A. writes:<\/p>\n
We are looking for some help deciding the name of our baby who is due in 2 weeks (although neither of us thinks the baby will actually make it to the due date!) We elected not to find out the sex ahead of time, but it’s just the boy name we need help with. Girl names are pretty easy for us, but boy names are TOUGH. Our last name is Hayes and because it only has 1 syllable, we think the first name should be something with at least 2 syllables for it to flow well. Our other naming “rules” we’ve established are that it cannot be something very popular (top 30 on the SSA list are automatically out! Top 50 is even pushing it because they could easily rise up in the next couple years) or names that sound…plain? (I’m not sure the right adjective to use here). “Plain” names would be something like John, Matthew, Ryan, William, Edward, Peter, etc. We want something a little different, but not too strange either. The middle name will be a family name and we’ve pretty much decided it will be either Jeffrey (my father) or Andrew (my husband’s middle name). We would like something that’s not hard to pronounce by looking at it (though I know EVERY name gets mispronounced sometimes) and not easily made fun of in the schoolyard. (Again, I know this happens to most every name at some point too!) Not really a “rule” for us, but good nickname possibilities are a definite plus. My husband is a big fan of Hebrew sounding names for boys, but not the classics like David or Jacob because of the “plain” factor. I also like those names, but like to branch out a little too. Right now, it seems are top two choices are Gracin (pronounced Grace-in) Jeffrey and Micah with either middle name. My husband also really likes Calvin Andrew, but I’m not completely sold on it. Names that we liked but took off the list (due to popularity) were: Elijah, Lukas, Jayden, Mason, Logan, and Caleb. We like Isaac, but we can’t name our son Isaac Hayes! Names we’ve also considered and are still potentials: Judah, Ryder, Oliver, Isaiah.<\/p>\n
This baby will be also be the sibling to our almost 3 year old son, Jesiah Dean. We had Micah Jeffrey or Jeremiah Dean picked out for him, but neither seemed right once he was born. He did seem like a JD, however, so we picked a different J name that we’d liked. I was worried about going with Jesiah with an e instead of Josiah because I’m sure he’ll be correcting people his entire life, but I really did not like the nickname Jo, which I figured he’d almost inevitably end up with at some point. I did, however, like Jess or JD. Funnily enough, if we do shorten his name, we call him Siah more than anything else! So, I guess you never really know with the nickname thing. I would like Jesiah and his brother to have names that sound good together, but aren’t too matchy. I worry that Judah may be too close because of this.<\/p>\n
Our problem is that we can come up with a lot of names we like, but it’s hard for us to decide on something we love and want to use for our child for the rest of his life! Please help!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
While Grayson\/Gracin is a unisex name, I think the spellings that evoke the name Grace seem better for girls. For a boy, I would suggest using a spelling that evokes the name Grey\/Gray, and ideally also the word son: Greyson or Grayson. Something like Graysen or Greysen or Greycin might also work.<\/p>\n
With Jesiah, I prefer Micah: Jesiah and Micah both have an ancient\/biblical sound, while Gracin\/Greyson sounds modern. My only hesitation is the matching -ah ending.<\/p>\n
I’d also suggest Ezra. It matches the sound of the ending, but it looks a little different. I love the way the Z-sound repeats in the surname. Ezra Hayes!<\/p>\n
Or Ezekiel, with the nickname Zeke. Ezekiel Hayes; Jesiah and Ezekiel; Siah\/JD\/Jess and Zeke.<\/p>\n
Ari would be handsome. Ari Hayes; Jesiah and Ari.<\/p>\n
Reuben is a name I heard while pregnant and thought “THAT’S IT!! THAT’S THE NAME!!”—and then tried it with my surname. Dear me, no. It’s great with yours: Reuben Hayes; Jesiah and Reuben.<\/p>\n
Or Nathanael. Nathanael Hayes; Jesiah and Nathanael; Siah\/JD\/Jess and Nate.<\/p>\n
Or Phineas Hayes; Jesiah and Phineas; Siah\/JD\/Jess and Phin\/Finn.<\/p>\n
I wished I had been bold enough to use Solomon. He’s a great biblical character, and Sol is right up there with Wes on my Favorite Boy Nicknames list. And look how great it is with your surname: Solomon Hayes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A. writes: We are looking for some help deciding the name of our baby who is due in 2 weeks (although neither of us thinks the baby will actually make it to the due date!) We elected not to find out the sex ahead of time, but it’s just the boy name we need help […]<\/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-7411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1Vx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411","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=7411"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7413,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7411\/revisions\/7413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}