Maggie writes:<\/p>\n
We really need you and your reader’s help!! Our baby is arriving any day now (officially due next Friday) and my dear husband recently decided he no longer likes the boy’s name we agreed on. And it took us literally the whole nine months to find one name we could both live with, so we’re back at square one. We don’t know baby’s gender, but if it’s a girl, she will be either Julia, Sophia, or Laurel. We’ve had these names forever, we love them all, it’s just a matter of seeing which one “fits” her once she’s here. Girls names are easy!<\/p>\n
BUT if baby is a boy, we have a problem. The name we had agreed on was Theodore, intending to call him Teddy when he’s little and letting him decide once he’s older whether he wants to be Theo, Teddy, or Theodore. My husband has suddenly decided it’s not masculine enough, although he would still consider it for a middle name. It was not my first choice, but I was happy enough with it.<\/p>\n
My top picks for boys were Alan and Jonathan. Husband’s top picks were John and Matthew. We could both live with Alan or Matthew from the other’s list, but don’t love them. (And Matthew sort of rhymes with the last syllable of our last name, which sounds funny to me.) As you can see, we partly agree on the John thing, but I dislike one syllable first names — no offense to anyone — and so even if we call him John for short, would like a longer formal first name. Are there any other longer names that have the nickname John? Husband will not consider Jonathan because we already have two immediate family members with the name, even though our son would have a different last name than the other two. The other problem is one side of the family is Greek, and would call John “Yanni” which I don’t think I can handle. I really really really don’t like the sound of Yanni, which makes me reluctant to use John. Our last name is long and Greek and ends with an “ew” sound, which means we want an recognizably male, simple spelling and easy pronounciation first name, nothing new-fangled or creative.<\/p>\n
Other names we cannot use because of family: Robert, Andrew, Alexander, Stephen, David, James, Benjamin, Lucas, William, Nicholas. Names I liked but DH refused: Nathaniel, Christopher, Julius, Lawrence.<\/p>\n
Any ideas for us? Thanks so much!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Another name that could be shortened to John is Johnson. My brother’s dorm floor had a secret pet kitten, and they named him Johnson, and I thought that was the cutest name EVER—until someone explained to me that it was an, er, nickname<\/span>. For something boys have and girls don’t, if you follow me. And according to my brother, EVERYONE knows this, but I did not. Apparently boys<\/span> know this. And also, maybe boys need a naming blog devoted to their Special Interest? Because they have an awful lot of names for It.<\/p>\n
Johnston is slightly less risky. But it sounds like the “Yanni” thing rules out John names for you guys.<\/p>\n
And oh dear heavens, look at all the good basic boy names you can’t use for family-already-used-them reasons! No wonder you’re stuck! Here’s a list of some good basic boy names NOT on the veto list:<\/p>\n
Caleb
Daniel
Edward (could still use Ted\/Teddy, or Ned)
Edmund (could still use Ted\/Teddy, or Ned)
Eric
Ethan
Evan
Henry
Ian
Isaac
Jacob (same J\/Y problem, though?)
Joshua (same J\/Y problem, though?)
Michael
Nathan (maybe too close to Nathaniel)
Samuel
Thomas<\/p>\nI’m leaning toward Evan: it’s a distant relative of the name John; it has the rhythm of Alan; it’s simple to spell and pronounce, etc. Evan Matthew. Evan Theodore. But I also really like Caleb. Caleb Theodore. Caleb Matthew. Caleb John.<\/p>\n
In fact, I like lots of these. Michael Alan. Edmund Matthew. Daniel John. Edward Alan. Eric John. Ian Matthew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maggie writes: We really need you and your reader’s help!! Our baby is arriving any day now (officially due next Friday) and my dear husband recently decided he no longer likes the boy’s name we agreed on. And it took us literally the whole nine months to find one name we could both live with, […]<\/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-7058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1PQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7058","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=7058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}