S. writes:<\/p>\n
Our first baby, a boy, is due to arrive any day now and we do not have a name…or even close really. Surname is a four syllable Dutch name ending in hazen sound but we are both English speaking only. My husband’s family typically all have short easy to say and spell names to balance out the surname with no middle names. I love nicknames and middle names. I have convinced him we need a nickname and middle name but he’d still like to keep it really simple.<\/p>\n
Here are names we are considering:
\nSam Avery
\nTheo James (can you use Teddy as a nickname in this case?)
\nEdward Avery (nickname Ted or teddy, husband also likes the option of just calling him ted as the proper<\/p>\nHusband also likes classics like Eric, Alex, Henry. I like jasper.<\/p>\n
The other main issue is that I have been calling the baby Georgie since I found out I was pregnant. We kinda ruled out George as an option after the prince was born and husband isn’t a huge fan anyway but I just can’t stop calling him that.<\/p>\n
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
\nThanks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/p>\n
I think it would be fun and lovely to use George as a middle name so you can keep calling him Georgie if you want to, especially since your husband doesn’t care much about either a middle name or a nickname. It wouldn’t even need to be a part of his legal name, however; plenty of people still call their children by Fetus Nicknames such as Bean, Peanut, Bear, etc.; Georgie seems like a particularly good one.<\/p>\n
I would encourage George as a great short, easy first name, except that your husband isn’t as keen on the name even without the Baby Prince factor. If he’d be willing to reconsider it, though, I think it’s a great choice. The princes Charles, William, and Henry haven’t ruined those names for use, and I don’t think the name George needs to be ruined either.<\/p>\n
My top favorite of all the short and easy names is John. I will not be surprised if your eyes have glazed over a bit, because I think John is a name the eyes skip right past in the name book. But say it a few times. Imagine it written on a cute kindergarten drawing, perhaps with a backwards J and N. And think of how few CHILDREN named John you know: depending on your area of the country, it may be pretty much none. In my area, there is almost literally a Jacob in each classroom in one grade (the names are outside the classroom doors, and while waiting for a parent-teacher conference I looked with increasing incredulity at each batch—we must have had a run on them that year), but almost ZERO boys named John. In fact, I asked the kids and none of them have ever had a classmate named John (though there have been a few Jonathans). So! That’s my vote for classic yet surprising, unless you are in an area where three of your friends already have sons named John.<\/p>\n
John isn’t great with the middle name George, though. Theo George ____hazen works better. I tend to be on the picky\/strict end of the spectrum, nickname-wise, so I wouldn’t use the nickname Ted\/Teddy for it—but society at large is less picky\/strict than I am, so you’d be in good company if you used it anyway. One thing I wouldn’t like about it is that it adds a second explanation to the name: you’ll already sometimes have “No, just Theo—not short for Theodore,” and adding “We call him Ted—no, short for Theo, not for Theodore or Edward” seems like it counteracts the benefits of going short and simple with the first name.<\/p>\n
I wonder if you’d like the name Milo? Or Leo? Both are short and easy. No natural nicknames (Lee, maybe, for Leo), but it’s harder to find nicknames for short and easy names. Perhaps an initials nickname (A.J., etc.), if the middle name works for it? T.J. is cute for Theo James.<\/p>\n
It’s tricky to come up with more suggestions without knowing what other sounds are in the surname, but here are a few more nice short first names:<\/p>\n
Ben
\nDane
\nDean
\nEvan
\nIan
\nFinn
\nJack
\nJacob\/Jake
\nKarl
\nLuke
\nGrant
\nMax
\nOwen
\nPaul
\nReid
\nWes<\/p>\nI also think you could re-examine longer names, especially if they’re easy ones. For example, Charles\/Charlie is longer, but it’s still only two syllables and a very familiar, easy name. Or Samuel is still quite short and simple. Or Benjamin and Jonathan and Christopher and Alexander are all considered long, and yet they’re easy. Theodore doesn’t seem unnecessarily long or difficult to me with a four-syllable surname: it’s long, certainly, but not WEIRDLY long—and only one single syllable longer than Theo.<\/p>\n
The winner in my family is my daughter, who has a twelve syllables total in her name; it hasn’t been an issue, even though I fretted about it when we were naming her. Flipping through one of the kids’ yearbooks has considerably rested my mind on this type of issue: TONS of people have names that would have seemed too short\/long\/alliterative\/choppy\/difficult in the naming stage, and yet seem completely fine once they’re a done deal. And since nicknames are important to you, I can really see how you’d get stuck. I think your husband’s family may be overcompensating; if you’re having a lot of trouble choosing a name, I’d recommend expanding the field of candidates to include longer (but still easy\/simple\/familiar) names.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong><\/p>\n
Hi there,<\/p>\n
I never responded to your blog post and all the great feedback I received on my naming dilemma. And now baby is almost 6 months old but better late than never. We narrowed it down to Sam, Ted or Leo. All short and sweet and all options both my husband and I liked. But then when I was in labour I said to my husband “If I survive this I am naming this baby Georgie” and then as soon as he came out (perfect and healthy) I said Georgie! and instantly fell in love. He was Georgie all along, I should have never second guessed it. His full name is George Leo. I haven’t received a single negative comment about copying the royal baby and my husband totally loves the name now too and says he can’t imagine him as anything else.<\/p>\n
Thanks!
\nSarah<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"S. writes: Our first baby, a boy, is due to arrive any day now and we do not have a name…or even close really. Surname is a four syllable Dutch name ending in hazen sound but we are both English speaking only. My husband’s family typically all have short easy to say and spell names […]<\/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-8554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2dY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554","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=8554"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10169,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554\/revisions\/10169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}