Sister for Anneliese
We are currently working off a list of 6 girls names for a potential sister for Ann3lies3 P3arl (LN sounds like Skerman). We will not be making a final decision until baby arrives (only 10 weeks to go!), but I would like to run the list of potentials by you all, as your help thus far has been invaluable.
Refresher points to ponder, we pronounce Anneliese 3 syllables (no "A" on the end) and often (50-75% of the time) call her Anna. My DH is big on NNs, and I am not sure that he ever calls her Anneliese (Annabell, Annalisa, Anna, etc.). I always introduce her by her full name, but use Anna as a time-saver in casual conversation.
If baby is a boy, the name would likely be Alden, probable MN Albert or possibly Hendrik for family reasons.
We would like a family MN, and the best option is naming in honour of my maternal grandmother, Mildred Rosalia (who is not fond of her first name, and particularly opposed to Millie, at least when applied to her). Pearl was after DH's maternal grandmother Pearl, also honouring his paternal GM Grietje (SP?), which is a Margaret name, meaning pearl (although she went by Grace her entire life), so his side is pretty much covered, although Grace may still be an option. My paternal GM is not really an option due to a complicated relationship with my mother. My other favourite option would be Sarah (my MN after my maternal great-GM), but it is not a good fit with any of our FN choices. Rosalia looks like our best option, although it does require some modification, as most of our FNs end in -ia. I have not checked with my grandmother to see how she would feel about this modification, as she has a complicated relationship with her SIL Rose, whose full name I am struggling to remember (just hoping it isn't Rosalie, which would give me the wrong namesake). My mother is Sandra, DH mother is Nancy, but I would struggle to use either of these as choosing one over the other would imply a preference that does not exist.
Possible Girl Names: (in approximate order of my preference)
Ottilia Rosalie S-man
Sylvia Rosalie S-man (Sylvie - we both like this NN)
Sonja Rosalia S-man
Lydia Rosalie S-man (Lydie?, although I suspect I would only use the full name)
Leona Rosalia S-man (Lena?, again, I suspect I would only use the full name)
Lenora Rosalia S-man (Nora - we both like this NN)
Thank you!
Tue, 07/17/2012 - 4:27pm
Replies
Would Ottilia have a nn? I don't personally care for Tillie, but I could get on board with Ottilia, nn Lia.
I think all of the combinations work, and go with your first daughter's name. My personal favorites are Sylvia, Lydia, and Lenora. Could I also interest you in Linnea?
Interestingly, Linnea was my #2 name for Anneliese, I just don't feel as fond of it anymore. Actually, by the end of my first pregnancy it had lost its spark. I am really not sure why though. Now it sort of feels like a good ex-boyfriend (fond memories, still find it attractive, but no interest in going back there).
I couldn't really come up with a NN that I liked for Ottilia, which is why I left it as is, although I am sure that multiple NNs would surface over time. I don't mind Tillie, but I fear using it and having hubby latch on, only for me to decide that I don't like it! Lia doesn't really feel totally natural since this part of the name is sort of smushed in my casual pronunciation (I suspect I may introduce her with 4 syllables but default to 3 in conversation), but I think I might be more on board with that than Tillie. The lack of NNs is really the biggest downfall to this name (although I myself am not one to jump to NNs, as almost no one in my life has gone by a NN).
Lenora Rosalia is my fav, but i like the sound of Lenora Rosalie or Lenore Rosalie best for flow
I think that I agree that Rosalie works better in this case. I would like to keep Rosalia wherever possible, but maybe the modification won't bother Gran as much as I think it will.
As far as Lenore, Nora is really my favourite thing about this name, so I think I have to keep the Lenora.
First, I would definitely check with grandma before proceeding further.
I have a complicated family myself, so I am probably oversensitive to these issues, but that's my two cents. My fallback position is always to honor the mil, fwiw. :)
Moving on....
Lydia is a name I adore, and it seems the most natural fit to Annaliese for me. I also like Leona and Lenora, just not as well, but I think Nora would be Perfect with Annaliese/Anna/etc... Lydia does seem to be on the upswing, so that's something to keep in mind. Lena seems a bit too close to Annaliese for me.
Sonja is not a personal favorite of mine, but I think it's quite inspired with Annaliese. I also like that it's less common and still easily recongized and said.
Ottilia is interesting. It wouldn't be on my own list, but it's quite striking. I think the wrinkle for me is that I just don't see it with a sister called Annaliese, which is lovely in a much less, "Exotic," way, for lack of a better term.
Sylvia is oft discussed on here, and I'd love to actually learn of one! While not a fan of Sylvia, I adore Sylvie, and I think Annaliese and Sylvie together is a darling combo. It would be a close second between it and Lydia for me.
Soooo
Lydia (I'd actually prefer it with no nn)
Sylvia/Sylvie
Lenora/Nora
Sonja
Leona/Lena (Ona?)
Ottilia
I don't know that I've helped one bit, but that's my two cents. Thanks for letting us play along.
