Please tell me how you picked your baby name

[GailGoldie]

with DS1 Greg and I just sort of threw out names we liked... and came up with our favorite 2 (Griffin and Drake)... and decided that we woudl NOT decide until he was born and then choose.... We knew that if we went with Griffin that meant we'd be doing G names for any other kids we had (i'm Gail, DH= Greg... we weren't going to have one random kid without a G... even though the whole G thing is dorky).

Our little red head came out - and was a Griffin for sure.

So it was easy to name our other boys - narrowed down to letter G (and we only like hard G names, too) made it so much easier --- Grayson & Gibson were the 2 we liked the best (we didn't like that they matched with the son ending, but we call them Gibby & Gray so taht doesn't matter).

We wanted strong sounding names... nothing common or trendy, but not weird. That was our criteria.

DH and I didn't really disagree on any names... we have such similar tastes.

[zeewifeandmama]

With DD, we had the name picked out FOREVER....we knew it if it was a girl that was for sure the name that we would use. With this pregnancy, it was a bit more difficult because MH went back on what he had agreed to for a boys name. At first I didnt *love* the name that we ultimately decided on and had to let it sink it...now I think its perfect! The only disclaimer to this is that there were some "rules" to naming our children, so it may have made it easier in some respects because we both knows those expectations upfront. GL!

[keh2oblue]

DD was named after DH's grandmothers. DS will have the middle name of one of DH's grandfathers, we're "discussing" who will get their way with the first name.

[bunch]

H vetoed every single name that I threw out. He'd make them rhyme with something terrible or tell me about some jerk girl that he knew in hs with that name. One night I threw out Hazel. He said that he kind of liked it. And that was that.

[ijack]

I'm not one for choosing a name ahead of time. With #1 we had no girl names so we just chose the one we could agree on. With #2 we narrowed it down to 2 and then after she was born we chose the one that "fit" her.

[bunch]

Next time I'll have a list of a few and decide in the delivery room.

[I]

We both only had one boy name we liked... Anthony so we went with that

[jinnifah]

We each came up with a list of 15 or so names we liked. We then proceeded to veto names on one-another's list until we were down to 8 we both liked. We then forced ourselves to remove a name one by one until we were down to 3 we both like a lot. We're waiting until he's born to decide for sure although after sitting on those 3 names for about a month now we both seem to be leaning in the same direction which makes things easier

[slug*bug]

It was a combo of crossing off each others favorites...and then ultimately finding two that just seemed to 'fit.'

I really like our kids names, but it wasn't a case of falling madly in love with the names...it was more like trying them on until we found one for each that just felt right. It was harder for DD, but with both, we eventually had an 'aha' name that was a name with both liked, no bad conotations for either of us and hadn't been recently used by anyone close to us (DD has a second cousin with the same name, but we didn't go crazy on this one: just no first cousins, close friends, etc.)

For the longest time, Kate was my favorite girl name...but also one of DH's prominent exes. Eventually he agreed that it would be fine as a MN, but DD was born the week of the royal wedding. With it being on the fence already b/c of the ex situation, the wedding overload sort of pushed it off the list for good and we chose a different MN in the hospital. Well, DH did...I couldn't seem to let it go.

[luvmagoldn]

For the twins it was kind of easy. We used one first name that DH really liked and one that I liked. Then we chose middle names based on members of our family.

#3 was much harder. We felt like we had used up all our boy names! We didn't name him until day two in the hospital at around 3am. The first name just kind of came out of the blue and we said - ok! We used DH's first name as the middle name. Voila!

I was really stressed about #3 but the twins names were picked out a couple of months in advance.

You might narrow down your list then wait to decide until you see you DD.

[slug*bug]

May 20, 2012 10:52:42 GMT -5 toriwc said:

Her name still doesn't feel right to me (nor do any nicknames). It kind of sucks.

Really? I think you used to have her full name in your siggy and I always thought it was so pretty: I think she'll appreciate it, if it's any consolation.

[doctorsbaby]

We had a couple of rules (fairly common spelling & no common nickname) and just went through a baby name book & a few websites. Once we had it narrowed down to about 5 we matched them with middle names. Than we printed the list out, hung it on the bathroom mirror and looked at for a few weeks. We narrowed it down & picked her name from there.

