Does anyone else feel underwhelmed by the name they chose?

I think you are over thinking it.
Lots of people dislike the name their parents gave them hence why deed poll change of names are so popular.
Fashions change.
It’s not that big a deal.
Nobody is going to say I’m not being friends with you and don’t ever try and contact any of my friends either, because they dislike your name.
Some names are silly and the parents are to blame. I’m talking about names such as Michael Hunt or Annette Curtain type names.
In another 20 years you will probably prefer a different name altogether, that’s just life.

Which country is that? I do know a very small number of people who go by their middle names, but they happen to be English, like me. They intrigue me for some reason.

There are so many lovely names out there that I sometimes think of other names I might have named DD. But it helps that she thinks most of them are awful!

DD and I both did ancestry DNA tests and if anything, it showed that I chose the right name for her as it's a name that would work in many of the countries where she apparently has ancestry.

Where I live (country in the UK) kids are named one thing then called by their middle name anyways. Do do that
then let him choose which he prefers when he’s older

If it helps at all: this is just the name you chose while he couldn't speak or name himself and it isn't legally binding. He can pick any name he wants, whenever he wants. And so can you. A piece of paper means nothing. Call him whatever you want.

My friend started to use her middle name in childhood - and now it’s stuck so maybe your son will have the final word? I have always had a bit of regret about my DD’s name which my husband sort of sprung on me suddenly after the birth. He’d been non-committal about the names I was suggesting through pregnancy (with twins so there were two sets of names!!) so I just went with it but never really connected with it. I recently downloaded the novel The Names on Audible but slightly worried it might reignite my baby name regret so haven’t listened to it yet….!! Names are so imbued with meaning it’s not really the name itself but what we attach to it.

I think the names I really loved were the names I gave my two cats and seemed inappropriate to name my twins the same 😂- which is a life’s lesson don’t give your favourite names to your pets before having kids!!!

If it makes you feel any better, I was exactly the same as you and wished I'd used my dd's middle name as her first name, it bothered me for years and years. She's 9 now and finally I no longer regret it. Couldn't even imagine her being called her middle name now.

My 20 year old hated her name and changed it when she was 16. I agonised over her name for months! My second we chose one we liked but we're not over the moon about and now we all love it! In the end it doesn't matter too much.

i understand - I actually love both of my childrens names but I also have a name I love more that I wished I had used. My husband actively doesn’t like it though so I could never have used it. Annoyingly a friend used that name for her son and I feel very slightly jealous whenever I see her (not often) and she talks about her son, which is bonkers as she never even knew I wanted that name. I also would have called DS2 by a different name if I could go back and change things - bot because I don’t love his name, but because by chance and habit we ended up calling him the diminutive of another Christian name just as a nickname and that had really stuck. So I sort of wish I had just called him by the proper name of his nickname if that makes sense. Only because we end up having to explain that his proper name is actually something totally different and not related, or having to explain why he hs a different name for sports clubs etc.

Cheers

So how did you come up with them in the first place? Or do you mean they’re words, just not usually used as names?

I once knew a Whistle. And I used to teach a Friday whose middle names on the university records were her date and month of birth.

• couldn't HAVE. Never, ever OF.

I haven't heard the names elsewhere.

Admittedly, they didn't like their names so much during primary school, but they enjoy them now.

Baby 1: exasperated compromise choice chosen weeks after he was born due to family pressure to get on with it. Went very popular after we named him. Still hope I might change it. He’s a grown adult now so odds are we probably won’t. 😉

Baby 2: Perfect name I’d always wanted to use for a girl. She shortens it and calls herself something else.

Baby 3: Compromise name. Regret not being braver.

Ultimately none of my ‘feelings’ matter, they are who they are now.

Luckily my daughter doesn't feel the same way, I call her by her middle name and first name. Also nicknames, it's all meant affectionately and she's happy about it.

So literally no one has ever been named those names before your children?

I love the names I chose for my kids, as they're unique.

Give it a few years, it matters less and less as they get older, tbh. Other things become more important. I’d name my dc something completely different if I was picking their names now. They’re 24 & 20, so I doubt they’d let me change them, lol.

Yes I feel the same. I had a daughter and a son and named them my favourite names. We had our third and the whole pregnancy I thought about names. It was so hard having already used my favourite names. I had a name I fell in love with for my third but my DH vetoed it. The names we loved, the other hated. So we eventually had to compromise and pick a name we were both only ok with. I still think about it quite a lot. I think maybe it would have been better to pick one of the names that at least one of us liked. I’m not sure how you pick who though.

I like my kids names well enough. They aren't my 'love' names but I wonder if I love the names not used more because they sound exotic to me rather than the names we use every day. All names are a bit of a compromise really. Some of the compromises weren't even with DH but what went ok with our surname- it is a word in itself think like 'Green' so any names that also had a word meaning were instantly out. For instance I loved the idea of Coral, Skye or Autumn for a girl but... just no... it sounded ridiculous.

I loved and still love the names I chose but I'm not necessarily ecstatic with the choices. For child 1, their name soared in popularity since being born and there are so many with the same name now. For child 2, people consistently get it wrong. Think "Mary" instead of "Marie" type thing.
So, I made the right choices for me but society makes me regretful of them at times.

What did you call your baby for 10 weeks!?

I’m never sure why people seem to feel such pressure to name their baby quickly. You don’t need to choose a name before they’re born, and you have weeks to register them. When DS was born, the register office was so busy, we didn’t get an appointment until he was ten weeks, and didn’t finally decide on his name and which order our surnames sounded best in until we were actually on our way there.

Take your time!