R. writes:<\/p>\n
I have been reading your blog for a while now, and didn’t expect to be writing to you so soon. I am expecting my first baby this summer. I am having a girl. The baby’s last name will be either mine (similar to Townman) or my boyfriends (Balls). I am only seventeen (unfortunately not planned) but I am trying to be the best mom my baby could have. My boyfriend and I have a few problems. 1. We can’t agree on any names 2. I want the baby to have my last name.<\/p>\n
My list:
Rose (I like more classy, less common names)
Violet
Leilani
Annelise<\/p>\nBoyfriend’s List:
Ava (Likes trendy, popular names)
Sophia
Isabelle
Olivia<\/p>\nWhat we agree(kinda) on:
Charlotte(both like but is getting a little popular)
Grace(I like but too common)
Amelia(same as above)<\/p>\nNames we can’t use:
Cora(this is the only one I would have considered)
Lily
Faith
Lauren<\/p>\nThat’s just the start of our issues. I really want my girl to have my last name. I love my boyfriend but I’m worried that we might split after the baby is born. Plus, his last name is Balls. He and his family always get teased about it. (unfortunately he has an uncle Harry Balls) He thinks that the baby should have his last name because that is usually what happens. It seems like we can’t agree on anything!<\/p>\n
Thank you!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It sounds to me as if it would be better for the baby to have your surname. While it’s true that it’s common for children to have their father’s surname, it gets less common all the time—and in many cases, I think it makes more sense for the baby to have the mother’s surname. If your boyfriend’s surname weren’t such a challenging one, I might suggest using his family name as the baby’s second middle name, or hyphenating it with yours. As it is, perhaps it speaks poorly of my character to say that I might use the various reasonable concerns inherent in the situation as my excuse to get out of having to use his surname for the baby.<\/p>\n
I am encouraged, looking at the lists of names:\u00a0 the two of you have similar styles, and the differences are mostly a matter of commonness. If he already likes Olivia and Sophia, I can see leading him gently to something more like Violet—as opposed to what we’d be facing if his favorite girl names were Ryder and Storm.<\/p>\n
Let’s start with his choice of Ava and see if we can work outward to something more to your tastes. Eva would be beautiful, as would Eve. Or Audrey, or Ivy, or Genevieve.<\/p>\n
From his Sophia, I suggest Fiona, Josephine, Phoebe, Phillipa, Simone, Stella.<\/p>\n
From his Isabelle, I suggest Isadora, Annabel, Maribel, Rosabel, Clarissa. Annabel especially seems like a good compromise between your Annelise and his Isabelle.<\/p>\n
From his Olivia, I suggest Liviana, Eliza, Molly, Lydia, Linnea.<\/p>\n
If you like Cora but can’t use it, is Clara too close to be considered? That’s one of my favorites for classy sweetness, along with Eliza and Jane.<\/p>\n
Or Nora? Too close to Cora, or okay?<\/p>\n
I wonder if Emmeline would work. My guess is that he’d like Emma, but the longer variation is much less common and has more the flavor of Annelise from your list.<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/b> R. writes:<\/p>\n
Hi everyone! Thank you to everyone who commented and for all the ideas! Im sending this right now so I don’t forget later.<\/p>\n
So in the end, we decided give our baby my last name. My boyfriend has had teasing in the past, and he decided she didn’t need to get teased about her last name. We then tried to encorperate Balls into her middle name, by choosing Annbel.(Bel is close enough to Balls for us, and there are Anns on both my side and his side)<\/p>\n
Her first name took a while. He actually like alot of the suggestions, but thought they were a little too “out there”(I’m not sure why, I guess names outside the top ten are out there for him!) But there was one name that he really liked- Josephine. I loved it alot because it honored my dad, Joseph, who goes by his middle name most of the time. It just so happened that she was born on my dad’s birthday! Josephine Annabel Townman was born July 1 at 7 lbs 9 oz. Our little girl is so sweet! Thanks again everyone! <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
R. writes: I have been reading your blog for a while now, and didn’t expect to be writing to you so soon. I am expecting my first baby this summer. I am having a girl. The baby’s last name will be either mine (similar to Townman) or my boyfriends (Balls). I am only seventeen (unfortunately […]<\/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-6182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1BI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6182","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=6182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}