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Original poster

How did you choose your child's name?

134 replies

Tex111 · 15/04/2004 09:31

Our little boy is named Tobias John and is called Toby. I knew that if we had a boy I would want for his middle name to be John as it's my Dad's name. The first name was more difficult.

We have an unusual surname so we wanted for the baby's first name to be recognisable and easy to spell. Traditional but not very popular. We also wanted to give him a long name and use a shortened version so that he had some flexibility. My name is Katherine but I was called Kathy as a child. I switched to Katherine when I left school and always appreciated that I had that flexibility in my name.

We looked through lots of name books and were trying to decide between Thomas and Tobias when someone gave me the book Miss Garnett's Angel about Tobias and the angel. I then remembered the Verrochio painting at the National Gallery of Tobias and the Angel and the name shot to the top of the list. We still waited to see our baby before we made a definite decision but he was a Toby as soon as we saw him.

OP posts:
KeepingMum · 16/04/2004 15:54

My ds was named after a boy in a John Steinbeck book (my favourite authour when I was younger - and one of the first authors that my Dad introduced me to.) His middle name is a family name on dh's side.
Dd was named after a girl in another favourite book, but also a tree. To me it is also similar to my Dad's name (he died two years ago) but I am not sure if other members of the family realise this - as no-one else has mentioned it. (I am not sure what my mum would think about it as she always thought it was odd that my next door neighbour named her cat after her late husband - but maybe that's different!)

MsDizzy · 16/04/2004 20:47

My son will be named after his father, who is the 2nd, so he shall be III. But we'll call him Trip for triple.

I read this today and found it shocking that someone in the school system would ridicule pupils' names, in public:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3629371.stm

"She wanted to run a parenting course in 'naming your child'.

"In my long referral list there are very few Elizabeths, very few Timothys, several Kyles, lots of Charlenes - and Kylie, spelt in many ways."

Soulfly · 16/04/2004 20:54

We knew that our first baby was a girl. I wanted to call it siobhan, as i really like the name at the time, and i had to put my best friends name in there somewhere too. cause when we were at school we decided that if we had a girl, we would put each others names in there childs name. So i had to put natalie in there too. My dh wanted Geminii. After months and months of discussion. WE decided for Geminii siobhan natalie.

My ds2 well we only agreed on a name I think the day before he was born. lol. And decided on Leo. My ds previously wanted to call him ( i hate to admit to this) merlin!! whaat a name, but i said noooo wayyy. So his name is just leo. We couldn't agree on a middle name.

Linnet · 16/04/2004 21:59

Soulfly, I know a little boy called Merlin.

collision · 16/04/2004 22:22

My ds is Max ......just Max, as well. Now that we are abroad though everyone calls him Mass as they dont use 'x' in Italy which is a bit annoying.

His middle names are Anthony after my Dad and Stiva after his uncle. Max Anthony Stiva......it really suits him except that we call him Maximino! I dont know where Max came from though I did like the name when I heard it on Hollyoaks though DH doesnt know that!

For the next one it will be Zac as I like short names for boys and Annabel for a girl which she can change to Anna when she is older if she wants to!

logic · 17/04/2004 12:08

When I was pregnant, we had a lot of interference from family members who kept suggesting awful names. In the end, I snapped and said that if it was twins they were going to be called Robin and Dobbin. When we found out that it was only one, we said that we had decided on Dobbin! We called the poor ds Dobbin throughout the pregnancy just to wind them up!

In the end, we chose a really nice name - not after anyone - and ignored the criticism.
We still really like it so I'm glad that we didn't give in.

Original poster
Tex111 · 17/04/2004 12:29

MsDizzy, my best friend used to teach in an innercity school in Chicago and she used to have some very strange names in her classes. One was a little girl named Syphillis... I am not joking! The parents pronounced it SIE-PHYLIS. Another was a little girl who pronounced her name Jetta Mae, which sounds OK but it was spelt 'Je t'aime'. I guess the parents would see words and not know the meaning or pronunciation but, for some reason, decide to use it to name their child.

