Why did you pick out the names you used for your children?

[eileenjez]

#1 - a version of Mary/grandma
#2 - FIL/my dad
#3 - great aunt/pretty name
#4 - great grandmother/great grandmother
#5 - great grandfather/great grandfather

looking at ancestry.com, our families were both big on family names. Four of my kids have the same names as four kids in my grandmother’s family (they had eight, I had no idea).

Can you imagine our surprise when we found out my niece named her two boys the same as my daughters? Older ones are G while the younger ones are M. We hadn't been in contact with niece in years. The kicker is they are not family names.

 

[goofyernmost]

My first daughter was named by her Mother. She named her Amy. The single most popular name used in that particular year. Amy, if I remember correctly means Mothers Daughter, or something close to that. Names don't mean much because she and her Mother never got along at all. Oil and Water!

I named our second daughter, Julie. Don't know if it has any hidden meaning, but I just like the name.

We also wanted to give them short names so they wouldn't be shortened. Didn't work, Amy was always called Am (aim) by her friends and Julie was called Jul, by me. She wouldn't let anyone else but me call her that.

 

[buzznina]

DW and I both knew we would not name (first name) our children after a relative, we just never liked that idea. And I knew if we had a son (blessed with 2 princesses) that I would never make him a Jr. or II. We just wanted them to be their own person and not hear, "you were named after so and so". We just went through a ton of names and just started narrowing them down to 1

 

[marthachick]

DS was named after my grandpa and has DH and his DDad’s middle name. Our grandson (due in May) will have the same middle name. So 4 generations.

 

[KristiMc]

My oldest has a first name that we both liked and his dads name for his middle name
My second born has his dads middle name as his first name and my maiden name as his middle

 

[scrhsa]

All my girls first names are biblical. First dd's middle name is my sister's name. My second dd's middle name just fit well and happened to be my husband's grandmother's name. And my third dd's middle name is my mother-in-laws name.

 

[Aladora]

We had a few "naming rules" between our two families.

I'm Ashkenazi Jewish so I wanted a name that had a Hebrew origin. As well, in the Ashkenazi Jewish faith, it is good luck to name one after someone who has passed away.

My husband's family all have two middle names. (Side note: DH and his 2 sisters also have first names that have 3 syllables, second names with 2 and third names with 1. I was not going to try and match that one!)

Also, both DH and I have quite traditional names so we didn't want to pick a first name that wasn't going to fit well with ours.

We went with Daniel as a first name and his two middle names are named after my maternal grandfather and DH's maternal grandfather so with the exception of the stupid syllable thing, we accommodated all of the naming rules!

 

[goofyernmost]

DW and I both knew we would not name (first name) our children after a relative, we just never liked that idea. And I knew if we had a son (blessed with 2 princesses) that I would never make him a Jr. or II. We just wanted them to be their own person and not hear, "you were named after so and so". We just went through a ton of names and just started narrowing them down to 1

We kind of mixed that up. Middle names were used for that purpose. One was Vivian after her grandmother and the other was Lynn after my sister. Of my four grandchildren, one had my name as a middle, another had Vivian as a first, the other two didn't have a single name from my side of the family. Spoiler alert. Vivian was not named after her great grandmother, she had passed away a couple years before either of our children were born. She, obviously was named after her mothers middle name. It was never a case of admiration for that one, because my daughter had never even met her or even knew that much about her. Or maybe she just liked the name. She tended toward older names anyway. Louis Robert, Vivian Josie and Elizabeth Rose.

 

[nene0182]

I let my ex husband choose the name for a boy as long as it fit a few rules. Couldn’t be too common or too uncommon and couldn’t be a name that is often shortened into a nickname (no Matthew, Patrick, or Anthony) So, he came up with Liam which when he picked out the name over 17 years ago wasn’t even close to being common especially where we live and of course now is the one of the most popular boys name in the US.

 

[Sweetpancake]

1st son was named after my youngest brother
2nd DS was named after his Dad
3rd son was named after going through my Mom's family tree

JUst had a baby girl 2 weeks ago and named her after a nurse we met early on in pregnancy. Her name is Shelby.

 

[mjkacmom]

I let my ex husband choose the name for a boy as long as it fit a few rules. Couldn’t be too common or too uncommon and couldn’t be a name that is often shortened into a nickname (no Matthew, Patrick, or Anthony) So, he came up with Liam which when he picked out the name over 17 years ago wasn’t even close to being common especially where we live and of course now is the one of the most popular boys name in the US.

