As I announced last week, Baby Dekker #2 is a boy!
Although Dave and I honestly didn’t care either way, I’m just so excited to know the gender so we can nail down our name A.S.A.P. Crazy enough, this is probably my most favorite part of being pregnant — and if you ask Dave, he will definitely confirm my love / obsession with picking out the perfect name!
We don’t use books, or the internet, or special Apps for our phones — we just throw out names until we find the one we both love. I have a whole bunch of boy and girl names that I really like — but of course, there’s a laundry-list of “requirements” they need to meet to get both Dave and my approval.
Here are some of the things we think about when deciding on names for our children:
1. Dave is a teacher.
All of you teachers out there know Dave’s predicament of negatively associating certain names with problem students. Even if it’s been several years already, there are still some names I love that Dave just can’t get excited over because of previous problem students.
I do understand this because my mom is a teacher and said she had the same issues with naming my sisters and me. So if a name I like is an issue for Dave, I’m totally cool with removing it from my list.
2. Our last name starts with “D”.
I realize that crazy or weird initial combinations aren’t the end of the world — but with a last name that starts with “D”, there are a lot of really bad initial combinations we need to stay away from.
For example: OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) — ADD (attention deficit disorder) — STD (sexually transmitted disease) — to name a few 🙂
So, as I’m sure you can understand, some of our first + middle name combos are totally out of the question based on super awkward and inappropriate initials!
3. Our last name ends with “er”.
Several of the boys names I like end with “er” — and that sounds REALLY bad when paired with “Dekker”.
For example, Copper Dekker… no thanks. Parker Dekker… nope.
The ‘er’ combination at the end of our last name eliminated several of my boy names when Dave proposed (yes, I’ve been thinking of baby names for that long!)
4. I don’t like nicknames.
I realize this is weird — but if I’m going to name my child something, I want them to be called that. I don’t want to name them something and then have them go by a completely different name for their entire lives.
For example (and I’m not trying to offend anyone here, just giving examples)…
If I name a child Elizabeth, I going to call her Elizabeth — not Beth, Ellie, or Liz.
If I name a child Katherine, I’m going to call her Katherine — not Kate, Katie, Kathy, or Kat.
I have NO issue when other people do this (and I love those two girl names) but I just want to name my child what I’m going to call them. So if I want to call them Liz or Kate then I will name them Liz or Kate on their birth certificates.
So basically, we will most likely pick a name that doesn’t have a nickname or an obvious way to shorten it — kind of like “Nora”.
5. We both want short names that are easy to spell and pronounce.
Neither Dave or I are fabulous at remembering names — and I am a horrible speller (as you might notice from some of the typos on my blog!) For this reason, I much prefer names that are short, easy to spell, and easy to pronounce. Plus, I always felt bad for the kids with 10+ letter names because they had to write them over and over and over again on every school paper and test.
I also don’t like names that have 4 different spellings because I personally feel self-conscious that I will spell someone’s name wrong (which I hate doing). I like names that can be easily sounded out and don’t require you to spell them 4 times letter-by-letter to the person on the other end of the phone.
SIDE NOTE: I figured Nora would be a super easy name to say and spell, but I find that I often end up spelling “N.O.R.A.” to people because they think it’s “Lora”, or “Dora,” or “Mora”, or even Norah – with the H.
6. We both like common names, but not fad or really popular names.
Growing up, I was the ONLY Andrea in my grade — and although our school was medium size, there was only one other Andrea in the whole school all the way through high school.
I loved that I was never confused with other Andreas, I loved that I didn’t always need to use my last name or my middle initial, and I loved that although my name wasn’t crazy weird, it was still somewhat unique.
Our goal is to choose common names that are easy to spell and pronounce. However, we try really hard to stay away from wildly popular names (although Nora is getting much more popular now) — and definitely no “fad” or celebrity baby names for us 🙂
7. We don’t want gender neutral.
I actually DO like most gender neutral names — I just don’t want to name my children a gender neutral name because I don’t want their name to be confused for the opposite sex.
I realize this might sound totally crazy, but growing up, there was a girl named Jordan in our school and she would always get put on the boys list for things or confused as a male when her name was just listed on paper. I remember how embarrassed she was once, and for that reason, decided that I didn’t want to name my kids gender neutral names.
