@EmilyE13 I've got the same problem! Loved the names Phoebe and Lola, husband said he would never use them for kids so to the cats they went. Now, of course, he said "Phoebe would have been a great name." 🙃
We told our kids that if anyone asks what we are naming the baby to say "If it's a girl Phoebe. If it's a boy Phoebo." I really like the name Phoebe. It's so cute. I just cannot with boys names. My daughter went through a baby name book (it's how she names her spiders.) And the only boy name she liked was Julian, which is my best friend's son's name. I do love the name Rory for a boy but I have a Lorelai and that just seems a little too much.
I can’t help but think that boy names are extra hard bc us girl mamas have “taken” some of them from the boys 🙊🙊 I am totally guilty. Both of my girls have names whose origins are male dominant.
Boy names that haven’t been tainted by teaching for me. I wanted to add a few for some of you:
Caleb Benjamin Michael (please, don’t spell it Mychal) Logan Mason Jed Gabriel Dylan Wesley David Travis Grant Robert Andrew
Ones I’m personally going to avoid are basically any containing X Y Z. I’ve had multiple Kyles and Tylers in my classes and it’s always trouble even if they’re nice. The end of the alphabet seems to be The Dark Zone in general, with the exception of Wesley included above.
We had a girl name all picked out but still working on the shortlist if boy names. It's hard because I definitely know SOMEONE with any given name and it feels hard to disassociate the name from the person I've known.
Our criteria so far are:
-something that can be shortened or lends itself to a nickname -something that isn't in the top 20 most popular boy names
-no names of living family members (Jewish tradition) -nothing insanely common like Michael, John, Dan, etc
I really like Xavier, but I worry no one will know how to pronounce it...
I would pronounce it as “ex-zavier” if that helps you? Though I do know someone who named their child just “zavier” but spelt the same as Xavier.
Here’s what my husband and I did for our 2nd child. We started using it as OUR name. So like if you’re at a coffee shop or ordering food— somewhere where you give a name but it doesn’t truly matter what it is bc it’s a short term thing. We noted how quickly the person took to it (was it too weird or understood?) did they spell it correctly? Etc.
Let me tell you….best advice ever. Bc after a few months I grew to cringe at the name I thought I loved so much for her. It just didn’t sit well saying it out loud to people.
Highly recommend using this in places that don’t matter!
I've heard it pronounced both ways. I personally would pronounce it like "zavier" and not x-avier. My second daughter's name is constantly mispronounced and either my oldest daughter corrects them and (kind of rudely) suggests they read some Greek Mythology or my second corrects them and then sighs "it's not that hard." My name is constantly mispronounced because of spelling. My first daughter's name is mispronounced 7/10 times. Her name is not complicated. People are going to mispronounce everything short of the top 20 most popular names. My husband is Keegan...seems simple enough... Nope. Don't get me started on our last name. Plus with all the people adding extra "y, x,z" into names for show you'll be fine.
@silverholly8 I thought we gave DD a name that everyone would be able to pronounce easily but apparently the younger sister in Frozen’s pronunciation of the name is more popular than I realized 🙂. I think it’s worse if you pick a name that people don’t even know how to attempt to pronounce, but if people pronounce it wrong, it’s easy enough to say “it’s X-avier” or whatever pronunciation you are going for and it’s not a big deal.
And agreed, the mispronunciations are going to happen no matter what to some degree...I started going by my nickname years ago because I was tired of correcting everyone. Make sure you like the nickname My mom hates my nickname and always wanted me to be called my full name, but children grow up and do what they want! lol
We came up with nicknames for our girls before they were born. We hated them after meeting them and never used them. We naturally developed different nicknames. My second daughter came up with my son's nickname even though we planned on something shorter. Never happened. The nickname may not work for your kid anyway so I wouldn't pick a name based on it's nickname ability. And I definitely wouldn't base a name choice over the ability of the general public being able to pronounce it...
@silverholly8 DS just made his first real friend the other day and his name is Xavier! Such a great name that is still a bit classic, but different. My instinct is to pronounce it "ex-zay-vee-er" like in XMen. People misspell or mispronounce my name sometimes and I'm fine with it. If it's a one-off encounter I don't bother correcting, if we'll be in touch regularly I'll correct them. I'll also correct people on the phone at work because they often mistake it for Jessica and there's already a Jessica on my team. I don't want her to be approached about a client conversation she never had 😂
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/ The social security administration just released the updated baby names list with 2021 data if anyone is interested. Admittedly I'm annoyed that my second daughter's name has grown so much in the last three years. It wasn't even a top 1000 6 years ago.
@krysnicole1022 You're a trendsetter! My son is on that list too and I'm not surprised. I knew zero Theodores when we'd made our list for him and I now know of several born his same year. List also confirms that as much as I adore Charlotte it's still extremely popular, ever since William and Kate had their daughter.
