I LOVE the names we gave our daughters. I’ve told the story of how we decided on both of their names, and I was certain before either of them were born that the names were perfect.
I OBSESS over names. I have a name picked out for a boy, should I ever have one. I don’t have another girl name set, although I have several in mind. But, I have other friends that struggle over names. I know one couple that didn’t name their child for WEEKS (I didn’t even know you could leave the hospital without a name)!
I also have some friends with name regret. They wished they’d named their child something else for one reason or another. I can’t imagine how strange that must feel – to look at your child and feel like the name you gave him or her wasn’t right. Eeek.
On Momversation this week, Rebecca, Lisa and I discussed baby name criteria, regrets, and craziness.
So, I want to know, what was some of your naming criteria, and do you regret the name you chose? If I ever have another daughter, I’m going to need some serious name help!
Erica says:
When we chose our twin girls names we wanted something that went together so we chose Gabriella & Isabella Their middle names are significant to us because of a trip we took right before we got pregnant-one of them was a goddess and the other was the name of a girl on one of our tours. No regrets on the names at all. Our little man’s name was thought of over lunch and my sister and her friend helped me come up w/Christian..I too have another girl name chosen because I was sure I’d have another but I may have to fork my name over to you dear Heather
Amy says:
We named our son Alex after hearing it in one of our favorite movies. His name is not Alexander however and that tends to confuse some people! Lol. His middle name is Harrison and I just loved the way Alex Harrison sounded together.
About a year after I started dating my husband my mom got sick with leukemia, she asked me, her oldest child, if I would name a daughter after her using her name as the middle name. Of course I obliged.
Ten years later, and cancer-free, my mom was able to see the granddaughter that would be her namesake. Isabelle Monica, born May 2007 is named after another favorite movie and my mom.
My mom, who is only 55, now has terminal esophageal cancer. It gives my heart great pleasure knowing that some day, when my daughter is old enough, I will be able to tell her how she is named after ner Nana.
habanerogal says:
I still love both of my kids names and they are grown now (17 and 18) knew that they should sound good to grow up with not just cute for a baby. They both have cultural (Gaelic) significance as well as popular culture. Calvin for the comic strip and Tegan for the sidekick on Doctor Who. Middle names refer back to family and those are more for the heritage.
.-= habanerogal´s last blog ..A Quickie Quitting Update =-.
Krista says:
We didn’t name our little guy until he was 2 days old. Couldn’t agree. I’m still not sure I like it (he’s 6 weeks old), but I’m sure I will get used to it and eventually won’t be able to think of another name that fits him better. I just take awhile to get used to things and we had our first son’s name picked out way before he was born.
I have had a girl name all picked out, but so far no use for it.
Jenn says:
Well….what IS your son’s name?
Krista says:
My bad! His name is Noah. It’s a fine name, but just a little too common for me.
Stephannie says:
I’m SO with you Krista, on the common-ness of Noah – I have loved the name Noah forever and by the time we had our son in the fall of 2008 everybody and their BROTHER was named Noah. I still love the name and I love the name we gave our son, but I’m SO bummed that he’ll now probably be in a class of three or four other Noahs.
Annie says:
Our criteria was that the names had to be original but not weird. So our 8 year old son is named Kameron Jack. Our bedtime ritual was thinking of names while I was pregnant. We just couldn’t agree. Then after being asleep for a couple of hours I woke up and nudged my husband and said “How about Kameron?” He loved it. His middle name is Jack. We both loved the name Jack and it happens to be my father in law’s name ( he still thinks Kam is named after him). Our second son is Max Harper. We told Kam he could pick the first name (thank God is wasn’t Iron Man or Han Solo). So he chose Max when I was about 5 months pregnant. And of course J Lo and Christina Aguilera named their boys Max before I gave birth. So I have a little bit of name regret. Not only that but my family INSISTED on calling him MAXIE for the first 5 months of his life. I threatened to call him by his middle name if they didn’t stop ( I just kept picturing him in middle school with kids calling him Maxie Pad on the playground). And they just couldn’t break the habit. So at 6 months old we started calling him Harper (after author Harper Lee). It SOOOO fits him. My dad and step dad insist on still calling him Max, but I just go along with it. So glad I didn’t have girls! Those name are so much harder to choose.
chel says:
i have a harper jem! he is four now and no prize for guessing the inspiration!
LibraryGirl62 says:
My Max (Maxwell) has always been Maxie.to friends and family…it fits him and his easy going personality. He is a tough sporty guy-he is just Maxie to some people :).
I call him Moo. His sister called him Maxiwelly moo-moo (like little bunny foo-foo) when he was born and it just turned into Moo. He(at 16) still answers to it.
Annie says:
So cute!! My Kam is called Boo (can’t remember when I started calling him that). I seriously have a thing for To Kill A Mockingbird! And I DO love the name Max! Such a strong name. Maxiwelly moo moo is precious.
rikki says:
I have a Harper too! Only difference is SHE is a spunky four-year old!
.-= rikki´s last blog ..Easter 2010 =-.
nancie says:
this has been fun reading all the comments on this post. there are over 200 when i started and i haven’t even gotten through half of them yet – its getting late here and my eyelids are getting droopy, but i wanted to come back up here and reply on the to kill a mockingbird names. i live in this teeny-tiny town in alabama – monroeville – and it happens to be where harper lee and truman capote were born. our courthouse (our old courthouse/museum now) here in town is where they filmed the movie to kill a mockingbird…so around here those names..harper, boo..and i’ve seen atticus below, are super common. that just struck me as funny!
as for me – i have 2 girls…my first is bree – and while i do hear that a lot more now..19 years ago when she was born – it wasn’t as common. i’ve loved the name bree all along…and have had no regrets. my second daughter is baylee…i love that name, and had it picked as a girl name – but wasn’t sure how to spell it – but i remember the day i came out of the dr’s office having found out she was a girl (and knowing i wanted to use baylee) i started thinking about how to spell it. it was so strange b/c i got home and opened a people magazine right to a page of that now famous picture (sadly) of the firefighter carrying out that child from the oklahoma city bombings – little baylee almon…i’ll never forget that moment…and that’s how my baylee’s spelling came about.
i love both my girls names and have no regrets…i’m so glad my husband didn’t get his way b/c he wanted to name one of them bricy(not even sure how you’d spell it, maybe bricey?but he liked it from bonanza or something crazy western like that)…he was in charge of boy names, but (thankfully) i had girls!
my name is kinda funny – nancie – of course is spelled different and it’s spelled that way after a great-great (i don’t know how many great’s) grandmother of mine from my dad’s side of the family. but turns out that later after i was born a family member on my dad’s side told them that the spelling of that ‘great great’ relative i had, actually was either a typo or just misspelled in wherever my parents saw it. but although its never, ever spelled correctly – it’s made an old common name a little unique, and i’ve liked that!
Cinthia says:
I don’t have a child yet, but when my sister was pregnant with my niece I remember a coworker telling me her daughter’s name was Nicole. I just loved the way it sounded in Spanish and it’s not a common girl’s name in Costa Rica. Well the day I went to talk to my sister about it, she came to me first and told me she was thinking of the name Nicole for the baby.
I was floored. It was like it was meant to be. My sister’s husband had no say, we just knew she was a Nicole. Now my niece lives in the US and it’s a common name here, but I only have to hear how my mom pronounces it to remember how special it is to us.
Zakary says:
All the women in my family have Z names, so I chose Zoe for my daughter. However it took me three days to convince my then husband and she didn’t have a name for three days. She was born in California and I think the hospital called me at home and I had to call the social security people to tell them.
My son’s name is Troy after my father that passed away from pancreatic cancer.
Naming a child is such an important job and I think you did an amazing job with both the girls.
xo-z
.-= Zakary´s last blog ..Peanut Butter Freestyle =-.
Hayley says:
My daughter is Alexandra, although we always call her Ale, but we felt she needed a ‘professional’ name also and also to disguinish her from a boy Alex!! She’s 4, and she suits it perfectly, and although all the other Alex’s we know are boys, she laughs t them and says they have girl names! Her middle name is my maiden name minus a letter which makes a very popular girls name!
Hayley says:
Obviously I should have read my comment before posting! We call her Alex, not ale!!!
Amy Collen says:
LOL! Girl, you are writing on a Saturday? I had to check my calendar to make sure it wasn’t Friday. Anyway, a nice surprise. Let’s see our boys are all named after somebody or another. Noah and Samuel, were names that John (my hubby) thought of. I just thought they were beautiful. Towards the middle of my pregnancy though John started leaning towards Oliver instead of Samuel. However, Samuel had always been my favorite. So, when the boys came at 25 weeks and I was alone in the operating room, I yelled out their names. I said the first one will be Noah Carlton (now the middle name, I came up with on the fly. Just the week before I was talking to a good friend and she thought it would be cool to use my maiden name as my son’s middle name. So the choice was made in about 30 seconds. Samuel Dean’s (the middle name was after my dad) name was decided ahead of time.
Now, Frank Elliott’s name. Well, that took a little while. John and I went through a variety of names, it came very very close to being “Eli Aaron.” I remember discussing it after Frank was born. Finally we decided on Frank (named after John’s great grandfather) and Elliott was the name of John’s favorite uncle. However, the name Frank is quite a name for a little baby. It was a big hit in the NICU. Actually so was the name Sam. LOL!
Kristen says:
We had a really hard time coming up with names. For my first son, who was adopted, we wanted to give him a strong African name. We had visited Zimbabwe and met a boy named Jafta, and when we met our little son we decided to give him that name. When I got pregnant with my daughter, we chose India, and I still love it. My second daughter is named Karis, and I have a little regret over that one. People always mispronounce it. My last child Kembe was three when we adopted him, so we kept the name his birth mother gave him. It is ALWAYS mispronounced. It’s not a name I would have chosen, but we picked his middle name to be Justice, and if he gets tired of having an exotic name, he can go by his middle name. But I didn’t want to change his name in the midst of all of his adoption transitions.
Veronika says:
For us, it was important that our children had unique names, that those names had a significant meaning and that we both liked them. Not as easy as it sounds! The name has to be unique, but not made up. I love the names we gave our children and would not change them, but the naming part gets harder as we have more children. I am a name nut though and keep adding new names to my list. This time around (baby #4, girl #3), nothing seemed right. We only named her when she was 4 or 5 days old and then we still threw in name suggestions for a couple of days before we buckled down with our original choice. We still call her by nicknames more than her name, but she’s growing into her name a bit.
Desiree says:
My First daughter was Named Caylee Marie. I really dont have a reason for picking her first name because I just saw it and tweeked it from the original spelling.{I have a adversion to K names..lol} Her middle name is both mine and my mothers middle name.
With my Second Daughter I wanted a old fashion name that you didnt hear alot { Well now I hear it all the time other than saying her name} So I picked Olivia. We went with the middle name Ann because I thought It went well together.
With my son I let Daddy pick his first name. Though I made it clear that I had the right to Veto any weird choices… My husband wanted something different but not too different. He decided on Atticus { The dad in to kill a Mockingbird & also a clothing line} and then Robert is for my dad.
I dont regret any of the names Picked for my children. Of course now when they are 10 5 & 3 yrs old I cant picture them as anyone else.
.-= Desiree´s last blog ..Trying Something New… =-.
Nellie says:
Absolutely LOVE the name Atticus!
jess says:
I love your girls names! They are both very beautiful names!!
I have a little girl and we named her “Liberty” we wanted something different but still easy to spell plus she can be “Libby” for short. We are both so happy with the name we have chosen and she totally suits her name!
We are awaiting baby #2 in the next few weeks and are still trying to figure out (and agree) on a a name
.-= jess´s last blog ..One month to go! =-.
Randi says:
While I was pregnant with our first son we were just driving along a highway with my sister in law in the back and she blurted out “Evan” and from that moment on he was named Evan. It’s not a family name but it was a name that I could not associate to someone I didn’t like! He has 2 middle names: Peter Thomas which are his Grandfathers’ names (Peter is my dad’s middle name but he has always been called Peter).
Our second son has a family name. He is named after my great-grandfather Joseph. We call him Joe. We didn’t have a back up boy’s name so we had to toss a few around and decided on Joe. His middle names are William Patrick-which is my dad’s first name and my husband’s dad’s middle name. Confusing yet?
So NO regrets whatsoever. They’re not really popular names (anymore) but they’re not crazy either!
leslie says:
when we decided on names for our two daughters we knew we wanted christian names/saints and names everyone can understand/pronounce, because (living in germany) our last name has to be spelled every time (kindergarten, doctors, etc).
i, for my part, wanted classic (“german”) names and nothing too weird…so we decided on teresia&johanna.
we have two children in heaven and their names were more “what we wish their (short) lives would teach us”….
if we ever have another biological child (actually we plan to adopt some time in the future), we would call it elisabeth.
i don’t regret our decisions on names at all, but i guess i would regret a name which would just be “hip” or “cool” at a certain time (like “leonard” or “mia” here in germany) and not timeless….
i don’t regret our girls’ na
Johanna says:
I was named Johanna after my German great grandmother but I live in Australia. Can honestly say I’ve never come across another one
Megan says:
The minute I knew I was having a son I wanted his FIRST name to be that of his father…but his middle name to include both of our middle names….My middle name is Danielle and his father’s middle name is Monté…So I gave him the name Reginald Donté…I love the name Reginald!! I can’t ever picture my lil Reg as anything but that…And as a side benefit…nobody else has his name……My mom hounded me to name him Trent….She kept seeing the name pop up everywhere whenni was pregnant….bit he’s a Reggie through and through
Kate @ UpsideBackwards says:
We did a lot of family tree research before choosing names, and our first two children have first and middle names with strong family connections. We also have to be quite careful with initials, because our surname could make a pun – good or bad, depending on the name you pick! For our third, we named her after two of our favourite friends (who both have the same name, convenient). We found out later that one of my great-grandmothers also had that name, so it was a family name after all. Her middle name is my first name and also my grandmother’s name.
.-= Kate @ UpsideBackwards´s last blog ..I wonder what she wants for her birthday? =-.
Sarah P says:
When we found out we were having twins, we had long, circular discussions about names. It was a few months before we knew if they would be B/B, G/G, or B/G twins. That’s a lot of combinations.
Once we knew B/G, we narrowed the list. Our son is Harrison Thomas. Harrison for my grandmother’s maiden name; we call him Harry, which is my dad’s name. Thomas is my father-in-law’s middle name and his grandfather’s first name.
Our daughter is Lucy Jane. Lucy because we loved the name, Jane for my mother’s middle name.
Future children would be James (father-in-law’s name) middle-name-undetermined or Catherine (family name on hub’s side) Alice (family name on my side), and we would call her Callie (or Cali, I don’t know about the spelling).
Sarah P says:
I should point out that one of our favorite girl names is Annabel, and we’ve both mentioned repeatedly how lovely your girls’ names are.
rachel says:
On the first ultrasound that showed we were having twins, one sac was much smaller and we were told that it probably would not be there on the next scan. They were wrong and our “Clover” was born full term and healthy with her brother, Kieran. Along with our first girl, Gemma, they are still the perfect names for our children.
I love reading and hear the names of other kids…I find it fascinating.
.-= rachel´s last blog ..Thrifty Fashion in MAEVE magazine =-.
Kim says:
My all time favorite girl name is Elizabeth. We named our first daughter Elizabeth Jean. Jean is my Mom’s name and my mother-in-law’s middle name. My mother-in-law is Betty Jean (betty is a form of Elizabeth).
My second daughter is named Anna Katherine. My husband and I were in agreement about Anna but I wanted Katherine as a middle name and he wanted Katarina. Well, he happened to be gone when the birth certificate came around so her name officially became Anna Katherine. That is my second favorite girl name. I’m done having children but my next favorite girl name is Natalie.
.-= Kim´s last blog ..We Have All Knelt At Different Graves =-.
Lynn from For Love or Funny says:
My only regret is that I wish I’d given my girls a different middle name…
.-= Lynn from For Love or Funny´s last blog ..Don’t step on me! =-.
AJ says:
When I was 12 there was a soap opera on called ‘Loving’. I watched it with my grandma. There was an ‘Ava’ and a ‘Trucker’ on the show. I loved them. I thought ‘Ava’ was the prettiest name I’d ever heard. So in 2003 I used it. Clearly, 8 zillion other people also think it’s the prettiest name they’d ever heard. Her middle name is Noelle because I love Christmas. I mean LOVE it. We got married in December so I could have a Christmas wedding.
My boys are Noah James and Jonah Nickolas. Noah was the only boy name we could agree on, and James is after my husband. Jonah we decided before we even got pregnant, because it follows the ‘two syllable, ends in an ‘ah’ sound naming structure’ we had going, and Nickolas is after my great grandpa. Consequently, he did not spell his name that way. But my grandma thought he did, and she came to me in a dream and TOLD me to use it. You don’t argure with dead grandparents!!!
AJ says:
I should also mention, we also wanted biblical names when discussing the boys names.
jenny s says:
We were all set to name our 3rd child (1st daughter) Erin, until my father in law walked into my hospital room. We told them both the name and he, in a very huffy way (I loved him dearly, just a crotchety old guy!) said “ERIN! Thats a boy’s name”. Ahhh. Ok, so I guess it won’t be Erin. My husband went home that night and came back to hospital in the morning with the boys and asked me what I thought of Emily. Perfect. We call her Em/Emma/Emily.
m says:
we didn’t wanna be too crazy. we wanted their name to NOT preclude them from getting a job interview. we considered all nicknames. and i personally like meaningful middle names.
Debbi says:
I have major name regret with my daughter Gracie. I have made piece with Gracie, since she has brought so much grace to our lives, grace that I never knew was possible. However, I really, really wish that I gave her my middle names. She wasn’t named until she was three days old, and that was because we were leaving the hospital. I think the problem was that I didn’t have her name picked out before we went to have her.
I love my son’s name. Caleb. I have loved that name since I was in middle school and knew it was perfect for him.
.-= Debbi´s last blog ..Who Knew? =-.
Lori V. says:
We have 3 children – 8 yr old Katie Leeann. My husband picked her first name – Katie (just Katie, not Katherine). Her middle name is a combination of my grandmothers middle name (Lee), and my & my mothers middle names (Ann).
Our son Jonathan is Jonathan Parker. Jonathan – because we just liked the name so much. Parker is in honor of my husbands best friend from his Marine Corps days.
Natalee is our baby, she is Natalee Grace. I didn’t know it until I was pregnant but someone pointed out our names Jonathan, Katie, Lori & Matt – go in alphabetical order – JKLM – so we said “hey let’s find an N name!” – I named her on my own (Matt was still freaking out over having a 3rd kid), I did toss around having her middle name be Joy, but it just didn’t fit her.
.-= Lori V.´s last blog ..Ideas Sizzle with Social Spark! =-.
Alexandra :) says:
I can TOTALLY relate to this. I’m 16 (not planning on kids for at least 10 years or so) and I already picked out my baby names. Can’t tell you though, because I’m always worried they’ll get stolen. Sorry
Alexandra :) says:
And P.S. I love the names that you chose for your babies. I can be exteremely critical of people’s baby names, so that’s saying a lot!
Annie says:
I had names picked out when I was 16 too! I’m 32 and didn’t use either of them (Thank God) or I would have a Bret Michael or Jon Bon running around! HEHE!
Angie says:
What a fun post! I’ve loved reading everyone’s stories about their children’s names.
We wanted names that they could use a longer, more traditional name, but have a nickname too. The middle names have more tradition behind them.
My son is named Alexander Jerome, but we call him Alex. He was actually Thomas Jerome for the first half hour of his life and it just didn’t seem to fit. I have no idea where Alexander came from, it wasn’t even on our list. I just remember looking at him and thinking – how about Alex. Jerome is after my husband.
My daughter is Madeline Marie Helene. I don’t have to tell you – Madeline is just an awesome name! My son is actually the one who came up with Madeline when we were talking about baby names and it just stuck. Marie is my middle name and my mom’s. Helene was a form of my mother-in-law’s name (Helen) who has passed away and my husband’s sister’s middle name (Jean Mary Helene) who passed away the day she was born.
Mary Ann says:
I LOVE your girls names. I like classic, beautiful names and always felt sorry for the “unique” named kids out there – when your a kid you just want to fit in. I had a plain first name but a very unusual last name that had way to many consonants and one vowel. On my first day of college a professor of mine proclaimed he would give anyone in the class an automatic A if they could spell my last name correctly – that was a great first day for me – NOT! Hey look over there at that freak, spell her name and win a prize.
