How Did You Choose Your Children's Names?

OneEyedDiva

OneEyedDiva

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New Jersey
I looked through all the books with baby names back in 1968 and didn't find any that I liked in combination with our surname. Finally I turned to the T.V. Guide. I chose Troy (after Troy Donahue) because I liked the sound of it and at the time I didn't know of anyone else with that name. About a year later I met a man during the course of my work duties named Troy and we started dating. Anyway I decided to choose Anthony as his middle name which I'd never considered before but it fit nicely. Fast forward to the late 80's, my son wound up using his initials, TAB, as part of his "stage name". Lo and behold, it's the name of another actor from the 60's that he probably didn't even know about....Tab Hunter.

Did you name your child(ren) after parents, relatives or names you liked?
 

I had lots of great names for the boys. My husband hated all of them. So we named one after my father (with husband's middle name), on that I thought was a perfect white bread name, with my father-in-law's middle name, and one because we liked it (with my best mail friend's first name).
My husband only liked white bread names. I like more unusual names like Augustus and Maximillian. I would have liked to name one after my Uncle Jochen, too. He is a great guy. Most American's would not be able to pronounce it, and my husband hated the idea.

When my daughter came along, I named her what turned out to be a very popular girl's name. I should have stayed with my first choice - Octavia. But everyone hated it. I did not let my husband participate in that choice because what does he know about girl's names?
 
Our children's names are fairly ordinary and relatively common in Scotland. We chose them because we liked them and avoided family names. On my father's side, the eldest son was always William. Our son shares a middle name with me, but then every other male in this area seems to be an Alexander (usually 'Sandy'). The most popular names here would appear to be Jack and Olivia.
 
In my family everyone is named after someone else... ( except me, I have the middle name of my 2 grandmothers instead)... so I was determined not to name my own daughter after anyone.. I wanted to call her Jill, it had long been a favourite name of mine, but my then husband didn't like it, so I let him be the one to choose, and that's the name she has today .
I'm still not a great lover of the name but after 45 years I'm used to it..:LOL:...there are several songs with her name in it and she hates them all... but she likes her name , and she's very pleased I didn't call her Jill
 
My daughter's name was chosen from a favourite movie of mine, from the 40's. It has become quite popular in the past decade. It suits her well. Her second name is Japanese, after my mother .. which is my niece's first name. She is also half Japanese.
 
Grampa Don said:
My wife named both our boys. How she came up with them, I've no idea. They are not named after anyone in either of our families. I would have called them Kid number one and Kid number two. Maybe that's why I didn't have a say.
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You're kidding of course, (you'd have called them "Sprog 1+2"!).

Our choice was made on the basis that we only found one name we liked, in a whole book of children's names, prior to the birth, (good job therefore a girl arrived! :) ).
 
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In our custom, there's a lot to be said with first names. We typically name the first boy and first girl after their grandparents, then anything goes. Their names were typically saint's names or Biblical names: John, George, Maria, Sophia, Irene, Magdalene, Katherine, Nickolas, Basil, Mathew, etc. They would often name the third or fourth child after an Ancient Greek like Aphrodite, Persephone, Alexander, Aristotle, Penelope, Agamemnon, etc. Of course, they're fond of nicknames, so Aristotle might be "Aris" and Penelope might be "Penny."

I come from a family of five girls. My father wanted boys. So every time a baby was born, he would have the boy's name picked out, but it never happened. Each time, it was a girl, so by the time the fourth baby arrived, he named her after his father and adjusted the name so it sounded like a female! But he loved us all dearly. We were his girls.
 
When our son was born we thought to call him Mitch. But that would not do since we lived on Mitchell avenue. We picked Randall instead. Everyone calls him Randy, and he is fine with that.

When our daughter came along it seemed that every little girl was either Debby or Lisa. We chose Victoria which she likes, but she is usually called Tory.
 
We named my son John after my husband. When I had my daughter I teased my husband and said we should name her after me. He said that would be dumb because it would be John John Barbara Barbara.I laughed and told him I was only teasing. I wanted to name her Stephanie. Thinking about it now my hubby's name is John and my son is too and so is my oldest grandson.LOL
 
My parents had their first marital argument on their honeymoon on whether their first son would be a "Jr." and whether to dress him in short pants or long.

Six daughters later..... You want to hear God laugh? Tell Him/Her your plans.

The youngest one was about to be dubbed with my dad's name, boy or girl. Thank goodness, wiser minds prevailed and she got a girl's name (picked by me as they were stunned it was another girl).
 
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