Hello Berries,
I am hoping to rely on your kindness, creativity and collective wisdom to assist my family in selecting a name for our second daughter.
We are currently 21 weeks pregnant and have been thrown for a loop since discovering we are expecting a girl. We had the perfect boy’s name picked out during our first pregnancy and were really hoping to use it this time around, but nature has other intentions!
Our oldest daughter’s name is [name]Ariel[/name] [name]Goldie[/name] (her middle name honours my husband’s Bubbie) and we’re trying to avoid first names that sound too similar when spoken together (such as [name]Orly[/name]). Our last name begins with the letter G.
We’re Jewish and we would prefer if the first and middle names could be Hebrew or Yiddish in origin, however we are open to any and all suggestions from other cultures.
We would like to honour my late father-in-law, [name]Saul[/name] as well as potentially an Auntie [name]Sylvia[/name] who is recently deceased. However, we’re having a lot of trouble with the letter “S”…
In my many months of searching I can find only two potentially usable names that start with this letter: [name]Shoshana[/name] (which I love but my husband hates due to negative association, plus it’s a bit of a mouthful) and [name]Sarah[/name], which is too common and which I feel no connection to.
I realize we could use either as a middle name or a Hebrew name, but we were hoping to love our second daughter’s name as much as we do our first.
I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to test names out on the baby-to-be - it’s challenging to know she’s a “she”, yet I still have no lovely name to call her by…
Names I love (but which my husband does not) include:
[name]Avital[/name]
[name]Ayelet[/name]
[name]Hadassah[/name]
[name]Jemima[/name]
Kinneret
[name]Yael[/name]
We don’t mind Tzipporah (love Tzipi as a nickname), [name]Carmel[/name] (I would prefer [name]Carmela[/name], but the association with the Sopranos is too strong). We also don’t mind [name]Eden[/name], but we don’t like the nickname [name]Edie[/name] (and we would like to have a nice nickname, if possible).
Also, my parents aren’t Jewish and have trouble pronouncing [name]Ariel[/name], so ease of pronunciation is a factor as well.
I know I’m overthinking this and I wish I could be less picky, but a meaningful name is so important and I’m hopeful you fellow name nerds will understand.
I can’t wait to see your suggestions and thank you all so very much for your help.