Catherine writes:<\/p>\n
We are still very stuck on our baby girl’s name and I am having lots of contractions. She could come any day, but the latest is December 22nd. Please help! We are nowhere near a decision.<\/p>\n
Our last name is May and my son’s name is Andrew Charles May. I am Catherine and my husband is Christopher, but often goes by Chris. I do not go by any nicknames and our son does not go by “Andy” or “Drew” (so far), he is always “Andrew” and he is nearly 2 years old.<\/p>\n
Here is the current name list:<\/p>\n
Avalon (Avalene) (Avalyn)
Scarlet (Scarlett)
Charlotte
Adelyn
Paloma
Aubrey
Addison
Peyton
Annalise (Elise)
Evelyn
Brooklynn
Annabelle (Annabella)
Arabelle (Arabella)
Toria
Camille
Avonlea<\/p>\nMy husband hates most of the list and is only currently favorable towards Charlotte, Scarlett, or Aubrey. We like the middle name “Helena”, after our grandmother’s, but are not set in stone on it. If the first named ended in “a”, we would change it to Helene. Like “Charlotte Helena May”, but “Annabella Helene May”. We are also considering Charlotte for the middle name.<\/p>\n
I think if I could pick one today, it would be “Avonlea Charlotte May” Same intitials as my son and I loved the Anne of Green Gables books as a kid. I think it is beautiful. My husband thinks it is weird and hates it. Doesn’t seem willing to give in. I think “Andrew and Avonlea” are cute together. Hubby hates it.<\/p>\n
Although, he did hate Aubrey, but now is coming around to that one. My mom hates Aubrey and says it is a man’s name in a Jane Austin book. She really hates it.<\/p>\n
Finally, to make matters more complicated, I would like to somehow honor my mother, but her name is “Sandra Amelia” and I don’t care for either name. For our girl’s first or middle name. So that might just not work out. Any pretty variations on Sandra or Amelia?<\/p>\n
Any new name suggestions are also welcome. I tend to love “A” names and girly names that are more current and unusual. No “Linda” or “Mary” or “Elizabeth” for me.<\/p>\n
Thank You!!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I think we can immediately narrow the list down by taking out the names your husband hates, leaving only the ones he’s willing to consider. It’s possible he’d change his mind as he did with Aubrey, but there isn’t much time for that. So here’s the new list:<\/p>\n
Aubrey
Charlotte
Scarlett<\/p>\nYour mom’s hate, though, I’m tossing out of consideration. A LOT of girl names were once boy names: Alice, Allison, Anne, Evelyn, Lesley, Mackenzie, Shannon, Tracy, Whitney. Ashley was a boy’s name in a Margaret Mitchell novel, but that doesn’t take away its current girl-name status. And besides, you’re trying to honor her by using her name for your daughter, so I don’t want to hear any lip from her. No lip! (Fine: it influences me that she hates the name Aubrey. I just don’t WANT to be influenced, because I love the name and because I think one generation OFTEN dislikes the next generation’s naming choices.)<\/p>\n
In general, I don’t like to alter namesake names. Helena to Helene is about as far as I’d go: after that it starts to feel like it’s not really the person’s name at all, as when someone names their baby Madison “after” Grandma Mildred. The message becomes: “I want you to act honored and teary over this, but also we hated your name and didn’t want to use it.” Which, er, is usually a pretty accurate message. Sorry, honorees, but your names sound really out of date.<\/p>\n
Amelia could be Amalie (AH mah lee), if you like that better. It has a similar sound\/rhythm to Avonlea, Avalyn, Avalon. You could use Lia, except that’s such a different name, especially since it’s your mom’s middle name so there’s already considerable distance from the name she’d think of as hers.<\/p>\n
I think we might have some luck with the first name, though: Sandra is short for Alexandra. Do you like that name? It starts with A, gives you the same initial as Andrew, and Andrew and Alexandra is a nice sibling set. Alexandra Helene would be a beautiful family name, and Alexandra May is lovely. You could also use Alissandra, a variation I like even better and which has the benefit of emphasizing the Sandra connection.<\/p>\n
That’s my suggestion: Alexandra\/Alissandra Helene May. Or, if you want the same initials as your son’s, Alexandra\/Alissandra Charlotte May.<\/p>\n
From your list of finalists, my favorite is Aubrey but my guess is that Aubrey is out because of your mom, in which case my favorite is Charlotte Helena May.<\/p>\n
Name update<\/span> 12-16-2009! Catherine writes:<\/p>\n
Thank you for using my letter on your website and giving me your opinion on our naming dilemma. Our baby girl arrived 3 and a half weeks early, so you picked my letter just in time. She was born on December 11, 2009 at 10:14 p.m. and weighed 9lbs 1 oz and 19 1\/2 inches long! She was technically a “late-term preemie” born at 36 weeks gestation, but she was still so big!<\/p>\n
We really liked your suggestion of “Amelie” a lot. And debated a long time. But in the end, we chose “Annalise Charlotte May” for her name. I liked the matching initials and sounds with our son, “Andrew Charles May”. Both my husband and I felt the name was just right for her and we have had tons of compliments on her name.<\/p>\n
Andrew is in love with his baby sister, Annalise, and we think she is pretty special, too!<\/p>\n
Thanks for all your help,
Catherine<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Catherine writes: We are still very stuck on our baby girl’s name and I am having lots of contractions. She could come any day, but the latest is December 22nd. Please help! We are nowhere near a decision. Our last name is May and my son’s name is Andrew Charles May. I am Catherine and […]<\/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-6881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1MZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881","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=6881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}