Intro & Names (w/ Middle N question)

[name]Hi[/name] Nameberries,

I’ve frequented [name]Laura[/name]'s site at the babynamewizard the last few years, but now that I am expecting my first child I figured I’d introduce myself here, too. Can’t have too many name communities on the radar!

I’m due in [name]October[/name] and we are not finding out the baby’s sex. We had a long-ish road to get to this point and I’ve been a name enthusiast for many years-- all of which means we had our boy’s and girl’s name picked out before we even conceived this pregnancy. It takes some of the excitement out of “talking names.” But on the upside, no fights! And we both 100% love the names we’ve chosen.

If the baby’s a boy (and I suspect it is), we’ve chosen [name]Simon[/name] [name]Kelly[/name] Lastname. The middle is a surname in my family.

If a girl, we’ve chosen [name]Josephine[/name] for the first and are still debating middles. DH’s grandmother was named [name]Edith[/name], so [name]Josephine[/name] [name]Edith[/name] is one possibility. Sometimes I love the way it sounds and sometimes it rubs me the wrong way–too many consonants. But I like that it’s quaint and old-fashioned.

The other option is [name]Josephine[/name] [name]May[/name], for no reason other than it’s pretty. DH heavily favors this choice. I like it too, but don’t like that it has no family significance. (We also have a niece–on DH’s side–with the middle name [name]Rae[/name] after his other grandmother. I wonder if it’s too similar or if cousins having similar-sounding middle names is no big deal). And I fear that “[name]May[/name]”, while not a terribly common name, is too filler-middle-name-ish, like [name]Rose[/name] or [name]Ann[/name].

Names DH has rejected as middles for various reasons: [name]Henrietta[/name], [name]Isadora[/name], and [name]Rebecca[/name] (he wants two syllables or shorter since [name]Josephine[/name] is long), [name]Iris[/name], [name]Maud[/name], [name]Maeve[/name], [name]Mabel[/name] (this was what led to [name]May[/name]).

Finally, I only like [name]Kelly[/name] as a boy’s name so I wouldn’t do [name]Josephine[/name] [name]Kelly[/name].

Would love opinions and suggestions! Thanks!

I don’t care for it when the middle name starts with the same letter the first name ends with. It all seems to blur together. So I’m not a fan of [name]Josephine[/name] [name]Edith[/name]. I should say that I’m not a fan of the old lady names in general. If the ‘E’ think doesn’t bother you, perhaps [name]Edie[/name]? What was your husband’s grandmother’s middle name? Perhaps that could honor her, and still work. [name]Dita[/name] and [name]Eda[/name] are also a variants of [name]Edith[/name].

[name]May[/name] sounds just fine, but it does seem as if you’re just choosing it to put something there, so that more than the name itself makes it seem like a filler to me. If you have another reason for choosing [name]May[/name], I wouldn’t consider it just a filler.

I love both [name]Simon[/name] [name]Kelly[/name] and [name]Josephine[/name] [name]Edith[/name].

In my opinion, a meaningful middle name is worth a lot more than perfect flow. I can personally attest to this – I have a perfectly pretty, flowy first and middle name combination but I’ve always wished that I had a middle name that really meant something instead (even if it meant I was saddled with [name]Edna[/name] or [name]Eileen[/name] as a middle). I also disagree with the previous poster, in that I don’t mind the flow of [name]Josephine[/name] [name]Edith[/name] at all.

I think stick with what you have! :slight_smile: