Let's talk baby names

[pancake]

Alexander is a beautiful name. But my BIL's partner is Alejandra so I think it's too similar.

 

[gregchang35]

Whilst we are not expecting or TTC, i thought i would share our 2x daughters names. They are 3yo and 5months... so maybe that it can qualify????

We have been really lucky, as we had heard their names at a christening (our friend's daughter's middle name) and the other one is my co -workers 19yo daughter's name.

DD1= Eliana (pron: Elle-e-a-na) Hebrew= my god has answered.
DD2= Saraya (pron- Sah-ray-a, though there are many variations to the spelling and pronounciation)= Persian= Princess.

We had not been lucky with boys names..., though DH really liked Jasper and i am so so with it. But, i am sure that if we had another child and it is a boy- the universe will work its magic again and we will get a name.

 

[pancake]

Greg your children's names are beautiful!

Whilst I'm thinking about it, I had two other girls' names that DH vetoed - Samara and Saskia. Sigh.

 

[gregchang35]

Thank you pancake.

Our friends daughters first name is Cerys- pron:care- Riss= welsh for love.

 

[audball]

That is a cool blog and site Audball! Thanks for posting that. Nameberry.com is also a cool site for picking/researching baby names.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

 

[megumic]

amc I'm so glad you started this thread! Just yesterday, I was lamenting the fact that I don't love any girl names (or boy names for that matter, but I think it's a girl so...)

My two fave names -- one doesn't work b/c when combined with our last name, it makes a super gross word that she would get made fun of incessantly. The other doesn't work b/c it's close to a famous person's name.

So, here are the other names we are considering. I'd love feedback.

Lenna -- probably Lenna Grace (pronounced Len-nah, short e)
Julia Jayne
Eloise - Lola for short

boy names -- Theodore (Theo for short) and that's all I've got so far...sheesh.

I just don't love anything, which is so annoying and I don't want to be second guessing myself after we pick a name.

 

[NewEnglandLady]

Love the names, Meg! Eloise is one of my favorites and I pushed pretty hard for Lola when I was pregnant with Katie. DH doesn't love Eloise or Lola, but I really love them both. And I love that you're using Lola as a nickname for Eloise!

 

[icekid]

I think Adelaide would be an easier sell with DH were it not the name of one of the state capitals here

I love baby names! And have an almost 4 month old Adelaide i must admit, it took me a bit to convince my hubby but he loves it now. The old fashioned names are very much coming back in style, (obviously a trend I quite enjoy) but where we live people still ask me to repeat her name. Interestingly, it was also my great aunt's name and her middle name is my grandmother's maiden (Carson.)

On the fence about whether there will be a third baby to name

I loved surfing the name blogs when I was pregnant. Youcantcallitit is another favorite.

 

[baby monster]

Adelaide is fab name! I love old-fashioned names. DH called my list "grandma names." It had names like Sophia, Emma, Nina, Clara, which are popular now but he associates with old women. Had to show him Soc Security website as support that I wasn't making it up.

I still hope to use my grandma's name, Lydia, if we ever have a girl. It'll take a lot of effort because DH hates it.

 

[tbaus]

Well, we have definitely ruled out anything with extraneous/silent Y's and H's. And anything with an apostrophe

Bahaha I dread looking at the list of student's names at the start of the year. I'm not kidding, even though I try and 'practice' beforehand I still manage to get about 50% wrong.


Clairitek - Margaret is my grandmother's name as well. Unfortunately it has been used so many times in our family that it would just be way too confusing to add another to the mix. I love the nn Greta!

NEL That's good to hear! I really do love the name, but DH is still a bit iffy. He finds it a tad too "crunchie" for his liking. But he hasn't totally crossed it off yet!

Great article audball! Thanks for the link! I think most of mine fit into the third category ...

Greg- Such sweet names! You chose well.

AFM, I thought of another name I forgot to mention earlier: Maya (pronounced My-ah). I haven't even thought to look up the meaning of any of our names- some homework for tonight!

 

[packrat]

I have a bit of an obsession w/names. I still would buy a name book at the store (cuz I'm betting there's more names in it them now than when I had my kids) and make lists of names I like.

I love Adelaide-it's beautiful and it *looks* pretty too, when it's written out. I like Andelain and Aislyn--that one I heard on a movie my daughter watches, The Secret of Kells.

My kids are London and Trapper, which I post every time we have a name thread. We had Gunnar as the name b/c I wanted a Swedish name (plus JD is into guns, so I thought this would mesh well) and I spent the first 8 months of pregnancy calling my belly Gunnar. But JD became convinced people would call him GOO-nar or Guh-NAR. So one day it popped in my head-Trapper. JD traps and we like the outdoors.

