How did you pick your child's name?

Kate CP - posted on 02/10/2011

I named my daughter Samantha because I always loved the nick name Sam for a girl. Her middle name is Louise because it's family tradition on my side. My son, Paul, was named after my (adoptive) father who has been everything for me. My bio-dad died when I was 3 months old and my mother met my father when I was about a year old. He didn't HAVE to stick around and be a dad but he DID. He has never treated me any different from his biological daughter and has been an awesome father AND grandfather. I couldn't think of a better way to honor him. Paul's middle name is Michael after my husband (his Daddy). I love our family names. They have great meaning and tradition. :)

Marylea - posted on 02/10/2011

My daughter was born 3 months early so we didn't have a name picked out. I was in the ambulance and the doctor told me I was fully dialated and I remember thinking "damn, we don't have a name picked out" But right after she was born I told my hubby that she was my beautiful hope so we named her Isabella Hope.

Marylea

Jackie - posted on 02/10/2011

I picked the initials first... then matched names. With my first, I needed an E and heard Emmit Smith talking about how much he loved his mother which just made me cry... my son's name is Emmett. Maverick came from Top Gun for his middle. My dau got her name from listening to the radio (Lena Horne) after she was born... she was supposed to be a boy named Darryl... so she is Lena.

Kim - posted on 02/10/2011

We had thought of naming our daughter after her grandfather..lol Which was Kristen...well my best friend I were both due but just a week apart...told her what name we picked out..and a couple of weeks later she & I were talking and she told me they had decided on a name and guess what it was???? yep you got it...Kristen My daughters father dreamed her name.."Tara" so we went with that......On my son...I wrote down all the names I liked for boys, had my father and son's father go through the list to pick 3 different names they liked from my list... COLE is one name I had on my list that both my father and son's father liked...so us 3 picked his name out.

Khanyi - posted on 02/10/2011

I actualy dreamt I had a baby boy 3 years before actualy got pregnant. I was in the delivery room and had the baby and called him Ntando. Woke up remembered the dream and thought wow, 3years later am in the delivery room having Ntando :-)

Laura Zoey - posted on 02/09/2011

Eric Ryan
Eric was the first boys name we agreed on in high school when we first started dating. We had been dating a month or so when I started asking him about baby names. (had to make sure we were compatible before I got too involved :)
He hated my choices, I hated his, we agreed on Eric!
Loved the meaning of peaceful gentle ruler of all. So we searched for a middle name. Settled on Ryan cuz it means little king, and it sounds great together, both only 4 letters, and pretty manly names. Stuck with Eric Ryan for four years until he was born and still love it!

Fierna Juliet
Matt heard the name in d&d game, loved it, and suggested it to me as I was in an extreme search for a beautiful, rare, easy to spell and pronounce girls name.
I hated it when he first said it, but by night time I was loving it! I was disappointed when I couldn't find a meaning, or origin, but after a while a man online commented on my profile cuz he sawme asking about the name, turns out it's Irish and means truth!
So I was hooked!
Juliet, well that comes from watching psych, and listening to Taylor swift song 'love story' which is almost line for line exactly how matt and I met and married.
Anyways, I said Fierna that first night, and Juliet popped into my head right away, and matt loved it.
It means youthful which is nice, so it stuck!

Jenn - posted on 02/09/2011

My son's name is Phillip Allan - Phillip is his paternal grandfather's middle name and Allan is his maternal grandfather's middle name. My daughters are Elizabeth Mary and Shelby Elaine. Elizabeth is one of my middle names and Mary is my Mum's middle name. Shelby was just a name that Brian really loved and I thought it sounded nice and Elaine was Brian's Mom's middle name. I guess we like middle names LOL!!!

Sara - posted on 02/09/2011

Rowan -- a character from an Anne Rice book that my husband likes. He suggested it, we put it in our top 3 names and when she was born she looked like a Rowan, so there you go.

The new one doesn't have a name yet...

Erin - posted on 02/09/2011

My parents used family names as middle names for me and my sisters. Erin Marie(me), (my grandmother's middle name), Erika Jaye (my mom's middle name) and Emily Jane (my Grandmother's first name). If they had had a son the middle name would've been Gordon (dad's middle name).
When my husband and I found out that we were having a boy I wanted to keep the tradition going. We wanted a traditional first name. My husbands family is so big that we had a hard time finding one that wasn't used. (There is like 5 johns, williams, roberts, micheals etc.) But my husband also wanted a name where he could give him a nickname (because he has always been called Johnny). We decided on Daniel (Danny). For his middle name we decided on Jay, in honor of my mom (Susan Jaye) who passed away in 2008.
I am now pregnant with our second. We don't know what we are having yet. But I like Mitchell Scott (Scott being my husbands middle name) and Samantha Jean (MIL's middle name).

