How did you choose the name for your kids?

[blackdiamond]

Let's hear your experiences and advice relating to naming children.

The only specific advice that I got was to keep the potential names a secret since people will feel free to voice negative opinions before the name is given, but generally will keep their mouths shut afterwords.

Being an engineer I had to come up with a nerdy way to go about this process.  So, Step 1 was for my wife and I to make a list of potential names.  Step 2 was to compare the lists and combine them into a single list adding or eliminating names that we had that were different.  Step 3 was to put together a spreadsheet that contained every possible combination of those names using them as both first and middle names.  Step 4 was to go through the names in fours and eliminate two or more of them.  We had over 1,000 names to review and are now down to about 120.  Step 5 was to make the short list of the remaining names and list them by first name to compare the middle names.  For Step 6 we're planning to compare in three's and eliminate one.  At some point we'll look up the meaning of the remaining names, but I don't know exactly how the process will go from here.

It's a big decision. 

[4RunnerChevy]

From the heart! 

[JanMarie13]

   WOW, blackdiamond!  Now I know why I didn't have any kids!    Hell I had a hard enough time trying to figure out what to name my fish!

I think obvious answers are names of relatives that you're close to and want to honor.  Same goes with close friends.  Otherwise, just whatever feels right.

One thing that kinda drives me nuts is when people see how "different" they can get with the spelling, but that's totally your business.  I have a cousin named "Jaymz."  It's still said James, why the spelling?  Like anyone is going to know to spell it that way until you tell them...plus it looks girly.   lol

[yotaneck13]

we just had our first  baby boy and we named him Connor Derek-James Williams my gf and i both chose Connor right off the bat as a name we liked so it stuck for his first name as for the middle names... Her brother Derek James Black was hit by a triaxel dump truck the tuesday before thanksgiving due to the numerous surgerys he endured ( broke both his arms  at the elbow, shattered his pelvis, broke his knee and his ankel on seperate legs) they lost him twice that first night but he was strong he was 15 but stood 6'2 and weighed 255 being so big he held on for 2 weeks the amputated his ankel on his right leg and fixed his pelvis along with many extensive atrery reconstruction surgerys his liver was unable to with stand the trama and he passed away on december 11 2010 so me being so close to him we chose to give our baby a hyphinated middle name of Derek-James to forever rember the great kid that he was

[blackdiamond]

There are a couple of family names on the list, but they are not getting particular preference over the others.  My cousin killed himself a few weeks/months ago and his name ended up on the list without making the connection.  I wasn't close to him, but I suspect it might be meaningful to his immediate family if we chose to use his name.  They were pretty excited when a service dog was named in his honor.

[abnormaltoy]

I love the name Anna (even though there is the curse of always being called Anna Banana)...it's her middle name. She went by Anna up until after her mother died...then she switched over to her first name which is an adaptation of her mother's name and means (more or less) Small Star.



Edit: Her mother was 1/2 Lao and 1/2 Thai. My daughter's name is Nidara.

[yotaneck13]

im sure it would be her parents were glad when we chose his name they thought that was awsome

[Shamb]

Me and my wife were on the same page when it came to the name of our daughter, we had picked out names years before we had her....which gave us time to thin through them.

Music is a pretty big part of my life and so my daughters name is music oriented. Besides that I actually meet my wife through music also...

Her name's Layla btw  

[yotaneck13]

my cousin named his girl layla i had never heard that name b4

[Tofudude]

my cousin named his girl layla i had never heard that name b4

they might be a fan of eric claptons song: layla? 

any ways, bible is where my folks picked my bro and i's name

[*FFC*]

I have had a name picked out for years, but that changed when compromise came into play. Well after the events that made me a single mom, I decided I wanted a name with positive and uplifting meaning (the name I had picked was Autumn Marie which means fall and sea of bitterness). So after some research, I found out my grandma and hero in life's second middle name was Katherine, as was her mother's. My middle name is Catherine, and my other grandma was Katherine. It means "pure". So it immediately stuck - as for a middle name - it had to be positive and uplifting. So I decided to keep it simple with Joy, which means happiness. Kathryn Joy - the fifth Katherine/Kathryn/Catherine in my family

She's my ongoing dose of "Pure Happiness" I call her Katie for short, which still means "pure".

Oh wow dude.... you guys started with a list of over a thousand names? I can't wait to hear what you name him!!!!

[topar]

My sons name is Cole Andrew.  We got two books of names one for my wife to go through & one for me.  We both highlighted names.  Cole was the only one we both picked that we had not previously spoken about.  Andrew is a very good friend of ours sons name and since he is kinda like a son to us we asked him if we could use his first name as our sons middle name before our son was born.  AJ (Andrew) agreed to this and promised to always be a good role model for Cole.  AJ was 7 at the time.  Cole will be 5 in May and AJ has kept his word so far.

[blackdiamond]

Oh wow dude.... you guys started with a list of over a thousand names? I can't wait to hear what you name him!!!!

It was really only 35 individual names, but when you put them together in every possible combination of first and middle names you get 35 x 34 = 1,190 possible names.  We didn't look through an entire list until we narrowed it to 28 names and after going through a few pages we started to realize that certain names didn't fit as a first name and a few were pretty much dropped all together.

Officially, we just call him "the bump" for now.

[toyyota]

We named both our children after they were born. When they pop out you will know. RUSSELL, had his eyes wide open, and was ready to roll.

[yotaneck13]

mine pissed all over my gf and the dr as soon as he poped out lol

[axled89]

we did all sort's of ways.   1st. born braxton was named from some show my wife watched. 2nd. is austin
it's a great all around good american boy name. and 3rd. is rocky after his grandfather.  and of course rockey balboah.

[Cheesemaker]

Whenever we had time together we just discussed it.  There were alot of times my wife would pick a name, and my first reaction was    or  But then over time it all worked out.  There are too many names that have a image from your past with them. 

I always wanted Benjamin after my g-pa.  But not as a first name.  So, we eventually settled on Zachary Benjamin Zwald for our first son.  Our second son, I was driving on my delivery route when Andrew came to mind.  So, he became Andrew Ryan Zwald.  (Ryan is my first name)  And when we were pregnant with our third, if it was gonna be a boy, it would have been Eric Alfred (?) Zwald.  In honor of my favorite musician Eric Clapton, and Alton in honor of my dad, cause we had just found out he had cancer.  But we didn't have a boy, we had a girl so Zoe Alexandria Zwald.  I always loved my great aunt who was named Zora, but we went with Zoe because it was way more common.  And I always liked Alexandria, in honor of my cousin, who I love very dearly. 

And if you didn't catch it, my kids initials are ZBZ, ARZ, & ZAZ!  People really love the fact that two of my kids have ZZ as initials.  And we have it covered from A to Z!! 

One of the things we looked for in names was different varieties they could do with their names as they get older.  Zachary is Zak, or he could go by Ben, Benny or Benjamin later in life.  Andrew, we call him Roo.  But he could be a Andy, Drew, or Ryan.  Zoe, well if she wanted to, she could use her middle name, Alex, or Alexandria or ??.  This was a big consideration on picking names for our kids.  Yes, we had many arguments on what names we should give them.  But if you have a couple set aside and when the big day comes, take a minute and look at them.  Let it sink in for a moment and the name will fall into place. 

Everybody has a way of picking names. 

[blackdiamond]

We're down to 22 names to choose from.  I looked up the meanings of the names and some certainly sound better than others.

One of the options is actually a unique of way naming him after me.  I may start printing the names out and posting them around the house to see which one grows on us the most.