Amanda writes:<\/p>\n
Hi there! I am due with girl #2 on Sept.3 and my husband and I are beyond stumped about what to name her. With my first pregnancy I had my heart set on a particular girl’s name (Anneliese) but he loathed it. We fought about it for the entire 40 weeks, and then after a 40 hour labour, while I was still soaked in sweat, I pleaded, “Can we PLEASE call her Anneliese?” And he still refused. In the end we went with “Avelyn” (pronounced with a soft “a”, like Evelyn, but with an A) and it suits our daughter (now two years old) way better than Anneliese ever would have.<\/p>\n
All that back story is to say that this time around, I don’t have a front-runner, so while we’re not fighting about what to name the next baby, we’re not coming up with any clear winners, either. We seem to have very different tastes in names, my hubby and I. One thing that’s really important to me is that her name be uncommon (but not strange) and unique (but not too “out there” like Muse, or Lyric, or Harmony, or something). I love Avelyn’s name because it is feminine, but uncommon. A little twist on an old-fashioned name. So, something else like that might be good.<\/p>\n
Here are the names I am liking:<\/p>\n
Alida\/Elida (pronounced Al-eye-dah)…hubby HATES this one
Elise…he doesn’t really like this one either
Evanie (probably too close to Avelyn, in that their nicknames would be Avi and Evi, but I REALLY like this one)
Renate
Maea<\/p>\nHere are the names my hubby likes:<\/p>\n
Leah
Aliyah (just reminds me of the singer who died in the plane crash)
Annalie
Natasha<\/p>\nBy the way, we have the world’s dullest surname: Brown. Which is also why I’d like a first name with some flair\/uniqueness to it.<\/p>\n
HELP US, please!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I thought your labor\/delivery naming story was going to have a totally different outcome! Your husband is one tough cookie! I think it’s safe to say he’s not going to cave on any name he doesn’t like no matter what, so we might as well take Alida\/Elida and Elise out of the running right this minute before we get our hearts set on them any further.<\/p>\n
And is he a little crazy to unshakably loathe Anneliese but like Annalie? Yes, I think so.<\/p>\n
All right. Let’s get started. I LOVE the name Avelyn. LOVE IT. Am adding it to my personal Girl Name List. That’s beautiful. Let’s find some sister candidates.<\/p>\n
How about Amelie? It’s close to Annalie, and I see that three out of the four choices on your husband’s list feature combinations of the “uh” sound and the “lee” sound: Leah (lee-uh), Aliyah (uh-lee-uh), and Annalie (ann-uh-lee). Amelie seems like it might be just his style. Avelyn and Amelie. Amelie Brown.<\/p>\n
Here’s a name I’ve been saving for a special occasion: awhile back a friend sent me the name suggestion Briarley, which she said she’d wanted to use for her own child but the association with the one Briarley she had ever known would have been a little awkward (they didn’t have a “name my child after you” level of friendship). I penciled it into my naming book and this seems like the moment to bring it out. What do you think? Unusual, beautiful. The only problem is I’m not sure it works with your surname. Briarley Brown. That’s a lot of “Br” for a single name to carry.<\/p>\n
Ariadne, perhaps. Beautiful, classic, but unusual. Avelyn and Ariadne. Ariadne Brown.<\/p>\n
Have you considered Elodie? Your choices Elida and Elise made me think of it. Avelyn and Elodie. Elodie Brown.<\/p>\n
Isadora gives you the cute nickname combination Avi and Izzy. Avelyn and Isadora. Isadora Brown.<\/p>\n
My friend Mairzy and I are totally split on this one: I love the name Minerva and she doesn’t. I think it’s particularly good here: Avelyn and Minerva. Avi and Minnie. Minerva Brown.<\/p>\n
Rosalie. Avelyn and Rosalie. Rosalie Brown.<\/p>\n
Mariel. Avelyn and Mariel. Mariel Brown.<\/p>\n
This may be too many choices—it was really hard to narrow it down at all. There are so many names that are good with the surname and sibling name, and it was hard to stop leafing through the book looking for just! one! more!
Poll is to the right.<\/strike> [Poll closed; see below.]<\/p>\n[Poll results (465 votes total):<\/span>
Amelie: 170 votes, roughly 37%
Briarley: 36 votes, roughly 8%
Ariadne: 7 votes, roughly 2%
Elodie: 110 votes, roughly 24%
Isadora: 55 votes, roughly 12%
Minerva: 5 votes, roughly 1%
Rosalie: 50 votes, roughly 11%
Mariel: 32 votes, roughly 7%]<\/p>\n[Name update!<\/span> Amanda writes:<\/p>\n
Baby girl Brown arrived and after much deliberation we decided on the name Jolie Grace. We are pronouncing the name Jolie with a soft ‘J’ and the accent on the last syllable, so it has a bit of a French flair to it. <\/p>\n
Sorry we didn’t end up using any of your suggestions…I liked them but the ol’ hubby thought some of them were a little too “out there”. He’s such a stick in the mud. :)<\/p>\n
The name suits her perfectly and she’s a dream baby. <\/p>\n
Thanks for your help!<\/p>\n
Amanda Brown]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amanda writes: Hi there! I am due with girl #2 on Sept.3 and my husband and I are beyond stumped about what to name her. With my first pregnancy I had my heart set on a particular girl’s name (Anneliese) but he loathed it. We fought about it for the entire 40 weeks, and then […]<\/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-7200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1S8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200","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=7200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}