How did you name your child?

Empireceo

I only discovered this board after I already had my son.  In all honesty, I don't know if I would've asked for other people's opinions, but I am happy to offer up my own when you all ask (haha).

Anyway, I was just wondering how you chose names for your kid.  Just one you like?  Family names?  Looked through names of your ethnicity (or another you liked)?  Envisioned what he/she might be like as an adult?

For us, I don't like boys names that get a y at the end, i.e Billy, Tommy, Danny.  And since I have one of the most popular names in the past 30 years, I wanted something not on the top 100.  DH and I talked about Waylon Jennings on one of our first dates and came back to that for a boy (we were Team Green).  Some people love it, some people hate it, but it definitely fits him.

Anyone else? 

fennyann

My husband and I are both Irish, so we knew that we wanted an Irish name. After we found out that we were having a boy. He just sat down and looked through Irish boy names and went from there. As for his MN, we gave him DH's MN.

BLPL101

DH and I both loved Caroline and he was set on it, but I couldn't commit. I say that he actually named her. Her middle name is his grandma's name, Ruth. We both adore her.

Bexx24

Biblical first name, Family middle name.

I like name meanings a lot too. Or at least some sort of personal attachment to a name.

But ultimately we ended up on the one name we both agreed with ;-)

Fianschneid

We thought we had our names picked out and when we found out DD was a girl, the name we picked didn't feel right.

We considered a few names and tested the ones we liked out for a few days. We thought we had it with Alice, but it didn't feel right. We had never even considered Abigail before, and don't remember how it came up, but we gave it a shot for a week and it stuck. It just felt like her name.

We wanted the middle name to be a family name and DH suggested using my middle name, since she was getting his last name. Again, we tried it, we liked it, it stuck.

We kept the name private until she was born. The decision was our own.

melody921

DH and I just each made a list of names we liked (generally culled from a baby name book). Then we compared lists, vetoed ones we hated, debated what combos we liked for FN-MN and chose one. For DD, we used my great-grandmother's name as her MN. But otherwise, it was just names we thought sounded good.

blu-eyedwife

My parents live about 90 minutes away from us.  In 2009 my dad died, and DH and I started driving up every Friday after work to spend the weekends with my mom.  We spent A LOT of time in the car.  To kill time, we often discussed baby names - the good, the bad, and the ugly.   During these discussions we came up with our favorite names for both boys and girls.

When I got pregnant in 2011, we revisited those names and decided we still loved them.  And we decided to use my dad's name for my son's middle name.

McJen715

We had a boy name picked out by the time I was 8 weeks (family name), but we had trouble with agreeing on girl names. We had a list of names with both liked, but my H came home and suggested Madeline and I really liked it. The more I thought about it the more I loved the name. At our A/S when we found out she was a girl I blurted out "Madeline" and he looked at me strangely as we hadn't "settled" on it yet. Her middle name, Rey, is my middle name (and my poppy, and aunt's also).

If this baby is a boy we'll use our original boy name. Porter James - Porter is my FIL's family's last name, but not the last name my H was given at birth. James is my H and FIL's middle name. If this baby is a girl I've fallen in love with the name Lydia and told my H we are using it, end of story. Middle name if it is a girl would be Marie, my sister and my MIL's middle name.

Manderlin923

With DS we went with names that honored family origins and happened to just love the first name as well. This time we are just doing a first name we like a lot (whatever that may be) and the middle name will honor my father.

If we ever have a third we will do a first name we like, and another family middle name.

vulpini

We have a strong family tradition for naming after relatives who have passed away, but not always using the same exact name and sometimes only keeping the initial.  Middle name for a boy was automatically going to be DH's grandfather's name.  For the the first name, we had a few initials to work with based on other relatives we wanted to honor.  

I looked at name lists for those letters, especially at Hebrew, Russian, German, and Scandinavian names, and saved ones that I liked.  I also looked at name meanings and made note of names I liked with the same meanings as the names of the relatives.  

