Why did you choose the name you chose?

[wildpoppy]

Wondered what it was that made you settle on the name you settled on. We chose DD's name because it was after someone in my family who had died and I loved, and because the name is strong in its full version and girlie in its short version.

Now looking for name for dc2, gender not known, and struggling, so wondered why you chose what you chose?

We picked family names and the names of saints that were important to us.

We picked names that

1. work in several languages (as we have family from 3 countries)
2. sound good with our short surname
3. weren't already used by lots of others - both dd and dd have names that are still outside the top 250
4. we love!

Because I liked it and because it was Arabic. That year I was working with refugee families. This experience has a profound effect on me emotionally (still does) and I was delighted one of my short list fitted in with this period. The Muslim ladies I worked with made a huge fuss of me when I was pregnant and I took dd to meet them all when she was born. I would never do this now iWork in mainstream social work. I'm kind of sad I can't give dd2 a name with as much meaning

More by starting from the other side, and ruling out :
names of family member
names that started with the same initial as us (or siblings)
names of dc that I'd taught, and didn't particualrly want to be reminded of several times a day
names that are 'words' (think either 'Hope' type names or 'Mercedes')
names that were also surnames
names that we didn't like typical shortenings of/ the full length version of
names that seemed to be particularly popular (didn't realise this for eldest, but it kicked in after making that mistake for him)
names that were associated with a particular character (in a film / TV / book or a song)
names that were difficult to spell, or, if seen written down, were difficult to pronounce

That started to narrow it down a bit

DS is named after his GGF and GGGF, his middle name is a welsh variation of his GF, GGF, GGGF!

I like family names and welsh names. Feck knows what I would call another DS if we had one - I dont like the other males names in the family!

we went for names of deceased family members (but wouldn't use names of living ones.) Names that were unsual enough to be confident there wouldn't be another one in their class and sounded right with our (very, very common) surname.

Purely & simply because we liked it!! The names were both on our shortlists and they sounded nice together and they seemed to suit her when she was born.

It would be nice to use a name with meaning or family connection but its too political with my DH's family, so we'll just stick with choosing nice names that go together & with our surname (which is also not the easiest in the world to work with!!) for DC2 when they arrive.

DH chose DD name from my list. It was of course the female version of his name lol.

DS has a (British) family name which works in English and in French.
DD has an Eastern European name, also working in both language and which is the title of a book I love.
The potential #3 will have to get the French name!
The other criteria were:

• outside the top 300 in the UK, US and France.
• a name with a reference (either family, literary, meaning..)
• sounding good with our unusual/posh surname.

DD1 - the name I had always known I would call my little girl since the age of around 16, it is the name of my favourite female singer and is cool, quirky, strong and sweet in my opinion ( no it's not Beyonce )
DD2 - we struggled a lot but chose this one as it is Welsh, the meaning is related to the sea, lots of nickname potential and not very commonly used.

Ds was named after his grandfathers who helpfully both have the same name. Dd was given her name because it was one of the very few girls names we could agree on, neither of us love it but it took a long time find a compromise.

DD1 named after nicest person I ever knew
DS named after nicest person DH ever knew
DD2 follows theme of DD1

Middle names are all places we have visited in a country which means a lot to us both.

Second middle name is my maiden name

If we had a fourth (which we wont) then I think my head would explode going through all that again!

My first child was named after my pet hamster. When I got my hamster, I was desperate my mother turned out to be pregnant- and I wanted to name the baby Emma. It was a boy, and I decided the hamster would be MY baby until a real one came along. Three months after giving birth to her, a woman called Emma came along and turned out to be a long-lost relative of DH, so it was a name for both us really.

Second daughter was named a family name. It was to remember my grandmother, great-aunt, great-grandmother and just general family. I changed the spelling to the traditional Welsh spelling to remember my Welsh home. Middle name was to remember my great-aunts, who died of cancer and strokes and who I was very close to, and therefore she had two middle names.

Third daughter had a Hebrew name to remember my DH's Jewish heritage, and a middle name remembering his mother.

My son was named after a man who saved my life. I am going through the process of changing his middle name although he is one years old, because BIL (we gave DS his first name as a middle name) turned out to be a fraud, scamming the elderly and disabled.

DS1 - was a bit of a disaster. My husband didn't like any of the suggestions I made and didn't make any of his own. I made him look at the baby book. He suggested one as a joke, but it did kind of go with our surname. We went to the hospital still not having a name chosen but still saying the jokey name. DS arrived and looked cute and people kept asking what is was called and nothing was clearer, and I was a bit drugged, and that's how he ended up with the funny name. It is a nice name but unusual.

DS2 - I wanted the name he has, my husband again said he didn't like it, and then in my last week of pregnancy he suggested it himself, and that was that, he was already his name before he was born.

Both boys have their grandads names for middle names.

My son is named after my beloved grandad, and we've picked my husband's grandad's name for the one due in a couple of weeks.