Commenter ErinInSoCal had a good idea for a post. She commented on the post asking how much it bothers us to correct a mispronounced name, saying her daughter Beatrix is often called Beatrice, and her daughter’s nickname Bea (BEE-uh) is almost exclusively mispronounced Bee. Then she added:

Oh well, she’s turning 18 soon and going off to college, so she has the chance to reinvent her name if need be!

(Which, btw Swistle, could be another interesting thread — who started using a different version of their name when they moved/went to college/started a new job?)

Oh, I am SO interested to hear these stories. A friend’s daughter, named something along the lines of Haven Rose, started going by Rose as part of her new college experience. A co-worker mentioned that her Uncle Joseph is known to all his old childhood friends and most family members as Rusty—a nickname of his middle name, Russell, which he went by until he got his first job and thought he should use his first name to sound more professional.

Did you seize a life transition as an opportunity to make a name transition? Or has one of your children done so?

Update on Baby Girl Raiserhöffer: Finding a Name that Works in Germany and the United States

Commenter Jaida had a fun idea for a post:

I wonder if Swistle has ever done a reader poll to see how many readers have difficult-to-pronounce names and how much it bothers them to have to correct people. It seems like something we all worry a lot about as namers but my own experience is that mispronunciation causes a brief moment of embarrassment/correction and then everyone moves on and there is one more person in the world that knows how to pronounce the name (no shade to anyone more affected by it, I just hope it doesn’t prevent someone from using a name they love!)

There are two separate baby-naming angles here: one is the tolerance parents have themselves for correcting/demonstrating the pronunciation of their child’s name, and the other is how people feel about needing to correct their own names. Both are good to consider when naming a child. If I, personally, am a parent who feels cheerful and relaxed about correcting a pronunciation a million times, that’s different than if I, personally, am a parent who clenches my teeth every time. If I clench my teeth every time, I should not do that to myself or to the world.

But it is also useful to get an idea for how the CHILD (and, of course, the resulting GROWN ADULT) feels about having such a name. It’s not something we can know ahead of time when naming our own personal child—but it seems like it would be useful to have a STATISTICAL feeling about it. That is, are 95% of people with constantly-correct-the-pronunciation names perfectly happy to do it, and only 5% clench their teeth? or is it the other way around? or is it something in between? I can’t do a poll, but I can ask for a voluntary anecdotal offering.

I have a not-very-difficult-to-pronounce name that is also common in my age group (Kristen), and it still gets mispronounced pretty often: I have learned to respond to Kristine, Kiersten, Kirsten. It is, to me, NOT EVEN REMOTELY a big enough issue to make me wish I’d been named something else—and, based on that experience, I’ve advised parents not to shy away from a name just because it might sometimes be mispronounced. But I had someone on my freshman year college dorm floor named Alysa, pronounced ah-LEE-sah, and 99% of the time she was called either ah-LISS-sah (by people who saw the name without hearing it) or Lisa (by people who heard the name without seeing it). Each time, she would close her eyes, as if praying for patience, and then say through clenched teeth: “It’s ah-LEE-sa.” At some point a name isn’t worth the daily lord-give-me-strength, either for the name-bearer or for anyone else.

So clearly there are going to be SWATHS of names here, from mispronounced-at-only-a-normal/tolerable level (like Kristen) to mispronounced-almost-all-the-time (like Alysa), and everything in between and outside, and I think we want to hear from them all. If you are a Lara and people call you Laura; if you are an Andrea and your parents wanted it pronounced on-DRAY-ah; if you are a Mia and people say MEE-ah and MY-ah; if you are a Kati and no one ever knows whether to say it like Katie or like KAH-tee; if you are a Salomé and sometimes people say suh-LOME; if your name is so unfamiliar, you’re accustomed to hearing “Uhhhh…” and knowing they mean you: How much does it bug you? how much does it affect your life? does it make you wish you were named something else, or is it just part of your name and you don’t mind?

