A brother for Alexander?

[Trinpy]

The only name we've agreed on so far is William. We both liked Henry but dh only likes it as a nn for Henrik , which I'm not keen on.

Names that have already been discussed and rejected:

Adam
Nathaniel
Nicholas
Lucas
Michael
James
Joshua
Benjamin
Jacob
Thomas
Matthew
Oscar
Oliver

We both like Samuel and Edward but friends already have ds's called this.

I'm sure we're overlooking some lovely normal-but-interesting boys names.

[OvO]

Robert?

That's what I named one of the siblings of my Alexander. . The other sibling is on your ruled out list!

[WooLulu]

I have an Alexander too and his brother is due (overdue) any day. Originally my favourite name for him was Nathaniel.

Not keen on Henry but I like Harry. I also like Marcus (but can't use it as it's an ex's name). We've also considered Lorcan and Rowan (which got a bit dissed on here, surprisingly). Another is Laurence - not common but not pretentious.

[myotherusernameisbetter]

Daniel
Elliot
Jonah
Edgar/Edmund
Miles
Austin
Dorian
Peter
Guy
Paul

[myotherusernameisbetter]

Jonathan
Owen
Benedict
Louis

[Sophronia]

Charles/Charlie
Dominic
Peter
Daniel
Reuben
Edmund
Frederick
George
Zachary
Theodore
Gregory
Isaac
Joseph
Christopher
Benedict
Jonathan
Laurence
Patrick

[WooLulu]

I second the suggestions Owen, Louis, Theo(dore) and Frederick (Freddie). I also like Wilfred as I like both Freddie and Wilf as nns.

[GothJoose]

Sebastian
Dominic
Otto

[SpanglesGalloway]

I can really imagine an Alexander having a brother called TRISTAN

Congratulations

[AuntieStella]

Peter, Phillip, Richard

[WiIdfire]

Tobias/Toby

[Trinpy]

Thanks for the suggestions so far. A few I like but none I love as much as ds1's name yet.

I do really like Harry but there are loads round here. And I loved Nathaniel but dh used to work with a Nathaniel who was a misogynist twat so he won't use it .

[TheDaerieQueene]

Henry, Alexander, Edward and William were all on our shortlist for DS. All great names, lovely classics with lots of nickname potential. I hadn't thought of Henry as being a nickname for Henrik though...is there a German/Scandinavian connection or does your DH just like the name?

Pretty much every name on our long list has already been mentioned by you or other posters so I only wanted to say that if you really love Samuel or Edward don't let the fact that your friends have one put you off. They're both very classic top 50 names - it might be different if it was something very unusual.

One of my friends had a baby a month before me and gave her DS our favourite name from our shortlist. We tried to pick another name but kept coming back to our favourite one, so I asked my friend if she'd mind our using it too. She didn't at all but was pleased we'd asked. Now we quite enjoy the fact our sons have the same name (they have different nicknames anyway).

[FattyNinjaOwl]

I have an Alex (not Alexander) and Nathan.
In my list for ds2 was Adam (now his middle name) Christopher and Max(I love Max, but don't like Maximilian)

[Minty82]

If the only name you agree on is William why don't you just use that? You only need one! And it's a similar vibe to Alexander and works well I think. Otherwise I second the suggestion that Samuel and Edward are both used regularly enough that you don't need to worry too much about replicating friends' choices - and they're both lovely names.
Fatty I'm curious - if your Alex is just Alex, why did it matter that you don't like Maximilian? Couldn't he just have been Max, which is in much more common use as a standalone name than Alex is? Love all your names by the way!

[FattyNinjaOwl]

I would have but DP wanted a longer name as he thought max and Alex sounded too similar.

[Bin85]

Theo
Sebastian
Stefan

[Minty82]

Ah, fair enough! Just interesting where people draw the line on full names versus abbreviated forms. My dad would have been called Archie but my grandparents couldn't stomach Archibald so chose something else, which I don't think is a consideration which comes up for many parents of Archies these days!

[2snugglets]

I thought Benjamin before looking at your list!

[myotherusernameisbetter]

Sylvester?

[WooLulu]

Edwin as an alternative to Edward? Same nns.

[mumsnit]

Yy to Laurence. I have a friend with two boys called Laurie and Alex which I think sound great together!

Also like Edwin as suggested above - bit different but not too unusual.

[Trinpy]

TheDaerieQueene my dh is Hungarian . But we live in the UK and I think Henrik is a bit too unusual here?

Minty I don't really like Will though. I think I could probably get past that if my dh loved the name but he only thinks its ok. Its probably the name we use if we can't think of anything better iyswim.

Good point about Edward and Samuel being so popular. And when I think about it I wouldn't mind if a friend used Alexander for her baby. I know Edward and his mum through toddler groups that we both go to and I can see that friendship fizzling out in a few years once her youngest starts school but...her other ds is called Alexander so possibly a bit weird?

[Minty82]

Oh, haha! I was all set to say if she's just a toddler group friend who you probably won't hold on to than absolutely go for it - but recreating her whole family might be a bit much...

[Trinpy]

Haha yeah I don't want her thinking I've formed some weird obsession with her family...

[Iliveinalighthousewiththeghost]

I was going to suggest Samuel.
Other suggestions
Andrew
Daniel
Christopher
Jonathan