Cammie writes:<\/p>\n
Our first – a girl- is due in September. Our last name is Liberty, just like the Statue and the Bell. While I love our last name, it’s actually making things a bit difficult in the baby-naming department. We’ve decided that all “L” names (I love Lily and Lucy and Louisa) are out as we think they’ll sound too cartoonish. Do you agree?<\/p>\n
The other issue we’re having is that my husband comes from a very large, very close family (his father is one of twelve) and many names are “taken” already. A repeat wouldn’t be the biggest deal in the world, but we’d like to avoid it if possible.<\/p>\n
I’ve loved the name Nora for about two years and knew that if I ever had a daughter, she would be Nora. Of course, now that I am pregnant and we are having a girl, my husband has revealed that he doesn’t “love” Nora. His issue with it is that we will inevitably shorten it (we tend to do that with everyone!) and then she’ll be “Nor,” which neither of us likes. He loves Meredith. I like it A LOT, but can’t quite commit to it yet, though I love “Mere” as a shortened version.<\/p>\n
We’ve pretty much decided that the middle name will be “James” which is his father’s name and my grandfather’s name. I really like a masculine middle name with a feminine first.<\/p>\n
Other names we like:<\/p>\n
Madeline
\nAllison
\nAnnie
\nMargaret – Meg or Maggie
\nAbby<\/p>\nIf we were having a son, he would have been Samuel (Sam) or Charles (Charlie.)<\/p>\n
We’re staying away from very popular names if possible. I am a female “Cameron” (I’ve been called “Cammie” most of my life) and loved being a little different.<\/p>\n
Thank you so much for considering our request for your expert assistance! We are so looking forward to hearing your thoughts!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I ruled out several names I liked because I didn’t want alliteration with my surname. BUT: I have a rather harsh surname full of strong consonant sounds. Liberty is such a beautiful surname, I think I’d have the opposite feeling: I think I’d want to find an alliterative name to highlight it.<\/p>\n
Alliteration can sound cartoony, but it can also sound distinctive and memorable. I’d avoid names that also matched the end sound, such as Lucy Liberty and Lily Liberty, but I think Louisa Liberty works great. I notice as I’m going through a list of other possibilities that a 2\/3-syllable combination can sound a little bit like a comic book character: Laura Liberty, for example.<\/p>\n
I love the name Meredith, and feel inclined to push you to use it. If you have two girls, I think Louisa and Meredith make wonderful sister names.<\/p>\n
I would steer you away from Madeline\/Madelyn and Abby if you’re avoiding popular names.<\/p>\n
If you like everything about Nora except that you think you’d shorten it to Nor, I wonder if you’d prefer Cora or Clara or Cara or Flora or Rory. Because Rory is a unisex name, I wouldn’t pair it with James—but I like how the name Rory might parallel your experience with the unisex name Cameron.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong> Cammie writes:<\/p>\n
Hello, Swistle and readers! We are so happy to announce that we welcomed our baby girl on Friday, September 27th. We were still deciding between Nora and Meredith until the last minute, but when we saw her face, we both knew that Meredith was the one. And so she is Meredith James Liberty and a complete joy for both of us.<\/p>\n
Thank you so much for your advice and for all the reader comments! It gave us great confidence in our choice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cammie writes: Our first – a girl- is due in September. Our last name is Liberty, just like the Statue and the Bell. While I love our last name, it’s actually making things a bit difficult in the baby-naming department. We’ve decided that all “L” names (I love Lily and Lucy and Louisa) are out […]<\/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-7753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-213","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7753","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=7753"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8208,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7753\/revisions\/8208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}