Update on Baby Girl Beach: Finding Balance in a Name

We’re a French American couple and both like the name Salomé. As accents cannot be printed on most documents, we’re concerned about whether people will be familiar with the name or get it wrong all the time. We’re also wondering the pronunciations we can expect without the accent?
Thank you all.

Oh! This is especially fun because I am only slightly familiar with the name: I have never encountered a Salomé in person, or in a way where I would have heard it pronounced (e.g., on a character in a television show). Before I look it up, I will make note of my first guesses. I know it makes no sense, but it’s a data point: even WITH the accent mark, I somehow first read it sah-LOME. Then I noticed the accent, and my second attempt was sal-oh-may.

I looked it up online and found some helpful guides that would read it out loud for me, the first of which aligned closely with my second guess: they spelled it out as sal-uh-may, and said it with more uh than oh, but very similar.

The second link pronounced it sah-LOH-mee, which…can that be right? Like the word salami, but with a LOH instead of a LAH?

The third link pronounced it SAL-oh-mee. Same sounds, different emphasis.

Well. My guess is that this will be a name that will be mispronounced fairly often, if so many internet sources have different ideas even about how it SHOULD be pronounced. But I further guess that although people may stumble when they first encounter it, they will quickly learn it. My own favorite pronunciation is sal-uh-may.

Commenters: If you have not encountered the name in person before, how did you initially think it was pronounced? If you HAVE encountered it in person before, how did that person pronounce it? Would it throw you off if you encountered the name in writing but without the accent mark?

Update on Baby Girl Bailey, Sister to Oswald and Reuben

Hello,

I just had my baby via emergency c-section at 26 weeks. He came out weighing 1.8 pounds, and we’re taking it day-by-day hoping that he continues to get stronger. We don’t want to leave him without a name for long, but we’re struggling to find something we feel right about. Can you help?? 🙏

1. Walsh, or potentially that hyphenated with Stakland

2. Boy

3. We live in the US

4. We are liking the name Kai or Kylo but are slightly wary of the popularity of it due to the association with the Star Wars franchise.

Please please help.

Stef

I hope you will find yourself able to take the time you need. The baby is earlier than expected; you thought you had more time to decide on a name, but suddenly he is here. It can feel like there needs to be a huge panicky rush to catch up. But everyone including the baby will understand if you need some time to adjust to this new schedule of events. I would want to bring you a copy of The Baby Name Wizard, and then have you do a little pretend play: one of you say to the other one “Oh, honey, the baby will be here in the next couple weeks; we should really buckle down and choose his name now!” Some urgency, but not RUSH. Get out a baby name book (or a baby name website) and a notepad and pen; make lists. Take some time.

I mention The Baby Name Wizard specifically, even though it’s more than a decade old now, because it sorts names into categories, and that can be very helpful for making some big narrowing-down leaps. If the two of you go through it together, you might be able to rapidly determine that you like this category and that category, but not this other category or this one either. You can look up names you already know you like, and see if you like any of the other names in those categories. Once you have some categories you like, you can go through the lists of names in those categories similarly rapidly: okay, you like this name and this name and this name, and the other parent likes this name and this name and…oh, hey, this same name you liked! Score!

The book also contains suggested brother/sister names, which are more like “If you like _____, you might also like ______” suggestions. The listing for Kylo suggests Finnick, Dash, Neo, Axel, Arrow, Knox; the listing for Kai suggests Finn, Axel, Rowan, Luca, Rune, Taj.

Kylo was ruined for me by the Star Wars character. Kai still feels available. Milo is still available; Miles is still available; Theo and Hugo and Leo and Nico, still available. Kian, Keegan, Keane, Ian, Eli, Ty, Ike, Simon, Cade.

Speed is important, so I will get this posted. Let the commenters start work on it while you get some rest, and get out the notepad tomorrow.

Hello, dear Swistle!

