How to chose your baby's name.

[SueA]

I've never had the problem of choosing a name for a baby, choosing one for the dog was bad enough! We wrote down loads, went to look at the puppies, picked ours, came home, saw Emmerdale on T.V. & heard them call to one of the farm dogs & I said 'that's it, that's the name she looks like'!
With children I'm not too keen on people calling them after relatives unless they're modern or constantly popular names because if it's something old fashioned they get teased at school. I've always hated my middle name, I was called after my gran who I never knew & it was terribly dated & fuelled lots of mickey taking.

[squashysu]

well Georgia Helen Angelie is our first and was named after "A rainy night in Georgia" and "Midnight train to Georgia" Helen is my mum's middle name and Angelie is dutch and my MIL name/

We were only gonna have one and then whoops, i get preggas with twins!!!!! so had to think of FOUR sets of names - had to keep them all in 3's then, so it was fair! so

Poppy Jane Marie - love the name Poppy (i got there before jamie oliver as well, he stole my name lol!) Jane, my sisters middle name and Marie, my middle name.

Charles Stuart Henry (very regal) My grandad was charles and so was OH and Stuart is dad's name and Henry was OH dad's name!!!!


Mind you - something to think of !! When i had the twins Poppy & Charlie, the first comment i had was "why did you name your children after drugs" !!!!! SO TAKE HEED!!! mind you, i have since found out that having 2 babies at once, you could actually need drugs lol!!!!

Good luck with the picking its a hard one!

[tootles]

It wasn't until I was watching a film at Christmas after No.2 son was born, that I realised I too had a Bill and Ted.

[zazen999]

Hi there

My bro and his missus had loads of names ready for their daughters - but they didn't use them as they didn't suit the babies once they were born. It's tradition to give the SIL's family Welsh names, so we have Anwen and Seren - and they have 2 cousins Bronwyn and Saffie. I think it's best to wait until they are here, then you can have some time to get your head around what they are like and see what names fit.

Can't help yourself though, I would imagine!!!

[Comfreyfan]

The names chosen for our first child were either the name of my favourite imaginary boy (as a child I had imaginary twin boys, but I had a favourite, the other one was always in trouble) or a variation on the name of my favourite doll for a girl (OH's choice) - it could have been worse, I had a favourite dog aswell you know!
So that took care of son and first daughter.

Second daughter we were very certain of a boy or a girl name until shortly before the birth when OH decided he didn't like the girl choice, so we worked on a shortlist, then when she was born, we somehow just knew which of the names belonged to her.

For a boy we were given the advice that it should be a name that can either be shouted across a bar or sit easily with Lord in front of it!

(I'd like to point out that we lived in a very isolated part of Cornwall and I didn't know any other children outside of my family until I went to school! And I guess the fact that I had imaginary children instead of imaginary friends just shows that I was always very sure that having a family was my chosen career. - you do end up revealing a lot on here don't you!)

[HeyWayne]

It wasn't until I was watching a film at Christmas after No.2 son was born, that I realised I too had a Bill and Ted.

Excellent!!

[Pompeylottie]

We picked the name Amber for our youngest daughter, our own precious jewell, as she had slightly amber colour hair when she was born and we thought it was a pretty name, then someone went and asked me why I called my daughter after a traffic light!

[di]

One word of warning!!If you do come up with a few or one you like....wait til Bean is here before announcing to the world!!Peeps are a lot more up front about saying what they think of a name before you've made the final decision!& if it were a name you really set your heart upon it can make the decision that much harder!(Before he was born we told MIL(step)that we liked Ash for a boy~she was none too pleasant about it~but we stuck to our guns & I don't think she's ever forgiven us!??O.K I can think of a hundred & one ways he may be teased with said name,but like I said before,with the combination of kids imagination & nature to be mean then I think no name is guaranteed free from ridicule!

[Two_Sheds]

No name is free from ridicule, you're right. Kids are inventive little boogers, they'll find a way to tease you no matter what.

My sister picks her children's names off the Sky tellybox ... Having said that, they are lovely names, one is Hebrew meaning "bold one" (and he so is).

I can't reveal what they are, as they are so unusual it would quickly lead to identification!