Angie says:
Pierce Brosnan’s first James Bond film was due out sometime around the time I was pregnant w/our first son. My hubby grew up loving this actor on the Remington Steele series. He wanted to use the name Pierce for our son; but I thought that was just a little too “unique” for a first name (<–I laugh at this now, and you'll understand after I continue my thoughts on baby names). So we went w/Matthew Pierce for our firstborn (we call him Matt…unless he's in trouble). Love it. Everyday of my life w/him I've loved it.
Before our second child was even conceived, I read through baby name books and tossed out Timothy Reece as a possibility for a second son. Hubby liked it right away, it grew on me…Tim (Timothy when he's in trouble) was born a couple of years after the name decision. I noticed I liked "th" in names apparently, and the "c" in the middle names. So…
Nothing for another boy could be conjured up if we had another. Everything sounded like a lisp. If we had a girl (which I felt strongly we were having in 2007), hubby liked Elisabeth and I preferred Meredith b/c I knew a daughter would be tart and sassy like myself. We did have a girl; and I knew I needed to name her Meredith Grace to be compliant w/my name pattern. I also knew there would likely be nothing 'graceful' about her though…so Meredith Kate is was. ("Kate" was a name that had been on our girl name list since we were pregnant the first time…a nice full circle move, I thought.)
Now the "unique" names explanation. Amazingly enough, even though "Matthew" was a top boy name in 1997, he's only been in one class in school where there was another Matt/Matthew. I'm told frequently by teachers at the school that there aren't many Tims and no Merediths…yet. My likings have changed somewhat though. "Pierce" might have been a consideration w/me these days. If I had to rename my kids w/"alter ego" names, I'd select: Brecken, Ryker, and Briar. The seem related, and fit their personalities so well.
Maybe naming a child should be like naming a pet…wait as long as you need to discover what name fits their personalities(?).
Heather–love the names you've selected so far for your girls, and wait w/anticipation for future monikers you and Mike may choose.
.-= Angie´s last blog ..Voids =-.
Beth says:
Hi Heather,
You are my inspiration! I pull strength from reading your blogs. God Bless you, Maddie, Mike and Annie.
When we found out we were having a girl I HAD to make a list with girl’s names and their respective meanings on it, my hubby and I just couldn’t agree. I loved Audrey, him not so much. When he saw what “Abigail” meant (My Father’s Joy), he said Abigail it is. I regret her middle name though, if I could go back in time, I would insist her middle name be “Faith”. Because “Faith” is what got me through her NICU stay (6 weeks) & her 1st year of life. Her middle name is Mae which is pretty but not enough meaning for me.
Shannie says:
My name has always been unique and even though I grumbled a lot I always secretly loved having a different name. (I have only met one other Shannie-ever). So I wanted my twin daughters to have the same thing. Little did I know that almost every other child was going to named something unique the year my girls were born. Their preschool roster is a pronunciation nightmare. I do not regret my daughter’s names (Sylaris Gracin and Kalam Lee-Lee is a 7th generation middle name)… I still love those names but now their personalities are going to have to be what makes them unique.
.-= Shannie´s last blog .. =-.
tanya says:
When I named my son we were going to go with Logan Jacob. Soon after he was born his dad called him LJ. ummm no. So I changed it to Logan Matthew. I am so much happier that I changed it and it flows so much better!!!!! If I have another boy it will be tough because all the names I like are taken in my family, and not with distant cousins, they’re my nephews. My brother had to go and have 5 boys. yeesh.
My girl name is pretty set, if i ever have one, It was my great grandmas name.
.-= tanya´s last blog ..Affair =-.
Natalie says:
I absolutely love my child’s name….Felix….but it is not universally loved by our family. Thank god HE is loved!
The bar is set high for the 2nd…
Natalie says:
I do however have a good story of a name that never was…..
….when I got drunk many years ago before I got pregnant with Felix (we used to drink, alot)…I erronously agreed to the name “Caesar”. I let the joke go….a bit too far….and expectations were ACTUALLY created (by my stupid husband) around this name. Now keep in mind that we are French Canadian and live in a small town (can you imagine the childhood this kid would have had)….
….my husband took it UNBELIEVABLY hard when I finally stood my ground on this name being vetoed on account of our deal being struck when I was drunk!
…..my still….I believe he will try to revisit this deal when (if) I get pregnant with #2…..que dieu me vient en aide (lord help us)
E. says:
I don’t have kids (yet), but my parents chose a rather unique route when naming their children. My brother, the oldest, is named after my father, who was named after his father, and they named me after my mother, who just happens to have the same name as my father’s mother.
So, that makes for grandfather, son and grandson with the same name, and grandmother, daughter-in-law and granddaughter with the same name… talk about confusion at family gatherings!
Maura says:
I’m 1/2 Irish and 1/2 Russian, so I wanted to give my twin girls names that reflected their heritage.
My hubby is 1/2 Native American, 1/2 Greek, so I didn’t really want to go there.
Anastasia (which also turns out to be the name of my Grandmother, part of my sister’s name (Stacia) and the name of my hubby’s first cat).
Keira (Nice Irish name)
We LOVED “Parker” after the famous Dorothy Parker. My immature office mates pointed out that my last name “White” would make a nickname, “Parker White Arse on the Couch!”
So… there.
Bec says:
We’ve had a lot of trouble with naming. We still need to pick a middle name for Mini and Erin didn’t have one for weeks after she was born.
Luckily I don’t regret Erin’s name and hopefully we wont regret Mini’s name to be.
.-= Bec´s last blog ..Are you done having kids? =-.
Molly says:
I LOVE having the literary tie ins. The only thing I don’t like about my name, Molly, is the meaning. Apparently it means “bitter”. oh well!
The weirdest thing is when people say “well what’s Molly short for?” really? I also like that my name is pretty easy for kids to pronounce. I work with toddlers and kids with special needs so it’s nice for them to have something to call me! I have a co worker who went by “man-der-if” all summer. None of the kids could say meredith. I also have a boy middle name for my grandfather. I LOVE it. I love being named for him.
I worked with a kid named Lucas. Older brother’s name was Alex. Younger brother’s name was Magnus. Um. yeah. Magnus.
.-= Molly´s last blog ..One year =-.
Johanna says:
I also work with young children and its a big triumph when they learn your name isn’t it? I get ‘Hanna’ and I’m happy with that but a co-worker is passionate about being addressed by her full name of Elizabeth with no abbreviations which has actually resulted in her being called something that sounds like “Ziber-Biff” LOL
J in eire says:
My eldest daughter is Mollie, the Celtic (we’re Irish) meaning is “asked for child”… I love to tell her how much she was wanted that we named her Mollie so she would always know. She was born in July and her birth stone is a ruby, when I was expecting my second girl I came across Ruby in a baby book and the meaning was “precious gem”…. I love the connection they share through their names, my asked for child and precious gem.
susie says:
My sons name is Matthew Alan. His name, Matthew, means “gift of God” in one of the bibles I was reading. I had a terrible time getting pregnant with him so his name was perfect. Middle name was his dads middle name. He was and still is a Gift of God…
Nicole says:
Our first son is Noah James (we liked Noah and James is my father in law) Our daughter is Lucile Grace, we call her Luci. My husband and I both have great grandmothers named Lucile and we just liked it. Our youngest is Samuel Richard, (we had already gone with two old fashioned traditional names, and Sam went with our last name, Richard is my God-father and husbands grand-father)
Liz says:
Oh I love both of your daughters names! My mother is Ann and Annabel had long been a name I wanted to use… First comes love and marriage though… New last name ends in EL with the same amount of syllables! Our first daughter was to be Ava Elizabeth we chose this name while dating but Ava has since become too popular. When we found out we were having a girl Isla James was it but then I wanted a family name in the end (James was a family name Isla was not). She is Emery Jane or EJ for short. We call her both names hardly ever just Emery. A little while after she was born I wished we had just named her Jane Elizabeth but Emery Jane (or Emery Janie as her daddy calls her) fit PLUS Emer is his grandmothers maiden name Jane was her and his mothers middle name, my sisters initials are EJ AND my grandfather who has passed went by EJ! Sorry so long!
Liz says:
Emery not Emer
Lindsay from Florida says:
Not a mom yet, but like most people, I’ve got some ideas! My husband gets his say, of course, but for now, my daughter is Mikayla (or Michaela, the spelling changes all the time) Christine, and my son is Ryan Matthew.
I want my girl to be named after my dad in a way (Michael), and Christine is the first name of my favorite high school teacher, my mentor and friend. She is truly one of the most intelligent, phenomenal, fun, and all-around beatiful women I’ll ever know, not to mention that she is the reason I chose my college major and career. I would love my daughter to start out in the world with a name that holds all those magical qualities in my mind.
My son’s name comes from a simpler source. It’s the inverse of my favorite football player’s first and last name. (My family and friends, who are probably right when they say I’m a little too obsessed, give me a really hard time about this every time I mention it. But I swear, I really loved both those names even before Matt Ryan hit the scene while I was at BC.)
If I have more than two kids, or two boys or two girls, I’ll have to hit the drawing board.
Lindsay from Florida says:
Makes it sound like I’m already married, doesn’t it?! Haha, I meant my FUTURE husband gets his say. And I spelled “beautiful” wrong. Haha, it’s early!
Laura McIntyre says:
Well we sort of regreat our eldest daughters name , she is Rebecca and our second daughter is Eilidh (Ailey) and our son is Ruaridh (Roo-Ray) . Both Eilidh and Ruaridh are nice (gaelic) Scottish names and it would of been nice for all the kids to have that in common.
That being said Becca really does suit my eldest
.-= Laura McIntyre´s last blog ..Mother And Son =-.
Kate says:
We named our son Collin William, and I can’t believe how many people misspell it in the south. Everywhere else in the country it is spelled Collin but here I have to specify “Collin with 2 L’s!!”
A big deciding factor for us was our last name starts with an E, so names that started with vowels were out (as well as every name I picked before I ever even met my husband lol). William is both MY grandfather and my husbands grandfathers name, so we felt like we were honoring them as well.
Yeah, we’re boring and traditional haha but I am ok with that.
.-= Kate´s last blog ..Saturday! =-.
Lisa V says:
I have 3 year old twin girls. And I named them Kenidi & Kiyah. I have no regrets on their names! BUT I do wish I would have spelled Kenidi(Kennedy) differently. Before they were born I obsessed over how to spell Kiyah’s name so that it wouldnt get mispronounced her whole life. And then at our first doctors appointment they said Kiyah’s name perfectly & totally butchered Kenidi’s name! Now that I have already printed her name on everything her whole life, I guess it would be hard to change the spelling now! I will just have to tell her sorry when she gets older
Casi says:
When in highschool I dated Jason my name Casi we always said if we had a girl she would be Jasi and a boy would be Cason my middle name is Ann his was Michael so we also wanted the middle name of one of them to be MichaelAnn…. So now jump ahead quite a few years when I had my first girl not with said boyfriend but now with my husband whos name is Josh Michael. So our first is Jasi Rayn Rayn because his families middle name is Ray didnt like that so much so added a n….2nd daughter have to stick with ending in a I like my name so she is Kyli MichaelAnn so I still got to use both my names I choose in highschool and finally my 3rd daughter Lani Luann. Middle name is my mother-in-law first name….and my girls r in alphabet order J KL.
kimmie says:
my favorite girl’s name for years has been Eleanor and I so much wanted to name my daughter Eleanor. My husband crapped all over that Since then, I have met several baby Eleanor’s (and my now 15 month old child looks and seems nothing like an “Eleanor”) so I am at peace with the veto because it seems to becoming rapidly popular again (after a 50 year hiatus) and I detest “fad” names (I was named Kimberly in the year 1980, along with at least 30% of the baby girl population at the time. go figure). Our daughter is named Natalie, which is a name I have found to be so beautiful my entire life. Consistently common, so “Natalie” seems to be at little risk to be a wildly-popular-and-overused-for-five-years-and-then-completely-obscure-and-dated fad name (I hate that if you hear the name Kimberly you can pretty much guarantee this is a woman born between the years of 1975-1985). The name is always relatively popular but in her childcare center with ~40 children, she is the only Natalie. I wanted to name her after my dad Michael, so her middle name is Michele. I love the name – no regrets there
Sorry for the long rant – I love baby name discussions. No clue what we will name any future children. Suggestions??
p.s. I think Maddie and Annabel are two of the cutest babies I have ever seen!
Issa says:
I just had to say, my middle child is actually named Natalie and I adore it for the same reason. You rarely hear it, but it’s around enough that no one finds it odd. We call her Nata.
.-= Issa´s last blog ..Dear Apple and Steve Jobs, =-.
kimmie says:
Hi Issa! Isn’t Natalie just the prettiest name? I would love to hear your other two children’s names since we seem to have similar taste in names and similar “logic” behind them! I could use some inspiration for any future children
Issa says:
I adore it. It was my grandmothers name, but really? I didn’t name Nata after her, it was just the strongest name I could come up with. We were told she was a boy…so I named her at 12 hours old. I figured if she could trick everyone in utero, she’d be a force to be reckoned with in life. Which is true. Ha. :0)
My oldest is Maya Elise, Nata is Natalie Olivia and my son is Alexander Miles.
Heidi says:
I had absolutely no name criteria…the first time around I saw a last name on a house sign and thought, that would make a neat boys name. Turned out we were having a girl, but I used the name anyways – just with a little twist in the spelling. I had a name picked out for my second before she was conceived (again a boys name that could be used for either) and I wore my husband down on that one. So we have two little girls named Masyn & Spencer. If I ever have a third, for a girl I would have to stick with a boys name (love Ryan or Rory), and a boy would need a unique name to keep in line with his sisters.
Amanda says:
our kids’ names needed to be classic but unique and not weird or trendy. Easy-peasy, right?! NOT. We have Faith Cecilia Norah Kathryn, Sofia Clare, Maria Christine, and little man Bennett Jude.
Christa says:
This is too funny: I’m with my parents this weekend for my birthday and we were laughing about my name debacle: They spelled it “Crista” and legally changed it to “Christa” when I was about 2. They never liked my name without the “h” and felt it wasn’t right. The only reason they’d spelled it that way in the first place was due to family pressure — to not have “Christ” in my name! So, listen to your gut — not overbearing FILs!
Marie-Christine says:
Oh I love to read all the baby names And I LOVE Madeline and Annabel’s names!!
I live in the french part of Canada but my husband and I both speak english and french so we wanted names that were cute in both languages. Oh and here, we don’t give middle names. So it’s just one name and you better like it I also wanted names that are special but not invented or weird. I call them classical with a twist!
So we had twins first round, a boy and a girl. We named them : Ava (which isn’t a popular name at all in french, while Eva is, so the A is the twist) and Charles-Liam (double names are very common here (look at my name, it’s like SO common) and while Charles and Liam are VERY popular names by themselves, together, I’ve never heard!). Then we adopted our little girl from Ethiopia and we called her Naïma. I just loved (and still do) the name (heard, I have to say, on America’s Next top model… but let’s not stick to the reference :P) and it sounds exotic, like our little girl. And lastly, we had our beautiful last girl, Amelia (Amelie, pronounced more like Amaylee in english, is very common here but not Amelia, so yeah!). Plus, with my 2 first girls having a name ending with an “a”, I wanted that feminine touch for the last one too!!! I love my babies names, I would not change them for the world!!!! (even if sometimes, people pronounce the “a” at the end of my girls’ names in a ugly way that I can’t really translate in writing!
Andrea says:
I wanted the names to have some connection to a family member so my oldest has my sister’s name as a middle name, my son is named after his dad and shares a middle name with my dad, my middle girl is named after my grandmother and shares a middle name with my mom, and my youngest girl is named after my husband’s grandmother. We had a totally different name chosen for our youngest (Brianna) and I love the name but it just didn’t feel right. One day out of the blue I suggested Lucy to my husband. I didn’t even know that that was his grandmother’s name. It suits her so well, I’m glad we didn’t stick with Brianna! A few days before my son was born we were talking nicknames and I joked that we should call him Ace. 5 years later, he is Ace and he has barely heard his “real” name. He is getting ready to start kindergarten and it is so important to me that he keeps his nickname because he just IS Ace so on on the forms I have it highlighted.
.-= Andrea´s last blog ..Zoo pictures =-.
Andria says:
I was just discussing in my letter to Clark for his first month (he’s already one month– boo hoo!) how I came to his name. The name I had picked didn’t fit, and he didn’t have a name until he was 5 days old.
.-= Andria´s last blog ..Month One =-.
Melissa says:
My daughter is Bridget Maisy – my maiden name translates into Followers of Bridget from Gaelic. Her middle name came from a classic movie I was watching while pregnant. It just stuck.
We have a boy’s name picked out – the first name is just one that my husband loves and the middle name comes from a reading at our wedding.
Kristin says:
Our criteria for naming our son and daughter was really, do we love the name? can we bear hearing ourselves say the name over and over? is it good for a 2week old, 2year old, 12year old, 35year old… etc… Also, we don’t care for nicknames, so we kept the names *almost* un-nick-namable – Alex and Abby. Not Alexander and not Abigail. (though we call them all sorts of other little nicknames anyway…) And my husband is Mexican, I am white, so we wanted something that sounded good with our Hispanic last name, if that makes any sense.
.-= Kristin´s last blog ..More of Mollie =-.
Tara says:
I have more “don’ts” than “dos” for baby names. I can’t stand the whole replace a letter with “y” thing. Or even randomly adding a “y.” I have two friends that both have a son named Chance. One spells it the way the English language would have it. The other added a “y” between the “a” and “n.” I do not get it! What is that “y” even doing?! Names brought to you by the letter “y” are annoying. Emeryson, Kaydence, etc. Not to mention parents who have no idea when to use a “c” and when to use a “k.”
I also hate phonetic spellings. Balee(Bailey), Hidey(Heidi), Chellsey(Chelsea), etc.
I hate made up names like “Nevaeh.” (Heaven backwards.) They rarely turn out nice or original. I especially hate people who take the name, Nevaeh, and give it an alternate spelling. At least Nevaeh sort of has a meaning. “Neveya” means nothing. They may as well have let a cat walk on a keyboard and named their child that. I like the sound of my bamboo wind chimes but I’m not naming my next kid Bloktok. There are plenty of names to choose from without making you and your kid look like an ass with a made up name.
My husband and I go for names that are unique but not so out there that they’re weird. When naming my babies, I always stayed away from the top 20 American names of the last four or five years. In fact I looked through the Social Security lists of popular names from over 100 years ago to find solid and/or pretty old fashioned names that could work today.
We had five sets of names for our son but chose to decide after he was born to see which one fit him best. He ended up with the one we liked the most during my pregnancy, but we needed to make sure his face and personality fit it.
When he was only seven months old, I saw a movie and the main character had one the best male names I had ever heard of. (I refuse to say it anywhere because if it gets popular, we won’t use it. Heather, if you really want to know, you can email me. You can be on the very short list of people I’ll tell it to. : ) ) Although I never regretted our son’s name, I was annoyed that I hadn’t seen that movie before he was born. Our son will be turning four this week and we still plan on naming our next son this favorite name.
Girl names are so much harder to pick out! We had lots of names we liked but there were very few we both loved. One was a nickname for a longer name. I was worried about the nickname aspect. She would never be president with a cutesy name like the one we liked. We weren’t crazy about the longer name that it was attached to but luckily that name is my mom’s name and was my maternal grandmother’s name. We fell in love with the longer name when we decided we would be naming her after my grandmother (not that we wouldn’t name her after my mom, but my grandmother having that name is what sealed the deal for us). We never call her that longer name but she has the option when she’s older. Along with over 15 other variants of it.
So if our next child is a boy, we’re all set. If it’s a girl, we have our work cut out for us. Since we have one of each, we’ve decided to be surprised for all future pregnancies so either way, we’ll be stressing about a name. Maybe you can write a tutorial on how to choose the perfect girl’s name since you seem to be really good at coming up with them.
Sarah P says:
So, so funny.
Karen says:
Very, very quickly because I have a love affair with names that will not abate. I don’t have children of my own yet so I can’t regale you with tales of how I arrived at their names, but in regards to potential future daughters in your midst, I thought of a few off the top of my head that would fit your desire to have a longer name that can be shortened. (I don’t necessarily recommend them all, these are just the ones I thought of on the fly.)
Amelia – becomes Millie
Matilda – becomes Tillie
Jessamie – becomes Jessie (and is a bit more unusual than Jessica.)
