Very different naming cultures and we're struggling! Please help!

Girl Names
1

I would love some comments, thoughts or name suggestions that might help my husband and I choose a name for our firstborn!!!

Basically, DH and I come from quite different backgrounds in range of ways, but in particular with regards to naming.

My family tends to choose very unusual names. Mine is so completely unique that I won’t post it on here, my sister is named after a region in [name]Italy[/name], my brother is named after the writer [name]Jules[/name] [name]Verne[/name], I’ve got nephews and female cousins with names so unusual that I’ve never heard of anyone else with them.

DH has three sons already. The names he and his former wife chose for them are very mainstream. Not trendy mainstream, but extremely traditional, with one exception - one of his sons is called [name]Rohan[/name], which I quite like. That’s all fine, of course - their sons, their names - but the whole “top hundred but not top ten, nothing trendy” formula for naming is quite alien to how I imagined choosing a name for our child.

My preferences with names include:

  • that they not be time-identifiable (so nothing that will scream “so 2012” or even worse “so 1981”),
  • that they should be spelled the way most people would expect, and
  • that they be somewhere on the range from unusual to unique, but without being freakish.

I tend to like shortish names ending in consonants, and often ones derived from [name]Romance[/name] languages. I would be highly unlikely to choose a name that has had a big surge of popularity and been in (say) the top few hundred names anytime in the last thirty-odd years.

My top six (changes often - I have a massive long list!) are:

[name]Ines[/name]/[name]Inez[/name]/[name]Innes[/name] - I have liked these names for many years.
Frith - from ‘The [name]Snow[/name] Goose’
[name]Perth[/name] - like the “th” sound at the end
[name]Maeve[/name] - very unusual here in Australia, like that it’s Celtic
[name]Lulla[/name] (my great-grandmother’s name)
[name]Francesca[/name] - quite a common name in my book but I like the musical sound of it and could live with it at a pinch, perhaps as a middle name

DH seems to like names that end in “a”.
He would tend to favour Shakespearean and other literary references (he likes that about “[name]Miranda[/name]”)
His stated parameters are “names that are not too common but not weird”.

Some of the names he likes seem to have had their peak popularity in the mid to late 70s, and to me they sound a bit dated? He’s a few years older than me.

DH took several weeks to come up with six possible names. His choices, in no particular order, are:

  • [name]Siobhan[/name] (to me this sounds dated, but I do like that it’s Celtic)
  • [name]Larissa[/name] (not a fan AT ALL - very late 70s to my ear)
  • [name]Selena[/name] (don’t actively dislike it, but would never choose it)
  • [name]Miranda[/name] (this is my least favourite of all these names, due to the fact that it’s been a very trendy name. It’s also DHs number one choice, I suspect. Like DH, I do like the idea of a Shakespearean name.)
  • [name]Freya[/name] (this is a name I quite like, except that I think it’s been a bit overused, particularly among hippie families like mine in the 70s and 80s)
  • [name]Griselda[/name] (kind of a witch name, but at least it’s a little less conventional. [name]Even[/name] I think it might be unfair to name a child [name]Griselda[/name], though).

Having done a list swap, I think we were both a bit stunned. DH said he was disappointed that there wasn’t one name that appeared on both lists, but to me the whole feeling of the names we each like is so different that I think that was always very unlikely.

It was a polite and respectful conversation, but he seemed to dislike/be shocked by my names (“I didn’t even know some of these WERE names…”), and his certainly were outside what I ever imagined, and I feel a bit hopeless about finding common ground. Now he says he doesn’t want to talk about it at all for at least a couple of weeks, and that we should think about names that were not on either list… I take that to mean that all of the 25 or so names I listed were unacceptable to him. Sigh.

Please, can anyone help us with some suggestions? Am I being harsh in my assessment of my husband’s names?

2

tricky!
[name]How[/name] about:
[name]Thalia[/name]
[name]Sabrina[/name]
[name]Milena[/name]
[name]Kenzie[/name]
lilith
[name]Meredith[/name]

3

You do have a few overlaps with your husband, you both seem to like Celtic names, you both have names that start with “Fr” and end with “a.” Maybe start with that?
Valhalla
Gersemi - the daughter of [name]Freya[/name], kind of similar to [name]Griselda[/name]
Rinder or [name]Rinda[/name]
Fulla
Good [name]Luck[/name]!

4

My first thought was [name]Celia[/name].
[name]Marin[/name]
[name]Petra[/name]
[name]Celine[/name]
[name]Seren[/name]

Good luck!

5

So, I looked up a list of Shakespearean names and tried to find names that meant most of your and your husband’s wishes:

  • Calpurnia
  • [name]Ceres[/name]
  • [name]Cressida[/name]
  • [name]Francisca[/name]
  • [name]Helena[/name]
  • [name]Imogen[/name]
  • [name]Lavinia[/name]
  • [name]Portia[/name]
  • Thaisa

I want to second [name]Celia[/name] as an uncommon Shakespearean literary name for you.

6

Actually, you do have one name in common: [name]Freya[/name]. Frith from The [name]Snow[/name] Goose was named Fritha, which is the [name]Saxon[/name] version of [name]Freya[/name]. So that’s the one I would go with – you could put [name]Freya[/name] on the birth certificate and call her Frith. It is very literary – [name]Paul[/name] Gallico and mythological. Actually, it meets all your qualifications.

Other ideas –

[name]Maud[/name] ([name]Tennyson[/name])
[name]Celia[/name] ([name]Jonson[/name])
[name]Melisande[/name] (to replace [name]Miranda[/name])
Kilda (the saint)
[name]Gisela[/name] (instead of [name]Griselda[/name])

[name]Even[/name] though [name]Ines[/name] and [name]Innes[/name] are two completely different names, I like them both. I think [name]Innes[/name] is more masculine though. I’ve always thought Innisfree (the [name]Yeats[/name] poem) would make a great name.

