Baby name consultant

Birth announcement: Adrian Leo!

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Remember the five-syllable firstname-middlename(s) combo consultation of a couple of weeks ago? The Little Mister has made his debut! And his amazingly handsome name is … Adrian Leo!!

His mama writes:

“It took us almost 24 hours to decide but we both absolutely love it now and are so glad we took our time and went with something not on the original list! Lol. The three we were down to were Aidric Sylvester, Adrian Leo and Liam Sylvester … Adrian is more traditional and familiar like our other boys, yet not so obscure that most people have heard it. And the way our Henry says it is precious! I love it more each time I see it written or typed!

In addition, it’s a family name.  My grandma’s 2 baby brothers were Adrian… the first died very young, the second had a family but died of a heart attack when in his 60s … Grandma was so touched when I called to tell her the name! And grandpa (Sylvester Leo) was hilarious and said he was so glad I didn’t use Sylvester. Said it’s an awful name and he has way too many syllables. He’s so cute!

Sorry for the book. Ha! Thanks again so much for your awesome input! Couldn’t imagine thinking through things without your help!! 🙂 🙂 “

How amazingly perfect is his name! What with all the family connection, and even getting Grandpa Sylvester in there via his middle name Leo. And Adrian Leo is SO saintly and papal and I canNOT stop swooning about it!

Great great job Mom and Dad! Congratulations to the whole family, and happy birthday Baby Adrian!!

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Adrian Leo

Baby name consultant: Green bean #4 needs a name that fits with older sibs

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Krystin and her husband are expecting their fourth baby, a little green bean. 🙂 She writes,

“[We] have a difficult time coming up with names we like because we have both worked with kids much of our lives and have run across many names that are either already used or have negative (to us) connotations, if you know what I mean! We both work in schools …”

Working with kids so often presents difficulty when baby naming! Their other kiddos are:

Luke Earl (“We always loved the name “Luke” due to the religious significance and his middle name is named after my husband and my husband’s father“)
Bennett Paul (“Love the meaning of Bennett (“little blessed one) and Paul is my dad’s name“)
Tessa Marie (“We always loved the name “Tessa” because of Mother Teresa and because it’s just plain cute, and her middle name is the same as mine, my mom’s name is Ann Marie, and we have several other Marys in the family“)

And the names they “can semi-agree on” are:

Grant Matthew (“in total, the name means “great gift from God”“)
Evangeline Rose (“with the nickname Lina because Earl does not like Evie, and Rose is my confirmation name“)

Krystin’s specific questions are:

“What do you think of those name choices? Do they flow with our other kids’ names? I don’t love that Grant doesn’t have a built-in nickname (our kids don’t have “real” nicknames, but I do find that we call them by Lukey, Benny, Tess, etc at times just for fun) – but not sure if that really matters. I love the name Evangeline but worry it is a mouthful and that people won’t think that Lina works as a nickname. We both like that we don’t know of anyone else with those names and that they can “grow” with the child without sounding too kid-ish … I would love to hear your thoughts on those names as well as to hear other ideas that you might have as well for both girl and boy names!!”

I love Krystin and her husband’s name style!

First off, my thoughts about their current ideas are: Grant Matthew seems just perfect! I think it absolutely matches the feel of the other kids’ names, nice job Mom and Dad! I do understand about it not having a natural nickname (as you all know, I’m a big nicknamer!), so I wondered what they’d think about Gray as a nick for it? Even though Grant and Gray are both one syllable, Gray seems just the tiniest bit easier to say, like you started to say Grant but didn’t have to pull your tongue to the front of your mouth to finish it. So I could definitely see Gray seeming like a short version of Grant. I’ve seen Gray used as a nick for Graham, which is similar to Grant in sound/length. So Graham’s a possibility? Also, I know a little Gabriel who mostly goes by Gabriel or Gabe, but ever since he was tiny his dad has also called him “G.” Just G, like the letter, and it’s so cute and affectionate and it could definitely work for Grant too.

Evangeline Rose nicked Lina is beautiful! I would say, if they love it, I would definitely go for it! And yes, I think Lina definitely works as a nickname for Evangeline, and I actually know another mama who’s planning to name a daughter Evangeline with the nickname Lina. However, since Krystin said she “kind of like[s]” it rather than “totally adores it,” I will offer that it strikes me as a little different in style than their other kids. Not totally! I could see it pairing really nicely with Luke, and it would be a pretty exact style match with Benedict, and Bennett is a medieval form of Benedict, so it’s all definitely swirling around the same place. But the other kids’ names are short-middle-ish in length, and Evangeline’s one of those looonnngg names, like Seraphina or Alexandria or Genevieve, all of which are gorgeous — I love them, I do — but I was thinking, for this family, maybe just Lina would be a better fit? I know a Lina in real life who’s just Lina, and Lena Horne’s given name at birth was just Lena – it definitely feels to me more like a formal name that could also work as a nickname for a longer name, instead of a nickname-used-as-a-first-name (though, full disclosure, I do think that’s how it started). Lina Rose? I think that’s lovely, and it works so well as a sister to Tessa Marie (as well of course as a sister to the boys, but I like Lina Rose and Tessa Marie as sisters, they go together nicely!).

