M. writes:<\/p>\n
Hello!<\/p>\n
I just have to say that I LOVE reading your blog. I tend to have a very classic but not super common naming style, and I love reading the wide variety of options on your blog!<\/p>\n
I am not currently pregnant (and no plans any time soon), but I have a HUGE name obsession. To the point where I routinely find a name I like and text it to all of my friends, thereafter googling and scanning for possible nicknames (to me, nicknames are HUGE).<\/p>\n
I could write you a dozen different e-mails about so many names that I love and combinations I like…but I’m writing because I have one specific name in mind that I am obsessed with…but can find very little about online. Not to mention, I have a nickname in mind that I need a little clarity with.<\/p>\n
Some back story: my boyfriend and I used to be in a long-distance relationship. It was generally a 7 road trip to visit each other a few times a month. One such route between our homes often took me past a sign for a town called Avoca.<\/p>\n
Avoca is an Irish name, and a common one for “places.” Not to mention, I’ve seen Avoca cookbooks, Avoca blankets, and so forth. It is NOT as common for a little girl’s name. But I just love it. I am Irish, and seeing it in print reminds me of all of those trips my boyfriend and I made to see each other!<\/p>\n
I think it is absolutely an adorable name for a little girl, and something that also solves a conundrum I’ve had for awhile: Namely, I have loved the name Ava since I was a little girl. But it is now SO popular, I would never consider that to be my (future, some day) child’s full name. Also, I am obsessed with nicknames and there is no strong contender from the name Ava (and yes, names without a decent nickname are a deal breaker for me).<\/p>\n
However, Avoca…pronounced Ah-VOH-ka…could provide me with the missing link.<\/p>\n
Now for question time:<\/p>\n
a) is this unusual name “right” for a little girl? Does it sound too much like Avocado?
\na1) Is it SO unusual that people would hate it (I don’t generally care about what other people think, but I myself hate when people get too “out there” with names: this is something your child must live with FOREVER! Not you: THEM!).<\/p>\nb) Does the fact that Avoca starts with an AH sound as opposed to Ava’s AY sound make the two NOT sync up enough for a nickname cross over?
\nb1) If so, what other nickname suggestions are there?
\nb2) Would pronouncing it Ay-VOH-ka help?<\/p>\nThank you so much for your help!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I hadn’t immediately noticed the avocado connection. My first association was with vocations and Latin and church and Ave Maria: it looks to me like it could be the name of a song or blessing to begin the church service. But once you mentioned avocados, I’m afraid I kept seeing it.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, when I first saw the name and was guessing at its pronunciation before getting to that part of the email, I pronounced it correctly—though I would have said it aloud with a question mark at the end, not certain I had it right. But as soon as I saw the avocado connection, it threw off my pronunciation and I had to stop and think each time to keep from saying it with the avocado emphasis.<\/p>\n
As to whether it’s too unusual, it’s beyond the point where I would use the word “unusual”: it is in fact currently unused in the United States. But it has many name-like qualities: it begins with the currently stylish Av- sound (Ava, Avery), and it ends with an -a as many girl names do. In the middle is the long-O sound, which is also currently in style (Olivia, Sophia, Zoe, Chloe, Noah, Logan, Owen). Those three things combined make it seem unusual to me, but not TOO unusual—especially since you have a story for the origin of the name. Instead it sounds to me like a name from another language that I just haven’t heard before.<\/p>\n
Ava does not seem like a natural nickname for it, however. The only sound in common is the V: AY-vuh and ah-VOH have nothing else in common, not even emphasis. I also think calling her Ava would throw off the pronunciation of the full name: if I knew the nickname was Ava, I’d think Avoca must be pronounced more like AY-vock-uh or ay-VOCK-uh.<\/p>\n
But no, I wouldn’t change the pronunciation. It’s more confusing, and it seems odd to change the sentimental town name’s pronunciation, and it also feels like a reach: lots of people wish the name Ava weren’t so popular, but it just IS that popular, and forcing a connection to a less-popular name doesn’t make the name Ava any less common—it just makes it feel as if the parents thought it did.<\/p>\n
The final blow is that Ava doesn’t seem like a nickname name; it seems like a stand-alone name. If I hear of a girl named Annie, or Evie, or Lucy, I might wonder if it could be a nickname; if I hear Anna, or Eva, or Luca, I first assume it’s the full name. Certainly some nicknames DO end in -a and ARE also stand-alone names (an Annabel could certain go by Anna or an Emmaline could go by Emma, and there’s Eleanor\/Nora and Margaret\/Greta and Isabella\/Bella), but it’s not as familiar a format in the United States: nicknames for girls have more often ended in the -ie sound, or have been a syllable of the full name with or without the -ie sound (Abby for Abigail, not Abba; Susie or Sue for Susan, not Susa; Becky for Rebekah, not Reba; Mandy for Amanda, not Ama). When an -a is used, it seems to come more often from the end of the name: Manda for Amanda, Bekah for Rebeckah, Nora for Eleanor. It might still work fine if Ava were known as a nickname the way Bella and Nora and Greta are, or if Ava were known to be related to the name Avoca: traditional usage covers a multitude of inconsistencies. But by using a unique name, and then wanting as a nickname an unrelated and very common stand-alone name in a non-typical nickname format, I feel like we’re exceeding the Stretch Limit.<\/p>\n
Although, wait. Something else occurs to me. I originally started this paragraph by saying, “However, this doesn’t mean I think you CAN’T do it: if I encountered an actual Avoca going by Ava, I might initially think ‘exceeds the Stretch Limit’ and then I wouldn’t give it any thought after that, and in fact might not even remember I’d ever even thought of it as a stretch”—but as I wrote that out, I realized the situation was better than that. Because what I might actually assume is that the parents wanted to use the very unusual town name as a sentimental name, and then they wanted to give her a more familiar name for everyday use. Yes, I think that’s what I might very well think—and what I might very well SAY, if I were the parent. And when I spin it that way, it completely undoes the Stretch Limit effect—as well as making the name Avoca feel even more usable. (Although it would be better still if it were a town you’d met your boyfriend in or visited your boyfriend in, rather than a town name you drove past on the road.)<\/p>\n
I am not succeeding in coming up with alternate nicknames. Sometimes something will occur to me if I say the name again and again, but I’m not coming up with anything that seems viable. Vo, Vokie, Avvie—actually, I think I’d go with Avvie. It’s so similar to Abby, just a V-sound instead of a B-sound, and it feels like the nickname that would happen naturally if you didn’t try to come up with one.<\/p>\n
One final concern is that you say you have a very classic naming style. Will you be able to think of sibling names you like with the name Avoca?<\/p>\n
If Ava is more your style, and the only reasons you wouldn’t use it are its popularity and its lack of a nickname, I might suggest a double first name such as Ava Louise, with a nickname like Ava-Lou.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Let’s have a poll to see what everyone else thinks of the name Avoca:<\/p>\n
[yop_poll id=”36″]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
M. writes: Hello! I just have to say that I LOVE reading your blog. I tend to have a very classic but not super common naming style, and I love reading the wide variety of options on your blog! I am not currently pregnant (and no plans any time soon), but I have a HUGE […]<\/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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-to-consider"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2aI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352","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=8352"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8363,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8352\/revisions\/8363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}