Naming a child is hard, harder than playing video games without services from elitist-gaming.com. Naming subsequent children is harder. But the fact of the matter is, no matter what anyone has to say about a name before your child is born, once that child is here most people keep their opinions on the name quiet {or at least behind your back}.
That’s one of the reasons that I like to keep my choice of name to myself until the baby is born. I even feel like the baby’s name is not something that I can discuss with my husband until approximately 35 weeks pregnant – as he can use the name on someone else and destroy the name for me.
Like when I was pregnant with Mr Moo and we both fell in love with the name Joslyn and we talked about how her nickname would be Josie and then he started nicknaming other people Josie and it just didn’t work for us anymore.
It can be a shock when people dislike your child’s name. Even if people don’t openly criticize it, sometimes a blank look speaks volumes.
Sometimes it can take you and your husband a long time to come up with a name and it can hurt when a close family member doesn’t like it. I thought it was lucky that I was talking about names in general the other day with my Mum and she mentioned how she has never liked the name ‘Felicity’ and I said ‘well that was lucky, as Felicity was on my list of girl’s names I liked – and the list is extremely short’.
But I guess that being prepared for people not to like your name is pretty smart. As psychologist and relationship expert Dale Atkins says if your aunt says you’re setting your child up to be bullied, don’t waste time arguing about whether that’s true. Instead, just say something like, “I know the name is unusual, but we love it and want our child to love it. Please respect our choice.”
I am really loving boys names at the moment. Does that mean that I am having another boy? Does it just mean that because I have two sons I am attracted to more boys names? Is this because I follow Mums with boys on social media and I have fallen in love with their boy’s names? I don’t know. All I do know, is that I love about 10 boys names and I am seriously struggling with girls names, at the end me and my husband have everything prepared for the baby, since we found a site that sells cheap baby equipment and it was perfect for us, so we had everything except the name.
My Mum has been researching our family tree and I asked her what female names were in our family that I might like – it appears that there was a lot of ‘Eliza/Elizabeth’ which is actually my middle name and ‘Charlotte’ which I think would be shortened to Char – which is too much like ‘Shari’.
I don’t mind Charlotte, but I don’t like how the name would be shortened {Charlie or Lotte} and both of our boys names have been shortened, so I am guessing that this would also occur here. I didn’t mind the name Penelope {Pea for short} and then my sister asked me if I would be happy for the name to be shortened to ‘Penny’ and it was scrapped from my list.
So people, hit me with some of your favourite girls names. I am leaning towards something a little ‘traditional’ as both of our boy’s names are. And names that are easy to spell and have a cute shortening {as our last name is quiet difficult}… I NEED inspiration.
I love traditional baby names – Charlotte, Sophia, Lachlan and Cooper are some of my faves! How cute is that baby book, I have seen them before. Have you started filling it in, getting organised?
I love traditional baby names – Charlotte, Sophia, Lachlan and Cooper are some of my faves! How cute is that baby book, I have seen them before. Have you started filling it in, getting organised?
What a fun post! I just had a new grand baby…boy. I know it was hard for our daughter and son in law because they knew what they wanted to name him before they even knew he was a boy and they stuck to it. Unusual but perhaps popular and we often find out later. I named my boys what I thought were not super common names and my mom reminded me just the other night that the first day in the pediatricians office they called for Brandon and it wasn’t for my son :). I wanted an unusual name because when I was born probably 1 in 5 girls in the US were named Debbie and I was one of them. Now it is rarely used. Actually my name is Debra. So I named my daughter an unusual name and she never had another girl in her class share her most beautiful name…Clarissa. Oh and no one ever shortened it. She could have been Clair, Issa, Rissa, but it never happened. Of the names you mentioned…I loved Eliza, that is beautiful! Best wishes on the birthday~
Yes – my name is unique and that’s what I love about it. I never had another girl in my class at school or in my netball team who shared my name. I don’t know if my boys will be that lucky – their names are traditional and it appears that’s a bit of a trend at the moment. But our last name is so difficult that I wanted their first names to be easy.
You look amazing!
I remember telling a friend that I was calling my unborn baby Darby. Her reaction was “Darby?! Why the hell would you choose that?” to which i replied “If you were finding out his name for the first time after he was born, would you have reacted that way?” and she said “No”. So I said “Then what makes you think it’s OK to say it now?”
It suits him. Babies grow into their names. We wouldn’t change it for the world.
You look amazing!
I remember telling a friend that I was calling my unborn baby Darby. Her reaction was “Darby?! Why the hell would you choose that?” to which i replied “If you were finding out his name for the first time after he was born, would you have reacted that way?” and she said “No”. So I said “Then what makes you think it’s OK to say it now?”
It suits him. Babies grow into their names. We wouldn’t change it for the world.
As for girls names I’ve always been partial to Krystal or Chrystal which can be shorted to Chrys or Chrissy. Not overly traditional though I suppose and the spelling could be tricky. I also like Jasmine (Jazz).