I'm crossing my fingers when London has a girl, she will use my last girl name that I had decided on before realizing we were having a boy. We have a London, and I wanted to add a Sweden. JD threw a fit. So I looked online at Swedish names and found that Svea is a familiar form of Sweden, so he agreed to Svea. I love love love it. Lillian was my Swedish gramma so maybe Svea Lillian or Svea Grace. Actually, if it was London's daughter it should be Svea Jo b/c Jo is a passed down middle name.

I like Ellery Maeve too. I found that in my Swedish searches.

 

[missrachelk]

Hi

I LOVE names! When I was pregnant, and even before DH and I thought we had decided.

A girl would be Kenly (ken-lee (long E sound)) my middle name and a family name on my Father's side
Kenly Elizabeth would have been her first and middle.

A boy would have been some combination of George and Edward for first and middle (both of our grandfather's names)

But when the time came, and we found out we were having a girl, after a bit I realized I didn't feel as strongly about Kenly anymore.

So we talked and talked and talked. He vetoed most of my choices.

Finally I dug up an old, old list I made and Hannah was on it. We pretty much instantly knew that was our daughter's name.
Hannah Elizabeth

We LOVE it and it suits her perfectly. I'm also happy the Hannah Montana trend is long gone : )


So now we talk about if we have another girl, or a boy.

Our next choice for a boy (before we found out dd's gender) was Zoran. I really like the name, and the female Zora too, but I'm not 100% solid on them.

SO we finally settled on Ari (ar-E (long E sound)) for a boy (no idea on a middle name)
And one of my longtime faves that DH had previously vetoed for a girl!

Dun Dun Dun!


Meredith !

There's something about a handful of names: Meredith, Caroline, Constance -- that I just love (I know there are others but those are at the tip of my tongue). I had friends with all three names growing up. Meredith is the only one that DH has ever aggreed to. I wish he liked Caroline, but it's a no go. He says it is too much like a location name, which just isn't us.

For us we don't want anything that sounds anything like Hannah for another child - so nothing ending in an H sound. I like the consonant heavy sound of meredith next to the vowel heavy sound of Hannah (even though H is a consonant it sounds softer like a vowel to me)

I'll have to look up the meanings, but all of our top names have nice meanings. I think Zoran/Zora are the only ones that arent biblical.

 

[missrachelk]

That was so refreshing! We have a pact not to share our names in real life with ANYONE until the baby is born (didn't with Hannah and won't with future babies) so it's nice to be able to talk and share them here!

 

[NovemberBride]

I just wanted to post for those of you who are worried about the popularity of names that it is not as much of a concern as it was in prior generation because of the much wider variety of names being used. One statistic I saw was that during the height of the baby boom 25% of babies were given one of the 10 most popular names. Now it is closer to 8%. So you aren't as likely to have the situation today that our generation had growing up where there are 3 Jennifers and Lindseys in each class. As an example, my daughter's name is Olivia and I know exactly one other person with a little girl named Olivia and she lives in a different state. My daughter has been going to the same daycare since she was 12 weeks old (there are probably close to 100 kids there) and there has never been another Olivia in the school that I am aware of, let alone in her class. Olivia was the 4th most popular girl name in the year she was born. We have also done swimming lessons, ballet and gymnastics and she has been the only Olivia in each class. So if you love the name and your top criteria for a name isn't that it be unique, I wouldn't let the popularity of the name sway me from using a name I love.

 

[Puppmom]

November, that's a really great point. Also, a lot of names that aren't in the top 10 nationally can be really popular regionally.

My uterus is officially retired but I love baby names! I have an affinity for more "old fashioned names" but DH isn't usually a fan. We have a daughter and two sons. Their names are Nathan, Nolan and Corinne. If Nathan was a girl he would have been Nora. I'm really drawn towards names ending in N...obviously. I don't love the trendier ones like Colton, Caden, Jaden etc. but I love names like Ethan, Julian, Logan, Peyton. I also love names that don't have a predetermined nickname even though we do refer to our littlest as Nate.

Oh, and Adelaide! Love it. Also really love Adeline.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

I love baby names, and while I am long past naming children, my older daughter has one little girl and is expecting their second baby girl in April!

We are in the traditional camp, and after reading that interesting article, I am really glad. Most of our kids names were family names that were traditional and fairly timeless. My name is not timeless and I tried hard to avoid giving my kids names that were popular for a short period of time.

Anyway, my daughter Caroline's first baby is named Claire, and the second one will be named Camille. I absolutely loved her name because it was the name of my dearest aunt and my sister (who was called by a nickname). The only other associations I had at the time were good...Princess Caroline and Caroline Kennedy. Claire was the name we picked for her favorite Cabbage patch doll when she was a toddler, and she always said when she grew up, she wanted to use the name, and she did!!! Then Camille is the french version of my great-grandmother's name, Camilla.