Thanks for the input! I too prefer Lydia to Lydie, I just suspect that it may come into use with other family members, and it isn't something that I would try to curtail. Ona is a cute NN idea for Leona (I like it on it's own better than Lena), but I don't think Anna & Ona is any better than Anna & Lena, and if I were to call both names out, they would either be both full names or both NNs. Now that you mentioned it though, "ANNA... LENA" does sound a bit like a long, drawn out Anneliese, but with the added "A" sound at the end. The stress is quite different than how I would call "ANNELIESE" though, so I suspect they would still both know to come running. It is a point to ponder though, thanks!
Lovely list!
I adore Ottilia (as I mentioned to you in a previous thread on this name) so I would love to see it used. It doesn't seem like an obvious match for Anneliese but I really like them together.
Sylvia is a name I like and goes very well with Anneliese but I prefer Sylvie. Using that as a nickname gives it bonus points for me. Sylvie and Anna work well together. I like the aliteration with your last name.
Sonja is a great match to Anneliese but not a name I overly care for. It just feels dated to me. I do prefer the Sonja spelling to either Sonya or Sonia though.
Lydia is again a fantastic match to Anneliese. I think the nickname of Lydie is cute but I agree it doesn't need a nickname, I find Lydia and Sylvia stylistically very similar. I think I slightly prefer Sylvia in your case because the aliteration with your surname is nice and Sylvie works so well.
Leona I like but it doesn't have the same spark for me as most of your other choices.
Leonora is slightly better and I adore the nickname Nora. Nora and Anna sound great together.
I think my preferences would be:
Ottilia followed Sylvia, Lydia and Leonora. I think all of those are fantastic. Sonja and Leona are great but not in the league of the other 4, for me.
Thanks Chimu, I suspected Ottilia might be your top pick. I think that you have matched the three that are probably tops in my mind.
FYI, my reason for choosing Sylvia over Sylvie as a legal name is that Sylvie is distincly French, while Sylvia keeps the Finnish & German connections, and somehow the Finnish diminutive Sylvi just doesn't feel right to me as a full name. I think she would be in for a lot of spelling issues that could easily be avoided. It also appeals to me that she has two options and can choose her own preference as she grows.
Yep, I think those reasons are sound for picking Sylvia over Sylvie, even if you end up calling her Sylvie most of the time! I do like Sylvia and think it matches well with Anneliese. It also has the advantage that the nicknams sound more different. Anna and Lena are getting a bit close if you were to go with Leona. For the record my sister (who isn't named Leona) also has a nickname of Ona. It is a name that lots of little kids say easily (she works in childcare) so that is how it came about.
I have to say I love Sylvia, partly because it is the name of my one year old niece (Sylvia Loraine), and it really is a beautiful name. We use the nickname Sylvie quite a lot as well as Silly which was an accidental but very apt nickname! I also think it goes well with Anneliese. My second fave would be Lydia. I like the look of Ottilia, but to me it sounds a bit stilted when you say it aloud. Have you considered Honora instead of Lenora? I really like that one. Also, two personal faves, Seraphine and Verena. Good luck with decision making!
I like Lydia and Sylvia best. The only Sylvia I know is a teen so I never think of it as an "old lady" name like others do, and I prefer it to Sylvie. My third choice would be Lenora.
I don't think any of these names need nicknames, but I am fairly anti-nickname unless they are ones that develop naturally over time.
Congratulations! You have an interesting name list; I like your first daughter's name and your instinct to find a name that similarly honors family and heritage for your second daughter.
I think Ottilia is great, but like a previous poster I'm a little on the fence about it with Anneliese, for reasons I can't quite articulate and which therefore shouldn't weigh too heavily in your decision. :-) Lydia is much more common than your other choices, if that matters to you, and while Leona is not common exactly it fits current naming trends more so than most of your other choices. I think Ona is a much more natural nickname for Leona (if you decide it needs one) than Lena; with the latter, it seems odd to me to lose a syllable out of the middle of an already short name, and Lena is used as nickname for other names like Helena and Magdalena, which seems unnecessarily confusing. Lena and Ona both sound a bit close to Anna though, so I'd probably stick with the full Leona or strike this name from the list. In general I can't help noticing that a lot of the same sounds come up in your favorite names - L, S, N, R, as well as a lot of vowel endings - so the "playground holler" test will be an important one for you in selecting a name that's distinct enough from Anneliese's. Sylvia, Lenora and Ottilia would be my top picks, I think, with Sonja and Lydia in the next tier.
Any interest in Eleanor as an alternate route to the Nora nickname? I guess the -r ending would run into the Rosalia middle name, which may or may not bug you. I like the suggestion of Honora too.
I don't know how strictly you feel your namesake middle has to match the original source, but I'll also toss out Rosalind (and even Rosamund) as options that would flow nicely. The Ros- part of these names is actually derived from a root for horse, rather than a root for rose, so that may nix them for you though it's still a nice association. Alternately, how about Rosemary or Rosemarie? Either would make a nice echo of big sister's compound first name.