Also, Krystin mentioned that she and her hubs like that they don’t know anyone with the names Evangeline/Lina and Grant … I do think it’s important to be aware that Evangeline seems to be shooting up the Catholic baby name charts, as far as the names I hear being considered and used by all of you readers and the families that email me (they usually hope to use the nickname Evie). Both Lina and Grant fit that “not used by many parents” criteria, though – neither one is very familiar to me for babies these days, which is really cool that they’ve “discovered” them!

Krystin also asked for other ideas for boys and girls, which I was delighted to do. (I can always come up with suggestions! Haha!) 🙂 I always shoot for three for each gender, and I did so here for boys, but came up with four for girls:

(1) Molly
Luke, Bennett, and Tessa/ Lukey, Benny, and Tess all made me think of Molly. It’s got that sweet, spunky feel that Tessa has to me, and I think it pairs really well with Luke and Bennett too. Molly Rose is one of those swoony names to me, so sweet! I also love that Molly is Marian (it started out ages ago as a nickname for Mary).

(2) Lily
You all know that I rely heavily on the Baby Name Wizard book as a starting point when doing consultations, as it lists, for each entry, boy and girl names that are similar in style/feel/popularity … Lily popped up as similar in style to Luke, Tessa, and Lina, and I think it’s an awesome suggestion for this family. And Lily is Marian, which is always a big seller for me.

(3) Claire or Clara
This is another one that did quite well for this family in the BNW book, as it’s similar to Luke, Bennett, and Lina. A one syllable name like Claire would please me aesthetically, because then they’d have two kids with one-syllable names and two kids with two-syllable names. (I know this matters zero! But it’s how my crazy mind works. 😛 ) Clara’s so sweet too though … it would be a hard choice for me!

(4) Juliet
Juliet is a total bonus here – three is my preferred number of suggestions, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have thought of Juliet for this family on my own, but the BNW says Juliet is similar to both Bennett and Grant, and I thought that was too much awesome to not suggest! Juliet’s one of my personal favorites, so I’m actually really excited to tell you about it. Juliet Rose? Oh my!

Boys

(1) Samuel
I really like Samuel with Krystin’s other kids, and especially Sam/Sammy. Sam and Ben are two of those nicknames that just really seem like brothers to me, and Luke and Tess totally fit into that too.

(2) Miles
Bennett, Tessa, and Grant are all style matches for Miles – ding ding ding! I never really gave two thoughts to Miles until I read that in Ireland it’s used as the anglicized form of an Irish Gaelic name that means “devotee of Mary” — I just love that Marian connection for a boy! And I also read that, while linguists/name experts aren’t totally sure of its origin, one theory is that it started as a nickname for Michael, and I think that is soooo cool! Miles is kind of similar to Grant, with no built-in nicknames, but I could see Milo very easily being a fun nick for it.

(3) Colin or Ian
These two just felt like they fit to me. They have that same literary and dashing feel that Bennett and Luke and Grant have to me, and they absolutely seem like brothers to Tessa as well.

Those are my ideas! What do you all think? What other names would you suggest for a little brother or sister to Luke, Bennett, and Tessa?

I love to do name consultations! If you’d like me to give your name dilemma a go, check out my Baby name consultant tab.

Baby name consultant: A little football, a little Catholic baby naming

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I had a little mix-up about today’s scheduled consultation, so I’m going to post this one instead, which I’ve been working on recently. (Yes, I do spend my free time doing things like this. I’m a little bit crazy.)

One of my husband’s biggest disappointments regarding his lovely wife is that I don’t like football. Which isn’t even entirely true — what I don’t like is that when “the game’s on!” (football, baseball, basketball, NASCAR, golf ………………) there’s a lot of ignoring-of-wife. Also, game losses=bad-mood husband. Also, no one can watch anything else because the game’s on! I’m sure some of you know what I mean.

Sports in general I’m a big fan of (though more as a player than a watcher), and I think participating and watching are both great ways to spend one’s time (a lot better than some other things right?). Re: football, I also profess to be a Giants fan because my dad is a Giants fan (daddy’s girl and all). (My husband says I’m not allowed to call myself a Giants fan though because I decided to go to bed with two minutes left in the game during that SuperBowl that the Giants were in, which I couldn’t even remember which one it was so I just texted my hubs and he said: “Super Bowl 42 in 2008. Giants beat the Patriots 17-14 on a crazy last minute drive to beat the previously undefeated Pats (19-0 heading into the game) … And you went to bed.”)

Anyway! All that to say, despite my rocky relationship with football, I’m a huge fan of Chargers QB Philip Rivers. Huge fan! I admit I’ve never watched him play (I probably wouldn’t even know it was the Chargers unless it was pointed out to me. Because I’d probably have my nose in book. I’m such a disappointing wife!), BUT I do know these things about him:

NFL Quarterback Philip Rivers on Faith, Family & Football (by the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word)

Tiffany Rivers, Philip’s Wife: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know (including their commitment to premarital abstinence, Natural Family Planning, and having a big family)

Touchdown: Chargers QB Philip Rivers welcomes seventh baby (nothing more to say 🙂 )

Catholic in the NFL: An Interview with Philip Rivers (on Life Teen’s blog) (“If you’re going to be a Catholic man, be it all the way“) (“Thanks so much for taking the time today to talk, is there anything that you would like prayers for? Yeah, I can give you many intentions, but I’d certainly be humbled if you prayed for my family and for all the unborn.”)

