Thoughts on Naming Your Baby
If you are lucky enough to find out you’re pregnant then there will be a million and one things that are going through your mind. Will it be a boy or a girl? Will my pregnancy be OK? When do I tell people I’m pregnant? One of the biggest questions you might come up with though has to be, what name do I choose? For some this can be an extremely easy decision, for others they might just choose a name on impulse, for someone else it might be the culmination of months and months of thought. So how do you actually decide what to name your child?
Keeping it in the family
There are various ways you can go about naming your baby, and someone will always have an opinion on exactly which names you should be choosing! Perhaps you can take the route that many people used to in the past, and many still do today, and choose a name that represents both of your families. You might want to name your son after his Dad, or your daughter after her Mother, or take names from Grandparents or even more obscure relations. Choosing Boys names or a girls name from your family can be a really meaningful thing to do, and will also give people more reasons to be happy, that is if you choose a family member that everyone remembers well, not the one who has been removed from the family history!
Join the celebs?
Some of you might be really excited by celebrity culture, and there is no doubt that this has really played a part in the naming of children over the past few years. Would you really have considered naming your child Apple before Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow chose that name, or how about Brooklyn for a boy before the Beckham’s came along? The cult of celebrity baby names has meant that choosing a unique baby name, be it a boys or Girls name has become extremely in vogue, and you can pretty much choose whatever you want! The problem with such unique baby names is that your child might not be in a mood for forgiveness when they walk into school and everyone has to double take at their name, so toning it down could be a good idea. Don’t let that stop you though, remember, the baby name you choose is your decision, but if you choose to call your baby Chocolate Biscuit they might just question you in a few years.
It is really important that you choose a name for your baby that you have decided on. Don’t feel pressured into choosing anything, and certainly don’t choose a name just because Fred down the road believes its fate. Choosing a name can be a long process, you’ve got nine months remember, but eventually you will settle upon a name which you love, and a name that your child will have for the rest of their life!
I like the names we chose. We didn't tell anyone until after they were born, and the process in choosing was very thought out. My hubby and I each made a list and then basically voted until we agreed.
For us, when we discussed what to name our first child, we already established our list of favorite names to consider. This made it much easier to name the two who came after.
I love keeping names in the family. I feel like there is no bigger honor than naming your child (first or middle name) after someone in the family. My daughter is named after both of her great-grandmas, words cannot express how happy this made them.
We had SUCH a hard time choosing our baby's name. We had a boy name picked out before we even conceived, but the second ultra sound revealed that Cupcakes was a girl.
Cupcakes is NOT her real name! (#shocked?) Hobbs and I could not agree on a girls name at all. He didn't even like the one we ended up choosing at first.
Now, he says, he can't imagine calling her anything else. So it all worked out, but it was tough.
Her name's not in the family; we keep the middle names in the family though. There's a long list of those.
Jamie
For Love of Cupcakes
I had the hardest time choosing my daughter's name because her father hated everything I liked. Thankfully we settled on a name about a month before she arrived and I think it suits her nicely.
My family's tradition is to name after a deceased family member as a way of honoring and remembering them. It also gives your child an unique explanation for why they chose that name.
It was hard for me to pick my daughter's name – mine is Jennifer and I wanted to make sure she didn't get stuck with the same name as all of her friends and classmates. LOL
My daughters middle name is my husbands mothers middle name. This is her first grandchild and I think it is really special that we chose this name.
I put a ton of thought into the names of all my girls. I even have a boy name already ready, if that ever happens for me that is…
Baby naming was one of my favorite things about being pregnant. I finally got to choose what another little live would be called!
We chose our son's middle name (my husband's and husband's father's first name) first because we knew he wanted to keep the name in the family. Then, we found his first name on BabyCenter.com and loved how well it went with his middle name.
This was a ridiculous challenge for us! I love how it all fell together but man was it tough. B hated everything I liked and vice versa.
I have great respect for the whole naming game haha!
We had a HARD time picking our son's name- we had a ton of girl names ready but NO boy ones! We finally came upon my son's name & the second we said it out loud, we knew it was his name.
We kept our names a secret from everyone, just for hubs and myself. Also a secret to everyone, ourselves included, the gender of the baby, so we didn't find out until birth day … at which time we we're blessed with a boy and knew in our hearts we had chosen the right name. I love how perfect it all was.
Choosing our boy & girl names was surprisingly easy for us and once we picked we never wavered. I have a harder time naming pets.
Naming our sons was difficult as hubby and I had varient views on what we wanted but finally found ones that we both loved and hopefully the boys will too (they seem to so far.)
For us the first name was easy. It was the middle name that was the hardest. With Aiden I made a list of names that I liked and then Seth looked over it and told me the ones that he liked on the list. Then over the time we would look at it again to narrow it down to the one specific name. With Rebecca once we knew we were having a girl then there was a very short list since Seth was the one that chose her name, but again it took us a while to decided the middle name.
When we were pregnant with our first son were sure he was a girl because we had easily chosen a boy's name… when we had our second son we had a much harder time agreeing on a boy's name, but we were able to come up with something. Liam is a variation on part of my husband's middle name – William and he has two middles – one family and one a close friend, so for Erik we decided that he'd be named after me – Erika is the German equivalent of HEather and his two middle names honor a family member and another close friend.
We always waited until our kids were born to announce their names. I didnt want any comments about what we chose or how we were going to spell them. We went very traditional, classic.
My son's name was so easy because it was our two grandpa's names. If our next is a girl, I have a name I picked when I was a little girl. Other than that…we have a lot of discussing to do!! I want 4 kids and we only have 1 so far!!
We wanted an Irish name, since the hubs is Irish. But he also comes from a huge family, so all of the Irish names I liked were taken. So we started looking at Gaelic names and fell in love with "Torin". He actually has two middle names. James for an uncle I lost when I was a little girl, and Lester for my Papa who passed while I was pregnant.
Loved this post, Melissa! I talk about baby names all the time!! Since I was young! It's so much fun! I love your children's names!! And I love the way you spell "Hayley!"
I've learned that is definitely a decision for you and your spouse to make. Trust me, I have a crazyyy story about baby names.
We have our names (@ least a girl's name, definitely) for when the time comes.
I hope you're having a wonderful Monday!
Xoxoxo
Maria
I always hated my name until I found out my dad named me.
When my mom was pregnant with my older brother (he was 19 years older than me) she promised my grandmother she could name the baby. My grandmother was reading a book at the time and the little boy in the book was named Elmont so guess what she wanted to name him. My mom decided that would be his middle name.
Choosing a name was so hard! I had a list of girl names, but was stumped when I found out it was a boy. It's a huge decision, and I still occasionally second guess myself 10 months after he was born!
Choosing a name can be very difficult with finding one that you both like. We each made a list of names we liked and zeroed in on one for each sex.
For 'our' baby girl, I kinda had the upper-hand on giving her her beautiful name. Had I given birth to a boy, he was doomed to be a 3rd. Since my hubby claimed the right to name our baby boy after him, I claimed to name our girl with a name that started with the same letter my name starts with, a 'K.' Basically, our boys names would start with a 'J' and our girl names would start with a 'K.'
The end result…we have one girl and no plans to have anymore children, unfortunately. BUMMER!
kimbuckjr
Great article! We have 8 kids and it took us forever to decide what to name them.
We didn't meant to pick out popular names for our last two children, but it turns out that both our two little boy's names are currently the most popular in the US!!!! Not planned.
We choose "Reece" for our son because it has been the middle name of 4 generations and "Betsy" short for Bette Ann who is named after my mother (Bette Ann i.e. Betsy) and my husbands Mom (Ann). We love our name choices!