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Baby names

Find baby name inspiration and advice on the Mumsnet Baby Names forum.

What do you do when you can't find any names?

110 replies

Camia · 26/02/2025 07:35

I don't know if this quite belongs here so apologies if not. I'm not sure of a better place for it. I don't know what to do going forward. My partner and I are expecting our third baby and third boy soon and picking a name has been an absolute nightmare. Girl names we can agree on (so of course we have all boys lol), but neither of us have an easy time settling on boy names and really loving them and we have total opposite naming styles, and it's gotten worse with each baby. Our first was a little difficult but we got there by about 25 weeks. Our second involved a miserable amount of back and forth and frustration and finally got a first name at 39 weeks, and we picked his middle name while I was in labor. Now on #3 I feel like there's no way this poor child will ever get a name.

We literally can't even remotely agree on ANYTHING. Every single name one of us even sort of likes the other completely hates. I'm out of ideas. I've spent at least an hour or 2 every day, sometimes longer, searching for names just trying to find new name ideas we haven't seen before and ruled out, and I'm not exaggerating when I say it's been months since I've found anything new. I'm to the point of actively seeking out the rarest, wildest names I can possibly find just to find something new and they're still all ones we've already seen and said no to. I've tried finding a compromise between our naming styles and looking for names that fall somewhere in between, I've tried tweaking names one of us likes to make them more appealing to the other, I've tried catering to my partner's style and looking for names I can stand, I've lowered my own standards and gone from looking for names I love to just any name I think I could live with. He's tried to do the same with my naming style. We've tried just flat out making up a name. It's gotten us nowhere. We both agree that it's not fair to give just one of us more control over the first name, we both know we'd both end up unhappy over it knowing one of us never wanted that name. I'm beyond stressed and frustrated and the pregnancy hormones are not helping. I adore my older 2 boys' names even though they were hard to settle on, they're perfect for both of them, and I feel like the only option at this point is to give up and just pick any random name no matter how I feel about it and it breaks my heart to think of sticking my baby with a decision like that.

I might be being ridiculous from hormones and stress and sleep deprivation (the pregnancy insomnia has been terrible this time around) but I just don't know what to do. Do I just go with something my partner likes and hope it grows on me over the years? Do I try to convince him to do that and then live the rest of my life feeling horribly guilty about it? Do we just pick a name out of a hat and deal with whatever it ends up being?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Moier · 26/02/2025 16:08

Well Ryzen is a digital processor

Moier · 26/02/2025 16:00

Easy in my day.. we didn't know what we were having.
We decided if a boy he could pick the name.. if a girl me.
I won both times. Lol.
Why not draw lots?.

Emanwenym · 26/02/2025 15:53

It's used, or was about 75 years ago, but is not of Welsh origin. Alwyn, Edwyn and Oswyn aren't either.

TwoRobins · 26/02/2025 15:50

Those names!!!

Your husband is DBU!

MusicalChairsNameChange · 26/02/2025 15:36

Er...yes it is!

Emanwenym · 26/02/2025 15:32

MusicalChairsNameChange · 26/02/2025 15:29

Your partner's suggestions seem a bit Lord of the Rings to me. That made me wonder if perhaps Welsh names might be the way to go - unusual enough to suit his taste, but still real names:

Rhydian
Gwilym
Gethin
Aneirin
Gruffydd
Osian
Llywelyn
Owain
Elwyn

Elwyn isn't Welsh, and some of the others are, or have been, very popular in Wales.

MusicalChairsNameChange · 26/02/2025 15:29

Your partner's suggestions seem a bit Lord of the Rings to me. That made me wonder if perhaps Welsh names might be the way to go - unusual enough to suit his taste, but still real names:

Rhydian
Gwilym
Gethin
Aneirin
Gruffydd
Osian
Llywelyn
Owain
Elwyn

Emanwenym · 26/02/2025 15:11

@TweedCoat , most of your names are classic names that don't suggest anything much about the parents. I'd probably be happy to use about half of them, and the ones I wouldn't would be because I know too many or they don't go with my surname. I wouldn't use many of the current top 20, because either I don't like them or I know far too many already.

OP's suggestions are not to my taste. The only one I think is OK is Tristan, but her DP's suggestions are far too weird.

Neurotoxic · 26/02/2025 15:03

Vesper
Azriel
Espen
Kyron
Uriah
Good luck!

LadeedahYadaYada · 26/02/2025 14:51

call it "boy" or "girl"

TweedCoat · 26/02/2025 14:19

@Emanwenym and @AmiablePedant that made me laugh!

To be honest I was only half-joking. Those names must be a rarity now and would make a pleasant change.

I think some of current name choices must weigh heavy on children... what if your name was Orion or Atlas but you just liked a quiet life?!

