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Original poster

Is there a story behind the names you chose for your children?

49 replies

Lonnie · 03/11/2008 22:56

Seeing all these threads I started wondering we have a story behind each name we chose for our children does anyone else want to share?

my oldest is Phoebe. Everyone said ohh like in Friends but actually she is named after JD Salingers book "The Catcher in the Rye" dh read this at age 14 and said back then If I ever have a little girl I want to call her Phoebe (how could I say no to that? - I love the name too)

my 2nd is Eloisa.. Whilst pregnant with Phoebe I had a very vivid dream that we had a baby girl and we called her Eloise dh would not hear of it so I spend the next year saying "I DO like the name Eloise.. Eloise is SUCH a pretty name and when I became pg the second time stepped this up he finally when I was 7 months pg said OK but I prefer it with an A at the end I said DEAL and she became Eloisa (weird thing is she looked a true copy of the girl I dreamt about)

our son is Conrad dh likes traditional names I like unusual names.. Dh does not want a biblical name so you try finding a traditional uncommon non biblical boys name I think we got one of the few there is..

Our youngest is Aoife it was just a name I utterly fell in love with when I first heard it and I love the spelling too it is just soooo pretty and luckilly dh liked it too..

anyone else willing to share?

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Dragonbutter · 03/11/2008 23:19

DS1 was born very ill and we had a horrible first year and i had PND.
I hoped for a better experience second time around so we named him Sol as I wanted a happy sunny positive name for him. It seemed to work too as he is a much easier baby.

LynetteScavo · 03/11/2008 23:25

We were wathcing the Oscars when I was heavily pregnant with DS, and DH jokingly said "How about Oscar for a boy?". So that was that.

BoysAreLikeDogs · 03/11/2008 23:26

Lovely stories

DS1 named after parternal grandfather following family tradition. I have been shot down in flames before now for admitting that I 'allowed' DS to be so named so ner.

DS2 - I had free rein as had aquiesced for DS1.

So DS1 has sensible, strong Scottish name, DS2 has relatively unusual Scottish name

ElfOnTheTopShelf · 03/11/2008 23:32

When I was pregnant, DH and I could settle on a boys name, no problem. We chose Lewis Marshall (Lewis being his grandparents surname, Marshall being my late granddads surname). We could not, for the life of us, think of a girls name, but I thought I was having a boy (we didn't want to find out).
Throughout the pregnancy we call the bump Boo, because "it" "they" seemed wrong and we couldn't say "she/he" as we didn't know.
I loved the name Evelyn, but DH didn't. We went through what seemed like hundreds of girls names; except everybody I knew was pregnant, and kept popping out girls, taking the names we liked!
The night before I was due for my section, I mentioned that it would seem wrong to not use Boo in some way for the name. So we said we'd use it as a middle name.
Just as the docs were a slicin and dicing me, DH said I could chose the name, any name I liked, so we settled on Evelyn Boo.

Tortington · 03/11/2008 23:37

ds 1 family tradition, MIL broke the tradition with dh, so i restarted it - loved the name and it fit with old testement - which i love. great to be able to needle MIL

dd1 was going to be called a v. misguided name i am utterly ashamed to admit, then i realised that my hormones were making me a crazy bitch ( much like the pregnant woman who want to call their sons YONI ffs ...its a fanny duh) and settled on Emma - dh and i couldnt agree on anything else and literally settles on this as it was the only one we didn't have strong feelings about

ds2 old testemant name, love it or hate it kind of thing in laws informed me that they hated it - which was great and so he was named

ElfOnTheTopShelf · 03/11/2008 23:39

what was your misguided name?

Dragonbutter · 03/11/2008 23:39

don't say sol!

Pria · 03/11/2008 23:41

My oldest daughter, is named after my gorgeous friend who passed away before she could have her own dd.

Youngest D.S was named by four of us after family discussions about names oldest DD & DS really plugged for a name I didn't take to at first, but funnily enough it grew on us. Only later we found we named him after a Bratz doll!