I mentioned to you on Twitter this past fall that I was bereft to not have a baby boy to name Alfred, because I’d just met a three year old named Alfred and was completely charmed. My ovaries said, “What’s that? You’d like another baby? We can arrange for that!” My husband Kevin and I were QUITE surprised to find out we’re expecting again—we definitely thought we were done—but we are also delighted. And now to choose a name for this little one before she arrives in June! Normally I love thinking about and discussing baby names, but I’ve had a lot of other stressors going on this pregnancy and haven’t spent a lot of time on it since I was really early in my pregnancy. I’m hoping your and your readers’ thoughts might help me get excited about the naming process.

Surname is four syllables. It starts with Mc- and ends with -ery. It’s a similar rhythm to McAllister, but that -ee ending makes a lot of names sound sing-song-y.

We are having a girl, so Alfred is out. Here are the sibling names (there are a lot of them):

—Emeline Anne (Last syllable with a long I sound, rhymes with Caroline as opposed to Pauline. Goes by Emmy.)
—Samuel Albert (Sam or Sammy)
—Lucy Eleanor (miscarried girl)
—Theodore Peter (Theo)
—Quinn Enoch (miscarried, sex unknown)
—Grace Elizabeth (miscarried girl)
—Poppy James (miscarried, sex unknown)
—Benjamin Charles (Ben or Benji)

So the living siblings are Emmy, Sam, Theo, and Benji on a day-to-day basis. I feel quite married to a long name with a nickname, because there are FOUR other kids in the family with this precedent.

All eight of my other children have honor names for their middle names.
We definitely sacrificed the flow of some of the names (or chose less than ideal initials) for the chance to honor loved ones. For this baby, we are leaning towards honoring my husband’s grandmother. Her name is Evenelle (spelled a little differently, but changed for the sake of not being so Google-able). Her parents, who immigrated to the US, apparently made up this name to sound like an American name. She generally goes by Evie (Eh-vee, as opposed to Eve-ee). Depending on the flow with the first name I’m open to either Evenelle or Evie. However, my son Theo has his heart set on naming the baby Joy, so we’re also considering that for a middle name. (Side question: would it be weird to give this baby two middle names if none of the siblings have two middle names?)

I’ve thought about naming this baby Elizabeth Eleanor both in honor of her two miscarried sisters and in honor of the family members for whom I originally chose the names, but I’m not sure how that would feel for my newest daughter as she grows up. When I think about if I would like to be named after two miscarried siblings, now as an adult I could appreciate it, but I don’t know that I’d have understood as a child. I do LOVE both of these names and my husband is on board with this idea, but I’m leaning towards scrapping it. I’d be interested in your thoughts and your readers’ thoughts, though. If we DID do this I love the wealth of nickname options with Elizabeth. I’m leaning towards Lizzy or Izzy.

Okay, beyond Elizabeth Eleanor, here is my list so far:
—Margaret (Maisie or Meg)
—Anneliese (Annie)
—Louisa (Lulu…almost certainly too close to Lucy, whom we talk about by name with some regularity)
—Alice (I suppose we could call her Allie for short, but I love Alice as is, so potential issue of no nickname)
—Katherine (Kate)
—Amelia (Millie…is Amelia too close to Emeline?)
—Rose (I love Rosalie but it is very singsong-y with our last name. Maybe scrap a long version and just go with Rose? I’m sure that whatever her formal name is we’d call her Rosie.)
—Birdie (I’m swooning over this as a nickname, but am not sure what long name to use to get to it. Bridget? Kevin hates it so it’s probably out, though I have time to work on him.)

Part of me feels meh about this whole list (except for Birdie) and wants to venture into a very different style…Imogen! Lark! Juniper! Pearl! But I don’t think I truly want to do that.

