how do you choose a name?

I had lots of lists

Whilst drugged out of my head in the recovery suite after giving birth, DH convinced me to allow him to give DS the name of his beloved and deceased family dog

We then compounded things by giving him the middle name 'Boris' which had been the nickname for the bump during my pregnancy

I have a savings account for the therpay

We both have olde English surnames, so we decided to pick a classic English name to go with them. We didn't want anything too popular, so we looked at the baby names list for England & Wales the year before and made a shortlist of names outside the top 50.

look here for the lists

After discounting any that sounded weird with our surnames or gave unfortunate initial combinations, we said them out loud again and again, imagined shouting them in Sainsburys and were left with two boys and two girls names. We also looked up the meanings of them and eventually settled on the names we've chosen.

We are still deciding... But we looked at family names and both wrote down any names we liked with the reasons. Then we knocked off any we both really disliked - as long as we had a good reason. Added names we liked generally and why. We left it, came back to it, continued to add and ditch. When we had a manageable number (6 girls, 4 boys) we checked out popularity and ditched any in the top 30. That gave us 4 girls, 3 boys. Finally, I checked if there were any 'horrid' characters I knew of for the ones hubby had chosen (mine were mostly from novels with one exception - family name). Now we've a shortlist and we will see when the baby arrives.

For us, the hardest thing was the surname!

I thought about characters in books and films who I admired. I also had a notebook that I'd been writing names I liked in whenever I came across them since about the age of 15, so I dug that out and had a read of it. And I had the obligatory flick through a baby names book. In the end DS was named after a character in one of my favourite books that represents hope (I also like how the name sounds).

All of the above are great suggestions - we're currently going through it in preparation for DC 2 and I'm grateful for the suggestions.

As a slightly tongue in cheek suggestion just mention you're expecting and everyone and his dog will weigh in with name suggestions, which will give you some additional ideas

We did this:

I went through a baby name book from A-Z to select names I liked. That resulted in about 30 girls names and fewer boys names. I then gave the list to DH who highlighted the ones of those he liked enough to be a first name and in a different colour the ones that he liked enough to be a middle name. He only liked 3 boys' names and two of those were related names so we really had the boy's name sorted. We then lived with the list of girls names for a while until one became a clear favourite and we had two to choose from for the middle name. When DD arrived I just looked at DH and said the full name I wanted and he had no desire to argue with me having seen me give birth.

Is there anyone among your family or close friends you would like to honour by naming your child after them? Usually a middle name. Can be a very meaningful thing to do. My grandaughter is named for me (her MN), and I really did feel honoured when I was told, it was a lovely thing to do

Or anything other special and important thing you want to commemorate...places, events etc?

Think how many syllables might sound nice with your surname. Any initials you want to avoid because it spells out something rude?

Any theme you want a name to have? Some people want their children to have biblical names, or 'nature' names or old fashioned names etc

Get a long list of names, a baby name book, read this forum and just look for names you really like the sound of for your baby

DS - just a name that we both liked , incidentally that was my grandmothers brothers name , I never knew him .
My married name is my Grandmas maiden name , so DS has the same Christian name , and surname !

DD , has my Mums name , I had 2 nephews with my Dads name as a middle name , so we wanted Mums name in there somewhere , if we had a girl .

We did ! and we liked the name .

Mum was Jennifer , always known as Jenny ,

DD is Jennifer Grace , after Mum and Grandma , always known as Jen

Think of the sound of the name or if you have relatives with good names and if you could imagine calling a child that name forever!

I like short strong names for boys

Zac
Max
Josh
Finn
Theo
Sam
Tom

But longer frillier names for girls

Romilly
Clemency
Oriele
Annabel
Isabella
Madeleine

Any of these grab you?

As soon as you mention you a pregnant everyone seems to have an opinion on their favourite name. Pick a few names from the top 100 names, are their any that you like?

Congratulations!

We considered meanings first, and then did some research into the names associated with them until we found ones we liked the sound of.

Others go for popularity (or lack thereof) and others again look for something that sounds nice (irrespective of meaning/popularity).