Choosing a Baby Name

[Gillian]

DH & I had top 10 names, so we wanted something a bit more unusual for our kids, but not really out there. Both are familiar, but still not found on mugs and keychains. DD's name I hear a lot on TV and in romance novels! It's Tessa.

My DS's name (Alexander) was #71 the year we named him. However there are several female names that also shorten to Alex. The poor kid had 4 Alexes in his pre-K class of 20. He couldn't even go by Alex M because another child had the same initial. They had to be Alex Mi. and Alex Mo.

My son has 2 Alex's and an Alec in his class of...10! They are all boys. We have friends who have called their son Xander since he was born, so everyone calls him that (he's 4).

 

[teresajoy]

I also find it rather funny when parents pick a really common name and then try to make it unique by using some cockamamie spelling. If you like the name use it whether it's popular or not and don't apologize for it.

This is one of my pet peeves! It drives me nuts when people do that! It is the SAME name no matter how they spell it!

 

[CharityLynn]

We give middle names as family names but first names tend to be a bit more unusual for us. My son Carter Dean (step-dad's middle name too)..Carter wasn't too popular although i think it is gaining I've heard the name several times but there are no other's in his school right now. Our daughter on the other hand will probably never meet another, Rayne(Rain) Renee, Renee is several family memebers middle name so what hit a triple with that one and it seemed to flow nicely.

I like more "unusual" names, I grew up with one(Charity Lynn) and I'm not horribly scarred from it I get a lot of compliments for it too. Not to mention you are remembered a lot easier if you have an unusual name compared to 1 of 10 a person knows...ya know what I mean? lol

 

[LadyTrampScamp&Angel]

Well, I would pick a name you love / has special meaning for you, whether popular or not.

That said, we chose an unusual name for DD and one far down the list, with an uncommon spelling, for DS. Neither DH or I liked having common names. DH disliked having the same name as at least a few other kids in every class as a child that he had it legally dropped when he became an adult.

Also, we got a lot of negative feedback about name choices when first pregnant with DS and a lot of suggestions that weren't anything we'd ever choose. So DH and I told everyone that the kid's names would be a surprise after they were born and stopped discussing it with others. It really helped in choosing names we like, because we didn't get any more comments that made us second guess ourselves. Now just about every time I give DD's name we get a compliment about how pretty it is and neither child has ever had a classmate with the same name.

Good luck!

 

[writersblock42]

I have only met two other people ever in my entire life with my first name but my son's name Ryan is really common. I picked it out because it was the only name that we could agree on. I wanted Atticus-I still love the name but my DH does not.
The only thing that drives me nuts (sorry if I offend anyone) are people who name their kids something very common but think they are being original by spelliong it wierd.

 

[DonaldsDaisy]

Go with what you like. Don't worry if its popular or not. I personally wanted something different for DD. I heard the name Tess on a soap and ran it by DH and he liked it. We looked up the meaning and noticed Tessa. We said at the same time that was it. It is actually a good name because we wanted to have her named after one of our grandmothers. Tessa has the combo od Ester & Theresa so it worked out great it maid all the parents happy.
Her middle name was a little harder to decide on. It was only a few hours before she was born that DH mentioned Noelle. It was perfact.

So our little princess is Tessa Noelle but most of the time she gets Belle

 

[ChristusG]

Personally, I prefer uncommon names for my children. I would never choose a name in the top 10, or in the top 100....shoot, my kids names are not even in the top 1000 according to the SS website. But if it does not bother you if there are quite a few other children with the same name as yours, then you should use whatever you like. Being me, it would drive me crazy if there were several other kids in my childs class with the same name. But I'm not you. So it may not bother you at all. My daughters names are Paisley Rain (3 years old) and Sailor Skye (2 months old).

 

[Micka Mouse]

OK we live in CT, we call our Livy "Livy Lou" and she's in preschool too . But when we say Olivia, we do say it "Ah-livia". Some people call her "Oh-livia". Never really thought to say it that way! That's why I like Livy.

We call her AH-livia, too. However, since pre-k has a "real "AH", they make a point of saying "OH-Livia". It drives me crazy. I'll stick with Livy Lou......

 

[MiniGirl]

Add me to the go with what you like group. With ours, we knew we wanted to name them after their grandparents. (3 out of 4 are deceased and were when we started trying to get pregnant) We also didn't want to find out if we were having a boy or girl until delivery, so we picked out a boy name and a girl name. Our oldest dd is named Elaine Louise after her 2 grandmothers. For our 2nd, we kept the boy name (which honored our fathers) and also decided on a girl name (which also honored our fathers) because again we didn't find out the gender until delivery. Our youngest dd is named Josephine Reagan. We tossed around Josette and Joelle but kept coming back to Josephine. I dunno. We like the older names. Elaine is Elaine but sometimes just Laine or Laney Lou, and Josephine (with an "S" not a "Z" ) is usually Josie or Josie Rae. We got some grief about Josie's name, but we like it anyway, and we were shocked when her little swim class last summer consisted of 4 little girls -- 3 of whom were named Josie/Josephine. The other one was Jessie.