Catholic Quarterback Philip Rivers Passes On the Faith (National Catholic Register) (the whole article’s the bomb — the Eucharist, favorite saints, the Miraculous Medal, purity)

NFL Star Philip Rivers Tells Catholic University Grads to Never Give Up (he got married and had his first baby while in college)

Philip Rivers — Life on the Rock — Faith, Family, Football (fantastic 52-minute segment from EWTN’s Life on the Rock show, posted on his buddy Jason Evert’s Chastity Project site [which is itself an awesome awesome resource]) (it starts with an opening bit about the sacraments, and Philip comes on around the 8:30 mark)

Challenges ahead for Chargers’ Philip Rivers, but he has faith (“… in May, when the San Diego Chargers quarterback and his extended family visited the Vatican and were in a crowd of thousands for a Wednesday papal audience. Rivers, a devout Catholic, had a prime spot in the crowd and was holding the youngest of his six children, Pete, who will turn 2 in October … “I was about 10 yards away, and the crowd kind of opened up,” Rivers said. “Pope Francis just kind of motioned like, ‘Bring him to me.’ Pete was like, ‘No! What are you doing?!” But we passed him to the pope. It was awesome. The pope kissed him, blessed him. We got great pictures of it.””) (“Real life can be tougher. Rivers and his wife, Tiffany, got that reminder after the season when their 5-year-old son, Gunner, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.”)

I mean, come on. Especially for me as a mom of six boys, Philip Rivers is absolutely the kind of man I’m happy to know is out there, saying things publicly that I want my boys to hear, living a counter-cultural life that’s not hidden.

And happy news! Philip and his wife are expecting their eighth baby — a girl! They have five other girls:

Halle
Caroline
Sarah
Grace
Rebecca

And two boys:

Peter
Gunner

I do love to try to predict what name(s) I think expectant parents might choose, based on the names they’ve already chosen (and what kind of Catholic baby name blogger would I be if I didn’t have some ideas for Philip Rivers!), so using my trusty Baby Name Wizard book and my gut feeling about their taste, I came up with some names that I thought seemed to hit all the right notes:

(1) Sofie (or Sophie)

Halle and Gunner really jumped out from the list of their kiddos’ names — I thought that maybe they didn’t seem to quite fit with the other kids’ names? But when I remembered that the spelling Halle can be Scandinavian (I tend to think of it as more mainstream than ethnic, what with all the Hailey/Hallie/Hayley variants, but Halle is a legit Norwegian name on its own, albeit a male name), and Gunnar (that spelling) is Scandinavian as well, I thought maybe that was the key there. We’d actually considered Gunnar as a middle for one of our boys — it’s a family name on our Norwegian side, and we liked the uber-masculine feel of the sound of it, which we would have said like Gunner (even though I’m pretty sure the Scandi pronunciation is more like goo-NAR?) — so with all that in mind, I really paid attention to the suggestions given in the BNW as similar to Gunnar, and Sofie leapt off the page. That spelling — Sofie — is the Scandinavian spelling, and the Sophia/Sophie names are so similar to the style of Caroline and Grace specifically (and it’s a virtue-type name, like Grace), that it seemed like a really great pick for the Rivers. I really like the Sofie spelling for them because I think it helps loop Halle and especially Gunner in even more with whole group, but I don’t mind the Sophie spelling. (And i could be totally wrong about the whole Scandinavian-Halle-Gunnar/Gunner thing.)

(2) Julia

One of my favorite things is looking at a sib set with names of different styles and trying to find names that bridge the styles. Julia is one such for the Rivers family. It was listed as a style match for Caroline and Grace, and it’s biblical like Sarah, Rebecca, and Peter. And it’s got a pan-European feel — and is indeed used in the Scandinavian countries — which goes well with Halle and Gunner.

(3) Evangeline/Evie

Evie was listed as one of the matches for Halle (or rather, Hallie, as the spelling Halle didn’t have its own entry), which is so sweet, and it made me think immediately of Evangeline, which I thought might have just the right elements: it’s long, like Caroline and Rebecca; it’s biblical-ish, which fits in well with Sarah and Peter; Evie as a nickname is a good match with the shorter Grace; and like Sofie/Sophie and Grace Evangeline’s also a faith-filled concept.

(4) Leah/Lena/Lily (or Lilly)

I grouped these last three together because they’re all four-letter names starting with L. I like each of them for different reasons: Leah’s a major Old Testament woman, so certainly a good fit with Sarah and Rebecca (it’s somewhat pan-European as well, and its Scandi spelling is Lea, but I don’t love that because I think it makes the pronunciation uncertain — Lee or Lee-ah?). Lena was listed as similar to Halle, and can be the Scandinavian short of Helena or Magdalena, or it could be a nickname for Evangeline (I’ve seen a few families do so). And I think Lily — which was listed as similar to Grace — works on so many levels — it’s Marian; it is sometimes used as a form of Elizabeth, which ties in the Bible; it’s got a Scandinavian form (Lilly); it’s sweet and feminine like their other girls’ names.

I don’t know any of the girls’ middle names except Sarah (Catherine), so I don’t know if I’ve listed some names here that are unusable for that reason, but otherwise — what do you all think? Do you think these predictions are well founded? What name(s) would you predict Philip and his wife might choose, based on what we know of their taste from their previous choices?

(If anyone knows Philip or his wife and can pass this on to them, I’d be delighted. 🙂 )

I love to do name consultations! If you’d like me to give your name dilemma a go, check out my Baby name consultant tab.

