Choosing a name - all factors

[livsmum4]

Hello all

Currently 22 weeks pregnant and struggling to love any baby names. With my first child I found a name I loved and that was it! However this time 5 years on I can't stop factoring in how big a deal name choosing is - I want it to be cute while they are little cool while they are a teen and sensible / sophisticated during adulthood. Am I over thinking the importance of making the correct decision? The other problem is we have not found out the sex therefore we need to have a good strong candidate for a girls name and a boys name - I currently feel my child wil be nameless lol. Just wondered how everyone else comes up with THE name? X

we loaded up a CV template and wrote the variation of our babies name till we were happy it looked professional, we like you wanted it to be cute as a baby, cool as a teen but then acceptable in the real world when older.

oh we went with Arthur BTW, a popular name (not that we were looking for a rare name) but befitting. His middle and last name make the name more "cool" fir a teen and is the nickname we will call him by, that's if we ever stop calling him monkey or chubby chops .

Ha brilliant! So glad it's not just me who's expecting so much from a single name lol.

It's difficult to have something cutesy yet also imagine them as a potential M.D of a company one day (not that I would ever pressurize my children todo something they didn't love- starting to sound abit katie Hopkins there)

Good choice. I'm sure I'll come up with something I love I just felt I was the only one taken it seriously lol! Im sure some of the parents at my child's school pick a name out of a hat and that's the one

it took months to name him

we also had a back up girls name Elizabeth Helena just incase he came out a she, though there was no way that was happening he was quite happy to show off his testicles at EVERY scan! . Takes after his father me thinks!

good luck um site you will find the perfect name, one suddenly clicks if that makes sense.

Oh I am another one who plumbs the depths for the perfect name!

FWIW, I have 2 boys. DS1 was easy to name - he is Leo. It's not necessarily cutsie, but we called him poppet when he was a baby anyway! I do think it meets the cool criteria without sacrificing gravitas and sophistication.

DS2 took FOREVER to name. Eventually we went with Cameron. He's Cammy most of the time at the mo (he's 5). I know a couple of cool teens (and a few people who were cool teens) who went by Cam, and I think Cameron is weighty enough to pass the High Court Judge test.

DD on the way now and it's doing my head in. Elizabeth is a front runner. I also love Eliza, Sophie, Charlotte, Sybilla (Billy), Francesca (Frankie) and Camilla.

Good luck!!

I don't even know how to begin choosing a name for DC#3! Well, if it is a boy he will most likely be William, but in have no idea about a girl. And I'm pretty sure she's a girl! :)

With both DS and DD, I said "a name like Sam, but not Sam" and "a name like Margaret, that has a nickname like Maggie, but not that exact thing." They are, you guessed it...Sam. And Maggie. :o So I think then with this one I'll just figure out whatever name sounds like "it" and go with it.

I think second children (and subsequent) are particularly hard as your opinion has been affected by the countless children groups, nurseries etc. that you have been to.

DD2 was a definite compromise, we couldn't agree at all and it was more a name neither of us minded rather than one we loved. Two years on she suits it but I still wonder if we should have gone for something else!

We started a list about six months in of boys and girls names we liked (we do green babies - love a surprise more than anything!). We would add names to it independently or together, and every so often sit down and go through new suggestions or cross off ones we decide against. Important factors for us were first names that were reasonably cross-cultural - familiarity, relative ease of pronunciation and spelling, and not very common/boring - and no weird acronyms emerging once you put all the initials together. I pity the AVOs or GITs or PLETs.

I think you have to be careful about the so called high court judge test and look for a name that will take you anywhere.

My BIL has a name that is familiar but rarely heard and quite 'out there'. A bit like Humphrey though it's not that. It would probably pass the high court judge test but it can be a difficult name to pull off in other situations.

When he was a student and had jobs working on camp sites or as a gardener etc he lied and told everyone his name was Bob.