8. We like names that have a special significance.
I never thought I would be big on naming my kids after special relatives, but when we found out Nora was a girl, I just knew I wanted to name her after someone in our family tree. We came up with Nora after my grandma Norene (4 generations on my mom’s side). Nora’s middle name is Faith, after my mom’s middle name Faye.
I thought Nora Faith sounded more “modern” than Norene Faye — and I was thrilled that it met all our requirements above while still achieving my goal to name her after not one, but TWO special people in our lives.
.
For those of you who are more like Dave, you probably think I’m a crazy person after reading this post and having a tiny peek into the ridiculous amount of thought that I put into picking names for our kiddos.
However, for those of you who share my name-picking enthusiasm — you can appreciate the great lengths I go through in order to come up with the perfect name.
We still haven’t nailed down our boy’s name 100% — but we do have a very short list, and we already know the middle name. And in case you’re wondering, we will not be sharing the name before he’s born… that’s our little secret 🙂
Michele says
I don’t think it’s weird at all. I share a lot of both yours and Dave’s requirements. Having been a teacher, I also had the “Oh God, every time I’d say his name I’d think of that kid!” problem. I also don’t like nicknames, so both of my kids have names where you’d work really hard to make a cutesie nickname. I wanted to name my son Andrew, after my dad. Andrew Michael, to be specific, as my husband’s name is Michael and I’m Michele. But my oldest niece, who’s only a year younger than I am, also married a Mike and had her son first and named him…. Andrew Michael. So I went with my second choice, Adam, which was my grandfather’s name. My husband named my daughter Rachel after his dad, Raymond (Ramona was not an option!). And since we are both “M” people, I didn’t want to use a name that began with M (although I love the name Matthew — darnit!). I love our kids’ names; they are easy to pronounce and spell, and they are unique enough that they are the only Adam and Rachel in their classes. But not so unique that people do a double take when they see their names! Have fun with the name game!
Kristen @ Joyfullythriving says
We found out last week that our baby is a boy, too! It is nice to narrow down the field for names because it’s a big decision! My husband and I have 22 years of teaching experience between us, so we have already ruled out quite a few names. And I don’t like nicknames either, so our search for traditional / Biblical names has us with a small list right now. Thankfully, we still have almost 5 months to chose a name!
Janice says
You are NOT crazy. Names are so important in life and parents should realize that. One thing my husband insisted on in choosing names for our children was that the child’s name would be able to go with them throughout adulthood. A cutesy kid name sounds ridiculous on a grown man or woman. We always used our children’s real names and still do now they are grown, but we did have several names of sweet endearment used only in family settings. We now do the same things with our g’kids. I’m with you about nicknames. Not good! One of my husband’s female cousins was called Toad as a child and the family often used it even when she was in her retirement years. They didn’t even remember HOW she got the nickname. And by the way, the Bible in Isaiah 49:16 says that God has written our names on the palms of His Hands. What a great image for believers in God!
Faith Lohr says
I don’t think you’re crazy at all lol
My husband was a teacher for 10 years and we completely avoided certain names due to “problem” students.
We also wanted unique – unpopular names, but not extremely hard to spell.
For my first two sons they share middle names of relatives (my husband’s and my father’s)
My daughter shares my first name as her middle name.
I’m am against nicknames as well. My second son’s name is Joshua and I always correct people when they call him Josh.
HOWEVER, we made an exception for my youngest. My husband and I were at odds and couldn’t decide on any names we liked and agreed upon.
So one day my kids were watching Dr. Seuss cartoon about kangaroos. The next day I asked the kids what they thought the Baby’s name should be. They said “Joey – because he’s in Mommy’s pouch” (which I thought was adorable). Their other name choice was “Icing” haha So we decided upon Joseph Elijah and call him “Joey” simply for the meaning behind it.
Picking the name was always one of my favorite parts of being pregnant as well.
Stel says
Totally get you! All your reasons.
Having lived with a 10 letter not-so-common name that nobody could ever spell, I swore I would give my kids simple names. And after watching how the in-laws pressured their eldest on naming after them, I swore not to.
We named the first after a good friend of my husband – but I didn’t realise how many people wouldn’t be able to spell Reinhardt! The second was simpler and strong: Gideon.
I was always embarrased about my 2nd name – Charlé, named after my grandfather. Now I like it more.
