Karen writes:<\/p>\n
I found your site while desperately searching for inspiration for naming our Baby Girl #2 who is due in less than 3 weeks! I have read a lot of your naming advice, and I tend to LOVE your responses!<\/p>\n
My name is Karen, and my husband is Paul. We have one daughter, Addison Hope (Addie). Our last name is similar to Langley but rhymes with Ashley. Ashley with an “L” at the beginning as I tell people hearing it for the first time. Our last name presents the first naming challenge. So many beautiful girl names end in “L” or with the “lee” or “lyn” sound. This is just too much with our last name. Clearly, a name like Lily is out. We have agreed to avoid the “L” sound in the name–or at the least, the name shouldn’t start or end with “L” or end with “lee” or “lyn.” However, the first syllable could end with “L” (as in Shelby or Sylvia, for example), but that’s about it.<\/p>\n
The second challenge is finding something that will match with Addison (Addie). The girls will be two and half years apart. I don’t want them to sound like twins. I certainly don’t want the names to rhyme (Addison and Madison), and I don’t really want the name to start with an “A.” We do want something that can be shortened. We love Addison’s name because she has a cute nickname to go by for as long as she chooses but also has a longer, more serious-sounding name for when she is older. I would like the same for baby girl #2.<\/p>\n
A third challenge is finding something that is uncommon but not terribly unusual or unfamiliar. I know Addison is a rather popular name, but I would prefer that baby girl’s name at least not be in the top 5 or 10 of the most popular names. I want something “special” but not made up. I also like unisex names but really only those that are more often used for girls. Names like Blake and Logan, while sometimes used for girls, are still boy names in my book.<\/p>\n
We are considering several names including:<\/p>\n
Savannah (which, for me, could only be shortened to Savy which my husband isn’t crazy about)
\nGracyn (Gracie\/Grace\/Gray, but it seems contrived, and spelling it the “boy” way of Grayson is just too “boy”)
\nEmery (Emmy for short. The “emery board” connection bugs me a bit, but we both really like the name)
\nIvy (which can’t be shortened but is similar to Ives, a family surname)
\nNora (which I LOVE, but my husband does not. It could be short for several longer names, but he really doesn’t like any of them either)<\/p>\nYour input and suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for considering our question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
This IS a challenge! I keep thinking of possibilities, getting halfway through the sentence mentioning them, and realizing they end in -ley or -son, or start with A, or are loaded with L sounds. I saw Emery and thought, “Ooo, I wonder if they’d like Ellery?”—but it has an -ee ending AND too much L. So I thought, “Wait, what’s that other one?…Everly!”—but that ends in -ly. “Emerson! It’s perfect, unisex but more for girls, and the cute nickname Emmie!”—but it’s another -son. “Emlyn!”—ends in -lyn. “Jocelyn, nickname Joss!”—ends in -lyn. “Campbell! It’s perfect, unisex but more for girls, and the cute nickname Cammie!”—but it ends in -ll. “Harper!”—no nicknames. “Finley!”—ends in -ley. “Quinn!”—no nickname. “Reese!”—no nickname. “Hollis\/Holly or Ellis\/Ellie!”—both currently used more often for boys, and too much L. “Morgan! Unisex\/girls, and great with surname and sister name!”—no nickname. “Reagan!”—no nickname. “Rowan!”—no nickname. “Teagan!”—no nickname. “Callan, nickname Callie!”—but Callie has too much L, and Callan is used more often for boys. It’s possible that with such a tricky surname, another preference will need to go.<\/p>\n
Maybe Delaney? It has the nickname Lanie, and it’s a surname name like Addison. I’m not sure about it with the surname, but I think it works, and I like how the sister names sound together: Addison and Delaney. Oh, but Lanie with the surname isn’t great.<\/p>\n
Padgett would be adorable, but it’s so much less common than the name Addison, and no good nickname.<\/p>\n
Kerrigan. Addison and Kerrigan; Addie and Kerri.<\/p>\n
I keep coming back to Harper. It doesn’t have a good nickname, true, but I love Addison and Harper together, and I also love Harper with your surname. Harper Grace, maybe.<\/p>\n
From your list, Gracyn and Emery seem like the best options, and I think either of those would solve the difficult challenge. Ives would make a pleasing middle name. Or Emery Grace would be nice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Karen writes: I found your site while desperately searching for inspiration for naming our Baby Girl #2 who is due in less than 3 weeks! I have read a lot of your naming advice, and I tend to LOVE your responses! My name is Karen, and my husband is Paul. We have one daughter, Addison […]<\/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-8088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-26s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088","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=8088"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8096,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088\/revisions\/8096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}