QOTD: baby names

[Libby Pritchett]

So, I'm killing time this morning waiting for my files to get transferred to my new computer. I thought now would be the perfect time to discuss something that's been on my mind a lot lately... baby names!!

Jeff & I are pretty similar when it comes to our taste in names, but we don't have anything set in stone that we just love yet. I figure we won't get super serious about choosing names til we know the gender.

But that doesn't mean it isn't fun to think about it now! I'm keeping a list of cute names that I like, and every once in a while we go through and Jeff vetoes the ones he doesn't like. LOL We both agree that we both have to love the name, so that means that we have equal veto power.

So lay it on me, what are your fave names? How did you choose your kids' names? Do you prefer trendy or classic? Popular or obscure? What kinds of things did you take into consideration when choosing?

[cardinalskate]

We have kind of a tradition in our family of "making up" names. We take parts of people's names or places (or in my case, months), and squish them together to make new names. My DD's name is Maylee. She was born in May and my mother's middle name is Lea (so there was no pronunciation confusion, we changed it to -lee). Coming up with baby names is so fun!

[jessica31876]

I like to have a name that just fits my kids. I had names picked out for them but they were not set in stone until I saw them for the first time. I also pick names because of their meaning.

So my kids names are Crystal, Matthew and Nickolas. Nickolas was supposed to be Nathaniel which has the same meaning as Matthew.

[kresta]

I prefer a little more classic. My kiddos' names are Wesley Michael, Claire Elizabeth, and Sadie Brooke. I think the three names work well together, and I liked that they weren't terribly trendy. I don't mind if a classic name becomes a little trendy, but these sounded a little 'older soul' to me, which is why I liked them.

[ayaandjudah]

Make sure you love the name.

My first is Addison Chloe. I liked Madison and DH just thought to drop the M. We loved it from the beginning. (this was pre-grey's anatomy and her name was relatively unheard of for a girl) Had she been a boy she'd have been Adam Gabriel.

My first son is Judah Aaron. I again just picked it because I loved it. Had he been a girl he'd have been Hayden Sarah.

My baby is Elijah Matthew. Here is where I tell you to make sure you love the name. I *thought* we agreed that if it was a boy he'd be Isaac Asher. Well after a completely natural childbirth(complete with cursing) he tells me he doesn't love Isaac. So there we are at 3am arguing over names. We settled on Elijah Matthew but he doesn't feel like an Elijah.

Had Elijah been a girl we were in INTENSE agreement that we both loved Ayla Cassidy

[Jengerbread88]

When we were picking Zachary's name, it was really important to Kyle that Zach be named after his best friend (his best friend being Ryan Zachary, he wanted Zach to be Zachary Ryan). I agreed to Zachary because the girl name I liked also started with a Z, and I really loved the meaning of the name Zachary ("The Lord remembers."

After Kyle and I broke up, I thought it was quite ridiculous that the baby was being entirely named after his best friend, so I changed his middle name to reflect the name of MY best friend... so now his name is Zachary Andrew. My best friend is named Andrew (Drew), and he and I have been best friends for 5 years, literally since the day we met. That's not ever changing, so I felt comfortable naming my son after him.

Had Zachary been a girl, or had I not miscarried my first pregnancy, my baby would be named Zoe. Zoe is the Greek word for "Life." I love the name and think it's very unique.

Just yesterday, though, Drew and I were talking about names, and I also thought that Ella was a very pretty name... so I'm saving that one back for the future!



On an off note, my mom wanted to name me Julia or Julie-ann. My father wanted to name me Bobbie. My grandfather wanted to name me Amanda. They all compromised and I got named Jennifer. I'm not sure how that's a compromise between all those names, but apparently it is.
It's a good thing they didn't go with my birth father or grandfather's ideas, though-- my dad (adoptive dad)'s ex-wife is Bobbie, and his daughter from that marriage is named Amanda!

I'm very heavily influenced by name meaning-- I feel like it's important that a name bestow a blessing or meaning on someone. For example, my name means "Pale, White, Ghostly" and I actually am. Very pale, I mean. It also is associated with being a "fair maiden."

My mom's name is Candy, and that name meaning is "Honest." I don't know a more honest person than my mother- she's honest to a fault!

For Zach, his name was an obvious choice. When my heart problems occurred, the doctors truly believed Zachary or I or both wouldn't make it. When we BOTH did, it was a miracle, and truly, "The Lord Remembered."

