does everyone choose a name before the birth?

[OnlyWantsOne]

Our second child is due in 3 weeks - and we have a couple of names we like but none we love

So, no choices have been made, infact we barely even talk about it, however when I had DD I had chosen her name from when I was about 22 weeks.

Hi! When our daughter was born 3 years ago we had a girl's and a boy's name ready. With our son it was completely different and we didn't make our final decision until the day after he was born! I think the fact that our daughter was born by elective caesarean made a difference as we knew exactly when she was arriving. Our son made an appearance 10 days early and was born within 4 hours of getting to hospital so I think we were too shocked to make a decision! So in answer to your question, not everybody has a name ready!

We are in the same situation - there are some names we both like, some names I really like and DH doesn't and some names that DH really likes but I don't.

We are now waiting until the birth to decide.

I hope her arrival will give us a divine intervention.

Nope.

We took 3 weeks to name dc1, 6 weeks for dc2 and 6 weeks for dc3.(After the birth, I mean).

Chronically indecisive, we are.

We had a shortlist but waited to see what they looked like and suited until we chose for sure.

We had a shortlist. But couldn't name DD until after she was born, had to see the baby first. She just 'suited' one of the names best, I can't put my finger on how.

DD was called Poppy for about a week before we settled on another name for her
Fortunately we hadn't already registered the birth by then.
i think we both knew that we were a bit lukewarm about it.
Funny though, cos I love it now!
Still love her 'new' name though!

DD was called Oscar throughout most of my pg which caused a few problems when she arrived. We didn't really have a shortlist of girls names, or certainly not anything that we'd both agreed on. I know a lot of people say wait and meet your baby but I found it impossible as she didn't really look like any particular name.

She was quite elphin-like at birth (anything but now!) and the name Eve seemed to suit her but we chose something else. Pushed by everyone else we made a decision fairly quickly but I then spent all the sleepless nights gazing at her whilst she was feeding and trying to come up with another name. I didn't and she is still the name we gave her (not Eve btw) but even now at 21 months I sometimes 'try out' other names on her in my head.

I just felt totally unprepared to the point that I would find out the sex next time or at the very least have 2 names I was certain about before the birth. Personally I find it very hard naming a newborn when all the hormones are rushing around and there are so many other things to be dealing with. I would say have a shortlist and write them down! Good luck!