Birth announcement: Nathaniel John!

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I received another wonderful birth announcement from a private-consult mama! She writes,

“Just a quick note to let you know that our 5th baby has arrived and it was a boy! I’m horrible at guessing the gender lol. We had decided on Lydia Therese if it was a girl, but as he is a boy we went with Nathaniel John as planned.”

I love love love the combo Nathaniel John, so handsome!! He joins his very well named older sibs:

Tahlia Belinda
Angus Jack
Isaac Lachlan
Bethany Mary

Such great taste!! Congratulations to the whole family, and happy birthday Baby Nathaniel!!

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Nathaniel John

Birth announcement: Margaret Clare!

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A mama I’d done a private consultation for a couple months ago emailed me to let me know her little girl has arrived! She writes,

“We’re happy to share that on August 6th we welcomed our happy, healthy and beautiful daughter Margaret Clare into the world!

We really debated between naming her Margaret and Isabel, but after 26 hours of labor that ended in a c-section, we thought maybe the patron saint of childbirth and pregnant women (St. Margaret the Virgin) would be fitting. We also debated on the spelling of Clare but eventually settled on the spelling like St. Clare of Assisi.”

What a beautiful, meaningful name!! Congratulations to the proud parents, and happy birthday Baby Margaret!!

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Margaret Clare

Baby name consultant: Mostly biblical+very saintly names needed for Green Bean #4 (on earth)

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Megan and her husband Stephen are expecting their fourth born baby, a little green bean (=gender unknown). 🙂 Their other kiddos on earth are:

Monica Noelle (Christmas Day baby!)
Rebecca Therese (often called Becca; she was “nearly ‘Rachel,’ but we decided last minute that we liked the ‘-cah’ at the end to match her big sister“)
Jacob Michael

And two little ones in heaven:

Luke
Felicity

(I just love every single one of those names! Awesome style.)

Megan writes,

“I am glad pregnancies are so long because it takes us quite a while to agree on a name (often process of elimination), and then we tend to change our minds in the last week — lol. I blame the Holy Spirit, and He’s never failed us. We won’t know the gender of the baby (and my intuition is never right), so we need boys and girls options … Personally, girls names are so much harder for me than boys names. I like most of the common Old Testament boy names, and lots of familiar saint names, too. For girls, I tend to gravitate to the three-syllable names ending in “ah” [though Megan pointed out she’s not “committed to those syllables or to the ‘ah’ sound”] … Jacob would have been Maria Bernadette if he were a girl [though they’ve moved on from Maria] … We tend to like the names that are easy to say, easy to spell, but not super popular (well, Jacob might be…). So far all the names have a hard sound in them, which I can’t say I’m crazy about. I want the kids’ names to sound complimentary together, but I’m afraid that if we keep the “CK” sound in them for #4, it will be harder to break away for future names.”

Other names they’ve considered for girls include:

Vivienne (“as a pretty name, but no particular other reason, and I’d have to look it up to gauge the Catholicity of it“)
Susanna (“but not excited about Susie and there is a cousin Anna … would we really call her Susanna? I am open to it … or maybe Susie would grow on me“)
Avila (“But I don’t know if I have the courage to use such a different name“)

And for boys:

Gideon (“love the Biblical character, but it’s a little outside my comfort zone“)
Joshua
Caleb
Samuel
David
Jonathan
Micah
Joel
Joseph
Andrew
Thomas
Justin

Also:

“3 of the 4 grandparents have a name connection, so if it’s easy to connect to Brenda or Ellen, that’d be nice. Maybe Brendan for a boy? But it’s not vital … Baby is due mid/late October and there are lots of St. Johns on the calendar around that time. Would it be ridiculous to have another J baby just 18 months after Jacob? Would I be forever getting them mixed up?“

And:

“[Their last name ends with the “lee” sound, so] this eliminates first names ending with the LEE sound because I think it’s awkward. Even some names ending with just the “EE” sound make me pause“

Other names that are off the table because of relatives so named:

Nathan
Xavier
Levi
Matthew
Michael
Daniel
Gabriel
John-Paul
Joseph
Damian
Elijah

Okay everyone, buckle up: I had a LOT of thoughts! First off, I just have to say it — I love Maria Bernadette! I wonder if they’d considered Bernadette as a first name? A friend of mine was going to name her baby Bernadette and nickname her Betsy, which I thought was so clever and fabulous. (She ended up with a boy.)

Vivienne is beautiful, and of course I looked it up — Vivienne is actually a feminine spelling of the French male (!) name Vivian, and there is a St. Vivian, who had been a bishop. (Read more here, but pay no worry to the idea of Vivian as a feminine name being “either an Anglicized form of BÉBINN or a variant of VIVIEN (2)” – any of us who love any version of Vivian would be using it for St. Vivian of course.)

