here<\/a>), due in July. We have chosen not to find out the gender this time around, but I feel pretty sure we are set on a name for a boy, so I’m mostly looking for help with a girl’s name.<\/p>\nOur last name is Berrisf0rd. Our son is Maxwell Lucas and our daughter is Vivian Josephine, nearly always called Max and Vivi.<\/p>\n
For boys names, I like Eli, Miles or Milo, and Leo. Eli is the only one my husband likes, so as of now, that is the choice, possibly with the middle name Thomas.<\/p>\n
I tend to like names that were most popular in the 1910s\/1920s. Because we use “Vivi” so much as a nickname, I do not want a third name that ends in the “ee” sound as well.<\/p>\n
For girls names, our current list is:<\/p>\n
Kate – we both like this one, which makes it an obvious contender… BUT. I’m worried it is too popular. I like it as a nickname, however I don’t love Katherine, and Katelyn seems a bit new-ish to me as far as style. Just using Kate as the first name would work I suppose, but it seems choppy to me with any middle names I’ve tried.<\/p>\n
Ada – this one is growing on me. My husband likes Ava, but we know a few Avas, plus have a lot of “v” going on with Vivi, so I suggested it as an alternative. It’s also the name of a place my husband vacationed as a child, which is a nice association.<\/p>\n
Lila or Lily – I like Lila. My husband likes Lily better, but I still don’t know if I like the pair of ‘ee’ sounds at the end. Do you think I’m worried too much about how the names pair together? We don’t know that we’ll always call her Vivi, when she gets older it may be Vivian or Viv.<\/p>\n
Serena – My husband added this one to the list, and I think it’s pretty. It feels long to me though, and I’m not sure how I’d shorten it for a nickname – Seri? Rena?<\/p>\n
Brooke – we both like this one quite a bit. But, is it totally out of place style-wise? I do like the alliteration.<\/p>\n
Other names I like the style of, but likely wouldn’t use for various reasons, are Nora, Cora, Camila, and Grace.<\/p>\n
For a middle name, if it’s possible with the first we end up choosing, I’d like to use Yvonne after my maternal grandmother. Vivi is named after my husband’s grandmother and my paternal grandmother, and Yvonne is the only grandparent that is still living, so I’d like to use the honor name if I can. I’d be open to other suggestions if it doesn’t fit, though.<\/p>\n
I’d love to hear any thoughts about our list or any other suggestions we may not have thought of. Thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Kate can also be short for Katrina or Katerina, and that’s the direction I think I’d go: similar to both Kate and Serena. Katrina Berrisf0rd; Maxwell, Vivian, and Katrina; Max, Vivi, and Kate. But do you think you might start calling her Katie, and would that bother you since it’s another -ee ending?<\/p>\n
Kate and Ada have a similar sound to me, so I wonder if we might find more names similar to those. Jade and Jada have the right sound, but don’t seem like the right style. Jane would work well, and I love Jane Berrisf0rd so much—simple and stylish. But is it too simple with Vivian? I don’t THINK it is. Maxwell, Vivian, and Jane; Max, Vivi, and Jane. But as with Kate\/Katie, there is the possibility of Janie.<\/p>\n
Or I think Kay\/Kaye would work wonderfully. Kaye Berrisf0rd is lovely, and there’s no way to put an -ie on it. It’s much less common than Kate, and goes well with Vivian in style. Max, Vivi, and Kaye seems stunning to me. The main issue is that it doesn’t have a nickname like the others, but I think that would be okay. If your family is like mine, you may find that you make nicknames by adding rather than subtracting: at my house she’d be called Kaye Marie, Kaye Louise, Kaye-Bay, Kaye-la-la, etc.<\/p>\n
I worry too about how names will go together. I try to stop myself from OVER-worrying (as people have pointed out, when we’re adults many people don’t even know our siblings’ names), but on the other hand you and your family will be thinking of them and talking about them as a group all their lives—and a big early chunk of those lives will be spent living in the same house and knowing the same people. To me, Vivi and Lily are too similar for comfort: not only do they have the exact same set of vowel sounds in the same order and with the same emphasis, but both of them have repeating consonants (two V’s for Vivi, two L’s for Lily). This is not to say you shouldn’t use them: if you were writing to say that the two of you loved the name Lily above all others and it was the perfect name in every way except the Vivi\/Lily combination, I would be reassuring you that it was not a big deal and shouldn’t stop you. It’s important to me, for example, that Vivi is the nickname and Lily would be the given name: they’re not really Vivi and Lily, but rather Vivian and Lily—possibly to be called Vivi and Lil, or Viv and Lily, or Vivian and LeeLee, or who KNOWS what they’ll go by. So if you decide Lily is The Name, I’d encourage you to go for it.<\/p>\n
Lila does make a significant difference in similarity: no more matching vowels. And while Lily Yvonne probably doesn’t work, Lila Yvonne probably does.<\/p>\n
If Lila isn’t quite right, there’s also Isla and Twila\/Twyla.<\/p>\n
I want to suggest another name, but I’ve had very little luck getting others on board with it. It’s Millicent, with the nickname Milly. Vivian and Millicent; Vivi and Milly.<\/p>\n
Another option is Matilda, with the nickname Tilly. Vivian and Matilda; Vivi and Tilly.<\/p>\n
I like Serena because it matches Vivian in letters and syllables—but I agree with you that then it feels like it also ought to match by having a nickname. Ree would work, or you could see what evolved naturally. I think too that Serena is a name that goes to more like 2.5 syllables with frequent usage: when I’m sounding it out I say it sah-ree-nah, but if I imagine directing a child getting ready for school (“Serena, do you have your lunch? Serena, go back and put on more appropriate shoes. Serena, it’s 5 minutes until the bus, finish your breakfast”) I think it would be more like S’rena.<\/p>\n
Or Selina is a similar name but with the natural nickname Lina. Sally might evolve from it, too.<\/p>\n
Brooke feels like a style clash to me. I think it would go okay with Max, but not with Max and Vivian.<\/p>\n
Ada is my favorite from the list. It seizes me the way Vivian did when you wrote last time: it’s as if it leaps out from the list as the choice I want to be careful not to be too pushy about. Ada Yvonne Berrisf0rd; Max, Vivi, and Ada. As with Kaye, the issue is the lack of nickname; at my house she’d be Adabelle, Ada Marie, Ada Louise, Ada St. Claire, Ada May, Adie-cakes, etc.<\/p>\n
Let’s have a poll! The list is a bit long, and it was tricky to decide what to include, but I think it’ll still be helpful. [Sigh: I keep trying to arrange it how I want it, but now “I can’t decide” is alphabetical instead of at the end. OH WELL.]<\/p>\n
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Kim writes: I’m writing for help again with a name for our third child (you helped us with our second here), due in July. We have chosen not to find out the gender this time around, but I feel pretty sure we are set on a name for a boy, so I’m mostly looking for […]<\/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-7414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1VA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414","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=7414"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7425,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414\/revisions\/7425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}