Michaela writes:<\/p>\n
I am due with our first baby (a boy) on the 29th June.
I had “my” boys name in my head for years, Leonardo (after da Vinci, not DiCaprio), with Leo as a NN. It was the only name I had found that I like that I thought sounds good with our surname.
Unfortunately, by complete coincidence, my sister loved the same name, and my beautiful nephew Leo was born a couple of months before I got pregnant. She had no idea how I felt about the name when she chose it, so it is sadly a case of first in, best dressed and no hard feelings.<\/p>\nI thought about using Leo anyway but my sister and I are very close and our kids will spend a lot of time together. I want my bub to have his own name, so have regretfully had to let the name go.<\/p>\n
My problem now is that I can’t find another name that my husband and I both like that goes with our surname – Evans.<\/p>\n
Seems like a simple enough name to match, but I feel that every name I think of sounds like it runs into our surname, e.g Lucas Evans sounds like Luca Sevens, Kieran Evans sounds like Kira Nevans. My husband and I both like classic names but want to steer clear of anything too on trend or super popular. I have an (until recently) unusual name with an unusual pronunciation and have spent my life correcting people on both spelling and pronunciation and don’t want to subject my little one to the same inconvenience. (in case you are wondering, is spelt Michaela and pronounced Mic Carla, not Mic Kayla)<\/p>\n
A surprising finalist (the only one we have so far) is Joseph, which I was happy to see wasn’t as popular these days as I thought it would be. However, I am still concerned about it running into our surname. Does Joseph Evans end up sounding too much like Joseph Fevans, or am I just overthinking this waaaay too much?<\/p>\n
Our little one’s middle names will probably be William (after my grandfather) and also maybe (a very uncertain maybe) Glyndor after hubby’s grandad. That gives us a 2-2-2 or 2-2-2-2 rhythm, which I know isn’t ideal but considering how much trouble we are having just finding a first name, it is a whole other issue I’m not quite ready to worry about just yet!<\/p>\n
I would love to know your thoughts on run-on sounding names – do you use a full name enough to make that a deal breaker?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The main thing I worry about with run-together names is the inadvertent creation of an incorrect (and sometimes embarrassing) name or word—as with your example of Kieran Evans becoming Kira, or with the classic example of poor Ben Dover. But even when a name could\/does create a new name, it’s still not necessarily an issue: Faith Evans could be misheard as Fay Thevans, and yet I never did mishear it that way.<\/p>\n
With Joseph Evans, no incorrect or embarrassing name is created. If the surname is sometimes heard as Fevans (and I think there is low risk of this, since Fevans is a very uncommon surname while Evans is familiar), that seems like a very minor issue: most people have to spell their surnames when giving them, and most surnames are regularly misspelled or misheard. And this particular mis-hearing isn’t embarrassing in any way.<\/p>\n
As for the syllables\/rhythm, it’s a matter of personal taste. I myself like the 2-2-2 rhythm to the point of gravitating toward it, so I think Joseph William Evans is a great name. The only issue I see is that he will not be able to use his monogram if he does the old-fashioned style (first initial, surname initial, middle initial). But I am not seeing much of that monogram style in my own circles, and perhaps you don’t see much of it in yours either. It’s rare for me to even remember to check for issues there.<\/p>\n
Because you liked the name Leo and felt that name worked well with your surname, I’d also suggest Milo. Milo William Evans.<\/p>\n
Hugo is another similar choice. Hugo William Evans.<\/p>\n
Or there’s Arlo or Nico or Matteo or Theo.<\/p>\n
I also like William in the first name slot. William Glyndor Evans.<\/p>\n
Even if you did choose a name that ran together a little, it would be okay, I think, as long as it didn’t create a name that might embarrass him: that is, I wouldn’t use Kieran\/Kira, for example, but I don’t worry so much about Lucas\/Luca. You would introduce him carefully: “Hello, I’ve brought Lucas for his appointment. Lucas [pause slightly longer than a space, not quite as long as a period] Evans.” It would quickly become habit, that tiny extra careful spacing. I do it myself, because I’ve found that people can hear my name as Krista if I’m not careful to pause, and because I used to work in a pharmacy and found that almost all first\/last names blend together when they’re not familiar to the person wondering whose prescription she’s looking for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Michaela writes: I am due with our first baby (a boy) on the 29th June.I had “my” boys name in my head for years, Leonardo (after da Vinci, not DiCaprio), with Leo as a NN. It was the only name I had found that I like that I thought sounds good with our surname.Unfortunately, by […]<\/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-6189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1BP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189","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=6189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}