Oh thanks so much Leanne – I’m feeling enormous. I think that children do embrace/grow into their names. It’s so individual. I love my name and I want my children to love their names. I do like flowers for girls names.
Oh thanks so much Leanne – I’m feeling enormous. I think that children do embrace/grow into their names. It’s so individual. I love my name and I want my children to love their names. I do like flowers for girls names.
As for girls names I’ve always been partial to Krystal or Chrystal which can be shorted to Chrys or Chrissy. Not overly traditional though I suppose and the spelling could be tricky. I also like Jasmine (Jazz).
I have three girls, and as my husband is Greek, the tradition is that children are usually named after the grandparents/parents, etc.
So, my eldest is named after my mother-in-law, my middle daughter is the female version of my husband’s name, and for my youngest, we gave her the female version of my deceased brother’s name.
Some girl names I like are Emily, Alana, Kiara, Grace, Jessica, and Tilly. Best of luck with your decision! xx
Oh, I like Kiara 🙂 I also like Tilly – which could me Matilda and shortened to Tilly. Thanks for your inspiration.
Kiara is a beautiful name. My niece is named Kiara Grace, and it really suits her. I like the fact that it isn’t overly popular either. My youngest is named Kayla and I think it’s a pretty name too
I found choosing a girl’s name so much harder than picking a boy’s. I don’t have any suggestions for you. My one and only choice is my Leni. 🙂 Good luck with the search.
Thanks Karin 🙂 I’ve been playing around with names starting with ‘K’ as my Mum’s name starts with K…but I haven’t really found anything I like yet. And maybe I won’t need a girl’s name if it is another boy?
Congrats….on the little girl who is waiting to meet you! Back in the 1970s we didn’t discuss our chosen kids’ names with anyone other than ourselves. We chose names from others’ that we knew but had not direct connection to. I wanted to get the spelling the way i wanted it to be as well so made sure I did the birth registration papers. Control freak much? I never knew any of our 8 grandchildren’s names until they were born. For 3 of the children I did know the sex as the parents opted for that with #3, #3 and #4 kids. All of the grandkids have second names too. Some of those have been named after their parents’ and others not. As teachers though, we usually avoid names of kids we have found…ahem challenging!! Good luck Lovely!
I like the babies to have middle names. I have a middle name. My husband has a middle name. We say that their first name is their own name and their second name is a nod to our wonderful family. The boy’s middle names our our father’s first names.
Names are so hard! I always had a couple names in mind even before meeting hubby! One wouldn’t work as it doesn’t flow with our surname, and the other I really really liked but my brother and sister in law named their dog that (they didn’t know I liked the name). So we came up with a new list of names together. We ended up dropping our list from 3 to 2 just before going into hospital with my first, and hubby picked from the two to name him. For our second, we managed to come up with a new list of boys names, again with a final 2 going into the hospital and I got to pick the name. Both times we never told anyone or our families what we were thinking – like you we didn’t want the names ruined!
Yes, with our first we had three names for boys and I picked the final name and so my husband picked the Godparents. With my second son, my husband picked the name and I picked the Godparents. So this time around I get to have final say on the name – so I am feeling the pressure. In saying that neither of us would pick a name that the other wasn’t happy with.
Laney is nice 😉 Hope you are going okay up there. I still automatically look through the windows of the cafe to see if you’re in there LOL! I’m sure whatever name you choose will be perfect.
I do like Laney 🙂 It is so nice being up here in Sydney. I had lunch with my sister on Wednesday and morning tea with my Mum on Friday and Phillip has booked tickets for my sister and I to go see ‘Bad Mums’ on Sunday afternoon. So nice to be able to hang out with my family all the time. I’ll let you know when we are back down in Canberra – and obviously I’ll let you know when baby number three arrives and the name that we go with xox
I have always liked the name Dagny from the book Atlas Shrugged. When you mentioned Eliza in your post, I immediately said, “How cute!”
Thanks 🙂 It’s always nice to hear people’s suggestions as they push you to think outside of the box.
Shari, if you’re after traditional that can be shortened (my preference too!) then I like Jennifer, Abigail, Sophia, Eleanor, Gabrielle, Amelia, Allison, and I have to say I also have a soft spot for Elizabeth 🙂 Don’t know if that helps at all…
Sophia was on my shortlist for girls when we were pregnant with our first son. But close friends have since used the name. Our Godson is also Gabriel, so I probably wouldn’t go with that either…but you are definitely on the same page, Beck. Thanks for your suggestions xox
We stress so much over what to name our kids but no matter what, we usually get used to them – though occasionally I meet someone whose name I have problems with – in fact I called a friend the wrong name for about a year and when I realised what I had done she laughed kindly and said she is happy to be lisa for me!!!! I saw a kid named igor recently and that seemed wrong for any kid but I quite liked that a friend wanted to call their child satchel though I can’t remember what they called their kid as it was a long time ago
I think in the end, we all get used to the name that someone has. Some names are difficult. Some names are easy. Everyone has their own personal opinion, and most kids just own it.