Ariella – becomes Ella
Elizabeth – becomes Lizzy/Bessie/Libby
Caitlyn – becomes Caitie
Charlotte – becomes Lotte/Charlie
Abigail – becomes Abbey
Emily – becomes Emmie
Sophia – becomes Sophie
Penelope – becomes Penny
Leilani – becomes Lani
(Because I have this “thing” for names matching, I would say of that list that Matilda, Charlotte and Abigail sit most comfortably alongside Madeline and Annabel, with Charlotte holding the lead because it doesn’t share a starting letter with either. Aren’t I a pedant?)
I also like Layla, Eloise, Bethany, Isabel, Jenna, Taea, Briahna, Serahni, Sybella and Elora. (Okay, I’ve watched Willow a few too many times.) For the most part, as a teacher, I find myself falling in love with pretty, different names I encounter and then returning to “safer” ground because kids have to live with their names for life, not to mention figure out how to spell them. I know I’ve missed a whole swag of names but it’s a start!
– Karen (Melbourne, Australia)
.-= Karen´s last blog ..Entrophy Sets In =-.
Heather says:
Heather,
I don’t have any kids yet, but I have them all named! (That is if God decides to accept the order that I put in ahead of time!!) We picked names that are significant to us and that we liked, and matched them up with names we liked as a first and middle combination. The hardest part was finding names that went with our last name! Of course, maybe we could just change that too!
.-= Heather´s last blog ..Homesick =-.
Ann Mercier says:
Heather – My Husband and I obsess over names too. We played the name game for months with both our children and I am VERY happy with what we chose for them… Skyler Renée and Gavin Grant. They just fit their names and I feel it was meant to be.
I agree, I couldn’t imagine living the rest of my life regretting the name I had given my child. I feel it is a gift you give them and it deserves a lot of thought and love.
This couple that my Husband and I are friends with, are choosing to name their two sons Billy Bob and Jack Daniel just because they think it’s funny… and I don’t think it’s funny at all!!! It actually irritates me every time they say it because they don’t know what they are doing to their kids!!!
The names you chose for your girls are beautiful… just like they are!! :o)
Laurie says:
My son was born in 1996 and I wanted a ‘classic’ name, but one that was not used too much. I named him Jacob. The joke was on me! For the next 10 years it was the most popular boy’s name in the US. It seems like everyone is named that, now.
I don’t regret it, though. I think it’s a good, solid name and Jake is a great nickname.
Caroline says:
I have been crazy about names FOREVER, I absoultely love them. I’m 18 right now, so no babies for awhile, but I’ve had my names picked out forever (I’m sure I’ll have to give my future husband SOME say
here… maybe)
My name is Caroline, and I was really close to being named Madeline! I’ve always loved name.
Krista says:
Love this thread! Our second daughter will be three weeks old tomorrow, so we just had this debate. Our challenge is a very Polish last name, so we wanted fairly traditional first names, and the middle names are both after family members. Our oldest is Sarah Katherine — my hubby loves the name Sarah and I fell in love with it after we linked it with Katherine.. The little one is Abigail Helen. Both names were still under discussion until the week the kids were born, but no name regret! BTW, we considered Annie — love that name. Madeline will always remind me of your little girl.
Boys names are harder — lucky we just have girls…
Rachel says:
Love this discussion! I’ve been obsessed with baby names lately, even though I have no kids & none cookin’ as far as I know. Lol.
For a girl, I want her first name to be Kate (the middle name of my mother-in-law who passed away). I think it’s a short, simple, cute name anyways so I’m glad that it’s a family name. (Now, if Kate Gosselin would disappear I’d be really happy…) Don’t have a set middle name that goes with Kate yet, although I do like Annabelle, and I also think Cheyenne (one of my niece’s middle name) is cute, although hubby vetoes that one…
If we have a boy? That’s going to be trouble. My hubby is John Jr. and has always wanted a John III, which I am STRONGLY against, due to the popularity of the name John and the fact that I don’t want to have him deal with clarifying that he’s John III forever. And I don’t like my hubby’s middle name Raymond for him to go by. So I’m hoping I can talk my hubby into compromising and keeping Raymond as the middle name and maybe a different, less common J name as the first name. I’m leaning towards Jack (after my grandpa..can’t decide if it’s too old fashioned though), although I also kinda like Jacob, Jude and Judd.
I guess we’ll see if we’re lucky enough to have a boy though…my hubby grew up as the baby w/ 3 sisters who have 5 girls and 1 boy between the three of them now…he wants a son soooo bad.
Sarah says:
You know, Jack is a traditional nickname for the name John so you could have a John III and call him Jack.
http://www.behindthename.com/name/jack
Rachel says:
That’s the plan if hubby insists on John III I just don’t want the poor kid to deal with the whole III thing forever…but it’s always been my husband’s dream to have a son to carry on the name…men
Catherine says:
I have friends whose son is a III. They call him Trey.
Rhonda says:
My daughter’s middle name is Raquel, ( I love Raquel Welch, always thought her and her name were beautiful) because I wanted her to have a special name that not everybody had and I let her big brother pick her first name he picked Lisa after Lisa Simpson, he was hooked on The Simpson’s but it fit and I always liked the name Lisa. My youngest is a Jr., I guess I am a middle name person because I came up with my oldest’s middle name first, I love the name James but, not Jim or Jimmy, so I had to make it the middle name. I have no regrets…about their names, anyway. : ) You know Mom’s always think they should have done this this way or that another way. We second guess ourselves but, you know all my babes are pretty darn good people and make me proud!!
Jennifer says:
“Random”? “Extra”? That is just wrong!
Anyhow, I had my daughter’s name picked out about 2 years before she was born as I had 3 miscarriages before she came along and of course picked a name when I was like 8 weeks pregnant.
My/our criteria was to name after a beloved relative who was no longer with us. In our case, it was apparent to both of us that we were going to name our child after my husband’s mother Elaine. I never met Elaine as she died of breast cancer when my husband was 22 (he and I met much later) but from how everyone talked about her, I felt like I knew her, and still get teary sometimes thinking that she’ll never know her namesake.
Anyhow, I didn’t want to choose Elaine’s exact name since everyone still talked about her a lot and I didn’t want confusion — and frankly, I didn’t love the name itself.
I did some looking and fell in love with the name Eliana. Not only was it unique but the meanings and origins of it were perfect too.
After a few miscarriages, I had some time to think of other names. We did consider others but I never found anything that spoke to me more than this. My husband loved the name Ellie. I made the excecutive decision that we’d name her Eliana but could call her Ellie. He agreed so there you are!
Nextly, we picked a middle name that honored my grandmother Roberta and went with Reese. So, her name became Eliana Reese! And we call her Ellie. (But, she answers to both and knows her name is Eliana too).
We’ve never looked back. Her name suits her perfectly.
If we had had a boy, it would have been an E name too but we never could decide on that one!
.-= Jennifer´s last blog ..Signs, signs, everywhere signs… =-.
Tina says:
For as long as I can remember, I said that my first daughter’s name would be ‘Kathryn Grace.’ No ifs, ands or buts about it. Then I got pregnant, as did two of my best friends. When discussing names, I found out that one friend was naming her daughter “Sarah Katherine” after both of her grandmothers, while the other was considering “Kaitlyn” for her girl name. I think the idea of having the three girls with such similar names bothered me more than the idea of giving up “my” name…and naming your daughter after her two great-grandmothers seemed to hold more weight (in my mind). I didn’t give up on it completely, but one day a little girl walked up to me, rubbed my belly & said, “What’s your baby’s name?,” & I immediately answered, “Maggie.”
No idea where it came from, & I thought about changing my mind a hundred times. (Worried about nicknames she might get, about having such a short name for a first name, etc.) Then I met an old man in Savannah who asked what I was having…I told him I didn’t know yet, & he said he had two daughters, Katherine Grace (!!!) & something else, & that he always wished he had stood his ground & named his first daughter Maggie (!!!) like he had wanted. Before I could say anything, he added, “My wife said that was a nickname & that kids would call her ‘maggot,’ but I think I could have just taught her how to fight, because she’ll always be ‘Maggie’ in my mind.”
So…Maggie Grace it is, & I can’t imagine her as anything else.
With my son, my husband & I thought we wanted ‘Jack.’ Then we went to the park & every other kid there that day was named ‘Jack’ (& getting into trouble), & my coworkers HATED it. I was also working for an Ob/Gyn at the time, & could see which names were super-popular at the time. Needless to say, ‘Jack’ was one of them. We decided on ‘Oliver James,’ but then I realized that since my husband is a redhead that the baby might be as well, & who wants to be a redhead with the initials ‘O.J.’??? Scrapped it.
We finally decided on a middle name (Finley) after Maggie pointed out that I call her “sunshine” & Finley means “sunbeam,” & during a girls beach trip, my friends suggested ‘Ty.’ I called home to tell my husband, & from that day forward, ‘Ty Finley’ was his name.
So, we have Maggie & Ty…not Margaret & Tyler…but their names definitely suit them!
Denise says:
Our daughters have uncommon names. one is often mistaken for a more common name and I always have to correct people multiple times, but we knew it going into it. If they ever live in Italy they’ll be just fine.
.-= Denise´s last blog ..Desperately Seeking BALANCE… =-.
Mark (Dudge OH) says:
DS1’s is an Anglicized Welsh name. We had to Anglicize the name we chose as it would be unlikely to have been pronounced correctly! Continuing a tradition that goes back at least three generations, his middle name is my first name.
As for DS2, we went Irish. I did insist on a vowel swap in the name as I was concerned that my friends & family would think he was named after a British sportsperson. His middle name is my father-in-law’s first name.
We thought about names a lot and if we had had a girl, she would have been Bebhinn (pronounced Bevan) Penelope.
The process we used for all the first names was looking at names we liked the sounds of, from our heritages. I’m originally from Wales and though she is of mixed heritages, my wife identifies most with her Irish roots, which is unsurprising, since her name is Kerry.
.-= Mark (Dudge OH)´s last blog ..dudgeoh: Can anyone tell me if there are any real operating differences between a #laptop and a #netbook? =-.
Rachel says:
My first born daughter is Savannah Monet (yep just like the artist). I always loved the movie from the 80’s called “Savannah Smiles” plus I just thought it was a beautiful name:) The Monet came to me during a college art history class, we were learning about Monet and I thought, hmmmm what a pretty girls name!
My second daughter is named Emily Paige. Emily is a timeless name, my only regret would be that it is very common but we still love it!
defendUSA says:
Kid 1…driving to see family and someone sent me books…the hubby was afraid to have s-e-x and I was reading a therapist’s recommendation to him for solving the problem *I* had with my increased urges!! He wanted to talk about names instead. Erin Elizabeth came from that “let’s not talk about masturbation or vibrators right now…” discussion.
Kid Two…Name regret. I love his name, but I wished I had switched the first and middle. I was always made fun of for the way I said my husband’s name. No hard T sound. So I refused to make MarTin his first name because of that. Neal Martin. I now say hard T’s, especially when I am pissed.
Kid three…Cannot remember how we came up with her name, except that kid 1 had my Gram’s middle, so we gave this one the other Gram’s middle. Hannah Corinne.
Kid four was a family affair, driving again with the name book. We got to the G’s and we already knew what the middle name would be. His initials are G.P.A. !! Grant Preston after a great Uncle. He is the smartest kid evah!
No true regrets honestly, but far cries from the names I wrote in my diary at 16…Julia Lynn, David Daniel. And I love my own name as well…(Thanks, Mutti!)
RebeccaS says:
We decided on greek mythology as a theme for our children’s names and went through all of the names we could find on wikipedia to come up with our candidates. We had a boys and a girls name picked out since we didn’t know the gender of our first baby – she turned out to be Persephone Elektra. I really like how unusual it is. I am pregnant with our second child which is looking like a boy and we will use our boy’s name Morpheus Orion. If it is a girl it will be Pandora Athena.
LibraryGirl62 says:
My kids fit their names perfectly:
Lindy Pearl (17)- I was going with Skylar (UGH what was I thinking) until a customer came in the store I was working in, handed me her credit card-and the rest is history! I just KNEW. The customer was named by her grandfather for Charles “Lucky Lindy” Lindbergh. The Pearl is My Lindy’s Russian-Jewish Great Grandmother
Maxwell Kenneth (16)-Maxwell because I have always known I would have a red-haired catcher named Max-and I do!. The Kenneth is his father’s name.
If I had others, a daughter would have been Allie Beatrice (my grandmother’s name) or Samuel Henry for a boy-the ex used to say we needed a Sam because every Jewish Family (he’s Jewish, I am not) needs an Uncle Max and and an Uncle Sam :}
LibraryGirl62 says:
And funny Lindy story-my mom was working at a GM plant in Ohio. When Lindy was born, an African-American woman in her 60’s from Alabama told my mom that HER mom’s name was Lindy Pearl…I LOVE that! I never thought she would share a name with any one and she has this great story to go along with the “other” Lindy Pearl
Lindy says:
Wow. This is only like the 5th other time I’ve ever seen someone with my name. Lindy is only a nickname for me, but I don’t go by my given name at all, never have. My first name was my father’s mother’s first name and my middle name was my father’s sister’s middle name. So I am Shirley Lynn, but my aunt came up with Lindy and that’s what I have been ever since and I love it.
Janelle says:
We named our first daughter after Bob Marley, which my husband is a huge fan of and since we live in the Caribbean, we just liked it. I do have name regret over her middle name. My husband wanted to name her Marley Love but I thought it sounded too hippy and I wanted her middle name to be a family name, so we named her Marley Alexandra after my grandpa Alex. I’ve just never really liked the name Alexandra but we could not agree on anything else. Nothing really sounded good with Marley. So when we had our 2nd daughter, we knew we wanted her name to start with an “M” – my siblings and I all have names that start with “J” and my husband and his brother have “S” names, so we continued the trend. I promised my husband that when I got pregnant the 2nd time, if it was a girl, her middle name could be Love. I love her name – Maya Love. I think it is very pretty and feminine but also makes me regret Marley’s middle name even more – as Marley Alexandra seems a little more masculine. I really wish we had named her Marley Lillian to make the name a bit more girly but at the time, I thought it had to many “L’s” and also thought we may want to use Lillian for a 2nd daughter (we hadn’t decided to continue the M trend at that time). If she was Marley Lillian, both girls would have the same intials, which I think is pretty cool too.
Karen says:
I think about my daughter’s name a lot. We chose Lillian Sarah but I’ve thought that maybe it should have been Annalynn Sarah instead. She’s 6 months old so I wouldn’t change it now. I never questioned our choice for my son’s name, Brandt Joseph. I like that it’s unique but not off the wall.
.-= Karen´s last blog ..Taking a Break =-.
Laura says:
My sons name is Ethan Michael. Ethan just because we liked it, and Michael is the middle name of my dad, my husbands dad, and my husband.
My daughter is Allison Jaye. I got the name Allison from a blog I found shortly after my son was born about a sweet baby named Allison that had leukemia. http://www.scotthousehold.com I just thought the name was so pretty and feminine. Her middle name, Jaye, is after my husband, Jason.
AmazingGreis says:
Growing up with a common name that’s spelled different was hard when I was younger. I hated my name in Elementary/Jr. High. What I hated the most is the mis-pronunciations. As I got in to High School I think my name grew on me and I really started to love it. I plan on making Greis my daughter’s middle name if I ever have a daughter.
.-= AmazingGreis´s last blog ..California, oh how I miss thee… =-.
andifoo says:
Our daughter is Finley Kate. We call her Fin, which, while a tad trendy at the moment is still quite different for a girl. It was the one name we both saw in the baby book, looked at each other & just knew. I’ve always adored boys names for girls. I’ve since seen big debate on baby name sites about Finley being only a male name, ridiculous for a girl, like naming your daughter John and how dare you use such a strong male Irish name for a female (not Irish)?! But we love it and it SO suits our daughter. I wanted a short, classic middle name and we both agreed Kate went well in grounding her first name. She was almost ‘Claudia Grace’ (family names) and we agree wholeheartedly now that we made the right decision.
If I ever have a 2nd daughter her name will be Briony Jane. I love the way it sounds with Finley Kate and it has the same qualities of being unique and a little masculine sounding yet somehow still feminine. And again another short & classic middle name.
Good thing we didn’t have a boy because we absolutely could not agree on boy names. I’ve always loved Cary and of course the hubs hated it. I’m also fond of Arlo… another bomb with the hubs.
Jen L. says:
I have a friend with a daughter named Jeramie. (Pronounced like Jeremy.) It suits her to a T! My favorite girl name was Peri, but we had a boy.
.-= Jen L.´s last blog ..The state of Mom =-.
andifoo says:
Cute, that’s a new one for me! One of my best friends is Meike (pronounced Mikey), her daughter is Ryan… another friend has a daughter Evyn and they almost named her Elliot. LOVE boy names for girls!
Also forgot to mention about our daughter’s nickname… while we call her Fin for short, her at-home nickname with just me & her daddy is ‘Foo’. Don’t ask me why, it just stuck (hence my twitter name above)!
Karen says:
I have a friend who has a daughter named Finley Kate and she is adorable! Love it. They also have two boys… Hudson and Ford.
.-= Karen´s last blog ..Grandpa Keith Turns 70! =-.
andifoo says:
@Karen Aww, you’ll have to tell your friend you heard of another Finley Kate from Southern Illinois! Isn’t that crazy? How old is she, just out of curiosity?
Karen says:
I think she is about 2 1/2 years old now. She was adopted. We learned about her on a Friday and met her on a Sunday! A wonderful, sweet surprise. A California little blondie and her name fits her so well.
.-= Karen´s last blog ..Grandpa Keith Turns 70! =-.
andifoo says:
Wow, that is so bizarre. Our Fin is 2 1/2 as well!
Missy says:
I know someone who is due next month and her little girl will be Finley Kate too.
andifoo says:
Apparently I have named my daughter the up and coming most popular girls name in all the land! LOL Aww, hope they love it as much as we do. As long as our small town and school system isn’t filled with a bunch of Finley Kate’s that need to be distinguished by a last initial, I’m happy.
Issa says:
My girls names are perfect and fit them so well. My son…I don’t know. His name fits him, but I also still wish I’d been more insistent in naming him the name I wanted too. I let his dad pick.
I’d of named him the same thing you had picked for Annie if she’d been a boy. Charles as the middle.
but I’ll hold onto it. never know.
.-= Issa´s last blog ..Dear Apple and Steve Jobs, =-.
Ginny says:
When we chose a boy name, it just didn’t feel right. Something about it. Then a friend of mine started bashing it, saying how gay it sounded. Nice. So we ended mulled it over and decided that we’d wait for the sex. I was obsessing over the boy name. It was like I couldn’t breathe. Picking a girls name was simply. Five minutes and it was settled. We adored that name. 31 weeks pregnant and we found out “it’s a girl!” Problem solved. Lovely name, perfect for every reason we chose it. She fit into it exactly as we expected!
.-= Ginny´s last blog ..Hormone Explosion, aka Miss Dolt =-.
Marnie :) says:
Let me start off by saying, when I was younger I didn’t like my name. Not because I thought it was ugly or anything, but I could NEVER find it on a cup, pen, keychain, etc. You know, important stuff. Now that I am older, I love my name. The only down side is people misprounce it ALL. THE. TIME. My name is NOT Marty, Marine or Barnie thankyouverymuch.
Anywhoo, as far as my kids’ names go, I wanted something that I liked and went with our last name.
For my first daughter, we liked the name Marissa. I couldn’t think of a middle name that I liked, so at the hospital we were going through the name book and liked Noelle. It wasn’t until a couple of days later that we realized that Marissa was a version of Mary. So her name is sort of Mary Christmas. Good thing I love Christmas.
For my second daughter, I was in a new marriage and wanted to honor my husband in some way. I had read somewhere that in some Jewish traditions, people name their children with the first letter of a relative’s name. We are not Jewish, but I loved the idea of doing that. So we named her with the first letter of my husband’s name. We did the same thing with our third daughter.
On a side note, my husband never gave any name suggestions himself. I would throw lots of names out there and he would either say no, maybe, or I don’t knows. So for our third baby I really wanted this one name. He never said whether or not he liked it. So for the baby shower his mom made the cake and it had the name I wanted on it. First of all, I didn’t know he actually agreed on the name, second, I didn’t realize we were annoucing it at the shower. At least it was the name I wanted.
