<p>Always been interested in how parents go about choosing their child’s name. So many different ideas, opinions and traditions go into this decision and of course, the decision lasts a lifetime. My very large family has a new set of of beautiful babies and their names are mostly ones I had rarely heard before. It seems classic names are not as fashionable and creative and unusual names are more common right now. For example I have two nephews named Sawyer and know hardly anyone under the age of 40 whose name is Susan.</p>
<p>What criteria did you and your spouse use to choose your children’s names? We have two sons, each one has a first name that is more on the classic side but not too common. Biblical names and saints names were popular with us and we gave each son one of my husband’s names for their middle names. Both of our first and middle names are biblical and/or saints names, so I guess we followed family tradition. Still very happy with the names we chose and they match each of our son’s personalities.</p>
<p>For both of our kids, I made a list and their dad chose from the list. Although if our first had been a boy, I did tell him we could name him after H’s dad (with a different nickname than H’s dad had used, though). But we had two girls. You first paragraph implies some criticism of the younger generation’s naming policy…</p>
<p>I’ve known since I was a kid that I wanted to name a daughter after my maternal grandmother, so that was simple. Our firstborn was a boy. We hadn’t decided on a name when he was born! DH threatened to name him Zoltan. Finally went with a Scottish name that was unusual then, but now you find it on keychains! Secondborn was also a boy. We found a Gaelic name that meant the same thing as our first son’s name - “little hollow in the woods,” if people want to find out the names, lol. Third was a girl, thank goodness, or I would have been disappointed not to use my grandmother’s name!</p>
<p>No criticism intended, just observing how different the names are of the youngest members of our family. One nephew has the name Bowen for example - a name I had never heard of before he was born. I did not know any kids with such an unusual name either when I was young or when my boys were little. Maybe I need to get out more! Obviously there are advantages and disadvantages to having an unusual name. My own first name is (or was) rather common, but my middle name is much more unusual. I go by both names and together they are an uncommon combination.</p>
<p>I just picked a name I liked and my husband had no strong feelings about it. I had no middle name picked out, so the day my D was born, I asked my OB what her name was. I liked her middle name so I used it. I’m not sentimental by nature.</p>
<p>DD’s first name was chosen by DH and me because we just liked it. Her middle name, Grace, was given because DH and I both had grandmothers named Grace and we think it’s a lovely name. DD’s boyfriend recently said “uh oh” when he heard me call her by her first name as we almost always call her by her nickname. </p>
<p>I work at a school and hear lots of unusual names. The one thing I hope all parents consider before naming a child is the spelling, pronunciation and even initials. I’ll never forget my h.s. home economics teacher telling us she and her husband had considered naming their child Anthony Steven, but realized with their last name (which started with S), it would not be a good idea, especially if he ever wanted something monogrammed.</p>
<p>SplashMom - The elementary and middle schools my siblings and I attended had an annual contest to design the cover of the yearbook. When my brother was in school, the winner if this particular contest had that set of initials, and he apparently was very proudly initialing the yearbooks of anybody who asked him to sign the cover! </p>
<p>A big trend with people my generation is alternate spellings, and I hate it. An acquaintance was going to name her child Timithie if it turned out to be a boy. (Ended up being a girl - Kathren.) I like unusual names to an extent but there is a point where you are opening your child to ridicule. Some countries, such as New Zealand, have even banned weird baby names.</p>
<p>I always knew that my first male child would have a certain beloved name. Fav male name since I was young. Well, I happened to marry a man with the same beloved name…so first son is a junior. :)</p>
<p>Second son’s name has kind of an odd story attached to it. When I was pregnant with him, I had the “girl’s name” ready since older child was a boy. Didn’t really have a boys name picked out for a second son. When he was born, he was unnamed. A name “came to me” out of nowhere and he was named. </p>
<p>But, the story doesn’t end there. When the priest came to our home to meet with us about S2’s baptism, I suddenly fretted because I thought I had made a mistake and not chosen a “saint’s name” (a Church req’t that either first or middle name must be a saint’s name). I knew that his middle name wasn’t a saint’s name (too trendy), so his first name should have been the “saint’s name.” When the priest asked what S2’s name was, I told him and he didn’t make an objection (which this priest was KNOWN to do). Hmm…I thought…dodged a bullet and S2 was baptized.</p>
<p>Several years later, S1 asked who his particular patron saint was since his name has several saints with that same first name. So, I said, let’s look in a big “saints book” and see which XXX has his feast day closest to your Birthday and that XXX will be your patron saint…which we did.</p>
<p>Then, I thought…hmmm…since S2 doesn’t have a patron saint since his negligent mom forgot to give him a saints name, I’ll see whose feast day shares S2’s birthday…and that can be his patron saint. </p>
<p>So…I looked up S2’s birthday in the saints book and lo and behold…on S2’s birthday was a saint with the SAME NAME as my son. This saint’s feast day is S2’s birthday. He was a first century martyr thrown to the lions. I still get shivers when I think about it. (no wonder the priest didn’t complain…he knew that S2 did have a saint’s name!)</p>
<p>Our last name is fairly common and only one syllable, so we wanted a name that was a little onger and not quite as common. We went through a LOT of potential names and discarded many before finally finding one that H & I both liked and none of our loved ones found objectionable. S happens to like his name. For D, H had a name he liked and I was OK with, so that was what we picked for D’s name. We hadn’t picked a boy’s name for our 2nd child, so we would have had to think hard if D had been S2 instead. :)</p>