One that I heard in the UK was a woman with a name pronounced SHI-THADE, a bit like Sinead but it was spelt Shithead. Rather unfortunate.

OP posts:
Bron · 17/04/2004 14:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

bzhmum · 18/04/2004 10:19

marialuisa, i like angharad - it's my second name!
we're also searching for a compromise between the french/welsh pronunciation, as the dad is breton. I like 'Llinos' for a girl (it's actually a the name for a finch), but the double 'l' would flummox all non-welsh speakers, and as we're not actually living there..... Though luckily there are plenty of links between the languages, and a few names in common too.
at the moment, it's malo/iolo for a boy (malo is breton, iolo welsh - i prefer the breton, dh prefers the welsh)
and branwen for a girl, but haven't got the breton baby name book yet, so this may change.

Pook · 19/04/2004 08:37

OUr dd was conceived in Las Vegas, and since we both loved the name Lucy and surname starts with an S, it seemed fitting to choose a middle name beginning with A. So her initials are LAS. We could've been so much more imaginative- Elvis, Elvira or Luxor were some more off-the-wall musings

yankiegirl · 19/04/2004 09:09

From the first day I knew I was pregnant I wanted the name Zachary - which my DH hated as being to American, but when we found out at 20 weeks the baby was a boy (my DH thought it was a girl and was only picking girl names) he relented and let me call DS Zachary - it is a good jewish name meaning known by God, as well as being a popular American name, which I wanted, so he would have some of my culture, since he will be raised here in the UK with my DH's.

yankiegirl · 19/04/2004 09:19

Forgot to mention DS middle name is one of my DH's favourite pints of bitter - Marston - as in Marston's Pedigree. I can't wait until he explains to DS how he got his middle name.

kagsie · 19/04/2004 09:47

I was convinced I was having a boy so concentrated on boys names - middle one was family name and first name, Rory, was just one we liked and was also, coincidentally the name of Brian Aldridge's love child on the Archers! Girls names were much harder because I couldn't see the point of choosing one. I wanted something Irish to go with surname but we couldn't agree (options were Keavy, Honora and Caitlin). Eventually decided on grandmothers name for middle which was terribly english and so chose another traditional english name we liked that could be shortened (and sound like a little girl) or used whole as a sophisticated adult. Also partly chosen because other favourite option was Lily and my mother said "Oh no, that's a stupid name!" so kind of put the block on that... and dd was a girl!

Jaybee · 19/04/2004 10:53

For ds - it took alot of discussion as we have a very common surname - I wanted Saul or Joss - dh wanted Niall (after a football player) or various obscure names - he ended up a Samuel (a cool schoolfriend of dh's) with two family names as middle names.
dd - we still liked the girl's name we had picked for ds - although we changed the spelling (Emilia was a very pretty sister of an Italian friend of mine at school - she was known as Milly) - dd is Amelia, her middle names are two family names also.

Freckle · 19/04/2004 12:37

Oh I have a Zachary. This was the name dh ambushed me with in the minutes immediately following the birth. I quite like it now, having been rather uncertain at first. Don't know many other Zacharys, most others are Zacs. We have absolutely no connection with America at all, and my dh is not one to follow trends or be affected by cultural influences. The choice might have had something to do with the fact that I'd vetoed most of his Anglo-Saxon "off-the-wall" names

I have to say my Zachary is the most challenging child, so do any of you think that gifting your child with an unusual name (or one which has a particular meaning) affects the way that child turns out??

marialuisa · 19/04/2004 12:45

bzhmum, good luck with the welsh/breton names. We have friends where mum is breton and dad is welsh, their DD is called Polar, circumflex over the A i think. It's a pretty name but they are fed up with everyone calling her Paula!

hana · 19/04/2004 15:08

dh and I met in Japan........and we gave our little dd a Japanese name which still 'fits' in the west - Hana, which means flower. (Now I'm outed with my mumsnet name!)