Liam is a nickname (I do like the name though).

 

[maxaroni]

We had some parameters which included not using my DH’s first name or middle name. His father was the reverse, so they just flipped the 2 names. No, just no. Also, didn’t want to have a “little Joe and big Joe” type thing. Neither of us wanted a name to be able to be shortened to something we didn’t like. My dads middle name was his moms maiden name and I wanted to do the same. So DS27’s middle name is my maiden name and I thought about having his first name being my dads middle name as the first name but DH was not crazy about that. We then went through many boys names and each of us made a list and went through them until we got to each other’s top 5. We then got to our top 1 but they were different. We had each others in the top 5 but not the top. I won.

When DS was a baby, we met people that had a baby boy the same age as DS and quickly become friends. Their DS was name Tyler and she called him TyTy. I can do Ty (as long as it isn’t DS) but not TyTy...lol. I guess people can shorten most any name as she tried to nickname my DS in a similar fashion and I put a stop to that.

 

[Melissa55]

We had a few different criteria for our son’s name:

1) Unique to the family, but not an uncommon name. We have so many people in our extended families named Michael, David, Matthew, James, and Robert. We basically decided nothing in the top 50 names from the last 50 years.
2) Something that isn’t frequently shortened to another name because we both hate nicknames. So no Timothy, Joseph, etc. (a lot of overlap with this and Rule 1).
3) Easy to spell without a ton of variations.

We still ended up with a giant list that we slowly narrowed down. My son ended up being named after a TV character that I love. There’s really only one variant spelling but it’s extremely uncommon. As soon as people see my son’s name they know how to pronounce it and most people say he is only the 2nd person with his name they’ve ever met. His middle name is a family name.

 

[PollyannaMom]

DS's came from a book (not a baby name book, just a novel that both of us happened to read early on in my pregnancy.) It sounded modern enough without being too trendy, and we both just liked it with our last name. His middle name is after my brother, and the meanings of his first and middle kind of go together.

If he had been a girl, our plan was Anna (adapted from a family name on my side) Kathryn (after a friend of my grandmother's).

 

[Ariel484]

My son's first name is pretty classic/traditional. I read it on a silly blog and really liked it, so I lobbied hard for it.

Middle name is after my husband's grandfather (I didn't feel strongly about naming kiddo after any family members, and didn't have any strong middle name preferences, but my husband really wanted his grandfather in there).

Naming "rules" for us: not something super trendy, not something with some kind of weird meaning, make sure the initials don't spell something weird, and similar to what others have said, had to be a name appropriate at every age (some names strike me as "little kid names," that don't age as well). And we did not tell ANYONE our choice until kiddo was born - didn't want any input from other family members/friends.

 

[tzolkin]

We mainly just picked them because we liked them.

Oldest DD-- Uncommon first name, middle name very old fashioned (religious significance)

Middle DD-- Very uncommon. I have never met another person with middle DD's first name. Born on St. Patrick's day so we decided to do an uncommon (male) Irish middle name

Youngest DS-- Kind of had to be "different" based on the sister's names, but most "unique" boys names seemed either too feminine or hyper-masculine to us. We went with Silas, a completely "normal" biblical name, but not popular (more old fashioned). His middle name is DH's grandfather's name (all the men in his family have the same middle name).

Ironically, the one we gave the "normal" name to often gets his name mispronounced and I've even been asked twice if I made the name up.

We had some parameters which included not using my DH’s first name or middle name. His father was the reverse, so they just flipped the 2 names. No, just no. Also, didn’t want to have a “little Joe and big Joe” type thing.

All the women on my maternal side have their own names, but before this generation there were only three male names. Even my dad (married in) had one of the three names, and then they named my brother a "junior". My husband was the first non-George/Robert/John in the family and we made sure our kids had different names.

And we did not tell ANYONE our choice until kiddo was born - didn't want any input from other family members/friends.

We did the same. Partially because we wanted to see the child before deciding if a name suited them, but mainly because we didn't want input. It's pretty common for people to give strong opinions on theoretical names, but it would be pretty rude for them to comment on the name after it was already given.

Even just suggestions while we were still at the hospital and hadn't decided yet were annoying enough. (My siblings were lobbying hard for "Patricia" for DD's middle name) I couldn't imagine it being a constant discussion for months throughout the pregnancy.

