We are expecting our second daughter on October 1st and are getting to the final stages of trying to name her! We have decided to continue a few trends we began with our first, who is Charlotte Sunny Louise. She goes only by Sunny. We wanted her to have a 'sensible' first name to fall back on if she found Sunny too silly/childish/ridiculous later on in life. For now, Sunny suits her to a tee. It suits us too as Charlotte is so popular. Her second name is my name. For our next child we would also like to give two middle names (a family tradition), one being a more unusual name that we would use as a nickname. At the moment we have Ava Scout _______. I know Ava is super popular, but we both like it (a feat in itself) and we would call our little girl 'Scout' anyway.
I would describe my style as a mixture of vintage, hippy and literature derived names. Names like:
Violet
Evangeline
Bellamy
Tallulah
Juniper
Indigo
Madeleine
Audrey (a family name)
Jolie
Valentine
My dear husband Jacob is a little more traditional and likes Ashley, Abigail, Laura and Eleanor. He would name our child 'Laura Ashley" if given half the chance!
I suppose what I am hoping for is suggestions for the second middle name and even possibly suggestions of the first name (instead of Ava) as I'm still not 100% on it. Our last name is a but tricky to work with due to its strong 'ooo' sound and 'ah' ending which unfortunately has put me right off Tallulah and Juniper. With the two shorter first names I think a three syllable second middle name sounds best to my ear. I'm not a huge fan of alliteration in names which has deterred me from using a second middle name which begins with an S or B sound or that uses V (because of the V already in Ava).
As you can see, I am over-thinking things and I would absolutely love a fresh perspective! Any help or suggestions you could offer would be greatly appreciated!
Since your first girl's second middle name is a family name, perhaps you could continue that as well. Are there any good girl names on either side of the family tree? Grandmothers, aunts? Or you could give all the girls your name as the second middle name. Normally I think baby name enthusiasts recoil at the idea of duplicating names, since it means fewer fun choices to make---but in this case, where she'll have two middle names, it seems like a shared second middle name is itself a fun choice.
If not, your husband's choice Eleanor would be nice there: Ava Scout Eleanor.
If you want something very similar to Ava but less popular, there's Eva. Eva Scout Eleanor. But other parents are also noticing the Ava/Eva thing, so Eva may soon be just as common. And Eva Bruna may be too close to Eva Braun. Ada, Ida?
For something completely different than Ava: Josephine. I like that name so much with Charlotte, and with Bruna. Josephine Scout Louise Bruna.
It sounds like the Scout part is decided on, but if not, here are a few more possibilities: Birdy, Daisy, Dolly, Pippa, Poppy, Romy, Tilly. Josephine Poppy Louise Bruna?
Name update! Louise writes:
Just letting you know that our little girl finally decided to show her pretty face on October 10th! We named her Ava Scout Evangeline and have already started calling her Scout, which seems to suit her well. Thank you so much for your input, we loved hearing your insights and getting feedback from other readers. Keep up the great work!
