my other half has truly horrible taste in names.

"Max Power"? for real? he's taking the mickey surely?

My husband suggested Karen and Gillian for girls. They're perfectly nice names but I think they both belong to people who are well over 35 not a small child. I just ignored him and picked the name I wanted.

My DH wanted Barrington if we had a boy, or Troy (which has suddenly been made fashionable by HSM but was unheard of then), or Colin (which was OK in 1960, I guess).

Luckily we have two girls

If my Dh had had his way our DCs would be Mordecai and Torsten. Instead DD has a toy monkey called Mordecai and DS has a bear called Torsten

Oh dear... are you sure he's ready to be a father !

Arthur is nice, but he'll only end up shortening it to Art anyway.

Personally I don't like Orla because it's an anagram of Oral... not very good connotations...also reminds me of Orca the whale. Heaven forbid she'd ever have a weight problem!

Come on, throw us a few more suggestions

Not that I'm having a baby or anything, but I do like flower names, and driving home tonight I was admiring some snowdrops.....

Wouldn't Snowdrop be the cutest???

Actually, I know a couple of Evangelines as the name is not that unusual here in France...
We actually for a mad moment considered calling no. 1 Caspar...but then we had a girl anyway so it didn't matter. By the time no. 2 came along, our son, we had moved to France where Caspar would be "Gaspard" so that one went out of the window and we ended up going for good ol' solid biblical names both times!

I always rather liked Evangeline, however I don't watch much tv so don't connect it to that. I first came across the name in some 19th century poetry and thought it very pretty.

Good luck Monkeyfeathers - and thanks for sharing with the rest of us! I think Orla and Aidan would be lovely.

If he's into jazz it might be Blind Lemon next, or how doe you feel about a tribute to the late great Humphrey Lyttleton? Might be time to do some research ...

PS what about Arlo for a boy? It's even an anagram of Orla!

Ah that might explain it, though MIL and baby's grandparents would probably be none the wiser!

Evenstar - sounds like your cousins spent too many nights in watching Lost while pregnant. My DH keeps thinking Evangeline should be on the girl's list. The power of television.

Elagabulus is brilliant honeydew. Tempted to run it past DH for a joke, but worried he might actually like it

I have just heard from mother in law this morning that cousins have named their first born son Sawyer. My MIL is convinced that he will suffer torments at school and I was a bit , what on earth will it get shortened to? I felt sorry for my aunt's new grandchild being called Rocco, but I think he got off lightly in comparison.

Slevin- has your DH ever seen a film called 'Lucky Number Slevin' with Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman which came out a couple of years ago? It's a mafia crime thriller that won a few awards.

I've not seen it but I've never heard of the name Slevin before so I looked it up as I was curious and that's what came up.

Slevin? No- absolutely not. He'll get teased in the playground which wouldn't be fair.

My mother wanted me to call my son Aragorn from Lord of the Rings -needless to say I ignored her advice! I do actually like it but couldn't lumber my child with that.

Perhaps if I were a celebrity I'd consider it!

Art-no but Arthur, yes.
Ace- no no no no and no
Orla- yes quite nice and feminine.

lemonstartree- Vespaisian?!!!!! PMSL at that - it's made my evening. Perhaps your DH should have considered the alternatives too of other Roman Emperors such as Elagabalus, Hadrian, Gordian, Septimius Severus or perhaps even Caligula? Sorry- couldn't resist!

pmsl at Loumis, Baloo and Vespaisian.

Loumis - hillbilly
Baloo - bear, obviously
Vespaisian - the next big indie band

ex dh favoured King and Shabaz. I kind of like 'em...

my dh suggested 'Loumis' ' Baloo' and 'Vespaisian' for our first born son.

I ignored him - what else can you do - and the child is called Jacob..

take charge - after the birth

My XDP wanted Grizelda for DD. Emphasis on "X". Apologies to any Grizeldas out there. Probably few, mercifully.
Orla is a lovely name.

I actually persuaded my DH to read a baby name book from cover to cover. He finished it, declared it crap and decided he only liked one name in the whole book (apparently Valeri, Sword etc weren't in there). I have conceded that he can have that one name as a middle name for next DC (even if it is a bit ).

I came up with a list of about fifteen names i liked. Handed this to DH who liked none of them

He then suggested two names. One i really disliked and the other I loved, but avoided because of family issues on my side.

We chose that name.

lol at orla and alan (euphemisms, not names) but please link to the site so I can larf my hooves off

Men should not name children.

Arthur is a nice name.

For girls I'd suggest something more old fashioned like Alexandra, Madeleine, Elizabeth, Victoria.

Well my dd is Orla, so what about my ds name, Kit, if it's a boy? Yes, your husbnd's names are gross!

After approximately 40,000 hours of discussion on each occasion, DP and I have managed to name three children. there will be some tiny subset of names you can agree on. But it may take you a long long time to find them.

I know an ART his full name is Arthur.

Arthur Ashe = first black man to win wimbledon singles.

Apparently, also cockney rhyming slang for having a slash though...