Lauren writes:<\/p>\n
We are expecting our 2nd (and last!) child in 6 short weeks and are hoping you might be able to provide us your honest feedback and suggestions when it comes to finding her name. Our 19-month old daughter is Eliza Blakely and we had a relatively easy time deciding on her name, which we absolutely love. It was important to us that we find a classic yet spunky name, and the fact that the \u2018E\u2019 could honor someone very special in our family sealed the deal. Blakely is also a family name.<\/p>\n
I would love to find another classic name with spunk and\/or spunky nickname potential. I tend to like longer names when paired with our short, one-syllable last name of Jane but with a C.<\/p>\n
Our leading contender is Lucienne. We would primarily call her Lucie (and I would love to also call her Lux, but my husband says I am alone on that one J). We have no French ties at all however, and I worry that choosing such a French name might then be a bit bizarre. I love the beauty of the name, probably in large part because it reminds me so much of Vivienne (nickname Vivi) which is a long-time favorite of mine, but only mine, if you catch my drift! Other names I like that my husband has vetoed: Vanessa, Charlotte (nickname: Lola), Talia, and Estelle\/Estella. Our (only?) other joint contender at this point is Savannah. Like many women in my age group, I have loved this name since seeing the movie Savannah Smiles, and it was our runner-up choice when naming Eliza. Our hesitation in choosing Savannah is that it just doesn\u2019t seem to fit with what I deem our \u2018style\u2019, whatever that means! It isn\u2019t a classic name, but more of a modern beauty, and I fear I will end up feeling that it sounds dated and wish I chosen something more timeless like Eliza. I also wish it lent itself to a more obvious nickname.<\/p>\n
Okay so that is the dilemma so far\u2026but can we talk middle names too? My mother has been recently diagnosed with an advanced terminal illness. It is very important to me that we find a middle name that can somehow honor my mom, Terry, without using her actual name but perhaps a \u2018T\u2019 or some other variable. Currently I am leaning toward Tova (her Hebrew name), but have also flagged Terra or Tessa as possibilities.<\/p>\n
That is a lot to chew on I know. Thanks so much for letting us pick your brain and for any name recommendations you can provide!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I think Lucienne works best. Eliza and Lucienne aren’t from the same style category, but they’re not from clashing categories either; and Eliza and Lucy coordinate perfectly. Whether it’s strange to choose a name from another culture depends on similar relationships between categories, and I’d say France and the United States aren’t the same but don’t clash either: Nicole, Danielle, Renee, Denise, and Noelle are all successful imports, and I don’t see any reason Lucienne doesn’t work too.<\/p>\n
I agree with you that Savannah seems like a larger style leap.<\/p>\n
Would you want to discuss the middle name with your mother, or is the honor a surprise? I’m wondering if she might be extremely touched to be allowed to help choose the name; and since you don’t want to use her actual name, she could give valuable input on what other names would feel like honor names to her. This would also give her more time to enjoy the honor, and a chance to have a long-reaching impact on her new granddaughter’s life.<\/p>\n
If you’d rather it be a surprise, I love the idea of Tova. It feels like more of an honor than any other name that starts with T, and it gives you a little of the V-sound from Vivienne\/Vivi and Savannah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lauren writes: We are expecting our 2nd (and last!) child in 6 short weeks and are hoping you might be able to provide us your honest feedback and suggestions when it comes to finding her name. Our 19-month old daughter is Eliza Blakely and we had a relatively easy time deciding on her name, which […]<\/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-8911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2jJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8911","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=8911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8915,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8911\/revisions\/8915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}