Hi Duana,
My husband and I are expecting our second child in December, and are struggling mightily with his name. Our daughter, Quinn, will be three next month and although we struggled with names right up until her birth (and for a few days after), I love her name now. This time, we're expecting a boy and are having a very hard time finding names we both like.
Well. I got this letter yesterday, and had such a reaction that I realized I had to address it immediately. In fact, it made me throw out all of my conventions for these articles. Answering letters in order of due date, first of all – I’ll freely admit this letter jumped the queue based solely on how I felt when reading it – and actually waiting until the end of the letter to start waving my opinions around.
You may read the next few sentences and say ‘for that name you threw out all the rules’? But, as I’m sure will become clear, it’s not because of the name itself, but everything that surrounds it (plus, I love breaking rules). Herewith:
几个家庭成员和朋友对“当然会被任命约翰”的效果发表了评论，主要是我已故的岳父。这很方便，因为我们有很多约翰（我们的四个祖父，还有几个叔叔和堂兄），每个人都会感到荣幸。我对这个想法并不疯狂，部分原因是我的名字没有选择。另外，我的姐夫是第四名约翰·亨利·Z（John Henry Z），尽管他和他的妻子决定不生孩子，但我仍然对此感到奇怪。我的丈夫认为我们可以称他为第五名约翰·亨利·Z（John Henry Z），但我认为这是运作的方式。
Oh nooooo. Absolutely not. This must not stand.
我只是深吸了一口气。
Earlier today, a friend of mine told me a story over text, as we do. One of the details was clearly NBD for her and she breezed right past it, but I was spluttering and choking all, “They did WHAT?”
康复后，我想知道他们在治疗学校中教导您将自己的问题转移到寻求建议的人中。我现在可能正在这样做，但是为了成为我的利益：
This violates every single boundary I have. It’s easily the place where I differ most from other people who give name advice. I don’t prefer family names as a rule, I don’t like them being passed down without thinking, and I absolutely white-hot HATE people assuming you’ll choose a given name because that’s just what’s been done before.
他们还要对“约翰”做什么？他的气质？他的事业？显然，这是一个双曲线的问题，但我不明白我们如何达到传递名称的地步，而这个名字通常被称为“荣誉名称”。
当某人“以”其他人的“命名”时，人们普遍认为这是因为其他人（名字的第一个承载者）以某种方式受到赞赏。通过给婴儿的名字，可以暗示，首先应该模仿或以其他方式来点头，在家庭情况以及“命名为“ After-a-celebrity’Scenarios”）中都是如此。然后，一切都变成了比较 - “大沙质”和“小桑迪”如何相互类似？存在什么“桑迪”特征？
This goes double if everyone is thinking of your late father-in-law. When a loss is that close, everyone walks gingerly around any references to the person. On the one hand, I suspect this is where the naming conventions began – it’s a way to say ‘Martin’ or ‘Abelard’ again without everyone wincing. But you think a kid isn’t going to pick up on that? Against all our better judgment, human beings still group similar things together, or create hypotheses about similarities between, you know, similar things. So how is a baby supposed to compete with that, and become his own person?
So. You have to perfect the look of ever-so-slightly amused surprise when someone says something like this, getting the idea firmly out of their heads, so that there are no surprises, or passive-aggressive recriminations when he’s born. I.e.:
他们：“哇，现在已经接近了！所以，当然，你叫他约翰。”
你：“Oh!” (a pause, in which your face implies ‘wow, why would you think that?’) I think we’ll choose something different – so many Johns in both families, you know?”
This should work for the more casual enquirer, but neither of us are dummies – families and their pushiness and their opinions are at least half of why this column exists. If you don’t think they’ll be put off by your first answer and will keep needling you, try this:
他们：“哇，现在已经接近了！所以，当然，你叫他约翰。”
你：“Oh!” (a pause, in which your face implies ‘wow, why would you think that?’) You know, we thought about it… but then we realized how unfair that would be to Quinn.”
