I know it's way early but I've been thinking about the daunting tasking names. We are planning on team green so we will need two. Girls are hard for us, boys are easier.
I have hard criteria and I don't have even one name I like, so I have no idea where to start.
Short names only. Less than 5 or 6 letters. Nothing overly girly or young, ex- kinsley, kayleigh, no offense, just nms Nothing popular- I would prefer for no repeats in class. Can't start with or end with s bc of our last name. Don't care for classic names.
Where do I even start? Everything I hear is just blah.
I really liked the websites nymbler.com and nameberry.com as a place to start. Nymbler is neat because you choose names you like and it gives suggestions based on those. Other than that, I don't really have suggestions...DH and I agreed pretty easily and quickly on names.
I started as soon as I delivered DD and realized we had "used up" our one and only absolutely favorite girl name! This was before I was even sure we wanted a second child.
I had pretty strict criteria, too (must sound good in Spanish and English, but can't be uber-popular like Sofia, Isabel and Camila; bonus points if it sounds good in additional languages; can't be the name of anyone in our family or any names of close friends; can't have accent marks...). About a month ago, DD ended up picking a girl name from the running list I've been keeping and jury is still out on boy name. I still love the boy name we had picked out last time (Team Green), but DD doesn't like it and DH is starting to second-guess it.
So, there's my scientific method. Good luck to you!
I've always been obsessed with names, so for an embarrassingly long time (like a year before we started TTC) I've lurked on the Bump's baby name board. I found a lot of names I liked on there, just from reading other peoples' lists or suggestions to other posters, or the names of their current kids. It's not a very logical way to go about it, I suppose, but since everyone has different tastes, you get a lot of variety. The regs there also seem to like less common names, so that fits with one of your criteria.
If you're looking for suggestions, here are a few off my list that might fit with your style: Etta Luna Nina Willa
We bought a baby name book, and would casually flip through it. Any names that we both agreed were "possibilities" got added to a list, one for boys and one for girls. As we got closer, we'd add some names and remove others. Around 30 weeks or so, we were down to maybe 8 first-middle name combos (boys only). We each picked the three that we liked most, and one set of names was on both lists….so we called it good :-)
I agree that names are hard. It was easier for us to consider names that had a specific meaning to us -- either because they reminded us of a person or place that was important to us. For example, we're using my H's half-brother's name as the baby's middle name.
We had discussed names years before we TTC....but then once we found out the sex of the baby, all of the names we had picked out for years no longer sounded as good. We came across the name we plan on giving in a naming book and it happened to be a name that we liked from a book we both had recently read and also had ties to a city we had really enjoyed visiting on vacation a couple of years ago. Also, it is pronouncable in several/most languages (important for us since we are a bilingual family) and is simple but not overly popular. It is also not a made-up name, but rather a really old name that hasn't been popular in a really long time.
But for all that, it was really just a name that sounded nice, we liked the meaning, and it could be pronounced in both languages. All of the other criteria seemed to go out the window and the name picking was much more of an emotional gut feeling than anything logical.
This sounds like my parents' criteria for my name, LOL. Couldn't end in -a or -i/-y. Not too short. No nickname could be made from it. I ended up with one of the most popular names of the 80s, and yet somehow lucked out by never having another girl with my name in my class (I went to a small school so that helped).
When I went through my "I hate my name" phase in middle school, I dug out my parents' baby name book - their list of options was still folded up inside. They basically went through and wrote down every name that met the criteria and narrowed it from there. That would be my recommendation. And keep your ears open for something you overhear - something might strike your fancy that doesn't meet your criteria.
I've always been partial to the name Claire. It's not hugely popular as a first name, but it's classic. It meets your other criteria though.
Oh! @myblue chiming in made me remember another source of good names besides a baby book- cemeteries. It sounds a little morbid, but cemeteries are great places to find names that are traditional but have fallen out of use. I already liked DD's name a lot (before we were even TTC), but seeing it quite a few times in a cemetery in my parents' home country confirmed that it was a solid, culturally-relevant name for us to use.
Oh! @myblue chiming in made me remember another source of good names besides a baby book- cemeteries. It sounds a little morbid, but cemeteries are great places to find names that are traditional but have fallen out of use. I already liked DD's name a lot (before we were even TTC), but seeing it quite a few times in a cemetery in my parents' home country confirmed that it was a solid, culturally-relevant name for us to use.
I like "old lady" names in general, though.
this made me LOL for some reason. Just google top names in random years! no need to go to a cemetery! haha. I have definitely looked at names that were popular in bygone years, but the ones we picked are a bit more contemporary. One is even super popular right now, which I don't love, but I do love the name... and my name was #1 for my birth year and I didn't hate it or die or anything. heh
That's a bummer, zarapipe Willa is one of my absolute favourites. Haley seems a little dated to me, although there's nothing wrong with that. If that's the kind of name your H likes, I wonder if you looked at popular names from the early 90s, you might find one you both like? Although popularity is also regional, so maybe I'm the only one who thinks of Haley as dated.
Oh! @myblue chiming in made me remember another source of good names besides a baby book- cemeteries. It sounds a little morbid, but cemeteries are great places to find names that are traditional but have fallen out of use. I already liked DD's name a lot (before we were even TTC), but seeing it quite a few times in a cemetery in my parents' home country confirmed that it was a solid, culturally-relevant name for us to use.
I like "old lady" names in general, though.
this made me LOL for some reason. Just google top names in random years! no need to go to a cemetery! haha. I have definitely looked at names that were popular in bygone years, but the ones we picked are a bit more contemporary. One is even super popular right now, which I don't love, but I do love the name... and my name was #1 for my birth year and I didn't hate it or die or anything. heh
I happen to like wandering around old cemeteries, especially foreign ones.
this made me LOL for some reason. Just google top names in random years! no need to go to a cemetery! haha. I have definitely looked at names that were popular in bygone years, but the ones we picked are a bit more contemporary. One is even super popular right now, which I don't love, but I do love the name... and my name was #1 for my birth year and I didn't hate it or die or anything. heh
I happen to like wandering around old cemeteries, especially foreign ones.
I do too, but just for looking at the "stories." I know a lot of people might not enjoy this particular past-time.
Post by curbsideprophet on Mar 19, 2014 18:27:17 GMT -5
I am currently borrowing the book "Baby Names Your Child Can Live With" By Lisa Shaw. It has the names broken down into three sections, Tried and True Classics, Slightly Daring Choices and Living on the Edge. May be worth checking out.
What about place names? London, India, Aspen, Rio, Phoenix,
I don't know. It means "red king," so it might be kind of weird as a girl's name. I feel like there was a female character in some show that was named Rory, but it might have been a nickname? Although people are randomly giving girls boys' names, so it wouldn't be out of place. That's why I vetoed Charles, because Charlie is more popular for girls in Canada than it is for boys