[marlathrall]

I don't have kids yet, but hopefully will in the near future.

My favorite names:

Quinn (hubby's middle name) Rodney, Theodore James, Lillie Elizabeth (after ggrandma Billie Elizabeth) and Coral Eliene. Hopefully I will someday have two girls and two boys because I adore all those names. And all the middle names are after family members.

Other favorites that I wouldn't probably use:

Finnley, Scarlett.

[MamaBee]

Hubby and I are very traditional when it comes with names and I tend to lean toward names from the bible. For a boy - Jacob was a no brainer. I love the nickname Jake... and all the Jakes I knew where really nice, good looking, and got along with everyone. Also Jacob/Jake is a very short name... very important to my hubby when our last name is Kuchenbecker. Then a third factor that played into it, but wasn't determining is that if I were a boy, one of the names they thought of was Jake... and on my dad's side of the family, all his siblings names start with the letter J... and their last name starts with a K.

Jake's middle name is David... named after my hubby... that was something on my husband's side of the family... the first born's middle name is the name of the father.

If we had a girl... we had LOTS of debate over names... the names I liked, hubby didn't... the only name we agreed on was Elizabeth. Then she would have been either Catherine Elizabeth or Elizabeth Catherine... Catherine, the name of hubby's mother who passed when he was 10. So I'm sure someday when Jake buys his first house, he will be very thankful he was born a boy... so he wouldn't have to write out Elizabeth Catherine Kuchenbecker...

[emmasmommy]

i always preferred classic for girls and more eccentric for boys. NO idea why.

we have emma rose and madelyn grace. i had wanted to name my daughter emma from the time i met i friend my sophomore year of college named emma. it was just such a classic, fun name that a little girl wouldn't have to grow into. then came rachel and she had to go and name her stupid baby emma so by the time MY emma came along there were 192 billion emma's anyway. (not that i'm bitter about that). her middle name, rose, was my grandmother's name as well as darik's grandmother's name, so that was sort of a no brainer. madelyn we just sort of agreed on. we never ever fought over girl names LOL

boys....i'm just glad we never had one! lolol
*I* wanted to name a boy xander, nathaniel, nehemiah, jagger and jackson
where he liked more 'strong' names. he always told me if we named a boy the names i liked, he'd have gotten beaten up for sure.

[pewtertm]

I definitely prefer classic. With trendy names, you tend to get a bunch of kids in a class with the same name...and trends do not last. Also not a fan of...how do I put this...made-up names. I've had students named Princess, Precious, Queen, Majesty...sorry but those are NOT names (ok, I DID have a friend who named her CAT Precious...but definitely not her kid)! And let's not forget Heaven the girl who acted like she was NOT going there. Hopefully she's changed since then


I did look at the entymology...went through a LOT of baby name books when I was pregnant. I also dug through my genealogy research...I've got several hundred years on mom's side done, and thought it would be neat to use a name that was in the family.
For sentimental reasons, I was considering 'Paulina'...DH's mom's middle name was Pauline; my grandma is Pauline. Not my favorite name, but since DH's mom died when he was just a teen, I thought it would be a nice way to honor her. He said 'no' though...he doesn't like the name at all.

DH had a lot of names that he liked that I said 'no' to because they brought to mind some student that I didn't want my kid to act like LOL. In the end, DH and I both made lists of names that we liked...
my list had Rebecca, Abigail, Rachel, Faith, and Grace for girls. Jacob and Timothy were my boy choices.
Rachel is the only girl name that was on both lists, so that's what we went with.

[Jengerbread88]

Originally Posted by MamaBee

So I'm sure someday when Jake buys his first house, he will be very thankful he was born a boy... so he wouldn't have to write out Elizabeth Catherine Kuchenbecker...

Poor Zach is Zachary Andrew Schoenberger. He has more than half of the alphabet in his name!

[cardinalskate]

Originally Posted by kresta

I prefer a little more classic. My kiddos' names are Wesley Michael, Claire Elizabeth, and Sadie Brooke. I think the three names work well together, and I liked that they weren't terribly trendy. I don't mind if a classic name becomes a little trendy, but these sounded a little 'older soul' to me, which is why I liked them.

Having a unique (but not outright weird) name was important to me, too. I know I don't have to worry about there being 3 other girls in my DD's class with the same name.

