In an effort to get some honest feedback without having to tell family and friends our short list of names, I’m coming to the expert (and loyal readers!) for advice.<\/p>\n
We’re expecting a girl this fall and have a few names that we like, but our definite frontrunner is Sloane Wesleigh. Both my husband and I adore Sloane and think it’s fits with our personalities and naming style and it goes well with our last name. My only concern is that because Sloane is unisex, Wesleigh is too masculine to go along with it. My husband sees no problem with it (but he only recently discovered that Sloan is used a boy name also…apparently only one of us is “research mode”). That said, I really like the way the two names flow and think Wesleigh has that “cool” (but not too trendy) vibe that we like too. Perhaps we need something similar but a little more girly? My fear is that when the little lady arrives, we announce her name and people still have no idea if we had a girl or boy.<\/p>\n
Do you think we need a more feminine middle name to balance out the androgyny of Sloane? Or the opposite, do the two unisex names match one another?<\/p>\n
To give you a sense of our taste, here are some of the other names that made our “maybe” list:<\/p>\n
Kennedy
\nRowen
\nGreer
\nLainey
\nBronwyn*
\nIsla*
\nMaeve*<\/p>\n
*my picks, hubs is not a fan of these<\/p>\n
Family names include: Lindsay, Mason, Mary
\nBoy names that we like: Finn, Sullivan, Abel<\/p>\n
Thanks in advance for any suggestions or tips!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
With first names that can be used for either boys or girls, my own personal preference is to use the middle name to clarify things. So, for example, if the child’s first name is Cameron, I like the middle name to be Jacob or Olivia, not Riley or Jordan.<\/p>\n
But there are arguments for not bothering with this. For one thing, your friends and family will have ways other than the name for determining if you’ve had a boy or a girl. And some people make the deliberate decision to use a name that doesn’t instantly communicate the sex (for resumes and college applications, mostly).<\/p>\n
But in any case, because Sloane is used much more often for girls in the United States (there were 861 girls and 87 boys named Sloane\/Sloan in 2011, according to the Social Security Administration), and because you’ve feminized the spelling of Wesleigh, the name reads girl to me. I would feel an urge to double-check, just as I would with a Camryn Ryleigh, but I’d feel pretty confident.<\/p>\n
In fact, my main issue with Wesleigh is that the spelling looks to me as if it might be pronounced Wes-SLAY, because of the word sleigh; I’m familiar with -leigh as -lee from Ashleigh and Ryleigh and of course Leigh, but after a plain S it threw me. Still, it took all of a second or two for me to realize it must be pronounced like Wesley, and in the middle name position it’s not going to cause trouble or confusion. Plus, spelling it Wesley would tip me the other way, to being more sure the baby was a boy.<\/p>\n
If you did decide you wanted to go more feminine, Sloane Lesleigh would be pretty. Lesley used to be a unisex name but has now gone almost completely girl in the United States.<\/p>\n
Or Sloane Kelsey.<\/p>\n
Or Sloane Paisley.<\/p>\n
Or Sloane Cecily. It has a lot of S sounds, but I find I like it.<\/p>\n
Or Sloane Vanessa.<\/p>\n
Or Sloane Hayleigh.<\/p>\n
Or Sloane Briony.<\/p>\n
Or Sloane Waverly.<\/p>\n
Or Sloane Eliza. I realize that one takes a sharp style turn, but I think it has a cool sound with Sloane.<\/p>\n
I also think Sloane Lindsay sounds wonderful, and it appeals to me to use a family name.<\/p>\n
Let’s have a poll over to the right to see what everyone else thinks. [Poll closed; see results below.]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Poll results for “Should Sloane have a more feminine middle name than Wesleigh?”<\/b> (410 votes total):<\/p>\n
No, Wesleigh is feminine enough – 50 votes (12%)
\nNo, I like the idea of it being unisex – 27 votes (7%)
\nYes, it needs a more feminine middle name – 316 votes (78%)
\nI can’t decide – 17 votes (4%)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/b> N. writes:<\/p>\n We welcomed Sloane Everly on October 11 and are in love with her and her name! Thanks for the advice and suggestions!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" N. writes: In an effort to get some honest feedback without having to tell family and friends our short list of names, I’m coming to the expert (and loyal readers!) for advice. We’re expecting a girl this fall and have a few names that we like, but our definite frontrunner is Sloane Wesleigh. Both my […]<\/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-6136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1AY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136","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=6136"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9455,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6136\/revisions\/9455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sloane\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Sloane.jpg\")
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n