Jen writes:<\/p>\n
We are struggling with naming our soon to arrive baby girl.<\/p>\n
This will be our 3rd & final baby. We have a daughter Addison & a son Hudson.
\nWe can’t agree on any names ending with “son” and are open to any suggestions.
\nOur last name is Palmer so any names beginning with P are out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/p>\n
With a matching ending, my first goal would be to find something with a very different beginning. Since Addi- and Hud- both feature a strong D sound, I would look for something without a D.<\/p>\n
Probably I will not be suggesting anything you haven’t already ruled out, but sometimes names feel different when other people discuss them. My first choice for you would be Emerson, if it weren’t for Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I’m not even familiar with the band (I had to look them up online to make sure they were a real thing), and yet their name sprang to my mind as soon as I paired Emerson with the surname Palmer. I’m not sure how much of an issue this is: I don’t know what percentage of other people would think of the band—and if people DO make the association, does it matter? is it negative? Either way, with a different surname, Emerson would be my first choice: Addison, Hudson, and Emerson. I like how compatible Addison and Emerson are, both in popularity and in how often they’re used for girls versus boys.<\/p>\n
But because of the surname, I’d be inclined more toward Ellison. I like that she’d have a doubled letter like her sister’s, and Addie\/Addy\/Addi and Ellie\/Elly\/Elli are great nicknames. And as with the name Addison, the name Ellison is currently used in the U.S. much more often for girls. Ellison Palmer; Addison, Hudson, and Ellison.<\/p>\n
If you want the sound but don’t care about the spelling, I’d suggest Gracen\/Gracyn. Grayson\/Greyson look masculine to me, but Gracen reminds me of Grace and so it seems feminine. Gracen Palmer; Addison, Hudson, and Gracen. But in this sibling group, it hits my ear as Grayson, a brother.<\/p>\n
Macen\/Mayson\/Maeson is similar for me: I can see it as a girl name when it’s spelled in a feminine way, but when I hear it in the sibling group it sounds like a brother. And while Addison is currently used predominately for girls in the United States, Grayson and Mason are currently far more popular for boys.<\/p>\n
Or again, same thing with Jenson (which is probably too much like your name anyway): that spelling is only used for boys in the U.S. right now. Even spelling it Jensen or Jennsyn, I worry that with the other two names (one used sometimes for boys but very popular for girls, one used occasionally for girls but very popular for boys), it doesn’t work to use a name for a girl that’s used much more often for boys.<\/p>\n
Ellison is my first choice, followed by Emerson. None of the other options feel like good contenders to me. Can anyone come up with more options?<\/p>\n
I also think it would be fine to choose a name that didn’t end in -son. It can feel as if it’s very excluding to have one child’s name stand out from the others, but I think it’s okay when it’s only two sharing something in common (if you were expecting a fourth child after an Addison, Hudson, and Ellison, I’d be much, much more inclined to stick to the -son names). And you can significantly lessen the effect by finding a name that ties the names together in different ways: the strong D sound, an S sound, an A initial and three syllables like her sister’s, another surname name, an -n ending. I would consider names I might otherwise find a little too similar, in order to get that tie-in.<\/p>\n
Even just explaining “We didn’t match the first two names on purpose—we just chose our favorite name each time” can go a long way to demonstrate a lack of intention to exclude. Or, “We tried to find a name that would match your siblings’ names, but we just didn’t like any of those names very much—so instead we chose you a name we loved.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jen writes: We are struggling with naming our soon to arrive baby girl. This will be our 3rd & final baby. We have a daughter Addison & a son Hudson. We can’t agree on any names ending with “son” and are open to any suggestions. Our last name is Palmer so any names beginning with […]<\/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-8251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-295","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251","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=8251"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8264,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8251\/revisions\/8264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}