Do you have any 'rules' that you use/used to choose a name ?

Not too common
Not too unusual
Not the same initials as DH or me
Nothing which clashed with our surname
Acceptably spellable and pronounceable in England and Germany
Not too babyish

And obviously, something we both liked.

We ended up with Lucia - love it.

1. different initials to me, dh, dd, ds1
2. different "sound" to dd and ds1 (eg think say Noah too much like Jonah)
3. no more than 2 syllables

Rose it is! Well done ProfessorLayton - you live up to your name.

Agree with Vivian... do share.

Also, why does everyone want nicknames. I have never really understood it so just genuinely asking why you would give a name and them use a nickname?

In terms of rules our main one was that:

South Asian in laws would be (broadly) happy with a vaguely Islamic sounding name.

East European/Med my father would be happy that his culture was not left out, but not too Islamic for him.

English mother who having been married to my father for 29 years still cannot pronounce at least 75% of the families names, something that she could (a) remember and (b) pronounce.

I have always had to spell my name and I have to confess that i quite like it, however I realise I am probably quite odd in this sense.

We both had absolute veto power over each others choices.
Nothing ending in 's' or 'a' (sounds bad with our surname).
Nothing religious.
Something 'normal' but not popular.
Avoid dodgy initials. (Actully DD did end up with initials G.P.S. but we decided it wasn't too too bad as the names were pretty much the only ones we agreed on.)

I do know someone who is a name consultant, Lemoncurdy. I don't know what her website is, though, as our acquaintance isn't professional.

Alicet I am the opposite to you - I would always choose name that can be shortened, preferably in more than one way.

No novelty spellings.
No names where you can't tell if it's a first name or surname.
No unisex names.
No very foreign/celtic names if you have no connection to their origin.
No stupid initials, repeating initials within the family and no alliterative first/surname.
Must be a proper name and not just a random word.
No awful meanings.
Nothing in the top 100.

I followed them with DS but now pregnant with DC2 and have absolutely no idea what to call them. I'm worried I have narrowed the field too far...

I think you all put much more thought into it than we did! We picked names that we liked and which went with our surname.

We wanted names that you couldn't shorten.

Ideally we wanted not to repeat initials but were scuppered as name we eventually chose for ds2 has same initials as me.

Didn't want middle names - dh not me.

Not Ben (our preferred boys name) as our surname begins with T - BenT.

Ds1 was easy to name - we both loved the name we chose and he was known as this from very early pregnancy.

Ds2 we couldn't agree on. Got down to one choice each that they other could accept but wasn't willing to go for. So we did rock paper scissors to decide - dh won. Actually when he was born I was pleased as it suited him much better than my choice would have.

Name that should be easily 'nickname-able'. Didn't follow it for dc3 and regret it - gets called all sorts of rubbish 'cos we can't give him a decent nickname (his name is already one syllable).

Had to be more than one syllable, because our surname has only one and DH thought it would sound strange. And that, dear readers, is why my request for Luke became Lukas!

I'm guessing Phoebe, Zoe or Rose for VeronicaCake's DD...

my only rule was to avoid names that would date so we didn't end up with a 'kylie' situation.

No duplicate initials
Make sure initial don't spell anything odd
Make sure initials aren't some dodgey company on the stock exchange or a chemical element
Couldn't be on the top 100 list for the last 5 years
Something that could be shortened (my name can't and I always hated that)
Nothing too unusual
Nothing that would have to be spelt/ somethign easy to pronounce.

We stuck to our rules, finding names we didn't like was a lot easier than ones we did.

For preference will contain the vowels o and e, possibly a.

For preference no letter l.

Cannot begin with m.

Not a family name (Irish family and not strikingly original so this only really ruled out Margaret, Patrick and James!)

Definitely no letter i.

No repeated consonant sounds (so not Lily, Pippa, Titania).

Not too obscure (preferably in top 100).

Short, pretty, easy to spell.

It's like a logic problem. Given those constraints you can probably work out DD's name.

1. Nothing popular. Can never see Ds name in those lists so think we're ok. Only taught one or two in the last 10 yeasrs so again, not too bad.

1. No names reminding me of naughty/unpleasant chilldren.

1. Nothing from Jeremy Kyle.

1. Proper name - no nicknames,but the ability to shorten when necessary.

1. Suitable for a baby and an adult.

6.No celebrity connontations.

1. Allowed to go for a slightly more unusual middle name.

Most importantly, sounds good.

Got THe perfect name for DS one and no idea how to make lightening strike twice for future DC.

Not reusing initials (DH's, mine, older DCs)
Nothing too similar-sounding to other family members (e.g. Lorna is out because SIL is Laura)
Not the name of any other children we know
Should be able to spell it easily on hearing it (this also rules out names that have several different common spellings)
Should be able to pronounce it easily on reading it
Nothing that sounds silly with DH's last name (this rules out a LOT of girls' names)
Nothing too popular as last name is very common

(tsc, are you sure your DH wasn't just using this "rule" to veto names he didn't like...? )

"All rise for Judge " is good.

"And now we call the defendant " is bad.

1)Something meaningful for the family but not an immediate family member's name (we ended up going for an already dead relative)

2. Preferably a saint's name

3)Socially neutral (classic/traditional but not overused)

4)Either works or at least is understandable in French and hopefully other Romance languages

5. Nice meaning (e.g. I like Tristan but wouldn't use it because of meaning)

6. Sounds nice!

I used them all, DH wasn't bothered apart from 6) so I ended up vetoing a lot of his choices and having quite a small list myself. We agreed in the end and both still like the name!

names we both liked (the hard part)
names which depicted our origins (i.e. not english)
the neaming was very important to me (when you travel most people ask you that "what does your name means")
No religion (christian/ine)/history (vlad/ivan)/doomed names (cassandra)

We mostly succeeded, both DD first names can be religious but are actually prechristain.

I have a "little fairy loved by the gods"
and a "messanger of hope"

Ruled out caroline (manly, look like a man) and emily (hard working) for the neamings

no foreign names (including french ones like Paul)
no religious names (ditto re Paul, saint's name)

this leaves about 2 names so it was all rather painless.

I did a similar thread to this a few months ago... lots of fab rules here!!