We're kind of crazy and talked about this stuff from the beginning, even though we've waited six years to TTC. We each like the other's first choice, but we each like our own first choice more (obviously), so we joke that we'll just flip a coin in the delivery room to decide which one we go with.
I don't care much about popularity; if we like it, we'll use it. I was one of three Kristens in my class, and it didn't bother me at all.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? If DD was a boy, we were going to go with a family name fot both the first andd middle name. And we will most likely do that when and if we have a second who is a boy. For DD, I knew I wanted to use one of our mother's middle names for her middle name. (We have both lost our mother's so it was a way to remember them). First name, was just coming up with something we liked.
Did you care about popularity? We did not want DD's name to be super popular, i.e. there are 4 kids with the same name in her class. But we also did not want something so uncommon or strange, where people would be like hmmm.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? We did not care about nicknames. We can make a nickname out of her name, but it did not matter either way to us.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? We had a boys named picked out, at probably 9 or 10 weeks. WE picked out DD's first name the night after we found out that DD was a she.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? I wanted to honor my Jewish heritage and use a name in honor of a passed family member. I also wanted to continue our middle names.
Did you care about popularity? Yes and no. Our name is popular now, but so are a lot of the ones I've loved for the last 10 years.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? I didn't want a name that would have an automatic nickname.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? We couldn't seem to agree initially but once we knew girl, we knew what we wanted to name her.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? - for this one we used family names ( William is my grandfather, Paul is H's grandfather and his MN); we will probably use family names for future kids as well in some way.
Did you care about popularity? - not really. William is super popular but as I said in another thread it's also so classic I didn't care. We don't know any other Williams ( I know more Jude's and Masons lol).
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? - Will, we are stopping other NNs as soon as we can.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? - we had a name loosely picked before TTC, then we discussed other options and by about 30 weeks pg we had circled back to the original choice.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? We didn't know what the baby's sex was until she was born and we decided not to pick a name out before the baby was born. We knew middle name as we decided to just pass down our middle names. Basically, we kept a document on the iPad of boys names and girls names we liked. Either of us could add names and either could delete names. The names were a mix of family names and names that we read in books or saw on TV. Our eventual name was that of a female tennis player.
After delivery, when the nurses left us alone to bond as a family, DH pulled out the appropriate list and we both listed our top 3 girl names. We both had the same name as our number one (Caroline) and the same as our number 2 (Evelyn). DH wanted to discuss further, but I figured that since we both had the same number one, we should go with that. We did have a momentary discussion of using our number 2 as a middle name, but then decided against it.
Did you care about popularity? Yes and no. I cared a whole lot less for a boy's name than a girls. We wanted a good, classic name and those tend to be more popular on the boy's side. For a girl's name, we didn't want a trendy name, but also didn't want to go so classic the name was weird. Of course now it appears DD's name is upwardly trending.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? Didn't really care
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? Once we started discussing after she was born, it took less than 10 minutes. We never really had serious discussions before she was born.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? I looked at lots of websites and made a list, and then DH picked out the ones he liked, and then we just went with one we liked.
Did you care about popularity? Not really. Owen is top 50 in our province.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? Didn't really care, but ended up with a not nicknamed name.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? I think we decided around 30 weeks last time. We haven't even started this time - decided not to worry about it until we've got a gender.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? family names
Did you care about popularity? somewhat. I am a teacher and I can't tell you how many Jaydens I've had in the past three years. I don't want my kid to be a dime a dozen.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? my DH is a junior, if he name DS after DH I despise all nicknames for the third (ex. Trey, Trip, Trace)....hate hate hate!
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? We are down to 2 names. Final decision will be made when the baby is born.
Post by gibbinator on Dec 30, 2012 20:35:08 GMT -5
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? After failing to come to any agreement, Dh and I compiled separate lists of names. Then we switched lists and crossed off any names we hated. Then we made a new list with the remainder. Then we each had to take turns crossing off one name until we were left with 2. We figured we'd choose the final name when we met the baby.
Did you care about popularity? Yes, we didn't want our kid to be one of 10 Ethan's
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? Doesn't matter. We liked all the nicknames that would normally be associated with our top names
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? We had the final 2 names picked out when I was into the 9th month. Chose the final name when he was born.
ETA: the middle names were picked out long in advance to honour family members
Post by mollybrown on Dec 30, 2012 20:59:06 GMT -5
We just chose names we liked. No method to our madness.
