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Baby Names
zoedrex
member
Curious to know how..
zoedrex
member
in Baby Names
you choose names. Is it just a gut feeling or do you think about it more?
If you know someone by that name, and it's not someone you'd 'honor' with it, then do you automatically knock it off the list?
Let's say one of you doesn't like a name the other suggests, is it off or do you let it sit a while?
Is there anything really important to you when coming up with a name?
Just curious how everyone else goes through the process.
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Re: Curious to know how..
FI and I have talked baby names lately and we pretty much kick any name that is associated with someone we don't care for. However, names that are associated with other people we'll keep (like I have a good friend named Emma, we both like that name and we wouldn't name our kid after her but since it doesn't have a bad connotation we'll put it on the list).
Also, if it's a family name we might use it as a MN (again, as long as there is nothing bad connected to it) but not a first.
We put each name through the age test: what would it sound like on a baby/young child, on a high school or college kid, and how would it look on a business card? I think its cute to name a baby a shortened or NN but we'd like our kids to be able to use a full name later in life.
I just answered them one-by-one for you:
Initially, whether I like or dislike a name is probably based on a gut feeling, but I would never add a name to my short list or consider it for my child without serious in-depth research.
If I know someone by a name, but don't want to honor them by using it, I wouldn't strike the name from my list entirely, but I think it depends on how well I know the individual and how admirable or dishonorable a character he/she is. For example, I'm happily considering the name Susannah, but I have a relative with the name who happens to be an alcoholic, and a highly disreputable one at that. I wouldn't be naming the baby after her, but she hasn't ruined the name for me yet, either.
If one of us dislikes a name the other one suggests, it probably will not make it onto the shortlist. As a rule, we must both like the name, even if we don't both love it. But here again, it depends on the amount of love we're talking about. I absolutely adore the name Keith as a middle name; my husband doesn't like it at all. But it's still on our list because I love it so much. On the other hand, I really like the name Tsiporah, while my husband hates it; not surprisingly, it's not on our list anymore because I don't love it enough that it outweighs his dislike. I hope that makes sense?
Everything is important when coming up with a name. Length, rhythm, meaning, evocation, origins, pronunciation, spelling--all of it. But then, I'm a lifelong name nerd, so it makes sense that I would put a lot more thought and effort into choosing the "perfect" name than the average baby namer.
We just throw them out there as we think of them. If we both love it goes to the top of the list. If one of us likes it goes to the bottom and we think about it.
I guess we don't have much of a rhyme or reason.
Jinsy, I always mean to tell you that my name is Hannah Marie and my sister's name is Emily (Grace). If you end up having a boy, my brother's name is Andrew...I thought I'd throw that out for you
Because of our own tastes in names and our somewhat unusual last name, we wanted to stick with more classic/traditional names. We both love family names, and we liked the idea of our children having names with a family history or emotional significance to us.
I came up with a long list of names I liked both times. My husband went through and deleted a bunch that he didn't like. If there was something I loved and he was just "meh" about it, it stayed on the list. Fortunately our tastes are very similar, and both times our child's first name was chosen when we were still trying to conceive.
Meredith, 6-1-06 and Alex, 11-5-09