My favorite on my “real” list is probably Margaret (I love the alliteration with our surname). Kevin likes Katherine best. Katherine has been on our list for every pregnancy and feels extremely boring to me this time around…probably because I’ve considered it 8 other times. And as if choosing a name with one’s spouse isn’t hard enough, Emmy is 12 and very invested in the name. Emmy likes Anneliese best (from my list…of her own choosing she likes Veronica and Victoria, in case you’re interested in a data point on what names 12-year-olds like). I love Felicity but it doesn’t go well with our surname.

Okay! I am open to suggestions! I would love your thoughts!

Love, Ellen

When I got to the part about using the names of miscarried siblings as honor names for this baby, my hand flew to cover my mouth. I vote no, and I vote it while making earnest, sustained eye contact.

I can’t easily explain my strength of feeling on this. One of my daily rituals is checking the obituaries, and so I know it used to be very common for a family to reuse the name of a child who had died. I don’t know what the motivation was, at the time: was it because they still wanted to name a child after dear Uncle Thomas? was it in honor of the child who had died? And I don’t know how the kids who were given the names felt about it. But I do know it used to be common. It’s just: it’s not common now. In the context of Now rather than Then, it gives a feeling I would describe as “my hand flew to cover my mouth.”

It would feel different to me if you had intended to use those honor names for other babies, but had miscarried and had not used the names after all. Then the names Elizabeth and Eleanor could still be after the original honorees. But the babies were named, and their names are listed in the sibling group; those names have been used by other siblings and are no longer available to be used by the new baby, any more than the names Emeline and Anne are available.

It would also feel different to me if you had a family tradition of, for example, using Eleanor as the middle name for all of your daughters. Or if some of your other children had been named after their siblings. But neither of those is the case here. I strongly advise you to consider all sibling names Taken and Unavailable.

I think it would be fine to give this baby two middle names, though it’s not a pattern-break I’d want to do at this point, and I think your firstborn might be peeved if you used her brother’s name preferences and not hers! When I was pregnant with the twins, Rob (age 6 at the time) vigorously wanted to give one of the babies the middle name Plum, and we did consider it, and I did think it would have been a fun/cute story, but we didn’t end up doing it, and Rob no longer even remembers wanting this. Joy is a much harder name to resist than Plum, but I think my plan would be the same: if there was another middle name I would otherwise have used, I would go ahead and use that, and encourage the child to use the name Joy as their own special name for the baby.

I find I am very much hoping Evenelle will be the version that goes best with the first name and surname. Evie is nice, but it’s a common current nickname; Evenelle feels special, and I suspect you would enjoy it every single time you filled out paperwork.

From your list of first-name options, my top favorite with a sister named Emeline is Anneliese. The two names are parallel enough to give me a little thrill, but the sounds are quite different. Anneliese Evenelle is majestic.

Amelia would be too similar to Emeline for me. I realize that may seem at odds with my feelings about Anneliese.

My second favorite from your list is Margaret. I like the alliteration too, and all the nickname options.

I’ve heard Birdie used for Bridget but also for Bernadette, Roberta, Bertha, Alberta, and Bernice. These won’t work with sibling names and/or your surname, but in case others have landed here looking for more options, it seems like it would also work well for Ember, Emberley, Emberlyn, Liberty, Kimber. But I think it can also come from calling a nice little baby girl your little birdy. I think it could be sweet as a pet name for Margaret, and this could tie in nicely to you telling Theo he can call her Joy: different family members might have different nicknames for her, and that’s delightful.

I think Imogen would work well and wouldn’t be a big style jump. Nicknames Genna or Midge or Immy (similar to Izzy), or Idgie like in Fried Green Tomatoes; and it sounds a little like Joy. But it seems very close to Benjamin.

I wonder if you’d like Genevieve; it was high on my own list. I worried she’d be called Genny/Jenny, but that’s starting to sound good to me again. There’s also Evie or Vivi or or Gigi (probably not with Benji) or Ginny (maybe also not with Benji) or Neevie. Genevieve Evenelle has a lot of repeated sounds; I might be swayed into thinking about suggesting Genevieve Joy? It’s so delightful.

