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Original poster

Naming your child

35 replies

Bobje · 15/10/2024 15:22

What was the thinking for your choice/s?

Family name?
Inspired by a song? (This seemed to be quite popular in the 70s/80s apparently!)
Only name you and partner could agree on?

We're over this stage now as kids are teens, but family members are in the midst of it.
Said it's much easier to name a pet! 😅

OP posts:
MaltipooMama · 15/10/2024 15:44

I always had a looooong list of girls names that I loved, so when I found out we were having a boy I was stumped! However I'd loved the name Tommy since I was little after first hearing it on Power Rangers haha and my partners middle name is Thomas so it worked out quite well, and then my son's middle name is my partner's first name. He's 10 months old now and it feels like the name suits him perfectly!

TheNoodlesIncident · 15/10/2024 15:56

Our first name choice was because 1) we both liked it and 2) it would work across Europe as well as UK. (Not sure why I thought dc would be a roamer across Europe/the world, but he does like travel and nobody's ever had difficulty pronouncing his name, so...)

Middle name is the middle name of DH, FIL, Great grandad and probably another ancestor back there. Unfortunately DS not so keen on his middle name and is unimpressed at the length of time it's been used as a middle name in his family. Fortunately he does like his first name, so not so bad.

I had far more girls' names that I really liked, I found it a lot harder finding a boy name. And we didn't even get to name the cat as she already had one and I didn't feel I could change it!

GameOfJones · 15/10/2024 16:13

I thought boys' names were much tougher than choosing girls' names. For us the considerations were:

A name that is easy to spell, pronounce and that everyone knows (I have an unusual name and always hated that people would struggle to pronounce it. Especially new teachers reading the register when I was at school!)

But not so common that there would be loads of them with the same name.

Middle names are family names. DD1's middle name is my mum's name and DD2's middle name was DH's grandmother's name.

No names that make weird initials.

Had to flow with our surname.

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Families
IggyAce · 15/10/2024 16:20

Wanted nice but not too popular, dc1 name wasn’t even in top 50 when we named her, however we were slightly ahead of the curve and it ballooned in popularity. Due to her been a September born she ended up been 1 of 3 with the same name.
DC2 was given a more usual name that’s more popular in the US, he’s now a teen and the only one in his secondary of over 200 with that name.
Middle names for me couldn’t be boring filler names, I have one of those. So as a result both dcs have long middle names that easily could have been their first name.

Original poster
Bobje · 15/10/2024 16:24

@MaltipooMama that's so cool, I hope your little boy likes the fact that his name was inspired by the Power Rangers 😁

Yes, we found girls names much easier.
Our formula seems to have been -

Favourite name we both liked + family name in the middle.

Definitely took care to be wary of initials spelling dodgy words and each child had their own initial letter.
We are a family for nicknames though, so it is quite rare we actually used full proper names, after all that consideration 😆

OP posts:
thewalrus · 15/10/2024 17:07

First names were names we liked. We wanted Welsh names, but only came up with one we liked enough for one child. All easy to say and spell. None of them super-popular.

Middle names have some sort of significance. Two of my children (twins) have the same middle name. It was DH's brother's name who died when I was pregnant with them.

Tomorrowillbeachicken · 15/10/2024 17:08

He’s named after my grandfather and my husbands grandfather

TickingAlongNicely · 15/10/2024 17:10

DD1 is named after where my Mother grew up
DD2... we ended up making a list of 10 names each, and it was the only one we agreed on.

Both middle names are after amazing women in the family.

WillimNot · 15/10/2024 17:13

DD: first name named after late MIL, middle name is my grandmothers name
DS: named after DH, middle names DHs late father and his older brothers.

Do I like the names? DS suits his, DD isn't a fan of theirs and has been known by a nickname for yonks. Now they're near on 18 they have the unisex shortened version of their actual name.

Personally hated mine growing up so refuse to moan at DD.

Thecomfortador · 15/10/2024 17:18

Child 1 we went through the alphabet. Middle name is a name I don't like but DP wanted for first name so I compromised.
Child 2 we went for one of the Chipmunks, obviously. Middle name is after a relative who died before child was born.

Allthehorsesintheworld · 15/10/2024 17:18

Have never told DD1 she is named after a dog I knew. A very beautiful dog.
DD2 was only name DH and I could agree on.

LiberteaRo · 15/10/2024 17:19

We both wanted quite traditional 'solid' names for DS1 and 2. Easy to spell, no pronunciation issues etc. And ones we liked obviously.

Middles names are family names in both cases.

I seem to be the opposite from everyone else in that I find girls names much harder!

reluctantbrit · 15/10/2024 17:36

It was awful.

DH wanted a germanic/scandinavian name. I wanted one you can pronounce and write without having to spell it all the time.

We wanted one which can be used in Germany and Britain, short to not have an automatic nickname option, not in the top 50, it took ages.