On the other hand, my sister named her girls right off the top 5 names list. She loved the names, so I have 2 beautiful nieces, Chloe and Sophie. And yes, Chloe has 2 other girls in her class with the same name, and Sophie has 4 (wow!).

[pewtertm]

Originally Posted by emmasmommy

then came rachel and she had to go and name her stupid baby emma so by the time MY emma came along there were 192 billion emma's anyway

I wanted an Emma or Emily but yeah, there are so many of them, and I had so many friends with little Emma's running around. So we went with Rachel, and within 3 months, 2 more friends had newborn Emma's.

[emmasmommy]

Originally Posted by pewtertm

I wanted an Emma or Emily but yeah, there are so many of them, and I had so many friends with little Emma's running around. So we went with Rachel, and within 3 months, 2 more friends had newborn Emma's.

i'm not sure how but there's only one other emma in her school. LOL

[Libby Pritchett]

See, that's where I'm stuck... some of my favorite names are super popular right now (and they aren't my fave because they're popular... I just love them)... For a girl I love Chloe and for a boy Elijah (calling him Eli). But I don't want to deal with 3 others in the same class either. So, we'll keep our thinking caps on.

[JenTapler]

I have a thing for family names.

Dean was the ONLY name Joel and I could agree on for a boy!! And we both loved it and it fits him, so that's good. Also, it's a family name. Dean is Joel's middle name and was his maternal Grandfather's name. Dean's middle name is Edward, which was my father's name. My Dad was still alive and fairly "with it" when Dean was born and it meant SO much to him for Dean to be named after him. I am so glad we did that, especially now that my Dad is gone.
And I think Dean Edward Tapler sounds pretty good. Kinda nerdy, but it works.

If he was a girl, it was going to be Harper. Harper Tapler sounds ridiculous, but I've had Harper picked out for my girl name for FOREVER. Harper is my maiden name. We're not planning on having any more kids, but if there was an accident and it is a girl, she'll be Harper. But I'll admit I'm annoyed that there are suddenly a million Harpers out there. That was MY name. And at least I have a reason for it. Hello...it's my maiden name!! LOL. But we'd have to figure out a good middle name because of that whole Harper Tapler thing.

So yeah, family names here.

[nikkiARNGwife]

I had Avery's name picked out years ago before I even knew DH lol..and before you started seeing girl Averys everywhere. We kicked around names to go with hit but I finally realized DH really wanted him to have his name so he became Brian Avery.

Choosing DD's name was so hard. I wanted something traditional, but not too common. She was going to be Tessa forever and then I just decided I didn't like it as much. DH was deployed during my entire pregnancy with her so it wasn't easy to just discuss names a lot. Finally one night on the phone I suggested Ella and he actually liked it. Her middle name is a family name, Augusta.

So I have Brian Avery and Ella Augusta. I love Augusta..sometimes I wish we'd decided to call her that instead of Ella

[MandaT]

I always knew that my first born girl would be: Anna Kathleen, my granny had, had a daughter & that was her name, she lost her before she was born. We were always very close & I told her that I would give that name to my baby girl.
So we have an Anna Kathleen.

DH chose the name for our 2nd, one morning while at church, we were singing a song about Grace. I picked her middle name for ^ granny. (we never had a boy name picked out before we found out g/b)
So we have a Grace Elizabeth. (who is anything but graceful)

If Anna was a boy (which we opted to not find out until birth) she would have been Bryce Austin just because I love the sound of them together, country, cowboyish. Then my dad & evil (his wife) named their new puppy that...so we couldn't 'keep' our name without being irritated to use if Grace had been a boy.

When we went to the ultrasound (one of about 30) for baby #3, we decided before we went in, if it was a boy, his name would be Brody James. (we never discussed girl names this pregnancy)
So we have a Brody James.

[nikkiARNGwife]

If Ella had been a boy she would have been John Ezra after both my grandfathers.

[Libby Pritchett]

hehe Jen, maybe I'll have a girl named Harper just to honor YOU. LOL

I should point out that with Kendra, we named her totally after family members. Her paternal grandparents were Ken & Sandra, and her middle name Grace is after my great grandma.

Jeff's son is Rhys Andrew. They had no reason for choosing that name. They just liked it.

But neither of us have family names that we definitely want to use, so that really isn't even something we're putting too much thought into.