他们：（古怪的外观）
你：“想象一下，告诉一个孩子，‘您的名字属于您的家人的几代人，我们知道我们必须将其传递给它，然后告诉另一个孩子，‘我不知道，我们只是喜欢它’？我只是不能对她这样做。”
甜蜜地微笑，如果可能的话，请大一点地咬一口或方便的东西。
You’re welcome. So – on to what the actual name could be:
就非约翰的名字而言，我认为迄今为止我们共同名单上唯一的名字是格里芬和艾米特。我喜欢Emmett，但有点推迟，因为其他“ EM”名称（尤其是针对女孩）如此受欢迎，即使Emmett本身并不是很常见，也不会感到异常。我以为我在艾布拉姆/布拉姆中找到了“一个”，但我丈夫的回答是“那不是名字”，所以这令人沮丧。我喜欢这个昵称是不寻常的，但易于拼写（并在阅读时发音）和Abram用我们的姓氏（像Maybelle之类的）进行了补充。我知道有许多与我们的姓氏相似的类似的声音（Aiden，Braden，Mason等），但是这些名字与我没有共鸣，这在很大程度上是由于它们的受欢迎程度/潮流所致。如果它是永恒的，我就不会完全反对流行的名字 - 我不希望您能够根据他的名字猜测我孩子的出生年份（例如我的名字，林赛）。
正确的。因此，艾米特（Emmett）很受欢迎 - 我知道大约5岁的八岁以下，我对这些事物的区域性重要性的惯常警告。例如，去年您的国家可能只有10,000名埃米特（Emmetts），但是如果其中200个在您的学区，那就不会感到“罕见”。
至于艾布拉姆（Abram）和布拉姆（Bram），我不同意这不是一个名字，但我确实认为它将与“亚伯拉罕”（Abraham）混为一谈，这可能是对它的罢工。格雷厄姆（Graham）的声音类似，这太糟糕了，但也许您想要Grant甚至Grantham之类的东西？我在作弊，看着下一段和那里的姓氏，但是……像哈蒙德这样的东西呢？
Before we go on, I’d like to point out that you haven’t given a single negative characteristic for the name Griffin…
我喜欢的其他名字，但我的丈夫不在乎：贝克特，安德森，托马斯，柯南，格雷厄姆（我认为他只是因为这是他的老板的名字而拒绝了）。我喜欢自己（安德斯，布鲁克斯）以“ S”结尾的一些结尾，但不喜欢他们如何遇到“ Z”姓氏。
Other names that come to mind based on what you have above, and in keeping with Quinn? I’m thinking of Hayden, which somehow seems different than the Aiden-Braydens you reference above, or Baldwin, or Dexter. Also, I hear you on the s-endings that, for lack of a better description, make the name plural – AnderS, BrookS – but what about something with a harder S at the end? Darius or Amos or Alphonse?
我们俩也喜欢罗里（Rory），但很难发音，所以这可能已经消失了。我的丈夫还提出了巴雷特（尽管我喜欢别人喜欢的其他人，但我却莫名其妙地鄙视），以及我感到不冷不热的亚当和西奥。
My preferred solution to the "John" issue is to select a new first name and give him both John and Henry for middle names, but I feel pressured to choose the perfect first name to justify defying the John expectation. Please help!
So I think the ‘John Henry’ middle names are a perfectly acceptable solution to your problem, and further think you have a lot of really good choices above – but the other thing people in your situation do, to varying degrees of their own satisfaction, is choose an international variant of the name, so it’s the same but also different; one mother I know couldn’t bear the family tradition of George, so her son is Jorge, pronounced ‘Hor-hey’, and everyone’s happy.
因此，您可以选择凯尔特人的一种变体 - 埃文或伊恩，或更罕见的（以及我的雄鹿，更迷人的）ewan，所有这些都可以与奎因相处得很好。或者是伊万（Ivan），它应该比它更受欢迎（或者浸入威尔士语，Ifan）。
J-name变异,约翰/ nes和有限公司可能年代uit you or might feel like you’re skirting so close you might as well just go for John in the first place, but there’s also Shawn (and all its spelling variants) and Yannick and the incredible Ohannes, which I love and want to use on someone.
通常，我不会像以往一样倡导成为一个和平缔造者，但是有一个名字 - 嗯，这不是每个人，但是如果您喜欢它，它可以解决您的所有问题：圣约翰。那样写的，但当然是“罪恶”，当我终于看到祖母的娘家姓写下来时，我的地狱困惑了。这是一个远景，但如果有效……
Remind me, what was wrong with Griffin again?
愤怒地反对希望您儿子的名字成为已定局的机器，请 - 让我们知道！
