Erin writes:<\/p>\n
My husband and I are expecting our 3rd baby (and most likely last) at the end of February and are absolutely stuck for names! We do not have a single name that has survived the list for our baby boy! Our girl list is, of course, running wild!<\/p>\n
Our other kids are named Charlie Flynn and Lucy Faye, though she goes Faye, so in some ways we would like a middle name that is a bit different and starts with F, but at this point we just need anything! Our last name is hyphenated (Fleece-Smith) so we not as in to long names or first names that sound like surnames.<\/p>\n
Another issues is that we can not use family names of any sort because the families don’t really get along and because it’s our last child, we shouldn’t start now. So names that are out are: William, Owen, Paul, James, Thomas, Alexander and John. Of these we like James, Owen and Paul.<\/p>\n
Other names that we have considered and discarded are:
\nToby (not strong enough)
\nElliott (ditto, though this is one I like a lot)
\nFord (I think this may be too cool)
\nJack (too popular)
\nNoah (weak again)
\nOliver (ditto)
\nHenry (too popular)
\nLuke (and all of it’s permutations: Luca, Lucas, etc–way too popular, there are 3 kids named Luca in my son’s pre-K class of 25)<\/p>\nFor a girl we would pick Alice Leigh, Lilly Alice (or reversed), Maia or Penelope (Penny) Jane. Obviously we dropped the ball on the F middle names on these!<\/p>\n
Thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Before seeing your list of rejected candidates, I would have suggested Oliver: it’s one of my favorites with Charlie, and both of those names were on our finalist list for our youngest son Henry. I don’t think of it as weak at all—maybe I’d call it gentle, or gentlemanly. But Oliver in the musical is one tough cookie despite being a little sweetie-pie, so I think of the name Oliver as having connotations of courage and strength and perseverance.<\/p>\n
Henry would have been my next suggestion, if it weren’t also on the rejected list. It’s at #46 for 2012, but Charlie and Lucy are comparably popular if we take into account the various ways people get to the names (Charlie from Charles and Charlie, Lucy from Lucy and Lucia and Luciana and Lucille and Lucinda).<\/p>\n
My third thought was Leo (another from our finalist list for Henry). Leo Fleece-Smith; Charlie, Faye, and Leo.<\/p>\n
While I’m at it, let me think—what else was on that finalist list? Alan (family name, and we’d been watching a show with Alan Alda), Milo, and…hm. Funny how I must have gone over that list a million times, yet I can’t remember it now. Charlie, Henry, Oliver, Leo, Alan, Milo, and…. Well, it’ll come to me. (I finally looked it up because it was driving me crazy, and it was Elliot—another from your list!)<\/p>\n
Ford seems perfect for the unusual-F-middle name if it works with the chosen first name, since you like it but are worried it’s a little too cool. I like Franklin and Frederick, too. Or Forest, or Felix, or Fox, or Fletcher? Or Fisher is one of the middle names we considered for Henry. (Paul never liked it as much as I did: I’d just read a novel with a very appealing character in it named Fisher.)<\/p>\n
For a girl, I love Flora and Florence and Fiona and Felicity and Frances and Fern. Or Faith, or Flossie is vintage and adorable.<\/p>\n
If you like Owen, I wonder if you’d like Ian? Ian Fleece-Smith; Charlie, Faye, and Ian.<\/p>\n
Is Everett any stronger than Elliot to you? I love it with the sibling names. Everett Fleece-Smith; Charlie, Faye, and Everett.<\/p>\n
I like George in this sibling set, too, and it has some of the sound of Ford. George Fleece-Smith; Charlie, Faye, and George.<\/p>\n
Or perhaps Calvin? Calvin Fleece-Smith; Charlie, Faye, and Cal.<\/p>\n
Or I love Joe with Charlie. Joe Fleece-Smith; Charlie, Faye, and Joe.<\/p>\n
Or Malcolm? Malcolm Fleece-Smith; Charlie, Faye, and Malcolm.<\/p>\n
Or Isaac: similar in sound to Jack, similar in style to Noah. The nickname Ike would be cute with Charlie. Isaac Fleece-Smith; Charlie, Faye, and Ike.<\/p>\n
I wish the name Harvey would get a little more popular: it doesn’t seem very different than Henry to me, in look or in sound or in era. Harvey Fleece-Smith; Charlie, Faye, and Harvey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong> Erin writes:<\/p>\n
Hi! We had our baby, he was, and is, a boy! We continued to wrestle with names until the minute we were discharged! My favorite names were Elliot Ford or George Fox, and my husband came out of left field with his new favorite Archer Ford, but he also liked George Fox. So after much negotiating we arrived at George Fox! Thanks to you and your readers and commenters! At least we knew that the middle name would be Ford or Fox!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Erin writes: My husband and I are expecting our 3rd baby (and most likely last) at the end of February and are absolutely stuck for names! We do not have a single name that has survived the list for our baby boy! Our girl list is, of course, running wild! Our other kids are named […]<\/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-8564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2e8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8564","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=8564"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8753,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8564\/revisions\/8753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}