Do you have any 'rules' that you use/used to choose a name ?

[picklemum]

If so what were/are they ?

We had couple, like didn't want to use same intial as me or DH and, second time not same as DD1. Also ruled out 'noun' names eg Ocean even though I liked a lot of these, I thought in long term might not be appealing for the person who has it as a grown-up ( no offence to others who disagree)

Also one rule was nothing very very unusual or really weird that no-one had heard of, so to avoid the poor kid having to spell their name out all the time....

.......BUT in the end me and DH fell in love with one name when DD2 was born and gave her a v unusual name. We simply liked nothing else better.

SO did you have 'rules' ? Did you follow them ?? ?

[camaleon]

For our girl, no names that are made from a male name such as Alexandra, Julia, Carlota (in Spanish/italian is the female version of Charles) and many others

[liamsdaddy]

We ruled out any name that was already used by a relative, either as first or middle name.

This was before we had spent a year researching the family tree, considering the number of "Williams" we found...

We ruled out any name that either of us just didn't like for whatever reason, maybe associated with an unliked person or negative event.

We ruled out any combination that could be embarissing to the child later.

We tried to rule out any name that the child might later have to repeat again and again when dealing with officials due to alternative spelling/pronounciation (we failed there, because there was an alternative spelling that we hadn't spotted).

[MrsJamin]

• A name which would sound just as good as a lawyer/prime minister as it would to be a rock star or shoe sales assistant.
  
• Biblical but not too obscure.
  
• With some modern use, with both DS1 and DS2's name more popular in the USA than here.
  
• None that had been used by any friends or family.
  
• No obvious stupid rhymes
  

We followed these and I love their names more and more now.

[themonstersmum]

To avoid offending one side of the family, we choose TWO middle names for our three kids, one name from each side of the family (such as a grandparent's name), and then their 'own' first name. This does mean that they have three first names each, but that sounds rather nice.

Oh, and choose the name you want to call them first. It sound obvious, but my husband is called by one of his middle names and it gets really confusing for banks/ passports, new people you meet who want to call him by his first listed name....

[krisskross]

it has to pass the boardroom test- meaning that when they are 30 and in the boardroom the name doesnt sound stupid!

[yellowflowers]

My rules are:

Not top 20
Not in New Testament (DH is Christian but I am not so we want non religious names)
Easy to spell
Different initials to us
Not so unusual no one has heard of it
Not belonging to any living relative

[piscesmoon]

Names that I like-so that rules out anything that is popular in 1900s,weird spellings, surnames,made up names.
Names that I can stand being shortened.
Names that sound good with the surname (sadly that rules out a few of my favourites).
A different initial from siblings so that they know who the post is for.
Basically classic neames.

[looklauren]

I am Catholic so I chose the name of a Saint, which is the traditional thing to do. There are lots of options but you can go for one that is a patron of things that are important to you or whose feast day shares an important date - or is just a name you like! The name I chose for my son ticked all three boxes.

Also had to be careful with initials and I wanted it to sound classy too. Not too common but not too unusual.

[wigglybeezer]

Well, I did have rules I suppose; names had to be classless, easy to spell, beyond fashion (I used to walk round churchyards looking at names that were consistently popular over the last 200 years!) and also manly, as I surmised correctly that my boys would not be fey, dainty creatures! That has led me to choose names that are all in the top ten but only DS3 has a duplicate in his class.

[debbie251]

My only rules with my 2 DDs was

nothing too common
and short enough that they could write it by the time they started school !

as it happens they have both had another child in their school yr with the same name ! other parents must have been thinking the same as me haha !

