We're expecting our first child, a girl, on Jan 1, 2011! The name conversation has been a battle right from the very beginning, with both of us falling in and out of love with different names, but never agreeing on any. We've both had lots of ideas, but there's been no overlap at all...please help!!!
I'm a Sara, and there were always 2-3 Sara(h)s in every class I was in growing up. I'm not keen on common names as a result. I suppose, like most of the people who write to you, we're looking for something that is not overly common, not made-up or spelled 'creatively', and not overly trendy sounding. We both like unisex names, and he especially tends not to like girly names. He loves names that sound like boyish nicknames. I don't mind if she has a nickname, but want her to have a proper name for when she grows up. Also, the names I like don't really fit any particular style, but rather tend to be soft sounding, with lots of vowels and no harsh consonants.
Her middle name will be Agnes, for a dearly loved great aunt, and her last name will be Winters.
Names I like:
Esra (my all-time fav girl name. he hates it, says it's too weird.)
Naomi
Marlow (my #1, since Esra is out of the running. nn Molly, would that work? don't like Marly)
Esme (he hates this one the least, lol)
Arianna
Eithne
Names he likes:
Sasha
Corwin
Tamsin
Nico (his #1)
Anika
Luca
We've been through hundreds of names, and he doesn't like any of the ones I like. And I don't really like any of his suggestions, although I do like Nico as a nickname for something that isn't a variant of Nicole.
A few ideas I've considered to try to meld his liking of short, boyish nicknames with my wish for a proper but not too girly name:
Nikita, nn Nico
Anika, nn Nico
Micah, nn Miki
Larkin, nn Lark
I don't really love any of them. The full names all sound a bit harsh to me, with the hard consonants. For some reason those same sounds in the nicknames don't bother me.
I'm at a total loss...I'd welcome any suggestions at all!!!
Because I tend to avoid initials that spell things, I would probably avoid names that started with C, J, L, P, R, and S.
A good exercise for finding names, especially with a first child, is to think about what names you might want to use for future children of the opposite sex. This can prevent problems with choosing a name for a girl and then finding later on that it's too close to your favorite boy names. (We had this with our firstborn: his name, as it turned out, completely eliminates one of my favorite girl names.)
My first suggestion is Georgia. Georgia Winters is wonderful, and Georgia is a boyish name without being at all a boy's name. Georgie is such a cute nickname, as is George, as is Gigi.
You wouldn't want to consider Agnes as the first name, would you? It's uncommon, non-girly, and sounds wonderful with your surname.
I'm going to turn this one over to the readers, because I find I'm completely stymied!
Name update! Sara writes:
We went over all the comments your readers submitted several times, but still couldn't agree. We each whittled our lists down to our top 3 and decided not to think about it anymore until she arrived.
Which she did on January 11 - the birthday of my great aunt Agnes, whose name we had already decided we would use for her middle name! Once she was born it seemed obvious to both of us that her name was Marlo. Since the name was one of my choices, we went with the spelling that my partner preferred (no W on the end). The names don't really go together, but they're perfect for her :)
Many thanks to you and your readers, the suggestions were all beautiful :)
