Okay, this has been such a pleasurable run of updates! You know I have feelings about including siblings in the choosing of their new little family member’s names, but I support the writer of Why Is This So Hard for choosing to look for other options besides ‘Donna The Boss’:
Hi Duana,
I wrote you about finding a name that gave us the same feels as our favourite, Georgia, which we couldn’t use because my husband’s name is George. We went into our daughter’s birth with a short list of Ramona, Clara, and Louisa in no particular order of preference. 30+ hours later, and a brief detour towards the name Rosa, we decided on a name - Ramona! We did end up using Georgia as the middle name, as we have a family connection on both sides, so it made all the grandparents happy. Thanks for your help in allowing us to see Ramona as a great choice. The response from friends and family has been overwhelmingly positive. We will likely use Mona or Romy as a nickname. Our two year old hasn’t raised any objections (even though his top choices were Donna the Boss and Brick), and alternates between calling her “MY baby sister” and “Mones”.
Thanks again!
M
I’m pretty into “Mones” to be honest, I think that might really catch on!
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The pleasure of running a bunch of updates, of course, is that people come out of the woodwork going ‘Oh yeah, I did have a kid not too long ago!’ (and let me be clear, there is NO shade here – thank God for the arbitrary etiquette deadline of a year to write thank you notes to wedding guests, or my family and friends would still be waiting). I especially love it when I look up their letter and discover the titles of the articles… here’s the update to Schroedinger’s Name:
Of course your latest column made me realize I've never sent an update. Better late than never, right?
Your column gave me (my husband never doubts himself) the courage to go with the name we loved - Gerald Francis. And I absolutely could not imagine my sweet, stubborn and smart 21-month-old by any other name! I will admit - I had some initial regret after he was first born. I could tell by people's first reactions that they didn't love it. There was a lot of "Oh, is that a family name?" But as the flood of postpartum hormones finally faded and my son's sweet personality started to emerge, all of that regret just faded away. If the process has taught me anything, it's that our little ones grow into whatever name we give them and completely make it their own. "Big G," "G-Man," "Ger Bear" - Gerald is Gerald and I wouldn't want it any other way!
Thanks again for all that you do! I love your advice and continue to read your column. I'm already thinking about a name for a future brother or sister for Gerald... :)
Yessss. Yesss I love Gerald, and I really, really love people embracing names for a new generation that they haven’t necessarily heard before.
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Of course, some of you are ridiculously prompt with your updates, as if you don’t have children and jobs and lives, but I don’t discriminate. Here’s the update to What Comes After Perfect?
Duana!
Thank you so much for responding to my email with the best name advice. After reading all the name updates this week I realized I hadn’t filled you in on which way we ended up going for Magnus’ little brother...
After reading your advice (basically advising me to calm the f down), my husband and I took a week or so off from talking about the possible names. Then, out of nowhere one evening, my husband said “ya know, I think his name is Viggo.” And then I said I thought his middle name was Oberon. And that was that: Viggo Oberon. Your column gave us the confidence that we were on the right track and once we cleared our heads we were able to pull the trigger.
We had about a week of referring to the bump as Viggo before I went into labour two weeks early (almost had the child in the car because we got stuck in rush hour traffic) and unlike how he arrived, he’s the calmest, sweetest little Viggo there has ever been.
Like you said we would, we love his name just as much as Magnus’.
Thank you!!!
I mean, I’m not trying to say I told you so… but I’m thrilled! That’s the whole goal, and that’s why I love hearing from you no matter how far after the fact you think you’re updating me… to wit, here’s the update to Work Around The Sounds.
Hi Duana,
You answered my email almost exactly SIX years ago and I feel pretty confident I never gave you an update. Your latest round of updates has me feeling like you deserve to know how helpful your advice was to us in naming both of our kids!
You wisely talked about choosing a name with a hard sounding letter to offset our last name and although we didn’t use any of your suggestions, we did use that advice. Egan Thaddeus is in kindergarten(!!) this year and the name has been perfect. We get some misspellings, some “Ethan?,” and occasionally someone will look at us in a very confused way in public and then tell us that it’s their last name.
Fast forward a few years and I was pregnant again and we wanted to use the initials M.A. We already had a name picked out for a boy, but I was having a girl! After tossing around a lot of options, we ultimately decided to ignore any preconceived notions of gender and use our “boy name” for our baby. Mercer Adelaide joined us and we never looked back! After rereading your original advice, the softness of the name pushed us to see it in a more feminine way and ultimately led us to using it.
Thank you for your help all those years ago!
Look at that! Two names for the price of one, so what’s a little wait, even if your child is basically in high school now! (I kid, I kid) Also, as if we’ve been doing this for that many years… THANK YOU to everyone who sends me enough name dilemmas to keep this going!
We’re back to as-yet unnamed individuals (or, you know, pets) but keep these updates coming, I can’t tell you how happy they make not just me, but everyone else who writes in to tell me how happy they make them… so keep them coming!