Luckily we have a girl as we both weren't keen on the boy's name we finally agreed on.

And then - 13 years later DD decided to re-name herself and chose a name a really traditional name, lots of nickname options and one I definitely wouldn't have chosen myself.

She will be 18 next year and plans to change it permanently.

user1471538283 · 15/10/2024 17:41

My DS was named after a character in a book (it's a very traditional name) and then two family names. If he were a girl he would have been named after a poet's daughter and two family names. I chose them all. It's really sweet that he prefers the long version of his name!

TeamPolin · 15/10/2024 18:23

Both of us wanted a traditional name and nothing that sounded 'nicknamey'. I was also keen to avoid anything in the current top 20 as DH was one of 4 kids in his class with the same name and I didn't want DS to suffer a similar fate.

In the end we could only agree on two names. And DH let me have the final say. I still like it 11 years on.

Original poster
Bobje · 15/10/2024 18:34

@user1471538283 I remember a friend at junior school telling me she was named Amy from 'Little Women', but she would've much preferred Jo(-sephine)!

OP posts:
originnew · 15/10/2024 18:41

Before dc we went to a museum with Dh in my home country and I explained about painting showing a scene from national epic. I told the girls name and Dh said oh thats a nice one. So when we were thinking baby names we both agreed that that would be girls name.

8misskitty8 · 15/10/2024 18:42

We chose names that weren’t in the family so no-one would claim they were named after them. No middle names either.
Our girls have ‘old’ names that came back into popularity for a couple of years after they were born.
In their high school there was a couple of children with the same name but in different years out of over 1000 pupils.

SpaceJamtart · 15/10/2024 19:19

Names we liked, that had one recognised spelling and went well with our surname.
I had identical twins so did purpously choose names that had different letters and sounds so they didn't sound 'samey' but tried to make them a similar style of name so neither stood out as having the prettier or more normal name.

TheBirdintheCave · 15/10/2024 19:19

Our criteria for first names:

A name that is known but never heard so ideally outside of the top 1000.

Our children are Gilbert and Marcella :)

Their middle names are family honour names.

Moveoverdarlin · 15/10/2024 19:25

I’ve just always known what names I liked. My son is named after a name I loved since I was probably about ten and my two daughters are similar. All middle names are family names.

I like a name to be a proper name, so nothing made up or spelt funny but not be too popular. I hate the trend for surnames as Christian names like Barnes, Tyler, Parker.

I always find it bonkers the amount of name threads are on Mumsnet. People saying help me or suggestions to go with the surname Johnson. I find it crazy that you don’t know what names you like and you need strangers to come up with suggestions.

StressedQueen · 15/10/2024 19:29

dd1 and dd2: Identical twins so wanted names that were quite different and didn't start with the same letter or have any similar names. Ended up just choosing 2 names that I really love. Middle names were after my favourite flower and then after my mother.

ds1: Literally the only boy name we could settle on. I loved soo many more but DH hated them all and was only adamant on the most horrific of names and we settled on this as we both liked it. Middle name was a shortened version of my father's name as we decided we wanted all of our children's middle names to be 4 letters and 1 syllable randomly!

dd4: Wanted a very similar one but thought it was too close to Christmas, and dd1's name already went with Christmas, so went with the more popular, basic version. Middle name was a virtue name because that's what she was to us 😊

dd5: Watched a Disney movie and could not move our minds off of it and it still suits her immensely and is gorgeous. Middle name is because we realised that for our first 4, they all had middle names that matched the starting letter of one of their siblings and there was only dd2 whose letter hadn't been used so we made a 4 letter, 1 syllable name that started with that letter and it is honestly quite random really.

I like that their middle names match so well honestly and that their first names are really different!

PurpleChrayn · 15/10/2024 19:30

For our daughter we went through every female name in the Jewish bible and discounted any that were too popular and ordinary (Hannah, Rachel, Sarah) or out-there (Tzipporah, Hefzibah, Yocheved).

For our son it was easier as my DH wanted to name after his late father and luckily I loved the name.

hangingonfordearlife1 · 15/10/2024 21:49

Bobje · 15/10/2024 18:34

@user1471538283 I remember a friend at junior school telling me she was named Amy from 'Little Women', but she would've much preferred Jo(-sephine)!

my sister is amy elizaBETH, i am joanna megan ( we are the little women)

Soubriquet · 15/10/2024 22:01

There was a little girl who had this name when I worked in a nursery school and I quite liked it. I wanted something that began with an M too and the fact she was a nice girl and I don’t remember her having any major tantrums made me want to pick the name. Dh liked it and that was it.

Ds was initially going to be called Bobby. (Yes we are supernatural fans). However we was watching Angel and a name was mentioned on there. Dh immediately fell in love with it and kept trying to talk me round to it. At first it was no we are sticking with Bobby but then I started to have dreams where I was calling the children down using dh’s chosen name. So we used it