———–
As far as name regrets go, my cousin had that with her son. She named him after her then boyfriend (the baby’s dad). After they broke up (he was NOT a good person), she changed her son’s name. The only thing was that her son was 3 years old (yes, YEARS). She let him pick out his own name. It was and still is hard for some of the family to call him by the right name. It’s hard to remember to call him by his new name when we called him by the other for 3 years. It will happen eventually, I hope.
P.S. Sorry this was so long.
Marnie :) says:
I am such a nerd. I just realized how many emoticons were in my comment. I might need an intervention. Sorry. (I can’t tell you how close I was to adding another one in this comment. I DO need help.) haha
Missy says:
I’m Marissa Elyse! I always thought it sounded good together even though I don’t use the Marissa often.
Robyn says:
My daughter’s name is Aurora Charlotte. It suits her perfectly. We think Aurora has a lovely sound but is also love its beautiful astronomy connection (we’re both science geeks) we only found out about the Disney princes bit after she was born -but it means other little girls love it! Like you we wanted a name that we could shorten to a little girl name (we call her Rory, most but not all of the time) but also a name that she could go forth into life with and be a judge or a surgeon if thats what she wants -so many girls names are pretty but diminutive. Its unusual, more so here in the UK than in the States I think -(believe me I research!) but people have usually heard of it. Every one seems to love it except for her daddy’s god mother, but I think she thinks all girls should be called Susan or something. The Charlotte is for her grandfather Charles who died just before she was born. She is the first grand child and we were devastated that they didn’t get to meet each other. We decided against it as a first name as it is very common here and we didn’t want her name to be primarily a living memorial, but we try really hard to make him part of her life, remembering him in her name is an important part of that. I love the names you gave your girls, and the way you remembered Maddie in Annie’s name.
Julie says:
We decided on my son’s name well before we were ever trying to conceive. Jack was a name we both loved, as was Henry (he’s Jack Henry).
Our criteria were that the name couldn’t be too ridiculously long (our last name is 3 syllables, 9 letters), or too ethnic (my father-in-law is straight from Germany, so we didn’t want people to expect our child to be tall and blonde with blue eyes, nor would anything very Italian, French, etc. fit very well).
We had a harder time with girls names. We had originally decided on Anna Scarlett for our daughter. But then close friends named their daughter Anna, and we realized that we have a good friend named Anna (pronounced Ahn-na), so there was a commonality issue as well as pronunciation. Then, as I got to know her better (in utero), she just didn’t FEEL like an Anna. She felt like a Scarlett…firey, active, feisty. So she became Scarlett Eve. Until we felt that Eve didn’t flow very well. So she’s Scarlett Evelyn
And I have no name regret whatsoever. My son is absolutely a Jack, my daughter is absolutely a Scarlett!
ally (adil320) says:
Hi lovey.
I am fine with my boys names.
Chase is a name that Jim and I loved, and Mitchell is a family name. So Chase Mitchell is our oldest.
With our little man, we couldn’t agree on a name. We had sort of decided on Mason James when I went into labor. However once the baby was born it as obvious that he was a little Jimlet and James Mason was born. We call him Jimmy.
And NO. Get you Dodgers loving mind out of the gutter. We ARE NOT naming the boys after the Phillies infield.
xoxoxo
.-= ally (adil320)´s last blog ..I need to write =-.
Jennifer says:
We chose our names because we wanted something unusual. Arlington – our first daughter – we were driving through Arlington Texas on a cross country trip and thought it was a cool girl’s name.
Our second child – another girl – is Finley Sawyer. There was a Hollywood Star who named their daughter Finley and I thought it was pretty.
Our third – a boy – is Cainan. We got his name from the Bible. We had the hardest time with boy names!
.-= Jennifer´s last blog ..Finley =-.
KimPossible says:
We knew from the moment we were having a boy that he would be named for his grandfather (Robert) and my uncle that raised me (Warren). We called him by his name for months while he still in my belly. When he was born we took one look at him and were reassured that the name was perfect for him, he “fit” the part! I swear when we said it out loud just a moment after he was born he jerked that little head around to look for who has speaking his name! I can’t imagine having name regret – ugh!
We have a family name picked out for a girl too, if we ever have one.
It might seem boring or plain to some, but I love going the traditional route with names. We sit with our son now and tell him stories about Robert and Warren and how wonderful and amazing they were and how will always have a special connection with them because they share the same name.
Edda says:
In Iceland were I live we usually don’t give children a name until they are about 3-6 months old. It is very uncommon for people to reveal the name right away. My mom didn’t receive a name until she was 2 years old because my grandma already had 5 girls.
The family usually doesn’t hear the name until the child is babtised which is very common in Iceland even though we are not very religious……
Veronika says:
So interesting! How do you refer to your children until you name them? Or do you name them and just not reveal the name?
Edda says:
Some people name their children but don’t tell anyone but most just give them nicknames:) which can be fun too…….
Tracy says:
My husband and I chose family names for our twin boys James Collis (first name is after Daddy and middle name is after my husband’s best friend who passed away) and Sean Riley (first name is after a family friend and miidle name is the same as grandpa’s). But we typically call them “Zamsers” and “Seaners”……..poor guys!
Ann says:
I always knew that if I had a girl I would call her Eliza after my great-grandmother. We then proceeded to saddle our daughter with two middle names (poor kid!): Frances, after my husband’s middle name Frank, and Caroline, the name of the girl my mother had who died at birth. But my daughter thinks her name is Eliza Princess Caroline, as she heard “Princess” instead of “Frances.”
Kelley says:
My daughter’s name is Paige Elizabeth. Paige is a family name (passed from my great-grandfather (Paige) to my dad (Timothy Paige) to my brother (Zachary Paige)) and while it’s been a male name, I know everyone thought it was very special. Elizabeth was my great-grandmother’s name, so even though I never got a chance to know her (the only great-grandparent I didn’t get to know!), I feel like we’re keeping her legacy alive.
And Paige just fits my little girl. It was pre-determined, she’s always been Paige. Although I could really do without the Paigie-poo that my husbands family insists on calling her lol.
As for a boy…we like Ryker Dominic, but we’ll see if that sticks. And we’re completely lost for another girl’s name :-P.
.-= Kelley´s last blog ..A New Carrier =-.
Jess says:
I don’t have kids yet but I have my girl name picked out, I’ve had it for about 11 years now. I love the name Grace Elizabeth. It’s not from either side of my family but I love the idea of having a little girl I can call Gracie. I do like the name Tommy for a boy. I also have the name Eve saved up.
My name is really common, hello it’s Jessica. Growing up in school there were 3 of us in grade school. By the time I hit high school there were 6 Jessica’s in my grade! I can’t go anywhere without sharing my name with someone (and usually my birthday too oddly enough). In fact at my new job while I’m the only Jessica in the training class there is another Jessica in the building. I don’t feel so bad though, there are 3 David’s in my training class!
Dana says:
We liked the name Mackenzie from the tv slow JAG and my mom’s middle name us Ann…we thought Mackenzie Ann Corliss sounded good. We also liked the fact that the first three letters of her first name are also her initials MAC, which is what she prefers to go by at 6 years old! She will also answer to Kenz, Kenzie, mackie or Macko! We love the name and if we have another girl we’ve picked out the name Madison. I like the nicknames Maddie and Mackie for sisters!
Kate says:
I’ve got a Joshua. He was going to be Dylan Thomas, but my ex said he didn’t know any Dylan Thomas poems. So he’s Joshua Thomas. I call him Joshie no one lese is allowed
Trisha says:
I have so many criteria for naming my children, most of which stem from being a teacher! I didn’t want anything so common that three other kids in the class would also have the same name, but nothing so weird that it’s just obnoxious. I am adamant about using normal/typical spellings. And of course, it could not be a name of any former students that I would have any kind of less-than-lovely association with (my husband is also a teacher, so that list was quite long!). When we were still just dating, we met Gwen and we both instantly liked that name a lot, but not her full name – Gwendolyn. It was a little….much. So when we had our daughter (7 years later!), we named her Gwyneth and call her Gwyn. Her middle name is the same as mine – Noel – and it’s a perfect fit because she was born in December! People do have trouble pronouncing and spelling her name, which I find surprising because it is the traditional spelling and I didn’t think it was THAT uncommon (hello, Gwyneth Paltrow?). But we absolutely love it and it’s a perfect fit for our girl.
If we have another girl, we are leaning towards Evelyn. I want another “old-fashioned” name that will go well with Gwyneth, and I like that there are several letters in common, too. I also like Eloise. If we have a boy, well…I was settled on Griffin or Graham, but that would make three “G” names in the family and I am not sure if I want to go the alliterative route. I love my maiden name, Logan, but it’s becoming quite popular, so…..we’ll see!
Becki says:
We sorta themed our kids! Not intentionally, but it’s how it turned out!
Our first was Jackson. I’ve wanted a little boy named that since I saw Steel Magnolias in the 3rd grade. I just thought it was such a distinguised name that was cute when they are younger and professional when he’s older.
Our second is London. My husband loves that name for a girl, so that’s her. Plus, we met on a blind date after I saw pictures of him that were taken in London. It fit.
Our third, due in August, is Brooklyn. We didn’t set out to have another city name and had lots of names on our list, but Brooklyn just stuck, and even though I haven’t met her yet…I know its perfect for her.
So Jackson William, London Grace, and Brooklyn Elle rock the cities and the “on, yn” ending sounds. I love it.
Jodie Brooks says:
YOU ARE AWESOME!! We named our son Jackson for the same reason!! Too funny!!
Mendy says:
I love talking about baby names! I have a story about a very special name picked out, but I will get to that later. We did not find out the sex of our first baby so we went to the hospital with two very thought out names that we wrestled over for months. Our boy name was my husband’s creation (don’t all say aww at once) Jaxon spelled this way for a very cute reason, the X and the O in the middle so he would always know he has a hug and a kiss inside his name, and he will always be full of love. The girls will love this story as he gets older, but we worry if his buddies find out what the X and the O mean massive teasing may insue!
20 months later another baby was coming and we again did not want to know the sex so we thought and thought out two very beautiful names, Jarod (my husband’s Rod) McCarroll for a boy and Jewell Le-Ann was our girls name. Jewell for a very special friend and Le-Ann for my husband’s sister who died of cancer at 23. Now here’s the story I want to tell, a good friend at the time had overheard the girl name, knew how much it meant to me and how special it would be if we had a little girl, well as we later found out she stored that in her memory box of a brain to use later on.
We ended up having a boy and are very happy to have that as his name, Can you believe that so called friend went on to name her second daughter the same first name and very similar middle name, the same ones we had picked??? I’ts not like this name was common, Tell me how many Jewell’s you know? I know you don’t OWN a name, but now I loving refer to her as the name thief .
Sure enough I went on to have my little girl a year ago and we picked a beautiful and UNIQUE name, Andelyn which has several meanings. The first part of her name is “Ande” for the Andes Mountains in Chile and the second is “Lyn” after my middle name. She also has the “Ande” for those yummy Andes Candies which was my husband’s Nana”s favorite candy.
All in all I had fun picking their names. It’s the thought that counts right?
Dolphinmomcca says:
I named my first son Christian Daniel……I just liked the name Christian, and his Dads middle name is Daniel also.
My 2nd son is named Caden Michael…….Caden was the name one of my AOL friends named her son when we were pregnant with Christian, and I decided I liked it for my 2nd born….Michael is after my cousin and I just like the name.
My only daughter is named Aubree Jade…….Aubree after my late Grandpa (whos middle name was Aubrey) and her Dad and I wanted something somewhat unique for her middle name…..hence Jade (it was either that or Brooklyn) With her first name I wanted it to be more feminine looking, so I changed it to REE instead of REY like my Grandpa.
Heather says:
After my husband and I had been dating a while, I started to picture our lives as a married couple with children. For some reason, I always pictured us with a boy named Adam. I also pictured him with red hair (like his dad) and brown eyes (like his mom). I have no reason why that name stuck with me or why I ever thought of it… but almost 10 years after we started dating, we welcomed little Adam into our family, with beautiful brown eyes and bright orange hair! We tried to think of other names while I was pregnant, but as we approached the big day, all we could think of was Adam. We chose his middle name after my husband, whose name I have always loved.
I had also decided about five years ago that if I ever had a girl, I would name her Madelynn… strangely enough, when thinking of middle names, I considered Annabelle, though it seemed a bit long to use both names together If we ever have a girl, she will still be named Madelynn but we will have to choose a shorter middle name. So obviously, I think that you have GREAT taste in girls names. Keep up the good work!
Laurie says:
I LOVE this question. My daughter is Lydia Cecille. Lydia was my great grandmother’s name, and she was super spunky and strong, just like I want Lydia to be. Cecilia was another great grandmother, as well as my mother’s middle name, but Lydia Cecilia was too much, so we shortened it. We really wanted to use a family name. Our mistake? We used our top two on our first child! I don’t regret Lydia’s name at all, but like you, I’m at a loss for what our second daughter would be named if we have one. Also, I’m a teacher, and our boy name we had picked out was just totally ruined by a punk of a kid who is in my class this year. I would NEVER give a son the same name as this student! Even though we don’t intend to have another child for a few years, I feel like I need to get working now!
.-= Laurie´s last blog ..Grandma Mree!!! =-.
Rebecca says:
I just met a grandpa (don’t know what his name is) and his grandson is named Terrific. His daughter is named Magnificent.
I went to college with a guy named Mike Hunt. Which isn’t too bad until you really REALLY listen to the name together. Yeah!
My daughters named was picked out before I even met my husband. Isabella. I just love how it sounds and how it makes me feel to say, Isabella. Her middle name is the same as mine and my mothers and it just so happens to be the same as my mother in law’s middle name too. Anne.
My son’s name was picked when I was pregnant with my first child. We didn’t know right away if we were going to have a boy or girl and Joseph Kevin just came to us (Kevin after daddy). Also, on my husbands side they do something like the childs middle name is the same as the fathers first name….confuse you?
.-= Rebecca´s last blog ..One Hundred Miles =-.
Joy says:
My family does the same thing. My brother’s name, Edward, is our dad’s and his son’s middle name. I think it goes back six or seven generations.
Jodie Brooks says:
So, we have Jackson and Gracie. I’ve LOVED the name Jackson since Steel Magnolias and didn’t care if my husband would like it or not. Thank God he loved it as much as I. When we brought him home, my husbands twin looked at him and said he would call him Jackie. I was like, NO WAY am I going to let someone call him Jackie. Well, we call him Jackie ALL THE TIME and it totally fits him. Grace is actually called Gracie. We wanted a name that was classic and beautiful and it just fits her. At the time, I wanted her to have a solid name that she could use as an adult, but I vowed to always call her Gracie!! She seems to love it too!! NO REGRETS!!!
Nanette says:
I think you did a wonderful job with your selections!
I love Em’s real name and think it absolutely suits her. Sometimes we talk about the other top two contenders and know that neither of them would’ve suited her the way this one does.
We wanted something that was good for a little girl, but would also look nice following “Supreme Court Justice” on her business card.
We have a nice story for her middle name, which is in my grandmother’s honor, but I sometimes feel bad that I don’t know exactly how we found her first name. When asked how we came up with it, I reply, “Um, I think it was in the baby names book. Or a website. I don’t know…”
.-= Nanette´s last blog ..Ain’t nothing going to break my stride. Nobody’s going to slow me down =-.
BeeBelle says:
After picking two names we thought were unusual and then turned out to be on the top 10 lists for their years (yes, we were out of touch even on #2), for our third we checked baby name charts of the top 100 names and limited ourselves to 51-100 (not the most common, but not weird) and then refined it by going short for something easy to learn to write in kindergarten. It seems clinical, but we love it.
kimmie says:
I thought this was particularly interesting! What are the three names?
BeeBelle says:
Emily, Caitlin, and Cole. We even ran into another family with both an Emily and a Caitlin our kids’ ages.
Mia says:
Such an interesting post!
This is a topic that really interests me because my parents **changed my name** when I was 13.
I started out as “Kristen” and by the time I was 13, we all hated it. So my parents encouraged me to pick a new name. We changed it legally after trying my new name on for size for a few months (though it’s kind of a bummer, as “Mia” wasn’t at all popular 15 years ago. So I’m extremely annoyed by the fact that it’s really mainstream now!)
So even if you pick the wrong name, it’s not the end of the world! You **can** always change it! (And believe me – there was nothing cooler than being told “Pick your new name!” when you’re 13!!)
Kind of non-traditional, yes, but I don’t regret my choice at all. I love my name and it “fits,” whereas my old name never did. In fact, I don’t even remember being called “Kristen;” my mother says the same thing. It’s like all those old memories have been over-written.
Strange, I know. But it worked for us!
.-= Mia ´s last blog ..Fire Ant Bite Treatment for Dogs – How to Treat a Dog’s Fire Ant Stings =-.
Mia says:
I forgot to mention…
I don’t have kids yet. But I wouldn’t hesitate to change a child’s name if, years down the road, we discovered that their current name just wasn’t working.
I suspect that I’ll be one of those parents who goes home from the hospital with Baby X, as I’m big on picking a name that “fits.” Every time I’ve tried to pick a name in advance (thus far, for pets. And I have 20+, so we select names pretty often!) it didn’t work – it just didn’t “fit,” despite the fact that I *loved* the name and really *wanted* it to “fit.”
I suspect this will play out when I have babies too! So I plan to go in with a short list, with the final selection to be made after a few days (or longer, if they’ll let me!) *LOL*
.-= Mia ´s last blog ..Fire Ant Bite Treatment for Dogs – How to Treat a Dog’s Fire Ant Stings =-.
kelly e says:
Our daughter is Taeya Madeline and our son is Ezra Silas.
We were originally going to name our daughter Karis Olivia, but after our close friends named their daughter Karys (we hadn’t shared names, it was a total fluke) only 5 months before we had our daughter, we had to change plans. We were watching the Family Man with Nicolas Cage and Tea Leoni – we both loved the name Tea, but not the spelling, so we changed it to Taeya, which means “precious”. We both loved the name Madeline, which was inspired by Madeleine L’Engle.
Meanings for the first name were important, that it would be a unique (but not weird) name, and also that it would be a name that would suit a baby, kid and adult.
Ezra’s name means ‘help’ and we took it from the Bible. My husband wanted that if Taeya had been a boy, and i was so against it. Somehow, through the second pregnancy, it really grew on me and I loved it. Silas was a name I just really liked and it flowed well.
If Ezra had been a girl, we wanted the name Chloe Isabella, but just 2 weeks before he was born, we both admitted we didn’t love the name Chloe as much as we originally had. So we went back to the ‘drawing board’ and chose Adalia Jade.
Jen L. says:
Our last name is Lane, so we had to be careful our kid’s name didn’t end up sounding like a road! We wanted something original, yet not too out there and weird. We chose Dean because it works well for a little boy and a grownup and because you just don’t hear of a lot of Deans. His middle name is my maiden name. For a girl, we had a bit more trouble. My husband refused to consider anything ending in “i” and tended to want more gender neutral names than girlie ones. We knew we’d use Faith as a middle name if we had a girl, but couldn’t for the life of us agree on a first name. Thankfully, we had a son!
.-= Jen L.´s last blog ..The state of Mom =-.
Kathlynn says:
This is all so interesting to read!
When we found out we were having twin girls, my husband and I both went to work picking out names. I have always loved the name Scarlet and wanted to name Baby A that as she was feisty and kicked me day and night. My husband thought that name was too dramatic and suggested Lilly. I was adamant that I wanted a color. He stressed he wanted a flower. And Viola! We landed on Violet. I have to admit I do have some reservations about it as there are three Violets in her preschool alone! But I love, love, love the name.
For baby B I told my husband he could have free reign and he suggested – I kid you not – Chidori Cho. It’s the name of a neighborhood we spent time in outside Japan and he just loved it. Are we Japanese? uh, no. I vetoed it and suggested Wren, which I think is so lovely and gentle. He wouldn’t budge. Then we found out that Chidori Cho meant sandpiper in Japanese and, viola, our other daughters name is Piper. It fits them well. However, when I meet little girls named Scarlet, I do get a little envious, I’ll admit
Joy says:
Unlike the person in the video I wanted to make sure that my children had many available nicknames. Growing up with the name Joy I suffered from nickname jealousy my whole childhood. I also wanted their names to be unique (my husband is one of millions of Mikes) but not totally unusual.