Amanda - posted on 02/09/2011

Joyce Helen - Because both her great grandmothers died within months of her birth

James Natthaniel Scott - James for his father, Natthaniel for a little boy I use to nanny, and Scott because all men (my father, brother) in my side of the family have the middle name Scott

Abbigail Lorraine - Abbigail was for the character on NCIS, and Lorraine is her Grandmothers middle name and Abby is her first grandchild.

Sal - posted on 02/08/2011

the only restriction i had was that they weren't to be named after anyone, (pissed of MIL but it was rule before i married her son and i wasn't changing for her) but i just liked them, i didn;t want name of the year or something that was associated with anything (eg i know about 50 jaydens and all i can think of was a little boy who was murdered and had quiet a long media storm) and i love old fashioned names, sadly 2 of my kids don;t like their own names but too bad i'm the mum, i have alexander nikolaus (who goes by nik) ingrid grace and ursula rose (who wants to be sara??? go figure she is 3)

Johnny - posted on 02/08/2011

Michaela was my mentor in college. She was about 10 years older than me, and was completing a second degree in Social Work after having been a lawyer. The strain of building a successful practice had ruined her marriage, her health, and compromised her happiness. She had quit, dedicated a bunch of time to volunteering, figuring out who she really was, and trying to salvage her health. She had come back to school to pursue a career in helping seniors. The year after we graduated, her cancer returned and spread. About 6 months later she passed on. She taught me so much, and supported me through some of the toughest times in my life. I always loved her name, and I hope that some of her compassion and wisdom will come through in my daughter.

My husband also loved the choice of Michaela (we pronounce it Mi-kai-lah) because his father who has passed was named Mikhail.

Her middle name is Rose, and it is my mother, my grandmother and my maternal great-grandmother's middle name, as well as my paternal great-grandmother's first name.

Fiona - posted on 02/08/2011

Q: "How did you pick your child's name?"
A: With great difficulty!

It took us three weeks to decide on an official name for our first son and we still call him by the nickname/love name we used during that time (which is actually his middle name). My second son is three weeks old tomorrow and we still don't have a 'real' name picked out, just another nickname/love name (which like our first will probably become his middle name). We like to wait to meet our children first before deciding on a name, but run into trouble when nothing on our shortlist of names to pick from suits the child once we have gotten to know them.

Holly - posted on 02/08/2011

All our daughters have names that come from my hubby's Russian heritage. Two of their middle names and our youngest daughter's first name have family meaning.

Our oldest daughter's middle name is a female variation of my hubby's name (hubby - Nick / daughter - Nickole)

Our middle daughter's middle name is a family name on my hubby's side, but in a different language (Sarah is the family name, and we went with Zara - the Hebrew version)

Our youngest daughter's first name is just one letter off from my grandma's middle name and my great grandma's name (My grandma's middle name is Elna and we named our daughter Elena). It was actually pure coincidence with this one, since Elena is a Russian name, but it's a happy coincidence and my grandma is very happy about it - in fact, she tells me she loves "the improvement on the family name" (her own words since apparently she's always hated tha name "Elna"). lol

Sharon - posted on 02/08/2011

I had a character naming digest - had an insane amount of names in it, like 25,000 or something.

We went through it page by page - all 500+ pages, name by name. Any name that struck our fancy - I wrote down.

We struck any names that either of us didn't like. I liked Emma or Emily - but the FRIENDS baby was named Emma and hubbys ex is named emily - ugh so he vetoed both of those. I vetoed Mike - every bully I ever had in grade school was named Mike.

At the end we looked up the definition of names, then we sounded out the combination of names that worked well together and we looked for names in the list that we liked that meant something to us.

Deanna - posted on 02/08/2011

For Celena I got to pick it because I wasn't using such a common name as Ashley. So my first daughter ended up being Celena Diana (Diana after my step mom)
My 2nd daughter is named Astin Robertson. Robertson is my maiden name and is now my middle name. Astin we got from Aasta that we liked so much. We added an N on the end and She became Astan. 2 weeks before her birth DH wanted to change the 2nd a to an i so we did. (that was a chore as I had already spelled it the other way on things for her)
daughter #3 is Taya Jayde. Taya is the feminine form of Taylor. Taylor is to much of a boy name for us so we used the feminine form. Jayde is pronounced Jade and just because we both liked it.
#4 is Celeste Joanne Louise
Joanne after DH deceased grandmother. Louise after my 2 deceased grandmothers. and Celeste just because we both liked it and he wouldn't let me name her Joanna Louise.

