I am 33 weeks pregnant (the 40-week mark is Dec. 16) with a little girl. My husband and I cannot figure out who she is! I'm thinking we'll probably need to see her before we can truly decide, but in the meantime, I'm desperate for some suggestions we can work with.
Our last name, spelled phonetically, is ACK-sum. To me, this eliminates all first names that begin and end with an "a" sound. That's a LOT of girl names! Also, names that end with an "m" sound too sing-songy to me. I think names that end with a consonant sound best.
My son has a traditional name that is fairly high on the SSA chart. He is Jonathan and goes by Johnny. When we chose it, we thought we picked a name that anyone could spell. Nope -- even our own family has spelled it Johnathan or Jonathon. Oh well.
Names on our "maybe" list:
Vivienne (this is the front-runner for now)
Jocelyn (nickname of Josie is cute, but we think Jocelyn sounds too similar to Jonathan. We liked this one a lot for awhile, but it just has grown out of favor for us)
Evelyn (not sure if I like any of the nicknames for it)
Evangeline (my husband thinks this is too clunky and not that pretty)
Names on our "nope" list:
Caroline (I like it but my SIL has claimed it for her own future daughter, and I'm not about to cause drama by stealing it!)
Madeleine (not liking nickname possibilities)
Marilyn (I always think of Marilyn Monroe)
Clementine (I thought this would be a fantastic middle name but my husband vetoed that one pretty strongly)
Charlotte (it's nice, but it's the name of someone in our family and so that's why we don't want to use it)
any name that ends with an "een" sound
Can you help? First name suggestions would be great, and if you want to throw in some middle name ideas, so much the better!
Jocelyn/Josie makes me think of Josephine. Jonathan and Josephine don't sound too close to me, and Johnny and Josie is too adorbs for words. But it ends in an -een sound.
Evelyn and Evangeline and Clementine make me think of Emmeline. Emmeline Acksum, Jonathan and Emmeline. My mom and I have noticed that "Louise" makes a great middle name (not only for the "fun to say" factor but because as others have mentioned you can shorten it to Lou and use it for an extended nickname with the first name): Emmeline Louise Acksum, and you could call her Emmie Lou sometimes.
Vivienne and Evelyn make me think of Lillian. Lillian Abigail Acksum, Jonathan and Lillian, Johnny and Lilly.
One of my favorites is Celeste. Celeste Olivia Acksum, Jonathan and Celeste.
Margaret sounds similar to Charlotte and has so many nicknames. Margaret Louise Acksum, Jonathan and Margaret, Johnny and Maggie/Meg/Greta/Daisy.
Name update! Kacie writes:
Thank you for your help with narrowing down our baby name choices. I'm happy to announce that our daughter, Vivienne Elise, is here! She was born on Dec. 17.
I think my husband needed extra assurance that Vivienne really is a great name, even though we don't know anyone with that name in our generation. He was worried it would be too uncommon or old-fashioned, but he's grown to really like it. And after we announced her birth, we've had lots of positive feedback.
I suggested Elise way back in the middle of summer, and he vetoed it because he hadn't ever heard of it. And wouldn't you know it, a month or so ago he suggests it for the middle name spot. We like the delicate sound and think it all flows nicely.
Thanks again!