I found after looking at some of the names for a few days, that I just didn't like them as much as I thought I did. Seeing her full name printed out where I could see it multiple times a day really helped.

[karinothing]

My situation is a little unusual. We didn't find out the sex and I had basically picked the girls name because I wanted any girl babies named after my mom. For the boys name DH had essentially wanted to name his son the name since as long as we can remember. I liked the name so that was it. The middle name is DH's grandfather's name.

[jr009j]

We were team green and DH refused to narrow names down just in case. We kept a running list of boys and girls names on my iPhone. If either of us decided we hated a name, we had the right to remove it. I think i told everyone that i expected not to have a name for days after the baby was born I think we went into delivery with a dozen boys names and a dozen girls names. We also decided to give the child our middle names.

After DD was born and we got past the initial it's a girl adrenaline and they took her to clean up, I had DH grab the phone. He listed his top 3 and I listed mine. We had 2 names that overlapped and we both had the same first pick. It took us less than 30 minutes after she was born to decide.

[Brie]

(lurks)

[ZJCF]

We were team green so we made sure we had both a boy and a girl name picked before the baby was born.

When I was in nursing school one of the babies I took care of was named Charlotte and it stuck with me. When we found out we were pregnant I went through a baby name book and wrote down all the names I liked and then Zach sent through the list and marked the handful of those that he liked. Charlotte was a favorite for both of us so we decided on that and Francis as the middle name after my great grandmother. For a boy I have aways liked the name Garrett and Zach agreed so that was our boys name using Zach's middle name as the middle name.

We had a girl so Charlotte Francis she is. I still love the name Garrett and want to use it if we have a boy down the road.

[Ashley&Scott]

I think names are so hard, it will be with them for life. There are very few names we agree on. We've had a girl name picked out since our honeymoon. (No middle name yet though.)

We tossed around boy names from our BFP until our anatomy scan. By then it was pretty much settled we were naming him Marshall, it was the only name we both liked. For the rest of the pregnancy we always referred to him as Marshall whenever we were alone. The middle name was hard, we had narrowed it down to 2 & we decided while I was in labor.

[Deleted]

It was so hard for dd compared to
DS. She was going to be Gemma Gladys, but no one "got" Gemma, so then I liked Stella but it seems to be going to the dogs and my friend is Italy said it means star and "you
Don't want to name your kid star do you?".

So Greta came up, easy to say and spell. Dh really liked Reese but its traditionally a boy name (we don't do unisex names). Greta Reese wasn't sitting w me for some reason so DH chose Scarlett instead.

We ran w it. Don't regret it yet.

[hilwithonelary]

With DS, we were driving home from my grandpa's funeral and DH said, "How about we name the baby after Grandpa Bob?" I said, "I've been thinking about that, and I think I would like to." The end.

With DD, we didnt' 100% commit to a name until about a week before she was born. We had very different naming styles for girls. We each came up with our top 6. We sat down with our lists and each got to eliminate a name off each other's list one at a time. When we got down to 4 names, we talked a lot about each of them. Then we narrowed to 2. We finally agreed to one of the 2. It was DH's pick, and when he first suggested it early in the pregnancy, I said no way. Now that I've had time to get used to it, I think it suits her.

[cjeanette]

DS has my mother's maiden name. For his middle name I just made a huge list of the names I liked and wrote them with the first. I just kept saying them with his last name and looking at them.

DD was similar. Wrote a list of all the old lady names I liked . Went for the one that was the uncommon but not out there. I knew her middle name was going to mine, so I did a lot of saying each name with Jeanette to see what sounded good.

[josieposy]

Well I was a big fan of Beetlejuice as a kid (the movie and the cartoon), and I loved Lydia Deetz. I just always loved the name, so that was picked before we even knew I was having twins.

Obviously we had only planned for one baby, so coming up with a second name was much harder. We went back and forth on a thousand different names, and one day a coworker mentioned Abigail. I had forgotten that it was on my list a long time ago. I mentioned it to DH and he said "can we call her Abby?" and I screamed "YES! YAY!" because I was so happy we finally had something decided.

We didn't assign names until I was in the hospital on bedrest. By the 5th or 6th day I was going crazy, so I just decided on my own that Baby A would be Abby and Baby B would be Lydia. DH didn't seem to care, so he let me have it. No regrets whatsoever. Their names fit them very well.

ETA: Middle names are the middle names of my mom and sister.