7

I was going to suggest [name]Cressida[/name], but someone beat me to it. It’s not really short, but it fits some of your other criteria. It’s one of my favorite Shakespearean names (the least favorite being [name]Dorcas[/name].) :wink:

8

I want to throw [name]Sabina[/name] in there as a suggestion

9

[name]Theadora[/name] (nn [name]Thea[/name])
[name]Thea[/name]
[name]Thalia[/name]
[name]Dahlia[/name]
[name]Juno[/name]
[name]Juniper[/name]
Abeline
[name]Amabel[/name]

10

[name]Petra[/name]
[name]Delta[/name]
[name]Nika[/name]
[name]Mika[/name]
[name]Annika[/name]
[name]Anya[/name]
[name]Luella[/name]
[name]Sinead[/name] (celtic I think)

11

It would be easier if you included you name, siblings names and names of your step children to help us have a better idea of his style and yours. A little more info could make this worth while for everyone a little more. :slight_smile:

12

[name]Hollis[/name]
[name]Thisbe[/name]
[name]Corin[/name]
[name]Imogen[/name]
[name]Astrid[/name]
[name]Ophelia[/name]
[name]Nerissa[/name] (INSTEAD OF [name]LARISSA[/name] AND IS SHAKESPEARIAN)
[name]Hermia[/name] (teasing potential)
[name]Titania[/name]
[name]Cassia[/name] (female version of Shakespearian name)
[name]Iris[/name]
[name]Viola[/name]

13

[name]Do[/name] you like [name]Bianca[/name]? just another shakespearaen name (The Taming of the Shrew) or maybe [name]Audrey[/name] (As You Like It.)
another ideas :
[name]Ariel[/name] ([name]Arielle[/name]/[name]Ariella[/name])
Casca
[name]Cassandra[/name]
[name]Celia[/name]
[name]Claudia[/name] (took it from [name]Claudius[/name])
[name]Demetria[/name] (from [name]Demetrius[/name])
[name]Diana[/name]
[name]Emilia[/name]
[name]Helena[/name]
[name]Iris[/name]
[name]Jessica[/name]
[name]Juno[/name]
[name]Octavia[/name]
[name]Olivia[/name]
[name]Regan[/name]
[name]Titania[/name]
[name]Valeria[/name]

I also think that u better choose win-win solution.

14

I love the idea of [name]Freya[/name] with Frith as a nickname! [name]Freya[/name] [name]Nerissa[/name] would be lovely.

15

I don’t think you all are too far apart-- actually you both seem willing to consider some out of the ordinary choices. It seems like DH likes the “a” endings-- maybe they sound more feminine to him or something. Maybe you can use one of each for a nice combination. Here are some more suggestions:

[name]Clarissa[/name]
[name]Isadora[/name]
[name]Ione[/name]/[name]Iona[/name]
[name]Irene[/name]/[name]Irena[/name]
[name]Sybil[/name]/[name]Sybilla[/name]
[name]Dorothea[/name]
[name]Blythe[/name]
[name]Tabitha[/name]
[name]Mavis[/name]
[name]Mila[/name]

16

My name is [name]Ali[/name]-[name]Breeze[/name] (no mn), my sister is Tuscany [name]Jude[/name] and brother is [name]Jules[/name] [name]Porter[/name], my cousins are [name]Remi[/name] and Tuuli, my sister’s kids are [name]Diego[/name] and [name]Tobin[/name] (and [name]Tobin[/name] was very much a compromise with her fairly conservative husband).

I can see why including this information from the start might have been helpful, but when you have such unusual names it makes you readily Google-able, and being in a stepfamily, I’m not too keen on the intrusive ex-wife getting all up in our business. (She doesn’t mind a bit of online stalking, so I’m not just being paranoid…)

This process and all the suggestions have been great. It’s shown me that “unusual” means different things to different people, and for me it means not just a preference for less common names, but that I would never choose a name for a child if I had ever known someone called by that name. I don’t adore my own name but I do [name]LOVE[/name] that my parents put effort into choosing a name for me that nobody else would have. [name]Even[/name] now, all these years later and after the hit of “Under The Tuscan [name]Sun[/name]” still none of us have ever met anyone with the same name as my sister. That’s my kind of name!

Sadly, this means [name]Freya[/name] is out - I know about four of them! It’s a beautiful name, and I like [name]Freya[/name] [name]Francesca[/name] as a fn mn combo, but it’s not something I want for my child, especially since our surnames are very standard (- baby’s surname will be [name]Jackson[/name] [name]King[/name], no hyphen).

So thanks for all the suggestions, and please keep them coming! I’ll have a look back through and note the ideas that seem to fit best.

17

I like [name]Zelda[/name] [name]Perth[/name] - thanks!

18

I quite like [name]Cressida[/name], though the nickname potential is a bit clunky. And Thaisa is nice. But [name]Celia[/name] is a fairly common name here in Australia, at least once you combine it with variants like [name]Cecelia[/name], [name]Casey[/name] etc.

19

Thanks, miloowen. I was aware that [name]Freya[/name] and Frith share that heritage, but to the ear they are quite different. [name]Freya[/name] has had a big following in alternative subcultures over the last forty years or so, and I know about four, ranging in age from 35ish down to 8, including people we socialise with quite often. So as lovely a name as it is, it’s out.

[name]Gisela[/name] is beautiful, and I agree about [name]Innes[/name] being more masculine. [name]One[/name] advantage, though, is that it might be less liable to mistakes in pronunciation? Innisfree is gorgeous!

20

Here’s my list of girl names, to give a bit more background. DH has not seen all of these - probably about half were on the list I showed him.