anyone really regret the name they chose?

OI SQUIFFY... Hannah is a fab name.

I actually think it's better for both parents to like a name than it is for one to hate it and the other to love it.

We had to do some real negotiating on the boy name and ended up with one we both liked, but not first choice for either.

The girl name was agreed in about 30 seconds.

Hi thanks yes i know you can do it up to 12 months but was just wandering wether i would have a nightmare with medical records and child benefit if it was already on the system?That was all i meant.Thanks cyteen anyway.

mumtobe2, I think someone on the first page said it's pretty easy to change names up to 12 months old

My best friend and her sister both changed their names when they were teenagers; they decided that the names their parents had given them didn't suit or represent them in any way, and just announced that from now on they'd be called and ___ . Everyone agreed and I can't even imagine them as their old names. The birth names are on their birth certs, apparently, but nothing else - when my friend got a passport she had to get letters from her bank and her dad confirming that her name is actually the new name and not the one on her birth certificate, but otherwise it's never been a problem.

I've always had tremendous respect for this act - it shows a level of self-knowledge that is pretty unusual at that age, IMO.

Now regretting my daughters name as i have hyphenated 2 names together and decided i prefer the second one(which no one uses!)It is a very popular name but i do like it and think it suits her more than the first one i chose.Wandering wether to alter her birth certificate as she is only just over 3 months old.Wondering whether it might be complicated with child benefit,medical records etc.Does anyone have any experience of this?

I felt the responsibility of naming DD very heavily. We had a (very long) shortlist before I went into labour of names that we had discussed a lot, to avoid the hormones doing something strange to me! And then we picked once we had met her and seen what she "looked like".
I do sometimes wonder if DD's name is a bit ordinary and perhaps not posh enough but it does really suit her. Her middle name is much more unusual and we will let her decide which she'll be called by when she's older.
I'm now PG again and if it's a boy then DH is keen to give him his GF's name as a middle name. It's a very old fashioned name though, and I have put my foot down because I want this baby to have the choice of two good names too.

I wish dd's hadn't become so popular although it seems to be on the wane again but I still love it. DS has the best name EVER and love that too so no I don't regret either of mine.

The one thing I would say is that children can find something silly about any name. I remember a little boy in year 2 coming in crying after playtime because some other boys were calling him Jacket potato, even ordinary names aren't safe! I do think there are some trying too hard to be different names that people give their children that their children won't thank them for though.

frannied i love gabriel its gorgeous and unusual and only real twats would call him gay-boy. I love ds name as it is unusual over here. It also means the guided one.

I do regret DS's name. I love it deeply, but I was genuinely unprepared for how much negativity we'd encounter. (It's not made up, but it's an ancient and v uncommon name, with (positive IMO) references in modern popular culture).

Anyway, it was a toss up between that name and another name which I also adore, but is more commonplace. For the sake of ease and non-confrontation and worry about 'teasing at school', I'd should probably have gone for the latter.

For our first son, DH & I compromised. I like the name but it's everywhere.

For our second, I was much ballsier about insisting I got a name I loved. DH stammered that it was only fair that we agreed on the name. I said, to make it a fair representation of the pregnancy-effort split, he could choose the first letter & I'd do all the bloody rest.

Bit feisty, eh?

Agree Paula. Wish id have gone with my heart for dd3

i changed my dc2 name (now known as)

i changed dc4 spelling (and on birth certificate)

i changed 5 dcs surname when eldest 14 and youngest 4 months

oh yes - regret dc 1 and 2

by ds 2 i had learned not to listen to the world but to go with my gut - so love dc3 4 and 5

its a hard process naming!! go with heart not head!

Hi anyone who has changed there childs name in the first 12 months how did you go on changing medical records and child benefit records etc?

I was a bit delirous after childbirth and gave my DD a delirous middle name... poor thing - i cringe when people ask me if she has a middle name so I dread to imagine how she will feel when she's older - especially because her first name is so unusual and spelt differently too - damn hormones!!!

I advised my cousin whose 9 months pregnant and without a name - not to do the same! Choose! Choose now! Before it's too late!!!!