And Susanna! One of my very very favorites! Megan said Anna’s not do-able, and she’s not sure about Susie … there’s also Sukey/Suki, which is a traditional nick for the Susan names, and Zuzu, like Zuzu’s petals on It’s a Wonderful Life. They could do Annie — or is that too close to Anna? Or I’ve even thought Sunny or Sassy could be really cute for Susanna. 🙂

And Avila! I think they should definitely consider it! I see it often enough in families like all of you readers, so I don’t think it’s as out of the mainstream as Megan might suspect. But if it still makes her too uncomfortable, perhaps she can consider putting Mary in front of it? Mary makes any name do-able in my opinion! Mary Avila is just lovely, either as a double first name, or as a first-middle combo. Then they’d have loads of options, like calling her Mary (while always knowing that Avila’s winking from the middle), or Mary Avila, or Avila – all my dad’s first cousins who are women are named Mary+something, and they all go by their middles. Or they could even call her Molly, which is a traditionaI nickname for Mary, and also totally makes sense with the “L” from Avila. And Mary could kind of be an honor name for Megan, as her middle name is Marie. I also have another suggestion tied into this, which I’ll put in my formal suggestions below. 🙂

And Gideon! Also an awesome awesome name, I just love it. If it didn’t sound weird with our last name, I’d totally want to use it!! I personally have found that its lack of natural nicknames is difficult (as you all know, I’m a big nicknamer) BUT (and I know this is crazy) when the actor that played Gilbert Blythe on Anne of Green Gables died, I started thinking about how much I love the nickname Gil, but don’t love the name Gilbert, and how one could get to Gil — and I thought of Gideon with an L middle name, and I’m so in love with this idea that I’m extra annoyed we can’t use it! Gideon Leo, for example, or Gideon Louis – a good biblical name paired with a good saintly name! Even if Megan didn’t want to nickname it though, I love Gideon. I definitely think they should seriously consider this one too. 🙂 If, however, Megan and her husband still can’t get comfortable with it, what about something like John Gideon? John is one of those names that does for boys what Mary does for girls I think — putting John in front of any boy name makes it do-able! John Gideon could go by John or Gideon, or John Gideon.

Finally, before getting to my suggestions, I don’t think John is terrible after Jacob. Yes, they’ll probably mix them up, but I do that with my own kids, even the ones who don’t have matching initials! Hmm … Monica and Rebecca have a nice connection in that they both end in –ca; maybe Megan and her hubs could think of it as Jacob and the new baby if it’s a boy having their own special name connection by sharing the same first initial.

Alrighty! I always shoot for three suggestions for each gender, and I did so here, taking into account no hard K sound and no “lee” sound so as to sound okay with their last name:

Girls
(1) Evelyn or Evelina
I’m pretty psyched about this idea. It was inspired by Megan’s love of Avila and her uncertainty regarding her comfort level with it – both Evelyn and Evelina are from the name Aveline, which behindthename says is “From the Norman French form of the Germanic name Avelina, a diminutive of AVILA.” So Evelyn/Evelina=Avila, but in a more familiar way. So cool! AND it was also listed as similar to Vivienne in style/feel/popularity in my trusty Baby Name Wizard book. Winner! Evie/Eva/Eve are awesome nicknames that also really remind me of their style. And Evelina is long and ends in -a like the other girls.

(2) Eleanor and/or Nell (and its relations) (Or Elena!)
Megan mentioned that she might like to work Grandmother Ellen’s name in somehow –Eleanor was listed as similar to Vivienne in the BNW, and Ella as similar to Luke, so names with that sound seem to fit her taste. I quite like Eleanor with Monica, Rebecca, and Jacob, though I will just warn that Eleanor and Ellen have a tricky relationship etymologically (if you follow that link, be sure to read Sara’s comment as well). I actually started this train of thought with Ellen, and how Nell is a traditional nickname for it, and then I followed the Nell trail — it’s also used as a nickname for Penelope (love!), Helen(a) (so saintly!), and Eleanor — so there’s another connection too. Anyway, it all loops back to Grandmother Ellen, and a lovely way to do so! (I don’t hate “just Ellen” either, I’ve seen it used recently! The nickname Ellie is sweet too.) If Megan and her hubs wanted to match the -a ending of Monica and Rebecca, Eleanora is lovely as well. Or — ooh! — Elena! Like Ellen with an -a on the end!

(3) Lydia or Miriam
I just love Lydia, one of my very favorites. Unsurprisingly (as it’s a biblical name) it’s similar to both Susanna and Gideon in style. Miriam just *seems* like it fits to me — and I have nothing to back that up but my gut! My only hesitation in using either Lydia or Miriam is that they leave Monica out as the only non-biblical name. It’s not a huge deal — Monica’s been used for so long that it has an almost biblical feel — but it’s just something to be aware of. (Like with Mary Avila, Miriam could also be an honor name for Megan — a Mary name like her middle.)

Boys
(1) Jeremiah
Megan basically listed all the boy biblical names as ones she likes! Haha! But she didn’t have Jeremiah listed, which wasn’t at all on my radar anyway until the BNW informed me that Jeremy is similar to both Monica and Rebecca in style. Jeremy didn’t strike me as quite right, but maybe Jeremiah?

(2) Samuel
I know Megan likes Samuel, because she included it in the list of boy names she likes, so I just want to throw my vote behind it as well. Not only do Sam and Jake seem like the most adorable pair of brothers, but Samuel was also listed as similar to Luke in style. What an amazing connection between all three brothers that would be.

(3) Stephen or Simon or Benjamin
I wonder if Megan’s husband would be interested in a namesake? Stephen seems spot on to me, and the BNW concurs — it’s similar to both Maria and Susanna. It’s a bit unusual on little boys these days, but I profiled blogger/author/editor Danielle Bean’s kids a while back, and she has a Stephen Matthias, which I’m still swooning about. Maybe?

