How did you choose the names for your kid(s)?

Being Jewish, we followed the tradition of naming our children for relatives who had died recently. My son was named John after his paternal great-grandfather, Jacob; and my daughter Alison after her great-aunt Ada.

We chose the middle names similarly.

I took their social security numbers and matched it up with letters on the phone..

@gailcalled My son was named John after his paternal great-grandfather, Jacob

I’m confused, why didn’t you name your son Jacob?
Isn’t this like: “I named my son Jim after his maternal grandfather, Fred”

Were they named after someone in your family or someone you know?
No.

Did their name hold some personal meaning for you?
No.

Did you choose it because you liked its meaning?
No.

Or did you just like the way it sounded?
Yes.

Did you decide on the name pretty early on or was it a last minute thing?
Pretty early on.

If you were not a single parent, were you and your partner on the same page when it came to naming your child?
Yes.

Now that they’re older, do you think the name that you chose is fitting to their personality?
Yes.

My wife and I each made a mental list of 3–4 names we each liked and presented it to each other. After eliminating the ones we each disliked (of the others), we were left with 3 names total. After some discussion, we eliminated one more and were left with 2.

These became her first and middle names.

Whole process took an afternoon. Simple.

And, yes, she very much fits her name (but doesn’t everybody?)

@cprevite I like my name. But, no. I don’t think that it fits my personality exactly.

@fluthernutter: Sure, I can see that too. I was thinking more from the parents perspective. If you’re the one doing the naming, it’s probably unlikely you’ll later feel the child doesn’t fit the name.

Unless, of course, they turn out to be a serial killer and you think, “Ya know, Charlie would have been a better choice.”

My oldest daughter is my step-daughter – so I didn’t get to pick that name. She was named an incredibly popular name (there are, at last count, more than 20 girls with her same first name in her 9th grade class) for her birth year…so popular that for a time it was hazardous for us to call out her name on a playground because 4 other little girls would look up wondering why we called their name. <sigh> Her bio-mom picked the name – and her middle name is in honor of her maternal grandmother.

Our middle daughter was going to be named after my great Aunt (Grace). The entire pregnancy we referred to her as “Baby Grace”. However, once she was born both my husband and I looked at each other and simultaneously said: “She just doesn’t seem like a Grace…” so she remained unnamed for 3 days while we tried to figure out a name that suited her better.
She was eventually named (perfectly) by her older sister – and her name so aptly describes her. It’s an old-fashioned name (sort of) and now is growing in popularity again.

For our son (our third child) we had a hard time coming up with a name. I liked Jasper and Cooper.. and my husband thought both of those names would cause him to be picked on at school. In the end he got a very traditional (and common) male name—named in honor of a dear friend of ours. His middle name is his maternal grandfather’s name – and so he is named in honor of both our friend and my father.

I was named in honor of a beautiful friend of my mother’s. I met her once as a teen and she was beautiful inside and out—it made me happy to be named for such a lovely woman. When I was younger I didn’t like my name because I could never find it on souvenir trinket..but now I really like my name and how uncommon it is for someone my age.
My middle name is for my paternal grandmother – as I was her first of 15 grandchildren.

I like Gaelic names, so both my girls have them. I also like the sound of Russian names, so that’s how I picked one for my son.

My daughter was named after her great-grandmother and great-aunt.

My son, Bender, was named after my grandfather’s first dog of the same name. My son, Grits, was named after my favorite breakfast (the name on his papers is Sir Galahad’s Breakfast of Champions). My son, Owen, is named after the main character in Owen Meany. Owen just turned 19, so you can imagine what it is like having a crotchety old man around the place.

@Kayak8 I can’t tell if you’re pulling my leg or if you really are just that awesome.

@fluthernutter I am pretty much “just that awesome!”

My daughters came with names since I adoped them, however when I adopted I changed their names, my older one was named after my 2 grandmothers and my younger one has a shortened version of her original name plus my mothers nickname.

Okay, well the wife & I discussed this, usually in bed before sleepytime, & we tossed a few names/combos around for a while, before she finally realised that my choices were best.
My kids have great names, suits them down to the ground.

They were named after relatives still alive.

I let my son and daughter pick their own names.

Spongebob and Catwoman finally settled on names based on their favorite TV characters. ;-p

I hadn’t ever thought about it before, but I named every one of my children after other children that I knew or heard of and said, “hmmm, I really like that name.”

We used family names. I got to name the girls; my husband, the boys. Fortunately we had one of each. We each also had veto rights, but it wasn’t hard to agree.

One day, while working on the sprinklers, I looked up at my wife and said, “How about Sarah?” She said, “Sounds good.”

@Kayak8 That is seriously awesome.—headbows—

My oldest child’s name was a name I read in a newspaper one day. I liked it. I thought it was a pretty, feminine but not childish name. I also didn’t know any children with that name at that time. It isn’t an unusual name but it wasn’t very fashionable at that time.

My second child’s name came from a song I liked while I was pregnant. I loved the sentiment of the song and thought it was a pretty name and at the time, I didn’t know any children with that name. My daughter used to make me play the song often. She loved that her name came from a song. I used to sing it to her as a baby too.

My youngest child again has a name my partner and I liked. It is quite a popular name but traditional and strong. Another member mentioned in a different thread that they scanned the naming environment for ‘naughty’ children with particular names and avoided those names. After my child was born and grew into a toddler, I remember hearing his first name called out often while we were out shopping as other naughty children got into mischief. So, the member’s post made me laugh and nod.