I picked my son’s name after suffering two miscarriages. I liked the name Nathan, but when I was looking in the baby name book I discovered that the name Nathaniel means”‘gift of God” and it SO fit. We now call him Nate and he hates the name Nathan, LOL, but probably because everyone calls him that instead of Nathaniel.
My first daughter I’d picked the name Amelia years before she was born. I always thought that I’d call her Amalie, but after she was born her brother could only say Mia and it stuck. It actually fits her a lot better than Amelia, but I like the name still because it seems like a great professional name when she is grown. I gave her the middle name of Judith after my long time best friend.
My youngest daughter took the longest time to name. My husband one time asked “Why can’t we pick a simple name, like Anna or Lisa?” “Oh, I like the name Annalisa” I answered. “No, that isn’t simple!” My husband said. But it stuck and we call her Anna or Annie now.
All three kids were named before I left the hospital (some hospitals won’t let you leave without naming the child, so it depends on where you give birth) and they all fit their names perfectly. No regrets here…though there are times I wished I’d picked Annabella or Annalise for my youngest, but not enough to change her name.
I love your choices, Madeline and Annabelle both fit my criteria…nicknames and unique but not unusual.
Joy
Joy says:
I forgot to mention that the name Amelia happened to be the name of my mother in laws favorite grandmother. A happy coincidence that made a great family connection, and my MIL happy too!
Amelia says:
I love Mia as a NN, wish my parents had come up with it We call our daughter by her nickname and her full name pretty interchangeably (not just when she’s in trouble), I like that she uses both.
Bridget says:
I loved rolling names around in my head! Our first child is Colin, my middle name is Colleen and we thought it was a great fit. He’s 10 and now there are a few Colin’s that are 5 or younger. Our daughter is Emma, named after hubby’s great-grandma. Just 18 months later the show Friends had the baby named Emma and BOOM! it’s like the most popular. Once again, lots of Emmas that are about 4-5 years younger than her. Our youngest is Leo and it’s also a family name. Hubby’s dad’s middle name along with hubby having two great-uncle Leos. We are very happy with our choices. That’s the thing…it’s YOUR choice! Your girls’ names are beautiful!
Lisa says:
First son’s name is Damon Michael (Michael after dad) and I absolutely LOVE his name…no one else in his middle school has that name!
Second son is Austin James (James after grandpa) I wish I didn’t pick such a common first name for him.
Some names I like are Kelson and there was a really good one I thought of a few weeks ago but I can’t remember it!!
Noelle says:
I still love my daughter’s name, Emily Isabella. My only regret, since my grandma and mother-in-law passed away, is that she doesn’t have any family name connection.
My husband and I had a really hard time agreeing on any names except for that one. Sometimes I wonder if we would have ended up with a little boy named Emily, lol!
.-= Noelle´s last blog ..If You’re Beautiful and You Know It Clap Your Hands =-.
Kay says:
im 18, and have no plans for having children for atleast 5-7 years., but have always loved baby names. There are such interesting stories behind them!
before i was born, my mom spent months toiling over a perfect name. being part of a very large Irish family, everyone had a say. My dad wanted to name me alexa becaue Billy joel’s daughter is named Alexa and he thinks thats just SO cool :/.Mom wanted something unique and exotic, and was leaning towards Keelee Shea. neither name really flew with the other. My relatives pushed names like Mariah, Alexandria, Mary, Cheyenne, Ocianna, etc… My grandpa was the best though- he orriginally wanted names like Mary, Kathleen and Monica (after his sisters, catherine (after his mother, or Elizabeth after my grandmother, but his major hangup was on the name Barbra. Thankfully, my mom refused, but the day I was born (and my parents decided that “Kayla” was unique enough (HA!) ) my grandpa came to the hospital, and decided I was the spitting image of a porcelain doll he had seen somewhere, so tried (and almost succeeded) in having my name changed from “kayla Nichole” to “China Marie’.
As for myself, when I have kids, i have a not-so-small list of prospective names. for boys, my favorites are James (never to be called jimmy) and Oliver> I dont know what sorts of middle names i would go with, but they’d probably be along the lines of Benjamin and Henry. For girls names, which I have given much more thought, I love the names Lilly-Kate Shannon, Annie Bernadette (after my mom and the aforementioned grandfather) and Zoe Alice, thea”alice” part being inspired by the lovely miss Maddie herself- i havn’t heard of Alice really being used in years, and its not common, but so beautiful.
Tracey says:
My second daughter is Kaeleigh and I still don’t like it. Her older sister could not say Kaeleigh and started calling her Kiki. It’s stuck and she is certainly a Kiki.
It’s kind of ironic b/c I really don’t believe in naming your child one name with the intentions of calling it something different all together.
Carin says:
I can’t speak for my children, as I don’t have any, but I’ve always found the saga of our names (mine, my sister’s, and my brother’s) to be fascinating, and I’m really pleased you asked about this – from the looks of the comments already, you’ve opened up a really interesting conversation
My mom and dad are Curt and Kathy. When they had my older sister, they were going to name her Annie, but, as the story goes, the musical received an upsurge of popularity right around that time, so they switched to Caitlin instead and transferred Annie to the middle name. Now, my mother is a firstborn child, as well as her mother and her mother’s mother and her mother’s mother’s mother, all of them with the middle name Jane. So, Caitlin ended up as Caitlin Annie Jane, which worked out well for mom, who was always jealous of the Catholic kids for having three names. Caitlin swears that if her firstborn is a boy, she will still give him the middle name Jane.
Then I came along, and with Curtis, Kathy, and Caitlin, they couldn’t exactly name me Betty. Mom liked Chloe, but Dad and Grandma overruled her, so they ended up with Carin. It’s pronounced exactly the same as Karen, but Mom chose the spelling because a) it matched better with the ‘C’ and ‘-in’ ending of Caitlin, and b) it means something different than Karen: rather than ‘pure,’ it means ‘beloved.’ My two middle names are for my grandmothers, so I am Carin Mary Lee, and if you say my name fast, it sounds like ‘caring merrily.’
Finally, my little brother appeared on the scene. Christopher wasn’t really a family name, but he seemed like a Christopher, so that stuck. His two middle names are for my grandfathers, and the end result sounds a bit like British royalty: Christopher William Frederick.
The fun of alliteration within the family is that we have our numerical designations: Dad is C prime, of course, and Mom is K – Caitlin is C1, I’m C2, and Chris is C3. We sign emails to each other that way sometimes. Us kids’ nicknames are also alliterative: Caitlin is Birdie, I’m Bear, and Chris is Bug.
My husband and I have been thinking over the whole eventual childbearing thing, and a girls’ name that we both like very much is Sophie – I like it because of Roald Dah’s BFG, and Adam likes it because of the meaning associated with knowledge.
I loved hearing about how you planned Maddie’s and Annie’s names – the care you put into it is touching, and I’m sure Annie will love her name as she grows into it.
Stephanie says:
Heather,
My mom wanted to name me Majorie Eileen and call me “Jorie.” My dad, as well as all of her family and friends, vetoed this name. I still have a rareish name– Stephanie Anne after my father (Stephen). When I was little, my mom HATED the nickname “Stephie” but wanted my nickname to be “Stevie.” Not sure I understand that, but needless to say, I have been Stephanie or Steph my whole life and never Stevie. My brother also has a unique name–Glen David.
I have been a fan of the name Madeline my ENTIRE life. So if I ever have a girl, it WILL be Madeline Renee. Not quite so set on boys names but I do love Alec, Ethan and Jack.
Sara says:
I just loved the name Jack, so that was a no brainer. His middle name, Austin, is after my favorite grandfather.
With my daughter, however, it didn’t work out as planned.
Her name, in our minds, was Hannah. No question. But, Jack INSISTED her name was Molly…he would get angry if we referred to her as anything else…eventually, we grew to love Molly…and now, I can’t even IMAGINE her with any other name Her middle name is Pearl, after my grandmother.
.-= Sara´s last blog ..Fingerprint Friday (finally!) =-.
Kristi says:
We are having our 4th boy in 3 weeks and let me tell you… it was SO HARD to come up with a name for boy #3 and boy #4 !!!!!!!!!!! But we’ve finally agreed on Caden Jack for lucky boy #4 !!!!!!
Alicia says:
I fell in love with my daughter’s name and announced it to my mother and friend about 4 months before I got pregnant. My husband’s family has always used the initials – MAL – for all the boys born into the family. The girls’ field was wide open. My sister loved Mackenzie. I liked Mackenzie. I had a VERY hard time getting pregnant, and after 3 years of trying, we finally conceived. I got pregnant with a girl, and could have used the name Mackenzie but it wasn’t worth the discord it would cause between my sister and I. My husband was just happy I hadn’t suggested any “strange names” (as he puts it). At 20 weeks, on the morning of the gender ultrasound, I had a very vivid dream where I saw my daughter, called her by name, and *knew* it was the right name for her. My daughter’s name was always in the stars as the perfect name for her – Madelyn Abigail. There is absolutely no historical value. She wasn’t named after anyone (although several people tried to convince me to change her middle name to Anne after my mother and grandmother), and I have never regretted the choice for one second. She can shorten her name to any given number of other names but I call her Madelyn just like I did in my dream. One day she might shorten it but that will be her choice. I have a boy name picked out in case I ever get to have another baby. At this point, it’s been almost 3 years of trying for another baby. If I have another girl one day, I have names that I like but they don’t start with M so we’ll see if her name changes. I like classical or traditional names like Madelyn (unusual spelling), Rebecca, Olivia, Chloe (maybe not so traditional), Michael, and Matthew. Maybe one day I’ll be blessed with another baby. In the mean time I will love the stuffing out of the one I was gifted. She is my angel from heaven.
sarah says:
My daughter’s name is Eowyn… pronounced A Oh Win. We’re totally whack, i know that.. her name is mispronounced all the time, the people at her doctor’s office constantly call her Owen, and even had her listed as a male until a few days ago. (She’s almost two!)
However, if you met her, you’d know it fits her perfectly.
Leigh says:
When we found out that we were having a girl, I knew that her name would begin with “K” it was just something that I felt magnetic towards. We used a baby name book and found that we agreed and LOVED the name “Kiera” (Keer-a). That part was easy – how we would spell it? That took a longer time to decide on. But in the end, this is what worked: Kiera. Her middle name was easy – I knew if we had a girl, she would have my maternal grandmother’s first name, Mary.
I love our daughters name. It feels “fun, light, pretty, and a little silly” and she definitely fits those words for us on a daily basis.
For me, I really wanted our daughter to have a name that sounded good with our last name. I cringe sometimes when I hear some names that parents have chosen when I pair them with their respective last names. All I can think about is how the name is going to sound at school when a teacher calls roll, or when their name is announced over a microphone, or how it will look on paper, the whole name, all spelled out. For me, it needed to sound good, and not clash with the last name.
Keri says:
Our first child’s name was totally easy for us. Zachary Alexander. Very presidential don’t you think? When we were pg with our daughter we had to pick both names since we chose not to find out the sex before she was born. We were very torn on boy names. But our girl name for Zachary was still a fave. Emily Rose. Then we found out how popular Emily was and I nixed it. So we opted for Riley (I am Irish and of course I love “living the
life of Riley) and Elizabeth after my mom’s middle name. I still love her ame even though it is more popular now and Emily nevr would have worked for her. To me Emily’s are quiet shy and sweet. Although my Riley is sweet she is anything but quiet and shy. Oh and Zachary is poised to “rule the world” someday so his name is perfect too.
Tamaya says:
I have boy / boy twins. We wanted names that arose from the same genre (if that makes sense?) but did not match.
Going into labor we knew that one of the babies was a boy after being flashed at a 35 week ultra sound. Before that we had four names, which were easilt reduced to 3. Picking the top girl name was easy for us, of course we didn’t get to use it. Choosing between our boy names Owen and Hamilton would have been harder. Fortunately we didn’t have to.
We came up with Owen easily, it was a favorite for both of us. We picked Hamilton one night riding he train. I was frustrated by all of the names that my husband shot down and I started reading off every boy name in the book that I was reading. I said “Hamilton” and we looked at each other and knew it was a winner.
.-= Tamaya´s last blog ..Linky – Confession =-.
Elizabeth says:
My daughter’s name is Ella Grace and I love it. Ella is a family name on my husbands side and Grace just came to me one day when I was pregnant. I tend to go for traditional and family names. If our next child is a boy, we have the name set (after my dad and husband) BUT if we have another girl, it will take some serious thinking. I do love the name Madeline: it is on the top of my girl name list. I just don’t go for names that are too modern or seem to be made up.
Lisa says:
When I got pregnant, my husband and I immediately agreed on a boy’s name, James Edward, for my favorite book of the Bible and husband’s middle name. We had two daughter’s so we never used that name.
Since I was a little girl I knew I would one day have a daughter named Elisabeth. My husband agreed but said she had to have my middle name, Ann.
When I got pregnant with our second, I asked Elisabeth what she would want to name a little sister. Her grandma called her “my little angel,” so she immediately said Angel. That was fine but we had trouble coming up with a middle name. Then my brother was killed in a car accident when I was 6 months pregnant so I asked my husband if it was a girl, could her middle name be for him. Angel Christine fits her perfectly and she loves that she was named after her Uncle Chris.
My girls are 19 and 17 and I’ve never regretted their names.
Carrie says:
We named our son Carson. 1/2 my name (CARrie) and 1/2 my husband’s name (jaSON). His middle name is Jaymes…we liked James and decided to spell it with a Y because most people call my husband Jay. We love his name!
Jess says:
My son is named Ethan Max, he goes by Max, if you call him Ethan he growls with anger. He’s 7, so of course he’s far old enough to decide what he would like to be called ( as long as he doesn’t choose Megatron), so I can’t argue.
I hate his name… I chose the name Ethan (regrettably, because it became the most popular name that year *hand/forehead*. ) but also because my poor child hates his name!
I completely understand how it is to HATE your name, my name is Jessica, I hated it, but growing up with the middle name of Rae, I couldn’t exactly go by that… OH and did U mention the other 8 Jessica’s that graduated the year I did? … and there were only about 200 of us in my graduating class!
I hate that he hates his name…
Tiffany says:
My husband’s name is Brandis and there isn’t another person in our town with the same name. Everyone knows him by his first name and I thought that was so wonderful. I was named Tiffany in the late 70’s. Tiffany was an uncommon name until the singer became popular and then there seemed to be a lot more around.
When I became pregnant, my husband and I wanted a name that wasn’t common but also not odd. We searched the baby books and came up with Blair. We have heard of other girls, and a couple boys, named Blair but still none around our area. Her middle name is Kamrye. I like Kamryn but it’s very popular and my best friend’s name is Kellye so we decided to do a combination of the two. I remember Brandis mentioning how a Camry is a car and her friends may think that’s where her middle name came from. I reasoned with him that when she is old enough for her friends to know what her middle name is no one will remember the Camry. It will be like the Chevette.
.-= Tiffany´s last blog ..Farewell 70’s Kitchen =-.
Johanna says:
I’m not lucky enough to have children yet and possibly may not be able to but I’ve always loved the tradition of naming babies after family members – the problem being that my family tree is full of a whole lot of stinkers. Kenyon, Thelma, Pauline, Myrtho, Rita, Gladys and Edgar are just a few and I even spotted a Euphemia which I think sounds a lot like an illness (I’m told the poor dear went by Effie).
I’ve always thought I would use my brothers name Daniel as a middle name and had toyed with the idea of shortening my Mum’s first name Noelene (pronounced Noelle-eeen) to Noel as a middle name because her middle name is Rita which I hate but I’d be concerned that it would be mispronounced like the male version…more like Nowl…and then of course I would be leaving my Dad out whose names Robert Charles are not offensive but fairly boring for me.
I tend to love really common names like Isabelle and Emily but for a boy I did have a dream I had identical twins called Evan and Owen.
My cousin just had identical twin girls and she has called them Elspeth and Lillith after hers and his maternal grandmothers, to be called Ellie and Lilly for short. I think thats key actually – if you want to call your child a wacky name or an uncommon name make it one that can be easily shortened into something more normal for your poor child’s sake!
wow…that was long ;p
Kim says:
Choosing names for our kids was so hard! We both wanted names that were not very common, didn’t spell anything with the initials, couldn’t be shortened into some cutsie nickname, and I wanted them to be gender specific. Also we decided early on not to use any family names so no one would be offended that their name wasn’t chosen. My first son is Owen and his name is perfect . I just love it and can’t imagine him with any other name. Three years later my daughter Lauren was born. I love her name as well, but sometimes I look at her and think she could have been a Rachel (my husband didn’t like this name by then as it was too popular). We soon found out how popular Lauren was too! Eight years later we were surprised with another son. My husband wanted to choose a two syllable ending in “n” name since the first two had names like that (that wasn’t a requirement the first two times, it just ended up that way), so we went with Aaron. While I love the name in and of itself, it’s so similar to Owen that I kind of wish I had a do over. Sometimes I call him by his middle name (Daniel) just so I’m not so tongue tied! Not to mention, alot of people confuse Aaron with Erin, which I always considered a girl’s name. All in all, I love the names our kids have, but, if there’s ever a 4th, he or she will not have a two syllable name ending in the letter”n”!!
Johanna says:
You should move to Australia – Aaron and Erin sound nooooothing alike in our accent! It always puzzles me hearing how its said overseas ;p
beth says:
My daughter is Meinda.
She is named for my best friend who died of a brain tumor in 2001. I vowed that my first daughter would be named Melinda and that was no bargening chip what so ever
I loved the name Savanah
But her initials would be MSG
we heard the name Emerson and we both said yes
Jenn says:
Hello Heather, Mike (Maddie & Annie) & Friends,
This is was a nice surprise….a Saturday Blog from Heather! Thanks Sweetheart!
Okay…about the names. We lost 5 babies before we got pregnant “one last time” and while we started to go a head with an international adoption from China). We thought for sure we were going to have a little girl and for some reason, we LOVED the name “Spencer” so that was going to be her name. If we had a boy….which we did!….
We decided to name him Adam (it means Man of the Red Earth), Robert ( after my father in -law and brother in -law) Wayne ( after my dad’s name).
Next came our daughter. I had always thought I’d name her Lauren (Wren for short) after my favourite Uncle who passed away but the morning she came FLYING out of my body, there was 8…..yes, 8 Lauren’s born that week the nurse said!!!
So,….we named her Sydney Lee. Sydney was a name we loved and thought it was good for all stages of her life. Lee is my middle name so, I thought if I was going to be going through all of that pain, she was going to be named after her Mama! ha ha ha
Our last and final son we chose to name Samuel (I have AL WAYS loved that name – it means “Ask of God). Sammy’s middle name is William which is a family name – my grandpa’s and my uncles names.
I LOVED my kids name but there is one small catch… a couple weeks after we brought our perfect, baby boy home, Our friends said with a laugh….”I LOVE what your kids first initials come to”. I thought for a minute….
ADAM
SYDNEY
SAMUEL
Yep, that’s right…put together ..AND all of our kids initials come out to the word ASS!!! OMG – We are so unbelievable SMART!!! Although I have ALWAYS wanted 4 kids, life had other plans.
OOHH Well, at least when their snotty little teenagers, we can tell them to stop being such asses (I’m trying to look on the bright side here).
So that is the story of my little asses…I mean, KIDS!
Thanks for doing this Heather…it was fun to do when there is nothing else going on on a Saturday night,
Love & Blessings,
Jenn
AnnD says:
Our names kind of are connected to Maddie in some ways actually…so it’s weird that you asked us to type about our kids’ names.
Our daughter is Emma Madelyn, she was born in Jan. 2007.
I really wanted to name her Emma Josephine. My great-grandmother’s name was Josephine. But, we also really like the name Joseph (for a boy) and I was worried we would end up with an Emma Josephine and a Joseph ____. That just seemed weird.
Plus, my hubby didn’t really like the name Josephine. After trying to avoid cliche middle names like: Elizabeth, Grace and Katherine; we decided on Madelyn. Then, one day, someone said that because her first name ends in “ma” and her middle name begins with “Ma,” it sounds like there is marbles in your mouth when you say: “Emma Madelyn.”
Totally ruined it for me. To this day, I can’t say her name without thinking of that and it’s been years since that certain someone told me that.
And honestly, after “meeting” your Maddie, I always thought: “Well, even though they are spelled differently. It’s still kind of cool because it reminds me of Maddie Spohr.”
We had a son in November and ended up naming him Jameson Paul. My hubby’s name is James and Jameson means “Son of James.” So, it was like naming him after his father without doing the whole “Jr.” thing. Paul is a great uncle of my hubby’s.