[JenTapler]

Oh, and as for the "Popular" names, I'll just say - as a Jennifer born in 1976 when half the girls in the U.S. were named Jennifer (I think the other half were named Amanda) and there were 5...FIVE...girls in my graduating class (and I only graduated with 100 people!!) named Jennifer....Please don't do that to your child. Please. It was awful. Every. damn. year. And every teacher came up with a new technique for dealing with it. Some years we'd have a number (Jennifer 1, Jennifer 2, etc). Some years we'd have a new name altogether (Jen, Jenny, Jennifer). Some years we'd have a color (Red Jennifer, Blue Jennifer, etc). I'm sure some of these wouldn't be done these days, but SOMETHING has to be done to avoid confusion. And let me tell you, it really really sucked. I can remember in elementary school, especially upper elementary, getting a class list and just HOPING that I'd FINALLY be the only Jennifer in my class. I never was. Not one single year.

All that being said, I'm not a huge fan of super weird names either with crazy spelling that nobody can ever pronounce, so, ya know. Happy medium I say.

[heathergw]

We like old testament names... neither of us chose our names for Moriah and Isaac... it's a long story, but God gave me their first names. Picking Asher was much harder LOL... but I love the name and I thought that "happy" went well with "laughter" and I'm big into the meaning of names. For the boys, their middle names are family names. For Moriah, I just liked Grace as a middle name and had a hard time finding a family name that I liked.

[nikkiARNGwife]

I know SEVEN little ones named "Emma Grace" right now lol. And one Emma Kate.

[marlathrall]

If you are really worried about popularity, I would read this blog post: http://swistlebabynames.blogspot.com...y-kiss-of.html

Basically, we have so many different names these days that no one name is near as popular as Jennifer was back in the 1970s.

Oh and I love the nickname Libby, Libby.

[mummytothree]

It's been a while since I thought of baby names but when naming my kids..I wanted unique names but not weird names.

I wanted them to not have to correct someone everytime they had to say their name and I wanted their names to not be able to create a nickname (for example Samuel into Sam or Benjamin into Ben).

Also my boys names had to be of Gaelic decent.

Also since we have such a looooooooooooong last name I wanted 1 or 2 syllable first names.

Also the more kids we had the more the names needed to sound good together. I also didn't want any repeat "letters" and by the time we got to baby #4 and I say that the letters when in descending order I had to keep that order. That's why I tell hubby we can't have any more kids...baby #5 starts with a C and I'd only have 2 letters of the alphabet left to name them with!!!

None of my kid's name were on the Top 500 SSA list the year they were born except for my first...it was #28 the year she was born (1998) which is really weird because in the 13 years I have had her we have only ever met 2 other girls with the same name (and it's been within the last 6 years and they have been a lot younger then her) !!!

A few of the names that I have loved but not used (for various) reasons are:

Boys
Roman...loved this...wanted it so badly for both of my last babies.
Andrew
Jefferson
Colin: Was going to be baby #5's name until my sister in law used it just 2 month before he was born
Ean
Cian

Girls:
Sinclair
Elliot
Quinn

[Tracyfish]

I'm glad we had a boy and agreed on Jason Neil Jr. because we never would have agreed on a girl name. And then we went and called him "L.J." which completely defeated the Jr. thought.

Anyway...my fav girl names:
Shelby Rae
Kellie Laree (would have been my sis' name if Mom had decided to have a 3rd child)
Presley
Piper

[Andrea Gourley]

I have no children but if I'd had a baby then I've had their names picked out since I was about 13 - all I ever wanted to be was a Mammy, getting a degree and a career was just to fill in the time between being a teenager and having babies but it didn't quite work out like that.

Anyway I was going to have Sam for a boy and Daisy and Poppy for girls

My brother is called Christopher Robin He's 6 ft odd, shaven head, tatoos and swears like a trooper

[knlchevys]

We struggled with boy names. Jace we heard and just liked. Ty well, should i admit it was from Extreme Makeovers? Jace had a speech problem and it was a name we liked and Jace could say!!!

Raegan was going to be Carson because I loved that for a girl. However, we feel in love with Raegan and my mother-in-law who had passed away's middle name was Rae. I always had a list a mile long for a girl.

[taracotta7]

I am a complete dork and named my kids after books I enjoyed. That is how big of a book nerd I am! LOL Landon is from A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks. I just fell in love with the name. At the time I didn't know any Landons but now I know several. Luckily there hasn't been more in his grade.

