I give-up, after 9 months and hundreds of these threads, we settled on a name only for a close friend to call her baby the same thing.

[artichokes]

She announced it yesterday.
The name was Nina.
My DD2 is due in 2 days. We have no names, it took ages to settle on Nina, and now I am so bored with name hunting.

Someone just tell me what to name her. Pretty please?

It should be classic but not boring and I tend to like short names.

i had a school friend called Nina, but her ful name was Ninesca. Call your baby Nina. its a lovely name and not that common.

i think the thing is, if you told no one that you had chosen Nina, your friend isn't at fault - but however much WE know you are not copying by calling your DD2 Nina too, it will LOOK like you are copying and I just couldn't do that.

I am due in Feb and have lots of friends all popping before me, and as they pop and name their kids I am scrubbing them off my ever decreasing list, just couldn't have 2 x bob, fred, joe running about, it would seem weird.

We don't know the sex, so we have two lists and i am trying to weedle names out of my other expectant friends, so find out pre-birth, what they will all be called, so I can decide before the event which one I prefer.

Our girls list (if it helps) so far is:

Grace
Rose
Meredith
Harriet
Constance
Mary
Eve
Matilda
Amber
Elizabeth
Imogen
Erin

There are two girls due before my due date, so there may be two more names gone!

Nikita (Nicky)

Natasha

I love Elsie or Elsa

if an 'n' name goes nicely with your surname

what about

nicole
niamh/neave
naomi

Naima (Neema).

I've always had an interest in names. I'm not expecting, i'm being unprofessional, lol.
Hm, what about Gina?
Or Gemma?
Or Sana?
Leela
Leelu
Maia
Lola
Sara
Mina
Mona
Ara
Kelly
Shayna
Tora
Moira

Nina is the noise a fire engine makes - why would you call your kid that?

As in Nina and the Neurons?!

Dina
Anita
Alicia
Lucy
Lacey

Artichokes, why do you feel you can't use a name if you know someone else with it. Ijust don't get all this, 'XXX is already taken by so-and-so'. Generally names (I'm talking acceptable non-bonkers ones) are not unique.

Huw - On the whole I agree with you. It is not that I would never consider a name a friend had used. But in this case we both grew-up in, and still have connections with, a tiny village and another friend from there already has a Nina. Three girls from the same tiny class using the same (slightly rare) name will cause lots of comments and as I will be the third everyone will think I have copied.

I may still go with it though. Despite all the great suggestions on this thread we still only have four names on our short list:

Nina
Isabella
Megan
Alexandra

Definitely Isabella - absolutely gorgeous. When I was growing up I always wanted to have a little girl called Isabella. Funnily enough a couple of friends beat me to it .

(It's still on my middle name list though, so perhaps you could consign Nina to your middle name list?)

What about chosing a longer name, such as Carolina but shorten it to Nina as her 'family' nickname?

Or as her middle name, and then you can still use it from time to time.

I do like Alexandra.

No, this name sounds like a fire engine.

Fire engines in my neck of the woods go

NEEEEE NAWW NEEE NAWW. Horrid. Not like Nina which is lovely.

I understand what OP is saying. I went to school with a freyja (very unusual for adults) and another school 'mate' called her dd Freyja, before the rush. Anyway, imo, it would have shown a criminal lack of imagination if I@d used it too.

Isabella is lovely

I like Alexandra...probably because i know lots of little girls called Isobel, Isabel and Isabella where I live.

We have no Ninas, and I have not yet heard of another.

I like Alexandra best probably because there are loads of Alexias, Alexis' etc round here but not many Alexandra's.

On another note how about

Beatrix
Emille
Amelia
Ava
Evie
Freya
Rosa
Claudia
Flora
Sophia
Madeleine
Matilda
Est her
Lydia
Julia
Becca
Anna/Annie
Elena
Felicity
Philippa/Pippa
Henrietta
Daphne
Milly
Molly
May
April
Amber
Susanna
Peggy
Mabel
Thora
Theodora

Hi Arti. Someone just mentioned Theodora (Theo is so sweet for a girl) but I like just Dora as I think it's timeless. Nancy is nice too. I am a sucker for flower and plant names like Rose and Fern (I think you have already mentioned Iris which is very pretty) and Violet (maybe more of a middle name). Other than that I think the names I like are maybe a bit florid and overblown for your taste - eg Clementine.