After I learned of Maddie’s passing and began reading your blog, my hubby walked in the March of Dimes in 2009. I couldn’t because I was on bedrest, but I told him to write on the check: “For Madeleine Alice Spohr.”
His grandmother’s name was Alice and he loved her so much. Soon after the MoD walk, he asked if we could use “Alice” as a MN if the baby was a girl. And my first question was: “Did you get that idea from writing Madeleine Alice Spohr” on that check and he said: “Yup!
If Jameson had been a girl, he would have been Evelyn Alice.
Maddie lives on in so many ways!
Janeen says:
I think the name EMMA MADELYN is gorgeous! I think it rolls perfectly off the tongue!
AnnD says:
Awwww! Thanks so much! I can remember that you liked it the next time I think of the “marbles in your mouth” thing.
Dawn says:
Being a teacher, there were LOTS of names I knew my children would NOT be named!
My elder son’s name is Colby Broderick. Colby was only one of two boy names we could agree on, and Broderick was my maiden name.
For my younger son, we had a HORRIBLE time coming up with a name. We knew his middle name would be Robert(named after his dad), but we couldn’t come up with a first name. Then one day, Samuel came to me & I knew THAT was it!
I LOVE both of my boys names and think they fit them both PERFECTLY!
.-= Dawn´s last blog ..Dear Abby… or anyone for THAT matter! =-.
chel says:
when we were told we were having a girl the debates started, i wanted matilda (we’re australian, it’s an aussie thing!), hubby wanted cameron.
we eventually decided on edie sunshine after hubby’s gran edith.
(i loved the idea of greeting my daughter with “hello sunshine” every morning)
then out came a BOY and it was instant, no debate, no questions, both agreed HARPER JEM!
suits him and i wouldn’t have it any other way, but sometimes i do think sam would have been good too!! he is a very sensible 4 year old and we often call him safety sam!!
(i already left a comment in a reply, but this is too much fun, really loved reading all the comments)
Laura says:
Discovered your blog not long ago, so I’m a bit new but felt like commenting.
We have two boys, 17 and 18, who fit their names pretty well. In that respect, I have no regrets. Soon after they were named, though, those names suddenly were on the top 10 lists of popular boys names (though they weren’t before) so I do kind of regret that.
My oldest is named Zachary James Adam. Zachary was a name I had picked out as a teenager and had always just really liked. James is after my husband’s grandfather who died in WWII. And Adam is actually after my step-father, who’s last name is Adams. His nickname, when he was little, always ended up being Zacky. But it fit him. lol We still call him that occasionally, and he will answer to it.
My youngest is Jacob Lee. My husband’s family are all J’s and he wanted a J name. I’ve always liked the name Jake. I think it’s a strong, sexy name so we went with Jacob. Lee is his dad’s middle name. He’s a gemini, and very moody. We tease him and tell him that Jacob and Jake are his two alter egos depending on his mood. When he was little his nickname was Spanky, because he looked so much like The Little Rascals character.
My husband wanted Stuart for my oldest but I hated the idea of kids calling him Stewie in school. Given the popularity of Family Guy, I’m oh so grateful I stuck to my guns on that one.
If we’d had a girl her name would have been Jenna Leigh.
Fun topic! And fun reading all the comments!
dee says:
I love both of my girls’ names and have no name regret. Years before having my first daughter, I had mentioned to my husband that when, and if, we had kids, I’d really like the name Juliana for a girl. In one ear of his and out the other.
Fast forward about 5 years and we’re in DC for a long weekend, and we visit the Holocaust Museum while there. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the museum, but when you arrive, you get a ‘passport’ to carry around with you and it follows the wartime story of a real person who lived (and may have died) during WWII. My passport was a Polish woman named “Juliana.” I took that to be a sign that, if we had a daughter one day, that would be her name. It was just so random and odd that, of all the names to get, I ended up with that one. I took it as a sign.
Fast forward several years more, after 5 years of struggling with infertility, and we get pregnant and learn we’re having a girl. Juliana it is. Her middle name is my MIL’s middle name in her honor.
For our second daughter, Daniela, her first name is after the middle name of my husband’s youngest sister (Danielle) and her middle name is the same as the middle name of his oldest sister. Family ties and all
I love both names completely; they suit my girls, they are somewhat original, they complement one another, and they also flow nicely with our short hispanic surname.
I love both of your girls’ names too–Madeline was in the running when we were first brainstorming names years back (before I convinced the hubs that it was to be Juliana and nothing else). It’s lovely as is Annabel…two beautiful names for two beautiful girls.
.-= dee´s last blog ..Sands through the hourglass =-.
MaNiC MoMMy says:
Great momversation topic! My oldest is Andrew James, and we knew from day one we’d call him AJ and he’s still at age 12 an AJ. My daughter is McKaelen and her name is spelled wrong all the time or it is thought to be her last name many times as well, so that’s a hard one for her to have. She has been given crazy nicknames by us including Lay-Lay, Kay-Kay, and Lollipop. Our youngest son is Luke and his nickname is Tukey! Strange ways we come up with nicknames, and even though I am 41 years old, my parents still call me the nickname they called me as a baby: Pooker Pie! And I LOVE that they do that!
.-= MaNiC MoMMy´s last blog ..JeN WeiNeR GiVeaWay! =-.
MaNiC MoMMy says:
Oh, I had to add this. My sister in law is having a baby and I was talking with my mom in law about possible baby names. She suggested Wade for a baby boy. WADE? Really??? Come on?!?!? I literally laughed in her face. Sorry to anyone out there named Wade, but can you picture a baby named Wade? Again, sorry if you are a baby named Wade.
.-= MaNiC MoMMy´s last blog ..JeN WeiNeR GiVeaWay! =-.
Katie says:
I don’t have any kids, but if I do, I’ll obsess over names. But I wanted, for some reason, to mention that my parents used to have two dogs named Maddie and Annie. (You seem to be a dog lover, so hopefully you’ll take this in the spirit in which it’s meant!) Maddie was a purebred border collie and Annie is part border collie, part boxer (maybe?). They adopted Maddie when she was already pretty old, and she died a couple of years ago, but she was the best damn dog I’ve ever known. So smart, so affectionate, so much personality. Annie’s still a pretty young dog and she’s just nuts but very funny.
For some reason I had been reading your blog for awhile before I remember that, but I just thought it was cool. That’s all
Donna says:
I finally, after 15 years, have been able to use the boys name I picked out. I have 3 daughters, who all have teir middle names from grand mothers or great grandmothers, my son’s middle name is his grand fathers middle name. Thankfully there will be no more children so I don’t need to play the name game again
Good luck in the future with the names you choose, you’ll know they’re right when you pick them.
Kimberly says:
We didn’t know the sex of our baby but we had a definate boy name picked our. We had four girl names we liked but couldn’t decide on. While I WAS IN LABOR my husband made a chart and had the nurses vote on their favorite! Chloe it was and Chloe she is today! Pretty crazy way to pick, I guess.
.-= Kimberly´s last blog ..Birthday Partying! =-.
Anne says:
with my daughter, i was a single mom so i got the joy of not having to please anyone but myself with her name, or so i thought. She was originally going to be Trinity Jaid, until i was told that sounded like a stripper name (and very trendy.. ack) so i made that her middle name and changed her first name to Alexandra. she still went by trinity up until kindergarten when we decided that she needed to learn how to spell her “real” first name and has been alexandra ever since..
with my son, my husband an i had a deal. if i was pregnant with a girl i would name her (Elizabeth Olivia Grace) and if it was a boy he would name him (louis Michael) *louis after his grandfather, michael is another family name..* so.. i’m still waiting for my Elizabeth.. maybe someday..
Hope says:
My daughter is Gyllian Brooke. My husband always loved the name Jillian, so we decided if we ever had a little girl that would be her name. I changed the spelling so it would be a little different. Brooke is after my baby cousin who lived 18 short days after a major heart defect took her from us. Her name was Courtney Brooke. My son, Sam, is Kevin Samuel after his father and grandfather. I like old fashioned names that aren’t used very often, and I love to use family names. I am very happy with the names we have chosen, and wouldn’t change a thing. We’ll see how it goes after baby number three gets here! : )
Kate says:
I am aname freak I love them, I had a criteria of no same starting letters and not the same endings but it was broken..lol I love my daughter name but wish I had given her my mil’s name as her middle name, we went on to have 3 boys and while we used her maiden name as our babies middle it is not the same feeling. I have a list of names even though we are done.
here are some of my fav girl names
Avonlea
Emilyn
Claire
Kate says:
my husband also had a criteria, if we decided on a name for the opposit sex we could not use it again once the child was born so …we would have had
Nathanial Lucas ( Nate)
Sianna Lily
Lilia Margaret
with our last we never had a girls name in stone.
Allison says:
My husband and I didn’t have to think about a name for our son for very long. We both loved the name Caiden. After he was born premature at 26 weeks, the meaning of his name was very special…”fighter”. I couldn’t imagine wishing his name was something else. He was Caiden long before we ever physically met him!
preTzel says:
The only one I struggled with for a name was Baby. The other two were picked out fairly early but Baby wasn’t named until minutes before we left the hospital. Until then he was just Baby Boy preTzel. We also called him Hoss because he was almost 11 pounds and reminded me of Dan Blocker on Bonanza but Mr. didn’t like it. Baby ended up with one of my cousin’s middle names for a first name and Mr’s youngest brother’s middle name for a middle name. I think the name fits him. Perfectly.
.-= preTzel´s last blog ..Eleven Months…and More. =-.
Anna says:
My husband and I picked out 3 full names we liked and put them in a hat. We both wanted “William” in there somewhere. His got chosen. William Frank. “Frank” after his Dad. I hate with a passion the name Frank. I do regret allowing his name to be “William Frank”
Duchess says:
I wish we would have used a different middle name for Claire, with Sasha it fell into place perfectly but with Claire it just never felt right…
George says:
I had to comment on this, since I love names. And I was just talking about it, like, 5 minutes ago with some friends.
I’m brewing this little Bean in my belly now, and we have crazy criteria. We’re a trilingual home, with me being Australian, SO being a french-talking Belgian, and we live in Norway right now. So, the names have to go well with all three languages. Hah. I’m so glad we have another 7 months to decide.
We always give the kids two names, like you guys. And I’m very picky with names, and don’t want names on the top list of popularity. So, it’s difficult, but also a fun thing.
Anywho, giving them two names is also easier, we just make sure that the names go well in a couple of the languages, so with both names we have all three covered.
I love your girls names!
Expat Mom says:
My husband is Guatemalan and I’m Canadian, so we wanted names that would work in both languages. Our first son is Dorian Gabriel (which in Spanish is pronounced Gabrielle). Dorian was for Dorian Gray . . . we saw League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and thought our kid might look like the Dorian there. We tossed around the idea of going with the full Dorian Gray, because my middle name is Blue, but in the end, we wanted something special and went with the archangel name.
Our second son is Dante Luka. Dante for Dante’s Inferno . . . we wanted another literary name and it turned out to be another D name! My husband picked Luka after a South American musician that I’d never heard of, but I love the name.
My boys suit their names 100% and I have never regretted naming them what we did. Also, we had their first names from about 5 months of pregnancy, so maybe we were just used to them by the time they arrived.
.-= Expat Mom´s last blog ..My Sick is Not Your Sick =-.
Tamara says:
My husband and I have three wonderful children. Our oldest we named Mackenzie Lee. Mackenzie was a name I have loved forever and he loved it too. Lee is for my dad and my grandfather. Our second daughter is Avery Raelynn. Avery was also a name we bothed loved the first time we heard it. Rae is my husbands sisters middle name, and Lynn his other sisters middle name. We just put them together. And the little boy Cooper Scott. Cooper was a family name, and Scott is my husbands middle names. I LOVE my children’s names….
Jill says:
to start, my brother, sister, and i all have the same number of letters in our first and middle names. (jill marie, susan beth, kevin paul) my older son’s name (alexander jacob) was one my husband had picked out before we met. we call him alex (among other non-name related nick names. . .). when i got pregnant with my 2nd son, i wanted his middle name to be timothy after my husband, but i was also toying with making their names have the same number of letters, like mine and my siblings. not so bad when you have 9 letters, but 14 was a little tougher. we settled on matthew, which i just adore. everyone calls him matt, or matty, but i call him matthew just because i love it so much. i still have my girl’s name (kylie grace) waiting in the wings if we have a girl, but honestly, i like boys’ names so much more than girls’. it took me a long time to come up with a girl’s name that i liked.
Tanya says:
For my first son, i litterally named him after my ex boyfriend when i was 13 years old…lol…kyle because he was so cute…and guess what, my son is now 15 and is so cute…lol…my second son got named after his daddy…even though i had picked out Logan Lee and his name is Donnie Mack Underwood 111. but because he was born premature and almost died, my husband caught me loaded up on drugs and said, you know when i thought he was going to die, i wanted the name on his tumbstone to read DMU 111, and now that he may make it i still want him named after me…so of course i cried and gave in, but we do call him Mack and not Donnie…lol…with my third SON! Yes, no girl for me…who was a 26wkr….my hubby wanted to name him after his grandma that had past and i had been trying to get my grandmas name in somewhere so we named him Morgan Lee Underwood….Morgan after my hubby’s gdma and Lee after my grdma…..The only reason i wised we had named him something else, was that everyone things he is a girl…lol…but i knew a morgan when i was in school that was a boy and he was also a cutie pie and i have a feeling morgan is going to be one too, so i love their names they fit them perfectly….
Vic says:
Talking about regrets….
I went to school with Michael Hunt.
So what I hear you say? Lets see… say Mike Hunt 2 times in a row…. his parents never sounded out his nickname
Before I miscarried I had names picked out for a boy and a girl. If I am blessed with children, I still have names that we have short listed – traditional names that will go well with a rather long, greek surname
.-= Vic´s last blog ..friends =-.
Suzie-a stranger from IA says:
Too funny Vic!! It is very important to say your child’s name out loud over and over! lol We have lost 4 babies and I am living proof that some way and some how, you will get to use the names you have picked out! We have Alexis Hope (a few regrets there, because she only goes by Lexie and I love it and am not crazy about Alexis now??) wish I would have just named her Lexie , Keegan Wayne (the namesake of my father-in-law that just recently passed away from leukemia, and Miss Ella Sage, just because I was so in love with the name Ella and sage green is my favorite color. lol I researched both keegan and ella’s name on the social security website and picked names that were so far down on the list for popularity and low and behold, I hear them everyday! ugh Oh well, I love their names. This is a really fun post! Love your girl’s names! Sweet!
Kirsten says:
My first child was named by my husband in a dream, so that was easy. My second child was born with lots of health issues which we knew about ahead of time. We wanted to give her a hopeful name but couldn’t really deal with Hope or Joy, so we came up with Renee which means re-born in French and fits her perfectly. The boy we never had was going to be named Julian, because it’s a rockin’ boys name.
Jennifer says:
It’s my first time to comment, but I have read your blog daily for over a year. First let me say that we met your sweet Maddie in March ’09 at Griffith Park when we were visiting the other Madeline with some friends from Matt’s work. My entire family remembers seeing beautiful Maddie that day and how happy she was sitting on the blanket with the other kids. We will never forget her and just wish we would have taken the time to get to know her and you a little better that sunny afternoon.
We have 3 girls and get compliments on their names all the time. Our first born is named Cambria (we pronounce it with a long a at the beginning) named after our first wedding anniversary to that beautiful coastal town. Our second daughter is named Berkeley as we were there on a trip to the bay area during that same anniversary trip. As for our third daughter, we wanted to keep the California coastal theme going so we chose a neat little town which is actually Berkeley’s sister-city named Kensington …we call her Kensie for short. In addition to that, we loved the name Abbey so we gave Kensington that as her middle name…. maybe someday if we ever make it to England we can visit “Kensington Abbey”!
One fun thing about naming the girls after places is that we were able to return to the town of Cambria with our daughter when she turned 5. We had a great time taking pictures of her in front of the “Welcome To Cambria” sign and other signs like the “Cambria Chamber of Commerce” and the “Cambria Cappuccino and Candy Co.”
Have a safe trip home from.
Love,
Jennifer and family
drlori71 says:
My criteria when picking names was that it would be easy to find on pencils, stickers and mugs. Have you ever seen the Simpsons episode where they go to Itchy & Scratchyland and Bart can’t find a “Bart” license plate, only “Bort”? Yeah, as a kid it used to piss me off that stores would have “Laurie” stickers but never “Lori” ones. So I gave my boys easy, common (not top 10 common) names so this won’t happen to them.
.-= drlori71´s last blog ..Blame Canada =-.
chris desforges says:
I had the list narrowed to five names before my daughter was born. On day two of her life, we looked at her and went through the possibilities. Jaclyn Rose was not my first choice, but it was definitely HER name. She’s 21 now, and I recently found the list – and laughed at the thought of her sporting any of those other names. I am a firm believer in meeting the child before choosing the name!
Rian says:
It’s pronounced RYAN not REANN!!!! Since I have a unique name I wanted my kids names to not be overly common.
Before I was pregnant with my son I heard the name Kai and absolutely loved it. When we found out we were having a son we decided to name him Kai. But my husband wanting it to be longer and somewhat more meaningful. So we named him Malachi and we call him Kai. It fits his personality perfectly.
For his middle name we gave him my dad’s last name (i was adopted by another “dad” and didn’t see my real dad for 15 years, so it’s not technically my maiden name). He is the one who gave us $5000 to do IUI and Kai would not be here if it wasn’t for him.
So his name is Malachi Ellington. I love it, no regret here!!!
Paige says:
My kids are 5 and 1 and I still love their names. My daughter is Giovanna (pronounced JOE-VAH-NAH, not GEE-OH-VAH-NAH) and my son is Leonardo or Leo. My husband is from Italy and Giovanna was his aunt’s name. Leonardo is the only name we agreed on out of a long list! I like that their names are different, but not “made up” or “trendy”. Both are very very old names. I LOVE Madeline and Annabel by the way
.-= Paige´s last blog ..Happy 45th to MY REASON FOR LIVING =-.
Janeen says:
Hi! I actually don’t have any children yet but i think this is a wonderul topic being that i definetly have pondered the subject. It is amazing to me how over the years my likes and dislikes of names have changed. I moreso wanted to write about my name. My mother named me after her second cousin because she always thought she was beautiful. I love that my name has a story behind it but as a child I hated my name. Growing up in the 80’s I always wished I was a “Jennifer” or a “Kelly”. I began to love my name in middle school and I still love my name…Janeen. It fits me well and it is still somewhat unique.
Angie P says:
My long term boyfriend and I were shocked to find out that we not only pregnant, but also expecting twin girls. I had decided on my first daughter’s name when I was 15 – Casey Harper – my great grandmother’s maiden name and her married name. So that was one. We struggled with the 2nd girl…and then his mother talked me into naming Baby B, Chandler – his great grandmother’s maiden name. So I agreed, and we had Casey Harper and Chandler Patricia (my favorite aunt’s name). When the girls were 2 months old, he left us, and I have regretted naming Chandler after his family ever since.
Moving on…The girls are now 8, my husband has been with us since they were 3 (and he has adopted them) and we have a 2 year old son. We named him Leo Quinn – Leo is my dad’s name, and Quinn was what we could agree on (and its what we call him). Quinn was what we had picked for a boy or a girl.
Allison says:
We have a yet unused girl name, Katherine Jane, Katherine because I love classic sounding names and Jane for dh’s Mother who passed away 9 years ago.
We settled on Parker’s name because my favorite writer is Dorothy Parker and dh’s favorite musician is Charlie Parker. We had to eliminate all “b” names as a first name, because Parker’s middle name is Barrette and our last name is King… so no b.b. kings here… lol. Barrette is a family name on dh’s side. I think it flows really well.
So that’s how we ended up with our names. I hope to heaven that the next child we have is a girl, I don’t want to have to go through the picking out a boy’s name process ever again!!! LOL!
Allison
Traci says:
I think the meaning of the name is just as important as the name itself. And I also wanted them to have options of what to be called when they grow up. I wasn’t supposed to be able to have children and I have 2. Nathaniel Alexander (Nate) and Abigail Faith (Abbie). Nathaniel because it means “gift of God” and Alexander because it means “defender of mankind”. Very strong name with strong meanings. Abigail means “father’s joy” and she certainly is. Faith means, of course, “faith”. She taught us what it was to have faith. They say faith can move mountains and I believe my little girl could with what she has overcome.