We did care about popularity. We did not go with any names in the top 20. Unfortunately, Olivia was our top girl name choice back when no one was using it.
We're not big on nicknames, but don't care if they develop. We already call DD something different than we thought we would. I feel that nicknames should be decided after the child has a personality. We only use nicknames at home, and always introduce the kids by their full names to everyone else.
Both kids were named before we were even married. We have a list, although we'll probably start all over for #3.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? My daughter's first name, Stella, was my grandmother's name, and her middle name, Kate, is my sister's name. I'd always known I wanted to name my first daughter Stella, but I didn't decide on her middle name until I was actually pregnant.
Did you care about popularity? Yes, but we were lucky that she was born at the height of Twilight's popularity, so there are a million Bellas (and Ellas for that matter, though that has nothing to do with Twilight) her age, but Stella is still relatively low on the lists.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? I nickname everyone I love, so it didn't really matter if her name was easily "nickname-able," because I was going to come up with a dozen either way. In fact, my screenname is one of her nicknames.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? We knew before I got pregnant (before we got married, even) that our first daughter would be named Stella.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? With DD, I had an ultrasound at 16w that WRONGLY told us we were having a boy. In the month before we found out she was a girl, we talked baby names and settled on a boy name (Clark). When we found out we were actually having a girl, it was kind of jarring because I was so used to thinking about my soon-to-be son Clark. So, that night to help ease the transition for us into thinking of baby as a girl, we talked names. We came up with a list of names we both liked, then ranked them in order of how we liked them. We "tentatively" picked the name that ranked highest on both lists (#2 for DH and #3 for me), and it stuck. Though I will say that even going into labor & delivery I was still gunning for my #2 name which is close to DD's name. LOL.
Did you care about popularity? A little. I didn't want a top 10 name, but names are so diverse these days I don't think it is as big of an issue as it used to be.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? We absolutely did not want nicknames. DH has a name that is commonly nicknamed but he does NOT go by the nickname and HATES it when people use it on him anyway. (This isn't his name, but if he was Steven he would go by Steven and hate for people to call him Steve.) I have the opposite problem where my parents gave me a formal name but only ever used a nickname so (again not my name) I really hate it when I go to doctors and they call me Anastasia but really I have gone by Stacey my whole life. We name our kids what we want to call them.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? One night for DD. It may take longer with this one. We are not talking names until we know the sex.
Post by water*drop on Dec 30, 2012 21:29:48 GMT -5
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? We just started listing names we liked. We had 3 first names that we liked, but we only had a middle name for one of them (the third choice). We put the other two together, and we really liked it. That gave us a top 2 first/middle combinations, and although we told ourselves that we weren't making a final decision until she was born, we were pretty well set on it long before she was born.
Did you care about popularity? Not really.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? We didn't care, but we did pick a spelling based on nicknames (Katherine, so she'll always be K. Lastname even if she chooses to use a nickname).
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? We were pretty sure by 30ish weeks. We did take a whole 30 seconds of so to look at her before announcing her name after she was born, though.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)?
I used to read off names to H every night. He made each of them rhyme with something terrible or tell a story about someone who wronged him in the 5th grade by the same name. One day I said "hazel" and he couldn't rhyme it and had never met anyone with that name. He said he liked it. That was is. He may or may not have been drinking
Did you care about popularity? Yes
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? It depends on the nn
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? I think I was about 20 wks. Once we picked the name there was no more discussion.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? DH made a list and I made a list. Then we had a meeting of the minds and vetoed names from each other's lists until we had 2 names for each sex. We didn't know what we were having so we decided to wait until he/she was born. We only had a middle name for a boy - would have been named after my BIL and grandfather, who both passed away recently - Raymond Leonard. Emily and Abigail were the two girl first names.
Did you care about popularity? I didn't want her name to be super trendy...but my nieces all have super trendy names so they kinda took them all already. The boy name was not trendy at all, but was special to us.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? We call her Abby or Abby Rae. Full name is Abigail Rae.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? DD was born at 3am via emergency c/s after 16 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing. She had low cord blood pH so they showed her to me then whisked her off to the NICU. I was a disaster for the next 20 hours and couldn't get out of bed and they wouldn't bring her to me...so she had no name until 10pm the next night when I met her for the first time. We thought of the middle name Rae after we got a little sleep as an homage to DH's brother... but no first name until I could get out of bed to visit her in the NICU.
