I am 13 weeks pregnant! I have been reading your site forever and I am obsessed with baby names. OBSESSED!<\/p>\n
First the basics. I’m Amanda and my husband is Lucas, goes by Luke. Our last name is longgggg and Dutch.. Sounds like Van Weer-in-jen or Van Weer-gen depending on which family member you talk to. We usually say Van Weer-in-jen…. nothing really goes with it, so it’s not a huge concern. We have a great variety of names we could use from both sides of our family for middle and first.<\/p>\n
We decided years ago that a boy would be Arie after DHs grandfather. His name was Arie but when he came to Canada, he changed it to Harry. We just love Arie and love that its unique and a family name. He was also an amazing man that is missed. I know Ari is the more common spelling, but that isn’t the Dutch way and isn’t how his grandfathers name was spelled, so we want to do Arie. I’m a touch worried that it’s too feminine, and if it was totally up to me, I’d probably use the name Arlo with the nick name Arie, or name a girl Aria. BUT DH is set on Arie and I do really love it too!<\/p>\n
Boy middle name options:
\nJohn (after my dad, two of our best friends, my grandpa, my brothers middle, husbands uncle.. lots of family significance!)
\nAndrew (my brothers name)
\nTaylor (my maiden name)
\nBayne (my grans middle name, which was her moms maiden name… we kind of want this for a second boy one day!)<\/p>\n
Girl contenders are as follows for a first name:
\nRuby (DHs Grandmothers middle name) I like it, but a bit too popular.. do you think it will keep climbing?
\nTheo (my grandmothers first name) I absolutely LOVE this name but worry because it’s becoming more and more popular as a boys name and short form for Theodore. My grandmas full name is Theophila, but I don’t think I could give a child that big name with our last name that ALWAYS requires being spelled out and is so long. When I hear the name Theo, I always picture female, but I don’t think most do. What do you think?
\nRowan – just a name we found that we like. I am worried about masculine sounding girl names paired with Arie. Someone once told me that if I had an Arie and a Theo they would assume that Theo was the boy and Arie was the girl.<\/p>\n
Girl middle name options:
\nAnne (my moms name)
\nJane (my middle, my grandmas middle, my aunts first)
\nBrooke (my sisters name.. leaning towards this!)
\nTaylor (my maiden name)<\/p>\n
Now the questions:<\/p>\n
If we know for sure if we ever have a boy he will be Arie, should we give family names to all other kids? Or is it okay for just one to have a family name?<\/p>\n
What do you think of these names? ANY girl suggestions? Are there any Dutch names that would work well?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I’d probably use the Arie spelling, too. I would be prepared for it to routinely require clarification—just as someone would have to do for a name like Cameron or Jordan.<\/p>\n
I would not, however, then use Theo for a girl. I think of Theo the way I think of Jacob or Sebastian: it isn’t that I’d guess the child was more likely a boy, but instead that I’d assume it without giving it any thought. Current usage in the United States supports that impression; here are the 2012 numbers from the Social Security Administration’s database:<\/p>\n
Theo, F: –
\nTheo, M: 282
\nTheodora, F: 67
\nTheodora, M: –
\nTheodore, F: –
\nTheodore, M: 1,912<\/p>\n
Which of course is not to say it couldn’t still be used for a girl (26 new baby girls were named Jacob in 2012, and 13 new baby girls were named Sebastian), but I wouldn’t do it if I had another child with a unisex name such as Arie.<\/p>\n
I think of Thea as the female equivalent of Theo. I also saw Theona (given to just 5 new baby girls in 2012) in the SSA database; that seems like an interesting possibility.<\/p>\n
And I do think you could name her Theophila and call her Theo: if I see Arie and Theophila together, I lose the girl\/boy feeling I get if I see Arie and Theo. I like too how that would parallel your decision about Arie: in both cases you’d be using the name because it was the honoree’s actual name, without changing it for convenience.<\/p>\n
Another option would be to use Arie for a girl, and Theo for a boy.<\/p>\n
Another option would be to use Arie as the middle name.<\/p>\n
I generally prefer to pair ambiguous first names with unambiguous middle names, so my favorites from your middle-name list would be Arie John and Arie Andrew.<\/p>\n
Ruby seems to be leveling off, popularity-wise:<\/p>\n
![\"(screenshot](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Screen-shot-2013-09-16-at-9.36.45-AM.png\")
(screenshot from SSA.gov)<\/p><\/div>\n
My main issue with it is that I’d prefer not to repeat the ending of Arie.<\/p>\n
