recent post<\/a> I read on the Louise who didn’t like her name and is aiming for a mid-twenties change, I am worried about our daughter not having a second option in case she doesn’t dig her first name. However, it also could be really nice for her to be able to identify with me and my side of the family. I am pretty against the following: 1) going by a middle name (I do, and don’t want to inflict that upon her) 2) using four names (my husband does–including both a middle traditional type name and his mother’s maiden name. She didn’t change her name either) 3) using a hypen for our last names; I think it works great for some, but our names together aren’t great and creates a mouthful.<\/p>\nFor whatever reason the debate about whether to include my name ends up feeling like: do we give her a more feminine sounding middle name fallback? or help her to be more in touch with her feminine roots? Perhaps this is the exploration of my “feminist” beliefs. I recognize that this is a bit absurd because my last name is my father’s. I grew up with my mom (a product of the 60s in the South wishing that she had not changed her name).<\/p>\n
Of course in addition to all this, we are having some pre-birth naming jitters. Phoebe has been the first name forerunner for quite some time–we love that it is traditional without being crazy popular. Perhaps as the equivalent of marriage cold feet, we can’t help feeling like there is some name we are missing. We would love your insight regarding mother surname usage and or\/any name suggestions that might help us to feel a little more a-ha and a little less blah. Here are some options we’ve had on our list based on the information above:<\/p>\n
Phoebe Elizabeth (my aunt’s first name) Noyes
\nPhoebe Martini Noyes
\nJuliet Posey (grandmother’s maiden name) Noyes
\nElizabeth Martini Noyes nn Libby
\nJuliet Martini Noyes
\n(Obviously Phoebe Posey Noyes is out given the “PP” problem you have oft explored)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
If your surname were literally Martini, I would consider its alcoholic drink association a major factor—so I will hasten to remind the readers that the name is not actually Martini but instead a surname-sounding surname with a pleasant sound.<\/p>\n
While I do think it’s nice to have a middle name to fall back on if the first name doesn’t work out, only a small percentage of people actually do choose to go by something other than their first names—and then not all of those people choose to go by their middle names. I think this falls into the category of There Is No Such Thing as Choosing a Name That Works for Every Possibility. I do think it’s wise to take those other possibilities into account, and I do think “having another name to fall back on” is a point in favor of a first-name-type name in the middle-name position—but I don’t think you have to weigh those too heavily, considering the relatively low likelihood of them being issues.<\/p>\n
Another thing we can’t know ahead of time whether she is the kind of girl who would find it pleasing to have her mother’s surname as a middle name, or whether she is the kind of girl who would find it pleasing to have another standard girl name there, or whether she is the kind of girl who would first feel one way and then end up feeling the other way. Since we can’t know, we can try to guess based on what we think most women would feel, or based on what we ourselves would feel—-but again, this falls into a category of unknowability: you’ll have to choose what you prefer to give her, based only in part on your guesses about what she’d prefer to have.<\/p>\n
And which WOULD you prefer? That is, for a moment let’s set aside the issue of what SHE would prefer, because we have no idea. Which would YOU prefer? When you picture writing her name thousands of times on thousands of pieces of paperwork, which name do you think you would feel happiest to be writing?<\/p>\n
You haven’t mentioned if you’re planning other children, but that’s something I would want to take into account. Are you seeing this as a one-time thing, where you use your surname as a family middle name for the first child but then you won’t continue that for each subsequent child? Or does this set the pattern, so that deciding to use your surname as a middle name means that you will do the same for all children?<\/p>\n
You mention that your surname is actually your father’s, and while I understand the gist of this argument and I think it’s good to keep it in mind, for myself I do think of “my father’s” surname as my own: I was born with it, and it belongs to me just as much as it ever belonged to him—and just as much as it would belong to me in a matriarchal system where it was “my mother’s” surname. Also, I think it’s different in your case because the surname in question is also CURRENTLY your surname. That is, it is your daughter’s mother’s surname RIGHT NOW, and will be as she is growing up. She’s not going to be thinking, “I have my grandfather’s surname as my middle name,” she will be thinking, “I have my mother’s surname as my middle name and then my father’s surname as my last name.” Furthermore, that arrangement will make sense to everyone who knows your family, and will even help to alleviate some of the minor hassles of a parent having a different surname from his or her child’s: schools and doctors and so forth will look on the paperwork and see a situation that makes sense to them. Which is not to say that we should set things up to make sense to the people who deal with our paperwork, but rather to say that it’s one point in favor of the idea.<\/p>\n
I also like your idea of giving her as a middle name the first name of another woman in your family (or a surname such as Posey, which works as a first name). This ties her to your side of the family while giving her a middle name she could fall back on if she wanted to.<\/p>\n
I’m assuming you’ve already ruled out options such as giving the girl children your surname and the boy children your husband’s surname or vice versa, or alternating back and forth between your surname and his, or in fact giving them all your surname—so I will mention that only in passing.<\/p>\n
There are two other possibilities that occur to me:<\/p>\n
1. You could give her your own first or middle name as her middle name. This ties her to you without using a surname you might think of as your father’s, while also giving her a standard feminine first name as her middle name, and while also releasing you from a feeling of obligation to do the same for all future children. Downside: she’d be unlikely to consider this a fall-back option if she didn’t want to use her first name.<\/p>\n
2. You could give her your mother’s original surname as her middle name. This ties your daughter to your side of the family, and has appeal if it was your mother who reared you and if her use of your father’s surname was regretted. I suppose we could say that it was actually your mother’s FATHER’S surname, but in a patriarchal society that’s the potential spin we’re stuck with if we want to use family surnames.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I think it’s a good idea to keep in mind that she will be tied to your side of the family no matter what name you give her. Names are a nice way to symbolically communicate family connections, but they’re only symbols: the real connections happen separately. She will identify with you and your side of the family because they’re half of her extended family, whether or not she has a name from that side.<\/p>\n
If you would like to know what I think I personally would choose in your shoes, I think I would give her my own surname as her middle name, and I would do the same for all subsequent children. I would already be unhappy to be the only one in my household family with a different surname, and so I would want my surname represented in my children’s names as well. (However, I would be sad to give up the fun of choosing a middle name, which is why in real life we went your husband’s parents’ route of giving them my original surname as a second middle name.)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong> C. writes:<\/p>\nHi, Swistle!
\nI wanted to provide an update on my October post. Your timing was perfect. I started having contractions the day after I emailed you. My husband and I ended up sitting in the hospital just after the birth reading your great comments and those of the readers. What excellent points everyone made–they helped us in our final discussion. Although I still have moments when I wish that I had gone with four names, I overall feel good about the decision to go with Phoebe Elizabeth Noyes, no inclusion of my surname. I appreciate your comments about not knowing what kind of girl we will have and what she may or may not like about her name. We do hope to have other kids and I can feel okay about none of them going by my surname as we find other ways to honor my family (like with Elizabeth– my aunt’s name). I am grateful to you and all who responded, thank you! I am attaching a pic of baby Phoebe!<\/p>\n
![\"IMG_1602\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/IMG_1602.jpg\")
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
C. writes: We could use some help in the eleventh hour! I am due any day–tomorrow–but think baby girl might hold out for another week or more. We are trying to decide whether to use my last name for her middle name (I didn’t change my name upon marriage. It is very similar to 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-8227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-28H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8227","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=8227"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8420,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8227\/revisions\/8420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}