Or Minerva/Minnie. A little similar to Veronica.

And because you like Margaret and Millie, I bring you one of the names most dear to my heart: Millicent. Millicent/Millie. Just give it time to simmer.

Swistle,

I’m a big fan of your blog. I’ve always loved baby names. My mom had a baby when I was 13 and I did so much research and reading. Lots of lists and suggestions. An obsession with baby names was born!

But now that I’m pregnant with my first child, due in July, I’m quite overwhelmed. We just found out we’re having a girl, and my husband and I simply can’t agree on THE ONE. We were totally aligned on boy names and had one picked out: Thomas, with my maiden name as the middle. It’s a classic with fun nickname options, sounds good with our surname, and is also a special honor name on my side of the family that hasn’t been used despite my many siblings and cousins. For a girl, we’re lost. We need your help!

Here’s where we’re at. We’re American, and our last name sounds like Keegan without the “K” (I took my husband’s surname and our children will take it as well). We’re drawn to a mix of traditional, vintage, preppy, and “new classic” names. We’re Catholic but not super religious; both pretty Irish, especially my family.

My husband has a one syllable name and didn’t like growing up without nickname options. For that reason, he’s very drawn to more formal, longer names with vintage and/or cute nicknames, and the nickname is a very important part of the conversation to him. I do like that style as well, but we can’t come up with a combo we agree on or that feels right. I’m also very drawn to classic/simple one syllable names, and even with longer names, needing nickname options doesn’t feel as much a “must” for me like it does for him. In fact, my name is almost always shortened, but I never took a nickname.

Names on my list:
Jane
Margaret (but no clear nn winner – will explain)
Frances
Eleanor nn Nora
Anne nn Annie
Georgia
Caroline
Paige

On his list:
Margaret nn Maisie (he LOVES Maisie)
Susannah nn Susie
Patricia nn Piper or Poppy
Hazel
Penelope nn Penny
Jane (but no nn winner in his mind – maybe Junie among family but would still go by Jane)
Frances (maybe if nn Fran or Frannie)
Beatrice nn Birdie
Caroline

Of the above, Margaret, Patricia and Anne would be meaningful honor names. Caroline would be also, but our relative with that name is currently childless and has expressed preference on saving it for their child — if we had her blessing that would be a strong contender. Oddly, it’s one name my husband likes the full name for. She would go by the full “Caroline.”

So, names we like but can’t use: Caroline, Elizabeth, Ellie, Emma, Claire, Charlotte, Catherine, Molly.

Names we’ve talked about for middle names: Celine, Cecilia, Caroline. (All meaningful. Celine and Caroline on my side, Cecilia for both of us.) Also Frances or Patricia.

Margaret feels like it should be the top contender. We’ve talked about Margaret Celine Keegan-no-K, a name that would honor three women on my side of the family that I love and respect very much, but we can’t agree on a nickname. I don’t know if I can get behind Maisie, my husband’s strong preference. It’s a very sweet name, and I like its Scottish/English roots given my heritage, but there’s a bit of a “dog name” association for me. It leans a little too cutesy for my taste, and I don’t know if I could use it for my firstborn daughter, especially if she truly went by that all of the time. Maybe? But I don’t know.

Maisie aside, we don’t want to use Meg, Meggie or Maggie for various reasons related to people we know, and I grew up with a dog named Daisy, so that’s out. I really like Margot and think it sounds great with our surname, but my husband isn’t a big fan and thinks it could be megapopular in the wake of Barbie. I could also be in favor of Mae but my husband vetoed that as well — he just doesn’t like it. Molly would almost definitely be our top choice if it weren’t my husband’s ex’s name; they dated many years and we don’t think it’s worth the eyebrow raising.