And now for the funny part…after having met only one other Christelle during the first 19 years of my life, now the list includes: my best friend, my husband best school friend, my SIL’s sister, my MIL’s friend’s daughter…
Johanna says
I named my oldest Anna Selma Margareta, Selma being what she’s called. Anna is after her aunt, Selma was my grandfather’s grandmother, and Margareta because it’s a family name that every first born girl on my side of the family’s had since some time in the 1800’s. None of the names were on the list of most popular names in Sweden (I’m a Swedish newcomer to your blog) the year she was born, and Selma is very uncommon without being considered strange. And then four years later I had another girl, and I was not sure at all what names I liked. But then I went through a list of names I found on the internet, and decided Alice Elsa Linnea was a beutiful combination of names. My husband loved it, and he wasn’t too crazy about the name Selma in the beginning, so I “let him have” this choice. 🙂 Alice is her very own name, but my great grandmother and grandmother shared the name Elsa, and Linnea was my maternal grandfather’s mother. So I managed to get some family ties in there, and my grandmother is VERY excited to share her name with her great-grandchild. So we decided on those names, and when the top list of names from her birth year came out we found all the names on the top ten! Not exactly what we wanted, but we still love her names.
Carlen says
I feel the same way about most of your points! I also want my children’s names to “go” together but not be too similar. I guess they should be similar in style. I knew siblings named “Rosetta and Spencer” and I thought that was so strange that she had such an old fashioned, ethinic sounding name and his was so modern.
I also always googled the potential first name with the last name, just to make sure there weren’t any famous/infamous people with that same name.
(Have you considered the name Grant? It seems to fit all of your criteria. It’s my absolute favorite boy name).
Kristi says
I thought I was the only one! I go through exactly the same proces when naming our kids and it was definitley the first thing we did when we found out we were pregnant. #4 is due just before Christmas,and will round out our even-stevens family (boy-girl-boy-girl). We wanted to stay away from family names becuase both of our parents are divorced and re-married so we didn’t want to offend anyone. We both also have generations of “Jr.’s” and we did not want to jump on that party bus so we gave the boys our middle names. My husband’s middle name is Alan, so the first boy got that one. My middle name is Jude (actually a boys name) so we gave the second boy that name. When it came time to name number 4 I realized we all had the same initials; KA, KJ, BA, AR, and AJ…So I figured since we were so “even” that our initals should be as well. We needed a name with BR initals to keep the pattern going so we came up with Brandi Rae. Like you we wanted common but not trendy or “too popular” names, easy to say, spell, pronounce, etc.
Brandie says
Kristi, my name is Brandie Rae.
kristi says
You’re soul sisters! LOL
My husband just informed me Sunday that his first dog’s name was Brandy. I instantly wanted to change her name-to-be! But we’ve been calling her Brandi for so long, I can’t imagine picking somehting different.
Evie says
Fun to know there are lots of girls named Evie/Evelyn up that way! I grew up never once meeting another girl with my name, but the funny thing was that when I went to college one of my roommates was also named Evelyn. I couldn’t believe it, but luckily she had never been called Evie and I was always Evie, so it ended up not being confusing for us to be named the same.
I gave my three (now adult) children what I thought were simple names, since our last name is long, difficult, and very rare. Even so, some people managed to find ways to alter the spelling or pronunciation of their names.
The only problem I have now with my Evie is that people seem to want to call me EEEEvie for some reason, you know, with a long ‘e’ at the beginning instead of a short ‘e’. I am definitely a short ‘e’ Evie, so I go around correcting as needed. Andrea, I’m curious to know which pronunciation you hear up there, EEEEvie or Evie? (Hahah, your answer will tell me whether I would have been happy if I had stayed in Michigan to make a life there after finishing grad school at MSU.)
Have fun picking out your little boy’s names! I can’t wait to be introduced to him through your blog! 🙂
Andrea says
Hey Evie — we pronounce “Evie” with a short e as well — not EEEEEvie 🙂
you would love Michigan!
Evie says
Michigan is wonderful, for sure! I’m so glad everybody up there can say my name “right”! 🙂
Gen says
That is a pretty long list!! Do you actually choose the name before the baby is born? Or do you leave it open to when you actually meet them and then pick from a list? I’m very particular to the name matching the face/person, and that’s what I envision doing when I have kids; narrowing it down but choosing once they are born.
