How did you chose your baby girl names...?

[DazedEmma]

I have recently found out I am having a baby girl!! I am very excited as secretly I hoped for a girl. However, I am finding it SO hard to choose a name! I can't even think of one I like enough, let alone lots to short list!

Mumsnetters of baby girls, can you help? Would love to know how you decided on the names you have chosen and also... what names were on your short list?

[Vivvy]

Vivian, but spelled Vivienne - and never let anyone shorten it!

[Hulababy]

We had far more girl choices for DD than for a boy. I still find girl's names easier to chose from.

DD is called Mollie, which really suits her. It is pretty and girly, but also as we know adults with this name we also know it works well for older women and those in business too. We chose the ie ending as the older people we know named Molie use this spelling. The y spelling seems a bit more nickname type.

I love loads of girl's names. If I were having a little girl now I would be umming and ahing over Matilda (Tilly) or Martha.

[janeite]

We really struggled for girls' names too.

Names that we both liked:
Daisy
Naomi
Niamh
Alice
Isobel
Marianne
Miranda
Tess
Juliet

Names that I liked and dp hated:
Harriet
Melody
Scarlett
Posey

Names that dp liked and I hated:
Chloe
Sophie
Paige

[learningallthetime]

I agree completly Dazedemma, We found boys names a lot easier than girls. We picked out a boys first and midddle name quite early on in preganancy but ended up having a girl!

Was going to use my mums middle name (eva) as dd's middle name but couldn't think of a first name so ended up using it as a first name. But I loved the name anyway so it wasn't a hardship.

The day before we went to register her we still hadn't found a middle name. My dh went through the name book and finally found a name he loved; kasia

God help us if we have another girl!

[CantSleepWontSleep]

We find girls' names much easier to shortlist than girls.

How about
Verity
Philippa (Pippa)
Felicity
Dorothy
Veronica
Constance
Natalie
Heidi
Georgina
Cordelia

[hayley2u]

i wanted a really girly name and liked the nae lucy, molly, katie,poppy,and erinn xx

[Love2bake]

I came across a new mum at the doctors this week and she had a little girl called Betsy, I thought it was such a cute name.

[bluenosesaint]

I have 3 girls. The names we like at various times but didn't use are:

Sophie/Sophia
Olivia
Isabelle/Isabella
Imogen
Rae
Kate/Katie
Rebecca
Heidi
Molly
Ma deline
Kelly
Nancy
Georgia

[bluebellwood]

Names that I liked but didn't choose:

Louisa
Alice
Victoria
Alexandra

I also loved Serena because of its meaning (serene, calm).

[kerryk]

my short list was

iona
carys
aime
leah
jude
isla

[pollyblue]

Don't laugh, but i found dd's name on a gravestone while i was out on a walk - "much missed by daughter Erin.." I said "that's it!" and thank God dh like it too...

[Weegiemum]

my name isn't mentioned here.

Very glad as it has been in several recent old lady threads!

[kookykid]

Jessica!

[LuckySalem]

We never had a short list as we were convinced that we were having a 10lb baby boy! lol

Turned out we had a 6lb baby girl. We had floated the idea of a baby girl and thought of aaliyah or amelia. When DD was born DP went home and looked on the internet and found that Aaliyah (RnB singer who died in a plane crash) had been born on the same day as DD, also if you have no name for your baby they put baby girl on the slip. Aaliyah's nickname was babygirl so it stuck!!

[kookykid]

we just loved it!

[conniedom]

She has dh paternal nanna's name for a first name, and my two nan's had the same middle name (Ruth) so we gave her that as her middle name. Many years later she had to choose her confirmation name, and she chose her dad's maternal nanna's name (Catherine) as her confirmation name. So all dd's names are after her Great Nan's

[MadBadandDangeroustoKnow]

We had a boy's name settled very early in the pregnancy - a slightly codgerish name on both sides of the family tree - but took much longer to decide on a girl's name. Mr MBDK vetoed my first choice (my grandma's name) because he thought it was too aristocratic and from then on we brainstormed names. I winced at most of his suggestions and he winced at most of mine. Eventually, we arrived at two we could agree on - the one we used and Stella.

[kerryk]

i love the name stella, very of anyone who uses it but it does not match my last name (no its not artois)

[Elkat]

I worked by a process of elimination!

Nothing in the top 50 (I'm a teacher and have seen some of the awful nicknames kids can get when they are one of 5 Bens in the same class for example), so that knocked out a lot of names from the start.

Second, I wanted a name that my daughter could change if she did not like it. Girls can be so funny about names and I know a lot of girls / women (myself included) who do not like their names, so I wanted to give her the option to choose a pet name if she wanted to.

Thirdly, I didn't want a name that would date. So I avoided anything really 'now' or that people would later say was so 'Noughties' like people do with Sharon and Karen of my generation.

That said, I did want something that fitted in with the general feel for now - nothing that would stand out too much.

Then I avoided any names that were to either extreme of the class divide. Nothing too pompous or naff. Just a nice normal name that most people have a pleasant perception of.

I wanted something that was feminine but not too girlie. So I avoided anything with a y/ie ending - not professional enough for your hard hitting buisness woman!

We also wanted (hubby more that me) names that didn't sound too off the wall or foreign - that the child would be spelling for the rest of their lives.

Once we narrowed all that down, we just went with something we liked.

[LadyThompson]

Dazedemma, if you are worried about a name bing popular - and Matilda is very popular btw - do an internet search on top 100 names for girls, and don't use any of 'em.

[solo]

Short listed

Miriam(my Grandma's name)
Hannah
Grace
Lydia
Rani

Actually took two of these to be her middle names, but called her Willow.

[Weegiemum]

I had decided on my dd1 name years ago - always wanted a Katherine. Luckily dh loved it - we toyed with her being known as Erin, but when we saw her she was a Katherine!! She gets Kath a lot now. Or Kathy from her friends. Her middle name is Morna - a gaelic name which means 'well loved'. We actually had a bit of trouble deciding between the 2 as a first name, and the morning after we had decided on the order I went into labour - I could relax!

Dd2 (dc3) is named after people - Rachel after dh's Grandma, who died 2 weeks before she was born, and Jessie after my Gran who was alive at the time but is now dead.

They are not trendy or popular names but we love them. Our surname is so odd that they needed a nice strong plain name to go with it!

[Weegiemum]

solo - I used to have a Guinea Pig called Rani!

[ShowOfHands]

I always said I would call a dd Matilda from about aged 4 (loved Roald Dahl) but we chose the Germanic spelling Mathilda. It is becoming extremely popular now which saddens me a little.

Her middle names are her Great Granny's name (deceased)- Beatrice- and her aunt's name- Rose.

I like old lady names like Iris, Mabel, Martha, Edith etc.

[halogen]

This is v interesting.