I’m not sure I’m getting the vibe from Megan that Simon is exactly her style, but the BNW says differently. 😛 Simon matches up with Vivienne, Susanna, and Gideon (in the form of Simeon), so I thought it definitely deserved a mention. And Benjamin wasn’t on their list of faves, but they have Jonathan on there, and I know a pair of brothers named Benjamin and Jonathan, so I had to suggest it too. Ben and Jake? Come on! So great!

Those are all my ideas! What do you all think? What girl and boy names would you suggest for this family?

Birth announcement: Uebbing Baby Quattro!

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I don’t know what I did with my life before Instagram (despite my recent bellyaching about it — I’ve come around) and Twitter and Facebook — how does one stay abreast of important happenings without them?? Like: birth announcements! Social media (here and here and here) has informed me that Jenny Uebbing has had her baby — a boy! Luke Maximilian! On the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe!

If you remember from my consultation for her, Luke was on her longtime boy list but she’d said,

“meh. I’m fading on this one. But I’ve loved the name since I first saw Star Wars at age 12, and what child doesn’t want that kind of honor associated with his moniker? Plus, the Gospel of St. Luke is my fav“

and I’d said,

“Luke is hard to beat! The Gospel and the Skywalker are of course amazing reference points (reasons why it’s one of my faves too!), and it’s such a good match as a brother to Joseph and John Paul“

and I’m soooo delighted that she and her hubs decided to go with it, and I love love love it paired with Maximilian, and ON HIS FEAST! Can it get more perfect!

And a million thanks to Baby Luke for coming today, because I’d wanted to post about St. Max, but I did the Holy Name of Jesus post earlier (momentarily forgetting what today’s feast is) but now I have a great reason to post for his feast, and birth announcements are the very best posts of all.

Congratulations to Jenny and the whole Uebbing family, and happy happy birthday Luke!!

Baby name consultant: Five-syllable firstname-middlename(s) combo needed for Baby Boy!

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Amanda and her husband Vince are expecting their fifth born baby, a boy, and his firstname-middlename(s) combo has to equal five syllables. How I love a good name challenge!! 🙂

Their other kiddos are:

Oliver Lawrence
Elizabeth Joan (“Ellie or Ellie Jo … I sometimes call her Betty just because I can. 😉 “)
Theodore William (Theo)
Henry John Vincent

As you can see, the firstname-middlename(s) combos equal five syllables, which is, like, Master Class naming. Especially since they did it so well — such great names, all! And, as Amanda explained to me, each combo is full of saintly and family significance.

Names they’ve discussed for this baby boy include:

Sylvester (“my maternal grandfather’s name [and Vince’s top choice] … we really like Sylvester for the middle name and are pretty positive we want to use it there (unless there’s some nickname I’m not thinking of [other than Syl, Sly, and Slivy, which is what her grandfather went by] so that we could use it for a first name“)

Felix (“my top choice. St. Felix and the Spider is one of the books the kiddos received for Christmas, and I love the story … [but] there’s the reference to a cartoon cat… along with Sylvester the cartoon cat… I don’t really care – should that be an issue?!?“)

Declan (“It’s Irish, and I know it’s a saint’s name but I don’t know his story. I like it because it is different and I know no one by that name [but it’s] not as “soft” sounding as our other names… We don’t have any hard D or K sounds“)

Aidric (“Again, it’s an Irish saint’s name but I don’t know the story. Same with Declan on being different and obscure“)

Ivan ([Vince’s other top choice.] “I don’t know the saint story… I think it’s Russian, so it doesn’t go with our Irish/British thing, but it is regal sounding, like Elizabeth“)

And others that aren’t as serious as those listed above:

Linus
Louis
Milo
Silas
Levi
Otis

Finally, Amanda doesn’t want to repeat any names already used by family or close friends, which knocks off:

Gabriel
Augustine
Blaise
Kolbe
Xavier
Matthew
Michael
Isaac
Peter
Owen
Andrew
David
Jeffrey
Anthony
Caleb
Max
Wyatt
Timothy
Christopher
Nicholas
Joseph
Daniel
Samuel
John
Francis
Benjamin
Aaron
Zachary

Whew! Amanda concludes,

“Again, we really like Sylvester for the middle name and are pretty positive we want to use it there (unless there’s some nickname I’m not thinking of so that we could use it for a first name). Vince is almost sold on Felix, just can’t see it for a baby. We used to really like Raphael, but it goes over my 5-syllable limit if Sylvester is the middle name. We’re open to more suggestions but I think those five we have go well with Sylvester as the middle name. Which of them fit best with our other boys, or is there a better one out there we haven’t found yet?“

So first off, a couple thoughts about their current name list:

Sylvester is a NAME! Whoa! I’ve never known anyone considering it! Kudos to Amanda and Vince! Syl and Sly I’ve heard of, but not Slivy – that’s interesting! The only other nickname I came up with that might be doable is Sully. Maybe? I agree it’s a great middle name with the other names on their list, though it does lock them into a two-syllable name. Not that that’s a bad thing at all.

Felix is definitely getting a lot of love among Catholic families these days — I see it on people’s lists a lot, and there’s one Catholic family on the Baby Name Wizard forums that has three boys: Felix, Xavier, and Raphael. So it’s definitely out there, and at least among young Catholic families I don’t think the cartoon characters are an issue, like Amanda said. Although … even as I typed that and reread her Felix paragraph … Felix Sylvester … all of a sudden the two-character-names thing is really hitting me! I don’t know, I think it could go either way. Totally depends on who’s hearing the names. I think a deciding factor would be if it bothered Amanda and Vince if people pointed it out a lot after they’d already named the baby? What do you all think?

