Searching for Baby Girl name - a short novel

arj14

[This part is a repost from my BMB]

At this point, DH and I have a list of names we can both agree on, but when I try to imagine having a little girl who we will call this name for the rest of her life...  I just can't.  The names I really love DH hates (says they are old lady names, asked if I went to the nursing home to pick them out).  FTR, my top name is Miriam.  We could call her Mira, Miri, I know a family with a Miriam who call her Mimmy, or Mimzy... maybe this is dorky, but before I got pregnant I just loved the idea of calling her the Whimsy Mimzy.  That nickname also fits in with the nicknames DH and I have for each other (again, dorky, but we call each other things like honzer, honzee, bunzer).

DH seems totally against giving her a more formal name and calling her by a nickname, which honestly I would prefer.  Like, Nora is fine, but Eleanor is not.  He also doesn't want to name her anything close to any of his relatives, which would be fine, except where our relatives have similar names.  My two grandmothers are Kathryn and Julia.  Again, this is a formal name vs nickname situation, because if those are the formal names I have no problem calling her a nickname.  BUT, DH has an Aunt Kathy (Kathleen, and we would not be calling her Kathy anyway), and an Aunt Julie (my nickname suggestions were Jules or Jude).
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Our current list:
Elena
Hannah
Kathryn (my maternal grandmother's name, DH reluctant due to his Aunt Kathy)
Amelia or Emilia
Molly
Megan
Nora (I prefer as nn for Eleanor)
Samantha
Moira (DH likes it, but he waffles because he worries it sounds too Irish)
Zoe
Cara
Amira (we're really whitebread Euro-mutt ancestry, not sure if this is appropriative or not)
Laila / Leila (see above)
Julia (my paternal grandmother's name, DH reluctant due to his Aunt Julie)
Fiona
Chloe
Vera
Mira (I prefer as nn for more formal name)

On the fence:
Lily
Ruby (DH is unsure, reminds him of character from Supernatural)
Mara

Rejected names so far (i.e. please don't bother suggesting these):
Adeline / Ada, Caroline, Madeleine, Evelyn, Eleanor, Edith, Miriam, Georgia / Georgiana, Isla (niece's name), Lila (rhymes with niece's name), Alice, Elise, Miranda, Annike, Annaliese,Lucia / Lucy, Aurora / Aurelia, Beatrice, Cora, Isabelle / Annabelle / Mirabelle (would rhyme with last name), Thalia, Cecilia, Carmen, Margot, Celine, June, Clara (personally prefer this to Cara), Claudia, Vivian, Josephine, Darcy, Deidre / Deirdre, Helena, Eloise, Esmé, Erin (DH has cousin named Aaron), Esther / Tess, Harriet, Louisa, Rosaline,



TL;DR:  I've got 99 problems and baby names are at least 15 of them.  There must be beautiful names out there that we're missing... right?

mb0112

Honestly with the amount of research and discussion you've already done, I don't think you'll get many new suggestions that you like. You're like me, where you've looked at a ton of names and have lots of reasons for eliminating different ones, so it's unlikely that someone else will suggest a great one that you've never thought of. May be best to focus on the list you have and narrow it down to a couple and then decide when she's born.

Is your husband against your top pick Miriam?  If so maybe from your list Hannah, Molly, Samantha, or Maura (try this spelling instead of Moira?) might be the best for you both to agree on.  

AndiPandi127

Maura is a great suggestion. I grew up with a Maura and I've never heard that name again (spelled that way) and I think it's lovely. 

tmk0325

What about Maren? It's similar sounding to Miriam but different. You could also use similar nicknames...

PinkLady2015

I think Nora and Mira work as stand alone names... What about Noelle, Mabel, Maren, Mila, Mia, Ava, Eve, Ivy, Ariel, Corinne, Thea, Nell, Scarlett.

I like Elena from your list too! Good luck!

lm45678

Love Mairen (sp?)

I agree you won't get a whole lot of ideas considering how many names you've gone through.

FWIW- I love Hannah, Laila, Amelia and Chloe from your list.

linzandjer11

Agree with previous posters that the name is probably on your list already. But then again, we found our baby's name a month before he was born. 

Side note, if your husband calls you by a nickname, chances are that he will fall into a nickname for your LO, even if he's my planning on it now. My husband has called our boy booger... Since he was about 3 minutes old. 

queenbone

I adore Fiona and Moira. I like Cara and Samantha.

Elena is okay, I'm biased though and think of it as kind of a NN name because I flirted with it being a potential NN for my DD Magdalena.

jasmuin

I also like a few old names and my hubby doesn't. My cousin said to tell him eventually she will be old

MaryBB77

Muireann it's Irish tho

KyleeWaller

Julia made it to the top five list of names that my husband and I were considering for our little girl. If your husband is hesitant due to his having an Aunt Julia, and you have a fondness for nicknames, I would suggest giving a middle name you could pair with the first name as to differentiate between your baby, and your husband's aunt (i.e. a little girl with the first name "Anna" and middle name "Kate" could be referred to as "Anna Kate" by family). 

I do have a suggestion that I don't think is on either list you posted: Helen/Helena.