What factors do you consider...

Irish / english couple here and the main criteria is that it sounds ok in both our accents 😂😂 my accent makes some names sound absolutely awful. I love Nathaniel for example but I butcher it in my accent.

I wasn't that bothered about popularity but I lean towards harder, non-vowel-y names which aren't currently the vogue anyway.

My preferences have changed. As a child I liked to make up my own and remember vowing to my Mum that I'd name a future daughter "Jemeenie", and twins "George and Georgina". Thankfully grew out of that.

I found a list of names from only a few years ago. A lot I still like, but others have fallen down the list/I wonder what I was thinking. I'm not sure what effected the change. Maybe just getting older and meeting or reading about people or characters with names that make me feel positively or negatively about their names.

Husband and I had few criteria beyond both liking it. That was hard enough!

Our criteria are (and were):

• outside of top 100
• works in 3 languages
• sounds good with our surname
• we love the name!

I’m a bit of a name geek (Modern Languages graduate and love words and language generally) so my favourites change quite regularly depending on what I’m reading, who I’ve met with that name etc.

My tastes have definitely changed over time - a decade ago I’d have favoured longer, more feminine and frilly names like Cassia, Saskia, Clementine and Ophelia. By the time we got round to naming DD though I much preferred shorter, simple, vintage style names and nature names, and we deliberately opted for something that didn’t sound too ‘girly’ (not unisex, just substantial and not frilly).

Our criteria were reasonably unusual (outside top 100), adaptable to different walks of life, simple and easy to spell, nice meaning and worked fairly well internationally.

My choices have changed based on being exposed to new names through cultures and reading ect. I've also changed my favourites based on real people that I know, both good and bad.
That said when I'm chosing names I think about, spelling, pronunciation, meaning, how common is it, will it age well and do I like it.
I like names that are easy to spell, not to common but no unheard of, easy to pronounce, suits a person at every stage of life and isn't some made up nonsense that no one will ever get right so lumbering my child with having to explain constantly