So glad its not just me, dh said no way to loads of my names and wanted his gran's name as a middle name, so now we have an Isla Eliza, doesn't go and I agreed to it whilst recovering from pethidine, which I think was unfair, still too late really so many people know it now, shes 5 months I hope it will grow on me, my first choice was Tegan, going to fight harder next time.

Hi anyone who has changed there childs name in the first 12 months how did you go on changing medical records and child benefit records etc?

Frannied - my nephew is called Gabriel (Gabe for short) and it's a beautiful name. He doesn't get teased for it all (but then I've never known anyone be bullied for their name tbh). It's in the top 100 now as well, so it's not that rare.

My dh has a problem with names, and changed his own as he hated it, so it was never going to be easy naming our dc's. The strange thing was that, unlike my mother, who had favourite names for me and my db & used them, we ended up with names for both our children that came from goodness-knows-where. Dd was born 2 weeks before Christmas and we finally agreed on about Christmas Eve - and it was my choice, although as I say, one that came out of the blue. With ds, we had the pressure of only having a week to decide as it had to be inscribed on a commemorative brick(!), and again we ended up with a shortlist of 5 names that I'd never even considered before (hormones working??). The only logic to them was that the initials spelled LARGE, and he was a very big baby!

I do really like dd's name & think it suits her, but still have doubts about ds's and wonder how we came up with it - again, as I'd chosen dd's first name (dh chose her middle name), it didn't seem fair for me to do so again, & dh vetoed my favourite at the time (Gregory), which does now seem a bit posh, so we compromised. We were going to call dd Dominic but didn't choose that for ds as some friends had 'bagged' it, but they moved away many years ago & sometimes I wonder if that would have been better - although that's also a bit posh, I think.

The other problem we had was what surname to choose: dh wanted to use mine as his is boring & we agreed on that, but mine starts with a vowel & sounds ridiculous with lots of first names and also excludes some I liked starting with vowels. My MIL had a very unusual surname & we have wondered since whether we should have used that - although it would have been odd for the dc's to have had a different surname from either of us...

Frannied - I love Gabriel as well. I personally don't think it's worth worrying about what children will call him for a short time at school. I recall kids would tease each other about absolutely anything, being called James is highly unlikely to protect him from name calling during that 'delightful' period of adolescence.
Besides which, you sound as if you are being advised by some rather homophobic individuals - don't want to listen to them too much.
Do you call him Gabe incidentally - I love that too.

first line should of read "didnt keep the name" - think it's my bed time!

am glad we keep dd the name she had for her first day of life - BRITTANY think it's a lovely name but thanks to miss spears,think she would have a whole load of teasing

think my mum went a little odd when she had me - normal names for bro and sis( e.g. Paul and Joan )then crazy with my name - think Anastasia but weirder

hormones eh?!!

I love my dd's first name, but I wish I hadn't given my daughter the middle name 'Frances' - my first name. What possessed me to do it? I don't even like my name, never have really and I feel embarrased to tell people her middle name, like it's egotistical to have called her that. I'm always considering changing it, but it seems too scary and that I'll be making her life complicated.But I do feel I've wasted a 'name slot' - there are so many girls names I love.

Also having problems with my 17 week old ds's name - he's registered as Gabriel James, but then people (including my 95 year old Gran) said he'd be teased (Gay - briel, Gay boy etc) so we've been calling him James. Now, every where I go I hear the name James, and I don't want him to be 1 of 3 Jameses in his class, and I still love the name Gabriel.Oh what to do??!!Husband thinks I'm insane and is sick of discussing it, but he'd go with whatever I insisted on in the end.

God,I'm a freak - don't know anyone who's ever had name issues! Any opinions on the teasing etc welcomed.

We called our little boy Tyler Jay. He's only a year old but I love it as much now as I did when we picked it - completely suits him - took us 42 weeks (LOL) to come up with one we did like though!!!

Don't regret sons name, but really wished we had called him the full version rather than "just" the short one. Full version sounds more formal and although we would have rarely used it, it would have come in blimmin handy for when needing to tell him off . He would have so known when he'd done something I really didn't like if I used his full name