:<\/p>\n

Nora<\/b>
\nCora
\nClara
\nLorelei
\nNadia
\nEleanor
\nElora
\nFlora
\nHonora
\nLara
\nMaura
\nAurora
\nRory
\nEvelyne<\/b>
\nAdeline
\nEvangeline
\nGenevieve
\nEva
\nLinnea
\nEliza
\nEloise
\nVivienne<\/b>
\nOlivia
\nLiviana
\nVanessa
\nAnneliese
\nLucienne
\nViolette
\nAdrienne
\nAdrianna
\nLucie<\/b>
\nLacey
\nLucienne
\nLuciana
\nLucia
\nRuthie
\nSylvie
\nSimone
\nMercy
\nTessa
\nCecily
\nCeleste
\nLeila<\/b>
\nLily
\nLila
\nLena
\nStella
\nWilla
\nCelia
\nNoelle<\/p>\n

Partly this is to get new ideas, but partly this is because I’ve found that the more I play around with the names I’m considering, the more likely it is a favorite will begin to emerge. This is why I also recommend other games<\/a> such as Future Sibling Names, name ranking, Imagined Scenarios, examining movie\/television credits—and also, taking breaks from it to let the names simmer.<\/p>\n

To play the Future Sibling Names game, let’s look at Leo and Everett. If you used Evelyne, would that rule out Everett? Would using Leila rule out Leo? If so, which of each pair of names do you prefer? You probably wouldn’t want to give up a girl name you love for a maybe-never-existing chance to use a boy name—but if you greatly prefer the boy name and are equally torn between several girl names, deciding to save the possible future brother name could help you choose between the girl-name candidates.<\/p>\n

Playing with first\/middle combinations can also be a helpful game. Maybe all five candidates feel about the same, but when you pair one of them with a certain middle name, that combination seems perfect. Nora Catherine. Vivienne Rose. Lucie Irene. Clara Catherine. Cecily Rose.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps while playing with the family names for the middle name position, one of THOSE will rise to the top. Catherine Br@y or Rose Br@y would be lovely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alexandra writes: I’m a long time blog reader and am pregnant with my first baby, a little girl. My husband and I are thrilled and cannot wait to meet her in early November but are having trouble thinking about names. I actually had a nightmare that our poor baby girl was nameless for several months […]<\/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-6132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1AU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6132","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=6132"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9446,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6132\/revisions\/9446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}