Baby Name Rules

[KnitterNotTwitter]

I'm pregnant with DC2 and have started having name conversations with DH. I've realised that I have some 'rules' that names must comply with and wondered if other people had the same/different rules - or thought that mine were bonkers...

1, no alliteration i.e. Martin Morris is out

2, no rhyming i.e. Doris Morris is out

3, no nicknames on the birth certificate i.e Nicola not Nicky

My rules were to have nothing that was in the top 10 names for the year and to have some family/cultural significance

I like alliteration. Nothing wrong with it at all.

My rules extended to things like, mustn't be named after one of dh's comic book heroes (though Sinister and Dexter were looking like possibles had I had a boy), mustn't be named after a pudding I once had, nothing made up entirely of consonants, ditto vowels, nothing that rhymes with or is Jayden.

scurryfunge ooooh - yes I'll adopt the 'no top 10 names' rule. Actually i suspect we're all so desperately trying to find non-top 10 names that we make the uncommon names popular....!

ShowOfHands chuckling at the pudding....actually I like all your rules. p.s. are you a SoH fan, or am I embarassing myself? DH and I are HUGE fans.

I agree with your rules.

Also:

• name must be 2 syllables or more as surname is 1 syllable

• nothing that's going to sound ridiculous in 5 years' time.

Plus all the usual onees about avoiding dodgy initials etc.

If you look at my pictures, there's pictorial evidence of my 11 week old dd being forced to pose with Steve and Phil.

Yes, I'm a ridiculously HUGE fan. I mean I like them. I'm not morbidly obese.

I don't like alliteration - in fact, I don't want a name beginning with the same letter as another of our DCs (eg: we have a Joe - don't want a James).

I'm sort of with you with the rhyming - can't have anything ending in 'ine' or 'ina' as it sounds daft with our surname.

I don't like anything too popular (I wouldn't have picked Joseph myself - only DH wanted to honour his father), I wouldn't want DCs to be identified by the initial of their surname.

Nothing made up sounding. Or really difficult to spell.

Dp was adamant there would be no alliteration. When we were naming dd I also realised that he didn't want her to have the same name asanyone he'd slept with!
My basic rule is no dodgy spellings, I hate names with extra vowels added just for fun.

My dh refuses any girls name ending with "a" because the Swiss top 10 names are something like Sara, Lara, Zara, Clara, Julia, Laura, Maya, Leyla, Louisa, Sophia (I made this list up but you get the idea - Leonie is in there somewhere to break the monotony)

Mine were:

no-one in the family to have the same first initial

no names I think of as surnames, eg, Morgan, Spencer etc

For me it was anything that wasn't religious, family or top 10. Sadly I had an arguement with MIL because our dd's name or at least one of them wasn't Mary. Also, it had to be two or more sylables and not make a rude word with its initials.

We also have a rule that it can't be the name of anyone we actually know

And dh's other strange rule is that it has to be the name of a character in a book he likes

LuluF Agree with the no repeated first letter rule (makes it a real hassle when the post comes I'd imagine)

LaDiDaDi with you on the dodgy spellings/made up names

ShowOfHands lucky 11 week old :-)

Am amazed how many rules I have and didn't realise...!

I think some alliteration is quite nice...but I'm with others on the scrabble-bag-letters-lucky-dip spelling combinations, surnamey names, hyphens , and what I term as "faddy" rather than "popular" (ie I don't mind Jack, or Joseph, because they fall into the popular yet unfaddy category, whilst others (which I shan't say as mothers-of-that-name will get all harumphy with me) are just faddy (ie in 40 yrs time everyone will say "Ho ho, you must have been born in 2009".)

I don't like names that remind me of serial killer weirdos in beige macs with fat stubby fingers either. (but there's only one name really does that to me)

No made up names or 'wacky' spellings.

Our surname has the sound 'olly' in it, so Molly and similar sounding names out.

Eve was out as the husband's name is Adam...ditto Evie. Not sure we could get away with Evangeline either.

The husband also states nothing pretentious sounding (we have slightly different ideas on what this is though...he reckons the name of anyone I went to school with should be out!)

Nothing too faddy or of the moment.

It's a minefield! We've got a shortlist and I reckon we won't end up making a decision until she appears.

1 rule only:

Not to choose a name that would only ever be seen on birth certificate - it had to be a name I liked enough to use all the time with occasional nicknames.

My rules were lengthy and arguably bonkers.

1. No names that are clearly from a cultural heritage that we do not belong to (eg no Myfanwy as we are not Welsh; no Mohammed as we are not Muslim)
2. No names of ambiguous gender
3. No nicknames on the birth certificate, 'full' names only (eg Charles not Charlie, Nicole not Nikki)

and the most bonkers of all..

1. No names that have a nickname that starts with a different initial, eg Rebecca / Becky to prevent mix-ups where people don't know what the person's initials are (eg for Rebecca / Becky Smith people might but 'B. Smith' but it should be R. Smith'

Bucharest - I'm intrigued about serial killer weirdo names? Can you tell us? Or would you rather not?

And eeyore2 - yes to the names from a cultural heritage you don't belong to. You would just spend ages explaining it, wouldn't you?

My rules were:

1. names must reflect our cultural and/or family heritage in some way
2. no shared initials
3. no unisex names
4. no nicknames
5. names must conform to my own, personal definition of "classic"
6. The initials must not spell any words (not even non-rude ones)

1. Recognizable, spellable and pronounceable in both my and DH's native tongues

1. Not overly old-fashioned, modern, popular or unpopular in either culture

1. No nicknames on birth certificate

1. No horrible name meanings

1. Family significance with mn

1. No rhyming allowed with surname

1. No bad initials (in either language)

Alliteration is cool; "Donnie Darko?...sounds like a superhero or something..."

Our rules were:

• had to be a name we both liked
• had to have nicknames that we both liked (and would be happy with DC calling themselves in time to come)
• had to sound reasonable with our surname
• had to be names with straightforward spellings
• had to have 'proper' ending e.g. a consonant as our surname begins with a vowel and we wanted the names to be separate rather than seep into each other.