Children's names - special meaning or because they're nice names?

[ComeOnEileen11]

DC2 arrived recently and people have been asking why we chose the name and what the special meaning is.
We chose it because it's a lovely name, but it doesn't have a special meaning to us (apart from the obvious that it's our child's name now!).
It got me thinking about whether I'm unusual in this i.e. just choosing a pretty name.

DC1s middle name did have a special meaning as it was after a dear deceased relative.

My criteria were Celtic, known but not massively popular, ageless, have a strong consonant sound and had to have a positive meaning but I didn't have a set meaning in mind. For example however nice I thought it Dolores would never have been an option due to its meaning.

DS1's name was the name of a fictional character from a film I loved when I was little (not He-Man). His middle name is my Dads middle name and sounds lovely with the first name.

DS2's name was the name of another fictional character from a film I loved when I was little (also not He-Man) and his middle name is my favourite Uncle's name.

They both have special meaning to me but not to DH - I think he just went "yep, like that" because he wants an easy life and chooses his battles wisely.

It also fit my insanely fussy criteria about names needing to be able to fit them through childhood to work to old age!

And absolutely this! I thought long-term about how their names might impact upon their lives and chose ones I loved which would see them through til old age, too!

First names are names we liked.

Middle names all have some (person or place) significance.

I have an unusual first name and people often ask where it's from. The answer is a baby naming book!

Our DC names don't have any special meaning - just names we loved. We still do - therefore that's their "meaning."

First names are just names we liked, no meaning behind them. Middle names are "family" names.

Both my DM and MIL shared a first name so that made DD1s middle name an easy choice!

Both DC names are lovely, but also have nice meanings. I did know what they were but can remember now!

DS1 - first name was from the movie we went to watch on the night we conceived him (we didn’t pick it for that reason but we said oh that’s a nice name for a boy). MN1 was after a historical person I based my Undergraduate dissertation on, MN2 was DH’s pick after I read it out from a baby name book.

DS2 - First name was after the Christmas teddy bear that DH bought me from Harrod’s on our first trip away to London (I loved the name anyway and the sentimentality sweetened the deal). MN1 was a name that DH liked (again after I read it out from a baby name book), MN2 was a longer variation of a name associated with a musician we both liked (think Alexander instead of Alex etc) which also happened to be the name of the grandfather I never got to meet.

All of my name contributions have some sort of meaning to them. All of DH’s were just names he liked how they sounded.

We used names we liked, that weren't already being used in our close family.

I think you do tend to get asked more about meanings, when you give a child an unusual name......... people looking for a reason you might have used such an odd unusual name.

DD's name has special meaning - female version of my dad's name, her middle name we picked because we liked it. Do sometimes wish we'd swapped them round as first name is very long whilst middle name is short.

DS' name is just because we liked it (we struggled to pick a name as DH and I had very different taste, finally settled on a name from a TV show we were watching at the time - not sure the character is one we'd really want to admit to naming him after!). His middle name is traditional in DH's family.