I hope all the dads in your lives had a wonderful Father’s Day! St. Joseph, please pray for them all!

Emily and her husband are expecting their first baby — a boy! Emily writes,

“We’re very excited, but man, boy names are tough. We had fallen in love with the name Noa(h) Rose for a girl before we knew the sex, but I can’t get on board with the name Noah for a boy due to its popularity. 

My husband is an only child and doesn’t have a naming tradition in place, so we have almost too many options! While we aren’t looking for Catholicky-Catholic names (to use your term!), I would love to use a strong, classic/traditional name with great history.”

(I love that I’ve inspired others to think in terms of “Catholicky Catholic”!! Haha!!)

“Names we are/were considering (we’re all across the board):

• Blaise Eliot (or Elliott) (“I remember celebrating St. Blaise on his feast day in school, and kid-Emily thought the blessing with the candles on the throat was soooo cooool. We also love St. Blaise’s tie to animals. Eliot after T.S. Eliot, or Elliott Smith“)
• Shepherd (“honestly, after our dog/current child, an Old English Sheepdog“)
• Roman
• Beau (“after my childhood dog, mostly … we need to stop with the dog names“)
• Luke
• Graham 
• Vincent (“Van Gogh! And St. Vincent De Paul, obv“)
• Rocco (“San Rocco, and after my brother/BFF because that’s his confirmation saint. Hubby says his motivation is Rocky Balboa“)

(Loooove the Rocky reference!!)

“Names that one of us loves but the other can’t get on board with:

• Quentin (“his choice“)
• Ignatius (“my choice“)

“Names that we both love but we can’t use:

• Max (“our dog’s name! And it’s been hard to convince Hubby that they can’t share a name. And that we can’t change our dog’s name“)
• Theodore/Teddy/Theo
• Henry (“my nephew’s name“)
• Julian (“his cousin’s child’s name“)
• Benjamin (“my brother’s name“)
• Ryan (“my brother’s name“)

Our last name is very French, so I’ve been leaning toward French-sounding names. Blaise is definitely at the top of our list, but we both keep catching ourselves wanting to explain the significance, the spelling, etc., and waiting for negative responses. We would love to feel really confident when we announce our naming decision! And Blaise could be it, but we would so appreciate your ideas and, if you like Blaise Eliot/Elliott, your reassurance. 🙂“

I love the girl name that Emily and her husband had chosen! Noa(h) Rose is just gorgeous and I love that the spelling Noa is listed on Behind the Name as a French variant, which goes right along with how Emily said she’s “been leaning toward French-sounding names” because of their last name. I know Noa isn’t really a French-sounding name, but the fact that it IS a French name cements the theme — between French-sounding names and Frenchy French names, there’s a really large pool of names to choose from for lots of kids! (Not that they should feel locked into the French theme, I just want to assure them that if they want to continue with it, they’ve got a great start with Blaise and Noa.)

But enough about their girl name, because I really want to talk about their BOY name!! Blaise El(l)iot(t) is AMAZING!! If I were them, I would stop looking right now. It’s a fantastic name with great faith connections (did you know that the Elliott names are from a medieval diminutive of Elias, which is the Greek form of Elijah? Which of course is both a biblical name and a Marian name! I have it in my book of Marian names because of the prophet Elijah’s devotion to Our Lady, long before she was ever born. I love that!), and there was a real song in Emily’s voice when she wrote about Blaise — not only its Frenchness and saintliness, but also his tie to animals, which definitely seems important to her and her hubby (soooo many dogs’ names on their list!! Haha!!). I also love that “kid-Emily thought the blessing with the candles on the throat was soooo cooool” — I did too! I think it’s neat that Blaise is one of those uncommon-ish Saint names that nevertheless has a really visible presence in the liturgical year. I’ve also always loved that Blaise sounds like “blaze,” which has always struck me as a really perfect name for a little boy — so fast and superhero-ish!

All that said, it is notable that Emily and her husband “both keep catching [themselves] wanting to explain the significance, the spelling, etc., and waiting for negative responses.” I do understand that — half of my boys have more uncommon names (for my area anyway) and half have very familiar names, and whenever we were planning on one of the more uncommon names, I always had a little twinge of hesitation, even though *I’m* the parent with the love for uncommon names! (My husband has always said his name style is “Bob”!) I can speak from experience that it all ends up just fine. Before birth and for a short time after birth when everyone’s hearing their news and meeting the baby, Emily and her hubs will probably have to do some explaining, but it really won’t be long at all before everyone gets it and their baby’s name is just his name and there’s no more real discussion about it. And all their friends and family will have their little guy as *the* example of his name, and whatever associations or unfamiliarity they had before he was born will be gone. For real!

Okay, so now that Emily and her husband have been convinced that their top idea is the best idea, I’ll sign off with prayers for Emily’s labor and delivery.

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Just kidding! Haha! A little name-consultant humor! 😂😂😂 Though I do think they have an amazing choice in Blaise El(l)iot(t), I can always come up with more ideas!

