Well, here’s the thing about updates—sometimes I don’t have any for a while, and then I have some all at once… and I always value that some come in days after the baby’s born, and others are rounding the corner on becoming toddlers. That’s great, because I get to revisit old letters and wonder if I’d still say the same thing.
These updates in particular have pretty uniformly amazing names, but I’m also amazed at how choices repeat within them, sometimes years apart.
First there was this repeat caller – she’d asked about her first daughter’s name and was back, in The Chef's Recommended Pairing: (Who lets me come up with these titles?)
Hi Duana:
Thank you for doing your subsequent name post for me. We ended up following your advice and choosing Margot Eve for our second daughter. I really appreciate your insight.
best,
Jen
Great choices, great combination… what else do you need to know?
Not much, except maybe who exactly agrees with you… remember when we last caught up with A Name Nerd, Seeking Same?
Hi Duana!
Thanks again for the great article!
We decided to call our daughter Marguerite and introduce her as Margot!
We love the name and are very happy with it. Others also really love the name, which is nice to hear.
Thanks again!
Kat
Look, what can I say? I love the name, I’m fully out of the closet about it. I love that it showed up twice in the same…well… inbox pile.
The next update isn’t the same name, but it was a duplicate of its own, in a way…
Hi Duana,
Thank you so much for answering my Double Dip question: (The Teacher’s Curse returned for a 2nd round!). How lucky are we that you answered our query not once but twice! Thank you for your thoughtful response. By the time it was published we’d narrowed our list down considerably and I’d managed to steer my husband away from his truly pedestrian leanings while having to give up some of my old lady favourites.
Our little lady arrived last week fast and furious (5 minutes of pushing! So much better than the 3 hours her brother treated me to). Your first response gave me the guts to go with Duncan when I had been hesitant. Well, the same is true this time. I just needed to know that I wasn’t off base with Scotia.
So here we have - Scotia Linda Pearl. (Linda for my late mother and Pearl for my MIL whose name is Lynne so we went with her birth stone). We are really into Scotia and are also calling her ‘Scotty’. Her brother is calling her ‘Gosha!’ with great enthusiasm.
Thank you again! We are done having babies but I look forward to continuing to read your columns and enjoy them.
Scotia. Come on. I wrote back and told her mother she’s the very first one I know! But as if that wasn’t awesome enough, you guys continue to kill it with the girls’ names – check out this (very flattering!) update/reply to Where Am I In The Mix:
Duana, you wonderful woman.
I cannot thank you enough for responding to my letter (and I apologize for being so late with the thank you...). I was so, so excited to see my letter up on the site! You totally nailed it and I wish I could buy you a drink/send you flowers/cook you dinner. You totally nailed it.
I did as you said and flat out told my husband that Calla was off the list. We had a little moment and decided to give this name to the pet we will inevitably get when our kids grow up and move out of the house.
Another thing I wanted to touch on before I give you the real update - the letter you received re: how names ending in "a" are pronounced in Quebec vs France. This is a sad reality. Take for example Laetitia. In France it's beautiful, here it's Laetitiaugh. I don't know why the French-Canadian accent butchers that vowel but it is the truth. Definitely keep this in mind when advising your Franco readers!
Here we go:
We had a little girl 3 months ago, and named her Céleste Héliane. I was worried that my husband was waffling on Céleste and when I suggested Célestine he said that unequivocally "non, c'est Céleste." So, thank you for that! I've been calling her Célie too, I think you planted that seed as well. I never could convince my husband to go with Mahé for a middle name, so started suggesting Léna for my mom, Hélène. He came back with a name that jams together both our mothers' names - Hélène and Diane - to come up with Héliane. I never would have come up with that but I love it and obviously our moms love it, so that's a win too. For a boy, I still had my heart set on Arlo, maybe I can put that one in my pocket for the 0.001% chance that I can convince my husband to go for a third...
And one more, just to reinforce how completely you guys are killing it on the name front. Seriously, I’m very impressed. Third Time’s The Charm:
Hi Duana! Finally following up on your name nerd response to my letter. By the time I read the response, we had found out the little one is a boy, which is only sad because I loved your input on Blanche/Biddy and totally fell in love with it!
We ended up throwing some names around with Grant and Lucy (she's actually technically a Lucille) and they started calling the little guy Sebi. So, at birth, we had it narrowed down to Sebastian (Sebi) or Dolan (my brother's middle name that he "claimed" after I mentioned using it...so, we struck a deal that I'd only name him Dolan if he had red hair!) We couldn't come to a consensus based on the small amount of hair he had at birth (and jury is still out at 3 months old!) so...Sebi it is! I usually call him Seb or Seba, the kids call him Sebi, and his dad is still trying to make Bassy stick. He came into the world at 11 pounds, so seabass is also still a contender. Maybe he'll have a bit of an identity crisis, or maybe he'll just grow up being able to roll with it. Any iteration of the name, we all love him to pieces and he has done an excellent job of completing our family!
So. I want everyone to do what they’re going to do with their families, but I also wouldn’t be opposed to doing some census-taking on a LaineyGossip baby boom. I’m loving these second rounds, and finding out how things change as your families do, so by all means keep the babies and the updates and the questions coming, and I’ll earmark all your ‘oh hey we’re actually having a 3rd/4th/6th’ emails for 2019!