I tend to use old family names or older names too. If we were to have a girl, her name would of been Scarlett Jewel. Jewel is my great grandma's name. Scarlett is just something I love and another dorky part of me.........I am Tara from Tara's plantation from Gone with the Wind. I just figured every Tara needed a Scarlett! LOL I also love the girl name Hazel. If we get to keep our foster son who is currently named after his birth father, we will change his name to Weston Walter (another family name from my grandpa......He was Walter Willis. I wanted another 2 W name for our little guy to honor him.)

I am another one that looks at the meanings of the name. AND....the sarcastic person I am.....I always try to think of how the name can be shortened or made fun of.

[ColleenSwerb]

Jordan and I are going to end up in an epic death cage match fight over names. So I'm trying not to think about it or get too attached to anything before like, Christmas.
He veto'd the only girl name that I have loved for ages and ages (Ella May).
I like Lillian and Eliza for first names. If we have a girl her middle name will be May (family tradition on my side that he has agreed to).
Boys I'm at a little bit of a loss. I like Lucas and Ethan, but don't really care that much. I'm gonna have to do some serious thinking for boys names.
Since we're hoping to wait and find out at birth, we have to agree to at least 2 names for each gender (so then we can meet the little one and pick the right name).

[Julie Billingsley]

I'm not picking baby names anymore, but I was talking to my near 20 year old son about baby names (no- he and his girlfriend aren't pregnant). The two of them have talked baby names and decided that Orion or Cyrus for a boy; Max or Ethel for a girl. I was like... wow.

[misfitinmn]

Well, we like kinda classic, traditional names. Popularity wasn't a HUGE factor for us - just something simple and not hard to spell or pronounce (I see a lot of off-the-wall names at my job, and parents who get angry when we mispronounce them!). We didn't find out the sex of our first baby - and thank goodness he was a he because we never really did agree on a girl name. But the boy name I had picked out and it was non-negotiable - Benjamin David. Benjamin because I loved it & David after my grandpa.

Our second baby we DID find out and then we took the entire pregnancy to pick a name for him - we finally decided the night before he was born! Our last name is tricky to pair with first names, so that added an extra hurdle. We settled on Matthew Robert, and I think it suits him.

Good luck! Picking names can be fun and frustrating all at once!

[adrianka]

This is an interesting thread to read - the tradition of naming the kid in a unique way isn't as strong in Slovakia as it's in the US. I can only guess the reasons. I'd say the tendency to individualism is not that strong with us.

In the past, when you were naming your baby, the registry office could choose to refuse to let you use an eccentric name (like, when people chose to name their baby after a character from a novel and such), and even if these days you have much more freedom, I think somewhere deep within we kind of think that it's not well to name your child in a "weird" way. These days I think such restrictions no longer exist, but sometimes I feel they might, because some people come up with horrible stuff... Some names just don't sound right if you put them next to a Slavic surname, believe me! It's much easier in English - a language that truly allows for anything to become a name without sounding off. :-)

So... I'm a very open-minded person in many things, but when it comes to naming a baby I'm on the conservative side. If I had children I think I'd think about: a) whether I like the name, b) whether it goes well with the surname, c) whether it exists both in Slovak and Luxembourgish context and d) whether I like the meaning of the name.

I see the trouble with popular names, but right now the weird ones are popular hereabouts, so I guess my choice wouldn't be risky from this point of view. :-)

One thing I noticed with my name preferences (and yes, I'm not married and with kids, but I've always liked to come up with names because I've always wanted to be a mother, it's just life took a different turn) is that when I like a name, and then I meet someone who bears this name and it happens to be a person I dislike, I tend to stop liking the name as well. Doesn't exactly widen the choices, eh. :-)

Libby, good luck with naming baby Pritchett, I'm sure you can come up with something you both like and that the kiddo will love as well. :-)

ETA: I forgot to mention that in Slovakia (and other European countries) every day of the year is associated with a name. The names are included in calendars and when it's your name's turn, it's called a "name day". We celebrate these; it's not as huge as a birthday, but still. When you name your kid with a non-calendar name, you rob it of a chance to have a name day. So I'd never do it. :-)

But I think this tradition might be the reason why "weird", i.e. non-calendar names are not that huge in our country.

[Lauramarie]

I love thinking about names, its so much fun!
My first born is super traditional and I still love his name even though it gets cutt off on any ID card for school because they cannot fit Christopher on the entire card (wth?)

