the advice<\/a> you and your readers gave me, regarding an honor name issue my husband and I had, when naming our first son (Miles Joseph). We are expecting our second child, a girl, this August, and again, are stuck on a middle name.<\/p>\nIn fact, we aren\u2019t convinced we have a final choice for a first name, but are pretty sure.<\/p>\n
My husband and I both like the name Claire. I\u2019ve liked the name for years, and even though I love searching for new names, I think it\u2019s still my favorite. I like how Claire and Miles sound together. Our last name is Trude1le. We may want another child in the future.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re stuck on a middle name. Marie is my middle name, the middle name of both of my grandmothers, and the first name of one of my sister-in-laws. I like that it would honor my side (with our son, we honored my husband\u2019s by using his middle name). But I see a few possible issues with it:
\nClaire Marie is the flip of the name of a magazine. I don\u2019t know how strong this association would be for others (it\u2019s not huge for me, but I am aware of it). Visually, does it make you think of the magazine? I almost notice it less when I say both names aloud. Is a magazine title a negative association?
\nI still have a desire to use a name that somehow honors my father, who passed away. His name was Eric, and we considered using his name as a middle name for our first child, but ended up sticking with a family tradition on my husband\u2019s side (the issue I wrote to you about last time). Back then, I thought we could always use Erica for a middle name if our next child was a girl. Now, I\u2019m not sure I like Claire Erica, or even Erica at all for a middle name. I do, however, love the name of my grandmother (my father\u2019s mother, who also passed away), Maxine. Claire Maxine is a little more unique than Claire Marie and I would love to honor this grandmother, whom I was also very close to, growing up.<\/p>\n
The problem with this is that my other grandmother is still alive, and I worry a little bit about hurting her feelings by using my other grandmother\u2019s first name, instead of the middle name that honors them both. She would never say she was hurt, but it feels a little silly to honor one, when we could honor both.
\nI\u2019d love to know your thoughts! Thank you so much for your advice!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Claire Marie doesn’t make me think of Marie Claire magazine, but it’s the sort of thing I would be glad to have thought of beforehand so I could make sure it didn’t bother me. It seems like a bigger issue if you plan to call her by both names than if she will be known as Claire and only a few people will know her middle name. The magazine association doesn’t seem negative to me in any case.<\/p>\n
I also love Claire Maxine. And this is where you have run into one of the big issues with honor names: people who AREN’T honored. My own opinion is that if you prefer the name Maxine, and if you were closer to that grandmother, that you should go right ahead and use it. Reasonable people understand the idea that only a certain number of honor names can be used. Since you want to honor your other grandmother and you describe her as someone who wouldn’t say anything about it, I suspect she is a reasonable person; if you spin the name choice as one that honors your father, as well one that honors a relative who will never get to meet this baby, I think it is unlikely that your other grandmother will be hurt. And of course she has no way of knowing if perhaps you plan to use HER first name for the NEXT baby; she also wouldn’t know that you chose the name Maxine OVER the name Marie. It helps too that Maxine was a first name in your family, while Marie is a middle.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Marie is also your middle name, which gives me a happy mother\/daughter feeling about the name. So really I think both middle names are good choices, and that you could go with either one. I have a slight preference for Maxine, for these reasons:<\/p>\n
1. It’s less familiar as a middle name
\n2. It’s a first name in your family, which feels like a higher honor
\n3. The concern about Claire Marie reminding people of the magazine
\n4. I prefer the sound of it
\n5. I prefer the look of it (Claire Marie repeats four of the same letters)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But I like Marie for these reasons:<\/p>\n
1. It has a happy “tying in with the girls in our family” feeling to it
\n2. It honors more people at once (though this then dilutes the honor somewhat)
\n3. I don’t think the magazine association is a problem<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Let’s have a vote to see what everyone else prefers!<\/p>\n
[yop_poll id=”54″]<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name update!<\/strong><\/p>\nHi Swistle,<\/p>\n
Thank you so much for your help with baby number two’s middle name.\u00a0 I loved reading your thoughts, as well as your readers’ comments.<\/p>\n
We decided to use “Marie” for many reasons, but I especially like the parallel between our son’s and daughter’s middle names (our son shares my husband’s, our daughter shares mine).<\/p>\n
Claire Marie was born on August 19th at 8:33 pm.<\/p>\n
![\"IMG_7600\"](\"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/IMG_7600.jpg\")
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Rachel writes: I so appreciated the advice you and your readers gave me, regarding an honor name issue my husband and I had, when naming our first son (Miles Joseph). We are expecting our second child, a girl, this August, and again, are stuck on a middle name. In fact, we aren\u2019t convinced we have […]<\/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-8977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2kN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8977","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=8977"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10529,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8977\/revisions\/10529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}