One of my biggest requirements is to have a bilingual name. I don’t like that English people have a hard time pronouncing my name- Geneviève. At least I have the nickname Gen (which is an other requirement, I LOVE nicknames) but then if you just say Gen people think Jen, short for Jennifer. That’s about my list! And of course I can’t associate a name with anyone.
Though those are all requirements, I say requirements loosely, because some of the names I love, especially for boys, go against rule #1… I like english boy names a lot.
A friend recently had a baby boy and they were considering Thomas, but then realized it would abbreviate to T.P. and decided against it.
Andrea says
Yes Gen, we have the definite name picked out well before the baby is born 🙂 It’s just how we like to do it — especially since I usually do one or two crafty things with the name. Nora’s name was picked out fully when I was only 22 weeks along and we (Dave and I) would call her that for the rest of the pregnancy — but not in front of anyone else 🙂
Peitra says
My husband and I are both teachers- so we’re in the same boat as Dave. I always thought it would be funny to do names like soap operas do. My husband and I are Peitra and Gabriel- so we should have a Peter and Gabriella, right? Ha!
I don’t do nicknames, either- so my girls are Evangeline and Juliette. I wanted the names to sound similar ethnically. Evangeline’s middle name is Isabelle (after my grandmother) and Juliette’s is Elisabeth, who was the midwife! (I really liked her- can you tell?)
We did have a short list until both girls were born. I couldn’t name them without seeing them first.
Susie says
Although my given name was Linda Sue , at age 57, in school I wasn’t given the option of using my nickname (Susie, not too far off) until teachers noticed I didn’t answer to Linda. When I asked my mom why she named me Linda but called me Susie she said she’d always wanted a girl named Susie…..well, what happened to that idea?? I’ve been married 39 yrs & still regret not changing my name to Susie Simms (maiden) Clark. As a result my son has his own 1st name, his dad’s 1st name is his middle & our daughter’s 1st is her own, middle is a after her aunt. Both kids (now adults) love their names…. There are a handful of nicknames I get, I have more problem with calling a child his middle name, especially when he has same 1st name & worse, all the same initials!! Can you tell I work in a medical office lol??
One more thing, our first granddaughter is 3 days old, has a nickname but for the most meaningful reason. If anyone is interested I’ll gladly share 🙂
Amanda says
I have wanted to be a mother since I was a little girl. I spent countless hours thinking of baby names – family names, friends names, names that I thought were cool, etc. I would write them out (with the last name of the boy I had a crush on at the time) to see what they looked like. I would think about monograms and any acronyms – to prevent bullies form picking on my sweet child to be.
At 39, I got a call at 10:30 in the morning and at 2:00 that afternoon I was the mommy of a beautiful pink bundle. I adopted out of foster care, so I had given up on being able to name my child. I was going to name her Evelyn Kay – both family names. When they brought her to me, the social worker had given her the name of Grace – because she was here and healthy by the Grace of God. Now how could I argue with that? So, after 30+ years of thinking of baby names, Grace Evelyn got her name through divine intervention. I call her Gracie, because Grace seemed too grown up for a 5 lb baby – but now that she is 4 going on 24….she gets called Grace a lot.
I cannot imagine her being called any of the names I had thought of all those years ago – she truly is the Grace of my heart!
Andrea says
Oh that’s a sweet story Amanda! I had a huge list of baby names from my childhood too — Claire and Evie are really the ONLY two I still like. Who knows, in 5 or 6 years, I might have a totally new list of names I love 🙂
Kelly in Oregon says
I totally get it! It’s a lifelong decision, it makes sense to spend some time thinking on it! My girlfriend and her husband spend her entire pregnancy thinking of a name for their second daughter, and in the end they picked something neither of them loved simply because it was what they could both agree on. I thought that was so unfortunate.
Shawna says
I don’t think it’s crazy at all. Sometimes I wonder if parents forget that they will have that name for the rest of their life lol
Katy says
I also loved picking out baby names, until our youngest daughter. We could never agree on a name for a girl, although we had a boy name. She wasn’t named until she was a few hours old. Our oldest two are Emily and Evan, so everyone said we should keep the “E” names going…but I just didn’t like any other girl “E” names (except Emerson, but we knew several people who had named their daughters that). We also like to have short names…the longest name in our family is 5 letters. We considered Erika (due to the “E” thing.) We ended up naming her Mya Rose (Rose after my mom)…and then about a hundred other people named their daughters Mya, so I was kind of bummed. We had Barrett picked out for a boy…it you’re looking for ideas 🙂 Have fun and be sure to go with what you feel is best…we resisted the pressure to keep the “E” names, and I’m glad we did…my little Mya’s name just seems to fit her, I don’t think Erika would have been right.