 

[dragonfly411]

I'll be gathering girl ideas here. We've decided that if it is a boy it will either be Keith after his father, or Wyatt. If it's a girl though we haven't found something we just love. We LIKE Emily... but he doesn't seem settled on Emily and I'm not sure that I am either.

 

[missy]

No babies here but I love baby names! I tried to get my sister to consider my favorite names when she was pregnant but no go.

Just in case anyone else is interested in using my top picks here they are...

Ben
Sam
Noah

Veronica
Sophie (or Sophia)
Julia

 

[JenPaulson]

I'm thinking along the lines of Alexander if it's a boy, or Cleopatra if it's a girl. Hubby and I love history so much so I guess it reflects on our chosen baby names.

 

[amc80]

I love hearing these names! I'm such a name freak.

Last night I told DH that by refusing to agree on a second girl name we are destined to have twin girls...his worst nightmare. I asked him what he would name a girl and boy if it didn't matter what I thought.

Mackenzie and Remington.

1) Remington is fine, but I don't like Remy as a nickname.
2) Mackenzie is already the name we chose for a girl.

So then he said he likes Ryleigh but I refuse to allow that spelling. I'd only go for it as Riley and he doesn't like that.

Then he said Mackenzie 2.

As you can see we were making no progress. I finally brought up Hallie which I've mentioned many times and he always said it was just okay. Well, now he likes it. I think it's our official #2 girl name!

 

[amc80]

I just cleaned my desk and found my list of boy names:

Parker
Sawyer
Asher
Cooper
Tanner
Thatcher
Tucker
Walker
Brooks
Prescott
Matthew

Apparently I like preppy names that end in -er.

 

[pancake]

amc I think it's really important to think about potential nicknames and whether you find them tolerable! I think that Remington would almost certainly get shortened to Remy socially, whether you like it or not. (I quite like Remy though). We like Sebastian as a name, but HATE Seb and Bas. So Sebastian is off the list. Ditto most names that shorten to a short one syllable nickname (eg. hubby loves Samuel - but his last name is snappy, one syllable, and begins with M - so Samuel is out because he'd get called Sam). We like Patrick but hate Pat, Paddy, etc. Love Gabriel but don't like Gabe. On and on and on. Sigh.

 

[amc80]

amc I think it's really important to think about potential nicknames and whether you find them tolerable! I think that Remington would almost certainly get shortened to Remy socially, whether you like it or not. (I quite like Remy though). We like Sebastian as a name, but HATE Seb and Bas. So Sebastian is off the list. Ditto most names that shorten to a short one syllable nickname (eg. hubby loves Samuel - but his last name is snappy, one syllable, and begins with M - so Samuel is out because he'd get called Sam). We like Patrick but hate Pat, Paddy, etc. Love Gabriel but don't like Gabe. On and on and on. Sigh.

I agree! If I could think of a nickname for Remington other than Remy then I'd be open to it. I know when I was pregnant with Barrett people asked if we were going to call him Barry....which never crossed my mind. We call him Bear.

 

[Loves2Laugh]

I just cleaned my desk and found my list of boy names:

Parker
Sawyer
Asher
Cooper
Tanner
Thatcher
Tucker
Walker
Brooks
Prescott
Matthew

Apparently I like preppy names that end in -er.

Hi amc- I mostly lurk these days but I had to mention you have great taste in names
I have a 5 year old little boy named Parker and my 2 year old is Mackenzie.
Good luck to you and the other ladies currently TTC! I miss the days of planning and thinking of names.

 

[amc80]

I just cleaned my desk and found my list of boy names:

Parker
Sawyer
Asher
Cooper
Tanner
Thatcher
Tucker
Walker
Brooks
Prescott
Matthew

Apparently I like preppy names that end in -er.

Hi amc- I mostly lurk these days but I had to mention you have great taste in names
I have a 5 year old little boy named Parker and my 2 year old is Mackenzie.
Good luck to you and the other ladies currently TTC! I miss the days of planning and thinking of names.

How funny! I guess we have similar tastes

 

[monkeyprincess]

Just noticed this thread, and I love this topic. I was gung ho about thinking about names about 9 months ago when we first started TTC#2, but know I feel like it might never happen, so it kind of makes me sad thinking about names. That said, it's awesome to have a place to discuss them as I dislike sharing possible names IRL for fear of judgment, etc.