Rowan is an interesting candidate, since it’s a second unisex name. Here are the 2012 numbers:<\/p>\n
Rowan, F: 678
\nRowan, M: 1,138
\nRowen, F: 97
\nRowen, M: 234<\/p>\n
We can compare those to the 2012 numbers for Arie:<\/p>\n
Ari, F: 176
\nAri, M: 631
\nArie, F: 80
\nArie, M: 66<\/p>\n
Rowan and Rowen are both used more often for boys than for girls, but not at a level that lets us forget it’s unisex. Ari\/Arie is more interesting, because Ari is used quite a bit more often for boys, while Arie is used slightly more often for girls; that name, too, is unisex in the U.S.<\/p>\n
Of the girl name options, I don’t have a clear front-runner. I think I would keep looking. Would you want to consider Taylor for a first name? It’s unisex-used-more-for-girls right now:<\/p>\n
Taylor, F: 4,825
\nTaylor, M: 878<\/p>\n
I think my favorite Dutch female name is Willemina. It’s a lot with your surname, however.<\/p>\n
Nameberry has a Dutch girl name list<\/a> (I love that it has a “show all” button; it drives me nuts when a site makes me click through a dozen pages with five names per page). Lots of good possibilities, nice and simple with a longer surname: Britt, Fay, Gwen, Isa, Jade, Lara, Tess. However, none of those shout out “DUTCH!” to me: they’re names that are popular in The Netherlands right now, but not necessarily what would sound Netherlandy to us in the United States.<\/p>\n The Baby Name Bible<\/a> has lists of Irish names, Italian names, Ancient Roman names, Russian names, French names, African names, Spanish names, and Armenian names—but no Dutch names. The Best Baby Names in the World from Around the World<\/a> has no Dutch name section, either. The Baby Name Wizard<\/a> has a section of Dutch names, but unfortunately combined with German names—and I’m not good at separating them out except by looking them up one by one in The Baby Name Bible (which mentions nationality). I particularly like Elsa with your surname and with Arie, but it’s German rather than Dutch. That reminds me, though, that I saw Ilsa on the Nameberry list—I accidentally skipped right over it thinking it was Isla. Ilsa Van Weer-in-jen; Arie and Ilsa. I like that very much. Perhaps you can find more lists of Dutch baby names, and see if any appeal to you.<\/p>\n I do think it’s absolutely fine to have only one child with a family name. It’s pleasing when it works out that all the kids have good honor names, but it reminds me of choosing groomsmen\/bridesmaids: it’s pleasingly symmetrical if there happen to be the same number of each, but it’s better to give the honor to the people you really want to honor, rather than forcing it just so things match. Use honor names as long as you still have people you want to honor whose names you want to use. Plenty of people have only one honor name they want to use; it’s especially common if the honor name is for a first-born son, because that’s a familiar tradition in the United States.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Name update!<\/strong> Amanda writes:<\/p>\n Update!! He is here and is named Arie Bayne Van Weer-in-jen. We went back and forth on the middle name.. I was leaning toward Andrew with my second favourite being Bayne. My husband was leaning towards Bayne with his second favourite as John. So Bayne it was!<\/p>\n We’ve had some pronunciation issues with Arie, some people think it’s pronounced like “Air-eee” upon reading it, and some people have assumed he is a girl when I say his name. Both of these issues are ones we thought would happy, so we are okay with it. We are happy with his name and glad we used it and honoured both sides of the family! Picture attached of Arie who is now 7 weeks old.<\/p>\n PS: Funny to note: the week before Arie was born I had two co-workers get granddaughters who were named Aria and Arianna… and my dad just had one of his employees name a daughter Aria. Seem like the “Ari…” trend is picking up.<\/p>\n Thanks for your help, Amanda writes: I am 13 weeks pregnant! I have been reading your site forever and I am obsessed with baby names. OBSESSED! First the basics. I’m Amanda and my husband is Lucas, goes by Luke. Our last name is longgggg and Dutch.. Sounds like Van Weer-in-jen or Van Weer-gen depending on which family member you […]<\/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-8126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-274","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126","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=8126"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8890,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8126\/revisions\/8890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAmanda<\/p>\n![\"photo1](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/photo1-5.jpg\")
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"