Erin writes:<\/p>\n
Hi Swistle! My name is Erin and I wasn’t expecting to be writing you as I thought my husband (Bryan) and I had our names picked out. But with baby coming via repeat c-section on July 23, we are feeling a little iffy about our choice for a girl name. This will be our second child, a surprise, as we already have a 22-month old Keira Leigh (Leigh for my mother and grandmother). With Keira we decided we didn\u2019t want to find out the gender (something I\u2019ve always wanted to do), so I came up with a list of names and we narrowed it down to one boy name and one girl name.<\/p>\n
When we found out we were expecting again we decided to once again not find out the gender and knew we would be keeping Conner\/Connor Timothy, Timothy after my husband\u2019s late best friend, as our #1 boy choice. I once again made up a huge list of girl names, mostly all Irish as we love Irish names and have Irish on both sides, and we narrowed it down.<\/p>\n
My husband picked mostly all VERY popular names off the list; such as Kennedy, Peyton, Morgan, Reagan and Riley. I like all these names but seemed to be pulled more toward names like Aislinn, Carrigan, Cassidy, Kinley, Kyla, Quinn and Sheridan. We decided on Kinley Adair, Adair for his great-grandmother, and I thought that was that. However lately he keeps commenting such things like \u201cWhat\u2019s the girls name choice again? Oh yeah, Kinley\u2026. yeah that\u2019s right.\u201d and \u201cKinley right?\u201d Always with hesitation and doubt! Now I\u2019m starting to feel uneasy myself and have started up a whole new list in hopes something will pop out.<\/p>\n
Recently my mom mentioned the name, Fiona, a name I think is beautiful! BUT we own all three Shrek films and with a fourth in theatres right now I\u2019m worried about the repercussions of naming a girl after an Ogre princess. Swistle can you and your readers please help us choose a beautiful, not to popular Irish name for our possibly little girl (I so feel it\u2019s a boy though)? The middle name will definitely be Adair (or Margaret if Adair doesn\u2019t jive with the first name) and the last name\u2026 well I swear it doesn\u2019t sound right with ANY name you put in front of it but it sounds like Hu-ray-duh. Thank you so so very much!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I always wish to be able to do little interviews in my Baby Naming Office (where I would have a double desk with my fellow name-hobbyist friend Mairzy) (and I think we should have huge soft leather office chairs) (and bowls of snackies) (and comfy leather swivel chairs for the clients), because what I’d like to do first is ask your husband if he really is feeling doubtful about the name Kinley, and what his own first choices would be if he were choosing the name on his own.<\/p>\n
I soooooo wish the Shrek people hadn’t picked the name Fiona! Oh, what a sad day that was, similar to the day the pharmaceutical company chose to call an allergy medicine Allegra, or the day Toyota called their minivan Sienna. LEAVE THE GOOD GIRL NAMES ALONE PLEASE, PEOPLE-WHO-NAME-PRODUCTS!<\/p>\n
Well. There are still some good pretty Celtic names that have escaped marketers:<\/p>\n
Bethan
Brenna
Bridget
Bronwyn
Brynn
Catriona
Emlyn
Finola
Flannery
Isla
Madigan
Maura
Mirren
Tamsin
Teagan
Tierney<\/p>\nI can’t tell if Mirren and Tierney sound too much like Keira: their beginning\/ending sounds are completely different, but that “eer” sound in the middles is so strong.<\/p>\n