One stood out to me as a name that I really liked that would also work very well for honoring DH's grandmother, who he was very close to.  I ran the idea by him.  He took a few days to think it over and decide if he liked it.  It grew on him, so we're probably just going to stick with that name unless one of us finds something else that would be just as meaningful.

teacherjess

I am a teacher. It was very important to me to have names that are easy to pronouce, sound nice when spoken, and aren't one of those names where EVERY kid is named that name in a certain generation. I wanted something that could be very professional later on in life. My kids are named Leah and Brendan. 

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StephenW4

I was such a tomboy as a kid and always appreciated that I could shorten my name from Samantha to a more androgynous"Sam", so I always knew if I had a girl, I would want the same opportunity for her. (my mom also did that - Phyllis to Phyl)

So when DH and I found out we were having a girl, we picked a strong first name that could carry her from childhood into adulthood with the option for a nn.  Raegan "Rae" was our choice.. As for her MN, we wanted a slightly more feminine/sweet name to balance out the strong first name, and we happend upon Claire.  

No real significance with meaning or ethnic background, but just a good strong-yet-sweet name that she can shorten if she so chooses.

stargazer08

DD's first name is very similar to my grandma's name, and her middle name is my great-grandma's name. 

If we ever have a son, his middle name will definitely be my late dad's name. If we decide we are on our last child and and it ends up being a girl, then she will get my dad's name for her middle name. 

Other than that, I'm not sure if I have any intentions of naming any more children after family members. I try to avoid family member names in my generation or my children's generation, so I avoid names of my cousins and their kids.

led2009

DH's family has a tradition of A names and the only A girl's name we agreed on was Aubrie. Her mn is Lauren, which we just liked. DD w is Lillie Marie. MN is after my sister who passed away 9 years ago.

neverblushed

Empireceo:

  In all honesty, I don't know if I would've asked for other people's opinions, but I am happy to offer up my own when you all ask (haha).

Same here.

My DH picked DD's name.  LONG before we were even ttc, he randomly said, "Hey, if we ever have a girl, I'd like to name her Tabitha."  Not thinking about it, I said, "Eh -- I'd be okay with that."  Several years later, when I was actually pg, and team green, he said, "well, we already know it's Tabitha for a girl."  Then, I had second thoughts about the name, but I came around to it.  Now, 13 years later, I can't imagine her being anything else!

In return, I got to name DS.  Since DH, DD, and I all happen to have names with 7 letters, we thought it would be cool to use a 7 letter name for the final family member.  But since this severely cut down on the choices, we waited to work on names until after we knew whether we were having a boy or a girl.  DS was not modest during his 19 week u/s, so we only had to pick a boy name.  I went with Timothy, a boy name I have always loved.  DH wasn't in love with it at first, but it grew on him.

I was a little hesitant to use the same first letter, but I think Tabitha and Timothy make a nice sibset!

JMU_Bride09

Name meaning

mesekula619

We're doing family names for a boy or girl.

My husbands mother is deceased and not only do we love her name, we'd obviously love to honor her. So she'll be Margaret Rae. Margaret for my MIL and Rae for the first half of my mom's name. We'll call her Maggie.

If we have a boy we'll name him William Anthony. William is my dad's name and Anthony is DH's grandfather. We'll call him Liam.

I don't know at what point we both decided that we'd do family names for FN and MN but I like that we like the names even without the family tie.

mommytoconnor

Sat down and wrote out the alphabet, under each letter put any and all names that started with that letter that I liked.  I knew middle name was gonna be after my dad, so that was set.  Then I sort of widdled it down to about 10 names I loved. Then put them with middle name and some just didn't sound good together, so I nixed them and came up with his finaly name which suits him well.

LeggyNic

Basically, all the girls have fn we just liked and mn from family. I have a really popular name for my age so it couldn't be too popular. It needed to be easily sight read.  We're a really athletic family, so the name had to flow if announced at a sporting event.

For our first, we had baby name books and just tossed around names till we found ones we liked.  We went in to L&D with 2 top names, one being the front runner and the other "just in case she doesn't look like a X".   For DD2 we used the back-up name.  DH wanted it as DD1's mn but I still liked it and wanted to give family mn's.

