K. writes:<\/p>\n
We are due with our third child in May.
\nCurrently we have a 4 year old daughter, Mackenzie and a 2 year old son, Jake.
\nIf this baby is a boy, we have finally narrowed down boy names to either Callen or Calvin.
\nI thought I was set with Liam (although DH was not a big fan), but our last name starts with an M and sounds like Marcin. I kept saying Liam Marcin over and over, it began to sound like Lia Marcin, and that just ruined it for me!
\nDH is super picky with names. But one we could agree on is Calvin.
\nMy maiden name began with Cal, so it would mean something to me to use a boy name starting with Cal :)
\nI am just not big on the VIN ending… I’ve had a poor association with a Vinny I knew.
\nI stumbled upon Callen, pronounced like Allen with a C (Cal-len). I really like this name, and it is a name of a character from TV show, NCIS Los Angeles, which DH is a huge fan of.
\nI began googling the name more and most sites are showing it as a Gaelic girl name, but pronounced like Caylin. I’m wondering if I name my son this, would it get mispronounced all the time?
\nI saw Callum, but I don’t like the M ending with my last name, it just disappears.
\nI’ve thought about Caleb, but I am not liking the -LEB ending, I don’t know why. Just isn’t sitting well with me.
\nI’ve tried looking up other names starting with Cal, but not really liking any.
\nCan you think of any others I may be missing? Do you think Callen is ok as a boy name and would most people understand how to pronounce it? I could go with Calvin, DH does like it better than Callen, but I feel we need to compromise and Callen would be the way to go.<\/p>\nThanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThere is a girl named Callin in my son’s preschool class, and it strikes me as an almost perfect unisex name: similar to Calla and Kaylin (and with the very feminine nickname Callie), and also to Callum and Calvin and Alan (and with the masculine nickname Cal). It can be made more feminine with spellings such as Callyn, but Callan and Callen can go either way. The Baby Name Wizard<\/a> has it listed as a boy’s Celtic name spelled Callan, and her site Namipedia<\/a> shows it pronounced as you mention, like Alan with a C. Think Baby Names<\/a> lists the pronunciation the same way, as does Baby Names World<\/a>.<\/p>\nFor now the name is used mostly for boys: in 2010, there were 676 boys named Callen\/Callan\/Calen\/Calan\/Calin\/Callin, and 101 girls named Callan\/Calyn\/Calynn\/Callen\/Callyn\/Calin. Many of the girl names could be spellings of Kaylin rather than of Callan, which would make Callan even more weighted toward the boys. Spelling it with a double L should keep the A short.<\/p>\n
It’s possible that even if you spell it with two L’s, people will occasionally pronounce it like Kaylin. But my much more common name Kristen, which ends in the familiar -ten just like the number ten, is often pronounced Kristine—or pronounced Kiersten or Kirsten, even though it’s spelled with a Kri-. I do think it’s wise to avoid pronunciation issues when possible (that is, I wouldn’t suggest spelling it Calin), but I think if you’ve spelled it traditionally and phonetically, you’ll be as much in the clear as any of us. And the name Callan has something very important for a name that might have pronunciation issues: an easy way to explain it. “It’s like Alan, with a C.”<\/p>\n
A few more Cal- options you’ve probably already discovered:<\/p>\n
Calder
\nCale
\nCalix
\nCallahan
\nCallaway<\/p>\nCallahan has most of the sounds of Callan, but I think adding the extra syllable makes the pronunciation way clearer, and also increases the boyishness. I particularly like the way Callahan’s surnamey sound goes with Mackenzie, while the nickname Cal goes well with Jake.<\/p>\n
If the Cal doesn’t need to be in the beginning of the name, there’s also Pascal—but that seems like a style mismatch with the sibling names.<\/p>\n
Edited to add!<\/strong> K. writes:<\/p>\n
Thank you so much for your thoughts on this!
\nAfter reading everyone’s comments, someone asked why I couldn’t just use my maiden name. So, it got me thinking….
\nMy maiden name is Calabrese. And I just kept thinking how Caleb would really be the closest name possible. The more I thought about it, the more it grew on me.
\nThen, I thought about using Reese as the middle name. Calabrese = Caleb Reese.
\n(also considering using the spelling of Rhys, but not sure yet).<\/p>\nMy only dilemma is really considering the middle name.
\nMy daughters middle name is Helen, after my grandmother and my sons middle name is William, after Daddy.<\/p>\nMy other middle name option is to use Gage. It is my MILs maiden name and SILs middle name.
\nDH prefers this way, he thinks that Gage has more meaning than Reese, but he understands what I am trying to do and said I can do as I please.<\/p>\nI could also use Peter, after my Father.<\/p>\n
I am so torn! Do I break up my maiden name into two names or give him half my maiden name with another maiden name?<\/p>\n
Thank you all so much!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
K. writes: We are due with our third child in May. Currently we have a 4 year old daughter, Mackenzie and a 2 year old son, Jake. If this baby is a boy, we have finally narrowed down boy names to either Callen or Calvin. I thought I was set with Liam (although DH was […]<\/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-6261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1CZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261","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=6261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9583,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261\/revisions\/9583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}