Leigh writes:<\/p>\n
In my desperate attempts to search the Internet for an appropriate name for my soon-to-be born son, I came across your website. My husband and I have gone round and round in our discussions about what to name him, and we’re no closer to a decision than when we started. I am due at the end of August, and I really want to start referring to him as something other than “the baby” so I feel as though I know him when he’s born! I’m a planner by nature, and it’s driving me crazy that we don’t have a name picked out.<\/p>\n
There are a few considerations that I have when it comes to choosing a name. First, it has to sound right with our odd last name – Face. That means no “Happy”, “Smiley”, or anything else that’s already a common or cutesy phrase. Second, it shouldn’t rhyme with the last name. That rules out “Chase Face”. Third, I have many names that I won’t consider because they conjure up the image of certain students I’ve had in my teaching career or they are so common that I’ve had ten of them in my classes. I’ve been teaching for ten years, so there are too many to mention, but as examples, no “Tyler”, “Garrett” or “Matthew”.<\/p>\n
I really think, rhythmically speaking, that the first name should have at least two syllables to go with the one syllable last name. Ideally, I would like a name with three or more syllables that can be shortened into a two syllable nickname. My husband’s main concern is that it sounds cool when spoken across the loudspeaker at his future Little League baseball games. We have a daughter already and her name is Natalie Elizabeth Face.<\/p>\n
I’ve suggested so many combinations to my husband, I don’t know what else to do. He just doesn’t seem to like anything other than Aiden, which to me sounds too much like other modern names (Jaden, Braden, etc.) Maybe if I can give him ideas from non-biased but interested individuals, he will be more open to considering them. I would really appreciate your input! Thanks for any suggestions you may have!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Teaching is a tough profession, baby-names-wise!<\/p>\n
You’re hoping for a 3-or-more-syllable name that could be shortened to a 2-syllable nickname, and the one that comes immediately to mind is Alexander, nickname Alex. That’s unfortunately fairly common—but maybe all your Alexanders were bright students with pleasant, respectful personalities.<\/p>\n
This discussion has brought to light something I hadn’t realized, which is that most boy nicknames now are one syllable: Timmy and Tommy and Johnny and Ricky sound like children from another era. Still, I did find some boy names with contemporary two-syllable nicknames:<\/p>\n
Elias, nickname Eli
Theodore, nickname Theo<\/strike> [suggestion withdrawn; see comment section]
Anderson, nickname Andy
Carlton, nickname Carl
Jameson, nickname Jamie
Tobias or Tobin, nickname Toby
Leonardo, nickname Leo
Jordan, nickname Jordy
Charles, nickname Charlie<\/p>\nDo any of those appeal? You do indeed seem double-cursed: the years and years of former students, plus a challenging surname!<\/p>\n
I’ll put a poll to the right<\/strike> [poll closed; see below], but I hope the rest of you will chime in with more suggestions.<\/p>\n[Poll results:<\/span>
Aidan: 1 vote, roughly 0%
Elias\/Eli: 23 votes, roughly 15%Theodore\/Theo: 28 votes, roughly 18%<\/strike> [suggestion withdrawn; see comment section]
Anderson\/Andy: 20 votes, roughly 13%
Carlton\/Carl: 2 votes, roughly 1%
Jameson\/Jamie: 14 votes, roughly 9%
Tobias or Tobin \/ Toby: 14 votes, roughly 9%
Leonardo\/Leo: 4 votes, roughly 3%
Jordan\/Jordy: 2 votes, roughly 1%
Charles\/Charlie: 18 votes, roughly 11%
Alexander\/Alex : 31 votes, roughly 20%]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leigh writes: In my desperate attempts to search the Internet for an appropriate name for my soon-to-be born son, I came across your website. My husband and I have gone round and round in our discussions about what to name him, and we’re no closer to a decision than when we started. I am due […]<\/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-7209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1Sh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209","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=7209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}