☎️ Baby Name Hotline: No Names Left!

Help solve this urgent naming conundrum

Welcome back to the Baby Name Hotline!

Here, we let you in on the conversation as we discuss one reader’s burning baby name quandary – and then we throw open the floor to our wonderful followers for you to have your say.

Today’s question comes from a first-time mom-to-be who’s feeling the pressure as her due date approaches 😰

Read our recommendations and share your own advice and suggestions for Lydia below.

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Lydia writes…

My subject line might sound a little melodramatic, but I’m seriously struggling here!

I’m a single mom by choice, expecting my first (and likely only) daughter in July. I’m coming late to the parenthood game, which means that my siblings, cousins, friends, acquaintances, you name it, have already used a bunch of the names I might have considered. 

To cap it off, I have worked in education for almost 20 years, so I have some kind of association in mind for what feels like every name you can think of.

To give you an idea of my style, here are some I like but can’t use for various reasons: Audrey, Ella/Elle, Lucy, Rose, Jane, Lily/Lila, Isabelle, Sophie/Sophia, Violet, Hazel, Cora, Alice, Iris, Evie, Maeve…

Time’s running out and I’m starting to panic that she’s going to be nameless!

Pam: Based on the names you like but can’t use, you’re into classic names that have been fashionable and popular over the past decade. You might call these Kid Classics, such as Lily and Hazel and Alice.

Emma: Kid Classics is a fun description! You like sweet, simple, traditional names that are particularly in style right now. They’re not trendy per se, since they’re so long-established, but they’re definitely on trend.

Pam: If you want to stick with classic names, you may do better to look to classics that have been around for a longer time, names to which you may have so many associations that they cancel each other out.

I know so many Sarah and Elizabeths, for instance, that each Sarah’s unique personality dominates any diffuse image I may have of the name itself. I don’t even think of all the Sarahs as having the same name. Other choices like this include Anne, Caroline, Maria, Victoria.

Sophie: I like the idea of using a super-classic, particularly Elizabeth which has so many great nickname options that fit your Charmer style — Elsie, Izzy, Libby, or Liza could be great! Other super-classics: Anna, Helen, Margaret, Kate, Marie.

Pam: Another obvious answer is to go very unusual, but with so much name experience you may have an opinion about unique names too – and I have the feeling it’s not a positive one.

Emma: True, but even if “unique” isn’t your thing, it’s definitely possible to find more unusual alternatives in the same stylistic vein that don’t shout about how rare they are. 

Avoiding the Top 200 entirely, for example, you might like names like Phoebe, Esme, Mabel, Sylvie, Lena – or even Leni, which is very much in style right now.

Sophie: Penny, Louise, Estelle, Flora, Celia, Amelie, Lenora and Belle are all outside of the Top 500. 

There are even some great familiar names outside of the Top 1000! Maybe Lilia, Etta, Viola, Darcy or Romy?

Clare: I get the sense that a name’s national popularity isn’t too important, as long as it doesn’t have an association for you. Hoping they aren’t already “taken”, I’ll add in Beatrice, Martha, Rosalie, Pearl, Lyra, Annabel, Poppy and Freya.

If you haven’t found it already, the Popular Names on Nameberry list is a good source of familiar-yet-different-enough options like this. Sure, it does contain many of the names you can’t use, but also others that parents-to-be are considering, but which aren’t actually very common yet.

I also wonder if there’s any wiggle room in what takes a name off the table for you? I get that, for some people, any kind of association with a real person renders a name unusable. And most of us don’t want to repeat names chosen by close friends and family.

But, all other things being equal, could you consider the baby name of a casual acquaintance you rarely socialize with? (Especially if their “baby” is now 10 and has several other siblings?)

Would a few students named Sophia over the years cancel each other out, as Pam puts it? If your heart tells you it’s your daughter’s name, then be assured she will very soon put her own unique stamp on it.

Readers, over to you 🎤

Vote for your favorite of the choices below and/or add your own suggestions for Lydia in the comments!

1. Mayani, H., Wagner, J.E. & Broxmeyer, H.E. Cord blood research, banking, and transplantation: achievements, challenges, and perspectives. Bone Marrow Transplant 55, 48–61 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41409-019-0546-9

2. Internal data on file.