I actually wrote to you several months back about girls names, but felt solid on our boy name.
\nWell, it’s a boy–due any day now and I JUST REALIZED that Charles Preston sounds like Charlton Heston. How did I not hear that before?
\nIs it the first thing you think of when you hear it?
\nIs it a deal breaker\/bad\/odd?
\nIs not that big a deal and I’m just having a last minute freak-out\/naming cold feet?<\/p>\n
We are set on Charles and plan to call him Charlie. It’s my father’s name and my wife’s grandfather’s name and we love it.
\nPreston is the name of a dear friend, but it’s not necessarily ‘after’ him, it was more the combination of an old classic name\/something newer that we liked and that we love our friend, so that was an added bonus.<\/p>\n
His second middle name will be Hughes (my maiden name–which is partly why we want another middle name, b\/c since Charles is my dad’s name, without another middle it is just his full name). Last name sounds like LOWSHAY, but starts with an F.<\/p>\n
Options as I see them now:
\n1. Use it. Own it, don’t care.
\n2. Just use Hughes and don’t have 2 middles and decide who cares that it’s my dad’s name b\/c I’m naming my kid after him so I must like the guy.
\n3. Consider other family names: Wellesly, David, Arthur, Edward, George, Malcolm, Raymond, Robinson, Evans (I really like this but unfortunately Charles Evans Hughes was some famous politician…that feels weird to have same 3 names)
\n4. Choose something else just because we like it or it sounds good: Reid, Thomas, Leo, William, Samuel, Matthew, Alexander, Nathaniel, Damon, Devin, Owen(but my good friend’s kid’s name is Owen)….
\n5. Something else?
\nClearly, you can see I’m tripping out about this–please help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I think it’s fine. I didn’t think of a Charlton Heston issue when I read your original letter. When you pointed it out, I thought, “Yeah, I guess it does kind of sound like that” in a doubtful tone of voice. And I gave it a day to think it over, and it still hasn’t ruined the name for me: I still like it, I still think it’s a great choice.<\/p>\n
It seems distinct in several ways: the rhythm\/syllables especially, but also the different endings of Charles and Charlton, and the way CharlTON HesTON repeated a major sound but Charles Preston doesn’t. So that if someone said to me, “Oh, that sounds like Charlton Heston!,” I think I’d say, “Oh, uh huh, a little!” rather than feeling dismayed. And my guess is it isn’t the sort of thing that’s going to come up very often, unless you’re planning to routinely call him “Charles Preston”—but your first letter says you plan to call him Charlie, so almost everyone will think of him as Charlie Lowshay and won’t even know his middle names. I think it’s more likely to be the sort of thing that makes people think “Charles and Preston go particularly well together but I can’t put a finger on why!”<\/p>\n
So I would vote for number one (“own it”), except that I don’t even think there’s anything to own here. It’s not as if your surname is Preston and you’re wondering about the name Charles, or as if you’re naming him Charlton Preston and calling him by both names; instead, maybe it will sound a little bit similar to an actor’s name to some people.<\/p>\n
You mentioned in your first letter that the surname is your wife’s, and Hughes is yours. So if I were you, I think Hughes would feel surnamey enough in role that I would also want a middle name. If you decide Preston is ruined for you, then I’d look next at other family\/friend names, and after that at just-sound-good names: Everett, maybe, or I think it would be fine to use Owen as the middle name even if it’s a friend’s child’s name.<\/p>\n
But my own first choice is to stay the course: Charles Preston doesn’t make me think of Charlton Heston—and even when it’s pointed out to me, it doesn’t bother me. Let’s have a poll to see what everyone else thinks:<\/p>\n
[yop_poll id=”29″]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong> Michelle writes:<\/p>\n So our little Charlie was born just a couple days after the post about naming him Charles Preston. Michelle writes: I actually wrote to you several months back about girls names, but felt solid on our boy name. Well, it’s a boy–due any day now and I JUST REALIZED that Charles Preston sounds like Charlton Heston. How did I not hear that before? Is it the first thing you think of when 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-8175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-27R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8175","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=8175"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8219,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8175\/revisions\/8219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIn the end, we didn’t end up going with that, and it wasn’t because of the way it sounded (your readers definitely assured me there was no problem with that).\u00a0 I had been having doubts for months and in the last minute scramble, my wife suggested something (her first real name suggestion the entire pregnancy) that resonated.\u00a0 It was a name you also suggested in your post: Everett.
\nI liked that it was close to Evan\/Evans (family name), it was an E name (my wife and her sister are both E names) and my wife had suggested it.\u00a0 The morning she went into labor we went for a walk and talked about it and knew it was right.\u00a0 It turned out my doubts about Preston were more than cold feet.\u00a0 It just wasn’t his name and I knew it. His name was Charles Everett.\u00a0 We’re head over heels for this guy.
\nThanks for the help!<\/p>\n![\"Screen](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Screen-shot-2013-10-06-at-2.04.34-PM.png\")
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"