How about old fashioned names no one uses anymore? Like Grace, Ruth, Mabel, Alice, Edward, Gordon, Philip, Oliver?
For boys, I always liked the name “Gabriel”. Not too common, not too obscure. But it’s female counterparts (Gabrielle, Gabriela) i don’t like for some reason.
A good website for some info on names is http://www.babynamer.com
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Really? I’ve never seen a production where Ariel hasn’t been a male. However, the last production I saw had Prospero’s brother as a Duchess, rather than a Duke.
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Try to picture the names as they would appear stencilled on an office door…
Then say the out loud: “Paging Dr. Smith, Paging Dr.________ Smith, please report to the ER”…
Alternative spellings look stupid, and give a poor impression on job applications.
Names like Autumn, and Indigo are great if you are Demi Moore’s kid, or have sibs named River and Joachim! And Keaton and Matisse??? Are you *mad * at the kids or something?
And Resolve??? Thats a carpet cleaner!!
Do the kids a favor, and go with traditional names with normal spellings. PLEASE PLEASE dont give them a name that is currently on TV! (the kid up the street has a baby sister named SHANIA!!!)
I named my boys after my paternal grandfather, and after my ex’s paternal grandfather: Ted (Theodore) and Frank (Frankie/Francis), nice old fashioned boys names that sound ok on a man.
Remember also that they might not have a glamorous job someday, and a janitor named “Stone” is gonna look silly!
I figure Ted and Frank will be good named for doctors or ditch diggers, and everything in between.
Good luck with the little bundles!
(what about Bart and Lisa??)
As usual, Kellibelli’s comments make good, practical sense. I agree with her.
“Traditional” names may rarely be hip or cool, but they never go entirely out of style, either.
My father was a pharmacist who saw a lot of people’s names. He said that if customers had non-traditional names, he could usually guess their birthdate to within a couple of years - just by remembering the fads and soap stars that the non-traditional name related to. If you want to hand your kids that sort of identity, fine, but in my opinion, your better to go with a name that doesn’t carry that sort of baggage.
Just a small question, by chance are you going to call the little girl, “Mattie” as short for Matisse? If so, I think you could pull it off.
If my husband and I have another girl, we’re naming her Piper, so I vote for that name enthusiastically.
Indigo is nice, but you realize he’ll be called Indy, right?Not that Indy is bad, some parents don’t like diminutives.
Matisse is weird, but pretty. The more I say it aloud, the less weird I think it is. You’d have to have a good last name to go with it though…like Kennedy.
Morgan Matisse may work better, less eye-rolling if it sounds like a hyphenated last name rather than a weird first name.
Stirling sounds like something a DJ would call himself. (DJ Stirling in the house!) Autumn gives me the impression of a fat, greasy-haired girl with thick glasses. Keaton isn’t so bad, I just am not fond of it.
Whatever you choose, don’t tell anyone until after you’ve named the children. Right now, everyone and their brother feels able to criticise your choices. Once the babies are born and the names on the BC, no one will say a thing about it.
How’s the wife doing?
We named our oldest son Hunter, 18 years ago so he would have an unusual, unique name. Now it’s one of the most common names given to kids. So…
Here are the names I really liked, but my wife would never let me give our kids, although she did let me use a few of them on pets we had.
Opheilia
Evangeline
Rose
Iris
for boys
**
Cosmo
Jude
Mason
Neil
Vince**
So feel free to use any of them.
BTW…I like the name Piper.
We did not expect such a reaction for Matisse. We don’t have any particular fondness for the artist (although we like his art) but we liked the sound of the name. Yes, it would probably get shortened to Mattie, but I think we could deal with that. And yes, we are thinking of how the name sounds for an adult, after all they’ll be an adult for most of their lives.
We are not into the ‘alternate spelling creates a unique name’ idea. I think giving a kid ‘Zhömn’ instead of John is a little overboard.
Other names that have been considered that have been mentioned here:
Oliver, Grey (or Greyson), Mason (my sister-in-law used it after we suggested it), Tristan and Gwenyth among others. I also like Ariel and Ariadne, but I can’t bring myself to make her such an easy target for “airhead”.
Domina - yes, I used the spelling for the town in Scotland…I just liked the look of it, and the town.
As for the :rolleyes: traditionalists, if traditional names were the only ones used then this would be easy…they’d be Adam and Eve.
Randy - My name was unusual when I was a kid, and didn’t meet anyone with my name until I was 15 years old. When I was out, I always did a double-take when I heard my name mentioned, as it was rare to hear. Now it is very commonly used.
Short story: Upon learning that we (2 northern European descendant people with blue eyes) are having twins (but no name decided) I told people that we were thinking of Matisse or Autumn for the girl and Sven or Ahmed for the boy. This was always met with laughter. On 2 separate occasions, the reaction included the exclamation “Sven!”
You’re of Scandinaivian descent? May I suggest two (IMHO) beautiful Swedish/Norweigan names?
Siri for the girl, (pronounced see-ree) and
Vidar for the boy, (pronounced vee-dahr).
I know you’re not too concerned with the origin of the name, but still, it could be nice to say, “well, you know, it’s a traditional Scandinavian name”. And I bet they’ll be uncommon!