Good Day! - posted on 02/08/2011

Quoting Loureen, "I was teaching at the time and had to pick a name that hadn't been ruined by some little off the wall child." Aint that the truth!

Eliza Grace - I love history. In high school I worked at a plantation home for special events. The original owner of the home in 1820 had a daughter named, "Eliza." I always loved the name. "Grace" was my grandmother's name.

Baby 2 options:
Boy:
Gabriel Lee: I just like Gabriel and so does my husband. "Lee" is after several different loved ones. My MIL's middle name is Lee, my sister's name is Leigh, my husband's best friend's name is Lee, and my husband's middle name is Leroy. But we are not naming a child Leroy!

Possible girl names for baby 2:

Jacey Linn: Jacey would be for Jason, my husband. Linn would be for me and my mom. Mom's middle name is Lynne, mine is Lynn. So we've got to keep the name but change the spelling to keep the tradition going. =)

Holly Nan: Holly was Jason's cousin. They were very close. She was tragically killed 15 years ago. Nan is his grandmother's middle name. I think Nan is adorable, but I'm not brave enough to use it as a first name.

Medic - posted on 02/08/2011

Daemyan James - I wanted a name that I had not heard a lot, and something I could put a Y in. Someone said Damian and I fell in love, I bounced around spellings for a while but love how it is spelled. James is for my father, my grandfather, my great grandfather and so on and so forth.
Jacquelyn Salem- My husband and I bounced names back and forth forever because I wanted 3 syllables and a Y like her brothers it came down to Isabella or some form of that and it just didn't sit with me. Salem was my husbands call sign in Iraq...it goes with our last name Lott...ie Salems Lott..haha anywho we are wanting to try for one more and we already have 2 names picked out for a girl Emmilyn Charlie or for a boy Charlestyn Waren. The variations of Charles is for my husbands grandfather who passed when our daughter was a few months old and Waren is for my dad. And they are better than Warren Piece that my husband thinks is the be all end all name.

Rosie - posted on 02/08/2011

grant michael andrew- i wanted to name him michael, but i knew people would call him mike, and i loathe that, so it's his middle name. i worked with a grant, and i hadn't heard of it on a younger person at the time and i thought it was cute, and aged well. and andrew is my brothers name. :)

vincent michael anthony- we like gangster movies, and it's a pretty gangster sounding name, lol. my husband also likes WWE and vince mcmahon is the CEO, so it's kindof after him as well (sigh). michael just cause, and anthony to keep with the second middle name starting with an "a."

lucas michael aeron- there are no other names left in the universe that we could agree on after having 3 boys, so lucas was one of two that we both halfassed liked, lol. again with the michael, and aeron was the "a" second middle name, it's elvis' middle name (just not spelled the same) and we both ♥ elvis. :)

April - posted on 02/08/2011

Zachary-- We wanted a name that no one in our family had. I have 14 male cousins and we didn't want any repeats. My MIL overheard us looking through a baby book one day and said, "You know what name I like? I like Zachary!" We pondered this for a day or so and decided we liked it! Hurray! We had finally come to an agreement after arguing over names for months!

Now If I ever have a girl...her name is Anna. My husband doesn't know it yet, but i WILL name her Anna. Her middle name will be Kate. I had a series of dreams about her when I was 12. In the first dream, she was 6 and I asked her what her name was. She told me it was Anna. I decided at age 12, that's what I'll name her one day and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, I had 5 more dreams about Anna. In each dream, she got younger. In the final dream, she was newborn being born. After she was born, I never dreamed about her again. I'm hoping it's her again with our next baby, so I can tell her one day about the dreams!!

Shauna - posted on 02/08/2011

Drake Ryan. I wanted a strong masculine name. We liked Drake b/c i didnt know anyone with that name ---now there is a popular rap singer named drake *dangit* and Ryan is my Husbands first name. We actually wanted Talon for the first name but my sister wanted it too so i gave it to her :)

Shannen - posted on 02/08/2011

I think our kids names just came to us.
Ella, i j=heard one day in a story book and fell in love with it. We also had another girls name picked out but when she was born we both sat there while they were stitching me up and went "she is an Ella" the other name was forgotten.
Adam David is my 2nd child and it was so hard to come up with boys names that didn't remind me of some snot nosed little brat or someone i went to school with that i didn't like. I know of 1 other Adam and it's such a strong name. We chose David as his middle name to honour my husbands father. But what a powerful name for a person, Adam David Power that kids set!
Our last we couldn't decide on ony name at all boy or girls.
Even when i was in labor we were discussing the name. Hubby came out with Byron and it just seemed to work. His middle name is after my father.