Michelle says:
My 15-year-old son’s name is Ty. I went to high school with a Ty and always thought it was a cool name. I also wanted something a little unusual. Even though there are lots of Tylers, we have only run across one other Ty from kindergarten through ninth grade.
I had a harder time naming my five-year-old girl. We finally settled on Chloe. To my dismay, it has become more and more popular every year since she was born. Having such a common name myself, I am a little bummed out over that. But you can’t predict how the name trends are going to go. I still love her name, I just wish it wasn’t becoming so popular.
Michelle
amy says:
I know what you mean Michelle. I named my daughter Maia because I loved the name for many years (went to school with a girls named Maia and swore I would use it if I ever had a daughter.) Then just after daughter was born and named TV has the gall to show a program with one of the main characters called Maia! (Can’t remember for the life of me the name, had David Spade in it. Revolved around working to make a woman’s magazine..)
Anyway, whatever. Her name still relatively rare in these parts
Sarah M. says:
Well I don’t have any kids yet, not even married, but I have a little girl’s name picked out just in case. Lesley Marie. Lesley’s after my grandpa who I absolutely adore & is one of the strongest most caring men I’ve ever met. Marie after my mom & sister (both their middle names). Hopefully one of these days I’ll be able to tell my Grandpa, Mom & sister that they have a namesake!
Chris says:
Warning, I took codeine cough medicine before this and I bet I babbled and I’m sure my grammar is not at it’s best. I seriously was thinking I should just hit delete. And yet…An unexpected post from Heather? Whose blog I check everyday just cuz? How could I resist a comment? But you all might want to resist reading….LOL
What a totally unexpected delight to find a post from you on a weekend~and such a fun one. I’m finding it really interesting to read all the comments as well, despite not having kids of my own. But, I still have a perspective on this–from my parents who had such a time naming me–wanting something that they didn’t know people/have exes by the name etc. (they were both olders first time parents and so there were a lot more names out there that this eliminated). and not wanting to name me something totally common.
As it turns out there were always a ton of Chris’-in-some-variety. And. only once was this a REAL issue when the teacher wouldn’t call me Chris because there was aboy who was used to being called that so she made me go by something else. I was 4 and it was my introduction to sexism I was so hurt, I figured there could be 2 Chris’–Little did I know how many there would be by 3rd grade–at one point we were up to 5 variations onf Chris/Christine/Kristen/Chrissie/Christy And, only people who don’t know me call me Christine. It’s a great way to screen phone calls–I totally know if I want to talk to someone just by how they great me. If they ask if this is Christine, they clearly don’t KNOW Christine, because Christine is Chris.
I have thought a lot about names and I totally have a girls name picked out if we ever have girl–ironically as much as my parents avoided family names my would be family alll the way— distant female relative I didn’t know but love the name for a first name, and the middle name would be utterly inappropriate for a girls name but I totally don’t care since it would be to honor my beloved, deceased mothers and maternal grandfather.
On another tangent (as if anyone wants to keep reading at this point). We may all wantt o hope I never DO have to name a baby girl- (boy is set, hubby is the5th of the same name, no way are we breaking tradition there so we don’t even ever think boy names). On this other tangent, it took me almost a week to name my puppy. Sad but true. I wanted it to be the perfect name for her I felt like a total failure as a pet parent and my therapists words kept coming back to me about “first you try a plan, then a pet then a child…” and here I was failing at the *naming* of the pet child part. However, I am exceptionally happy with her name and it suits her well, so perhaps the wait was worth it. We can also learn from the naming of pup #2 the husband does not get to name future children. His contribution to naming is giving his XYZ the 5th to XYZ the 6th, because he picked such an esoteric name that no one can pronounce or remember it, and humor is lost on far too many people.
Geez, if anyone actually read that and cares let me know and I”ll update on what the poor pup’s name is. Anyway, I totally enjoyed the stories and I tend to babble on codeine cough syrup. Possibly shouldn’t read blogs then I stop lurking and start talking…;)
Maddie is a great name–my best friends latest baby–just turned 2 is a Maddie and Annabel, I’d never know one and I totally love it now that I have a face to put with the name–it changes the name for me. Heather, not only do you produce adorable babies you have a knack for naming.
wordygirl says:
I consider myself to be a name expert, as I grew up with a name I *hated* and thus have spent 30+ years thinking about what makes a good name! For the record, I think you and Mike did an incredible job naming your two daughters, and should be commended
For more (lots more) about how we chose our daughter’s name, check out the post I just wrote: http://bloggingfortwo.blogspot.com/2010/05/gwendolyn-jessie-buechler.html
amy says:
Son’s name is Joel Alexander… Joel as I was grooving on the Billy Joel at the time and it was a sort of different name for a boy. Alexander after my FIL and hubbies middle name.
Twin daughters are Maia Elizabeth (always loved the name Maia, and Elizabeth is her gramma and aunts name). Olivia Nina was named in honor of her Maternal Grampa Aldo Oleverio, and her paternal gramma Nina. I always wanted a daughter named Ali so that is her nick name at home
I am happy all of my children have been named after at least one of their grandparents/important relatives. Living history
Stefanie says:
My little girl is Elinor Crew. We call her Ellie and it fits her perfectly… Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ is one of my favorite books, and Elinor is the main character… so when my husband suggested Elinor for a girl, I was sold. (Her name is also spelled after the character in the book). Crew is my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmothers middle names. I love the family connection.
My son is Noel Kenneth. Noel was my beloved grandfather, and before we had children, my husband and I knew if we ever had a boy we would call him Noel. Kenneth is after my father-in-law… not my favorite name in the world, but that’s ok… he was so honored.
Michelle W says:
When we were picking my daughters name (Alexandra Melanie) I was having a really hard time. Truthfully I don’t even remember which one of us suggested or why but I do feel like it suits her. It was important to me the name also worked well shortened, her middle name was after my best friend who I have been friends with for +20 years. With our second baby if we had another girl I wanted to name her Grace Mackenzie but my husband nixed it and I couldn’t think of another girls name because I really loved it. We ended up with a son (Keiran James Allan)
I chose Keiran because I wanted an Irish name and like it, I thought James sounded really good with Keiran and Allan was after his Grandfather on my husbands side who died before he met either of our children.
samantha crum says:
picking out all 6 of our children’s names was a fun process for us. Victoria was my favorite baby doll growing up,i love the royal association.as a teenager she is now Tori,which i really like and suits her.Zachary was after the saved by the bell character.:) Luke was after my husbands favorite cowboy movie as a child,cool-hand luke. Hosanna was born after i spent a few years battling cancer so we wanted her to have something that expressed what we were feeling when she was born. Isabella was our first born in the south and my husband wanted a southern “Bell”. and our 8month old is a girl,Jude. we had chosen this name for if we had a 3rd boy,and had run out of girls names that we liked ,so Jude Rae it is,and i love it! they all have family middle names that help connect and ground them to different members of our family.
Christine says:
I don’t have kids yet but my mom has always told me that one of the biggest concerns she had in naming us was our last name…Hall. She was afraid that if the name was too odd we would sound like buildings. She saw my name on a sign one day and liked the way it looked in print, and also liked that it wouldn’t sound like they named me after some lecture hall at a university. My father really liked the name Michelle, but my mom said she did not like it at all. I guess since she went through labor she got final word and instead it is my middle name now. I appreciate not sounding like a building but now all I want to do is win the lottery so I can donate money to a school and have them name a building after me and have it called Hall Hall. Go figure.
Emily says:
I love this thread. Hearing about naming is just so interesting!
My boyfriend and I have recently begun talking about marriage and kids, and within the first 5 minutes of our first “kids conversation” (brought to you by several glasses of merlot!), we discovered that we both loved, loved, LOVED the name “Jack” for a son– not John, but just Jack. We’ll have a harder time with a girl’s name, especially because Amelia is one of my favorites and I’m an “Emily” (is that too close?), but we have plenty of time. Jack’s middle name will likely be my grandfather’s name (Thomas) because he is very ill, and I have been incredibly close to him my whole life and would love to honor him in this way.
Thanks for sharing everyone. And Heather, I know you don’t know me but I’ve been reading now for over a year from Ohio and you, Mike & Annie have so much love and support from here!
maizie says:
In February I became a great aunt twice. One niece named her little boy, Gambrel. Her and her husband were driving in the country and she saw some kind of a roof and said she liked it. He is in construction and told her it was a Gambrel roof. They decided they liked the sound of it and would use it as a name. (It has other meanings and I suggest you check them out if you are so inclined to use this name.) At first I thought it was hard to remember, but it has grown on me.
My other niece named her baby boy Ollie after my dad (Alois). Alois is a German name (it’s pronounced Al -ois, like noise). He went by Al most of his life, but was Ollie as a child and often called that by people who knew him as a child. He died when my son was 2 and he always called him Grandpa Gollie. Needless to say, I think Ollie is a perfect name for my great nephew.
maizie says:
oops! Bad grammar. *She and her husband . . .” It’s late.
Momma Uncensored says:
we named our daughter keaten after michael j. fox from “family ties”. it also means nature lover.
i love that man!
.-= Momma Uncensored´s last blog ..sunshine day =-.
Suzanne says:
When we picked our son’s name “Ben” it was the only name we liked and could agree on. So I would be in the same boat as you if I ever had to choose another boys name. No other name pops out. Not one. As for my daughter’s name, I didn’t even know what I was having when my husband came home and said, “I saw the cutest little girl named Mikaela today.” It was then I knew that was the perfect name and it was then I knew without a doubt that I was having a girl. I was right, and her name fits her well!
Nellie says:
I love names and have since I was young! My sister has four children, all with names that start with an “E” and it was fun hearing the names she was thinking of. I personally don’t like naming children all with the same first initial. I love names that are sing-song or sound pretty together – meaning first and middle name that flows nicely with the last name. I love unique names but not crazy to the point of mockery. My daughter has the first initials of both her Grandmothers – Ainsley Jolie (Ainsley for my mom Agata and Jolie for my mother-in-law Judith). If you need help with girl names in the future – I still have lists I created over 10 years ago and never threw out!
Kim says:
My criteria was simple, I wanted to give my daughter a name that could not be shorten. I am a four letter name kinda of girl. My name is Kimberly, and well everyone has called me Kim, or Kimmy my entire life. It may start out as Kimberly, but eventually it will get shorten to Kim. Which is fine, but not the name my Mother planned for. My daughters name is Jade Margaret. I met a Jade years back, and to say she is unique is an understatement. She, and her name have stayed with me for years, so when I got pregnant over three years ago, that was it. Margaret is after my Grandmother. I absolutely love her name, it suits her, truly! When she says it herself, I want to kiss her lips until she stops, it’s so cute!
Erin W says:
With you on that! I can’t stand nicknames! We have a Lauren and a Carson…you’ve got to be REALLY creative to shorten those!
Lindsay says:
Haha, my stepdaughter Laurynn (STEPdaughter, I did NOT pick that spelling) was in a class not only with two other Laurens, but one who shared her last initial, so they had to come up with nicknames. Our L decided that her new nickname was Laser, and Laser it was all through elementary school, and sometimes still is.
A friend of mine, Theresa, said her mom named her that to avoid people coming up with nicknames. Everyone called her Tree.
Mishi says:
We wanted classic names, not so much biblical, but they are all found in the bible.
We did intend on the “ey” nicknames, though. Totally.
.-= Mishi´s last blog ..Weekly Winners {The Shallow Depth of Field Edition} =-.
Tamela says:
My oldest was super easy. He’s named after his dad & Grandpa (Peter) and his great-grandpa, grandpa and uncle (Henry.) My younger son was a little tougher to name-DH and I couldn’t agree for a while, but I really loved the name Connor. His middle name (MIchael) is after my brother and BIL.
I always had at least 3 girls names picked and only one boy name. If we ever have a daughter, we always liked Hannah Marie best (middle name is same and MIL and SIL) but I’ve thought for a while now that Francis would be a more fitting middle name (it was my grandmother’s name.) Obviously, we like family significance for middle names.
My name, Tamela (rhymes with Pamela) I LOVE but hated as a child b/c no one could pronounce it. Everyone’s always called me Tammy (which incidentally, I now hate.)
maya says:
First, Heather, you have beautiful taste in names. Like really beautiful.
Second, I don’t have kids, but I think that it would be lovely if you ever had another daughter to work the name Iris in there somehow. You mentioned that Violet was in part a nod to Maddie and purple, and since your name is also a link to purple, I think Iris would be a lovely addition to your girls’ names.
Also, kudos to your extended family too – I see great names there too (including Michaela, which when spelled correctly is one of my favorites).
Casey says:
Both of my boys have biblical first names. I wanted something biblical, traditional, not too common. Something that would stand the test of time and crossing generations as they become grown men with real jobs someday. While I pretended to consider the names hubby proposed, in the end I chose their first names and love them both.
Their middle names are Olowon and Frank. My husband is Lakota Sioux, and the name Olowon means “song” or “music” in Lakota. Frank is my dad’s name.
Erin W says:
I am one of those with name regret…Our three-year-old son is named Carson Alexander. While that may sound perfectly fine…the downside is that we live in a suburb of Cincinnati…with Carson Palmer as one of the Bengals, we’re constantly accused of naming our child after him. If I had a dime for everytime I’ve heard that, I’d be rich! Now, I just respond with ‘Carson who’? Carson was the ONLY name my husband and I weren’t repulsed by. All the names I liked, he hated and vice versa. My all time fav is Andrew…of course, he hated it…Even though Carson ‘looks like’ a Carson (if there’s such a thing)…I find myself calling him Alex a lot (from his middle name) so I’m not accused of being a football groupie. Sad really.
Rita from the Chicago says:
Wow, this post is so relevant to me right now! I’m 6 months pregnant with my first child…and we’re not finding out the sex and we have NO IDEA what we will name our little bundle of joy! And my husband is little help…any name I suggest he’s response most often is “eh?” or “What?” And it’s a pretty overwhelming task..naming someone…any suggestions on what to do??
Amelia says:
Write a bunch of names on a stack of index cards, first middle and last, and keep them in a stack. Pull them out occasionally and go through them. And then end up seeing your baby and picking something completely different
Tracey says:
My 7 year old son we named Cameron Mac – Mac is my maiden name and my husband’s name is Ron. It was a way of honoring him without giving him the same name since “ron” is part of Cameron.
My 5 year old son is Tyler James – both of us had Uncles named James we adored and we just liked Tyler.
My 3 year old daughter has both of her grandmothers middle names – Elisabeth Louise, we call her Elie.
I absolutely LOVE both your girl names, the first thing I thought when I read Annabel’s name was “PERFECT!”
.-= Tracey´s last blog ..Cheap seats =-.
Cara from NC says:
Great post! Names people pick are so interesting. We named our 2 year old little boy William (we call him Will and Will-man is his nickname!) after his grandfather and both great grandfathers. This was my husbands first pick and it took a while to sell me on but now I love it. My 5 month old daughter Lauren Claire is named after my mom (Claire) and Lauren is just a name I always loved growing up-I always knew my daughter would be Lauren (my husband thankfully liked the name but he didn’t have a choice!!). I love classic names with a family tie. Your girls and their names are beautiful.
Lindsay says:
Before my husband and I were even officially dating, we discussed kid names! He suggested Jonathan, and it hit me just right, and that sealed the deal. Doesn’t hurt that my husband’s name is David (I’ll pause while you all coo about how they’ll be best buddies, David and Jonathan xoxo). Only thing is, he wanted Jonathan Adam, and I didn’t like that. My dad’s name is Paul, and my husband’s, his dad’s, and my brother’s middle names are all Paul. So I suggested Paul as a middle name, and thought he had agreed to that. Well, when it actually came down to time to have the baby, he kicked and fussed quite a bit. We were (are) afraid of people calling him Jon Paul! Even after Jonathan was born and the name was on the birth certificate, David still fussed about it a bit. So we’ve made sure that EVERYONE knows that his nickname is Jack, not Jon. But we never even call him that! We just use his whole name, or call him Buddy. Crazy.
And quickly on my daughter… it took forever for us to agree on a name since the original girl name we agreed on, Emily, was just too common now. He kept wanting names that were OVERpopular for people my age: Jennifer, Julie, that kind of thing. He is totally opposed to new-new names (horrified by London as a name, for example) which I kind of like. Finally we settled on Rachel. Only thing is, when she was about a week old or so, I literally opened my mouth and accidentally called her Jenny! She has huge cheeks and I’m always calling her Drooly Julie or Jowly Julie. But at 8 months, I feel it’s too late to change her “real” name. Plus, none of those other names go with her middle name as well as Rachel does, so Rachel it is. Maybe we’ll just call her Julie “for short”.
PS. Thomas the Tank Engine has two coach cars that he pulls along: Annie, and Clarabel (yes, spelled like that). I think of Annabel EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. my son crows out the names of those coaches.
Deanna says:
We adopted my son after 5 years of infertility treatment and miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage. His name is Matthew. It means Gift from God.
Sara says:
My parents named my brother and me so that we could not have nicknames (Sara and Kevin). I always hated not having any wiggle room with my name. So both of my kids are named so that they could have nicknames if they want but the nicknames arent assumed. Monica (Mona) and Lucas (goes by Luke). And my son’s middle name is my maiden name.
Nasrene says:
My daughter’s name is Sadira Gabrielle. My name, Nasrene, is Persian (I’m half Persian) and while I hated it as a child, I now love having a unique name. I wanted the same for my daughter. Sadira is also a Persian name (even though by genetics, she’s more German than anything else ) We call her Sadie as a nickanme (as YES, I’m aware it’s a “dog’s name” and I don’t care, haha). Gabrielle is the name of my Aunt who passed away 15 years ago. I had always planned to name a child after her, but then Sadie was born on her birthday (November 7th) and that just made it more perfect.
Also interesting, my due date with Sadira was 11/11/07–Maddie’s bday.
mrs chaos says:
Being very musical people, my husband always wanted to name our children after people who influenced music. So we have a Paige (Jimmy Page influenced the heck out of music) and then our 2nd daughter’s middle name is after a famous composer in Mexico. Like you, our names were set in stone before the girls were born and have never had any name regret.
.-= mrs chaos´s last blog ..Random Thoughts =-.
Marti from Michigan says:
Wow, I didn’t even look on here on Saturday because usually you don’t post on a Saturday. I named my one and only Rebecca Marie. Was going to spell Rebecca like it is spelled in The Bible – Rebekah, but……. just like my birth first name (Marti is a nickname), I knew she would go through her life having to correct the spelling of her name, so I just spelled it the “norm” way – Rebecca. Her middle name is a family name – Marie was my grandmother’s middle name, my mom’s middle name, an aunt’s middle name, one of my 3 sister’s middle name, and my niece’s middle name. That’s how I got my one and only child’s name.
I love hearing about babies names and reading about them. I like some of the more “unique” names.
Hannah says:
So fun to read everyone’s creative names for their children.
My husband and I had a very hard time agreeing on girl names, but we have about 5 boy names picked out. Of course, we had 2 girls. My first daughter is named for my favorite poet and then my middle name: Tennyson Kate. We often call her Tenny. My second daughter’s name was chosen quickly because she came early, and we knew she wouldn’t live long: Contessa Elaine. We refer to her as Tessa. I like that the names sounds cute together: Tenny & Tessa.
Sarah says:
Growing up, I always wanted to name my daughter Adara. It’s from a series of fantasy novels I loved as a girl. My ex-husband absolutely hated that name. I had my daughter when I was 18, just a few months after graduation. There were five Sarah/Sara’s in my homeroom senior year and I was determined not to have that happen to my kid! We argued for months before we finally settled on Shawna Marie. His family has a tradition of giving a boy his father’s first name as a middle name, so it was a little easier when my son was born. We settled on Ian Michael. After he was born, I found out that Shawna and Ian are both Irish forms of John, so we had essentially given them both the same name.
jessica b says:
Well, I have sort of a regret I guess. I don’t regret my son’s name. I love his name, David Joseph.
What I regret is the girl name that I had chosen if he had been a girl. Morgan Angela was the name I had picked out. I have to say that I’m glad that he was a boy because I don’t think that I would be happy now with that name for a girl.
… maybe God knew that and that’s why he gave me a boy.
Amelia says:
I don’t think I’ve commented before, but I love my name story so here goes.
