Baby name consultant: Kolbe’s little brother

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Happy feast of St. Dominic!! đŸ™ŒđŸ•đŸŸđŸ™ It’s a special one too, because this year is the Dominicans’ 800th annivesary of its founding!!

(Off topic but on topic, that link brings you to an interview about this Jubilee Year with Fr. Cassian Derbes, OP. Cassian!)

Being a lay Dominican, today is always a special day for me, and I’m feeling celebratory 🎉🎉🎉 so not only do I have this consultation for you today (I LOVE the Monday consultation posts!), but I have a special treat for you all tomorrow, which is also the feast of St. Edith Stein AND my No. 2’s tenth birthday! I can’t wait for you to see it! What a great couple of days!

But first! Tori and her husband are expecting heir second baby, a second boy! She writes,

“Our oldest is Kolbe Daniel. Daniel is my husband’s name and we both really love St. Maximilian. We were considering naming him Eli Augustine which we still like. Other names that were thrown around were:

Lucas
Xavier

And if he was a girl we were thinking Stellamaris.

For this baby we are really liking Blaise … not sure about middle names and that’s the only name we’ve seriously talked about. If he was a girl we were thinking Azelie.”

Well I just love this family’s style — I’m a huge fan of all these names!

I so much enjoyed working on this not only because I love their taste in names but also because it’s pretty fun that they have, in a sense, a pretty clean slate with only Kolbe’s name and a few names they like to use as inspiration.

I was interested to note that Xavier, Blaise, and Azelie all share a prominent Z sound, but I couldn’t think of others that I thought Tori and her hubs might like– I’d be interested in any ideas you all had for Z-sound boy names that would fit with Kolbe.

You all know that I almost always start a consultation by looking up the names the parents have used and those they like/are considering in the Baby Name Wizard as it lists, for each entry, boy and girl names that are similar in terms of style/feel/popularity, but it’s not always helpful for those who love Catholicky Catholic names as this family does—Kolbe, Azelie, and Stellamaris aren’t included in the book, for example. But never fear—I was able to come up with quite a few ideas for based on the names that *are* in the BNW (Eli, Lucas, Xavier, Blaise, Stella) as well as my own ideas.

So! All that said, I did also want to just say that starting with a saintly surname (Kolbe) presents a somewhat of an interesting situation in that most of the names that I would say are most similar to Kolbe’s style are other saintly surnames (I did a post on them a while ago), but if Tori and her hubs choose another saintly surname for their second baby, will they feel like they’ve cornered themselves into a particular style?

I spent some time thinking about that and decided that I think going with another name that seems obviously surnamey—like Vianney or Bosco—for their second baby might very well create that boxed-in feeling. For some reason, it feels different to me than if they named their first two babies with names beginning with K—in general, I would say that a theme hasn’t been created until three or more babies are so named, but the last-name-as-first-name thing is tripping me up!

I decided, though, that I think Xavier is the kind of surname that would be totally fine to use for their second baby because of the fact that it’s been used as a first name for so long that a lot of people (especially non-Catholics) don’t know it started as a surname.

I do think that if they have a bunch of kids, there’s no problem at all with having some with saintly surname names and some with regular first names as long as they’re all interspersed, does that makes sense? Eli and Lucas are both great options that would help mix it up (I’d also love it if they wanted to move Augustine from the middle spot to the first name spot. Or August? Or Ambrose? Ooh — Ambrose has a prominent Z sound! At least the way I say it … maybe that would appeal? I love the nickname ideas Sam, Bram, and Brody).

Of course if Tori and her hubs hate all of what I’m saying, then I hope they know I expect them to completely disregard it! My only hope is to be a help, not to add stress! In the end, giving your children names you love is a great gift.

Okay! So these are my other ideas for this little guy:

(1) Fulton
As with Xavier, I feel like Fulton would be a fine choice for Kolbe’s little brother, since it started as a last name but most people know it as Fulton Sheen’s first name.

(2) John Paul, JohnPaul, Johnpaul, John-Paul
John Paul (or however they’d want to spell it) is such a great match for Kolbe in my opinion! It’s obviously faithy and thought it’s two names together, they’re short names so the whole thing is only two syllables, which seems the length that Tori and her hubs are drawn to.

(3) Bennett
I almost listed Benedict, but Benedict doesn’t seem quite right to me for this family—a bit clunkier maybe than I think they might like—so Bennett seems a great option. It’s a medieval diminutive of Benedict, and it’s got a surname feel (and of course some usage that way), as well as the awesome nickname Ben.

(4) Leo
Leo is an awesome little package of a name—masculine, traditional, and saintly (Pope St. Leo the Great!).

(5) Gabriel
Gabriel’s a style match for both Lucas and Xavier, and I consider it to be a Marian name as well (for the Annunciation). It’s one of my favorite names for boys—full of faith significance, and the friendly nickname Gabe is great (I’ve also seen Gil, which I looove).

(6) Jude
Finally, Jude, for our beloved St. Jude Thaddeus. Awesome name, awesome patron. I did a spotlight on it here.

What do you all think of these ideas? What other name(s) would you suggest for Kolbe’s little brother?

44 thoughts on “Baby name consultant: Kolbe’s little brother”

  1. The only “Z” name that’s leaping out at me is Ezekiel, which they might like if Eli was going to be a nickname for Elijah, but if they don’t like the full Elijah, then I doubt they’d like Ezekiel! If they have a Kolbe, Ezekiel & later an AzĂ©lie I think that sounds nice without being too repetitive, even if they nickname to Kolbe, Zeke and Zelie. Plus, then you have the Polish surname, a Hebrew name and a French name–super diverse!

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  5. I love the name Lucas, and I think it looks amazing next to Kolbe. Jude seems to fit perfectly, too. And here are some names with a strong Z sound: Isaac, Isaiah, Basil, Xander and Zachary.

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  6. I LOVE Eli Augustine! Kolbe and Eli would be so cute together 🙂 I definitely think they should really consider that one for this little baby.

    Jude and Leo are great suggestions 🙂 I think they would both also sound great with Augustine if they decided to stick with that!

    Weirdly, Adrian popped into my mind (maybe my mind is on Olympic swimming and Nathan Adrian, who is one of my faves), but I really like Kolbe and Adrian together! Adrian feels so strong and underrated to me.

    What about Owen? Again, another random one I feel like but I just like it with Kolbe.

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  8. […] Sabrina requested the other day that I write about Olympic names, so she (and any of you who are interested) will be happy to know I just submitted my August CatholicMom column, which will post next Wednesday — all about Olympic names! So sorry you have to wait until then to read it, but in the meantime I’d love to know what names are your favorites of these 2016 Summer Olympics (I was tweeting a bit the other night about some of the ones I loved: here, here, here, here). […]

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  9. Love all the suggestions…never tire of John Paul…was thinking, though, about your z thought which brought my mind right to a thought I was having about John the Baptist’s Father, Zechariah. It sounds like Tori and her husband might consider such a name…?

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  12. I have a Blaise Vincent, Victoria Beatrice (Tory B), and a Vivian Marie myself, and we are considering Kolbe for our next due this month. Love seeing a family with a similar style. And love that we chose Blaise for our son!

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  13. I have a daughter named Vianney (pronounced the French way “ V-N-A”) , a son named Giorgio (for Pierre Giorgio Frassati) and another daughter named Avila. Just some more ideas for anyone looking to name their children after Saints in a not so conventional way.
    If I have another girl it will be Danica (Means morning Star after the Blessed Mother) Kolbe

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