[katwhoneedshelp]

i used names that were 'old' my kids are jessica ann, aimee olivia and alex paul they are strong names and dont have any one in family or friends with these names, i also spelt aimee the french way course amy was poplar when i had her. choose a strong sound name and it also has to flow off the tongue we most of had 20 names each time and we wrote them down to see how it looked and sound for a week if we liked it then that was the name. i cant say i dont like the unusual names coz they do grow on u but they arent for me my name is kathleen its a old name nt common either, choose name u feel comfortable with but think of ur child and what they could go through at school xx

[naturalbaby]

2 syllables so not automatically nicknamed/shortened
girls names ending in vowel or 'y' so they sound girly
boys name beginning and ending with consonant so they sound masculine
mentioned in the bible but not common/easy to find biblical names (but struggling to find a girls name that follows that rule!)
a name that can only be somebody's name - not a country, plant, flower, month, colour, object etc

[thumbwitch]

Shortenable
sensible spelling
no dodgy acronyms from initials
no dodgy rhymes or silly run-togethers in the name
family middle names, one for each side
not unisex/confusing whether male or female
not a "sleb" type name
not starting with the same initial as surname

not many rules, really.

[ib]

Pronounceable in English, Spanish and French without sounding too hideous in any of them, or too different from each other (so names that exist in all three but pronounced differently were out)- much harder than you'd think.

Shortish.

Not too common.

[moajab]

Long first name - at least three syllables
Traditional
Middle name to pay tribute to someone in the family (grandparent or great grandparent as it turned out, but could have been aunts or uncles)
We kept to this rule for all three DC

[SaintAva]

no names which start with the same initial as our surname, and I checked to see if the initials spelt anything or referred to any thing, as my surname ends in J, so I avoided any names beginning with B!

[zebedeethezebra]

Ha ha! My list was endless! So it was quite difficult!

Nothing in the top 10.
Nothing unisex or with a unisex shortened version.
Nothing where you couldn't tell what sex it was.
Nothing that was unpronounceable, or you couldn't tell how to pronounce it from the spelling or vice versa.
No naff celebrity names.
Nothing ethnic.
No biblical or Hebrew names.
No surnames used as first names.

Preferably something English, western European or Scandanavian with a distinguished edge.

We ended up with Henry.

[1Catherine1]

I have lots of rules. So many that I've had to loosen some of them since I was getting no names at all. And they are rated in order of importance

1. Name must be pronounceable in English and Spanish. (leading to rule 2)
   
2. Name must not begin with J, K, H or any other letter that is pronounced significantly differently in Spanish and English.
   
3. The child must not be named after any one particular person (originally the rule was any name I knew a person by but as a school teacher I can cross out the whole book)
   
4. No biblical names
   
5. No unisex names
   
6. No names that are hard to spell or read
   
7. No names with only one syllable since people always insist on shorting names no matter how short they are already
   
8. No name that when shortened sounds ridiculous or will result in bullying
   
   My DP says I'm fussy but I insist that this is one of the biggest decisions of our child's life and I'm allowed to be.

[Leo35]

Apols if this has already been written.

Re. girls names in particular, we liked Grace and Honor, but as these are 'attribute' names (what is the word that I am looking for??) we felt that - knowing our luck - that if we had a girl she would either be a klutz if given the name Grace, or not have a shred of honour in her soul if given Honor!!!

As it turned out had two DSs - one with a short name, and one with a biblical name. Latter just because, despite us being an aethist and an agnostic!

Really like Honor as well. May be there is just time to have a DD!

[WhistlersMum]

My second confession of the day. My rules were:

1. Initials must not spell anything at all;
   however...
   
2. Must have same first initial as me and DH;
   
3. Must be popular enough to ensure that there would always be a novelty keyring/mug with the name.
   So there .

[ib]

1Catherine1 - how is the K pronounced differently in English and in Spanish (curious)

[1Catherine1]

k isn't really used in Spanish and that's the reason I ruled it out. I hate rarely used letters. I'm just funny like that. I suppose I should add X and Z to my list on names not to start with too.

[FelicitysMum]

Along with many others on here, I ruled out a lot of names I liked because they were too popular, although I only went up to the top 20 most popular names. We had a list that did not have anything weird, anything where the initials spelt a word etc... But in the end I let my husband name our baby when she was born, it wasn't my first choice of names but I love it now and I think he made the best decision!