Living So Abundantly says
We have very similar styles on picking names, but we did use a book. In fact, it was the same book for both babies. 😉 We don’t like using nicknames either, and it’s ironic how many people try to GIVE your baby a nickname even after you tell them they will go by the name you have given them(unless they choose to go by a nickname when they get older). Our last name starts with “S,” and I loved the name Benjamin, but his initials would have been BS. Totally get the initial thing. I taught elementary for 9 years, so some names are just NOT going to happen in this house–lol. We had a MUCH easier time with our boy’s name than with our girl’s. Enjoy picking out your name for your boy.
Jessica says
We don’t have children yet, but I feel the same way about initials!
Colleen says
My grandmother (mom to 9 kids) had great advice. She said to yell the name you’re considering out the back door – if it doesn’t sound good then, don’t use it because you’ll be yelling it out the back door a lot over the next several years… And, realistically, if you’re yelling it more than once you’re definitely using that middle name too!
Jennifer says
This list makes me feel so normal! My husband and I went through a very similar process when I was recently pregnant with our son. Plus adding to that, I come from the south where a lot of people use family names and he didn’t want to use any family names. So we’ve had to compromise. We didn’t want a name with weird initials, weird nicknames, or associations with not so great family members. After about 5 months we finally came up with Timothy James. Neither are family names but we wanted our son’s name to have meaning (Timothy-God’s Honor) and James is our favorite book of the BIble. The next baby we’ve already decided will have a family name and a Biblical name or a name with a strong meaning. Naming babies is hard. Not only do you have to agree with your spouse, but they’re stuck with that name their whole life! It’s also a lot of fun because some of the names in those baby books are hilarious!
Jennifer P says
We had a list of don’ts for our names too. First since our last name started with P there would be no P names. Didn’t like the double initial thing. Next we eliminated the J and L names since those are mine and my husbands initials. We both have several ‘JP’ in our families (My maiden name also started with a P) so we didn’t want to duplicate that. Then as we added kids (we have 3) we removed their initial from the list. We avoided names ending in s because our last name ends with an s.
We didn’t find out the gender ahead of time so we had two names picked each time and we didn’t carry over names, each pregnancy got two new names.
The name we had the most trouble deciding on, turned out to be what we had. Both boys middle names were not finalized until a week or two before they were born. And our daughter did not have a first name until she was about an hour old…So we have Matthew Lon, Ryan J. and Cassondra BethAnne. Matthew prefers Matt and Cassondra is only Cassondra and not Cassie and she has always been quick to correct anyone who mispronounced it.
Another thing for us was that these are names THEY have to live with for their life. A cutesy name at 3 might not be cutesy at 13 or 30… Someone asked me why we gave our daughter such an adult name we said because she will spent more time in her life as an adult than a child.
Heather Dilios says
Just some food for thought…
Choosing a name that allows for nicknames provides your child some independence when they get older and want to shape their own identity. You can still call your child by their given name but it might really empower your Katherine to choose to go by Katie. It also makes the fact that you can call her Katherine that much more special.
Gender neutral names can be quite powerful when applying for jobs. You’re having a boy so this doesn’t matter so much but should you have another girl, you might want to consider this. Some industries and private companies still give an unintended edge to men in the marketplace. Plus, it give hers the upper hand at an interview when everyone is expecting a man and she walks in. Suddenly the power is in her hands while everyone else scrambles to reorganize their expectations.
Amy says
I am with you 100% on the naming criteria. I’m the same way. We have an 3 syllable, 8 letter last name that is almost never spelled correctly, much less pronounced correctly. My mother in law gave my husband and his 2 brothers short one syllable, 4 letter names and said she did that to be easy on them. Given 2 of those short names names are their middle name, which they go by. I loved her reasoning behind it, but didn’t like the 4 letter name was actually their middle name. I feel like kids will go through school, job interviews, etc constantly correcting everyone “no actually I go by ___” My husband did not like that going through school. He and I gave our daughter and son 3 letter names that cannot be misspelled, mispronounced, or shortened to a nickname. After all they have a long last name to deal with and correct people on. Why name it even harder on them?
