You might remember helping me & my husband name our daughter, Amelia Eve, a year and a half ago after an epic battle of naming styles. Well, we are at it again - due in May with our second (and probably last) baby. Eve was my favourite name from day one but husband was lukewarm, Amelia was his top choice and I really liked it (and the nickname potential; Murray calls her Amelia, but I call her Mia most of the time). We had to compromise on popularity but overall we both love her name.
Sibsets are very important to us (okay, to me) and I would like another classic first name that can be shortened, coupled with an already-short-but-completely-gorgeous middle. Preferences for the first name are more than two syllables, not starting or ending in A, not top twenty. This child will also have either my or my husband's middle name as a second middle which has to be taken into consideration for overall length. Easy, right? Hah.
Knowing in advance that it would be a struggle, we started straight away this time and after hearing FOR THE LAST TIME that I will never be naming a son of his Sebastian, Murray has agreed that if this baby is a boy-child, he will be Oliver Fox. THE PERFECT brother name. My guess is that means we're having another girl.
So after starting from scratch (again), we have narrowed it down to names - none of which quite work. But here they are:
Eloise. The last remaining girl name on our list of three from Mia, we were both agreed that we would use it if we had another girl. Unfortunately we've both gone rather lukewarm on this name. It does seem to go SO WELL with Amelia, though, and gives me Lo & Lola - so cute.
Evelyn. This was a suggestion of yours from the first round which was - surprise, surprise - vetoed by my husband. Today he looked over at me and said, apropos of nothing, "I don't mind the name Evelyn." I wanted to kill him. Instead, I edited this draft. Nickname: Evi (eh-vee), possible middle name Mae. BUT, is it too close now that we've used Eve as Mia's middle name?
Anastasia. Yes! It's back! Vetoed immediately last time, hubby has finally seen the light and agreed (albeit reluctantly) to put it on the list. Nicknames Ana or Ani, check. Hopefully Fifty Shades of Grey has not ruined this name for us (don't get me wrong, I loved the book despite it being perhaps THE worst edited best seller of all time, but not an association I really want for my baby girl). Problems here are the repetition of both the first and last letter of her sister's name, which I really wanted to avoid, plus it's a bit of a mouthful unless we can come up with a tiny little middle name for it.
Quilla. This is Murray's top choice and was his great-aunt's name. At first I said NO WAY. Maybe if we had gone with one of our outliers like Piper or Winter or Sunday the first time around, I said. It doesn't go with Amelia AT ALL, I said. Then I thought... Is it really that far off? I've never heard it before, but if you introduced yourself as Quilla, I'd spell it just like that without hesitation. There are three things that put me off it: it's two syllables with our two-syllable last name, it has zero nickname options (Q? Illy?) - and it is MY TURN to choose the first name! (Included for the sake of honesty although it makes me sound selfish. It just seems so unfair given that I have been compiling name lists since primary school.) Middle name would likely be Isobel, a name we both love but can't use as a first. If we had just named our first Eve Anastasia like I WANTED to, I would use Quilla Isobel without hesitation - but does it fit now?
Names that have been vetoed by my husband: My first choice, Imogen (unfortunately, Murray feels the way about Imogen that I did about the phrase "and then he found his own release" by the middle of book two of the Fifty Shades trilogy - I really did love the books, though, I swear. Well, the first one, anyway), Eliza, Eleanor, Coraline, Madeleine, Electra, Adelaide, Louisa, Miranda, Clara, Elodie, Corisande, Clementine, Vivienne, Rosalind, Adeline, Juliet. We both seem to prefer vowel names. Are there any left?
Names that we have rejected for other reasons are Sophia, Charlotte, Violet, Scarlett, Georgia and variations.
Middle names are another problem as it turns out Eve and Ivy were the only already-short-but-completely-gorgeous names on our list, and Murray has gone from 'meh' to utter loathing upon careful consideration of Ivy. He has already rejected Wren, Snow, Swan, Jane, June, Io, Aria, Lyra, Lyric, True, Alice, Elise, Claire and Rue as well. I would prefer a bite-sized word name that's not too 'out there', but does it exist?
So what we are looking for here is a name like Amelia Eve, or Imogen Ivy, but NOT those names... Help!
Oh, I do love Eloise so, so much. I wonder if the name would freshen right up again when it was on the baby herself? I might try doing a Google image search for newborns, and then looking at their little faces and thinking "Eloise."
I don't think the first name Evelyn is too close to her sister's middle name Eve. I don't think I would even have noticed if you hadn't mentioned it---and if I DID notice, I'd think of how I'm the same way: certain sounds and letters appeal to me again and again. Perhaps we will find a middle name that has some small thing in common with the name Amelia, and that will make an even cuter sibling set! Amelia Eve and Evelyn Anne, for example, to have swapped initials; or Amelia Eve and Evelyn Leigh to have swapped sounds.
I think Kate would make a nice short middle name for Anastasia. Amelia Eve and Anastasia Kate.
It's hard to picture a sister pairing of Amelia and Quilla. I don't see any problem with a 2-2 syllable set-up, but I do see an issue with popularity: Amelia was the 30th most popular name for girls in the U.S. in 2011 (and Mia hit the top ten), while Quilla was completely unused. On the other hand, Quilla sounds similar to Ella and Isabella and other names currently in style. I'm not sure. Combined with the lack of nicknames and the your-turn issue, I think I'd use it as a middle name---especially since Q is one of the coolest middle initials ever.
Quilla and Imogen brought the name Gillian/Jillian to mind. Jillian S!mon; Amelia and Jillian. Maybe Jillian Kate or Jillian May or Jillian Jade.
Or maybe Eliana. Eliana S!mon; Amelia and Eliana.
Has he made ANY suggestions other than Quilla? I feel like I can't get a grip on his naming tastes, since all his contributions are almost exclusively vetoes.
I think the best choice overall is Evelyn. It's compatible with Amelia in style, popularity, and length; it sounds similar to Imogen; it starts with a vowel; it has cute nicknames; and your husband has not vetoed it. SOLD. Evelyn Quilla would be nice. Or I think Evelyn Mae accomplishes the possible goal of making her middle name similar to her sister's first name in the same way her first name is similar to her sister's middle name. Eve/Evelyn/Evi and Mae/Amelia/Mia.