We didn’t know what we were having so we had to pick a boy and a girl name. My two favorite names since I first imagined having kids, Eleanor (Ellie) and Jacob, were nixed very early on by my husband. I didn’t push it because I knew that any kids we had would be different from what I imagined so why hold onto the names? But I was lost. We kind of had one of each by the time we got to the hospital, but neither of us were particularly happy. It isn’t a good feeling, as you eluded to. Our girl’s name was Madeline, she was born November 13th, 2007. I spent her first day on earth trying desperately to convince myself she was a Madeline. Husband’s father was on his way over to see us in the hospital (he happened to be in town on business, all the grandmas were very very jealous) and we said we’d have a name to announce before he got there, so we had to decide and fast. Husband was flipping through the stack of cards I’d brought with other name possibilities when he says out of nowhere (neither name was anywhere in the stack) “How about Eleanor Avery?” And that was it, it was like I’d met my daughter all over again for the first time. I still can’t believe he just picked the name I’d wanted for a girl since I was little out of thin air like that.
I’ve been so touched by your story and I feel like I have a tiny odd connection since your Madeline and my almost-Madeline are so close in age. You are awesome.
Krystle says:
We named our son Ayven London Anthony (those are two middle names). I actually randomly came up with Ayven in my head when I was roughly 10 weeks preganant with him. At the time Evan and Aiden were quite popular so I kind of started sounding out names and came up with Ayven. His name is mispronounced all the time, mostly he is called Aiden, which drives me insane because it’s not his name!
We chose London because my husband asked me out when we started dating on the London Bridge while we were vacationing in England prior to us dating and Anthony is my Dad’smiddle name, which was only fitting because Ayven is his first grandson and he only had two daughters (my sister and I) so he was thrilled to have a grandson.
Rebecca says:
My son’s name is Ryker and I love the fact that when people ask me about where it came from, I can tell them that my mother in law came up with it. She passed away too early several years ago but my son will always know that his grandma came up with his name.
Meyli says:
I love thinking about baby names! I’m a *little* young to have chosen mine, but I’ve already decided on Abigail and Julie for girls, and Adam for a boy.
I also like the names Isabella, Aiden, and Io as a middle name (yes -one of Jupiter’s moons!) but I’m willing to be much more flexible with those.
My parents almost named me Araura (the northern lights), and if I’d been a boy, I could have been PETER! I dislike both – I’m glad I’m Emily, as common as it is
I don’t have specific reasons for the names that I like, except ‘Julie’ is for the famous and wonderful Julie Andrews.
Your daughters have beautiful names – its so nice that you put so much thought into them!
Mary @ Parenthood says:
I always wanted to name a daughter after my mom’s middle name and my middle name too. But when it came down to actually naming her we came up with the meaning first and then found a name that matched.
So “Consecrated to my God who answers”: Elizabeth Eliana.
.-= Mary @ Parenthood´s last blog ..May 3, 2010 =-.
Christine says:
I love the names we chose for our boys.
Campbell is our oldest boy. Campbell is my maiden name and dh and I always knew we;d name a boy Cambbell.
Cuyler (pr Ky-ler) is our seconds sons name. I LOVE his name.
Our daughter – she is named after dh’s grandma. Geneva. We call her Eva. I honestly wish we had named her Genevieve – a variation of Geneva.
She totally suits Eva – it’s for sure her name…I’m just not sold on Geneva. At least she has the option for either when she grows up.
.-= Christine´s last blog ..Just In Time For Mother’s Day! Organize your chaos – win a PalmPre Smartphone! =-.
TANIA says:
My daughters “real” name is Alexandria Reid Montefesco aka “Lexie”, my daughter knows that her real name is Alexandria……buttttttt believe it or not most people asume that because we all call her “Lexie” her “real” name must be “Alexis”…….. she is know 7 and a half and both she and I kind of laugh or we just go along with it when someone assumes this…..
Her name while at the time had really no big signifigence other then her middle name is my maiden name “Reid” ….I just loved the name Alexandria and I loved the nickname Lexie, I always said from the get go her nickname was gonna be “Lexie” spelled different but it felt right, (her cousins name is Lanie–her exact birth name no nickname so it just fit within out family)then when she was born a premie six weeks early and with many complications I looked at her and said she has to be a “Lexie” Alexandira is too big a name for her and well “Alex” just didn’t fit……I always knew my fathers family was from Russia and that I am basicallly 2nd/3rd generation American.(my grandfather was “smuggled” over to America with his 7/8 brothers and sisters from Rusia) and I always always treasured this……..I never knew until after I named my daughter Alexandria that my great grandmother’s name meant Alexandria in “English” or “American”…..Kind of awsome, kind of strange but all in all really really “cool”………
…(something I really cherish an honor…)
Michelle W says:
Coming back for a second post. One name I had picked out for my son was Orion. I liked it but in the end giving him such a unique name made me too anxious. I still like it though and I like it with his middle name James. I have noticed that as a middle name James seems to go well with just about any name.
Emma says:
Oh, I have regret on 2 of my 4 kids names.
My oldest is now 15 and before I was even pregnant I thought it would be nice to give her the last name of my maternal grandparents, Taylor. Well, by the time I was 8 months pregnant it was on my province’s top ten list and I wanted to change it, but my mother and my nanny and grandad were all so happy. My alternate name for her was Carson or Aidan and I am very glad she is not a Carson today. Her middle names are Elizabeth (after Laura Ingalls Wilder) and Jude (after River Phoenix, who I loved as a teen).
I picked my son’s name (Liam) out when I was 14, and do not regret it to this day, even if it is quite popular as well. His middle names are Seamus (the Irish form of my brother’s middle name James) and Forrest (chosen by his dad.)
My 5 year old is Saoirse Maeve. I love, love, love her name. It is never ever pronounced correctly, and we knew that would happen. In fact, to most Irish people we don’t even say it correctly. Her name is very fitting as it means freedom and, like Maddie, she was born on November 11…Remembrance Day in Canada. She is the only one with only one middle name as I thought Saoirse was very powerful.
My youngest is Sophie Victoria Lily. Until the night before she was born she was Sophie Niamh Lilian. I was never keen on Sophie, but my husband vetoed another Irish name! My mum and oldest daughter chose Sophie. My husband asked for either Victoria (after his niece) or Samantha (after his step daughter) and the night before she was born we discovered that my nanny’s middle name was actually Lily, not the Lilian we had all assumed it to be. Had I had my way Sophie would have been either Nimah or Aisling. I do have to say she really suits Sophie, it means wisdom and she is the smartest 3 year old I know!
So, out of 4 kids, I love 2 names, like one, and am not at all fond of one.
.-= Emma´s last blog ..Sorry… =-.
Megan says:
This is such an interesting topic — I always love to hear how people choose what to call the little people they bring into the world. I know that, in my interactions with people, there are definitely trends and characteristics I associate with specific names…so I really do believe in the power that choosing a name has over a person’s personality later in life.
I don’t have children yet, although I do love thinking about names and trying them against my surname (or my boyfriend’s, honestly)…but I am a little leery about growing too attached — it’ll be my husband’s baby too, and I think it’s something we should pick out together (I recently had the unpleasant experience of watching a dear friend and her husband effectively have a standoff over their first-born’s name. I HATED the way she refused to consider any of his suggestions simply because they weren’t the five that had been in her head since she’d started dreaming of babies back in high school.) So, I guess I’m curious to see how many people gave their kids the names they’d been thinking of back in their single days, and how many ultimately let those names go in favor of new names chosen with their partner.
Even though I know I shouldn’t get too attached, I do have a few that I like. My dad doesn’t go by his first name, but he, my grandfather, and my great grandfather all share the same first name: Willis. I’ve always thought that using that, with a nickname of “Will,” would allow me to honor my dad and still give my son a classic, though not overly-popular first name. I’ve also been a fan of “Henry,” although there are no family ties there (however, the first book that my current boyfriend and I read together had a Henry as the main character, so if the two of us are ever having this conversation for real, there’d be some meaning there).
Girls’ names offer so much more variety, so I’ve had a lot more thoughts on the matter, and would probably end up having a list of names to pick from when I finally saw “who” my daughter was. But my favorite option at present has been an interesting journey. My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother’s middle names are all “Irene,” (it was on my mom’s short-list for my middle name as well, only to be vetoed by my dad), and I’d love to re-start the tradition in honor of these women. So I’ve always looked for a first name that went well with that. Unfortunately, my favorite two girls’ names, Sarah and Julia, are open-ended names, and the open vowel that starts “Irene” makes Sarah Irene or Julia Irene sound funny when you say it out loud. Also, “Sarah [boyfriend’s last name]” sounds pretty lame.
Recently, though, while reading, I came across a character named “Sarah” who went by “Sadie.” I loved it. “Sadie [bf’s last name]” sounds like a badass chica at age 3, 30, or 60. And then I did some research. Turns out that while Sadie, classically, is a nickname for Sarah, it’s becoming more regularly used as a nickname for “Mercedes.” And somehow, the name “Mercedes Irene” is really growing on me. My boyfriend’s grandmother is Mexican, so there’s a little nod to that heritage, you have the nod to my family’s history with the middle name, and somehow I feel like I’m still bringing the “Sarah” into the mix because of the nickname tie. Weird? Probably. Lame? Almost certainly. But unless we get a dog and name *her* “Sadie” first (’cause the Boy recently mentioned, apropos of nothing, that he thought “Sadie” would be a good name for a dog,) “Mercedes Irene” is definitely on my short-list of names to discuss with my partner when the time comes.
Anita says:
My daughter was born at 28 weeks so my husband and I hadn’t even begun discussing names. We used to eat at Taco Del Mar a lot, and their burritos were 24 ounces, and my daughter weighed 22 ounces, so for 2 months we called her “burrita.” Finally came up w/ her name at 2 months, and we had to go down to city hall to change her birth cert. from “baby girl.” My third child was a planned c-section, born on the exact day we had known for months, and we knew he would be a boy. It still took us a month to come up w/ his name. Another trip to city hall and a permanent reputation for indecisiveness. Needless to say, I LOVE all of my kids’ perfect names, and don’t let anyone in the hospital tell you you you can’t leave without naming them. At least here in Seattle, the deal is that the hospital has to file the birth cert within 10 days of the birth, and if you haven’t provided a name they’ll just go w/ “baby boy” or “baby girl” and then you have to head downtown to change it, but that’s no biggee. They’ll also file all the social security number paperwork, so if you didn’t get the name done on time, you have that extra bit of administrative headache, but totally worth it to not rush!
Julia says:
I wanted to name my daughter Sarah Marie, but her father hated it. Regardless, Marie would stay becuase that is my mom’s middle name. I finally picked Beth after the girl on American Dreams. So my daughter is Bethany Marie. If I ever have a boy it will be Alexander James. If I have another girl one day…. probably Emma Lee Grace. But who knows!!!
statia says:
I’m one of those weird people that doesn’t pick out a name prior to birth. I had a set of names that I liked with both of my kids, and then once they were born, we got to know them for a little while before finding one that fit. Oddly, with my son, the name we chose for him wasn’t on our short list, but it was one that we had both liked and then hated at one point or another. The name just seemed to fit him. With our daughter, we literally had two names and she ended up with both of them. We just couldn’t figure out which one she looked like, and the other one was going to be her middle name. Both of them are more unique, but not so rare that you’ve never heard them before. And neither of them have 17 y’s instead of vowels.
So, no name regrets. Their names fit them so well, and I am still very much in love with them. I feel as if they kind of picked them out themselves, in a way.
.-= statia´s last blog ..It’s your party… and I’ll dump my kids off and leave if I want to. =-.
Ania says:
We had SUCH a hard time picking our son’s name..my husband and I vetoed every freakin’ name the other brought to the table, so it was a very frustrating couple of months, for sure. Then, Sleepless in Seattle was on one night when I couldn’t sleep from acid reflux (I had a terrible time with it during my pregnancy), and I heard Tom Hanks calling out the name Jonah, and I immediately fell in love with it. So yeah, it came from a movie!
I had a little girls name picked out ever since I was about 10. Maya. It was my sister’s middle name, and I SO wished that my parent’s had given me that name instead of Ania, which I hated up until my 20’s. So in 2006, when I finally had my little girl, I was a little upset because the name had become fairly popular, but I still had to name her Maya! Her middle name is Valentine, which was my grandma’s name. Maya Valentine..I love it so much. I just wish I had felt so strongly about a boy’s name, too…but, I still do love the name Jonah.
Marianne says:
My biggest criteria for naming my child(ren) was not to name him (I have a 2 year old son) after anyone in my family. Both mine and my husband’s families have this tendency to overuse certain names. So, we named our son Nathan Jacob. Nathan is pretty common, but neither of us has a Nathan in our family. And my husband’s last name is an uncommon Polish name… So, while he may not be the only Nathan in class, he’ll likely be the only Nathan Targonski in class. Anyway, people on both sides were like “um, Nathan is an unusual name.” My husband and I would look at each other and say “well, it’s sad that the #24 name is “unusual,” but I guess it’s not John or Joseph.”
.-= Marianne´s last blog ..Contrast =-.
Kristin says:
M son’s name is Jack Andrew… the middle name is my husband’s middle name. And while I, personally, have never really liked the idea of naming a child the same exact name as one parent, I did like the idea of having my husband pass on a part of him to our first born. The name Jack was a name I have always LOVED… before I even knew my husband or knew that I’d ever have a little boy! The name in part is in reference to John F Kennedy (we are big history buffs). On the other hand, I like that it’s a name that is strong, yet suits a child as well.
Now my husband wasn’t immediately sold on the name Jack. We considered several other names before I knew what I was having but we had a lot of trouble narrowing in on boys names. It was always “I knew a ________ and I hated him!” or something a long those lines. I kept trying to convince my husband on Jack, but he was wishy washy. So, when I found out that I was having a boy I just started refering to the baby as “Baby Jack”. “Wow!”, I would say. “Baby Jack sure is kicking a lot today!” Or, “Maybe Baby Jack is going to be a peanut butter lover because that is all I keep craving!” My plan worked; the name caught on and I LOVE the name we chose!
Our second choice was “Ryan”. Now, my SIL and I had the same exact due date. And they did not decide until leaving the hospital what they would name their little boy… which happened to be RYAN! (So keep those other names you have on the burner under wraps We now refer to our next born son as “The Child Formerly Known as Ryan”.
I am a teacher and I will admit I have had many a good name ruined for me by children in my classes. And I am just like you, Heather. I obsess over names! Both of your daughters’ names are beautiful!
Donna says:
I had spontaneous fraternal triplets at 36 weeks. All along every ultrasound they said, 2 boys and a girl.
So we picked out two great boy names, and one great girl name. After all, you are ultrasounded all the time with triplets.
Doctor said about baby A: It’s a boy! I said, he’s Eric Joseph.
Doctor said about baby B: It’s another boy! I said, that’s Duncan James.
Doctor said about baby C: It’s ANOTHER boy! I said, uh, no that’s supposed to be Isabelle Marie!
So after a few minutes, we went with our backup name, Nicholas. However, had I to do it all over, I’d give him something else. He’s very much a Nicholas now, but I feel like I didn’t spend enough time on his name! Silly, but true!
Erin says:
Well..this is a very neat thread~! I am a little behind and read them…but I have a ZERO name regret. My little boy will be 1 tomorrow! I pretty much named him too LOL…I named him Cole which is my best friend in college’s maiden name. His middle name is Ryan which is my brothers first name. I wanted something short, simple, easy to say, and easy for him to spell. Funny thing is most people don’t realize either Cole’s initial are the exact same as his dad too:-) CRW….and did I plan that too…yes indeed
Love reading about everything here…Congrats on Annie
Lindy says:
I do not have kids of my own, but I do have several names picked out. I just wanted to say what my cousin named her 4 girls.
She had 2 girls with her first husband (both born in October and both are redheads)
Bailey McKay W*****
Blair McKenna W*****
The next 2 girls she had with her 2nd husband (both born in June and both are blondes)
Brayden Mercedes C******
Bentley Molina C******
She always says she has 2 B.M.W’s (Bailey and Blair initials), a Mercedes, and a Bentley. I just think it’s funny.
SnoozanK says:
I’m a month late in responding to this. Catching up on blogs. I hope you still see this Heather because I was just thinking about think topic today.
I have 4 kids. ages 19, 15, 12, and…1. My baby is Matilda Christine. I always knew if I had another baby it would be a girl and I would name her Matilda after my mom’s mom. No question or doubt there. The middle name was a mess. I had three choices: Michelle, the name my beloved Aunt who had recently passed always told me I should name my baby. Alayne, my mom’s unique middle name. And then my favorite, Christine, which is my best friend’s name. Christine won out.
My “best friend” and I have known each other 32 years–since age 12. She has been married, divorced, and has a lovely daughter named Kopila (means ‘flower bud’ in Hindi).
My ‘best friend’ and I had a fight–via EMAIL–Feb 19. We have never fought–never-=and rarely if ever email each other. She has not spoken to me since. I’ve apologized for shit I didn’t even say or think. Begged her to put this behind us. I don’t even remember anymore.
We are members of each others’ families. Our parents are friends. Kopila idolizes my 12 year old daughter Nina. We do everything together. Everyone knows what’s going on. It’s awful.
My father became criticially, totally suddenly, life-threateningly ill on May 3rd. I thought he was going to die. Called and emailed Chris at work and home. she didn’t reply once. This pretty much corked it for me. My friend was no longer my friend–she was some psycho hosebeast I didn’t know and now my baby is stuck with her name.
I really want to change Tillie’s middle name now. I also want to know what the hell happened because I honestly don’t get it.
What do you think?
Amanda says:
I have known since I was 16 that I wanted to have a daughter named Brooklyn! Then, when my husband and I were dating, before we were even engaged, we talked about future babies’ names and I told him that I loooooved the name Brooklyn. We decided then that if we got married, we would name our someday-daughter Brooklyn. We got engaged, then married, and anytime there was talk of having a family, we would say, “When we have Brooklyn….”
So that was that. Our baby girl was always going to be Brooklyn. When I got pregnant, an early ultrasound (12 1/2 weeks) was performed after I had come bleeding. My OB said, “So….do you want to know what you’re having?” Of course we did!!! The suspense was killing us! She said that the baby was a boy.
I would have been disappointed that I wasn’t having my girl I had dreamed of under any other circumstances, but the baby was thriving and healthy, so that was all that mattered to me. We picked out a name, Hunter William, which I really like, but don’t LOVE. William was after my father-in-law, who is an ass. But my hubby insisted.
At 21 weeks, I went in for “the big ultrasound.” And the tech told us that clear as day was a little baby girl in my belly!!! Hooray!!! Brooklyn!!
Now we just had to decide on a middle name. I liked Grace, I liked Faith (my own middle name), Kennedy, and we talked about Kaydence because both of our mothers have the middle name Kay.
In about my 6th month, I figured it out. Her middle name would be Lillyann, after my grandmothers, Lillie and Ann. They both were as happy as could be and I love that she is a namesake for two women I love so much. Brooklyn Lillyann…isn’t it beautiful?
.-= Amanda´s last blog ..Leaving my mark =-.
Trisha G says:
With my first child I swore I was having a girl. This would be our 5th generation and all the previous generations firstborn were girls. I never had a sonogram. That was 26 years ago. I only had a girls name picked out, Cassidy. Well after a day and a half of hard labor with no pain medication, and other complications you don’t want to know about, I had a boy. I was in no condition to pick a name and I didn’t even know where to start. Some how my husband and mom came up with Christopher. I wanted the middle name to be James after my Dad. We named him Christopher James. I found out later my mom thought I was going to be a boy and my name was going to be James Christopher. Weird. When I got pregnant the 2nd time I had one sonogram but they couldn’t determine the sex. We made sure we had a list of boys and girls names this time. I had three boys names picked but I was watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on tv and the announcer said “I want to say hello to my son Connor.” Well I loved that name and put it on the list. I had never heard the name as a first name. A few weeks later Eric Clapton’s son Conor fell from a window and died. Now I wasn’t sure about the name. I thought it might be a bad sign. Well “he” was born and he looked like a Conner. We named him Conner Patrick. My mom got to pick his middle name. Her real name and mine is Patricia so Patrick was close. Conner is a common name now but not 20 years ago. My oldest son, Chris(6 yrs old at the time), hated the name Conner and said he didn’t want his brother to have a “reindeer name”. I will never forget that. I got to name my niece and nephew. I named my niece Kaylee Mycle (pronounced Michael) after her dad & her grandfather that was terminally ill. I named my nephew Keaton. Heather since you and Mike like music so much maybe you should name your next daughter Lyric. I love that name and I love the name Laurel.