Lauren writes:<\/p>\n
When my husband and I became pregnant with our first baby in December, I became an avid fan of your baby naming blog. Now as we get closer to the due date, the pressure is on to come up with a name. I would love to hear your thoughts (or the thoughts of your readers!) to help guide us. Our last name is Steffel (pronounced st-eh-ful), and our first baby (a girl!) is due at the end of August. We hope to have a second child someday, but haven’t given much thought to possible sibling names as of yet.<\/p>\n
I thought we had narrowed down the names to two: Juniper Maribel Steffel or Wilder Iris Steffel, but now my husband is getting cold feet about both, and asking that we go back to the drawing board. Juniper has such fun nicknames (Junie, June Bug), and Maribel was the county my husband and I were married in. Wilder seems uncommon enough that you don’t immediately associate it with a boy’s name, and I think the feminine-sounding Iris ensures this. We both don’t mind the wild connotation.<\/p>\n
We want a name that sounds a bit out of the ordinary, and tend to like names that are nature-inspired (although not a requirement). My husband and I are both teachers, so having an unusual name makes it less likely that either of us already has had a student that it reminds us of. I want our baby to have a fun nickname, so I have ruled many names out that I can’t figure out a nickname for (or are too short for a nickname). That might be short-sighted on my part, though. Besides Wilder, we’ve mostly stayed away from gender-neutral names.<\/p>\n
Here are some names that we considered:<\/p>\n
Gemma (this was originally my top contender, but my husband doesn’t like it)
\nOrianna “Ori”
\nEmmeline
\nAdelaide
\nGenivieve
\nElodie
\nKestrel
\nNicoletta
\nWren (I love the nickname Birdie, as does my husband, but the single-syllable seems short for a first name)
\nSloane (I’m a big fan of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but Sloane Steffel is tongue twister)
\nClara (this is my grandma’s name, but it doesn’t feel right as a first name for the baby)
\nElm \/ Fern \/ Reed (all fun but too short for a first name, in my opinion)
\nNella
\nWinnie (I think it’s adorable, but my husband hates it!)<\/p>\nBoy names we had considered before we knew we were having a girl included Waites (if only our last name didn’t begin with an S), Cypress\/Cyrus (again, an issue with the S?), Jude, Jasper, Zander, Wyatt (but maybe getting too popular now?) and of course Wilder. Our pattern seems to be mostly being drawn to first names that begin with J\/G and W.<\/p>\n
Please help us!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
You have probably already considered this, but my first thought was to do something with the middle names of your previous candidates. Maribel Iris, for example, or Iris Maribel. Still unusual, but less of a statement than Wilder. Maribel Steffel has a repeated ending and Iris Steffel has an -s\/S- issue, but neither issue seems like a deal-breaker. In fact, I’m surprised to find I like the sound of Maribel Steffel—I think because I’m saying the two -el sounds differently, and because of the 3\/2-syllables (I wouldn’t like Laurel Steffel as much).<\/p>\n
Or, if you love the nicknames Junie and June-Bug, I wonder if you could go straight to June? June Steffel is an excellent name, quite uncommon but not scary to use. June Maribel Steffel would be my top pick: a name with great nicknames, followed by a middle name with sentimental significance.<\/p>\n
The nickname issue is an interesting one. If you want nicknames, that seems like a reasonable thing to put on the preference list. But if you’re eliminating names that would otherwise be perfect, and if you’re now a bit stuck, that seems like a good place to start reconsidering. Nicknames can come from many sources other than the given name. I’m thinking over my kids’ names, and only one has a nickname of the sort that could be listed in a baby name book alongside the name. The other nicknames are hard to explain because they just sort of evolved\/happened. One kid has a name something like Keegan and then is nicknamed something like Zee and Zee-Bee. Another kid has a name something like Caleb but is nicknamed something like T.C. Another kid has a name something like James but is nicknamed something like Badger. And names like Junebug and Birdie can be nicknames for ANY name.<\/p>\n
To go back to the -s\/S- issue, I think it depends. I recently talked to a customer service representative named William Meyer, and as I was reflecting afterward on what a good impression that name made (professional, competent), I realized it had an -m\/M- issue. In actual usage, it wasn’t a problem at all. It’s hard to tell ahead of time which combinations of sounds will be problems, but in general I look for two things:<\/p>\n
1. Do the combined sounds make the name challenging to say? That is, do you find yourself tangling the names, or swapping the sounds, or not liking the way the name makes your mouth feel?<\/p>\n
2. Do the combined sounds cause confusion or embarrassment? That is, would it be easy to misunderstand the name for another name or another word? I find it hard to think of examples for this, but something like how Paul Amato might sound like Paula Mato. Or Jacob Utmund can sound like Jacob Buttmund. Or the classic example is poor Ben Dover who sounds like Bend Over.<\/p>\n
Iris Steffel definitely makes me put a little pause between the two names, and it makes my mouth a little uncomfortable, but it doesn’t cause any confusion or embarrassment. It’s the same when I try Cyrus Steffel. They wouldn’t be my first choice, but I wouldn’t find it strange if someone else chose them. Waites Steffel is harder for me, I think because it’s not just the -s\/S but also a -ts\/St-; also, the one-syllable first names seem to give me more of a challenge than the two-syllable options. (And with that particular example, the word “waitstaff” comes to mind. Perhaps it wouldn’t for people who hadn’t worked as waiters, however. And it’s not like there’s any good teasing potential there.)<\/p>\n
A few W names to consider:<\/p>\n
Waverly
\nWilhelmina\/Willemina
\nWilla
\nWillow
\nWinifred (probably not an option if your husband hates Winnie)<\/p>\nOf these my favorite is Willa: it’s unusual but not startlingly so, and I find I immediately start nicknaming it: Willobean, Willow Tree, Willabug, etc.<\/p>\n
A few options that don’t start with W but have a W in them:<\/p>\n
Arwen
\nBronwyn\/Bronwen
\nGwendolyn
\nHarlow
\nMarlowe
\nMeadow
\nRowan<\/p>\nI especially like Rowan for its nature tie-in. Rowan Maribel Steffel.<\/p>\n
Fiona comes to mind. Fiona Maribel Steffel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lauren writes: When my husband and I became pregnant with our first baby in December, I became an avid fan of your baby naming blog. Now as we get closer to the due date, the pressure is on to come up with a name. I would love to hear your thoughts (or the thoughts of […]<\/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-9808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2yc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9808","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=9808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9810,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9808\/revisions\/9810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}