I love the name Theodore. It's such a strong name. It's refreshing that it's making a comeback. Charlotte is also a beautiful name. I feel like I knew maybe two growing up and now I know so many. They are going to be updating the list by state soon so I'm looking forward to that. See how Illinois is trending. My daughter is named Persephone and it's still not particularly popular but it cracked the top 1000 in 2019 and has risen each year although it really just boils down to a couple hundred babies named Persephone each year. Maybe more people will be able to pronounce it! Apparently there was some show with a Persephone and then there was a video game called Hades last year that was considered one of the greatest games of the year and Persephone was heavily featured. I assume that's the reason for it.
I know so many Theodore and Eleanors now. It's because those names were popular when our grandparents were named after rhe Roosevelts! And it's coming back in style.
@krysnicole1022 Yes I knew one Charlotte growing up and loved the name then too. Persephone is such a beautiful name. I always remember her story in mythology as one that stands out to me too.
Naming a person is so intimidating. We'll find out this week which list we're choosing from.
How is everyone doing with names? I noticed a lot of people are totally decided and we had barely talked about it. But we went camping this weekend and one night after DD was asleep we actually talked about names! Today we had our anatomy scan and are both working from home so while we were making lunch we talked about it again and I think we have a final 3 list.
One is just a first name we like with my grandfather’s middle name as the middle
The second is a similar method to how we came up with DD’s name (first initial is same as FIL, name is similar in structure to DH’s name, for DD it was the same initial as my mom + similar structure to mine)
And the last one is after both of our dads but in a way that the kid still gets his own name (this is important to DH)
We like all of the names pretty equally (we like the first the most which is why it’s still in the running) but I don’t think we are close to narrowing it down any further. I feel good that we have a solid list though, I was starting to be worried he would get name #1 just because we didn’t bother to come up with anything else 😂
We had a shortlist of four names, and for whatever reason as soon as I found out we were having a girl my mind let go of two of those. I'm pretty sure she'll either be Annika May or Audrey Rose, but as I've told DH I reserve the right to keep our options open until she's actually here. I'm still feeling a little broken up about Zoë being vetoed due to a friend of DH having a Zoë (even though I've never even met that friend...).
@krthouse I love both of the names and I love Zoe (I don’t know how to make it with the dots) too. You and MH could commiserate about spouses vetoing names, I vetoed a name yesterday because my friends sister used to date a guy by the name. 😬
We can't even come up with enough names to veto for a boy. I do love Zoe as well. My parents had a dog named Zoe so I can't do it. @krthouse I love both your girl names. There is no wrong choice.
We have had first names picked out for years (our infertility journey was long), but I have been thinking of having a plan B in case baby gets here and it just doesn't fit.
@sandy5693 We went in with shortlists for DS too for the very reason that we felt we wouldn't know what was right until baby arrived. We had three for each sex because we waited to find out. The nice thing about three is that you each get one veto, which is exactly what happened. I said one name didn't fit, DH said another name didn't fit so we were left with one and it was the perfect one. For whatever reason, I just no longer have any attachment to two names we were considering but I'd love to add a third for that veto power each.
Our deal is we try to come up with a list but I ultimately get naming rights because I am getting gutted. I have to give up all sorts of food and watch my body gain 43 lbs and risk stretch marks. So if I see our baby and I'm inspired I get to use that even if my husband doesn't initially like it. (He hated our first daughter's name for years. He eventually came around to loving it and I found out I was pregnant with her a few days later.) I suggested Griffin to him the other day and he still hasn't told me if he likes it. 🤷♀️ It's going on the list. I should also include that I have named all of our pets as well as kids so I have a long history of nailing it in the name department.
I think we decided on either Eleanor or Eloise. I again found a nickname I really like (Ellie) and looked for names that would fit Ellie. I did this for DS, I loved the nickname Sammy and we named him Samuel (with. Spanish pronunciation).
It’s the same for me @krysnicole1022, I ultimately get naming rights for the same reasons 😂
What do you all think? Eleanor Joyce or Eloise Joyce?
Joyce was my grandma who I was very close to. I also am thinking about Jay as the middle name for my grandparents (John and Joyce). My mom has vetoed Jae though
@kat_vegan87 I love both of them but I think Eleanor gets the edge for me. Joy for a middle name might be good if you want it to kind of be for both grandparents?
We found out we are having a boy with genetic testing, and I knew it was gonna be hard deciding on a name with my spouse. So we started early!!! I had to fight to honor both of our maternal grandfathers in middle names, so we went with an easier first name since his family majorily speaks Spanish and needed something they wouldn’t butcher. Lol. We went with Ian for its meaning, and William Emilio as middle names. We are announcing name at baby shower with a mix of puzzles that people have to figure out. Lol.