First born = Christopher Paul
2nd born = Geordan (pronounced Jordan) Kal'el (yes after superman, i was in love with Clark Kent on Smallville)

For a girl that I will probably never have

Farah or I heard the name Haven recently and like it.

And I recently realized that my sons names are 11 and 7 letters. Luck for them all their life!

[origami]

Originally Posted by marlathrall

=

Basically, we have so many different names these days that no one name is near as popular as Jennifer was back in the 1970s.

I definitely agree with Marla. My child's name is in the top 5 and there are no other children with her name in her class and I don't think there ever have been.

I totally love her name and chose it because I loved it. It's a very classic, feminine, but I think strong name, as are most names in the top 10 right now.

[emmasmommy]

i have a friend whose son's middle name is kal'el as well. so funny!

[eranslow]

Here are the girl names I like: Linnea (was going to be Blake's name if he had been a girl), Stella, Sofia. I really wanted to use a name from Scandinavian descent. (stella obviously isn't from there but oh well!)

Boys names that I like and we aren't using for our new little one: Dane (I really really liked this but it doesn't flow all that well with Blake - and dh wasn't entirely sold on it) and Jordan.

Good luck Libby! Picking out names can be one of the hardest parts! (at least it is for us! We aren't even entirely 100% sure on the name for the one that's due in 3 weeks!)

[pimaprincess84]

Growing up as a Jessica Lynn Johnson, I swore that my children would have names that were a little bit more unique. There was another girl I went to high school with who had the same exact name! There was also a Jessica Ann Johnson as well.

My son's name is kind of strange, but I love it and it has special meaning to us, which is what I think is really important. My husband wanted a less popular name since our last name is Smith, but wasn't too picky other than that. My son's name is Shadrach. His middle name is Tadai (pronounced ta-die) which means roadrunner in the O'odham (pima) language. Right before I found out I was pregnant with my son (a few months after having an early miscarriage) my husband and I were hiking and saw a roadrunner. We stopped and it sat right on the path in front of us just staring at us for a few minutes. Eventually it ran off. We thought it was kind of strange but didn't think much of it. I few days later I found out I was pregnant, and the next day I found out that in the O'odham culture seeing a roadrunner means that you will be getting a great blessing (in our case this baby). We knew from then on that his middle name would definitely be Tadai.

[ayaandjudah]

Originally Posted by Libby Pritchett

See, that's where I'm stuck... some of my favorite names are super popular right now (and they aren't my fave because they're popular... I just love them)... For a girl I love Chloe and for a boy Elijah (calling him Eli). But I don't want to deal with 3 others in the same class either. So, we'll keep our thinking caps on.

Libby,

I don't know about by you but here Elijah isn't that popular. A lot of people look at me weird when i say his name is Elijah. We call him Eli too.

So I vote for that one.

P.S. we clearly have the same taste in names since I have an Elijah and a chloe (Addison Chloe)

[sczos911]

This is a fun read.
If either of my girls would have been a boy - it would have been Henry. Henry Eugene. After Hank Aaron and Andy's dad. We now have the dog named Henry. Henry was the only boys name we could agree on.

Jillian was easy. We loved the name and it is bit of a classic, but not heard of too much. Only 1 other Jillian in her school of 430. And we chose Jillian with a J over a G because I did not want her to be called Gilly (hard G as in fish gills. UGH.) She is Jillian May and May after my mom's birth month and her mom's middle name. One we considered tho with J was Annabelle. I could not do it.

Evelyn was going to be Evelyn up to 3 weeks before her birth. Then it was Brianna. But she did not look like a Evelyn but more like an Evie Jo - thus her name. Evelyn Josephine. Josephine after Andy's family and Evelyn is a good, strong classic name.

I will have to admit that I love both of my girls having very individual names. I loved Olivia and Sophie, but so glad we did not go that route. J has a Sophie and 2 Allie's (such a shame to ruin the name Alison with Allie...). No Olivia's but the classes below & above have one each. I wish we would have considered Lauren more (love) and Abigail (another Love) and Elinor (love). But DH was strongly against those.

It will be interesting to see what E's class has in it. I know of a Cora, Madelyn and Carlie. We'll see in a few weeks.