What about Kester for the boy (Dutch and Scots Gaelic form of Christopher) and Talia for the girl.
Kester is nice and most of the shortenings for Christopher can be used as well as things like Kes (greek for Christ carrier). Talia is a pretty name (apparently it means Lamb in Aramic). http://www.babynamer.com/
They’re both reasonably unusual but wouldn’t cause me to double take when I heard the name.
Piper - Pip? Pipe? What’s the nickname? My dad’s dog (half scottie, half german shephard) is named Piper.
Matisse - I agree, kind of a major name to get saddled with.
Autumn - not bad, but trendy, and what’s the nickname?
Stirling - reminds me of Remington Steele, and the nickname, again - Stir? Very trendy sounding.
Keaton - Buster or Michael? Nickname Keat? Also trendy sounding.
Indigo - good for a girl (color names are usually girls, and people will make the mistake). Indy isn’t bad as a nick, though, even for a girl.
Grayson - nice, strong but not stuffy, and dignified. Doesn’t work with the middle name, though. Also, Grayson would work with a lot of girl names that end in -t or -ia (Grayson and Joanna, say). I could see Morgan Matisse, rather than the other way around.
I harp on the nicks, because my name doesn’t nickname well, and so I get weird attempts at nicknames - people won’t stop trying, but they all just sound horrible.
I still go with my earlier advice. Go to the lists of ‘100 most popular names’ (try babycenter.com) and pick something off the bottom 2/3 or so of the list. It will be different enough to be different, and not so different as to be weird. Heck, they have those lists for different decades, so you can check back a few decades, too.
OR: Why not do a name-meaning search on something you find valuable (strength, dignity, persistance, grace, vision, success, truth, etc.) and see what you come up with? That’s partly how we ended up with Gabriel (my son’s name). It means ‘strength of God’ - and while I’m UU, not Catholic, the name meaning suited him (after surviving that labor with flying colors, especially!).
Please, also make sure they yell well. If they don’t roll off your tongue without getting stuck or bouncing awkwardly, you will be sorry. And you also have to find names that work well in pair, yelled (Indigo and Autumn work well in pair yelling, but Stirling and Matisse do not do so well together). Hard work, this twin thing.
I also vote for not picking the final name before they are born - go in with two or three for each, say. That way, you can pick the actual name based on who they seem to BE (and trust me, much of personality can be seen from the moment of birth!). And if none of the names you have work, you usually have a few days before they submit the birth certificate to find a new one (in my state, you have ten days to pick the name after birth, without having to file a name change).
No chance that you’d tell us your last name, so we can do a ‘for real’ test of the name choices? It is hard to say for certain that something would be good or bad without running the full trial.
I also really like Emmaline, but it won’t work with our last name.
Well, since WHEN does traditional=common? After all, names like Evangeline, Gabriel, Ruth and Oliver are traditional but not common.
I’m sorry, but remember-this isn’t YOUR NAME. This is for your child, and you don’t want to saddle them with something they may hate.
My humble advice is to pick something that people will in all likelihood spell correctly. My first name is a traditional spelling but different from the most common spelling, and even though I spell it out every time, invariably it is typed incorrectly. Like people go on automatic once I say it.
Boys:
Avery
Julian
Milo
Royal
Girls
Daria
Juliet (not with Julian though)
Maureen (not good with Morgan though)
Nina
Zora
Can’t wait to hear how it turns out!
Easy choice for me:
Kyle & Reese.
Let’s see who can name the reference first, though I think they’re nice names in and of themselves.
Oh shit, it sounds familiar…but it’s not coming.
For what it’s worth, I’m a Kathleen, but I usually go by Kathi. Yes, I spell it that way on purpose, when I first decided I wanted to be called Kathi (in fifth grade). And frankly, people misspell it all the time. Not that I care, however. But it was MY choice to spell my name that way.
Another twin checking in. Do NOT name them so that the first letter, or first or last syllable sound the same, or as a historical/literary/mythical pair. It’s hard enough to get people to treat you as an individual and not as half of a cute sounding unit (my sister and I were Mitzi and Josie, and we ended up nicknamed Kibbles and Bits–very bad).
And the surname-as-girl’s-first-name thing is too 80s. Think Ashley, Madison, Tyler, Kennedy, etc.
Knew of a kid born in the last couple of years whose parents named him August Blue-- I kind of liked it.
My twin nieces are Alexis and Evelyn, though both girls, both are nice names.
If you want the low down on what Americans were using to name their kids 250 years ago, thumb through a book called Who’s Who in the Bible for origins and definitions of Biblical names, because that is were they drew most of their very traditional names from. Over 80% of kids born got a Biblical name and there are a hell of a lot to choose from. You can go from Benjamin to Darius to Asher; or Jemima to Phoebe to Tabitha — most people don’t watch ‘Bewitched’ anymore anyway. I am not recommending any of these per se, just pointing out there are a lot of sources out there and no need to rush the decision.
Have you read the books by Satran and Rosencranz? IIRC they are Beyond Jennifer and Jason and The Last Word on First Names They’re not bad. Online you can try http://www.parenthoodweb.com they have a pretty good name data base, and http://www.babynames.com they tend to be on the trendy side but have an okay database.
Have fun and get all the sleep you want now, because you’re not gonna get it later.