I personally love Declan. I know a few, including my cousin’s 2yo, and she’d chosen the name 15 years ago when she and I were in Ireland together and she heard it for the first time – that’s some name love! I actually didn’t know his story either, other than he was a saint, but because of Amanda’s email I looked him up, and while you can certainly get his basic story from Wikipedia and similar sites, I loved this one the best – it was written in 1914 and translated from the Irish (!); it has a long explain-y intro; and the main bulk of it is the life of St. Declan – he was preaching when St. Patrick arrived! And he seems quite beloved in Ardmore. It’s definitely an authentic Irish Catholic name!

Aidric I’d actually never heard of, but when I googled it, a post by Abby at Appellation Mountain came up – she does a great review of the name as both a saint’s name and a boy’s name in today’s America. I’m only seeing that he was French though, not Irish? Though it definitely sounds Irish, like a mashup of Aiden and Patrick.

Ivan, another WOW name! I think immediately of both Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible. It’s Russian for John, so when I googled it I saw references to both St. Ivan Rilski and St. John of Rila – same guy. It’s a cool way to honor a John, if you like heavy Russian names.

So of all those, I think Declan Sylvester is my favorite. It continues their Brit/Irish theme, and it’s got the right number of syllables, very handsome!

Okay! On to my suggestions – I can always come up with some! And holy cow – alllll the names that are off limits!! I think I did okay though – I always shoot for three suggestions, but came up with a couple more than that (they’re all two syllables, to go with the three-syllable Sylvester):

(1) Patrick
As far as I can tell, neither Patrick nor Brendan (below) has been used by someone in Amanda’s friends/family (fingers crossed!). I know they’re pretty basic as far as Irish-y boys’ names go, but I like them both with Sylvester, and there are some great nicknames for Patrick too: Patch and Packy are my faves, but I know a couple little Patricks who go by Paddy, which is beyond darling.

(2) Brendan or Brannoc(k)
St. Brendan is certainly a great Irish saint, and St. Brannock is a British/Celtic/Welsh saint as well — I like that Brannoc(k) has similar sounds as Brendan but is more offbeat/unusual.

(3) Ian or Ivo or Hugo (or Conrad!)
Ian and Ivo were inspired by Ivan, but I thought Ian especially fell within Amanda’s taste better. It’s a Scottish form of John (the Irish Sean doesn’t have enough syllables), and I like it with Sylvester. Ivo is definitely an offbeat choice, but it’s the name of several saints (more familiar under the forms Yves or Ives). It’s not an Irish or British name, but I believe it’s well used in England, which is why I thought it might work for this family. Then I thought of Hugh, but it doesn’t work because it’s only one syllable, but the variant Hugo is the perfect length. (My husband kind of loves this name, and really wanted me to suggest it to Amanda!) (Incidentally, two of the names we considered for our youngest were Hugo and Conrad – which reminded me immediately that Amanda shared that Vince’s middle name is Conrad – I’d be a big fan of adding Conrad to the list! Conrad Sylvester is so cool!)

(4) Robert nicked Rory
Finally, I thought of Rory, but it didn’t have a formal enough feel to me, to go with the other kids’ names. Robert might work though – St. Robert Bellarmine is great – and I’ve long thought Rory could be a nickname for Robert. Robert Sylvester is very handsome.

Those are my ideas! What do you all think? Amanda and Vince would love suggestions, so go ahead and fire away!

Couple fun things

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I don’t know about you all, but I can’t stop crying about all the Planned Parenthood stuff — all those sweet babies — and on the one hand, I feel like it’s sort of disrespectful to think of fun, light things, like the only things we should be doing are everything we can to make it stop, but on the other, I personally don’t function well at all when I’m approaching the depths of despair, and I have a lot of people to take care of, so focusing on fun, light things is helpful. And I have a couple of them!

(1) I was sure I’d have some good name chats on my vacation, and I was right. My sisters-in-law know all sorts of people having babies, and some of the most interesting names I heard were:

— Benya (that spelling) (boy), said ben-EYE-ah. I’d seen Benia recently online for a couple (!) girls, which I’d thought was said BEN-yah, but then read that it was said ben-EYE-ah, so when my SIL told me about Benya I assumed it was for a girl, but no. I looked it up, and found this:

“Given Name BENAIAH

GENDER: Masculine
USAGE: Biblical
OTHER SCRIPTS: בְּנָיָהוּ (Ancient Hebrew)
PRONOUNCED: bi-NIE-ə (English), bi-NAY-ə (English)   [key]
Meaning & History
From the Hebrew name בְּנָיָהוּ (Benayahu) meaning “YAHWEH has built”. This was the name of numerous Old Testament characters.
OTHER LANGUAGES: Benayahu (Biblical Hebrew)“
Do any of you know any more about this name, or know anyone (boy or girl) so named?

— Traigh (boy), said TRAY. I feel like I’m pretty up on Irish names, but I’d never heard this one! There wasn’t much to find on it, but I did find this:

“The name Traigh is a baby boy name.

Irish Meaning:
The name Traigh is an Irish baby name. In Irish the meaning of the name Traigh is: Strand.“

I don’t even know what’s meant by “strand”? Like strand of hair? Like to strand on the side of the road? I do love the sound and spelling. Do you know any Traighs?

