Sarah writes:<\/p>\n
My husband Dave and I are due with our second son on September 15th. We’ve never found ourselves in agreement about names. Our 21-month-old son, Isaac Zygmunt, was two days old before we named him. (Dave suggested Isaac after Sir Isaac Newton, and I readily agreed since it was what I’d wanted my parents to name my youngest brother. Zygmunt is after Dave’s long-deceased grandfather, and also the middle name of both Dave and his dad.) We call him Ike. I like the idea of his new baby brother getting a fun nickname, too, but it’s not a requirement.<\/p>\n
In my opinion, our last name, Kil (pronounced “kill”) can be a bit hard on first names. Ones that end in “-en” or “-an” often create an unpleasant combo. For example, Dave recently suggested the name Roman, and I pointed out that with our last name, it would sound like “roam and kill.”<\/p>\n
Dave, a geek, looks to scientists and mathematicians for name inspiration. (Hence Isaac.) But even more, he loves what he calls “gladiator\/warrior” names–Apollo, Leonidas, Maximus, Sinbad. These strike me as names better suited to pets or comic book heroes. Dave loves the idea of Maximus “Max” Kil, but it just sounds too violent to me.<\/p>\n
I like the idea of using names from our families. We could name the baby after our dads, Charles and Richard, who both died shortly after Dave and I started dating. I like the nickname Charlie for a little guy. (My dad went by Chuck, which sounds like more of a grown-up nickname to me.) I’d rather not use Richard as the first name because Dave says he’d want to shorten it to his dad’s nickname, Dick. (No offense to a great guy.)<\/p>\n
Probably my favorite at the moment is Arlo. It first appealed to me in high school, when I noticed a couple famous people with the name. I’ve been thinking about it again recently, but I held off on suggesting it until a few days ago. Dave didn’t shoot it down, but I think he was just being polite because I built it up so much. I tried to sell him on the idea that it sounds similar to Apollo. It’s also an Italian variant of Charles, which I enjoy knowing, since my dad was half Italian.<\/p>\n
I have long liked the name Atticus (from one of my favorite books, To Kill A Mockingbird). Dave has expressed that it’s cool because it has that ancient Roman sound he likes, but I wonder if it’s just a little too unusual to actually saddle my kid with.<\/p>\n
Dave also likes Xavier; while I find it vastly preferable to his other picks, I don’t love it. Names which have been suggested and not outright disagreed upon are Abraham (Abe) and Asher (Ash). <\/p>\n
Besides Zygmunt, our grandfathers had\/have very common first names, but niftier middle names that might be worked in somewhere: Gardner, Martin, Roland. Oh, and David might be all right, too. <\/p>\n
Can you come up with a name that will somehow marry our disparate tastes? Many thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’m with you on Maximus Kil. The child has geek genes, you said? A name like Maximus Kil is not going to work if he turns out intellectual, quiet, bookish, or skinny. In fact, I can’t picture it on a burly football player, either. Or on a doctor. Or on a computer programmer, a teacher, a psychologist, a scientist, or anyone except a pro wrestler or video game character.<\/p>\n
The name Atticus leaps out at me from your list, but I wish it had a nickname. It seems like a lot of name for everyday use. But it would make a terrific middle name. Perhaps for this boy you could switch the family name to the first position and do Charles Atticus. Ike and Charlie.<\/p>\n
I love Arlo and hope your husband will go for it. I like Arlo Richard, since it puts the name of honor in a non-nickname position.<\/p>\n
Another first-name possibility is Edison. I’ve said it aloud a few times with your surname and I don’t think it presents problems there. Ike and Ed is adorable.<\/p>\n
I also suggest Augustus. Ike and Gus.<\/p>\n
Or Quintus: Ike and Quin.<\/p>\n
Archimedes is a lot of name, but the cute nickname Archie makes it more manageable. Ike and Archie.<\/p>\n
Darwin is a GREAT boy name, but Darwin has come to represent all of evolutionary theory. The name may now be too steeped in meaning for regular use.<\/p>\n
Linus. Ike and Linus.<\/p>\n
Tycho was the name of a famous astronomer, but doesn’t he sound more like a gladiator? Ike and Ty. [Edit:<\/span> I’ve been saying it TIKE-o, but apparently it’s TEEK-o. Thanks, Karen! I think Ike and Teek is great.]<\/p>\n
Name update<\/span> 09-25-2009! Sarah writes:<\/p>\n
Both you and your readers provided excellent ideas. When we saw Augustus\/”Gus,” Dave and I were both excited. It really was perfect for both our tastes. The next day Dave’s enthusiasm for it waned, but I’ll be keeping it for possible future use.<\/p>\n
Our new little guy was born on the 15th, and after a couple nameless days, we were getting frustrated. I liked a number of names but had no absolute favorite; Dave had been campaigning for Maximus since before our first son was born. I told Dave we should go with Maximus. He got nervous about my sudden change of heart, so it took another day before we officially committed to Maximus Richard, “Max.” I can’t imagine him as anyone other than Max now and feel that he’ll mold the name to who he is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sarah writes: My husband Dave and I are due with our second son on September 15th. We’ve never found ourselves in agreement about names. Our 21-month-old son, Isaac Zygmunt, was two days old before we named him. (Dave suggested Isaac after Sir Isaac Newton, and I readily agreed since it was what I’d wanted my […]<\/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-6951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1O7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6951","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=6951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}