Oh and for this next kid, I fully intend on picking myself and continuing to refer to the baby that way until H gets used to it. He hates talking names and doesn't really care, so I think this will be the more effective route.
Oh and for this next kid, I fully intend on picking myself and continuing to refer to the baby that way until H gets used to it. He hates talking names and doesn't really care, so I think this will be the more effective route.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? H and I kept a shared Google Doc of names we liked in first tri for each sex. When we found out it was a boy, we went in and I bolded/he italicized our top choices. Then we argued for awhile. One night H was just like, "Charlie. Done." and started referring to him as that in uteri even though I didn't agree. A few weeks later, I was like "dammit, I can't think of him as anything else," and agreed with the condition I got to pick the MN. H agreed and I chose Thomas.
Did you care about popularity? Kinda. I didn't want a top 10 name but that's it. Charles is in the 60s I think.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? I like nicknames--I think it gives a person a little flexibility. So we call him Charlie now but he could also go by whatever when he's old enough to choose.
My 2 criteria were that the name had to fit into the sentences, "can Name come out and play?" and "now introducing Supreme Court Justice Name."
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? I think we nailed it down early in third tri.
Post by jackpackage on Dec 30, 2012 21:49:59 GMT -5
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)?
I've loved the name Oliver since I was a teenager. H and I really never came up with anything we liked better. We always planned on using his grandpa or my grandma's name for mn.
Did you care about popularity?
Somewhat. I know it's become super popular/trendy, but not common enough to reconsider. I looked up Olivers on our online hospital nursery, and there weren't any before ds was born. Now there are 5.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? Didn't care, but now I don't want one.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? Hmm. We were team green and were undecided on a boy name until the end. We had a girl name immediately, but we found boy's names impossible.
Oh and for this next kid, I fully intend on picking myself and continuing to refer to the baby that way until H gets used to it. He hates talking names and doesn't really care, so I think this will be the more effective route.
This is what H did to me. It worked and I DID care, ha.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? A lot of back and forth discussion. I'm fairly certain how I will go about naming #2, but I'd really like a girl next time. There's so many more girl names to choose from!!
Did you care about popularity? Very much so, but boy names are a much shorter list on the SS site!
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? I lurve a good NN, but it wasn't the be-all, end-all deciding factor. Cam is his NN but if I'm calling out for him I'll say "Camaroonie"
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? a few months. It fits him very well.
Post by scribellesam on Dec 30, 2012 22:33:16 GMT -5
DH disliked all the names I had picked as my favorites when I was younger, so I just made him tell me names he liked until he came up with something I liked just as much. Middle name is DH's middle name as well as his father's, so I didn't get much choice there. Alan is not my favorite but it's fairly innocuous as far as family names go.
Re Popularity: in theory would prefer not a super trendy name, but then we both loved Lucas, which ended up in the top 10 this year. Oops, guess we didn't care that much.
I assume some day my Lucas will probably go by Luke, which is fine by me. I call and think of him as Lucas now though.
Took us a good amount of time to agree on the name.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? DD1: a family name on both sides, this was an easy pick for us DS: it just seemed to fit DD2: we struggled with this one, and I may have just finished rereading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe I also wanted another overplayed song to sing to my girl (appropriate or not). DS sings Lucy in the Sky with Diapers to her.
Did you care about popularity? Apparently not
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? We wanted names that stood on their own. Only Lucy has nicknames, but those have been bestowed on her by her siblings.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? About 5 minutes for DD1, 5 days for DS, 5 years (or so it felt) for DD2
Post by statlerwaldorf on Dec 31, 2012 2:01:40 GMT -5
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? DD's middle name is my grandma's name. For her first name, we searched through baby books and online baby name websites. Nothing too exciting.
Did you care about popularity? Yes. We have one of the most common last names in the US. We tried to stay away from too trendy because it can give away age.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? DD has a nickname. We were debating about naming her just her nickname. Even in the hospital we were going back and forth. There are a couple nicknames out of her name and I hate one of them. A couple of people have tried to make it stick, but luckily it hasn't.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? We decided on a boy name before we even got married. We still go back and forth on the middle name for a boy. We knew what middle name we wanted for a girl. We didn't officially decide until after she was born, but we had narrowed it down to a couple of names after finding out the sex.