We were at a loss initially for DD3 since we had 2 boy names ready to go.  DH wanted something that went more with our traditional Irish last name.  I found it on a St. Patrick's Day Irish name blog post.

Keri Marie

My kids have family names, first middle and last.

Even though I was on this board before ever getting PG, I 've never asked for opinions on the names we chose. It didn't matter what anyone else thought. However, we would have been stumped coming up with a 2nd girls name. 

stahlop

I'm Jewish and my DH isn't, so we were definitely going to use a deceased family members name (or the first letter).

With DS, I always knew the mn would be Lawrence after my uncle who passed away when I was 9.  We both just liked Everett, merely coincidence that DH has a distant relative with that name.

With DD, we used Piper for my grandfather Philip (the only P name we could agree on).  We decided on Helen a few weeks before she was born for my DH's great-aunt (he wanted his grandmother,'s name, Martha, but then the initials would have been PMS, so that wasn't happening). 

blush64

With my first son I just knew it was the name I wanted. I didn't look too much at any books because nothing sounded as good. The rest of his name are names that I liked that happen to be in the family as well.

My second son was named after I saw a name in a baby book and loved it. He also has family names for the rest of his name.

Years ago I thought of a girl's name just in case. I was never sure if I would use it one day or not but it happens to be the only name my husband likes. The rest of this baby's name is undecided. I'm 37 weeks so any time I guess I'll decide. 

Zimger

All of our childrens mn's are family names. For the first names we each made a list and then narrowed down and combined our favorites. We did ask for opinions online but it didn't really change our ultimate decision. We did like getting the feedback though and found it helpful. Once we had our top three we threw the names around for a few weeks. Just to see how they sounded out loud.

 

zaramarie81

Dh and I had a list of names before we got married. When we found out we were expecting, the girl name felt right but sadly was recently "taken" by a close family member. The boy name suddenly didn't feel right to me. So we started mostly from scratch. I scoured websites like this one and nameberry and suggested everything that struck me (most of which he hated). He just came up with names he liked out of his head (which resulted in the oddest combination of styles haha). Finally, my mom suggested a boy name that at first we both vetoed... but once we found out we were having a boy, I began to come back to it, especially when pairing it with our last name. The last name played a big role. Dh still nixed it, but liked my runner-up. Oddly, we then swapped opinions as I began to think of our baby as having the runner-up name and adjusted to it, while he continued to mull over the #1 suggestion. It took us 8 hours after he was born to decide between the two - Dh kept saying he would be happy with #1 and not taking me up on #2, so I finally just accepted his change of heart as an unexpected blessing. That said, I hope I get to name another boy our #2. And it DID take awhile for the #1 name to feel like "his."

p.s. My "criteria" for a full name was: wanted it to sound strong and distinguished as well as classic - likely a secondary classic to avoid popularity (but wanted to avoid obscure, snobby, kre8tiv).

Dr.Loretta

We wanted an Irish name, and I stumbled upon it. DH heard it and loved it. Her MN is a family name

LadyXaverian

We wanted traditional names, and we wanted at least one of the fn or mn to honor a family member.

I made a long list. DH narrowed it down. From there, we tossed around different combos of fn/mn. We thought we had our girl name picked (Audrey Elinor), but the day we found out it was a girl, we got cold feet. We ultimately went with Elinor Catherine, nn Nora. Elinor is after DH's grandmother. Catherine is a name I've always loved, and it's also the name of one of my mom's dearest friends who was always like family to us.

doremi29

Mason Samuel- Mason we just liked, Samuel is a shortened version of MIL's maiden name

Piper Julianne- Piper is after the Piper Cub airplane (my father flies planes and it has always been his favorite small plane), Julianne is a combo of my mother's name (Julie) and my g-ma's mn (Anne)

vintageutopia

We both made lists of names we liked and then shared them with one another.

 

The names that got a "no" were scratched immediately and the "I like that well enough" names were put on a master list.

 

Then, we whittled it down to a few favorites. We already knew we were going to use a family name for the middle name.

 

In the end, we chose Claire Marie.