Our daughter has an old fashioned, yet kind of spunky, name that includes the middle names of both my mom and mother-in-law. It has additional sounds/letters/syllables so it is uniquely her name within the family.

It was the first name I suggested but we decided to go with another name, Elena, around my 7th month. As soon as she was born, I felt an urgent need to make sure my husband knew she was not an Elena.

It didn’t take long to decide we would go with the original name, but she didn’t have a middle name until a few hours before we were discharged. It was either give us one now or she won’t have one. One of us blurted out “Elaine?” and we went with it. (Elena doesn’t sound good with her first name.) Most people think Elaine is the family name.

Our first two children have the names that my husband and I “theoretically picked” when were dating. My oldest son is named after his great grandfather and my daughter is named after Catherine the Great.

While I was pregnant with my 3rd I really though he was girl so we had a girl’s name picked out. When we saw he was boy we spent the next two hours running through names that we thought looked like him. We settled on Kyle.

My first child was named after a character in a movie we’d seen years earlier. It was the movie Splash, where the mermaid took her name from the street sign for Madison Avenue. That name was picked years before she was born, and when we named her Madison, we’d never heard of another person with that first name. Unfortunately, a ton of people must have had the same idea, because it ended up being a very popular, trendy name… exactly what we were trying to avoid! She’s always been called Maddie, though, and it suits her perfectly. Her middle name is after my deceased grandmother, Jeanette.

Our second child was also a girl, and we had a harder time picking her first name. The middle one was easier, as it’s after her father’s deceased grandmother. In the Jewish tradition, you can just use the first letter of the name to honor the relative. Since grandma’s name was Yetta (um, no), we went with Yorke. Then it was just a matter of finding a name we liked that went well with Yorke. We decided on Jessica, always called Jessie. Jessie suits her perfectly, Jessica not so much. She doesn’t like to be called Jessica, either.

With our third, also a girl, we were at a complete loss. We were getting down to the wire when I saw a name I immediately loved in a Walmart flyer, of all places. Alaina it was! With a soft “a” sound, ahhhlaina. Her middle name is after her father’s other deceased grandmother, Faye. She’s called Lainey (and Laineybug), and I can’t imagine any other name for her. Others often have a hard time with her full name, though, calling her Alainey, or Ayylaina or Elena.

@GladysMensch See my second paragraph, above, for an explanation.

@GladysMensch: @Augustlan explained the issue with Jewish namesakes.

I was named Gail after my great-grandmother, Gussie. It’s really the thought that counts.

My son John was given the Hebrew name of Ya’akov but we used John for his birth certificate.

@GladysMensch Yeah, they spared the children having to live with old fashioned names like Fanny and Ida, or Hebrew names like Moisha and Shlomo, by changing the tradition to just using the first letter. Since it is after a dead relative it is likely names have trended in a different direction. Plus, you can wind up with 6 Rachels and 4 Samuels if families have to use the same name and not just the first letter.

FYI: this is tradition and not some sort of comandment. The Sephardic Jews don’t follow it like the Ashkenazi Jews. My husband is named after his father, and his brother second name (not exactly the same as middle name) is the same as his grandfather’s, and he was born while his grandfather was still alive.

I thought of a name that sounded perfect at the time, same method I use when naming our pets. I am the giver of names around here.

We used a combination of family names and names that we liked. We both agree that we like more traditional names and we took into consideration what the name will be like for our children when they are no longer children. Ohh, and I also looked at their initials.

I gave my daughter the name I always thought should have been mine. When I mentioned that to my mom she told me she had 2 possible names for me, and my daughter’s name was the one she didn’t pick.

My son’s name – kinda embarrassing how that happened. My husband and I couldn’t agree on a name. He only liked his own name but didn’t want a Jr. Hubby’s friend said right before we were leaving the hospital “How about an Indian name like ___ ____. My husband loved the idea.

@Seaofclouds My mom is obsessed with the initials. Make sure they don’t spell something bad. She said in school she knew a boy with the initials DOG. What she wanted to name me, Leslie Ann, and my last name begins with a C, and call me by the nickname of Lacy. But, I wasn’t named Leslie, she did not get her way with naming me nor my sister. I don’t fit the nickname Lacy at all, and I like my first name very much that I wound up with, so I guess it worked out.

I picked out all three of my daughters’ names. My eldest is named Valerie. I have a cousin with that name and I’ve just always loved it. Daughter number two is named Maren because I once had a thing for actress/model Maren Jensen. And my youngest is named Halle, after actress Halle Berry.

I had names picked for children I thought I might have someday based on my grandfather’s first and middle names. My mom is named for the region her father’s family came from, I’m out of tradition with who knows where my mom came up with the name and my sister is named for a maternal great grandfather.

Me, I’ve never cared for my name, don’t really have any identity with it and have no associative visuals for it like I do for other people’s names.

@Seaofclouds I also double checked initials when thinking of names. There was a little girl in my neighborhood when I was young with the initials ASS and I once dated a guy with the initials EWW.

@Supacase LOL! Would be a bummer to have ASS as your initials, but EWW is kinda funny.

My initials are GAC; several years ago I asked LLBean to monogram some luggage. It arrived reading GAG. Bean offered, of course, to fix it, but I thought it was funny and kept it as is.