I’m hoping you can give me guidance and frank feedback regarding our thoughts on a name for our second child, due at the beginning of October 2013.<\/p>\n
Our son, Ayrton James Walter Crepsky was born one year ago, in August. I asked my husband if he would take the lead on choosing the name because I wanted him to feel an intimate connection to our son, and since I was physically attached, this was a way for him to feel vitally responsible in our son’s earliest days. While my husband had the final word in the hospital room, there was however, endless discussion about names that we liked and ones that held special meaning to us. I think it was always the case that we wanted something unique and uncommon. Although I did like Henry, and he did like Russell. My husband seriously considered Roman. We both loved Gaius and Augustus. In the end, he went with Ayrton because of its sound and our personal connection to the name. We each have immediate family members who are F1 fans and so as kids, we knew all about the driver Ayrton Senna and had a sense of his accomplishments, philanthropy and legacy. Middle names James and Walter are after my husbands closest friend and father respectively.<\/p>\n
Since I found out we are expecting another baby – this time a girl – I’ve been lost about a name. Nothing like with our first. Is this common?? The guilt has started and she’s not even here yet. Anyway, there are a few names we’ve considered but I don’t feel even close to the degree of certainty that I did with the list we had for Ayrton before he was born. To make things more difficult, my husband has asked me to take the lead on naming her, since he did the first one. I’m also not sure if this will be our last, or if in a few years we might try for a third.<\/p>\n
My dilemma is that the names suggested by my husband often sound just too “girly” (whatever that means) for my taste. He likes Elia, after his grandmother. Or Elle or Elsa. I suggested Esmeralda, which could be shortened to Esme. The name has historical significance in Chile, where his mother is from. But still quite a girly name.<\/p>\n
I’m also worried about naming her something too ordinary sounding next to Ayrton. I like Marie. It sounds simple yet elegant to me. I also like Rafael for a girl, it incorporates the Spanish background. I also seem to like names with a “V”: Vera, Verona, Vespa.<\/p>\n
In all honesty, my absolute favourite name is Vineyard. I adore the way it looks, sounds and conjures vivid imagery. But when I read on your blog a few comments about names sounding “made-up”, I was moved to write to you and hear your feedback on this particular “made-up” name. I mentioned the name awhile back to my husband to see what he thought and he has been surprisingly encouraging about it. Just last week he said how much it’s growing on him. But whomever I’ve tested the name out on (friends, family) have cringed and looked at me like I’ve become some kind of crazy celeb-wannabe or cult-leader. Is it too different?<\/p>\n
Lastly, for middle names I think we would have to chose our mothers names: Cecilia and Laurie. I would prefer just to go with Cecilia, but I really don’t want to be unfair to the moms and since Ayrton has two names I’m supposing she should too.<\/p>\n
Thanks in advance for reading this note. I would be grateful to hear back from you. I appreciate your honesty and fresh view on naming.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Vineyard is a very pretty-looking word. If I say the sounds aloud, considering them for a name, I hear the Vin from Vincent or Lavinia or Devin or Calvin, followed by the -rd of Howard, Leonard, Edward, Richard, etc. So there are name-like elements, though the -yerd sound doesn’t appeal to my ear: it sounds a little dated to me, as in Howard and Leonard.<\/p>\n
As a name, I think Vineyard looks feminine, though I’d have a hard time saying why. I suppose in part because plant-related names are more often girl names—but Vineyard would be more place-name than plant-name. More like Meadow, or Garden, or Field. But only Meadow seems clearly feminine to me from that list: Garden feels unisex to me and Field seems masculine, so I’m still not sure. Vinnie makes a cute nickname and adds even more “nameishness” to Vineyard.<\/p>\n
Certainly it qualifies as “different,” in the sense that it is not used as a name in the United States. However, I think of “made-up” as referring more to combinations of popular sounds, or changes to familiar names: Maddilee, for example, would feel “made-up” to me. Vineyard falls instead into the Surprising Noun Name category; the famous examples are Apple and Pilot, but I think Garden and Field from my previous paragraph are more comparable: I would feel differently about encountering a Garden on a class list than I’d feel about encountering an Apple.<\/p>\n
One thing that would be an issue for me is that I associate vineyards strongly with wine. Presumably vineyards also grow the grapes I give the kids for lunch, and of course wine can bring to mind sacred ceremonies and classy dinners, and vineyards also make me think of beautiful sunny\/hilly fields with lovely vines growing on whatever those vine-growing structures are called—but the association for me is still predominantly wine. Names such as Brandy\/Brandi and Chardonnay demonstrate that alcohol is not a taboo association for children’s names (Vineyard, because it is associated with alcohol production rather than with alcohol itself, is a step removed from those particular examples), but I am not inclined toward it myself.<\/p>\n
Garden might be another possibility to consider. Or Ivy? Haven? Olive? River? Vienna? Avalon? Waverly? Verity? Silver? Roma? Or I know a girl named Emerald.<\/p>\n
If you use your mothers’ names as middle names, would this mean your father would be the only grandparent unhonored? This is likely something you’ve already thought about: perhaps he is not a suitable candidate for honoring, or perhaps another grandchild is already named after him, or perhaps there is some other reason. But if not, I’d suggest choosing one mother’s name (your mother’s, since your son is named for your husband’s father) and one good friend’s name (again, one of your friends, since your son is named for your husband’s friend)—or perhaps a sister’s name, or your own middle name, or another female relative from your side. Or, if you decide against Vineyard as a first name, it might work beautifully as a middle name.<\/p>\n
Let’s now see what everyone else thinks of Vineyard as a name:<\/p>\n
[yop_poll id=”26″]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong> Heather writes:<\/p>\n Thank you so much for posting my baby naming question in August, and for offering such thoughtful feedback. Thank you as well to your readers who posted their thoughts on the name, Vineyard. Heather writes: I’m hoping you can give me guidance and frank feedback regarding our thoughts on a name for our second child, due at the beginning of October 2013. Our son, Ayrton James Walter Crepsky was born one year ago, in August. I asked my husband if he would take the lead on choosing the […]<\/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-8043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-25J","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8043","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=8043"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8272,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8043\/revisions\/8272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAfter reading so many responses that were firmly against the name, I decided quite quickly that as much as I liked the name Vineyard, I no longer felt comfortable using it because I just might be setting her up for a lifetime of uncomfortable or even negative reactions to her name.
\nOnce I decided that Vineyard was out, it became much clearer to me what were the most important factors in choosing her name. I wanted a Spanish\/Chilean element to honour my husbands mothers side. I also wanted to honour my mother. And again, thank you for helping me to realize how important it is to honour my fathers side of the family in some way (since my son has his paternal grandfathers name in the middle spot).
\nAnd so, on October 11th, we welcomed Elia Mary Laurette Crepsky to our family. Elia (pronounced Ell-ee-ah) is the name of her great grandmother from Chile; Mary is the name of my fathers mother; and Laurette is my mothers name. Our family members were all surprised and visibly quite moved by the name. My husband adores the name Elia and I feel like it is a perfect fit.<\/p>\n![\"photo\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/photo1.jpg\")
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"