A. writes:<\/p>\n
We are closing in our due date (Thanksgiving!) with our 3rd (and likely last) child, a boy, and are having a very hard time naming him. Our last name sounds like “Fort” but starts with an “Sh”. We already have two children, named Henry Ervin and Isabel Louise. Their middle names honor deceased relatives (because I am Jewish, we won’t honor living relatives through naming).<\/p>\n
We generally prefer traditional names, but something like William or John\/Jack feels too common. We have considered and rejected Charles\/Charlie (I love it, but my husband does not), David (awkward familial association), and Daniel (for some reason, it doesn’t sound “strong” enough to either of us). For a brief time, we considered Jason but have fallen away from it as perhaps too much of our own generation and also perhaps not quite strong enough (in the same vein as Daniel). We would like to use either Daniel or Edward as a middle name, though, as they happen to follow our tradition of honoring deceased relatives with the middle name.<\/p>\n
We seem to have happened into a short list of three favorites, none of which affirmatively feels just right at the moment. They are Malcolm, Brendan, and Patrick. Can you help with these (or make other suggestions)? Thank you very much!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I wonder if you’d like Nathaniel? Or perhaps it would have the same issues as Daniel. Henry, Isabel, and Nathaniel.<\/p>\n
Because Paul and I had Henry, Charlie, Daniel, and Malcolm on our own name list, I’ll suggest a few more where perhaps our styles overlap:<\/p>\n
Calvin
\nEdmund
\nElliot (ends with T like surname)
\nEverett (ends with T like surname)
\nFelix (-x may blend uncomfortably with Sh-)
\nFrederick
\nNicholas (-s may blend uncomfortably with Sh-)
\nOliver
\nSimon (starts with S like surname)<\/p>\nOf these, my favorite is Oliver. Henry, Isabel, and Oliver. I also like Calvin and Everett and Elliot and Edmund. Simon would probably be my top choice except that I’m not personally as fond of alliteration; if you do like it, then Henry, Isabel, and Simon is at or near the top of my list.<\/p>\n
I lean toward the ones without natural one-syllable nicknames: Ed __ort, Nick __ort, Fred __ort all sound a little abrupt to me. Calvin is an exception, I think because the softer L-ending is less choppy, and also because I know a Calvin who goes just by Calvin. But I think any of them are fine: it’s only a leaning, and so many kids don’t use nicknames now anyway.<\/p>\n
I have a strong favorite among your three finalists (Malcolm, Brendan, Patrick): Malcolm. I like Malcolm Edward. Let’s have a poll to see what everyone else likes best:<\/p>\n
[yop_poll id=”35″]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong> A. writes:<\/p>\n
Thank you for posting our naming question for our third child and second son, brother to Henry and Isabel.\u00a0 You and your readers offered much helpful insight.\u00a0 Your favorite and the winning poll choice was Malcolm, which I love but about which my husband had some reservations.\u00a0 My husband discovered the name Callum, which has the same Latin root as Malcolm (meaning = dove) and is occasionally used as a nickname therefor in Scotland.\u00a0 Callum also shares properties with a name you suggested, Calvin (possible nn Cal), that we hadn’t considered before.\u00a0 We fell for this name in a way we hadn’t about any other name we’d considered.\u00a0 Callum Daniel was born 11\/21\/13, and we are all doing well.\u00a0 Thank you so much! Happy Holidays!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A. writes: We are closing in our due date (Thanksgiving!) with our 3rd (and likely last) child, a boy, and are having a very hard time naming him. Our last name sounds like “Fort” but starts with an “Sh”. We already have two children, named Henry Ervin and Isabel Louise. Their middle names honor deceased […]<\/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-8322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2ae","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322","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=8322"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8414,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8322\/revisions\/8414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}