[Noirin]

Another thing to keep in mind is all those mugs, doorplates, keyrings that are available with names printed on them. If your childs name is popular you will be pestered for years to buy all these. On the other hand if you have an unusual name it will be impossible to find anything personalised and you will have to put up with moans about "why is my name never on anything"?!!
Also if you go for a name that is hard to pronounce or spell it will cause difficulties if they join a kids club or similar when on holidays abroad. My kids both have Irish names which is grand when we are at home but anywhere abroad (even England!!) people say "what??, spell that!!
Anyway, whatever name you pick, after a few days everybody gets used to it and you can't imagine the child being called anything else.
I would avoid soap opera or pop star names as it is ok when the programme is still running but years after Dallas we still have a lot of Sue Ellens walking around Dublin. We also have hundreds of John Pauls and Karols born in 1979. (Popes visit)

[OverWyreGrower]

Another thing to keep in mind is all those mugs, doorplates, keyrings that are available with names printed on them. If your childs name is popular you will be pestered for years to buy all these. On the other hand if you have an unusual name it will be impossible to find anything personalised and you will have to put up with moans about "why is my name never on anything"?!!

My name is never on anything, and if we do find it, it's spelt differently!

I'm nearly 30 and still get excited when we find things with my name on!

[Rhona]

Ha ha - that takes me back to being a kid and REALLY wanting a hairband with my name on which was the craze for eight year olds at the time. I remember thinking my parents were slightly short-sighted in giving us all slightly unusual names and not predicting the whole hairband/doorplate thing...

[pipscariad]

Mind you - something to think of !! When i had the twins Poppy & Charlie, the first comment i had was "why did you name your children after drugs" !!!!! SO TAKE HEED!!! mind you, i have since found out that having 2 babies at once, you could actually need drugs lol!!!!

I'll second that - 'specially in the first few months! Y' see Wayne, at least you only have one name (for the moment) to find.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm very glad I had twins - they've been great fun, and a real blessing. And it didn't put us off too much as we went on the have another, which could have been two, or even three.... (When I was having the twins, I miscarried, and, thinking I had lost the baby, went for a scan - to discover that I was carrying twins and had actually lost a third baby - this was the most enormous surprise, as I wasn't on fertility drugs and there is no history of multiple births in either family! The most amazing things happen....)

[janeyo]

I knew I wanted the name Louis for a boy years and years ago! We didn't want anything inthe top 20 of popular names either and had to be careful with the initials etc so they don't get teased.

It was harder to find a name second time round for a boy as we had used it!

Sometimes it helps to have a shortlist of 2 or 3 (and not tell anyone or they all put their NOT-needed 2 pence worth in and put you off it), and then wait and see what baby looks like. You might have picked a name that you love and then LW will be all hormonal having just had a baby and weep and wail that the baby doesn't look like that name! (yes this happened to me!!) and you haven't got any more.

If you tell noone, I guarantee that noone will tell you to your face that they don't like it etc once baby is born, they will ALL say 'oooh that's lovely' whilst cooing over baby. It doesn't matter what they say behind your back!

I have a Louis who is constantly called LEWIS - drives all all potty and it never entered our heads that people would get it wrong, so important to choose one that is hard to get wrong. Even my dad called him Lewis at first. Also we have a Dominic and surname is Bell. I agonised if he would get any 'Dumb Bell' comments for months - but we have only had one (so far)

We wanted ours to have an unusual name but not weird and hopefully ensure that there is only one of them in their class. Howevere there is another Louie in our son's class - what are the chances?!

We also didn't want any one to have the same initials as it makes for confusing post when they are older, and to have someone constantly opening your mail must be irritating! So even though OH liked Leon for our second son he couldn't have it as we have a Louis!

Sorry for essay!

janeyo

ps this website is great for looking at the popular names for last 5 years and looking at trends and patterns.

National Statistics Online

[Flummery]

When I had my kids I was really into the Arthurian legends. Wanted to call daughter Guinevere - I DID call her Jennifer - anglicised equivalent - Don't think Himself realised at the time that I'd slipped one in there. He vetoed Yvain for son's middle name - shame that - because he reckoned kids would call him Yvonne. Make him hard, I said, but maybe it's as well!