Katherine says
We do a Biblical name for the first name, and a family name for the middle. My husband wanted them to be in alphabetical order too, but I convinced him otherwise, so now we have Jonah, Matthew, and Hannah.
Melissa says
I too am picky when it comes to names, but it has more to do with the meanings behind the name.
We have an Evangline (Eva for short and after my husband’s Aunt Evangline – it means “bringer of life” or “bringer of good news”) We only know one other Eva and no other Evangelines – although the same year she was born Ava was really popular…something we found out much later. We had a really hard time picking out a middle name that fit Evangeline, so I was thrilled when I heard the name Sway in a movie…it just fit and we love it.
Our son’s name is Isaac Christopher – My husband and I went through a whole list of boys names and this was the only one we could agree on. It means “he laughs” or “laughter” and it totally fits my son. Christopher is after my husband.
Our last child is Sophia (Fi, or Fia for short) Hadassah-Louise. Sophia after my daughters first little friend, it means “wisdom”. Hadassah (which I just think is BEAUTIFUL) was Ester’s Jewish name, before she was known as Ester – it means “myrtle leaf” I believe, which was a sign of victory for the Isrealites. And last Louise after my grandmother. My mom always wished one of us girls would choose one of her mothers names – Helen or Louise. We surprised her and she was thrilled. Louise means “warrior”, so Sophia will always be our “wise, victorious warrior”
Peitra says
We have an Evangeline, too! Although, we call her Evangeline. Her middle name is Isabelle (after my grandmother). We’ve only met another Evangeline once.
Jen says
I LOVE LOVE LOVE baby names too! I think it’s the MOST fun!! Probably the sense of control and power. bwa hahahah!
We, too, have a tough last name. It’s Swedish in origin and has TWO capital letters and gets misspelled and mispronounced on an hourly basis so we had to keep that it mind.
I also do not like nicknames or “fad” names. However, after we named our second daughter and first son, both of their names became pretty popular. 🙁
We have two girls and two boys
Brooke Ashleigh-we just loved the name Brooke. (My mom wanted to name me Brooke but my dad wouldn’t agree so she was thrilled that we used the name!) We never wavered from that throughout my entire pregnancy. The middle name was harder. We loved Ashley but it was SO POPULAR at the time time (Brooke is 21) so we decided to stick with it for the middle name and just give it a fancy spelling. I wasn’t worried about the weird spelling since it was her middle name.
Sydney Paige-my husband and I started dating while we were on a mission’s trip in Australia. We shared our first kiss in a McDonald’s parking lot in Sydney and we were in Australia when we knew we would get married so Sydney is aptly named. We picked a simple middle name because we thought it sounded better with our difficult last name.
Funny story about Sydney-she was actually named Reagan for the first hour of her life. I LOVED it but my husband thought it was too strange so we changed it to Sydney. I love Sydney but I do wish we had stuck with Reagan. It’s much less popular. And, we have had a few people over the years, call our daughter Syd but she got really good at saying “Please call me Sydney!” And people usually oblige!
Payton Noah-We traveled to Williamsburg, VA, while I was pregnant and toured the Peyton Randolph house there. I loved the name and we went for it but spelled it with an “A”. Probably not the best choice-because it gets spelled with an “E’ all the time (thanks to Peyton Manning, who I had NO IDEA even existed when we named our son) but I still like it with the “A”. Mother’s prerogative, I guess! 🙂
Sawyer Christian-When I was pregnant with Payton, we couldn’t decide between the name Payton or Sawyer. We opted for Payton (obviously!) so I was THRILLED to have a chance to use my other favorite boy’s name! (If Sawyer had been a girl, he would have been Reagan!). No rhyme or reason here, we just LOVED the name. It’s different and you would NOT believe the way it gets misspelled (Soyer, Sayer) but we get A LOT of compliments on how cool it is!
So much fun! I can’t wait to hear what Baby Dekker’s name will be. Congratulations again!
Kristina says
I hate repeating syllables. “Soap pump” for instance, makes me cringe. No way is my kid going to have that. I’m also weird about the initial thing. Pre-marriage, I was KGZ, I was so worried my initials would be KGB, the Russian spies! Also, bad name associations are out, and so are the FIRST names of relatives. We use those as middle names (it’s a husband family tradition.)
