I adore baby names. Growing up, I daydreamed about what the perfect names for my future children would be and had what I thought to be a pretty stellar list of possibilities.
After being married for four years, my husband and I became pregnant with our first daughter and I was so excited to pick out her name. But as I started listing my suggestions, my husband pooped all over them, one by one. Similarly, the names he suggested made me throw up a little in my mouth and I was appalled by his preferences. Turns out our taste in names couldn’t have been more different.
Choosing a child’s name is a big deal and I know I am capable of making a great choice, but when you’ve actually got to agree with another person about the name, it’s a lot more challenging.
We finally picked a name for our eldest daughter (Avelyn Paige) but this was not my first choice. As the years have gone by I have grown to deeply love her name and it suits her perfectly. Our second daughter’s naming experience was not so smooth, however. We could NOT agree on a name so we chose a compromise name (Jolie Grace), one that neither of us hated. I wasn’t crazy about it but assumed I would grow to love it in time. It turns out I was wrong. We ended up changing her name (to Karenna Jolie) when she was 11 months old because the original name just never felt right. It was quite the ordeal and while I’m so glad we did it, I hope that with our next baby we’ll find the right name before he/she hits puberty.
Did you have a hard time picking out a name for your baby? Did your spouse have different ideas than yours about what name to bestow on your child? How did you resolve those issues?
We chose to not know the baby’s sex so we had to choose 2 sets of names.
We ended up with 4 boy’s names (first and middle) and 4 girl’s names (first and middle). The Sunday before our daughter was born my husband asked, “Maybe we should pick one of each?” I refused because I didn’t believe that you could name something you’ve never seen or met and liked the ones we had chosen and felt that divine inspiration would hit and when we met our baby we’d just know.
As soon as my husband exclaimed, “It’s a girl!” and they showed her to me I knew she was Quinn Olivia. I looked at my husband and said, “She’s Quinn” and he said, “I know.”
Yup, naming is hard. For the first, I went with one I had liked since I was a teenager and hubby happened to agree. Middle name of the great-grandpa. The second was harder and we didn’t narrow it down til the end. Middle name again of his grandpa and dad. Third (boy again) was a name I also liked as a teenager and was just a little nervous to use as it was so unique (Seamus/ Shea for short) but still loved all these years later and knew I wouldn’t ever grow to hate it so we went for it. I think it helps if you stick with one that you know you’ve loved forever. It would help to write it down and say it many times a day as well, and in an angry yelling voice too, you know, just to see if it works. I also have such a plain name that I always wanted names you could shorten or have some kind of nickname with. Love it. Was always intrigued by my own hubbys name (which is Macgregor) as he always goes by Greg and I remember being astounded to find out that he wasn’t a Gregory! Those kind of sneaky names always are cool to me!
i had, what i thought was, a GREAT girl named picked out…since 7th grade. my husband had other ideas. luckily we were blessed with two little boys. and we just happened to have an even better boy named picked out years before we had our little bundle of joy. people we shocked by our choice (Solomon Jacob) totally biblical but the middle name is more traditional in case he hates his 1st name when he gets older. same story for our second boy, Moses Joseph, (purposely named so that we could call him “MoJo”) EVERYONE was aware of our names during my pregnancy (cause i was the crazy woman that would introduce myself…and then my belly) naming our kids was the easiest part of having them…now, if we ever have a girl it might be another story
There aren’t massive amounts of plus sides to having a baby by yourself…but I can tell you one is picking the name!!! It must be so hard to compromise on that one…
We decided not to keep the name a secret and my in-laws basically had an intervention with us in hopes of us changing the name to John, Paul or Tony.
Silas is now one years old and he totally a Silas!
Next time, we’re keeping the name a big fat secret!
I am a teacher, so it was so hard to choose names!! Too many associations.
We ended up choosing a boy’s name that I had loved since I was a little girl- it was the name of the main character of a tween show that was popular in the early 90s- and I associated the name with one the greatest kids I’d ever taught.
Middle name was easy-it’s my husband’s name.
If I was ever to have a girl though, I have no idea what I would name her! When I was in highschool some boys in my class discovered that I had the same first/last name as an adult film star, so, ya…things to google before naming child!!
What is it with husbands/partners being the party crashers with the name game? Mine almost ruined the fun of it too! We have a Sierra Mary and a Sawyer Henry – middle names are family names and the first names we just like. (And no, Sawyer is not after Sawyer on Lost.) Good luck!
I’m a huge believer in taking a look at my child before I really settle on a name (luckily my hubby agreed). Classic story is that I was to be a Sarah & my mom took one look at me & said “That’s not a Sarah!”
Good luck on a compromise….sounds like you’ll need it!!!
We agreed to use family names with lots of nickname options, which is how we ended up with Alexander Arthur – nn Alexei, Aly and Alex – and Claire Caroline Wren, called Clio.
