101 Baby Names Including Herkimer Sullivan
Naming kids is hard.
It seems super fun, but then all of a sudden you’ve worked out 14 different horrible nicknames for every single name in the baby book that you and your partner agree on.
Or you realize that the girl name you like and the middle name you’ve had picked out since birth would make for a rather unfortunate L.L. Bean monogrammed backpack.
And then half of your friends are pregnant and you wake up in cold sweats worried that one of them decided to use “your” boy name. So it starts to get less super fun.
What’s In a Name?
But it all works out because ultimately you end up with a name you love and you couldn’t imagine your child being anyone different.
While other names made appearances at the top of our lists, we always came back to Jack and Norah. Just felt right. There are also some pretty strong family vibes. Jack is loosely named after his great grandfather and Norah is an anagram of my maiden name. She and I share a middle name with my mom. I adore their names and I wouldn’t change them for a second.
Unless Glen and I change our last name to Sullivan. Then one of them is getting renamed “Herkimer.”
You My Boy, Sully!
Like most stories from my childhood, I didn’t start questioning how much sense this idea did or did not make until way later in life. And to be honest, I still don’t think it’s the worst idea I’ve ever had.
My brother played baseball when we were kids and there was a boy on his team with the last name Sullivan. Everyone called him Sully. Which made a lot of sense because we lived in the Boston suburbs and if we didn’t have a family with the last name Sullivan in town whose kids were known as “Sully” it would have been real weird. I always enjoyed a good nickname and I thought this was the best nickname in the history of nicknames. I still do actually.
A Sully would stand up for kids on the playground. A Sully would know how to change his own oil. A Sully would give you a real firm handshake. A Sully is a stand up guy. And I would be so intimidated by a girl who could pull off the nickname Sully that I wouldn’t be able to talk to her but I would absolutely follow her on Instagram.
Herkimer (Middle Name Not Important) Sullivan
So I always thought that maybe someday I would marry someone with the last name Sullivan and one of my kids could be “Sully.” But friends would say, “Becca, Sully is a nickname. How would guarantee that he would actually be called Sully and not his real name? Also, you’re an odd person and our friendship is confusing.”
I had a perfectly reasonable response to this. I would give my child a horrible first name that he wouldn’t want to use and thereby kind of shame him into using the nickname that I chose. This is why 13 year old kids shouldn’t be parents. Well, that and many many other reasons.
My math teacher at the time used the name “Herkimer” a lot when trying to explain math concepts to us. I don’t know why. But apparently Herkimer is also a town in upstate New York. In any case, I thought that would be a good choice. No kid is going to want to be called Herkimer. So my kid would be Herkimer “Sully” Sullivan. It was going to be perfect. For me. Maybe not for him. We’d have to see.
Sully, Where Art Thou?
But alas, Glen’s last name is not Sullivan. And despite that I fell in love with him and agreed to marriage. Then he didn’t want to change his last name to this arbitrary name that was not in any way connected to either of us. So typical…
I guess I could have named one of my kids Sullivan as their first name. But it didn’t go with our also quite Irish last name. So Herkimer Sullivan never came to be. Most days I’m fine with it. Other times I think that maybe one day we will have a dog named Herkimer Sullivan. And then every once in a while I do a quick Google search to see if anyone took my idea.
As I’m sure you can imagine, Herkimer is not one of the current Top 100 Baby Names. It also wasn’t on the list in 2014/15/16 when I was in baby naming mode.
If the name you like for your unborn child is on the Top 100 list, you are in very good company and I hope our kids don’t end up like Bachelor contestants forever known by their first name last initial. If your preferred names are not on the list, you are super creative and I applaud you. If you have no intention of naming a child right now but still read these lists every time they are published because you find them fascinating, then maybe we should hang out.
A Rose By Any Other Name
I have at least two more name origin stories that will probably grace the pages of this blog at some point. And another one that already has. Those of you who know me in real life already know those stories by heart because they are my go tos after three glasses of Pinot. But for my new friends, come back for those stories, and maybe drink a couple glasses of wine first. I’m funnier when someone is drinking wine.
Read more stories from the archives:
I’ve Got the Music in Me: The Making of a Piano Prodigy
I love your description of the attributes a boy named Sully would possess.
When I worked in the newborn nursery there actually was a little boy with the first name Sullivan.
He was over 10lbs. at birth !
Much bigger then any other kid in the nursery.
And I thought “yeah this kid is definitely appropriately named “
I really wanted to buy him a little baby scally cap to wear home!
Hahaha baby Sully would definitely need a baby scally! I’m glad there is a little/big Sullivan running around somewhere. 🙂
Now that pregnant couples are keeping their baby names a secret until the deed is done I fear there will be many more goofs with respect to the atrocious nicknames/L.L. Bean backpack initials! It’s hard to think of every possible futuer insult yourself–especially when the brain is being sucked dry by a fetus! Or maybe I’m just especially attuned to this, having grown up with the last name Moon.
