My husband and I are expecting our second child in September, and since we love the element of surprise a new baby brings, we chose not to know the sex of the baby until he or she arrives. However, we are very much in the same boat naming-wise as we were two years ago with our first, a boy, Russell (Russ), trying to choose a girl name that just feels right for us. Russ was my late grandfather\u2019s name, and is so special to us both, we knew it was \u201cthe one\u201d for a boy, but we had several girl name options going into the delivery room. Not much has changed this time either!<\/p>\n
Our last name sounds like Sauce-a-man. I had worried about it being a mouthful with Russell, but really we haven\u2019t had any problems with it. For a boy we really like the name Burke Velde. Burke is just a surname we have heard that is not really \u201csignificant\u201d to the family, but Velde is my husband\u2019s grandfather\u2019s name, and we like that as a middle name. There were no other notable contenders for a boy name, but I haven\u2019t completely closed the door either.<\/p>\n
For girl names we are stumped. I love the name Louise (nn. Lou) for a little girl. My husband loves the name Wynn (nn. Winnie). I like his name choice too, and he likes mine, but we LOVE our own picks. Haha. I would \u201clet\u201d him choose Wynn, really, if I could get rid of the feeling that it looks\/sounds kind of made up. Do you think it seems like a made up name or a super trendy name? I just wonder about my dad \u201cgetting it\u201d or spelling it correctly eventually if it is too out there.<\/p>\n
We haven\u2019t chosen a middle name for a girl yet because I read on your blog not to pin yourself in with a middle if you haven\u2019t chosen a solid first yet\u2026so\u2026that\u2019s what we are doing J We have read a particular naming book that was helpful for finding our \u201cstyle\u201d which ended up crossing into a few others, but mostly sticking to more traditional, older names. I work with senior citizens, and this did not surprise me at all! Burke may be an outlier from our style, do you think that is a terrible thing?<\/p>\n
Our other names for a girl were: Meryl, Marie, Winifred, Diane<\/p>\n
Other names on our boy list were: Reid (didn\u2019t want to be the \u201cR\u201d family), Clark<\/p>\n
Ruth was a top contender along with Louise for our first baby, but now that he is a Russ, I would rather not be the Russ-Ruth-_R_______ family if we are fortunate to have more! (Which I hope we are!)<\/p>\n
Again, thank you (and your readers!) so much for any suggestions,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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Wynn seems neither made-up nor trendy to me. I also like the spelling Wynne.<\/p>\n
But my attention is seized by Winifred in your list. This seems like the perfect name to me: underused, definitely not made-up or trendy, and you could use Wynn as the nickname. Russell\/Russ and Winifred\/Wynn. I especially love Winifred Louise.<\/p>\n
No, I don’t think it’s a terrible thing to use a name that’s a style outlier for you. I think the things to watch for are:<\/p>\n
\u2022 that the name not make the group of names sound comical, or make it seem as if the parents have special plans\/hopes for one child (David, Einstein, and Andrew, for example)<\/p>\n
\u2022 that the name not suggest to hearers that the parents wanted a child of the opposite sex (three girls named Isabella, Sophia, and Elliot, for example)<\/p>\n
\u2022 that the name not cut you off from names you might want to use in the future, by making the style-outlier-name child seem more and more left out of the group if you choose the names you usually like<\/p>\n
While Burke feels somewhat different in style and popularity, both Russell and Burke are surname names and seem compatible.<\/p>\n
![\"photo\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/photo.jpg\")
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