{"id":7222,"date":"2008-07-06T13:49:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-06T17:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2008\/07\/06\/baby-girl-g-sister-to-lance\/"},"modified":"2014-07-31T11:51:52","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T15:51:52","slug":"baby-girl-g-sister-to-lance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2008\/07\/06\/baby-girl-g-sister-to-lance\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Girl G., Sister to Lance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah writes:<\/p>\n

I need baby name help and I know that you are an expert so I would love some ideas. Our surname is one syllable and starts with G. We are expecting a baby girl in August and we already have a 2 year old boy- Lance Edward (initials spell LEG and though he has the same first and middle name of Lance Armstrong, he isn’t named after him). Lance is named after Lance Mountain my husband’s favorite skateboarder and Edward is my grandfather’s name.<\/p>\n

I have consulted the Baby Name Wizard book for sibling names that go with Lance, but I didn’t really like their suggestions. My maiden name is Hannah which I originally wanted to use but the husband vetoed it. Other family names my husband didn’t like, but I did were Emma and Anna. We each kind of have names we like, but aren’t 100% sold on them and are open to any and all suggestions. I like the name Lily (lance and lily, it sounds nice together, and I don’t mind the names being kind of nursery rhyme like- like jack and jill) and he likes Olivia (i do like olivia, but I don’t know if I am ready to commit to it). I have been trying to find middle names that went with either name to see if I would prefer one name over the other, but no such luck.<\/p>\n

I worry that both Olivia and Lily are too common of names and I don’t want our daughter to be like me growing up, Sarah was really popular growing up and I hated being one of many Sarah’s in school because unlike all my other friends I was always known as Sarah Hannah and not just Sarah and also my husband’s name Jeff was fairly common and what is even weirder and off topic is how many couples we have met that are Jeff and Sarah, it is kind of freaky! Anyways, I like Olivia and Lily, but I am open to all suggestions or if that is too much to ask for I will be happy with middle names for Lilly or Olivia.<\/p>\n

Thank you so much for your time and for your consideration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Okay! So you want to avoid overly-common. I’m going to open a new browser window for The Social Security Administration’s Baby Name site<\/a>, because that’s my favorite tool for seeing which names are likely to get more common, and which are likely to get less common.<\/p>\n

The name Olivia is in the Top Ten right now, and has been since 2001. The name Lily is less common (#27 in 2007) but on the rise:<\/p>\n

1990: #583
\n1995: #319
\n2000: #124
\n2005: #39<\/p>\n

As you know, I’m not opposed to common names<\/a>. But I also understand wanting to avoid them. Here’s the problem: it looks to me as if you LIKE common names, as I do. Here are the names you and\/or your husband like, with their 2007 popularity rankings:<\/p>\n

Olivia: #7
\nLily: #27
\nHannah: #9
\nEmma: #3
\nAnna: #25<\/p>\n

Lily and Anna look like your best bets for “no repeats in the classroom,” although of course there are always flukes: in Rob’s class last year there were two Noahs, a name ranked #24 the year Rob (and those Noahs) were born—and yet there were NOT two Jacobs (#1 that year), Michaels (#2 that year) or in fact two of any other more-popular name.<\/p>\n

If you want something SIMILAR to the names on your list but less common, how about:<\/p>\n

Annabel (#798) (Annabelle is #196)
\nClara (#228)
\nEliza (#334)
\nFiona (#352)
\nFlora (not in the Top 1000)
\nGeorgia (#296)
\nJosephine (#224)
\nLena (#453)
\nViolet (#231)<\/p>\n

A caution: these names are rising in popularity. The names on your list fall into The Baby Name Wizard<\/a>‘s “Antique Charm” category, and that’s where most of the names from that list of suggestions fall, too. That style of name is popular right now, and it’s hard to tell which name will be the next Isabella (from #895 in 1990 to #2 in 2007) or Ava (from #953 in 1990 to #4 in 2007).<\/p>\n

Let’s look at the names with the sibling name (I won’t include the names from your list that either you or your husband have rejected):<\/p>\n

Lance and Lily
\nLance and Olivia
\nLance and Annabel
\nLance and Clara
\nLance and Eliza
\nLance and Fiona
\nLance and Flora
\nLance and Georgia
\nLance and Josephine
\nLance and Lena
\nLance and Violet<\/p>\n

I agree with you about Lance and Lily together: I think it’s sweet without being sing-songy. The names both start with L, but after that they’re completely different and so they avoid matchiness. If you plan on having more children, will this make you feel trapped into using only L names? If not, then I think Lance and Lily is great.<\/p>\n

I also like Lance with Clara, and with Eliza, and with Fiona, and with Lena. I would choose a favorite, but I can’t: I think Lily, Clara, Eliza, Fiona, and Lena are ALL great.<\/p>\n

Let’s vote! The poll is over to the right. [poll closed; see below]<\/p>\n

[Poll results<\/strong>:
\nLily: 58 votes, roughly 35%
\nOlivia: 19 votes, roughly 11%
\nClara: 33 votes, roughly 20%
\nEliza: 26 votes, roughly 15%
\nFiona: 16 votes, roughly 10%
\nLena: 16 votes, roughly 10%]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarah writes: I need baby name help and I know that you are an expert so I would love some ideas. Our surname is one syllable and starts with G. We are expecting a baby girl in August and we already have a 2 year old boy- Lance Edward (initials spell LEG and though he […]<\/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-7222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1Su","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7222","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=7222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10313,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7222\/revisions\/10313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}