How did you chose your baby girl names...?

We had awful trouble with a girls name. Had loads ready for a boy.

Ended up noticing the word 'Jasmine' on the shower gel a couple of days before she was born and changed it to 'Jazmine' because we both like Z's!

Now she is 3 and mainly called 'Jaz' and we're both still really happy with it

Our process: ruled out any top 100 from last five years, ruled out any former bitchy friends/acquaintances/work colleagues etc, ruled out names of close friends/family, recent newborns

Then made a very short list of names we found acceptable. Double checked for embarrassing acronyms, lurking serial killers, any other dodgy connations e.g. horrible celebrities.

This pretty much left us with about 5 for each sex and luckily we liked some of them!

Forgot to add:

Cordelia
Nuala

I chose Natalie cos I have liked it since I was little.

But I have two boys so didn't use it!

I have a Laura Isobel but other names that I love now are:

Eliza
Clara
Harriet
Elizabeth (Libby)
Verity
Penelope
Nina

OOOH! should've gone for Rani, can't find it on lucicles list, only Rania.

Others we thought of and were the previous list before our short list were

Gaya(he liked, I didn't, not on the list either though)

Mercedes

Gabrielle

Gabriella

We decided on a shortlist of 4 the night before dd was born (elective cs), and when she was born, we knew instantly what to call her.

V. weird.

I know people get in a tizz about names being too popular but my DD's is at number 41 on Lucicle's list but that only means that 1180 babies - not too many really!

(I won't be saying that when there's 4 in her class!!)

I love Violet btw - DH wasn't convinced. Edith (Edie) is lovely too x

This is v interesting.

I always said I would call a dd Matilda from about aged 4 (loved Roald Dahl) but we chose the Germanic spelling Mathilda. It is becoming extremely popular now which saddens me a little.

Her middle names are her Great Granny's name (deceased)- Beatrice- and her aunt's name- Rose.

I like old lady names like Iris, Mabel, Martha, Edith etc.

solo - I used to have a Guinea Pig called Rani!

I had decided on my dd1 name years ago - always wanted a Katherine. Luckily dh loved it - we toyed with her being known as Erin, but when we saw her she was a Katherine!! She gets Kath a lot now. Or Kathy from her friends. Her middle name is Morna - a gaelic name which means 'well loved'. We actually had a bit of trouble deciding between the 2 as a first name, and the morning after we had decided on the order I went into labour - I could relax!

Dd2 (dc3) is named after people - Rachel after dh's Grandma, who died 2 weeks before she was born, and Jessie after my Gran who was alive at the time but is now dead.

They are not trendy or popular names but we love them. Our surname is so odd that they needed a nice strong plain name to go with it!

Short listed

Miriam(my Grandma's name)
Hannah
Grace
Lydia
Rani

Actually took two of these to be her middle names, but called her Willow.

Dazedemma, if you are worried about a name bing popular - and Matilda is very popular btw - do an internet search on top 100 names for girls, and don't use any of 'em.

I worked by a process of elimination!

Nothing in the top 50 (I'm a teacher and have seen some of the awful nicknames kids can get when they are one of 5 Bens in the same class for example), so that knocked out a lot of names from the start.

Second, I wanted a name that my daughter could change if she did not like it. Girls can be so funny about names and I know a lot of girls / women (myself included) who do not like their names, so I wanted to give her the option to choose a pet name if she wanted to.

Thirdly, I didn't want a name that would date. So I avoided anything really 'now' or that people would later say was so 'Noughties' like people do with Sharon and Karen of my generation.

That said, I did want something that fitted in with the general feel for now - nothing that would stand out too much.

Then I avoided any names that were to either extreme of the class divide. Nothing too pompous or naff. Just a nice normal name that most people have a pleasant perception of.

I wanted something that was feminine but not too girlie. So I avoided anything with a y/ie ending - not professional enough for your hard hitting buisness woman!

We also wanted (hubby more that me) names that didn't sound too off the wall or foreign - that the child would be spelling for the rest of their lives.

Once we narrowed all that down, we just went with something we liked.

i love the name stella, very of anyone who uses it but it does not match my last name (no its not artois)

We had a boy's name settled very early in the pregnancy - a slightly codgerish name on both sides of the family tree - but took much longer to decide on a girl's name. Mr MBDK vetoed my first choice (my grandma's name) because he thought it was too aristocratic and from then on we brainstormed names. I winced at most of his suggestions and he winced at most of mine. Eventually, we arrived at two we could agree on - the one we used and Stella.

She has dh paternal nanna's name for a first name, and my two nan's had the same middle name (Ruth) so we gave her that as her middle name. Many years later she had to choose her confirmation name, and she chose her dad's maternal nanna's name (Catherine) as her confirmation name. So all dd's names are after her Great Nan's

we just loved it!

We never had a short list as we were convinced that we were having a 10lb baby boy! lol

Turned out we had a 6lb baby girl. We had floated the idea of a baby girl and thought of aaliyah or amelia. When DD was born DP went home and looked on the internet and found that Aaliyah (RnB singer who died in a plane crash) had been born on the same day as DD, also if you have no name for your baby they put baby girl on the slip. Aaliyah's nickname was babygirl so it stuck!!

Jessica!

my name isn't mentioned here.

Very glad as it has been in several recent old lady threads!

Don't laugh, but i found dd's name on a gravestone while i was out on a walk - "much missed by daughter Erin.." I said "that's it!" and thank God dh like it too...