— Olive (all the rage right now!), Walter (on a tiny baby! sooo cute!), Lennon (so hipster!), Joy (as a middle name, I love it!)

(2) I posted about my consultation for Marci and her husband back in May — her baby has arrived! Go take a look at that beautifully named baby girl! It’s an awesome post — lots of birth story info and lots of name info, since they didn’t decide on her name until the next day, and Marci said she was surprised by what they ended up with. (It’s lovely!)

(3) The feast of Sts. Anne and Joachim was the Sunday I was away, July 26. My mom took this picture for me in one of the churches she visited:

stanne

and I saw this and this online on the feast day also (from here and here, respectively). Beautiful! And I’ve heard from a few different readers that St. Anne has been powerfully interceding in their lives. What a blessing to have her as a patron saint!!

My boys have let me know that my time on the computer is up and they are “staaarving” so I’m off to make lunch — we’ll chat more tomorrow! 🙂 ❤

Baby name consultant: Saintly, different first initials, easy to spell

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Caitlin and her husband are expecting their third little one, gender unknown (another green bean!). Their daughters are named:

Claire Camille
Margaret Joyce (called Maggie)

Beautiful names! Caitlin writes,

“Their middle names are our paternal grandmothers’ first names. We’d like to continue that tradition, so we have the following names left to work with:

Jacqueline
Shirley
Paul
Francis
William
Warren

We’d like all of our children’s first names to be their patron saints. We gravitate towards classic English/Irish/Scottish names to tie in with our cultural heritage and our last name — Burch … We would like to do different first initials for everyone … And it has to be easy to spell.”

To give you a further idea of their taste, for boys Caitlin and her husband have considered:

James
Thomas
Henry
Patrick
Peter
George
Benedict

And for girls:

Alice
Beatrice
Helen(a)
Felicity
Jane
Julia
Agnes

Lots of names to work with! After much thinking and musing and taking to my Baby Name Wizard book for ideas, I came up with several ideas for each gender — I always shoot for three, but I had four for each that seemed so spot on to me that I couldn’t narrow it down any further:

Girls
(1) Alice
I was so excited to see that Caitlin and her husband had discussed Alice! It was the first one I had on the list I’d made for her as I was reading her email! I love Alice as a sister to Claire and Margaret/Maggie, and from their family names, I really like the idea of Pauline for Paul — Alice Pauline has such a lovely ring to it, I love it.

(2) Lydia
Lydia is one of my favorite names, and I was delighted to see it pop up in my research. I love that it looks short-ish like Claire but has the same number of syllables as Margaret. I quite like Lydia Shirley or Lydia Jacqueline or Lydia Frances (for Francis of course).

(3) Louisa (nicked Lucy?)
Both Louisa and Lucy seemed like good options for this family — luckily I don’t think they have to choose! Lucy is such a natural nickname for Louisa in my opinion. Louisa totally has the Brit feel of Claire and Margaret, and Lucy is spunky and sweet. Louisa Jacqueline? Louisa Pauline? Louisa Frances?

(4) Eleanor or Violet
Charlotte and Eleanor were names that seemed spot on as sisters for Claire and Margaret, but Charlotte repeats the C initial, and at the time I did this consultation for Caitlin I was still of the opinion that Eleanor is not a saint’s name (I’ve since revised my thinking — there’s a good argument that it can be considered to be related to Helen(a), which was on the list of names Caitlin and her husband have discussed). Both Charlotte and Eleanor pointed me to Violet, and as soon as I saw it I thought it would work well — it can be considered Marian, which is so awesome. I really like Eleanor Frances, Eleanor Pauline, Violet Shirley, Violet Pauline, and Violet Frances.

Boys
(1) Henry
Like with Alice, Henry was my #1 suggestion for Caitlin even before I read that it’s one of the names they’ve discussed! Woo! I love Henry, and it seems a smashing brother name for Claire and Margaret. I like it best as Henry William, and Henry Francis has a really nice flow to it, but it always makes me think of Betty’s second husband in Mad Men (Henry Francis). I learned recently though that I’m dating myself by being influenced by Mad Men, so maybe it’s a non issue? It’s very handsome!

(2) Samuel or Benjamin
Samuel and Sam (Sam!) are great great names and a perfect fit for a brother of Claire and Margaret/Maggie. I like Samuel Francis best, but Samuel Warren works too. And Benjamin has a similar feel to me, and is a bit closer to the feel of Claire and Margaret than is Benedict (from their list), in my opinion. Benjamin Paul is nice because Benjamin is so long and Paul so short; I like Benjamin Francis a lot too.

(3) Edward or Edmund
I love Sts. Edward the Confessor and Edmund Campion — how to choose?! Haha! They’re both British-y, and they both have really cute nickname options (Ed/Eddie, Ted/Teddy, Ned … my dad even had a friend named Edward who went by Zeb!). Edward Francis, Edward William, Edward Warren, Edmund Francis all sound great to me.

(4) Joseph
What else to say? Joseph is classic, masculine, saintly, just. Joseph Paul, Joseph William, and Joseph Warren all work well; I’m not including Joseph Francis because of the ph and F running into each other, but I don’t hate it.

Those are my ideas! What do you all think? What other ideas do you have for a brother or sister to Claire and Maggie?