Kerri - posted on 02/08/2011

Christine Kerri Elizabeth - I wanted Ryah Christine, he didn't care cause he swore she was a boy and wanted to name him Kaine Michael. But when she was born he hated the girl name and refused to sign the birth certificate til I agreed to change it. So Christine for her God-mother, Kerri after me, Elizabeth to make my Grandmother happy.

Grace Lynn - I actually wanted GraceLynn Michelle, but again he insisted it was a boy, this time settling on Michael Edward. And again never said he Hated the name til she was born. Said it sounded like Graceland. So I split the difference on the first name and dropped the Michelle.

Krista - posted on 02/08/2011

We had Olivia Rose all picked out as a girl's name, but were really stalled when it came to boys' names.

At first, we were considering Jack, and then Keith was hoping to name him Logan, but I wasn't crazy about that name. Jacob was one on the shortlist as well. But we weren't in love with any of those names. Then one day, I was re-reading (for the billionth time) our baby name book, and I scanned over the name Samuel. I stopped...looked again, and thought, "Huh...why did I not notice it before?" I called out to Keith, "Hey honey? What do you think of the name Samuel?" He said, "I love it. Why did we not look at it before?"

The middle names were easy. Kevin is for my husband's uncle, who passed away when he was a little boy. And Andrew is to honour my dad AND my stepdad. My dad's middle name is André, and my stepdad's middle name is Andrew, so I figured that this would be a great way to honour my awesome dad, and my equally awesome stepdad.

JuLeah - posted on 02/08/2011

Jasper: Metamorphic rock formed deep within the earth. It is formed when other types of rock undergo great pressure and extreme heat for a long period of time. It is a beautiful stone that comes in many colors and styles.
She has many examples of jasper that she thinks are beautiful. I wanted her to understand the metaphor; that when life gets hard stick with it, sometimes the results are amazing.
I wanted her to understand that when brittle rocks are put under great pressure, they don’t just create gems, but rocks of incredible strength. I wanted her to understand that, heat and pressure is sometimes, the only way to fully become all you are meant to be.
Amelia is her middle name. She was named for Amelia Earheart

Lacye - posted on 02/08/2011

I actually bounced ideas off of my sisters for a while (bf said the name was my choice). One of my sisters wanted me to name her Magdalene Faith. I didn't like Magdalene. I came up with Lily, which they didn't but wanted me to name her Lillian or Lillith and call her Lily as a nickname. No. I wanted Lily. As soon as I heard the name it just felt right. I picked Grace because I liked the name and my sister said with a father like hers, she needed a somewhat religious name to help her out a little bit. lol. So that is what we went with. Lily Grace.

Charlie - posted on 02/08/2011

Joanna that is so cute the story of how you ( or Paige I should say ) named Eve !

Katherine - posted on 02/08/2011

I love Elyse. Harry is so cute too. I knew a girl named Sydney Paige and that's what I wanted to name mine too.

I had sooooooo many names lol.

Stifler's - posted on 02/08/2011

Logan was the only name we agreed on after suggestions of Joshua, Thomas, Peter etc. Logan or Roman and I didn't like Roman as much. I wanted Caleb and Damian wanted to call him Craig. Who calls their baby Craig. We both like Renae for the next baby.

Joanna - posted on 02/08/2011

Paige Elyse... Paige was just a name that popped up and was the only one my Hubby and I agreed on. Elyse I got while watching Americas Next Yop Model reruns (Elyse Sewell season 1), and thought it fit nicely.

Eva Lavonne Marlow... While watching Wall-E, Paige decided she wantedto name baby sister Eva after one of the robots. And it stuck. Her middle names are after my grandma and my husbands grandma :)

Lady Heather - posted on 02/08/2011

I had Freja picked out when I was about 10. I really like Norse mythology back then. Lucky for me, I married a Swede so her name really goes with his last name and he was really happy to use it. Actually a few years ago we got a dog and he wanted to give her a Scandinavian name and he suggested Freja in the car one day. I told him that I kind of hoped that would be our first daughter`s name one day. And he liked it so the name was pretty much set two years before our daughter was born. Her middle name (Jean) was my grandma`s name.

I think the next kid is going to prove difficult. We never could agree on a boy name.

Charlie - posted on 02/08/2011

Cooper - I was teaching at the time and had to pick a name that hadn't been ruined by some little off the wall child , in the end we loved Cooper , we loved Coopers beer haha and I had never had a Cooper in my class .



Harry - he didn't have a name for 4 days , we argued about names for months and I kept on suggesting Harrison , he kept saying he wasn't Harry's son LOL He wanted Jamison but I wasn't keen , we came to a compromise and went with Harry and all of the Harry's I had in my class were adorable .