Baby name consultant: Eighth baby (boy) — no repeating initials please!

sanctanomina Baby name consultant, , , ,

Happy Feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary!! One of my very very very very favorite feast days ever!! 💞💞💞

Lara and her husband are expecting their eighth baby, and fourth boy! Their older kiddos came in a girl-boy-girl-boy pattern, and they’re delighted that this wee babe is continuing the trend, joining:

Grace Anna (“named after her great, great g-ma and her birth mother“)

Anders Evans (“my husband’s middle Swedish name, and Bill Evans, jazz pianist, my husband’s favorite“)

Ella Katherine (“loved the classic name Ella and Katherine is my middle name“)

Ian Louis (“he surprised us and arrived early at 29 weeks and such is Ian, meaning “God is gracious” and my dad’s first name, Louis“)

Margaret Carolynn (“After watching A Man For All Seasons, my husband was moved by Thomas More’s relationship with his daughter Margaret. Also, we’ve always loved the nickname Maggie. Carolynn is a combo of my mother’s middle name, Carolyn and my mil’s middle name Lynn“)

Nathaniel Joseph (“He was our most challenging name to decide. Nathan was too common for me and Joseph was a favorite of my husband’s. Nate was also a great nickname“)

Mary Virginia (“After seeing Mary of Nazareth we were convinced to be classic Catholic and have a Mary in our family. Also, my grandmother’s name was Mary Virginia. She passed when I was 4, but my memories of her are strong and lovely“)

I love all these names! They’re such great, meaningful names, and a little bit unexpected as a set I think, which is so fun.

Lara writes,

“We don’t want to use another M name and would like to have each child with a different initial. Names we cannot use are Ryan, Collin, Blake, Brayden, William, John, Erik, Gibson, all nephews’ names. Close family friends, have Gabriel, Jude, Becket, Blaise, Luke and Max.”

I know Lara was worried that their “rules” were too restrictive, but as I always say — the more the merrier! I love a good challenge!

First off, one of the things that I noticed right away is that Anders has a Scandinavian name and Ian has a Celtic name, so one of my goals was to find a name or names that sort of bridges those two styles, and a couple of my ideas below fit that. Otherwise, I looked up all the names Lara and her hubs have already used in the Baby Name Wizard as it lists, for each entry, boy and girl names that are similar in terms of style/feel/popularity.

So! All that said, I came up with a few ideas for Lara’s littlest guy, some of which fit her rules and one that doesn’t but maybe might work anyway:

(1) Henry
Henry is far and away my favorite idea for this baby. It’s got a British feel, which I think Ian fits into nicely, and it’s a style match for Grace and Margaret, but my favorite aspect of it is that one of the Sts. Henry was sent to evangelize Scandinavia! I spotlighted the name here.

(2) Oliver or Oscar
I think of Oliver as an Irish/British name with a similar feel as Ian (and there’s the great St. Oliver Plunket), but it’s theorized that its roots are actually Germanic or Old Norse, so I think it can have that dual feel that I was looking for.

Another idea I had along these same lines is Oscar. Oscar was the name of Finn MacCool’s grandson in Irish legend and there’s the Irish poet Oscar Wilde, but it’s also quite popular in the Scandinavian countries. Bl. Oscar Romero was beatified last year, and I spotlighted the name here.

(3) August
Here’s my rule breaker! August was listed as a style match for Grace, Anders, and Virginia, and Augie and Gus are both great nickname possibilities, and Gus especially would make the fact that August repeats Anders’ initial maybe not as big of a deal.

(4) Theodore
Theodore’s a style match for Anders, Virginia, Louis, and the August I just suggested above. I love Theodore for this family! He could be Theo or Teddy, or the full Theodore. So handsome!