[dana]

my husband is from france, so we really only considered first names that's worked in both languages. we also wanted something that was known and pronounceable, but not super-trendy. sooooo - we have audrey grace and juliette louise (the middle names are both family names). if we have another child, i really want to use the name pascal/pascale - which is a french name that i love, and even though it's not a US name, at lease it is pronounced the way it is spelled.

other names we had on our list:
girls:
genevieve
elizabeth

boys:
maxime
oscar
alexandre
alexis (i love love love this name in french - but i guess it doesn't work for a guy in english - boo!)
christophe
olivier

[ayaandjudah]

Originally Posted by heathergw

We like old testament names... neither of us chose our names for Moriah and Isaac... it's a long story, but God gave me their first names. Picking Asher was much harder LOL... but I love the name and I thought that "happy" went well with "laughter" and I'm big into the meaning of names. For the boys, their middle names are family names. For Moriah, I just liked Grace as a middle name and had a hard time finding a family name that I liked.

Yeah we love OT names too. We have Judah Aaron and Elijah Matthew. Elijah was supposed to be Isaac Asher (bet you like that one, lol) and had my daughter been a boy she'd have been Adam Gabriel.

I love me some old testament. my friend just named her son Simeon Isaac.

[AmberK]

I really thought Peter and I were going to get divorced over baby names. When I was pg with the twins I knew that one of the names for a boy I liked was Colin. Peter was DEAD SET against rhyming twin names and I was ok with that. But he didnt even want the names beginning with the same stinkin letter. I liked Colin and Carter, or Colin and Carson, or Colin and Connor. We finally decided on Drew but I did not want him to be named Andrew because I wanted the names to fit well together and having a short name like Colin just didnt seem to fit with Andrew. Plus I knew I wanted him to be called Drew and just didn't want to deal with nicknames or shortened names or anything.

When naming Ryan I surely wanted to kill Peter. I liked Luke but he said everyone would think of Star Wars. I told him it wasnt like we were name him Darth Vadar or Anniken or something like that. GRRRRR. So we both came up with our top 10 list. EVERY SINGLE NAME I liked he vetoed. I really liked Preston but he said no because of Grey's Anatomy. I loved Garrett but said no because he has a crazy aunt whose last name is Garrett. See- I really wanted to kill him. He came up with his list and I vetoed every one of his names other than Ryan. I didn't like Ryan even after he was born and we named him but now I just can't imagine him being anything other than Ryan. Its a classic name but surprisingly he hasnt had any other kids in his class named Ryan.

For girls I really loved these names: Kennedy (LOVED this one), Addison, Emily, Avery, Jordan, Abigail (Abbie)...I know there are others but I just can't think of them. But I will never have a chance to use my girl names.

[mariewilcox]

Ah names, LOL.

DS was easy - named after his dad - he's Christopher Stanley, Jr.

DD - I had wanted the name Siobhan since I was probably in Jr. high. DH hated it. So we batted around tons of names. He came up with Cheyenne as a nod to his heritage, and we feminized it to Cheyanne. We chose Rose for a middle name to add an old fashioned aspect. We thought about a middle name named after someone in the family but that would have just hurt someone's in the end as there were too many grandmothers/great grandmother's still living. Had she been a boy, she would have been Dylan Wesley.

DS and DIL named their daughter Lilliana Claire (pronouced li-ee-ahna, not anna), and I love this.

[Nonna2Dreja]

When my daughter was pregnant for each of her two children, she and I had been talking about baby names....She liked the name André, but her son has a cousin named André so that was out....She also liked the name Dion, but it seemed like it needed something more, so she combined Dion and André and came up with Diondré....We had never heard this name before that, but afterwards we have heard this same name a few times....Diondré's middle name is David after his Poppa (my husband)....

For my Granddaughter, we heard the name Aja on a talk show and instantly fell in love with it....We knew though it is pronounced Asia, we did not want the typical spelling so we went with Aja....Her middle name is Nicole which I think flows nicely....

[LeeAndra]

Thinking up names was the funnest part of the pg for me! I'm way OCD abt names and meanings, so it was quite the process, and DH didn't really have any strong ties to any particular name, so I got exactly what I wanted!

I'm a hardcore believer in boys' names for boys and gurls' names for gurls i.e. if someone hears the name, they instantly know which gender it is, so there weren't any Morgans, Taylors, etc. on the short list. I always knew that she was a she, so I only had one boy name picked out: Caleb Jonathan (two amazing guys from the Bible --- holla!). We also discussed naming the baby after DH's deceased brother (which is a family name that stopped with his death).