Happyinarcon · 26/02/2025 13:54

This might be an unpopular opinion but I always felt that the mother got to pick the name, as payback for the 9 months pregnancy and childbirth. I put together a short list and allowed my husband to veto any he absolutely hated but the choice was ultimately mine and he could pick the middle name.
Having said that, judging by your husband’s choices, I would totally have let my husband pick a name from the Blakes 7 series and sometimes wish we did.

cheseandme · 26/02/2025 13:49

Camia · 26/02/2025 09:17

I seem to be going for Ns a lot with this baby. Not necessarily starting with N but N somewhere in the name. No particular reason but it is a pattern I've noticed. And I did like the Ry part of Ryzen, but looked at other Ri/Ry names (Riley, Ryder, Rylan/Ryland, etc) and none of them really jumped out at me

Laurence/ Laurie?

user1492757084 · 26/02/2025 13:41

Ideas..
Roland - Roly
Redmond - Red, Blue
Clive
Zephyr
Hartley
Xan
Victor
Larkspur
Zoren
Caspian - Blue
Cerulean
Zelman - like Sir Zelman Cowen
Oriel
Duncan
Basil

GreyhoundGal1 · 26/02/2025 13:32

Me and my husband also did the ranking thing to decide on a name, suits her perfectly.

What about: Avery, Bryn, Gavin, Daryl, Dorian, Emrys, Percival, Ambrose, Remus, Atlas, Orion, Atticus, Alfonzo, Denzel

Longingforspringtime · 26/02/2025 13:27

Have you looked into your family history? I've some great names in mine. Aquila, Jeptha and Ready all used for generations. You might have some interesting ones. DH's family had Valentine and Sampson for centuries.

YouveGotAFastCar · 26/02/2025 13:13

heroinechic · 26/02/2025 13:02

I saw this tip on tiktok, ask chat GPT.

Say something like "give me names with the same vibe and frequency of use as X and X" and insert the names of your sons. It will give you a list of ten or so names. It gave us some great ideas!

Ehhh I've tried this a bit and he just randomly picks names really. If there's an obvious theme - Polish names or biblical names or whatever - he has a decent go, but otherwise it's a random selection of names.

YouveGotAFastCar · 26/02/2025 13:12

Soren?

I think you're going to need to take into account the names of your other children, too, so something really bizarre isn't going to go. I know you were deliberately vague, but using the numbers you gave, the 500th most popular boys name last year was Maxim, and the 700th was Caspar. Ryzen doesn't really go with them...

I'm the same type of person as you, I think, I know some people prefer to wait until the baby is here, but I never have. I'm now 33 weeks and we don't have a set name yet, and it does stress me out, although thankfully DH's suggestions are objectively fine, just not the names I'd choose if that makes sense? So if we end up going for one of them, I know I'll be okay with it.

Can he suggest any names he thinks you might like, that he also does?

heroinechic · 26/02/2025 13:02

I saw this tip on tiktok, ask chat GPT.

Say something like "give me names with the same vibe and frequency of use as X and X" and insert the names of your sons. It will give you a list of ten or so names. It gave us some great ideas!

VerityUnreasonble · 26/02/2025 12:53

DalzielOrNoDalzielAndDontPascoe · 26/02/2025 09:48

Ryzen is the name of a huge range of computer processing chips used worldwide - the main competitor to Intel. It could be a bit like calling your child Pentium or Quadcore!

People could start referring to you as his Motherboard Grin

This was my first thought, that it would be an interesting choice to name a DC after my CPU.

Radeon, however, is a lovely name for a boy. Nvidia for a girl maybe.

MatchaTea1 · 26/02/2025 12:52

Camia · 26/02/2025 09:11

Thank you everyone else for the suggestions. There are a few names suggested here that I do kind of like but we can't use for various reasons (we actually talked very briefly about Caspian at one point but it's very very similar to our cat's name so that ruins it for both of us unfortunately, and a couple others are names of close relatives, etc.) I'm making notes of some of the ideas to try and see if they help us either find new ideas or reconsider old ones. I'm sure we'll eventually find something that clicks with both of us and feels right like the other boys' names did but the process is just exhausting.

For those questioning my partner's taste in names his logic is that unusual names are so common nowadays that by time the baby's whole age group is school age/grown up they won't stand out as much as we immediately assume they will, and in the end other people's opinions of the name aren't top priority as long as there's no completely horrible common association. Which I get. They're definitely far from the weirdest names I've come across meeting kids around where we are. I'm just trying to find a middle ground that suits both of our styles.

I’m have to admit that your partner’s name choices did make me do a double take - there are unusual names then there are names like Killua, Ryzen, and Zyren that sound like the names of alien races from Star Trek. I disagree that names like that won’t stand out in the future, they will. You just have to look at the top 50 names to see that more traditional names are still being used by the majority of parents. Sadly he would be judged his whole life with bonkers names like that. I like your list though, unusual enough names without being too out there!

Emanwenym · 26/02/2025 12:41

AmiablePedant · 26/02/2025 12:34

I think you were in primary school with me! I do feel nostalgic for "ordinary" names!

All those sounds like lads in my year at school apart from Vincent, who would have been their dodgy uncle.

AmiablePedant · 26/02/2025 12:34

TweedCoat · 26/02/2025 09:15

Just putting these out there...

Andrew
James
David
Anthony
Stephen
John
Richard
Jonathan
Mark
Michael
Paul
Daniel
Peter
Vincent
Graham

I think you were in primary school with me! I do feel nostalgic for "ordinary" names!

Mumofgirls2017 · 26/02/2025 11:47

Wow v different tastes. May I suggest…

toren
loki
kit
zachary
zenith
remy
dexter
everett
griffin
fletcher
rio
rudy
xander
river
ludo
asher
august
orion
phoenix

potatodumpling · 26/02/2025 11:29

I was never any good at choosing names in advance, my third child just got called "the baby" for his first three weeks until we decided on a name. 😂