Comments on: Reader Poll: How Did You Name Your Child(ren)?

By: thordora

thordora — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:46:45 +0000

My oldest daughter's name was picked because it was interesting but not common, and classic enough to endure into adulthood (and my choice solidified when I had a dream in which I was calling her Vivian.)

My second-my husband wanted a variation of Rose for his paternal grandmother, so we went with Rosalyn. Neither name is common, but both, I feel, will serve them well when they're older. My husband was insistant on avoiding "weird for the sake of weird" names. Since I kind of have one of those names myself, I mostly agreed with him. Going through your entire life correcting pronunciation is irritating.

For boys we could never agree, but tossed around Darwin with the first pregnancy, and Kieron/Ciaran for the second. I preferred Atom, Finn or Marcus myself.

By: rachel

rachel — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 05:38:25 +0000

The naming story for my own child is long and boring but I have a friend with a funny idea (at least for a girl). She continuously suggested names to her husband throughout the pregnancy. He did a google image search on each name. The rule was the he would automatically veto any name that turned up a naked lady on the first page of results. Their daughter’s name is Eloise.

By: Tara

Tara — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 02:28:58 +0000

We chose our daughter's middle name (Christine) first. It's my husband's grandmother's middle name and 1 child in each generation has the name, ours being the 4th.

We chose her first name by my putting all of the names I liked and that went with Christine on a list. I used the book Beyond Jennifer, Jason, Madison and Montana, and narrowed my list down to 6. Then I gave the list to my husband who mulled them over and marked out the ones he didn't like. The only one he circled was the one we went with. Her name is Aidan Christine. Aidan is Gaelic (the traditional Gaelic spelling is Aeodhan) and means fiery one which fits her personality perfectly. Both of our names are Gaelic so we'll give future children Gaelic names as well.

By: STL Mom

STL Mom — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 16:47:22 +0000

My husband and I had trouble agreeing on a girl’s name. His first choice was Sarah, but that was a top-ten name and I didn’t want her to be “Sarah N.” all the time. My first choice was Naomi, which my husband just didn’t like. At the last minute (I think actually in the hospital, after we found out she was a girl) we agreed to name her after my husband’s recently deceased grandmother. She was a wonderful woman, but I wasn’t sure that her name would sound great for a little girl.
However, it only took a few days of saying our daughter’s name to make it sound perfect for her. I suspect that once you associate a name, – any name – with your child, you will love that name.
Well, maybe not Gamera…

By: Dawn

Dawn — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:05:04 +0000

My husband and I could absolutely not agree on a name for a girl. When we found out we were having a girl, the pressure was on. We both lived and studied in Germany and during a brain-storming session in the car, we tossed around the idea of a German name. After considering names like Heidi, Gretl, Liesel, Luisa, Brigitta (think “Sound of Music) etc. the only one we liked was Annika, and we had friends (from Germany) who had already claimed that name for their baby. We started getting silly and throwing out names of German cities. We both studied in a town called Jena (pronounced YAY-na), but everyone here says “GEE-na” or “JEN-na” We suddenly both looked at each other and said that we liked Jenna. We looked it up and saw that it meant “one who seeks peace,” and it was decided! My grandma’s name is Grace, so our little girl became Jenna Grace. The name is perfect for her.

By: LindaW

LindaW — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 21:16:15 +0000

We had the name talk before knowing the baby's gender. I told my husband that if it were a girl, her middle name had to be Christine. I said if it was a boy he could name him, but that I had veto power.

He wondered why Chrsitine. I explained how the family tradition went. My Aunt Gladys had named her daughter Susan Jean after my mom, Nella Jean (always called Jean by her family). I was named Linda Sue after Susan Jean. Susan Jean named her daughter Crystal Lynn after Linda Sue. So to not break the chain, our daughter would be named "Something" Christine after Crystal Lynn.

Well, he so liked the idea he decided should do the same for a boy, using his brothers middle names (okay, so it's trading middle names to first and middle, but he thought of it as being the same. It'm male logic, so don't ask me to explain it...)

He had three brothers, so to leave no one out we decided Danielle Christine for a girl and Justin Thomas for a boy.

Unfortunately it looks like out generation is gong to be the one to break tradition anyway, since we did not have a girl and may stop with just one child.

*sigh* ah well...

By: Christy

Christy — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:57:37 +0000

Since we are still working on naming our son due in February (I know, cutting it short aren’t we), I will submit our method for naming our last dog. She is a retired racing greyhound. We didn’t change our first grey’s name and kept it Heat from his racing name Feel the Heat. Then we adopted a girl whose racin gname was Bart’s Checkmate and they called her Checkers at the kennel. That wasn’t going to work for either one of us. So we made a list of names (most of which came from the atlas since we picked her out on a Friday on our way for a roadtrip and picked her up on Sunday). Anyway, had this list of names and each of us picked the three we liked best on separate sheets of paper. We decided that if any of them matched that is what we would use. Incidentally we both picked Memphis and we named her Memphis Belle because she makes this thumping sound when she sniffs and it kind of sounds like an airplane prop when it starts up.

By: wwbd

wwbd — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:20:16 +0000

We knew that we wanted an Irish name, but not one that was super common. The name that we picked (Anya) is the American spelling of the Gaelic Aine, although most people assume that it is Russian, which it is as well. We first knew of the name from Buffy, but met a girl while traveling in New Zealand who was a native Gaelic speaker who happened to be named Aine. We looked up the meaning:
"Ancient Irish name from the noun aine that means "splendor, radiance, brilliance." Aine is connected with fruitfulness and prosperity. The queen of the Munster fairies was called Aine as was one of the wives of Fionn Mac Cool (read the legend). Aine appears in folktales as "the best-hearted woman who ever lived â€“ lucky in love and in money."
which was too cool.

For boys names we were going to go more traditional with Patrick paired with my mom's maiden name (a common Irish surname).

By: Beckie

Beckie — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:55:52 +0000

My oldest, his dad named him, I had little to do with it :(

Danielle, is named after my father. About a month after I announced my pregnancy, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. I told him, if he lives I'll name the baby after him, but if he dies, I won't! LOL!! Lucky for us, not only did he live dispite some pretty bad odds, he's still around with us today! (after another battle with brain cancer even!!)

Jack, is named after any of an assorted number of Disney Jacks. Jack Skellington, Jack Sparrow, Jack-Jack from the Incredibles. Plus is other Grandpa's name is John, and Jack is like John's younger cooler version ;)

By: Doug Cornelius

Doug Cornelius — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:16:51 +0000

We let out son pick his name. We were having trouble breaking down our list to one final name.

We took a monthly calendar, centered around the due date. My wife and I took turns filling in each day with a name we liked. Any name we liked on any day we wanted. We ended up putting down the names we liked best on the most days. Neither of us had much faith in the predicted due date so the names were not clustered around the due date.

When he was born, he got the name assigned to that day on our calendar.