My short list ended up being Eliana Clare (which all together means 'God has clearly spoken' and/or 'God has clearly answered our prayers') and Saraiah Belle (which all together means 'beautiful princess of God'). I posted here at SSD abt our debate, and we ultimately went with Eliana since Saraiah is, technically, a made up version of Sarai (from the Bible) and no one would know how to pronounce it or spell it the way I wanted it to be pronounced or said.

Eliana Clare hits all my marks: obviously feminine, unusual but not bizarre, a strong Christian meaning, ONLY ONE CAPITAL LETTER AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NAME , and relatively easy to pronounce. Since she was born, I have met/heard of two other El(l)ianas around her age which is just the right amount. The only thing I didn't think of was that it is very close to Elaina which is what the doctor's office's nurses call her despite her name being spelled correctly in their records and having been nicely corrected by me in the past.

I don't know that we'll have any more biological children, so I'm not really attached to any other names. If we were, a boy would prolly be Caleb William (which is DH's brother's name and my biological father's name) and I think I might go with Amarisa (which is a feminine form of Amariah from the Bible) Belle which would mean 'beautiful promise of God.'

[Lauramarie]

Not that my names are that original but I know at least 4 Elijahs born in the last month. One is my nephew!

[nun69]

here are a few of my favs

Boys:
Peyton
Max
Miles
Samuel {Sam for short}


girls:
Samantha {Sam for short}
Molly
Ava
Elizabeth {just has a good ring to it}
Claire
Grace {I just think this is very classic}

Whether Peyton had been a boy or girl his/her name would have been Peyton/Payton(girl)

Sam was going to be a Sam whether boy or girl and Ben was just a name that we ended up agreeing on~

I actually name Abby "Payton" when she was born because I had her with no pain meds and decided I was going to get to name her Well after everybody left and Matt was holding her in the chair he said "look at her, she doesn't look like Payton she looks more like an Abigail"..so there you go! And the funny thing is ALL of my kids names are so fitting to their personalities!

also all of my kids have a family middle name Hope {my middle name}, Alan {Matt's middle name}, Louisa {matt's gradnmother's middle name}, James {Matt's grandfather's name and brother's middle name}

[MissKim]

Originally Posted by JenTapler

Oh, and as for the "Popular" names, I'll just say - as a Jennifer born in 1976 when half the girls in the U.S. were named Jennifer (I think the other half were named Amanda) and there were 5...FIVE...girls in my graduating class (and I only graduated with 100 people!!) named Jennifer....Please don't do that to your child. Please. It was awful. Every. damn. year. And every teacher came up with a new technique for dealing with it. Some years we'd have a number (Jennifer 1, Jennifer 2, etc). Some years we'd have a new name altogether (Jen, Jenny, Jennifer). Some years we'd have a color (Red Jennifer, Blue Jennifer, etc). I'm sure some of these wouldn't be done these days, but SOMETHING has to be done to avoid confusion. And let me tell you, it really really sucked. I can remember in elementary school, especially upper elementary, getting a class list and just HOPING that I'd FINALLY be the only Jennifer in my class. I never was. Not one single year.

All that being said, I'm not a huge fan of super weird names either with crazy spelling that nobody can ever pronounce, so, ya know. Happy medium I say.

This. My children all have names with varying degress of uniqueness. My only regret is my middle dd. If I'd thought, I would have just named her the nickname we call her rather than the full name we gave her.

I love Breckyn and Ashlyn and Braegan. None of them would work with our last name... and with a senior in high school I won't be having any more children anyway... but I love them. My niece is Emery. I love that name, too.

Boys... I still love Joshua. Always wanted twins names Joshua and Jacob. Our boys name for my youngest would have been Ryder.... and now one of our twin nephews is named Ryder. The other is McCoy. A bit unusual, but I like it.

[mummytothree]

Originally Posted by AmberK

I wanted the names to fit well together and having a short name like Colin just didnt seem to fit with Andrew. Plus I

It's so funny you mentioned this because when we were considering Colin for our 5th baby we considered Andrew as a middle name (it's hubby's middle name) and I thought it sounded awesome together. Then my sister in law took the name like 2 months before for her son (she didn't know we were considering the name....we kept all our names secret) and she actually used Colin Andrew!!!

Just shows how different people's tastes are!!!