 

[FoundMyPrince]

I like names that are not so popular. In my 2nd grade class there were 5 girls with my name. 5/25! I hated my name. Changed schools later that year. In my hs graduating class there were about 6 with my name (out of 150).

We thought of naming our DD7 Madison, but saw that is was so popular. So, we changed. With DS5 we chose a name that was in my family and we both loved - not a popular name. DD1 was another story. Rather unique name - it's an Italian last name of a friend of ours. When folks ask her name they almost always have to ask at least twice. We love it.

 

[Mickey-4-Me]

I second, (triple, quadruple, whatever the count is up to now) the statement of giving children traditional/common names with nontraditional/uncommon spellings. Drives me nuts - It just doesn't make any sense.

I love traditional/Biblical names.

 

[Mickey-4-Me]

Error. Duplicate Post.

 

[CleveRocks]

We wanted names that weren't so unique that they would call attention to our kids, but at the same time we didn't want the names to be so common that there would be several other kids in school with the same name.

Our son is Ben. Unfortunately, it's gotten more common since he was born. Our daughter is Mollie, spelled that way not to be unique, but to honor a relative.

 

[JVL1018]

My daughter is Julia, though there was 1 other Julia her first year of preschool, she has been the one and only since.
I don't even think there is an other Julia in her elementary school.

My son is Matthew, ever popular, which I never wanted to do, but I liked all the variations and that was important to me.
People (including me) call him, Matt, Matthew, and Matty and I love them all.

He had one other Matthew in his first year of preschool, but he's the only one now.

 

[xoprincessmomxo]

My DsD is named Zillah...I believe it is Biblical in origin and believe me, she is the ONLY one in her class with the name!

My DD5's name is Lydia....and yes, we got it from the movie Beatlejuice and we even call her "Lids".

My DD 7 months name is Helena w/ the emphasis on the Helen. And, yes another movie name from Jim Henson's "Mirrormask" but also after my Great- Great Aunt Helen. Their middle names are Lydia Becky and Helena Ann after my mom Becky Ann who passed away when I was 2 months pregnant with Lydia. It was important to us to honor her in that way.

 

[chipndales]

Wow interesting. I picked my daughter's name because it suited her actually. Her father and I had chosen two names that we liked and it had nothing to do with popularity or rank at the time and when she was born, she looked more like one than the other.

Personally, I can't say that I'd ever pick a name simply because it was the popular name to chose. My daughter's middle name is Grace and in 1997 it happened to be a very popular name, though she was named that because I had a hard time getting pregnant with her so we chose it for "the grace of god" She has several friends in her grade with Grace as a first and middle name.

 

[kdibattista]

I'm worried about our girl's name. We are planning to name her Bella (if it's a girl). Although Bella is not even in the top 100 on the name list, Isabella is in the top 10 and I think most use the nickname Bella. I do have to say that I don't know any Isabella's around here... yet.

 

[xoprincessmomxo]

I'm worried about our girl's name. We are planning to name her Bella (if it's a girl). Although Bella is not even in the top 100 on the name list, Isabella is in the top 10 and I think most use the nickname Bella. I do have to say that I don't know any Isabella's around here... yet.

I Love the name Bella (husband, however did not). I do know an Izabelle (spelled that way ) and a Bella. But it is such a pretty, classy name that even if it does rise to the top and fall, it won't sound dated like the names of Tiffany or Crystal do.

 

[CampbellScot]

Oh gosh...let me tell y'all...my family is Irish. All three of us got traditional Irish family names with Irish spellings...there were days I WISHED I had a name like Brittany or Sarah. My sisters and I are:

Aoibheann (prounounced Eve-een)
Caoilfhoinn (Keelin)
Clíodhna (Clee-uh-na)

When we moved to Texas, teachers HATED our names. My parents always started the year with the new teacher by giving them a phonetic spelling of our names so they could pronounce them. One teacher said to my sister "If your mom wanted you called "keelin" she should have spelled it properly!" She called my sister Miss Conway for the rest of the year. MEAN LADY. After the first year we began giving the nicknames we'd always had from family and friends as our given names at school. We became:

Evie, Kiki, and Clio.

Be careful what y'all name your kids. It can be a curse. We love our Irish names. But they were such a worry when we were young. Nowadays a name like "Keelin" would be spelled that way and would probably be pretty popular. But when we were little, that wasn't so and my father flat refused to "change" the spellings of our names to suit mean school teachers! He kept saying "THIS ISN'T ELLIS ISLAND!"

 

[pigletof4]

Well, at the time our first dd was born Kaitlin was a popular name, but it is now. Our second dd is Sarah which she has another Sarah in her class, our ds is Alex and it's just Alex not Alexander, but everyone thinks it should be and our third dd is Allyson, I liked that it wasn't a very popular name.