My husband's mom's middle name was Joyce and if we are having a girl we plan on using Joy. She passed away twenty five years ago so I never got to meet her but I'm forever grateful to her for her son. Boy or girl we plan on doing two middle names. By "we" I mean "me". We did it with my son and I have no regrets. I like both Eleanor and Eloise. You could toss Elise in there because Elise Jay is very pretty. I would leave Jay as is. I think Eleanor Joyce flows better but both are beautiful. I love the name Samuel and the name Ian. We can't use them for various reasons but they are such great names.
@krysnicole1022 I feel ya. We definitely threw names out because I have bad memories of people with those names. Lol. Also my spouse would say them how a Spanish speaker would mess it up, lol. Ian was the best for what we had on the list. Hahahaha
@kat_vegan87 I will vote for Eleanor mostly for having different end pronunciations of the two names. It flows easier linguistically. (I absolutely don't matter, lol)
We found out last week we are having a girl and I really love the name Luna. Just saw that it's super popular now which makes me sad 😔. I think we will still keep it though, because it's really cute with our last name, "Darling". A few people really like the name Wednesday for her middle name since it's going to be a October baby and we really love spooky season. How does Luna Wednesday Darling sound ?
@grubmama Luna Wednesday Darling is an epic name. I personally always recommend keeping an extra name in your back pocket in case baby is born and you're like oh... that's not your name, but I think the name you've come up with is pretty boss.
Re: Baby Names
I just cannot with boys names. My daughter went through a baby name book (it's how she names her spiders.) And the only boy name she liked was Julian, which is my best friend's son's name. I do love the name Rory for a boy but I have a Lorelai and that just seems a little too much.
Caleb
Benjamin
Michael (please, don’t spell it Mychal)
Logan
Mason
Jed
Gabriel
Dylan
Wesley
David
Travis
Grant
Robert
Andrew
Ones I’m personally going to avoid are basically any containing X Y Z. I’ve had multiple Kyles and Tylers in my classes and it’s always trouble even if they’re nice. The end of the alphabet seems to be The Dark Zone in general, with the exception of Wesley included above.
Our criteria so far are:
-something that can be shortened or lends itself to a nickname
-something that isn't in the top 20 most popular boy names
-nothing insanely common like Michael, John, Dan, etc
I really like Xavier, but I worry no one will know how to pronounce it...
And agreed, the mispronunciations are going to happen no matter what to some degree...I started going by my nickname years ago because I was tired of correcting everyone. Make sure you like the nickname
And I definitely wouldn't base a name choice over the ability of the general public being able to pronounce it...
The social security administration just released the updated baby names list with 2021 data if anyone is interested.
Admittedly I'm annoyed that my second daughter's name has grown so much in the last three years. It wasn't even a top 1000 6 years ago.
Charlotte is also a beautiful name. I feel like I knew maybe two growing up and now I know so many. They are going to be updating the list by state soon so I'm looking forward to that. See how Illinois is trending. My daughter is named Persephone and it's still not particularly popular but it cracked the top 1000 in 2019 and has risen each year although it really just boils down to a couple hundred babies named Persephone each year. Maybe more people will be able to pronounce it! Apparently there was some show with a Persephone and then there was a video game called Hades last year that was considered one of the greatest games of the year and Persephone was heavily featured. I assume that's the reason for it.
Naming a person is so intimidating. We'll find out this week which list we're choosing from.
The second is a similar method to how we came up with DD’s name (first initial is same as FIL, name is similar in structure to DH’s name, for DD it was the same initial as my mom + similar structure to mine)
And the last one is after both of our dads but in a way that the kid still gets his own name (this is important to DH)
We like all of the names pretty equally (we like
the first the most which is why it’s still in the running) but I don’t think we are close to narrowing it down any further. I feel good that we have a solid list though, I was starting to be worried he would get name #1 just because we didn’t bother to come up with anything else 😂
I do love Zoe as well. My parents had a dog named Zoe so I can't do it.
@krthouse I love both your girl names. There is no wrong choice.
We have had first names picked out for years (our infertility journey was long), but I have been thinking of having a plan B in case baby gets here and it just doesn't fit.
It’s the same for me @krysnicole1022, I ultimately get naming rights for the same reasons 😂
What do you all think? Eleanor Joyce or Eloise Joyce?
Boy or girl we plan on doing two middle names. By "we" I mean "me". We did it with my son and I have no regrets.
I like both Eleanor and Eloise. You could toss Elise in there because Elise Jay is very pretty. I would leave Jay as is. I think Eleanor Joyce flows better but both are beautiful.
I love the name Samuel and the name Ian. We can't use them for various reasons but they are such great names.
(I absolutely don't matter, lol)