You are not alone in this name game. It’s a tough job choosing a name your child is going to have for life!
Debby says
My girls are named Emily and Katie. Emily is after my grandmother Emma and my mom’s middle name Lee. I loved this named and was then horrified when it became as crazy poplular during the late 90’s as my name was in the 60’s. UUUUGGGHHH. And my Katie is just that. Katie. Why in the world would I name her Katherine and never call her that a day in her life. Like Deborah, only to be called Debby all your life. I think I obsess about this because my husband’s name is Charles Kevin. His family has always called him Kevin so why in the world wouldn’t that be his first name? It has caused so much unbelievable confusion during his adulthood. So name your kids what you are going to call them. Although, my girls do have nicknames that are terms of endearment. But those are for my husband and I and are based on special memories.
Amanda says
I’m actually the opposite, I like a name that has a nickname but that also has a professional sounding “real” name. I’m Amanda… but until I left for college, I almost exclusively went by Mandy. My family and people I’ve known for a long time still call me Mandy, but my college roommates and anyone I know professionally call me Amanda.
Our son actually breaks that mold. He is Paul Michael IV. We weren’t sure we were going to continue the tradition, but while I was pregnant, my husband’s grandfather (Paul Michael Sr) was not in good health. When it came down to picking a name, he couldn’t come up with another name he liked (I can’t count the number of suggestions I gave), and I think it’s because in the back of his mind, he really wanted to honor his grandfather and father (who had a nearly fatal heart attack a couple of years ago). I was always ok with using the name, but my husband had to decide that’s what he wanted. I will say that while there isn’t an obvious nickname, people call him Pauly sometimes (I usually call him Bubba)
Kayla H says
I totally agree with all your points! We named our first daughter Gillian (pronounced Jillian) Dallas because I had picked that when I was a teenager. She is named after my grandfather’s aunt (super sweet lady!) and grandmother. We used the “g” version because 1) that’s how my aunt’s middle name was spelt, and 2) I thought she was less likely to be called Jill (which I don’t particularly care for). We call her G most of the the time, and it suits her. Our other daughter’s name is Reese Trinity. Reese is just a name we liked and one that no one else around us was using at the time, and because big sister’s middle name is a city in Texas (and my husband is from Texas) we decided to look at the map and find other names to use and we found Trinity. Even though Dallas is a family name, we thought it would be fun for them to have something in common. We have a boy’s name picked out that we both love, and since I picked the first name and we both picked the second, my husband has a name picked out for another girl if we ever have one. 🙂 Both of the first names are not very common, and I like that.
Stephanie says
I totally understand the initial thing!
Our last name starts with a D as well. I loved loved how Samuel Thomas sounded as a name but couldn’t give my child STD as initials so we went with Samuel Isaac instead. SID sounds better to me. I think it would be funny if he ended up being called Sid later in life. Popular names are hard. With our other son I knew it was a somewhat popular name but who would’ve guessed in a 1 month time frame in our church alone we have 3 boys named Levi. If I would have known at the time I would’ve waited to use the name. Oh well he will survive.
Long names aren’t too bad, mine is 9 letters and I never felt like it was too much. Most people call me my full name because that is how I introduce myself. I do go by Steph too, but very rarely will I call myself Steph so to most people I am Stephanie.
Enjoy the name choosing!
Jennifer nelson says
Mine are Sierrah Nicole, Chance Levi and Dio James. Sierrah shares the middle name initial with her biological father, and Chance shares his middle initial with me (mine is Lynn). Dio is names after the metal rocker Ronnie James Dio, his father chose it.
Starla says
We thought of many of the same things, especially nicknames and initials. None of our boys have nicknames or “extended” names! =) We didn’t pursue meanings and worry about special significance, just names we liked, that went together well, and were easy to say. Their names are: Derrick Shane, Kyle Jordan, Alex Riley, and Logan Scott. It’s funny how the meanings of their names actually turned out to match their personalities!
Happy baby naming!
Rochelle says
I am very picky about my names too & I pretty much have all the same requirements as you! Neither my husband or I are teachers, but we still have a lengthy list of names we avoid due to people we know/knew. The one requirement that I’d add to your list is that I don’t want my babies to have the same name as anyone at my church. We have 5 boys, so let me tell you by the 5th boy it was really hard to meet all the requirements, but we did it :). Our boy names are: Lucas, Owen, Liam, Gavin, & Isaac. The name Liam became super popular after I had him of course… But still no Liam’s in his class & only one other one in the school. And their middle names are all after family. And my Owen was after my grandfather.
