same_sky | Name Poll Analysis and Commentary

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Name Poll Analysis and Commentary

Oh, internets, how you make me laugh. The name poll did not turn out as expected, either here or with my family. Let's start with a few random points.

Our last name is the Swedish equivalent (phonetically) of Yayer. Think Erik Gustaf. I should have mentioned that, but I didn't think of it. It starts with a G.

Yes, Evelyn is my name (Bertha) and Linnea (Lou) is M's name. I don't think that surprised any of you, at least not any of you with the Swedish connection.

Evalee was my grandmother's name. I like Evelyn regardless of that, but it makes it a little more special.

Linnea is really hard to pair with a middle name, in my opinion.

Grace is not a name that I love. I like it as a middle name, but the main reason it made it into the set of names is because it sounds quite nice with them. It was also a contender with Linnea until Sage. (We also considered Linnea Joy.)

Here's the thing with Sage. M wouldn't agree to it as a first name, but he is agreeable if we get to use his first name. I rather wanted to name her Sage, period. So, after it occurred to me that Linnea Sage sounds good together--and I think it does--then that became fairly final as a choice. M also likes Linnea Grace, but I am lukewarm on Grace at this point. I like Evelyn Sage better, too. Also, Evelyn Grace would have the initials EGG. That's kind of weird.

I would also like to think of a Swedish name to go with Evelyn, so it would be more fair. M doesn't really care much about this.

Maybe most mothers get primary naming responsibility, and that is great. M and I have some co-dependency issues (which we are not at all disturbed by) and we tend to want to agree on what brand of orange juice to buy.That's just how we are. It would actually feel pretty weird to me to do it the other way.

What do we really want to name Ducky but can't? Eowyn. But we're not going to.

We were absolutely sure that my family would go for Evelyn. Point one: it is after my grandmother. We all adored my grandmother. Point two: it is not foreign. My family is not big on the foreign. We gave them a vote and it came out 5:0 in favor of Linnea Sage. They all liked Sage, by the way.. at least after they thought about it for a minute.

We were fairly sure that the internet demographic would come down strongly in favor of Linnea. Right now, it's 16:9, Evelyn, though everyone here seems to have wanted to vote for Linnea Grace. My friends at work pretty much all wanted to vote for Linnea Grace, too. Of course, Linnea Grace isn't really one of the options for the above reason, but still. ;) Also, I'm not so sure that we ever said the first and last name out loud (duh.. we did the whole names, mostly) and as

jakubicka pointed out, Linnea Yayer has a very awkward double "ay" sound in the middle. To be honest, I was leaning towards going with Linnea until this afternoon when I thought about that. M is extremely unconvinced, and claims that saying it in Swedish makes it sound okay. I remain unconvinced. If you're of the Swedish-speaking persuasion, you can let me know if you agree with him, but at the same time, we kind of don't live in Sweden, so it's a flimsy argument at best.

Everyone who works with M? Pretty much hated both of them. This could be for one of ~~two~~ three reasons. 1) Not the target audience--they are not necessarily people who like classic names. 2) Work environment is much coarser than friends or family. Possibly no one likes the names but are too polite to say so, whereas M's co-workers don't mind a bit of rudeness over coffee and machine guns. 3) Bad taste. ;)

So anyway, we were completely wrong as to what others would like, but I have really enjoyed the commentary. Now watch us come up with something completely different when it comes time to make it official. :) We're having fun with it now, though. It felt like an insurmountable, unfun task when we first started. It feels better now that we're pretty sure that the child will actually get a name.

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i think that ducky will make a good pet/nickname. :)

i'm so excited for you :)

i missed the bit about Eowyn. one of my friends in washington gave her daughter the middle name of Galadriel.

(also, the geese/duck connection above was unintentional. it is just a new icon that i love.)

Thanks! We're pretty excited too! :) M thinks we'll call her Ducky anyway, but I'm thinking we'll have to break that habit before she ends up Ducky for life.

Evelyn sounds a little "old lady"-ish to me. It's not an unpleasant name, it just doesn't sound like a young person. I prefer Linnea - I like that a lot.

I really like classic names for the most part, but I agree. But I do know that once she is your baby and you call her that she will just become Evelyn and no one will think twice about it after they see her a couple of times.

I still like Linnea Grace better. Really, the middle name is such a silly custom b/c no one ever uses it (ok, so there is a small contingent that drops their first name in favor of the second name).

I would seriously suggest not using Sage as a middle name if you love it for a first name and might want to use it for a future baby. It's just not as satisfying as a middle name (see point above).

