Coming up with baby names is either fun, challenging, or both. Once you settle on a couple of finalists, you might just stress out over making a final choice if you’ve fallen in love with both names. Now there’s a new trend that will save you a lot of stress. Appropriately named “double-barrel names,” it’s a style that just might be the ticket for your tot. Giving your child a double-barrel name like Ella-Mae or John-Paul means he or she has a two-fer first name, so it’s different from a single name followed by a middle name. While double-barrel names are very popular in the UK, they aren’t that popular in the U.S. Since many states omit the hyphen and others lop off the second name and record just the first on documents, a cute name like Ella-Mae becomes either “Ella” or “Ellamae” in a database. Double-barrel names are mostly a girl trend, usually made from a two- or three-syllable starter, such as Eva, Emma, Ava or Sophia. For the second name, more than a third of the time it’s one of three one-syllable monikers: Rose, Mae or Grace. The top double-barrel girls names in the U.S. are Eva-Luna, Mary-Jane and Bella-Rose, while boys names include John-Paul, Juan-Carlos, and Noah-James. Baby names are very individual, but when using a double-barrel, keep in mind how it will sound, your family’s last name, and the way it will look in print. What about middle names? A double-barrel name might get a little long with a middle name, but it's all a family decision.