Janelle says
We had very similar “requirements” for ours. We too have a last name that starts with D. Even though our firstborn has the initials EBD (which can stand for emotionally behaviorially disturbed in education circles), we didn’t think that most people would know what that stood for. He’s almost ten and so far, so good. With my daughter, I wanted to use my Grandma’s name for her middle name, but I wanted to avoid LSD at all costs, LOL.
Like you, I wanted short, easy to pronounce, easy to spell names with no nickname possibilities. I have to spell my first name everywhere, so I didn’t want to have to spell my kids names as well.
My husband likes what I call “plain Jane” names, but I like something a little different (but not weird). Unfortunately, both of our boys names have been more popular than I thought they’d be (but not too bad). Interesting that you know that many people with Claire/Clara and Evie/Evelyn becase we don’t know anyone with either of those names. (Must be regional.)
We ended up with Evan Benjamin (middle name after my husband), Leah Kaitlyn Svea (to avoid the LSD as mentioned above, but still use my Grandma’s name) and Eli Matthew (just Eli, not Elijah). As far as meanings go, Evan is the Welsh form of John (my Father-in-law’s name and my brother’s name) and it means “God is Gracious”. (We tried almost 9 years for Evan!) With Eli’s middle name Matthew, that means “Gift of God”. After so many years of infertility, to have three blessings, we just had to use that name!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on names. You’re not the only one who puts so much thought into it. Good luck pairing it down!
Andrea says
We love the name Eli too — well at least I do. I don’t think we’ll choose that for our first boy (We have a few others on our list too) but it’s definitely in contention for any future boys! 🙂
maren says
I am so picky when it comes to names. I used to also teach math and totally agree on #1. Some kids just ruin a name.
I definitely have a list too and blogged about it when I was on the hunt with my last kiddo in utero. I face the same dilemma as I’m pregnant with #4, but won’t start the hunt until I find out if it’s boy or girl in a few weeks!
Here’s my criteria…http://trinketsofthought.com/2012/07/12/life/the-naming-dilemma Like I said, I am way too picky! 🙂
Maren
Andrea says
Loved your list Maren 🙂
Nicole says
I’m the same way. I found coming up with a boys name to be very hard. I had a lot of choices for a girls name, but we only had a boy. His name is Owen. I also like that it can’t be shortened to a nickname. I don’t like my nickname of Nikki. Only my immediate family calls me that. My husband does not.
Jill says
My MIL felt the same way about nicknames so went with Ryan Eric (both she felt weren’t able to be shortened). Imagine her horror when people started calling him Ry. Our girls names can’t be shorted either but it is funny how many people end up making them longer instead of shorter!!
All that to say, I have come to realize people just really like nicknames and will make one up if they can. Jill obviously can’t be shortened, but I was Jilly for so much of my growing up despite my dismay (clearly I have learned to embrace it 😉
Ann says
I love the thought you put into it! All of our kids are named after family members (but not directly -like Nora). I like that they have a link to family history but yet their own unique name.
(Lindsay Anne after Linda and Anna)
(Alison Kate after Alice and Catherine)
(Michael Karl after Marion and Klaas)
(Jacob John after Marion John and Klaas Jacobus)
I still had one girl name left (Bethany Joy after Elizabeth and Joyce as well as our siblings who died as infants Beth Renae and Cynthia Elizabeth) but God never gave us that girl. The names all came to me one day in the shower when I was pregnant with our first. All we had to do is decide which name to use when!
Leanne says
since our first two boys were adopted, we allowed the birthmothers to pick their middle names–a link to their “biological” family…so, when we were finally pregnant with my 3rd, he received my husband’s middle name as the “link” to his biological family.
I have traditional names, Christopher, Matthew, and Michael–one thing I like about those names are the “nicknames”…I’ll never call them that, but I think Chris, Matt, and Mike are good, sturdy boy nicknames…
and finally, Michael was named after the church I grew up in– St. Michael…. I always loved the name Michael, so that’s how he was named!
Andrea says
That’s such a cool story Leanne — loved how you linked all the names to their biological families!