(5) Finn
Finn is another name that’s a great “bridge” name — on one hand, it’s an Old Norse meaning “person from Finland,” but I think — and certainly correct me if I’m wrong — that these days it’s just considered a general Scandinavian name? Rather than particularly tied to Finland specifically? And on the other hand, it has separate origins as an Irish name! (Finn MacCool, as I mentioned earlier.) It’s fairly popular currently for several reasons, the most recent of which is the character of Finn in the new Star Wars, but my favorite way to use it is as a nickname for Francis — I think it’s such a cool and kicky way to make a little Francis feel a little more current.

(7) Samuel
Samuel is a style match for Grace, Ella, Nathaniel, and Henry, so cool! I love Samuel, and the nickname Sam/Sammy is so hard to beat.

(8) Charles
Finally, Charles, a style match for Louis, Joseph, Margaret, Mary, and Virginia. I know some people have used Charles as a nod to St. John Paul II (his birth name was Karol, the Polish version of Charles), and I’ve recently learned about the amazing Bl. Karl of Austria. There are lots more Sts. Charles too, like St. Charles Borromeo. Great name! Charlie’s one of those great, friendly nicknames, and Cal’s also a possibility, as well as these other interesting ideas.

And those are all my ideas for Lara and her husband! What do you all think? What would you suggest for their little boy?

20 thoughts on “Baby name consultant: Eighth baby (boy) — no repeating initials please!”

  1. wow, what a diverse sibset! based on the last two children, they’ve gone full catholic with their baby names (a joseph and a mary right next to each other). I think their taste is not set into stone, and they should do the same they’ve done so far: see what film it’s inspiring them, or what family member they want to honour. surely with the eight kid this might get harder, but literally name this child anything 🙂 for no reason at all I’m feeling felix, xavier, damian, elijah.

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    • So funny, I see “Catholic” through the whole set! Our Lady of Grace and her mom, St. Anne … St. Andrew … St. Katherine … St. John and St. Louis … St. Margaret and St. Charles/St. John Paul … the biblical Nathaniel and St. Joseph … and Our Lady again … But then, I totally have my Catholic glasses on all the time! Your ideas are great — Damian and Xavier are personal faves of mine.

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  2. Their children’s names are various but all very lovely! I can also see some themes: Ella and Anders have a Scandinavian feel to me (being Ella so popular in Norway, Denmark and Sweden), while the other ones are undoubtedly Catholic, and, if we include Nate, all their names are one or two syllables long. My very first suggestions were the Nordic name Viggo, and the quite popular Irish name Quinn. Other ideas:
    Bernard
    Bruno
    Clement
    Cillian / Kilian
    Conrad / Konrad
    Declan
    Johann
    Hugo
    Lachlan / Lochlan
    Leonard
    Lucas
    Otto
    Paul
    Philip / Filip
    Pio
    Rafferty
    Rohan
    Simon
    Stefan / Steffan
    Tristan
    Toby / Tobin / Tobias
    Victor
    Xander

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  3. I see that all the boys have an Apostole’s name as their first name. To keep that pattern, I would go with some form of Philip, Simon, Jude or Peter, because Mathew starts with an M and Thomas and James are too common (based on Lara’s comment on Nathan).

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  4. Gosh, I love their names so much!! They’re all so perfect!

    I’m not sure if I have any suggestions for them…I would if they were looking for girls names, but your suggestions are so perfect!

    Maybe Thomas or Owen? Those seem a little more traditional kind of like their girls names,but still go with their boys names?

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  7. This is late, however I just read this post and wanted to respond since I think we have similar naming styles (its uncanny really). My girls are Catherine Grace, Ella Honor, and Madeline Mary. My boys are Liam Francis and Owen Anders. We also considered Nate for our oldest son! For another boy we are really thinking about Benjamin nn Ben. I also really love Charles nn Cap like Cap Garland from the Little House books. So my suggestions for you:

    Liam Francis. I copied this from a baby at my O.B.’s office, so feel free to copy it from some stranger on the internet!

    Benjamin James, Benjamin Matthew or Benjamin Daniel all sound good

    Charles nn Cap

    I also wanted to echo previous suggestions of Oliver, Samuel and Thomas

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