How much / little did you ponder/ agonise over names?

[portabello]

Did you find it easy to choose a name for your DC or did you struggle until the registar started wondering where you'd got to?

Did you take a relaxed approach - happy for your other half to make the decision for e.g. - or did you trawl through every baby name book on the market until you found your perfect names?

Just wondering how everyone reached their decisions!

DS (Leo) was super easy - not even sure which if us suggested it as it was obvious to both of us what he would be. Liked the meaning and the history of it. Never had a girl's name agreed for him as we couldn't find any we both loved so they just hung around on a shortlist.

DD (Genevieve) - had boy's name in an instant again but struggled again with girls - most of shortlist from DC1 had been discarded!. We didn't discuss it endlessly but towards the end of pregnancy did start trawling the name books in panic. Her name came to us only a week or two before she was born - turns out it was a name we both really liked but for some reason hadn't thought about in previous discussions. It was only agreed when she was born and she was obviously none of the other shortlisted names and this just seemed to suit her more.

Middle names are family ones so no problems pickig those at least!

We clearly are completely in sync on boys' names but poles apart on girls!

I looked through one baby book of names from about 28 weeks onward (didn't want to look before because of bizarre superstition it would make something go wrong with pregnancy). Found i spent ages reading up on the meanings of bizarre would never use names, and started to worry when i'd only reached the "D"s by about 32 weeks!

Eventually made up a shortlist of about 10-15 names but dh and i struggled to agree a top 2/3/5. I was utterly convinced ds was a boy and didn't even bother much with girls names. I was right thank goodness.

So when ds was born we really weren't much further forward than we started. Fortunately my mum had said not to worry, just wait till you see the baby and the name will fit. She was so right. 24 hours after ds birth, a name just kept coming into my head for him, was on shortlist but was worried cos it is very popular (apparently). I told dh when he came in to visit that morning, and he agreed and said it was the name he had first thought when he woke up that morning! It suits ds down to the ground, and despite its popularity, have only met one other boy with the same name here (scotland) - must be more popular down south i think.

so don't worry, wait till you meet your baby and the name will come!

Boys names, no problem.

Always wanted to call any son I had his name. ds2 is called s short version of "Tobias" as it means "gift from god" and we are very blessed to have him

Girls names were a bit more problematic...we really struggled to agree but came up with;

Ds1 would have been Caitlin Rose

Ds2 would have been Lucy Elinor

It was hard work, I'm a bit geeky about names so I'm very picky but I managed to make a list. I did have a family name I loved for a long time but ex hated it and he hated everything except one name on the list and even then he didn't like the full name just the nickname which he would have been happy to use so we went with that.

I had LOADS of names for each but dh is a fussy bugger so he said no to most of them.