Lastly, though I guess it wasn't intentional, if you want to think of it that way you have a namesake for Nancy already in Anneliese: Nancy was originally a pet form of Ann. Some middle name options to honor your mother are Alexandra, Cassandra and Melisande.
Hope that helps!
Thanks everyone for your input! I think that I am leaning towards Sylvia again now, so we will just have too see how DH feels about it when baby arrives.
I have had Eleanor on & off my list, and I can't really put a finger on why I keep taking it off. It will probably go back on the list today, but who knows if it will stay.
Honora is pretty too, I will let it ruminate a little more and perhaps it will be joining the contenders.
"I can't help noticing that a lot of the same sounds come up in your favorite names" - Tell me about it. I can't even count how many names I've nixed because they either sound exactly like Anneliese, or because they sound exactly like another name that I like a little better. Unfortunately, I will never be able to use a name like Eloise. This was quite a struggle in the preliminary name searching. I am glad that I have found a few that I like that are somewhat distinct.
On another note, my guilty pleasure name that I have been loving lately but don't know if I could actually use is... Gloria. It is just so cheerful, it makes me think of sunshine and flowers. I think that for the -ia names though, Sylvia is still my favourite, I wonder how DH is feeling about it these days. I have made a resolution to try NOT to mention names to him until after the baby arrives, since I know that he just can't get into that mode until then. Thanks for being my outlet!
What about just Glory?
Glory works with Annaliese for me.
Sylvia is a great name, one I'm sure would get a lot of smiles as you introduce your baby. (I also really liked Lydia.)
Gloria is a name that makes want to burst into song. G-L-O-R-I-A. If i'm not the only one, it would get annoying by the time she reached her 20s. The nn Glory might help that tendency.
Yes, I can see that getting old!
Does that song get played often enough now that people under a certain age would know it?
I'm not even sure that *I* know what song that is. When I hear Gloria, I often want to follow it with in excelsis deo... (I must have picked it up from some Christmas-themed TV show episode or movie along the way.)
I think of the Vivaldi Gloria, then the "Gloria" chorus of Angels We Have Heard on High, both of which are followed emphatically by in excelsis Deo. I have sung in a lot of choirs over the years... and now I have the former stuck in my head (Gloria! Gloria! <violins> Gloria! Gloria!)
Gloria definitely has "the Susannah problem" for me, but the song is not one that Americans will know. (It's a Christmas song from the church hymnal; the first line is Glória szálljon a mennybe fel: "Glory fly up to the heavens", and yeah, it sounds exactly like that in Hungarian too: you're directing Gloria to take a flight.)
I have no idea what the song originally mentioned is, but I can hum most of the classical references.
Aha! A little YouTubing has revealed that it is Angels We Have Heard on High that comes into my head from Gloria.
Regarding Susannah: Knowing myself and how easily songs get put into my head - and how long they stick around - I would have thought that Susannah would be problematic for me. However, I had a friend with that name and never once did I think of the song.
On the other hand, Dominique, when said with a certain cadence, sticks the Singing Nun into my head. (That one I know I picked up from the movie Mermaids!)
(EDIT: An hour later and I'm still singing the single line from Angels We Have Heard on High that I know... Glooo, o-o-o-o-o, o-o-o-o-o, o-o-o-o-o-ria...)
I assumed that ThursdayNext meant the Laura Branigan song "Gloria". If you attended high school in the 80s (guilty as charged!), you'd know it. Today's kids won't know it.
I like Gloria.
Thursdaynext was talking about the 1960s song where the name is spelled out. I forget who sang it.
I like Gloria too and don't think the song (either of them) will be an issue.
Yeah, I was thinking of the Van Morrison song, but it seems like there's a few more Gloria songs.
I too suffer from the "in excelsis deo" phenomenon, which is probably the reason I can't imagine actually using it. The song where it is spelled out is Van Morrison/Them, which I have heard, but had completely forgotten until I you-tubed it. Pretty catchy, which is where I can see her point that it would get annoying, even if it was only the odd member of the parental/grandparent generations who made the connection.
Or she may enjoy haivng songs with her name in them!
You never know.
Gloria also heavily reminds me of the laura Brannagan song. I don't think that would be an issue for a kid growing up today.
I do love both Susannah and Clementine despite the song associations, so I'm probably not the best person to comment on this sort of thing.
For the record I much prefer Sylvia to Gloria, but I'm sure I'd change my mind if I met a young Gloria.
raphaella!
I've never been able to get past the Sylvia Plath connotation, which is sad because I think Sylvia is a gorgeous name. But being tied in many people's minds to one of the most famous suicides in history is just not for me.
i just read some newer posts and i really like Gloria as well. the suggestion of Glorie or Glory, seems nice, too, and may even have a more modern feel to it possibly.
Anneliese Pearl and Glory Rosalia
Anneliese Pearl and Gloria Rosalie
Anneliese Pearl and Sylvia Rosalie