An Apology and Irish Names

I have not touched this blog in months. I went to post the link on a board today and freaked out because I thought it had been removed. I couldn't even remember my own link. Fail. As if working full time hadn't been enough of a time sucker, I'm taking 6 graduate credits this semester. I've been slowly but surely working on this MA in English for three years now and I still have at least two years left of part time classes. However, by the end of the semester I shall have an awesome list called Faulkner names since we are reading NINE William Faulkner novels back to back. I really liked Quentin, Cash, Candace/Caddy and Cora (from The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying). It's sad that while I read these novels I make little notes regarding names. Ah hell, I have a paper due Monday. There goes what little weekend I had.

Anyway, I've been playing around with Irish-Celtic names lately and here are some of the more unique but definitely usable ones I've found, along with their SSI ranking.

Cara (463)
Deira (pronounced dare-uh, n/a)
Maeve (638)
Mairead (Maw-reed or may-reed, Gaelic form of Margaret, n/a)
Miren (n/a)
Neala (n/a)
Neave (n/a)

Arden (n/a)
Declan (347)
Desmond (413)
Eamon (n/a)
Finn (368)
Keane (n/a)
Kian (pronounced like Ian, but with a K, 607)
Malachy (n/a)
Quinlan (n/a)
Teague (n/a)
Vaughn (846)

Baby Update!!

Hello Theresa-We had our baby girl June 9th she weighed 6lbs 1oz and was 18.5 inches long. We named her Aleah Kay and just out of curiousty I went back to the blog to see your suggestions. And sure enough Alia was on there. It took a few days but we finally got her named. I was happy to see you did suggest it too. We decided to spell it Aleah, because I found out my mom was going to name me Leah. I guess my daughter was meant to be an Aleah! Thanks for your name help. I also added her picture along too.

Abbey

Congratulations Abbey! I am excited I helped pick a winner. ;) Aleah is beautiful.

Names for baby #3 for Tracy.

Hey Baby name snobs! I think we're getting close to needing that list. Eric and I are already going back and forth with names. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that we are on the same page...again. We, of course, don't know the gender, yet. But, with as long as it takes us to name a child, we better start soon! We tend to like less common names for the middle name. I prefer names that aren't in the top 10 (of course, we didn't plan that well for Olivia...) but we're still open to those, too. Names that end in a "b" sound are kind of hard to say with our last name (i.e. Caleb).

Our other two children's names are

Olivia Breanne

Austin Davis

I tend to like old fashioned names. Here are some names that *I* like:

Charlotte

Amelia

Adeline

Caroline (though this one is edging on too popular for me)

Eva

Emmett

Elliot

Benjamin

Eric tends to like names like:

Micheal

John

Ben (not Benjamin)

Nathan

of course, I can't remember any of the girls names he likes. Most likely, I'm blocking those out.

Can't wait to see what you can come up with!

Tracy


Hey Tracy.
Here are some for you to take a look at. I didnt go into middle names too much just because my list is so big. With you and your husbands taste being quite a bit different it would be cool if you narrowed down what I have here or lemme know if Im on the right track. Then we can go on too middle names. :)

Boys
Andrew
Alexander
Asher
Simon
Julian
Adrian
Carter
Charlie
Oliver
Russell
Henry
Bryce
Wesley

Girls
Louise
Avery
Francis
Abigail
Lillian
Hazel
Evelyn
Camille
Lena
Clara
Lydia

Hope some of these help you guys out!
-Jessica

Name Updates

Camille, who was one of my very first posts, named her sweet little girl. She is due any day now with Elena Lorraine Aerin.

Also Kim, who we did two lists for (one with C/K names, one without) had her baby boy! AND she picked one of my names! Quentin Lee was born 6-22-09 and weighed in at 7lb 5oz 20 in. Congratulations, Kim! I think Quentin goes great with Colin, Claire and Keegan.

My friend Krystal is due any minute and will be naming her babe Dexter. Send her lots of labor vibes!

Ashley picked Ryder for her little boy. Ryder will join siblings Reileigh Marie and Reece Gavin.

Thanks for including me on your path to baby naming. <3

Tara's wee little baby hippie

Tara is one of my Alabama mamas. She has two girls, Trinity and Journey, and she's pregnant with another darlin' girl. Here is her dilemma:

He doesn't like Liberty cause Libby sounds werid (he chuckles every time I say it). But when I said Story he said, "Surprisingly I don't hate it." But he said it doesn't go with Trinity and Journey. We have pretty much agreed that the name will end in the long e sound. We also like Amy's idea of sticking with doubling names (using names that are also words) since we have that so far. Personally I like Stormy. We don't like Harmony, Destiny, Epiphany, Serenity (too much like Trinity), Ivory, Ebony, Ivy, Paisley, Charity, Sidney, Clarity, Marley, there's more but it's early...Anyone have any names that end in the long e sound and double??? The middle name will most likely be Diem.

I suggested

Amory
Cecily
Divinity
Everly
Greylie
Jolie
Kenley
Mercury (I really like Mercy)
Merrily
Novalee
Polly
Roxy
Serendipity (too wild?)
Verity

I personally am opposed to Stormy (as well as Dusty and Misty) as well, I just don't like them at ALL. I like Sunny but Sunny Diem? hehe

It's looking like the front runners are Story, Serendipity, Genesis and Felicity. I like Felicity but it doesn't quite work with Journey and Trinity for me. Of my suggestions I love Merrily (so happy!) and Everly. We need suggestions!