TheInvisibleGuyWentBANG · 03/11/2008 23:45

When I was very young, around 7 or 8, I heard the name Connor, and said if I ever had a son, that would be his name.

The first time dh (then db) and I discussed children, he told me he wanted 4, but if we ever has a son, he really wanted him to be called Connor.

DS1 middle name is dh grannies maiden name who sadly died 3 months before Con was born.

Ds2 first name was purely my choice. His second name was for my great great grandfather that left scotland for st lucia.

Strangely enough, ds1 (who has dh family name) looks just like dh's family.

Ds2, (a name from my family) looks just like my family.

CHOCOLATEPEANUT · 03/11/2008 23:47

my mum always wanted more kids but couldnt and when i was 12 mum and dad got me a yorkie for christmas and mum said her name was lucy as it was a name she always loved (its was the name of one of her friends mum) and she said it was a name that was nice as child and adult
my mum died before my children were born so my first dd was called lucy and pauline after mum (but not the dog ifyswim)

my second dd was stillborn but i called her philippa as I always liked that name and thought it would go well with Lucy.

my ds was named Joseph but we call him Joe as I did my family tree and Joseph was a name in my family going back to 1730 and I think its a good string name for a man
x

Lockets · 04/11/2008 00:00

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gigglewitch · 04/11/2008 00:11

what a lovely idea for thread
having read all of the posts i thought i should add mine. boys each have their 'own' first name and a family name second, dd is my grandmother who was the most special person in the world to me and my mum with a beautiful name
ds1's name I have loved since i was a child and in the darkest times being told we would never have children, I held it as hope and strength. ok weird i know...worked for me though. Middle name is dh's brother who died in infancy.
ds2 is an unusual name but a family favourite that never got used - each time it was the 'boy name' when a baby girl arrived!! Including me!! his middle name is my grandfather's.
dd is my mum's mum - an old victorian name.

Phoenix · 04/11/2008 00:22

My great grandma died 2 weeks before i found out i was pregnant. Her name was Louisa so we said we would use her name or a male version of her name for our child. Ds is Lewis James (James is my grandads name)

AmIWhatAndWhy · 04/11/2008 00:25

With DS we had a few ideas, and had pressure from family for certain names, which we dismissed. He was born and we still had no idea, and the day after we had so many calls from people wanting a name. We decided he'd be Samuel. This is important in my family as it's my grans fathers name. My mum who had been itching for the news called all and sundry but I spent that night in hospital looking at him and really not believing he could be called Samuel. Oddly DP had been thinking exactly that and so the next day when we got home we had to make a round of phone calls to let them all know we'd changed our minds. It's funny as most of the cards we have from his birth say congratulations on baby samuel.

With DD it was different, not least due to the circumstances of her birth. She was a complete surprise (as in unexpected all of a sudden pushing stage and unexpected baby appearing surprise). We had discussed girl names when I was pregnant with DS and both liked eve, but the second I saw her I knew she had to be a Sophie. And it suits her so well. I had a cat named Sophie, and love Sophies Choice (not romantic I know).

egypt · 04/11/2008 00:34

seems like fate when it happens like this - as a few of you have also found..

when i was teacher training i taught a little 4 year old red head called Niamh. she was so sweet and pretty and i had never heard the name before, but it stuck with me because it always reminded me of her. i thought in the future if i had a girl i would like to name her niamh.

on my first date with future dh, he got a bit tipsy and were talking about names (!) he said that if he ever had a girl he would want to name her niamh. i was bowled over of course by the 'it was meant to be' feeling.

our first child was a girl. a red haired little girl.

so we called her Deirdre

not really

Niamh

3isthemagicnumber · 04/11/2008 09:54

ooh I like this, just wish i had some stories to go with them but sadly not. All three of our DS's had names we both agreed on- ie not my maybe slightly hormonally influenced first choices nor dp's safer more traditional choices- so although less romantice to say, they were all compromise choices- of course the boys have 'become' them so there is no way they could have been called anything else now; though i have to admit if i still hear one of my first choices i have a slight wistful moment . Only ds2 has some significance as his middle name is my late f-i-laws name who sadly died suddenly when ds1 was 10 months old.They are:- ds1-Miles Samuel, ds2-Louis David and ds3-Oscar Benjamin

LouMacca · 04/11/2008 10:02

My daughter Sophie is named after my friend's beautiful niece who has Downs Syndrome. She is an inspiration to all and has achieved so much more in her life than was predicted when she was born 25 years ago.