I thought I’d start by offering my thoughts on the other names they’ve thought about/considered, in case they’re helpful:

• Shepherd: It really is hilarious to me how many dogs’ names they have on their list and, in this case, a name that nods to their dog’s breed! There are a lot of dog lovers in my family, I get it! And I love the name Shepherd — I consider it a nod to Jesus, which is cool.
• Roman: I love that Roman is such a very Catholic name — Roman Catholic! Rome where Peter was martyred and where the Pope lives! The seat of our faith is there! A great name!
• Beau: I agree with Emily that Beau is such a cool name. And French! It’s in my book of Marian names as a nickname for or a nod to Beauraing (Our Lady of Beauraing).
• Luke: My youngest’s name, I love it! I love that the gospel of St. Luke is the most Marian, containing within it the Annunciation, Visitation, and Our Lady’s beautiful Magnificat. I also love that he’s the patron of doctors and artists.
• Graham: I was surprised by Graham here! I don’t know why, it’s a great name!
• Vincent: I love that Emily noted both the artist and the Saint, so cool when a name works on more than one level!
• Rocco: Emily’s reasons sound good to me! Rocco is such a cool name, and I love that her hubby’s thinking of Rocky! We just watched all the Rocky movies with my older boys and I have such a new appreciation for them, great movies and he’s such a great character! (I don’t know if it will be helpful or harmful to share this, so I’ll whisper it: Rocky’s given name [character’s given name] was actually Robert! I too always assumed it was Rocco!)
• Quentin, Ignatius, Theodore/Teddy/Theo, Henry, Julian, Benjamin, Ryan: I’m glad Emily included these as they all helped in my research.
• Max: I just wanted to address separately the idea of using the same name as their current dog, and/or changing the dog’s name — I think this is a first for me! I get letters all the time from couples who can’t use names they love because they’re the names of current or former pets, but I can’t remember ever getting a letter where a parent was advocating for having both their baby and their dog have the same name, or changing the pet’s name! This seems like a particularly “dad idea,” haha! Anyway, I think Emily’s right to convince Andrew that Max the dog should keep his name and their baby should have a different name. But I did use Max in my research for them! It was helpful!

Okay! On to my new ideas for this family! You all know that I always start a consultation by looking up the names the parents like in the Baby Name Wizard (affiliate link) as it lists, for each entry, boy and girl names that are similar in terms of style/feel/popularity — I did so here, and I also used the Name Matchmaker tool on babynamewizard.com to plug in both Blaise and Noa as a pair to see if anything additional came up. And I looked through the list of French boy names on Behind the Name to see if any of them felt right. Really what I was trying to do was think ahead to future children and what names would go well with Blaise and Noa, and I really leaned into Emily’s appreciation for French names. Based on all that, these are my ideas:

(1) Miles

We’ll start with one of my favorites, which you’ve all probably seen me talk about on the blog ad nauseam — Miles, which I absolutely loved discovering has traditional usage in Ireland as an anglicization of the old Irish name Maolmhuire, which means “servant of the Virgin Mary.” I also recently discovered that in Scotland it’s historically been used as an anglicization of Maoilios, which means “servant of Jesus”! Such a great, faithy name that doesn’t come across as one! I’ve also been advocating it as a nickname for Michael, both due to it being sort of a contraction of the name Michael, and also since Miles means “soldier” in Latin, which ties in nicely with St. Michael. And for this family, it’s a style match for Elliott, Roman, Graham, Quentin! So many great reasons to love this name!

(2) Leo

Leo is one of those pan-European names that fits in with or has a variant in most European languages — Léo is the French versions which, like Thérèse, can easily be written without the accent, so I think you can think of Leo as French too! It’s a match for Max and Theo — I thought it was a pretty great substitute for those two names they love but can’t use.

(3) Jude

I’m always interested to see when a name shows up as a style match for two other names that don’t seem related at all. Jude is a style match for both Luke and Rocco! Both Blaise and Noa are small names, being just one syllable for the former and just three letters for latter, and Emily has some other small names on her list of names she likes: Beau, Luke, and Max. Jude fits in nicely with that style.

(4) Xavier

Names that are actual style matches for names that the parents have already bestowed on older children, or are frontrunners for the current baby, are always of interest to me, so I loved that Xavier is a match for Blaise itself, as well as Quentin, and it was in the list of French boy names on BtN! The French pronunciation is given as GZA-vyeh, which is closest to our ex-ZAY-vyer, but of course they could use the ZAY-vyer pronunciation if they prefer.

(5) Damien

Though Emily said they’re not looking for Catholicky Catholic names, they’re what my eye falls on always, and when I was looking through the list of French boy names, Damien jumped right out because I love St. Damien of Molokai. Damien is the French spelling (as opposed to Damian), which I thought was cool for this family, and it has a similar rhythm to Julian on the list of names they love but can’t use — and in fact, it’s a style match for Julian. I’ve had Damien on my own list for years, and planned to use the nickname Denny for it.

(6) Tristan

Tristan is another that is in the list of French boy names, as it’s the Old French form of the name Drustan, and its spelling was inspired by the Latin word tristis, meaning “sad,” likely as a result of the Tristan and Isolde story, and also the reason Tristan is in my book of Marian names — for Our Lady of Sorrows. (If you like this idea but hesitate over the “sad” connection, Theresa did a guest post on the beauty of using Catholic names relating to sorrow.) Tristan is also a style match for Quentin.

(7) Bastien

Like Damien and Tristan, I first noticed Bastien on the list of French boy names, and I liked it because that “en” ending is specifically French; because it begins with a B like Blaise, Beau, and Benjamin; and because its parent name, Sebastian, is a stye match for Julian (and St. Sebastian would be patron), but Bastien is maybe a little easier to work with.

(8) Remy

I wouldn’t have thought of Remy for this family, but I loved seeing it in the list of French names! Remy is such a fun name — I think it’s obviously French but not complicated to spell or pronounce — and it’s also a style match for Beau and Julian!

(10) Hadrien

Finally, I’m really only including Hadrien here because I’m always taken with it but I’ve never had the opportunity to suggest it, but seeing it in the list of French names means Emily might be interested! Also the fact that Adrian — which Hadrien is the French variant of — is a style match for Julian. I think Hadrien is so cool!

And those are my ideas for Emily and her husband! What do you all think? What name(s) would you suggest for parents who like Noa for a girl and Blaise for a boy?

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My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon (not affiliate links) — perfect for the expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady in your life!