I write about baby names at my blog, Appellation Mountain. There are so many great choices, no wonder we struggle!
I really like the name that you mentioned yesterday at swimming, but I haven’t heard any of your boy names. Do you have any picked out yet?
When I was pregnant the first time, we were planning to name our future daughter Ashley Elizabeth and our future son Benjamin Alexander. We both liked the names and all was well….. until we found out that Brian has a sister (too long a story for your comment section) and that she has a daughter named Ashley. So that name was out.
We spent a couple of months with names printed out in pretty fonts on our fridge (Because that was how I could tell if I could live with the name long term. Can I stand to look at it every time I go to the fridge? I highly recommend this method, btw.) and eventually chose Camille. It wasn’t a name that I had ever considered but it just felt right and I think it suits her perfectly.
I have been naming babies in my head since I was 6 years old. It is my all time favourite mind game. Now that I have my baby daddy all picked out, it’s even more fun, as I have a last name to match with. Given that we are not pregnant and not trying, we don’t play this game together. I just tell him that I have it all worked out and when has seen me suffer through 6 months of pregnancy, I might just let him in on it 🙂 I’m generally very traditional, but am starting to turn towards more creative names.
My husband and I agreed on a boy’s name IMMEDIATELY. No arguing. Of course, we had a girl. We spent the last half of my pregnancy arguing about what to name the child. Finally, we agreed on three names, and decided to choose which one suited her when we saw her. Natalie Jane just turned four last month. 🙂
I always thought I would find something unique and interesting for my babies names but when faced with actually naming mine? I drew huge blanks. So I let my partner tell me what he liked and I agreed on the first name he said. Turned out perfect!
My DH likes modern and unusual names, I drift toward old fashioned names and I like to honor family members by using their names.
With #1 my husband suggested Dade (from the movie Hackers ~ my DH is a computer junkie) and I added the middle names Allan John after our Grandfathers.
For #2 we had already picked out Matia (a name a distant friend of the family had used for their daughter)for if Dade had been a girl, so we stuck with it and I added Alice as a middle name after my Great Grandmother who is still living and going strong at 101 years young.
For #3 I have some ideas, but my DH hasn’t really been interested in giving his opinion about them yet. I have always loved the name Jenora (my great Grandma’s middle name), but I’m afraid my husband is going to say no. I know I have veto power in the delivery room, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that.
I keep a name collection on my blog and I’m trying to keep an open mind. I’m kind of stuck on boys names and we need to have one of each ready since we’re not finding out what we’re having this time. I would like to use the middle names Thomas & Gary after our Dads if we have a boy, but first names elude me so far.
We had a hard time picking out baby names. My man liked all the popular names while I preferred something less popular, as I have a lot of friends named Jennifer & they all have had different experiences with the popularity of that name.
When you do settle on a name, I would suggest not telling anyone, as they will also poop on them that or STEAL them. My one friend actually stole our baby name, as we were not pregnant and then she even had the nerve to tell us that she would have used our boy name too, if it was a boy.
Since we had children our tastes have changed but I personally thought that was just wrong. I really hated it when someone told me they had a dog with the same name, I can understand associating a name with a person in your life, but a dog? Really? I don’t think I need to know that.
We ended up with Jackson William Ole Akira & our daughter is Easton Elizabeth Christina Mika.
They can always use their middle names if they grow up to not like their first names.
I had the PERFECT name picked out before I was married, too. Turns out it doesn’t go with my last name now. My last name ends with two “s” and the name I love is Carys. What if she had a lisp? Poor child would be mocked forever!
So, we went with Katelyn. I love it, though. Carys wouldn’t have fit nearly as well.
However…we can’t have another girl. It was the only name we agreed on!
Having a three-syllable last name made us want a shorter first name for our child. For a boy, it was either Ty or Brett. And because I’d loved the name Ty for years, it was my first choice, but thankfully Ryan liked it also. And then at our 20-week ultrasound, we found out that, indeed, we were going to have a son named Ty. And I think that was all meant to be because we could never, ever agree on a girl name. Ryan likes what I call “70s names”, you know, the names girls were given in the 70s but never now, like Lisa, and I wanted a daughter named Spencer. I have a feeling we would have eventually settled on Kate though. If I remember correctly, that was the name we came closest to agreeing on.
Good Luck!
When we found out we were going to have a son my husband decided he wanted a Junior. Umm, NO.
My husband is 6.5 and about 310 ( on a good day). There was no way I was going to curse my son with the name “little Dan” for the rest of his life. EVEN if he was as big as his Dad, he would still be called “little Dan”.
Epic Battle Ensues…. skip to the end: His middle name is Dan.
Aiden Daniel.
Good Luck!
We’re less than 5 weeks away from our due date and this poor girl STILL doesn’t have a name. Sigh. Maybe she can just tell us who she is when she gets here?