A. writes:<\/p>\n
My husband and I desperately need some help. Our last name is (R)othwell, and we are having our first child, a baby boy, due July 31st. Yes, that is 3 short weeks away!<\/p>\n
We are really struggling with finding a first name. The middle name we chose is Steven, after my husband. I know you recommend not choosing a middle name first, but it is kind of a tradition on my husband’s side.<\/p>\n
We do have a few names we agree on, but none we love. We can’t even get to a stage where we argue on them. Here are the ones we like currently:<\/p>\n
Brady
\nBrenner
\nBrice<\/p>\nThere is absolutely no reason why those all start with the letter B, just a weird coincidence. In fact, I am a little worried that if we choose one of those, his initials will be BSR. Is that bad? Will kids call him a bull-sh*t-er? Or am I over-thinking that?<\/p>\n
As for the above names, is Brady too popular? I don’t know any personally, but I think it’s pretty high up on the popularity charts. And I really like the name Brice, but I’m just not sure if its right for us; I can’t picture myself saying it. Then there’s Brenner, which I have only ever heard of once. Is that okay? My hard rules for a name include that it be easy to spell if heard, and easy to say if read. Does it pass your uncommon name test?<\/p>\n
Other names we have liked but discarded for one reason or another:<\/p>\n
Micah
\nWyatt<\/p>\nWe actually like Wyatt, but I feel like if my son had a lisp, this could be an issue – Wyatt (R)othwell = Wyatt Wothwell…what do you think? I am staying away from all W names and all R names for the same reason, they just seem harder to say correctly. For example, Reed (R)othwell = Weed Wothwell with a lisp. And no, neither of us have a lisp, so I don’t know why I worry about it so much. As for Micah, I don’t like the nickname Mike, so I worry people will shorten it to that. Thus, I took it off our already short list. Plus, it seems to be a girl name, too, of which I’m not a big fan.<\/p>\n
If we had a girl, the choices for her first and middle names would be:<\/p>\n
Leila Ritchie
\nLeila Marie
\nMalia Ritchie<\/p>\nI am from Hawaii, though we live on the mainland now. I seem to only like girl Hawaiian names. These are easier to say and spell than many boy ones, so that’s probably why. Also, Ritchie is a family surname on my husband’s side.<\/p>\n
Overall, we are avoiding really traditional names, and really uncommon ones (no Apple here). I also feel like we shouldn’t choose a first name that ends in an -en, -on, -an, etc, because of the middle name Steven. Do you agree? Meanings aren’t super important to us. I am not drawn to feminine boy names either. I do realize that I am sounding extremely picky, but I don’t want us to make the wrong choice! We plan on having two children.<\/p>\n
Thank you so much for your help, I’m starting to panic since we haven’t been able to make a decision yet. The due date is so soon! Looking forward to seeing your suggestions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
When I read this the first time, I got to the part about the initials BSR and I thought, “Oh, I wonder if that’s a band or a brand or something?”—and then I got to “bull-sh*t-er” and STILL didn’t see it. Then, I had the letter in my name-blog spreadsheet, and I’d noted “BSR initials a problem?”—and I couldn’t remember what the problem was without re-reading the email. So I’d scratch that worry off the list.<\/p>\n
I think I would also scratch off the worry about lisps, if you can: there would be so many speech impediments to allow for, and a child saying his own name wrong is a huge crowd-pleaser. If the name feels hard to say even without a speech impediment, though, I might cross it off.<\/p>\n
I’d take the “ending in N” issue on a case-by-case basis; some combinations might sound bad to you, and others might sound good.<\/p>\n
Brady is a moderately popular name: it was the 136th most popular boy name in the United States in 2012, and the popularity of the name Brayden\/Braden may make Brady feel more common. Brady and Braden are falling in popularity; Brayden was steadily rising until 2011, and took its first little dip in 2012. It doesn’t seem too popular to me; I did a quick survey of the children currently at home, and only one of the three knew a Brady.<\/p>\n
The name Brenner is very uncommon: only 64 new baby boys were given the name in 2012. It seems easy to spell and pronounce, and I’d think it would fit in well with other surname names.<\/p>\n
Similar to Brady are Brody and Grady and Cade. I like Grady best: Grady Steven (R)othwell.<\/p>\n
Similar to Brenner are Turner and Tanner and Connor and Carter. I like Turner best: Turner Steven (R)othwell.<\/p>\n
Similar to Wyatt are Beckett and Bennett and Everett and Emmett and Garrett and Brett. I like Everett best: Everett Steven (R)othwell. But all the -tt names are a little hard for me to say with (R)othwell.<\/p>\n
Similar to Brice are Blake and Brooks and Brett.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I don’t know if a Micah would be called Mike. I’ve only known two, both adults, and hadn’t thought of Mike as a nickname for them. It’s like Davis, for me: Dave OUGHT to be a perfectly naturally nickname for it, and certainly if I knew a Micah\/Davis who went by Mike\/Dave I would think that seemed understandable—and yet I never thought of Mike\/Dave as nicknames for Micah\/Davis until someone pointed out that they could be. Micah might rule out Malia later on, however.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A. writes: My husband and I desperately need some help. Our last name is (R)othwell, and we are having our first child, a baby boy, due July 31st. Yes, that is 3 short weeks away! We are really struggling with finding a first name. The middle name we chose is Steven, after my husband. I […]<\/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-7888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-23e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888","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=7888"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7891,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7888\/revisions\/7891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}