Haha!! I hadn’t thought of that. We kept our possible names a secret and I hope we didn’t drop the ball.
I didn’t tell anyone Babystar’s name while I was pregnant with a couple of exceptions. My HR lady at the time kept asking and I told her we had not decided. (We had decided YEARS earlier.) She kept making suggestions that were almost always ‘Harper.’ (I like the name Harper but it wasn’t my future baby’s name.) Finally I told her what we decided and she laughed. She thought I was joking. This was our HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER!
My freaking DOCTOR asked her name after she was born so I told her. She legit looked at me, tired and hormonal in the hospital bed, and said, ‘hmm I wonder if she is going to like THAT when she’s older.’
So I was right. Keep it to yourself.
Now you’re wondering, right? It’s Pythagorus Polygon. (No, it’s not, but so what if it was?)
That’s INSANE!!! Your Dr and HR??? I know her name and it’s perfect and lovely! As my mom would say, your Dr. and Linda in HR (I’m assuming her name was Linda) can go pound salt.
I have never known a Sully but he sounds like he would always be a great guy lol!
He cooks a perfect steak. And calls her Grandma.
Haha!! I love unique names! I had the perfect name for a boy: Liam Torrick (mixture of our father’s names) but I never had boys. Plus my friend stole the name Liam after I told her my pick. 😒
We had instead, a Sadie Rose, Mahaala Marie and a Dixie Wraenell. 🙂 It was a fair trade, I’d say. Although, I intend to use Liam Torrick in one of my books. I just need to find the perfect character first! 🙂
I love all your names!!! I look forward to reading the adventures of Liam Torrick. 😀
I named our son after Hercules! OK, actually I was very pregnant and ill lying on the couch and got sucked into Legend of Hercules (or something like that) because the lead actor was pretty hot and I figured I could stare at him for the next couple hours and watched all the way through the credits to see his name. It was Kellen. After some research and discovering it was usually pronounced “Keelan” and did not rhyme with Helen, I liked it even more. I was able to sell it to my husband because I found out it was Irish (we had been looking for an Irish name not already taken by family members) and meant “descendent of the bright headed ones.” (also slender/fair in Gaelic – Caolin)
That’s such a good name story! Kellen is a great name so you basically crushed the first mom test while he was still in utero. Well done!
Choosing a name would be super hard for me for sure!
It’s so hard, but the right one pops up eventually! 🙂
I always thought I would share the name to everyone when I became pregnant but now I’m seeing more and more people keeping it a secret and I actually love the idea of that! It keeps the suspense! Haha thank you for sharing! This was such a creative post and very attention grabbing!
Thanks so much for reading! We kept our real names a secret too. I like the surprise factor! 🙂
Your post is so funny! And all the comments written after. I’m not a mom yet but name giving would sure be hella fun!
Thanks so much for reading!! The reader comments always make the story even better. Hope you’ll stop by again!
This was such a great, fun, & rather interesting read lol! I really enjoyed it from start to finish!
Thanks so much for reading!!
Maybe he doesn’t love you all that much if he wouldn’t change his last name for you.
All kidding aside, pretty fun read.
I do wonder what the teacher was thinking using that “name”.
It definitely would be a creative of a first name.
Because that is how nicknames work – you pick your own. [Sarcasm]
Haha! I’ll pass that along to him. Maybe he’ll have a change of heart.
My son is called Xavier-Lee and my daughter is Faith Willow. I always knew I wanted to call my daughter Faith as it reminds me of a lady called Faith I knew growing up and she had the most beautiful soul in the world. Xavier-Lee was totally random but we like it!!
This was a really good read 😊
I love your names!
Both of my kids have Lord of the Rings inspired name. My son is named after Elijah Woods and my Norah gets her middle name from Cate Blanchett (just with a K, because I hate Cate with a C). Nerd alert 😉
DUDE! That’s awesome. Also if Norah hadn’t been Norah Lynn then Kate was my other top pick. Weird, yo.
Hahaha now this really is bizarre, because we considered Norah Lynn, too, after my stepmom. If you tell me you considered Jackson Elijah, I’ll lose my mind. That’s what his name was originally going to be before my grandmother passed, and then we used her maiden name as his middle name.
I really enjoyed reading your blog. Reminded me of how we struggled to pick our daughter’s name. 50% of the names reminded us of people we went to school, university or work with and didn’t like enough for to us their names. The rest would have sounded weird combined with the last name or didn’t have the right meaning!
It’s seriously so hard! I’m sure you picked something perfect for her though. 🙂 Thanks for reading!