My name is Ashley and my husband goes by Tony, although his formal name is Mark Anthony. Our last name sounds like Thornbush but starts with a D (and is spelled with the German \u2013sch ending).<\/p>\n
After two failed pregnancies, we are having our first baby, a boy, due January 8th, and I\u2019d love to hear an outside perspective on our choices. Our son\u2019s first name will be Mark, in honor of my husband\u2019s father who passed away six months ago. Like my husband, though, he will not go by his first name. He will be definitely be known (by us, at least \u2013 he can switch it up later in life, if he chooses) by his middle name. We\u2019ve narrowed down the final two:<\/p>\n
1) August \u2013 probably call him Gus as a pet name around the house, but definitely introduce him as August.<\/p>\n
2) Osborn \u2013 this is my grandfather\u2019s last name (my mom\u2019s maiden), and he passed away about two months ago. We\u2019d introduce him as Oz\/Ozzy if we went with this name.<\/p>\n
My husband really likes Osborn, and while I\u2019m warming to it more and more, I\u2019m not sure I can completely commit. Is Oz too off-beat? I\u2019d consider myself a pretty quirky person but I don\u2019t want to saddle my children with names that are a little too far off the beaten path. On the other hand, August doesn’t necessarily knock me out.<\/p>\n
Other names we seriously considered:<\/p>\n
Arlo (gets a little mushed together when you say it with the first name, though we realize you wouldn\u2019t say the two together very often)<\/p>\n
Owen (the most common name on our list, though we\u2019d likely use the nickname Mo as a play off the two names)<\/p>\n
Other names that we considered but didn\u2019t get as far:<\/p>\n
West
\nSullivan
\nAdler
\nTheodore
\nMontgomery
\nAlton<\/p>\n
As for other details, we plan on having at least one more child (two if we\u2019re lucky!), and we definitely hadn\u2019t come very close to deciding on a girl\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
Thanks for your help!!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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I prefer, in general, to stick to a “one quirk per name” limit, or actually I guess it’s more like two. That is, if a child is going to go by his or her middle name exclusively, that’s one quirk. Or if a child is going to have a very unusual name with a strong association, that’s one quirk. Going by (1) the nickname of (2) a very unusual and strongly-associated (3) middle name, in a situation where the nickname adds even more to the association, seems like a lot of quirks for one name. It’s not that you can’t do it, and plenty of people do it all the time; it’s only that if you’re asking me, and you are, it exceeds my own personal limit for what I would personally want to cope with if it were my own name. But it helps in this case that we’re all already familiar with the concept of a son having to use his middle name because his first name is already being used by another family member.<\/p>\n
A character in Buffy the Vampire Slayer first drew my attention to the appeal of the name Oz. It’s an extremely adventurous choice, strongly associated with The Wizard of Oz, but I think it could work. It helped that the character Oz was cool and cute and confident—but on the other hand, that makes me fret a bit about how well the name would work on a child who turned out less cool\/confident. Still, as you’ve mentioned, he could use Mark instead.<\/p>\n
![\"Oz\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Oz.jpg\")
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