Linnea was actually in the running for our little girl till she turned into a he. Except it doesn't go with the middle name at all and our girl middle name is completely solid. There is NOTHING that goes with it, though.

I was not going to make any commentary at all (the reason we didn't tell anyone Erik's name is b/c I got tired of hearing people's name commentary.) but you seem to welcome it so I'm throwing in my two cents. Not that anyone's two cents means much!

Mike and I are like you and M--the naming was a joint process. I tried to play the mother card, but Mike actually wanted to be involved in the naming of his kid and claimed it had to be a 50/50 split. That means I'm never going to have my little Kai!

We didn't think the commentary would be fun, but everyone has been pretty nice. I think that's probably because we made an issue of not wanting to hear negativity before. Also, we avoided the whole discussion for seven months, so I don't have too long to worry about hearing it. ;) And it probably helps that we have an either/or sort of discussion going, not a "what do you think?" sort of discussion. That would probably drive me crazy after a while.

I do quite like Sage but M will never agree to use it as a first name, so I don't really have to worry about that. That's why we don't want to do the obvious Evelyn Linnea (or vice versa) thing. The middle name isn't that important, you're right.. which is why it's pretty easy for me to not care too much that everyone likes Linnea Grace better. But then again, like I said, I'm not really that big on Grace, the longer I've thought about it.

As for little old lady names.. that's the biggest concern we've had with the name, too. But if we go with it, we know that we (and everyone else) will get over it. I'm guessing that it will also help that it is climbing the charts pretty fast right now, as per the name voyager site. I'm guessing that in a few years, everyone will be used to hearing it for a little girl (much like happened with Grace) and it will lose that.

It's a little hard to picture Evelyn on a little girl.. that's been the biggest concern we've had with the name, too. But if we go with it, we know that we (and everyone else) will get over it soon enough, and it will just be her name. I'm guessing that it will also help that it is climbing the charts pretty fast right now, as per the name voyager site. I'm guessing that in a few years, everyone will be used to hearing it for a little girl (much like happened with Grace) and it will lose that little old lady feel. But, we might not use it anyway, who knows? :)

I can totally picture Evelyn on a little girl, particularly if she's called Evie or similar for short. Although I'm a huge fan of sticking with Ducky as a cute nickname :)

M is right, of course.

You're just saying that because of Swedish male solidarity. :p

:)

Actually, I really don't think it's awkward at all, English or Swedish. Also, I'm thinking that nobody in this country will know how to pronounce your last name, so there will be a big enough pause in between the first name and last name anyway. :-)

I didn't read the comments yet from the poll post, so I may be chiming in late, but have you considered combining the names? It struck me as I drove home today. Yes, I considered your naming issues all the way home. :)

How about Eva Linnea? Evelyn Naia? Evelynnea Sage? Um, that doesn't work as well. But.. just a thought. :)

Yeah, but we just kind of hate to use both of the names now, just in case we have another daughter at some point. ;) Unlikely though that might be.. I think if we do combine them, it will probably be with the first names together. Evelyn Linnea / Linnea Evelyn. If we're gonna use 'em both, might as well use 'em both!

What is so funny is that Linnea IS an old-fashioned name that is is becoming popular again but since most Americans have never head of it, they don't have the association of it being older. Look at some of the names that are coming back these days: Grace, Sofia or Sofie, Ruby, Lily, Charlotte, Amelia, etc.

I think Evelyn is fine if you'd call her Evie when she's a little girl, but I tell you people LOVE the name Linnea here in the US. I am constantly complimented on that name ("beautiful name for a beautiful girl"), I love that it's a pretty flower.

We went round and round with middle names and ended up going with Louise. I know it doesn't flow, I know it isn't the most gorgeous name, but I just couldn't bring myself to give her a dull or overly common middle name.

Since you won't be living in Sweden (or?) I think the pronunciation thing with the last name is a biggie. Either way, people will associate the name with your lovely little ducky and any preconceived notions will dissipate.

Nice icon. ;)

M is a bit sad about the Linnea thing. I've told him that we can name her that anyway if we want to (I mean, we can name her Ducky Butterball if we want to, since she's ours) but he's still grumbling about it at the moment. I didn't really think of it that way, and I suspect that he's been saying it as it would be in Swedish all this time. No plans on moving to Sweden so we'll have to give that one some serious thought.

I've noticed that most people say "ooh, that's pretty!" when they hear Linnea for the first time. Evelyn is a quickly rising name in popularity, so I'm guessing in a few years, people will be used to hearing it and stop thinking of it as a little old lady name. Also, I guess it really doesn't bother me that much what people think as long as M and I like whatever we end up picking.