My DH choose my son's name Daniel as that's what his sister would have been called if she had been a boy.

frazzledoldbag34 · 04/11/2008 10:09

My 2 DD's both have 2 middle names and are named after Grannie/Great-Grannie on both sides. I think it's lovely to use family names for middle names.
Although am expecting DC3 and if a boy it will be given 2 or 3 middle names (after his grandpas) - if it's a girl I've run out of family names I like (or am wiling to use) so not sure what will happen........

My girls first names don't have a story, except to say DD1 was ALWAYS going to be Charlotte and when she was born we took one look and went NO! And she's called something else. Ditto DD2 - she was always Claudia, came out and we looked at her and decided on something else. Next baby (if girl) will be Annabel (or so we think.........!!!!!!!!!!!!) - but judging by past experience, probably not!
Sorry - waffle

sleepycatonabroomstick · 04/11/2008 10:15

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4andnotout · 04/11/2008 10:33

DD1 is called Olivia-Mae, xp was very latino looking, dark hair olive skin and dark eyes so we assumed that dd would be too, she surprised us by being blonde with blue eyes! As for the hyphen, we couldn't decide between the two names so she got both.
DD2 is Elana-Rose, both myself and dp had read a book with a main character called Ehlana and we loved the name but i didn't like the spelling so we took the H away and dp loved Rose so she got that too.
DD3 is Maisy-Rae, Maisy is just liked and dp has an aunty Rachel who isc alled Rae by the family so we named her after her.
DD4 is Tilly-Grace, when she was born 2 weeks ago she didnt have a name for the first day as none of the extensive list fitted her, but the more i looked at her the more she looked like a Tilly, i didn't think dp would agree as it rhymes with their surname but with the grace added it breaks it up so dp agreed that it suited her. Grace is my nan's middle name and i was determined to use it on one of my children and finally got my own way this time!

bronze · 04/11/2008 10:41

ds1 is named after my brother who sadly died. His middle name is my maiden name, which in itself is a proper boy sname

ds2 has dhs middle name as his first name (though we've nicknamed it for everyday use), his middle name is welsh as I had to get some in there.

Dd I wanted a welsh girls name and gave dh a list of my few favourites. He picked her name because he could spell it and say it.
Before she was born I was in hospital for over a month. Her middle name was going to be Rose simply because we both thought it pretty and couldnt think of anything else. Two weeks before she was born my Gran died and I lay in bed thinking I would love to use her name as DDs middle name. Little did know that dh was at home talking to mil about how the complete name sounded like a seedy nightclub and that we needed to change Rose. Shes now named for my Gran.

Antdamm · 04/11/2008 10:54

The tradition in my DPs family is that the first born sons are named 'Iain' and his son shall be called 'John'. My Dp's name is Iain, his dad is John, his grandad was Iain, his great grandad was John and our son is called John, and we hope that if he has a son, he will name him Iain.

spinspinsugar · 04/11/2008 11:00

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fizzpops · 04/11/2008 13:04

3isthemagicnumber I love your boys' names - just what names should be imo, unusual but not made up iykwim.

What were your first choices out of interest?

jeanjeannie · 04/11/2008 13:19

When pregnant with DD1 (Iris) I thought I'd knit her something ! I got a lovely pattern book and saw the most gorgeous little girl modelling the cardiagn I was making and it credited her name as Iris. Never even thought of that name before then.

DD2 (Verity)name came about because DP and me would often lay in bed on romantic eves listening to Verity Sharp on the radio and we thought she sounded nice and like her name!!