Original poster
Tex111 · 19/04/2004 15:51

Hana, I wondered about your name! DS was conceived when we lived in Japan and we had Hana on our list for a girl. Beautiful name.

OP posts:
Original poster
Tex111 · 19/04/2004 15:53

Freckle, I do think a name can influence a child's personality. If the kids at school treat them differently, the way teachers react to them, etc. I'm sure it all adds up.

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Goingcrazy · 19/04/2004 18:29

During both pregnancies I was having a James Patrick and both times I had girls!! Choosing one girls name seemed to take up all my imagination so couldn't think of one I really liked 2nd time round. DH came up with one and brainwashed DD1 into calling my bump by this name - how could I confuse my poor 2 yr old by choosing another name? DD2 is nearly 8 now and I can't imagine her with another name.
It must be so difficult for teachers to come up with a name without some little "darling" popping into ones mind!

Freckle · 19/04/2004 18:55

Thing is some names are unusual, but do the children know that? Especially in this day and age when so many children sport weird and wonderful names. We did wonder how DS2 would cope with his name as he got older, but, to him and his friends, it isn't that unusual. It's what he has grown up with. I did read an article once where they suggested that giving a child an uncommon name did have some influence on that child's character (they tended to be more outgoing), but that was harking back to 60s and 70s when unusual names were fairly rare.

DS2 is a second child and that may have more to do with his "challenging" nature than his name, but who is to say that landing him with a less common name hasn't contributed too.

Chocol8 · 19/04/2004 22:11

My ds has a very unusual name which I have only ever found in one child name book (and believe me, I have looked!). By origin it is a gaelic name, but he is the only one I know. His middle name is more common and then to top it all he has (poor boy) a double barrelled surname!

No one at his school thinks it is unusual, but because people tend to remember it, he sometimes thinks he is famous ("Cheers" springs to mind..where everyone knows your name) bless him.

M2Ro · 19/04/2004 22:39

I was browsing a home birth website the day before DS arrived & found his name. Until then, we had 3 first names & 2 second names for girls, but nothing for a boy (tho' we had discussed Merlin, & I liked Bilbo or Thorin (DH said no - it'd be hell if DS was small or tall)). When I told DH the name for DS he said "yeah, I can live with that..." We had problems with the second name too... DS liked Callum & Connor, I wanted Thomas. In the end DS told me to choose so I did en-route to the registry office for the last appointment of the last day before the deadline for registering the birth - how did I choose? Well, Callum or Connor would have made DS's initials RC (arsy) so I went with Thomas RT seemed soooo much better to me First Name is Rohan (pronounced Rowan)& means Peace & Tranquility - an ideal name for my contented little baby. We call him Ro for short... Which I also like & he has a whole song about him... Ro Ro Row your boat...

Original poster
Tex111 · 20/04/2004 08:58

Freckle, I guess I was thinking more of names that have a strong connotation. I went to school with a girl named Bunny who was on the Honor Roll but was always seen as being a bit dumb and was teased a lot. I always wondered if it would've been different if she had been named Elizabeth or Victoria or something more serious.

I bought a great American book when I was pregnant with DS called the Baby Name Survey Book. They conducted a huge survey recording people's impressions of names. So it says things like 'Percival: chubby boy who is bullied at school'. It was really interesting and I wish someone would do a British version because names vary a huge amount between the UK and US. I'd definitely buy it!

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acnebride · 20/04/2004 22:40

We wanted a Jewish first name because the sprog is going to be Jewish, plus a Christian second name. for a dd my dp loved Rachel and I wanted Hope because of thirtysomething i guess. we tried lots of names for a boy for a few days/weeks each but ended up with Joel and that's what we have. Only trouble is that some people pronounce it 'Jo-well' which I don't like as much as 'Jole'. small price to pay.
I'm now doing propaganda for Miriam for another one, I really love it but dp doesn't...