E. writes:<\/p>\n
Dear Swistle,<\/p>\n
We are expecting our second (and probably last) child\u2014a boy\u2014in November. We like unusual, distinctive names that are not trendy, and we agonized over our first son’s name, eventually landing on the name Gray. We adore his name but now feel like we used up our one good name that we could both enthusiastically agree on.<\/p>\n
Our last name sounds like Harrison, so all of the names that end in son (Jackson, Emerson, etc.) are out. Our surname also has an unusual spelling which can make it hard to pronounce, so we want to keep the first name easy to spell and pronounce.<\/p>\n
I think our sweet spot for names would be unsung classics, or unusual new names that still sound like they could be classics, like Gray. We’re Jewish, and we like names of Hebrew origin but couldn’t find one we were happy with the first time around. We also like names that reference nature, and great literary characters or authors.<\/p>\n
Names that I like that my husband has vetoed (but could still be in the running as a middle name):
\nStanley (family name on my side, so has special meaning to me)
\nOscar
\nArlo
\nAsa
\nHonor
\nAsher
\nElijah<\/p>\nNames we considered and rejected the first time around (read as: couldn’t get past feeling lukewarm about):
\nDov
\nFable<\/p>\nIf we were having a girl, we were almost agreed on the name Flora. We also love the name Alice.<\/p>\n
Can you suggest any unusual, distinctive boy names for us?<\/p>\n
Thanks!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
I suggest Reid—or Reed, if you want to increase the nature feeling of it. Reid Harrison; Gray and Reid. I like how it has four letters and one syllable just like Gray, and both are word names. It’s easy to pronounce, and is similar to Gray\/Grey in spelling difficulty.<\/p>\n
I also suggest Dean. Dean Harrison; Gray and Dean.<\/p>\n
And Nolan. Nolan Harrison; Gray and Nolan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
E. writes: Dear Swistle, We are expecting our second (and probably last) child\u2014a boy\u2014in November. We like unusual, distinctive names that are not trendy, and we agonized over our first son’s name, eventually landing on the name Gray. We adore his name but now feel like we used up our one good name that we […]<\/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-9901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-2zH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9901","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=9901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9902,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9901\/revisions\/9902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}