Beyond Margaret, I’ve also mulled over Susannah/Susie, another top contender for him, but I feel like it has a Country/Western/Southern vibe that doesn’t feel quite true to our northeast roots. I could see it for a second child, but for some reason it feels random for the first. Sigh. I wish there was a clear winner but I truly don’t know where we’ll land — our taste is close but not quite aligned, and my husband is pretty opinionated and set in his opinions. He doesn’t understand why I can’t get on board with the Maisie idea. And maybe I could? I want to love it — it would make things so much easier for us — but I just don’t. And in general, I have a tendency to be a people pleaser, and I’m worried I’m going to lose sight of what I like and want out of desperation for compromise and a solution.

I think we need to meet in the middle somehow, or move on from the “Margaret” mayhem altogether and consider different options from our lists or beyond, but I’m not sure what that looks like. I would appreciate any and all ideas or thoughts, from you and your readers!

Many thanks

In spite of my love for the name Margaret, I am going to advise putting it on the Wait list for now. It sounds as if you’re hoping to have more children, so there will likely be time to revisit it—but right now it feels as if it’s getting in your way: it seems as if it OUGHT to be perfect, when it’s not quite, and that’s causing some looping. Additionally, your husband is having some trouble understanding other points of view on the nickname, and it makes me nervous that Meg and Maggie and Daisy all have to be ruled out as nicknames, so how about we make things easier by thinking of Margaret the way we think of Susannah: as a good name to consider for the NEXT daughter.

Or, and I think this would be better by far: another option is to use Margaret, and agree that you can each use whatever nicknames you like best for her, without choosing one official nickname. Then your husband can call her Maisie to his heart’s content, and you can call her whatever you would like to call her, including Margot and Mae and Margaret, and when she’s old enough to write her name on her homework she can choose for herself. I particularly like the idea of you calling her Mae and your husband calling her Maisie, since those seem like they could just be shorter/longer versions of the same nickname.

And here I’d like to make sure all of us–but I am only actually wondering about your husband–realize that eventually the child WILL choose for herself. It’s perfectly reasonable for the parents to choose a preferred nickname and introduce it early to increase the odds of that being the choice—but it’s important to realize that, just as you never used the common shortening of your given name, and just as my coworker Liz overturned her parents’ decision to call her only-Beth-and-NEVER-Liz, a Birdie may chose Bea or Beatrice instead, a Maisie may choose Meg or Margaret instead, a Susie may choose Anna or Susannah instead, and so on. Once the child has been given the name, it’s up to them how to wear it.

I wonder if you two would like Josephine. Nicknames: Josie, Joey, Jo, Posey.

Or Cordelia. I like the nickname Delia, but Cory or Rory or Lia or Cordy would be options.

Georgia, with the nickname Georgie or Gigi.

Winifred, with nicknames Winnie and Freddie.

Matilda, with nicknames such as Mattie and Tilda and Tillie.

Meredith/Merrie.

Minerva/Minnie.

Rosemary, with nicknames Rosie and Romy, or she could go by Mary if she preferred.

Veronica, with nicknames Nica or Vinnie or Ronnie or Vera.

Anneliese, with nicknames Annie or Anna.

I see that you both like Jane, but the nickname issue stops him. I wonder if the two of you would also like the name June, and you could call her Junie, Junebug, Juniper, etc.

Another method is to use the first and middle initials: if, for example, you named her Jane Patricia Keegan-without-the-K, you could call her J.P. as a nickname. I went to college with a girl who went by K.C., and that seemed pretty cool and snappy.

Piper and Poppy are not typically used as nicknames for Patricia, and I think they might be a tough sell. That is, in theory they’re no further a leap than Maisie for Margaret or Jack for John, but in practice there is an enormous difference between “what the public has already become accustomed to” and “what the public has not.” I’ll note that Poppy could be a nickname for Penelope. I think of Piper as a standalone name, but the somewhat similar Pippa can be short for Philippa.