My favorite boy names right now are:
Sebastian
Theodore (Theo or Teddy)
Oliver (possibly too popular)
Xavier

And girl names are much harder for me, but I like:
Nora
Molly
Margot (but a old friend who lives in another state and I never see anymore just named her daughter that!)
For some reason I know there rae others I used to consider, but I can't think of them right now.

Does anyone else struggle with feeling like the names of your kids have to "go" together? And does anyone else feel like your kids' names have to have significance. My son's name has a lot of meaning to me as both of his names are family names (one from DH's side and one from mine). I kind of feel like our next baby's name should have family names too, or at least a middle name, but I don't really like the options. I probably way overthink all of this. I just hope I'm lucky enough to have another baby to name.

 

[Natylad]

Whilst we are not expecting or TTC, i thought i would share our 2x daughters names. They are 3yo and 5months... so maybe that it can qualify????

We have been really lucky, as we had heard their names at a christening (our friend's daughter's middle name) and the other one is my co -workers 19yo daughter's name.

DD1= Eliana (pron: Elle-e-a-na) Hebrew= my god has answered.
DD2= Saraya (pron- Sah-ray-a, though there are many variations to the spelling and pronounciation)= Persian= Princess.

We had not been lucky with boys names..., though DH really liked Jasper and i am so so with it. But, i am sure that if we had another child and it is a boy- the universe will work its magic again and we will get a name.

I LOVE your daughters' names Greg

So, DH and i have started trying for another baby. If it's a boy, he wants us to give his dad's name, which is one of the worst names i've ever heard in my life and since he has set his mind on this, i truly wish for another girl, hehehe!
If it's a girl, i really wish to name her Petrina after my dad. My second choice would be ....drumroll...Apollonia!!!

 

[lliang_chi]

In terms of "going together" no I don't really have a hang up on that. Ethan's middle name is my FIL's name. If we have a boy next, I don't have a pressing need to give him a family name for a middle name. Although I'd love to use my brother's name since my brother is very important to me, and I'm not sure if he'll have kids.

Pancake, DH is totally like you in terms of nicknames. We went with Ethan since you really can't shorten it to anything. Buy my name doesn't really have a nickname either (Lisa) but a few ppl still call me "Lis". Like really? You can't do the whole Lisa??? Anyway, this is why DH dislikes Benjamin, Gabriel, Nathan and Lucas. He hates Ben, Gabe, Nate/Nat and Luke as nicknames. My rationale is, just don't use that nickname. So if someone calls your son Andy, and you don't like them, correct them and say, "It's Andrew. We don't use Andy." When he/she gets older and decides to go by a nickname then they can choose which to use. My DH's family used to call him Jimmy, but in middle school he decided he wanted to be "grown up" and use James. So he went by James after that. Only to find out in high school all the girls loved Jimmy, but by then it was too late

I think we'll still work off our boy's list from last time: William and Emory, but I'm going to nix Emory because it'd be too matchy-matchy with Ethan. Ethan and Emory, isn't that cute? Barf. My sister (twin) and I have matching names and I *hate* it, I guess especially since we're twins. DH doesn't want to find out for this baby, so we'll have to come up with 2 lists. I'm going to lobby hard for Olivia as a girl name and Benjamin to replace Emory.

 

[amc80]

Does anyone else struggle with feeling like the names of your kids have to "go" together? And does anyone else feel like your kids' names have to have significance. My son's name has a lot of meaning to me as both of his names are family names (one from DH's side and one from mine). I kind of feel like our next baby's name should have family names too, or at least a middle name, but I don't really like the options. I probably way overthink all of this. I just hope I'm lucky enough to have another baby to name.

I think names should go together in terms of the name category. If you like classic names, great, stick with those. Modern names, fine, same deal. A friend shared with me a sibling set she came across. The names were Benjamin, Caitlin, Andrew, and.....Aulani. Aulani is a perfectly acceptable name, but it really doesn't go with the others. As far as significance goes, I think it's nice, but not mandatory. Barrett's middle name is the same middle name as DH, FIL, and FIL's dad. I don't love it, but it's fine. For future kids we have decided to put honor names in the second middle name slot. If it was a name I loved then I'd just use it as the middle name, but 1) I don't love it, and 2) it doesn't sound good with the first names we've picked.

 

[justginger]

I love reading about baby names! There are definitely some beautiful ones already listed.

I always wanted to use Olivia and Grace, both old family names - they're just too popular now though, we know about 6.

DH and I have names that both start with G. We'd like to have G kids too. The list of possibilities, none of which I've run past DH ( ) are: Gaia, Gemma, Galilee, Godiva for girls (Godiva being the favourite), Griffith, Gale, Graeme, and Gage for boys (no real favourite). I want a name like mine was, easy to pronounce and spell, but if someone yelled it in a store, there was no question they were after me.