Quite possibly the most detailed email ever, but we like that around here

My husband and I have 3 biological children and are now adopting a fourth child, a baby girl from Ethiopia who we have recently been matched with. We want to keep her Ethiopian name, but since we think it will be a bit hard to carry as she grows up in the States, we will use it as her middle name (sorry…we cannot share it with others). So we are considering names as we hope to bring her home in the next few months. There are several limitations to our search.

First of all, our 3 kids are named Tate, Emma and Jack. We want a name that fits well with their names. We did not intend to have a “theme” in naming our kids, but they each have 4 letters and now it is very important to our kids that their sister has a name with 4 letters in it. It wouldn’t have mattered as much to me, but since we are adopting her, it is a way for her to be part of our family identity. There is flexibility as our daughter is Emma, but we call her Emmie. And our son is called Jack, but his given name is Jackson.

Secondly, the meaning of the name is important to us. We wouldn’t want to have the original meaning of the name being “bratty child who wipes snot on others”, for example. We kind of thinking naming a child is pronouncing a blessing on them and so we want their name to represent something significant. That’s why we would like to keep her Ethiopian name as a middle name.

Third, our oldest has an unusual name. I love it. Had I known that the names Emma and Jack would be EVERYWHERE when I named them, I may have chosen ones slightly more unique. We don’t like strange spellings or names that make you go “huh?”, but I have thought it might be nice if our daughter had a name that every 5th child in her class wasn’t named. As far as the kind of names we like, usually more feminine is better than androgynous. Our other names are kind of cute and preppyish. I prefer short vowels to long ones and nicknames that end in the “y” or “ie” sound for some reason.

Finally, we are white people who will be raising an Ethiopian daughter. We will be a blended family and want to embrace her culture and help her find her place as a part of our family. We still have no idea what that will all look like, but my point is that we don’t want her to have a name that seems decidedly “white” as I think Lily might be. We are proud of her heritage and skin color and don’t want to make her something she is not.

My husband is usually easy going, but Luci is the only name he likes. For some reason, though I like the name more than any others we’ve considered, it doesn’t seem perfect to me. I also like Eden, Eliza (Liza), Aubrie or Cambrie(Brie…who wouldn’t want to be named after cheese?), Tess, Iris, Ivey, Lila, Desi(meaning “desired one”) and Quincy (Quin). But none of those fly with him.

Can you help? I know you can’t help convince my husband to be a little less high-maintenance, but can you offer us any others or offer input on the current choices? Thanks!

Missy,

First off--congratulations on your new daughter!! This must be such a very exciting time in your life. I think adoption is a such a wonderful thing and I think it's great that you are putting so much time and thought into your new child's name.

Secondly, let's talk names. I stuck with shorter names since that made more sense than to look for long names with short nicknames i.e. Samantha 'Sami'. I did put the definition next to them so you wouldn't have to thumb through 30,001 names to look it up. :)

Alia (ascender)
Aria (lion of God)
Cora (maiden)
Dara (compassionate)
Elle (light)
Evie (life)
Gwen (white wave; new moon)
Iola (dawn)
Jane (God is gracious)
June (born in the sixth month)
Kira (light)
Leah (weary) --maybe not the best meaning, but pretty
Lena (illustrious)
Macy (sea of bitterness/it comes from Macia, which comes from Mary)
Nora (light)
Rory (famous brillance)
Rosa (rose)
Ruby (precious stone)
Vera (true)
Wren (songbird)
Zara (dawn)

Any winners? I really like them all, but with Emma, Jack and Tate I think of my names, Alia, Cora and Lena are my favorites. They are short but they sound like full names. Lucia is one of my favorite names right now--Luci for short.

For those of you interested in following Missy's blog and her path to becoming a mother of four, here is the link!

Boy names for Amy

We found out we are having our 2nd boy, figures since I had several good girls names I loved! Anyway, my husband and I are having some trouble agreeing on names, and I just haven't found much that I really like. We don't like really trendy or ordinary names, but we dont' want anything wacky either! Our 17mth old son's name is Bryson middle name Charles-after daddy and gpa, (i wanted Bryce he wanted Mason, so we compromised) anyway, we want something that will sound good with it, but nothing that would be corny he suggested Tyson, umm..Tyson and Bryson, love the name but, no thanks, sounds like rhyming twins names, which i am TOTALLY against being an identical twin myself.

A few of my favorite names currently are Blayne and Brenden, my husband likes Carson and hasn't mentioned much else worth mentioning, he usually just shoots down names I come up with, lol. The middle name will be Edward (family name) if it helps, also our last name sounds like 'moss-man', I know that is a factor when thinking of names. So, thanks so much for any help you can give me, we need it! :)

Hi Amy,

Bryson is currently 178 on the SS list so other names that are similar in popularity are Garrett, Miles, Hudson and Leo. Brendan is right there too.

I do NOT recommend Tyson, lol. Tell your husband that I said no way. You could do something like Tyler but otherwise it's just too rhymey.

I like Blayne a lot and Blayne Edward has a nice ring. What about Blaze? Blake?

Brendan is one of my brother's names so I am partial. I also like Brennan.

Carson is definitely climbing up the charts at record speed, in the '90s it was 282 and it's currently at 89. I like the 'son' names better than the 'aden' names so that's good news to me. ;)

Other 'son' names I like are Dawson, Samson (Sam) and Wilson. Do you call Bryson Bryse?

Hopefully that gave you more ideas! You were headed in the right direction, we just need to get your husband to agree. :)