Korrine writes:<\/p>\n
Hello! I am hoping you and\/or your readers can help my husband and I with our baby naming dilemma! This is our third baby, due in April, and our second daughter. We have a daughter named Claire Noelle and a son named Evan Andrew. My name is Korrine (Corinne, but spelled weird) and my husband is Andy. Our last name sounds like Hanley, but starts with an S.<\/p>\n
With both of our other children, we were able to decide very quickly on names we both liked and that was it! This time, though, my husband has a few he likes that I have issues with or just don’t like and I have a number of names I really like that I think fit well with our other two as well as our last name but he hates them!<\/p>\n
We (I) have a few requirements: 1) I don’t want it to end in an s sound because of our last name starting with s (which rules out Grace, one I really like) 2) for similar reasons, I don’t like anything that ends in -ley (so Molly and Carly are out, too) 3) I would like to use my mom’s middle name for this baby since I have my grandma’s middle name – it is Jean, making one syllable names awkward (I could be tempted to choose another middle name if the ‘right’ first name doesn’t go with Jean) 4) my name was\/still is always mispronounced, so I prefer names that won’t be butchered too much, though I do like slightly less common names.<\/p>\n
So here’s the list of the top picks so far:<\/p>\n
Husband picks:
\n1) Ella – I don’t hate it, and it is a family name, but I feel like it’s too close to Evan
\n2) Emma – I actually love this name, but I think it’s too popular (I’m a teacher, so I always see the “popular” names from kids’ birth years in class when there are 3 or more of a certain name – Samuel and Taylor were very popular in 1999-2000!
\n3) Colette – I don’t dislike it, but I’m worried it will be too confusing with Claire and Korrine already in our family (bonus, it is French and I teach French, so I like that!)<\/p>\nMy picks:
\n1) Jillianne
\n2) Aubrey
\n3) Harper
\n4) Lorelei
\n5) Paige
\n6) Alayna
\n7) Norah<\/p>\nAs you can see, we are all over the place. If I could find something I like as much as Emma and Grace, but which met my other naming requirements, I would be so happy! I like those two because they feel like they fit with Claire and Evan and I think they are classic and pretty and would grow with the baby.<\/p>\n
Am I being too picky? Should I just go with Emma since it meets all the requirements other than popularity and we both love it? Would it be too weird to name her Emmalyn\/Emmaline and call her Emma? Is Emma too close to Evan? Would naming her Gracie to avoid the s sound running into our last name be too nicknamey? Any help you could provide would be MUCH appreciated!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I don’t think it would be weird to name her an Emma name such as Emeline and then call her Emma—but I don’t think it would help very much, either, if you plan to always call her Emma. I think Evan and Emma are similar, but not so similar that I think they can’t be in the same sibling group. I think it would be charming to call her Emma Jean: this would set her apart from the other Emmas a little, and also make her name less similar to Evan’s. Claire, Evan, and Emma Jean.<\/p>\n
Gracie does seem nicknamey to me, and I don’t think it helps very much: Grace St____y has a little issue with merging S-sounds, but Gracie St____y has a little issue with repeating end-sounds.<\/p>\n
My first additional suggestion was Celeste, but then I realized the -ste runs right into the St- of the surname.<\/p>\n
My second thought was Stella. It’s like Ella, but less like Evan. But since Ella is a family name, I’d be reluctant to change it. I would still suggest Stella in its own right, though: not as a family name, but just as a good choice with Claire and Evan. It strongly alliterates with the surname (Stella St_____y), which would be a plus for some and a minus for others.<\/p>\n
I wonder if you’d like Annabel? The sound of it is similar to both Emma and Ella. Claire, Evan, and Annabel.<\/p>\n
From your list my favorites for this sibling group are Norah\/Nora and Aubrey. I think I’d like Audrey even better than Aubrey, because it feels more classic\/traditional like Claire; Aubrey feels more like it fits with the Bree-\/-bree names. If Jillianne were Jillian, that would be another favorite. More possibilities:<\/p>\n
Charlotte Jean St____ly; Claire, Evan, and Charlotte
\nEliza Jean St____ly; Claire, Evan, and Eliza
\nElizabeth Jean St____ly; Claire, Evan, and Elizabeth
\nHope St____ly (similar to Grace; not great with Jean); Claire, Evan, and Hope
\nJuliette Jean St____ly; Claire, Evan, and Juliette
\nLaurel Jean St___ly; Claire, Evan, and Laurel
\nLeah Jean St____ly; Claire, Evan, and Leah
\nLydia Jean St____ly; Claire, Evan, and Lydia
\nMarissa Jean St____ly; Claire, Evan, and Marissa
\nSabrina Jean St____ly; Claire, Evan, and Sabrina<\/p>\nBecause you both love Emma and popularity is the only issue, I’m a little torn. On one hand, I think the Top 10 is completely usable, and that it’s a mistake to dismiss great names just because a lot of people agree they’re great. On the other hand, the name Emma has been in the Top 10 for eleven years now, and it isn’t falling at all yet. I’m worried that I’ll put my “No, you should USE it!” vote behind it, and then you’ll regret it as the Emmas start hitting your classroom in full force. Still, it’s hard for me to resist the Emma Jean idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Korrine writes: Hello! I am hoping you and\/or your readers can help my husband and I with our baby naming dilemma! This is our third baby, due in April, and our second daughter. We have a daughter named Claire Noelle and a son named Evan Andrew. My name is Korrine (Corinne, but spelled weird) and […]<\/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-8439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2c7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439","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=8439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8440,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439\/revisions\/8440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}