The Social Security Baby Name Site<\/a>, to look at names that are of comparable popularity to the names already used by the family. The name Owen has been climbing steadily:<\/p>\n1992: #476
\n1997: #224
\n2002: #94
\n2006 (the 2007 data won’t be out until May): #58.<\/p>\n
Let’s look at 2006, when it was #58. The girl names in that same popularity range are Zoe, Riley, Sofia, Maya, Kimberly, Andrea, Megan, Katelyn, and Gabrielle.<\/p>\n
I think “Owen and Zoe” has too much O-sound.<\/p>\n
I think of the name Riley as a boy’s name even though I realize it’s for boys or girls, and I don’t like it with Ann: too much like Raggedy Ann.<\/p>\n
I’m a fan of the name Sofia (of that spelling particularly), and unlike the Owen-and-Zoe combination, I think Owen and Sofia has a good level of O-sound.<\/p>\n
Let’s leave aside Maya, since we already considered it in the Baby Name Wizard section.<\/p>\n
I’d like to eliminate Kimberly, Andrea, Megan, Katelyn, and Gabrielle: Kimberly is from the Moms generation (MY age); Andrea is from the kids-I-babysat generation; Megan is from the 1990s; Katelyn is such a perfect name, the number of girls with one spelling or another of it is legion; and I haven’t liked the name Gabrielle since a co-worker of mine bragged incessantly about her “amazing” daughter GOB-briella, saying the name every single time in a reverent tone of voice usually reserved for references to deities.<\/p>\n
For me, the stand-out from the SSA’s site research is Sofia. Sofia Ann Hall (SAH). Sofia Hall. Owen and Sofia. That’s my pick.<\/p>\n
Edit: There is a general feeling in the comment section that with a surname such as Hall, the first name should be more unusual. Generally, I agree: a simpler surname can handle a more complicated first name. But I noticed, when I was looking through names, that the more unusual names enhanced the “college dorm” feeling: Lisandra Hall, for example, or Geneva Hall. Both sound EXACTLY like dorms.<\/p>\n
Still, there is a middle ground: more unusual than Sofia and Lily, but not quite as dormy as Lisandra and Geneva. How about some of these?<\/p>\n
Cecily Ann Hall (CAH)
\nEliza Ann Hall (EAH)
\nJosephine Ann Hall (JAH)
\nRosemary Ann Hall (RAH)
\nConstance Ann Hall (CAH)
\nCordelia Ann Hall (CAH)
\nGenevieve Ann Hall (GAH)
\nRuby Ann Hall (RAH)
\nPenelope Ann Hall (PAH)
\nMargaret Ann Hall (MAH)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong><\/p>\nAlthough we didn’t end up going with any of your suggestions (I think we already had our name in our mind), it was great to hear all of the ideas.<\/p>\n
Our daughter is Delaney Ann Hall yes, “Delaney Hall” sounds like a dorm somewhere but we wanted something unusual to balance out our last name Hall and we liked it with our son’s name, Owen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOTS of submissions coming in, YAY! My plan is to use submissions roughly in order of Baby Imminence. If they keep coming in, that may mean soon we’ll be prioritizing “women in labor” submissions, but let’s not count babies before they hatch. Today’s baby-naming challenge is from Melissa, who writes: Dear Swistle, I e-mailed you…oh, […]<\/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-7276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1Tm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7276","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=7276"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11107,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7276\/revisions\/11107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}