{"id":8010,"date":"2013-08-23T11:07:31","date_gmt":"2013-08-23T15:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=8010"},"modified":"2013-08-23T13:11:05","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T17:11:05","slug":"baby-boy-pierce-see-brother-to-scarlett-jane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2013\/08\/23\/baby-boy-pierce-see-brother-to-scarlett-jane\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Boy Pierce-see, Brother to Scarlett Jane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raven write:<\/p>\n

I’ve read your site for a while, but I never thought I’d have my own baby-naming conundrum. Here’s my information:<\/p>\n

I’m Raven and my husband is Donnie and our last name is Pierce with a “y” tacked on at the end. We have a two-year old daughter, Scarlett Jane. We picked her name because it was a name that people are familiar with, but not one you hear everyday. We also liked the spunk of name.<\/p>\n

We are now expecting our second baby (in January). This new baby was a surprise souvenir we brought back from a vacation to Australia. Whoops. We also just found out that it’s a boy and we are having a very, very hard time coming up with a name we love like Scarlett. We want something that 1) goes well with Scarlett and 2) is unusual, but not crazy.<\/p>\n

If this baby had been a girl, we were considering:<\/p>\n

Tallulah – we liked the spunk of this name
\nMatilda – this was a nod to Australia (the whole “Waltzing Matlida” thing)<\/p>\n

Some boy names we like:<\/p>\n

Arlo – probably my favorite, although I don’t love the way Scarlett and Arlo roll together into Scarlo – but that’s not a deal breaker.
\nAugust – mainly to get the nickname Gus. We like August, but think Gus is better, although I have reservations about giving a kid a name just to get a nickname out of it.
\nDashiell – nickname “Dash”, although I’m afraid Dash might be translated into Douche later in school.<\/p>\n

Other complicating factors: My husband is a Jr. and his family would love for there to be a Donald Peter III, but I just can’t do it. At one time, we had talked about naming the baby Henry and calling him Hank (my dad’s name\/nickname), but I feel like it’s not fair to do that if I have already rejected the naming tradition from my husband’s side of the family.<\/p>\n

We’re also at a loss for middle names. Basically, we are going to have a five-year-old unnamed child, unless we get some help!<\/p>\n

Thanks for considering our question!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Since you considered the name Matilda if your Australian souvenir had been a girl, I thought I’d start by browsing the Wikipedia page on Australia<\/a>, to see if there were any good name candidates for boys.<\/p>\n

The current Governor-General of Australia is Quentin Bryce. Perhaps this would be like naming a child [insert name of a disliked U.S. leader here], but Quentin seems like it would go very nicely on your list. Quentin Pierce-see; Scarlett and Quentin.<\/p>\n

There are a TON of island names to pick through, though those might be significant only if you’d spent time there. (Also, I’d check to make sure they were NICE islands, lest one be doing the equivalent of naming one’s child [insert name of a dangerous\/ugly U.S. location here]. Still, just going through part of the list<\/a>, I found:<\/p>\n

Bowden Pierce-see; Scarlett and Bowden
\nClark Pierce-see; Scarlett and Clark (similar to Arlo)
\nDuncan Pierce-see; Scarlett and Duncan
\nFalcon Pierce-see; Scarlett and Falcon
\nHoughton Pierce-see; Scarlett and Houghton
\nHudson Pierce-see; Scarlett and Hudson
\nShaw Pierce-see; Scarlett and Shaw
\nThomson Pierce-see; Scarlett and Thomson
\nWilson Pierce-see; Scarlett and Wilson<\/p>\n

I hope our Australian readers can offer insights and suggestions for Australia-related names.<\/p>\n

I like August, and I like the way it’s slightly reminiscent of Aussie. Austin might work well, too, though then there’s no Gus.<\/p>\n

There is a wide range of opinion on this, but my own opinion on giving a child a name just to get a nickname is that it’s not only fine but also fun—as long as you don’t DISlike the given form. I understand the “Why give the child a name you’re never going to use?” point of view—but what I like is that I MIGHT\/CAN use it if I later want to, as can the child. I like the “long form for the dignified resume\/profession” concept, and I also like that if my child turns out not to be the Libby type I’d imagined, she can change to Liz or revert to Elizabeth. I also like that I was named Kristen and not Kris or Kristy or Krissy. With August, you have OPTIONS, is what I’m saying, and I think it’s fine to like the nickname better than the given name.<\/p>\n

I had never thought of the word douche as a risk of the name Dash. I don’t think I’m thinking of it now, either, though it’s too soon to call it: with some connections, as soon as I’ve heard of it I find it hard to forget. This one doesn’t have that “Crud, now the name’s been ruined for me” feeling to me, though: Dash still makes me think of a short enthusiastic run. Perhaps it’s that vowels don’t interchange as easily as consonants, since changing vowels doesn’t result in rhymes? I think of issues with Cooper and Tucker, but I don’t think of Rob sounding like rib or rub or rube or robe. But then, I’m not a middle school boy. …Wait! I have two of those in residence! I asked them (and also Paul) if they could think of anything to make fun of about the name Dash, and they came up with nothing I consider a problem (“It rhymes with crash!” “It’s the name of the kid in The Incredibles!”). After giving them awhile to think, I told them the word we were concerned about—and they all entirely brushed it off. Paul: “Oh! *scoff sound* No. Definitely not.” Rob and William: “What? No! I wouldn’t think of that!”<\/p>\n

A possibility for dealing with the Donald Peter III issue without continuing the tradition is that you could use the same initials: Dashiell Preston Pierce-see, for example. This depends on whether your husband’s family is the type that would consider this a gesture of goodwill or not.<\/p>\n

Or you could use either Donald or Peter as the middle name. Or both: August Donald Peter Pierce-see. That sends a much stronger message of goodwill, and would be the kind of compromise I might have gone with if Paul’s family had had a naming tradition.<\/p>\n

Or, if you did name him Henry\/Hank, you could spin it: Instead of naming him for one grandfather, you’re naming him for the other. Or: your husband’s father has already had someone named after him, and now it is your father’s turn. It’s not a rejection of your husband’s side of the family, any more than naming him Donald Peter would have been a rejection of your side of the family. A combination such as Henry Peter or Henry Donald might make it even clearer: this is a merging of families, not an absorption of a female member into a male family line. He’d be “named for his grandfather and his father,” just as he would have been if he’d been named Donald Peter, but one of those two people would be from his mother’s line instead of both from his father’s.<\/p>\n

The more I think about it, the more I think using Donald or Peter for the middle name might significantly cushion the blow of not having a III, as well as solving the challenge of finding a middle name. If the flow isn’t right, Don would be another option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raven write: I’ve read your site for a while, but I never thought I’d have my own baby-naming conundrum. Here’s my information: I’m Raven and my husband is Donnie and our last name is Pierce with a “y” tacked on at the end. We have a two-year old daughter, Scarlett Jane. We picked her name […]<\/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-8010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-25c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8010","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=8010"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8020,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8010\/revisions\/8020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}