Rachel writes:<\/p>\n
I love your baby name blog and can’t wait to write you for myself someday, but for now I’m writing for my sister (with her blessing). She and her husband are expecting their third baby (gender unknown) at the beginning of December–the 4th to be specific.<\/p>\n
They’ve got a son, William Charles (age 3.5 years), who is named after two family members, and a daughter, Clara Grace (not quite 2), whose first name is a family name and whose middle name was chosen for the religious significance. <\/p>\n
If I get another niece, my sister wants to name her Anna (which is a family name) and my BIL wants to name her Hannah. Both of them love their own choice and strongly dislike the other’s choice, which makes everyone want to pull their hair out since the names are SO similar. Any third suggestion to pull them away from the Anna\/Hannah debate? My suggestions of Ava, Lydia, and Lila were rejected. They like Elizabeth and Eleanor for a middle name, but my sister doesn’t think Eleanor goes well with Anna or Hannah. (And they don’t want to move either of those family names to the first name slot.)<\/p>\n
If I get another nephew, they both like Elijah for the Biblical character, but my sister doesn’t think it goes with the sibset. They’re thinking of Patrick for a middle name, which my sister doesn’t like well enough for a first name but wants to use in the middle name slot to honor a family member.<\/p>\n
Their last name, which my sister does not want included in the post, is four syllables with the emphasis on the second syllable. <\/p>\n
Thanks, Swistle!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I love the Anna\/Hannah debate! Let’s see if we can find some other possibilities to consider:<\/p>\n
Eliza
Ella
Emma
Lucy
Helen
Minna
Molly
Nora
Rose
Ruth<\/p>\nMy favorites are:
Eliza Eleanor (William, Clara, and Eliza)
Lucy Eleanor (William, Clara, and Lucy)
Molly Elizabeth (William, Clara, and Molly)
Rose Elizabeth (William, Clara, and Rose)<\/p>\nI think Elijah is coming mainstream enough to go with William and Clara, especially if he goes by Eli. It’s not quite the same style, but it’s not a jarring clash. If they continue to be unsure of it, perhaps they could use it in the middle name slot. Some other first-name possibilities to consider:<\/p>\n
Daniel
Elias
Elliot
Emmett
Everett
Isaac
Jonathan
Josiah
Nathaniel
Owen
Samuel
Silas
Simon
Saul<\/p>\nMy favorites are:
Daniel Patrick (William, Clara, and Daniel)
Nathaniel Patrick (William, Clara, and Nathaniel)
Samuel Patrick (William, Clara, and Samuel)<\/p>\nName update<\/span> 12-17-2009! Rachel writes:<\/p>\n
Thanks so much for your help with a name for my sister’s new baby. We loved reading your suggestions and the comments. In the end, the Anna\/Hannah debate was moot, because I have a new nephew! My sister and I both *loved* your suggestion of Nathaniel, but my BIL had a bad association with the name. Elijah Patrick was born December 1st, weighing in at 8 lbs 2 ozs and measuring 21 inches. Thank you again for your help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rachel writes: I love your baby name blog and can’t wait to write you for myself someday, but for now I’m writing for my sister (with her blessing). She and her husband are expecting their third baby (gender unknown) at the beginning of December–the 4th to be specific. They’ve got a son, William Charles (age […]<\/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-6896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1Ne","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6896","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=6896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}