<p>I did have a baby name book as the years went on. My oldest son was named after his grandfathers who had passed away. My daughter had the one girl’s name my husband and I both liked. My second son got the boy’s name I really loved a lot and the youngest son was the toughest. I had a lot of nice names going in but nothing decided. Everyone said when he was born we’d “just know” by looking at him. False. The hospital put a lot of pressure on us to decide. So the five of us stood around going over the final contenders and voted. The “losers” got to pick the middle name out of the remaining pool of names. It turned out well.</p>
<p>When I was pregnant with S, the guys in my department decided we couldn’t go around referring to the baby as “it”, so they started calling it Pat after the androgynous character on SNL at the time. After calling it Pat for 4 months that was a leading boy name candidate, but H came up with a late entry and we ended up using Patrick as his middle name.</p>
<p>We would not have used Patricia for a girl though.</p>
<p>IF I had had a son, I would have named him after my best friend who passed a couple of months before my child was born with a middle name David after both grandfathers. However, I had a girl. My mom’s name is old and the kind of name I think that a child never grows into; one of my nieces has it as a middle name. My daughter has a gender neutral name and her middle name was picked out of a hat (she was named after my oldest sister). One of my brother’s named his D after my younger sister.</p>
<p>Forgot to mention that for 4 years in elementary school, she shared her name with a little boy in the class (different spellings). the class would call them _<strong><em>, the boy and </em></strong>, the girl. They worked out between them what they wanted to be called by their classmates. She chose to be called by their name and he chose to be called by an abbreviated version of their name. He has an older brother who also shared his name with a girl in the class. </p>
<p>When she got to college, for three years she was the only person on campus with her name. She was able to set her college email up as firstname.college.edu. Senior year, there was a boy whose middle name is the same as her first name who also wanted to use the same e-mail. </p>
<p>The college told her that they could not have the same e-mail and one of them would have to change their e-mail. She wrote him stating that the name they shared was her first name and not a middle or nick name and if he would change his e-mail using his first name and middle name (which he did).</p>
<p>My H had the criteria the title “Dr” needed to sound okay before any female name we chose. Wanted a professional sounding name, not necessarily selecting a career. We initially had a very unusual first name selected for a girl, but people either loved it or hated it, so we chickened out and selected a more traditional family name when our D was born. I still love the unusual name and D thinks it is absolutely horrible. </p>
<p>For a boy, H wanted to honor his grandfather, but his sister had a boy first and took the name. When our S was born (after his D was here) we picked a boy’s name that was a family name on both sides and also sounded good with D’s name. My college roommate always complained because she had a plain traditional name and her older sister had what she considered a “fun and exotic” name.</p>
<p>I had middle names already picked out for both. For D, my maternal grandmother’s first name. For S, I wanted to use my father’s first name. It was very old-fashioned and not very common. Of course, by the time I had S, it was a very trendy and common boy’s name! We decided to combine it with H’s mother’s surname. Most people think he has a very cool and presidential-sounding name.</p>
<p>We limited ourselves to family names. I just thought considering every name on the planet was too daunting. When DS #3 came out a boy, he didn’t have a name for a few days. We’d already used four male family names and I guess for some reason I thought he’d be a girl. BTW–if he had been a she, he’d have gotten my middle name. I have several female friends who have incorporated their names in their daughters’.</p>
<p>Since I have an unusual name that people mispronounce, stumble over, forget, etc., I was determined to give my kids more familiar names, plus they had to be gender specific. In addition, it needed to flow well with our last name. So DD has a more traditional, solely female first name with my middle name (which I love) as her middle name. DS is a junior, which was not my choice, but DH wanted it. It is also a traditional, solely male name.</p>
<p>I was not going to saddle them with an odd, different or unusual name or spelling. I am so tired of correcting people about my name all the time. I tend to answer to anything that starts with the first letter of my name.</p>
<p>My first child was named after a town in England (XXX)where my husband’s mother was born and where my H had actually been conceived before his parents left for America.</p>
<p>When I told my mother what the baby’s name would be, she said well you know you are descended from (New England historical figure with XXX last name). So – that’s what we named him – after (historical figure XXX), combining the New England heritage with the British heritage. We have always called him XXX – his middle name.</p>
<p>The other ethnic group in the mix was already designated for the last name so we were all set.</p>
<p>D’s first name is a name that I have loved since I was a little girl. Her middle name is H’s maternal grandmother’s name, but several of my family share variations of that name. After D was born, we found out that her first name was very popular in H’s father’s family.</p>
<p>We chose not to know gender ahead of time for either child, so when I was pregnant with D, we also had a short list of boy’s names. We happened to get together with a couple that we hadn’t seen in a long time (college friend of H) and later H suggested his friend’s name for a boy. I liked the name so a few years later when we had a son that was the name he got. By coincidence it happened to be the name my parents would have given me if I had been a boy. S’s middle name is my dad’s name.</p>
<p>I like a lot of the more unusual names, but am not a big fan of creative spellings.</p>
You first paragraph implies some criticism of the younger generation’s naming policy…</p>