Exactly, you will be the ones yelling that names in parks, signing her in for events, watching her cross a graduation stage hearing it called out.

You know, as picky as my husband was, when we found our names for both kids, it just clicked for both of us. Dare I say you guys might want to hit the drawing board again? :-S You should both really want the name.

I have to say that I'm partial to a lot of "L" names, Linnea and Lukas is just the tip of the iceberg. It's weird like that.

I have been suggesting that it's time to look through the lists again and see if there's something else that we both like. We have sort of had that clicky thing about both of these names, which is the problem. I'm hoping that we can either find something else by starting over, or we can remember just how much we like the ones we've already chosen regardless. M doesn't particularly think we'll find anything else, but I'll try convincing him sometime when he's not strung out from daylight savings time changes. ;) We're really not doing too badly by now, but you know how I have to overthink EVERYTHING--making a big decision like what people will call another human being for the next hundred years is kind of stressful. ;)

Yeah I know, I just took a shower and was trying to come up with something else. Liliana? It's just one of many small but important child related decisions. I think you've both come up with good names, surely something will gel soon.

Hehe, I've always liked the idea of going to the back door and shrieking out the name just to hear how it sounds, as though you're trying to call them in from the garden. LINNEEEAAA!!!! EVELYNNNNN!!!! Both work, really.

The ea yay thing doesn't bother me but I have to say as much as Linnea is one of my favourite names in the world since I came across it in sweden and through jackubicka, Evelyn is growing on me more and more.

Which brand of orange juice did you agree on? Perhaps that will offer some clues? :)

Yes, the older names are big now. The little girls in Anders' daycare are Lily, Emma, Annika (Go figure! And I don't think they are Swedish as she's Annika Gonzalez or something like that.), some of the pre-school girls are Grace, Hannah, Ava.

Everyone liked Ingrid over here when we told them what her name was but no one particularly associated it with 50 year-old Swedish aunties either.

I met an Annica in the park here in CA not long after we moved, I got excited thinking maybe they were Swedish. Nope, just heard the name somewhere and liked it. :-) That's what's so great about the US.

I agree about the way Linnea sounds with your last name, and I feel your pain ... when I was pregnant with Tage and we were struggling to come up with a girl name, we finally decided on one that we both loved: Kerstin. We even shook hands on the deal.

Then we said it with our last name.

Kerstin Tjerngren. Not so much. In Swedish they nearly rhyme, and all those bulky "sh"-type sounds ruin the effect. Éxit Kerstin.

I get your wanting to use Sage as a middle name, too. Petra's middle name is Isadora because I finally resigned myself to the fact that Olof would never agree to it as a first name.

(Oh, and Ally, I think Linnéa Louise flows quite nicely.)

Poor Kerstin Tjerngren. No, that doesn't work so well. You know, we were right all along that hearing what people think would just be confusing. It's been GOOD and I suppose I'm glad we have more things to think about, but it felt easier before. *laugh* I'm still sure she'll end up with a lovely name, but the process of getting there seems to be taking forever. Then again, we have a couple more months so (hopefully) there's no hurry anyway. :)

My friends didn't come up with a name for their (now 3 week old) until nearly a week after he was born. Good thing for him he was born at home, so it was ok. You guys will come up with something. If you want unique, take a closer look at Swedish names. You really have plenty of time, take heart! :-D

No, Kerstin Tjerngren doesn't really flow off the tongue. ;-p

Many of the names G liked for a boy had to go because of the first/last name combo sounding bad. That and I didn't like them.

We had no middle name for Ingrid when she was born. We had wanted something Welsh, since we met in the Welsh speaking part of Wales, but it was so hard to make one work. Then there was the whole, no one could pronounce them correctly in either of our families. We also contemplated a Welsh first name instead of Anders but ran into the same road blocks. So there we were, trying to fill in all the paperwork to be able to leave the hospital and we still didn't have the middle name line filled out on the birth certificate. We could have waited but we knew she would be Ingrid and I wanted it settled. I said to G, "Don't you have any old dead relatives whose names we can use?" Only then did he come to think of his Mormor's name, which was Hilma. Well, it doesn't get any older foreign lady sounding than that but we really liked the way it sounded together and that it had a family significance. IHB are inoffensive enough initials so there you have it. I like Evelyn Sage too. Then you have ESG which is nothing I can think of.

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Name Poll Analysis and Commentary

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