E. writes:<\/p>\n
My husband and I both love the name Jane. I not only love that it is elegant and timeless, but that it isn’t so popular that she’ll need to go by Jane R. through school. Our only issue is that it’s such a common middle name. When I was growing up, all the middle names were Ann, Elizabeth and Marie. When a name is used too often, I feel it loses it’s beauty and spark. We are on the fence about whether to give her a first name that people might find too plain and overused. What do you think?<\/p>\n
We are looking for some longer middle names to offset the shortness of Jane. We seem to agree on a lot of E names. Some options are Jane Everly, Jane Emilia, Jane Emmeline. Our last name sounds like rustling.<\/p>\n
Thank you for your help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I think that when a name is used very commonly as a middle name, it gets an extra dose of freshness as a first name. Rose, for example, is one of the most common middle names of the current batch of little girls—and yet when Henry had a Rose in his preschool classroom, I was knocked back on my heels by how fresh and wonderful it sounded as a first name.<\/p>\n
I think what happens is that when a name becomes extremely common as a middle name, it gets accidentally filed mentally under “Very Common Names”—instead of correctly under “Very Common Middle Names.” Parents pass the name by, thinking it’s overused—and yet when someone DOES use it as a first name, it suddenly appears in a new light. Anne, as a FIRST NAME! Rose, as a FIRST NAME! Jane, as a FIRST NAME! Oh, that’s DIFFERENT!<\/p>\n
I do think you’ll keep encountering people who say with pleasure, “Oh, that’s my daughter’s\/granddaughter’s\/niece’s\/sister’s middle name!” Will that weary\/annoy you, or will it be pleasing? But almost every name has at least one potentially wearying\/annoying element: if it’s not “Oh, yes, we know four girls with that name!,” it’s “Whoa, THAT’S a name you don’t hear often!” or “Wait, how do you spell that?” or “Oh, like the TV show?” Or else you have to keep saying “No, with a K, not a C” or “No, it’s AriAHna” or “It’s a family name.” It’s a matter of deciding which wearying\/annoying element is most tolerable.<\/p>\n
All of your middle name options seem great. I like the idea of using something frilly in the middle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
E. writes: My husband and I both love the name Jane. I not only love that it is elegant and timeless, but that it isn’t so popular that she’ll need to go by Jane R. through school. Our only issue is that it’s such a common middle name. When I was growing up, all the […]<\/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-7718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-20u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7718","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=7718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7719,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7718\/revisions\/7719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}