[drloretta]

We wanted an Irish name. We kicked around a bunch of names over the years, and there were a few at the top of the list. One popped up right before we adopted DD, and I really liked it. I mentioned it to DH, and he LOVED it. Done.

I wouldn't stress too much over this. If you have a lot you like, pick one when she's born. I know a lot of people who make the decision once they see their baby.

ETA: My brother didn't have a name for a week. Finally my mom picked the name of the husband who was taking care of us along with his wife while she was in the hospital. It was a short, strong, simple name, and the guy was hot She gave him the same middle name my dad and other brother had. Done.

[Deleted]

My first choices for DS1 were William, Charles, Andrew, Edward and Harold.

DH said no English Royal Family names.

I then I read the Nanny Diairies. My Great Grandfather's name was Grover, I thought it was perfect. DH not so much. I'm not sure how we ended on Alexander Grover. I wanted him to be G. Alexander.

William we just agreed on.

Piers I wanted to call Peter, DH wanted Patrick. Watching Celebrity Apprentice we compromised.

[psyck]

Our boys are Jack Edward & Justin David. Jack was DH's Pawpaw's name. It's also what my dad and his best friend have called each other since high school. Edward is my Dad's middle name.

Justin is not a family name, just one that we liked. David is my DH's first name.

[Deleted]

DS is named after my dad who padded away when I was 18. His mn is the same as DHs, & is DH's mother's maiden name.

[dcrunnergirl]

DD is Piper Elizabeth. DH and I just saw the name in a name book and really liked it. Elizabeth was my great aunt's name (my father's side) and it begins with E to honor my grandfather (my mom's side, which is Jewish).

DS is Fletcher John. DH and I liked the name Fletch when we discovered it. It's also a main character's name in the movie we saw on our second date (Mutiny on the Bounty). John is DH's dad's name. Every other generation of male in his family has been named John but DH didn't love the idea of doing that, so we used it as a nickname.

[pugz]

We had a running list for the last year or so for both boys and girls. Once we got pregnant we flipped through the baby name wizard book and added some more, also used the nymbler website which is affiliated with the book. Every so often we'd go over the list and remove ones that we both agreed weren't our favorites. We had it narrowed down to about 4 names for each gender, had our A/S, and then examined our list of girl names more closely.

I really liked the name Kate for a long time but dh didn't, he preferred Caitlin. I wanted her to be able to shorten it to Kate with a K though. Neither of us liked Katelyn/Kaitlyn so we crossed that name off the list since we couldn't come to an agreement. Lauren and Gretchen were left and we'd kinda discuss it every couple of days to see which direction we were leaning. Decided we liked that Gretchen was not as common and was not easily shortened to any kind of nickname. We wanted the middle name to have a strong family/friend tie since the first name didn't. We tossed around Audrey (my grandma's name, I never met her), and Evie (Eh-vie, not Eee-vie), the name of a friend that has been very significant in my life for the last 10 years. Mutually decided on Evie.

as for how we picked names to begin with, we definitely favored names ending in N: Owen, Calvin, Nathan....Lauren, Gretchen, and Katelyn. HATE gender neutral names, not big on super popular names. Both of us preferred more traditional and not trendy names. The Baby Name Wizard book is great, lots of lists in the back that helped us. Name meanings were not important to us either.

[mssaint]

I knew that a DS would be named James after my grandpa. Dh wasn't convinced but after looking at a lot of other names, he agreed. Our strong second choice was Jonathan, which I would name a second DS. His middle name was harder--we went back and forth with family names and then decided on Dashiell.

If we had a DD, her name would be Adelaide Grace. I also really like Adele but the singer is so popular now and it's also DHs aunts name and his mom and other aunt would be offended. I think we're one and done, though, so it probably won't matter.

[h]

We were able to come up with a list pretty quickly. There were a couple names I liked that DH didn't and vice versa, but for the most part we were in agreement. From there we narrowed it down pretty quickly.

[otowngirl]

We agreed on a boy's name early on (before we found out we were having a girl), which was based on a character from H's favorite book. Then we found out DD was a girl, and were stuck for awhile. At first, we wanted to save the name for a future DS, but the would-be middle name (Aubrey) is a common girl's name we both liked, so we ultimately just used that for DD's first name. DD's middle name, Jane, is after my mom and grandmother.