 

[Ariel484]

We did the same. Partially because we wanted to see the child before deciding if a name suited them, but mainly because we didn't want input. It's pretty common for people to give strong opinions on theoretical names, but it would be pretty rude for them to comment on the name after it was already given.

Even just suggestions while we were still at the hospital and hadn't decided yet were annoying enough. (My siblings were lobbying hard for "Patricia" for DD's middle name) I couldn't imagine it being a constant discussion for months throughout the pregnancy.

Yeah, it's just...not a group decision, you know? I mean it sort of was, but the "group" was just me and Mr. Ariel484.

My dad decided he liked our son's middle name more than the first name we picked ("I like [middle name!]" - never mentioned liking the first name we picked), and initially referred to my son as the middle name a few times...?? It took me saying, "you know his name is [first name], right?" a few times for that to stop.

 

[leebee]

We did the same. Partially because we wanted to see the child before deciding if a name suited them, but mainly because we didn't want input. It's pretty common for people to give strong opinions on theoretical names, but it would be pretty rude for them to comment on the name after it was already given.

Guilty as charged with my lovely niece's name, but it wasn't my fault! When my sister told me what they were going to name the baby (she was 7 months pregnant at the time), my jaw dropped and I said "WHAT?" My sister had always said her first girl would be named Emma, but this was no Emma! The names they picked were after her DH's grandmother and our great aunt; two very old-fashioned, VERY old-lady names. I was astounded and couldn't hide it. To be fair, I'd ruptured a disc in my back when we were 4 hours into the 15 hour drive to visit them and was totally doped up on muscle relaxants, codeine, and valium when I had the conversation with my sister. (I spent the entire visit on meds and in bed, and had to be put in traction once we got back home.) I've since been forgiven for my response- it really WAS the drugs- and it's become one of those family stories I may never live down! It all worked out well, though; my niece's 1st name has become somewhat popular and her nickname is totally popular/common now, so I guess all's well that ends well... right?

 

[Melissa55]

Guilty as charged with my lovely niece's name, but it wasn't my fault! When my sister told me what they were going to name the baby (she was 7 months pregnant at the time), my jaw dropped and I said "WHAT?" My sister had always said her first girl would be named Emma, but this was no Emma! The names they picked were after her DH's grandmother and our great aunt; two very old-fashioned, VERY old-lady names. I was astounded and couldn't hide it. To be fair, I'd ruptured a disc in my back when we were 4 hours into the 15 hour drive to visit them and was totally doped up on muscle relaxants, codeine, and valium when I had the conversation with my sister. (I spent the entire visit on meds and in bed, and had to be put in traction once we got back home.) I've since been forgiven for my response- it really WAS the drugs- and it's become one of those family stories I may never live down! It all worked out well, though; my niece's 1st name has become somewhat popular and her nickname is totally popular/common now, so I guess all's well that ends well... right?

I mean, at least you didn't try to talk her out of it or insult her choice. My friend's MIL flat-out told her "I don't like that name and I won't have a grandchild called that." Then went on a ridiculous campaign to come up with every awful nickname she could, and "bad" people that also had that name. Friend still stuck with her chosen name, thank goodness (it's a really nice name and I don't know why her MIL hated it so much). MIL eventually got over it although she mostly calls the kid by a cutesy nickname while everyone else calls him by his full first name.

 

[LovesTimone]

We picked out a few names, and once I saw DD, she looked like one of the names, and it just seemed to fit her and that's what we went with...

I did not want to name her after someone, I wanted her to feel like she was her own person... and not made to feel she needed to live up to or be embarrassed or ashamed to be named after someone... And she wasn't growing up in someone else shadow... or being judge by her name because she shared it with someone else in the family....

I am named after two of my Aunts.... and honestly I hate being named after them, ...One Aunt's life was just a train wreck, one bad choice after another, at least she was kind, and had a good heart... the other Aunt is a selfish, mean heart'ed and stuck up snobby Witch... I have cousin that were in the same boat... we all hated being named after someone else.... then you get well meaning or not... family always trying to compare you to them... just because you share a some part of their name ...and say the most ridiculous, and hurtful stuff to you as kid... even though my parents would deal with stuff like this, it was the 60's and basically we were told to ignore stuff like this, and because they were family...

It bothered me so much. When I turned 21 - I actually looked into legally changing my name...in the end I decided against it...