I love this topic too! I don't know why. Maybe it goes back to my love of dolls as a child, lol.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your children)? We waited until the anatomy scan to start talking about names since we figured that would be easier. Basically I would suggest names and then DH would veto to them All three times, the only one he didn't veto is the one we chose (our kids are Ryan, Ben, and Kate).
Did you care about popularity? A little, especially with DD. Basically, I just didn't want a name that was on the top of the top ten. I love names like Ava, Sophia, Isabelle, Emma, and Mia but I didn't want my daughter to be one of several with the same name in her class. Not that that can't happen with the name we chose but it seems less likely.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? I didn't particularly care about a nickname but I definitely didn't want to choose a formal name that routinely shortens to something that I don't like. For example, I love the name Gabrielle but I'm not crazy about Gabby. You can try to be serious about having everyone call the child Gabrielle but all bets are off when she starts school. Teachers especially seem to like to give nicknames when there are several children in the same class with the same name just to make things easier.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? The names we chose are actually ones that I had proposed early on and DH decided he liked. I like to play with names in my head though so I kept on proposing different names until the end of my pregnancies. And he kept on vetoing, lol.
Oh and for this next kid, I fully intend on picking myself and continuing to refer to the baby that way until H gets used to it. He hates talking names and doesn't really care, so I think this will be the more effective route.
This is what H did to me. It worked and I DID care, ha.
DH did this to me too. Except he took it a step further and started referring to her that way in front of the boys, which got them doing it as well By the end of my pregnancy, they had all been calling her "baby Kate" for months and I figured we just had to go with it at that point.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? I had picked a girl's name out when I was a teenager and my husband was okay with it until I got pregnant. Then one night when I was about four months along, looking at baby name books, he suggested another girl's name with some meaning to us as a couple, and we both immediately knew without question that that would be the name if the baby was a girl. It is kind of unusual (though not entirely unique), and I think it is perfect for her.
We were Team Green and choosing a boy's name was much harder. We did not have agreement on a boy's name even the morning I was induced. That started to stress me out a little towards the end (I combed the top 1000 names list). I actually felt relief when I learned she was a girl, since we had a name.
Did you care about popularity? Popularity was a least a minor factor for us; neither of us wanted to use a super popular name.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? I don't really care about nicknames, though I think that depends on the name. My daughter's name does not really lend itself to nicknames.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? See above.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? MNs are all family names. First names are simply names we liked/ seemed to fit.
Did you care about popularity? Slightly. Didn't want top 10, but all three names ended up being in the top 100.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? Definitely avoided names that commonly have nicknames. My name has a bunch of possible NNs and I dislike it when people just assume they can call me by whichever they please.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? DS1: Team green. Had not narrowed down boy names at all when he was born. Tons of people visited us in the hospital and everyone had suggestions. He got named an hour before we were discharged/ about 40 hours after he was born. DS2: Knew he was a boy. I always liked the name (wanted to use it for DS1, glad we didn't since it fits DS2 so much better), DH hated it for DS1 and suddenly liked it when we were naming DS2. Tentatively settled on the name around 28 weeks, decided for sure within seconds of him being born. DS3: Team green. His name wasn't even on our top 20 list (DH vetoed it off my long list back in May). DH was rocking him while I took a bath about 2 hours after he was born. He looked up from the rocking chair and said, "I think his name is Owen." We thought about it for another 12 hours and then went with it.
We've had the same girl name picked out for all three.
How did you / will you go about choosing the name for your child(ren)? I've always loved the name Alexander. DH was cool with it. DH has always loved the name Haydn (after Hayden Fox). I'm cool with it.
Did you care about popularity? I really did, but obviously not enough.
Did you want nicknames / not want nicknames / not care either way? Part of what I love about his name is the many options he has for a name. For now we've chosen to call him either Alexander or Lex, but he can obviously choose whatever he wants as he gets older.
How long did it take you to decide (if your children are already here)? Two minutes? The morning we found out, we were in a rush to get somewhere. Once we got on the road, DH turned to me and said, "So, Alexander if it's a boy, Lilia if it's a girl?" Middle name took a few more minutes, but just because I was half heartedly pushing for Aaron instead of Haydn for a middle name. I actually was a little disappointed that we decided so easily. I wanted to pour through names and discuss, but there was no point.