When did you decide on your baby name?

[usernamo]

Just looking to see what the average is...

Did you decide before you even got pregnant?
When you found out the gender?
A few weeks/months before giving birth?
Did you have a shortlist when you went to the hospital or a choice of 2?
Or did it take a few weeks after they were born?

We named ours the day they were born. For the first, we had narrowed it down to four or five girls names, and decided a few hours after she was born. The second time we had narrowed it down to two girls' names. The midwife asked if we'd decided and we told her it was between x and y. She said she had delivered an x the previous week, and we immediately decided on y!

We were really struggling with boys' names, so it's just as well we didn't have one! The only thing we had agreed was the middle name which is my husband's middle name and his father's middle name.

Not until they were born (didn't know the sex either time). We had a shortlist (very short as we didn't agree on many names!) both times but waited to meet the baby before 100% deciding.

Ds is named after dh family members and this was decided upon before I was pregnant.

DC1 was named as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I instinctively knew he was a boy and knew what name I wanted to call him.

DC2 was only named after she was born. I had no idea what to call her so had a list of a few names and decided when I saw her.

DC3 didn’t find out the sex and was convinced she was a boy so had a boys name set in stone but only a ‘back up’ name in case she was a girl. Went with that name in the end because it’s lovely and suits her.

DC4 was at around week 22 in pregnancy. We found out he was a boy at 16 weeks so spent the next 6 weeks arguing over names . It took us ages to agree on one so when we did there was no way we’d ever change it.

DS1’s name is part of my maiden name and we had discussed using that before we even started TTC. DS2’s name was agreed on a few months before he was born although his second middle name took a long time to agree on!

There's a girl's name I've always loved for years, even before meeting DH, and when I was pregnant with my first he agreed that he liked it too and that we we would use it if it was a girl. We did consider other names but came back to that one and luckily she was a girl and that was sorted!

With baby number two we had a list of boy's and girl's names, but nothing definite. Turned out to be a boy, and I think it was about 5 days or so after he was born that we settled on a name, which ended up being one that we had talked out before but wasn't on our shortlist!

Dd1's name was about 18 years before she was born when a neighbour of ours had a baby and used the name. I never waivered from it and bizarrely has a picture of what she would look like and she really looks like the girl I imagined, she's just even better😍.

Dd2 found out we were having a girl and dd1 kept suggesting all her preschool friends names. We ended up choosing a variant of one of them eventually.

I still love the two back up names we had each time. I'll be suggesting those for the grandkids 😉

When both were here!

My firstborn was chosen when we were both 16 at the "what shall we call our future children" discussion! We never swayed from it! Our second was chosen at about 30 weeks and our third went into hospital with a shortlist of three as we couldn't decide beforehand, and was decided at about an hour old :-)

DD1 we didn't know whether girl or boy, had a boy name picked out and a shortlist of girls names. Named her a few hours after she was born, a name that wasn't on the shortlist, but had been on our longlist and previously ruled out!

DD2 we knew she was a girl, had a shortlist of names. Took us 6 days to name her! Name was from the shortlist.

Had a name in mind since I was about 12. Agreed it with DH at about 7 months pregnant. Close to the birth, completely went off it because I decided that it would only suit a red-headed, very Welsh-looking child and somehow couldn't picture him as one of those. When he arrived, he was red-headed and couldn't have looked more Welsh if he'd been born in a Wales rugby jersey singing Hen Wlad fy Nhadau, so that was him!

DD1 we had a name picked before we found out the gender, for both a boy and a girl. However the day after we found out she was a girl the name changed! Only slightly mind you.

DD2 A few days/weeks after knowing the gender. I made a list and my partner picked his favourite from the list and that's her name!

DP essentially picked both of their first names, I chose the middle names, there was no negotiation on them.

Dd - shortlist taken to hospital named on. Day 2-3

Ds - there was only one name both dh and I liked but he still didn’t get a name till day 3-4!

5 weeks after he was born

A few days after birth for both of mine because we couldn't agree throughout pregnancy.

On the day of our 20 week scan. Finding out the gender just made the whole thing real...

Although the name we gave DS is one I've loved since childhood

The day after he was born. I was too exhausted to decide at first

We had a girl's name picked from about week 8. Husband suggested it, I liked it and it was decided.

Boy's name was just us throwing out ideas and the other shooting them down for one reason or another. We figured we'd have 6 weeks to decide after the birth, so we left it at that.

Middle name choices were easy. Both sides of our family have a tradition of giving the appropriate parent's name as a middle name. The other parent's name is used (sex adjusted/getting creative if necessary i.e. Gillian -> Ian (BiL), Ian -> Dawn (DSis)) for the second child. Third child on, we get free choice.

Luckily baby was a girl, so she had her full name from birth.

Finalised about a month before beginning TTC.

All of ours were chosen between a few minutes and 36 hours after they were born, apart from DS's middle name which we were always going to use for a little boy.

Definitely couldn't have decided when pregnant - for example I had assumed I'd have a red haired girl and had almost decided onOrla / Orlaith ("golden princess"). I'm glad I hadn't called my black haired, green eyed baby that antenatally!

We decided when he was a 5 month bump. We couldn't decide and ended up both writing a list and had a couple that we both had written down and settled on that. We only had the one name. People kept asking us what if he didn't look like his name but we just said he would have to grow in to it if not haha. I am glad we decided so early on as we have no regrets making a rush decision and love his name and he does suit his name so it's all good.

We didn't know sex for DC1, but only had one name (boy) and we had that from about 12 weeks.

DC2 and DC3 were both girls and we found names between 20w scan - birth. They both suited the names we picked but we hadn't announced the names. We had mentioned them in passing to close family and friends

I still love the names now, all of them!

• DC2 and DC3 were not twins by the way!