Kacie writes:<\/p>\n
Long time reader here! My husband and I are expecting our 2nd child, a girl, in October. Our first born is Eli Schwarz. Our last name sounds like Ingamann- only starts with a E. Our dilemma is fairly simple and basically boils down to cold feet on my part! We have 2 names that we like and had been on our list the first time when we had our son. However now that we actually know its a girl, I am hesitant. My husband on the other hand is convinced!<\/p>\n
His pick is Mills Margaret – Margaret being a family name and Mills just being a name we like the sound of. I knew a girl in childhood with this name and made the suggestion not knowing he would love it! I do love this name however I wonder if I will get the hairy eyeball from relatives and general public if I use this name because its fairly obscure. Also, Mills being surname in style and Eli more traditional and biblical. Is this an issue?<\/p>\n
The second option is Isla Rae. We both like this name as well, however it has become the runner up because I felt like it sounded too similar to Eli. Now I’m reconsidering it because I think maybe this is a easier name for a little girl, as well as more socially acceptable.<\/p>\n
Thoughts? Should we go with Mills because we like and hope everyone gets on board? Or the more traditional Isla even though her sibling is similar sounding Eli?<\/p>\n
Thanks for your help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
The name Mills is very unusual: in 2012, the Social Security Administration reports there were 20 new baby boys named Mills; it’s not in the data base at all for girls that year. Because it’s so unusual, I do think part of the package deal of this name would be dealing with reactions—but surname names are in fashion right now, so many of the reactions may be quite positive. One option if you think the name would not go over well in your circle would be to use it as a nickname for Milly\/Millie or Millicent or Camilla or Romilly or Amelia or Emeline. (Amelia and Emeline might be too similar to Eli.) Or you could name her Margaret Mills Ingamann and call her Mills.<\/p>\n
I think in general it’s fine to have a style gap between the boy names and girl names in a family. Are you planning to have more children? I would want to think ahead to make sure I could think of a few good sister name options for a second girl.<\/p>\n
I think Mills Margaret is a very appealing name, and Mills Margaret Ingamann sounds great to me. Mills Ingamann works somewhat less well: not only does it sound significantly less feminine without the Margaret, but also I get Milzinga Man—but maybe that doesn’t happen with the actual surname, or maybe you would often call her Mills Margaret (I find I immediately want to, because it’s so pleasing to say). And in general I think it’s not a deal-breaker if names merge a bit, as long as they don’t make a negative word or name: I think everyone just gets used to putting a tiny half-pause between the first name and the surname.<\/p>\n
To my ear, Eli and Isla are too similar. When I say them out loud, they sound as if they’re mirror images of each other, even though they aren’t quite, and my tongue gets tangled. I also wonder again about future siblings, if you’re planning more children: it seems like after Eli and Isla, it would be hard to find a third name that was neither too similar nor too different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kacie writes: Long time reader here! My husband and I are expecting our 2nd child, a girl, in October. Our first born is Eli Schwarz. Our last name sounds like Ingamann- only starts with a E. Our dilemma is fairly simple and basically boils down to cold feet on my part! We have 2 names […]<\/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-7711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-20n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7711","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=7711"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7713,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7711\/revisions\/7713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}