E. writes:<\/p>\n
Our first baby is due in four weeks and we’re still mulling over a name for her.<\/p>\n
Our surname sounds very similar to “Hudson” with one letter off.<\/p>\n
We have a few girls’ names we really like but are trying to find the right combination. We tend towards classic, not-too-common names.<\/p>\n
First names we like:<\/p>\n
Louise (my husband and I met in New Orleans, Louisiana; we’d use the nickname Lou), Beatrice (love the nickname Bea\/Bee), Eleanor (Ella), Julia<\/p>\n
Middle names we like:<\/p>\n
Victoria (my husband’s mother’s name), Rose (my grandmother’s maiden name), Louise.<\/p>\n
My husband really likes the combination of Eleanor Louise – but I’m concerned that Ellie\/Ella are too popular and that it’s too many L sounds in the name. He also likes the name Katherine, but my concern is that a well-known Kate Hudson exists in the world already.<\/p>\n
I like Beatrice Louise or Louise Victoria – but wondering if the expression “geez Louise” is an obstacle and if “Lou Hudson” is too masculine?<\/p>\n
One other consideration is that our dog is named Lucy so yelling Louise\/Lucy could get confusing.<\/p>\n
Thanks for the help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I think “Geez Louise” is fine; I don’t think many people say it anymore, and I find it appealing rather than off-putting. I can picture using it with the child, when I want to scold her but very lightly: “Geez Louise, your ROOM!”<\/p>\n
I don’t think I’d worry about Lou Hudson being too masculine: if she doesn’t like that, she won’t use the nickname, or she’ll use Lou-lou\/Lulu instead. And if she does like it, she might REALLY like it: there are a lot of people specifically looking for feminine names with boyish nicknames (Samantha\/Sam, Charlotte\/Charlie, etc.).<\/p>\n
Eleanor Louise sounds great to me—not too many L sounds.<\/p>\n
The Kate Hudson connection would bother me too. I think Katherine would work great as a middle name, though. Eleanor Katherine is very pretty, or Julia Katherine.<\/p>\n
The dog-name confusion, if it turns out to be an issue, will not be…er, permanent. And you might find you use a different tone of voice with the dog than with your child, and\/or that it is funny and cute the way the dog always comes trotting over when you call Louise to dinner, and\/or that you enjoy saying “Lucy and Louise, let’s go on a walk!”<\/p>\n
Looking over the firsts and middles, I’m hardly even inclined to make any combinations: it feels like a “can’t go wrong” pair of lists. I like all the ones you mentioned (Eleanor Louise, Beatrice Louise, Louise Victoria), and also:<\/p>\n
Beatrice Rose
\nBeatrice Victoria
\nEleanor Katherine<\/p>\nIf I were forced to choose, I think my top choice would be Louise Victoria. I lean toward the name Louise if you want something less common, since both Eleanor and Julia are enjoying popularity right now; I also love the name for itself, and I like its connection to you and your husband. I also like Beatrice: I have Beatrix on my own list, and a large part of it is how much I would love calling her Bee and purchasing bee things.<\/p>\n
I feel very drawn to Eleanor Katherine and Eleanor Louise. My only concern with those is the way Eleanor and Ella are moving so quickly up the popularity charts. I’m not concerned about the current popularity of the name Eleanor (it was at #135 in 2012, which is still quite uncommon), but if popularity is one of your main preferences I would be nervous about steering you toward it in case it continued its upward path. And Ella was #12 in 2012—nearly Top 10.<\/p>\n
One option that combines Ella and Louise is Eloise. I like Eloise Katherine, or Eloise Victoria.<\/p>\n
Would others like to pair up some combinations? Here are the first names:<\/p>\n
Louise
\nBeatrice
\nEleanor
\nJulia<\/p>\nAnd here are the middles:<\/p>\n
Victoria
\nRose
\nLouise
\n(and I added Katherine)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"E. writes: Our first baby is due in four weeks and we’re still mulling over a name for her. Our surname sounds very similar to “Hudson” with one letter off. We have a few girls’ names we really like but are trying to find the right combination. We tend towards classic, not-too-common names. First 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-7977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-24F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977","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=7977"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7979,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7977\/revisions\/7979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}