Your Children's Names, How Did You Decide?

fureverywhere

fureverywhere

beloved friend who will always be with us in spiri
Location
Northern NJ, USA
Yes I know for some of us having babies and finding an name for them is fairly distant history. For others it might be so far back there you barely remember. But we were just talking about that. I had five kids so had some more time than average to come up with meaningful monikers. In order...Keeping in mind I was named for actor Leslie Howard. One of my Mom's favorites, could have been worse...I could have been Clark. But my kids...

David-Simple strong name and I crushed on guitarist Davey Johnstone as a teen, plus a favorite cousin

Elizabeth-Another strong name, also one of my aunts

Alexandra- I did not find that name till the last minute. I was walking the mall trying to get settled into labor and stopped to read a baby name book. It was a popular name for boys and girls for a few years there. Too popular, you'd call "Alex!!!" at the playground and ten kids would look up.

Daniel- His Dad was set on Dominick. Number one it was a bully who used to bite the oldest in nursery school, number two was he looked far more like my side, fair skin and blue eyes than his Dad's Sicilian side. The middle name Shelby was writer Shelby Foote. In the American South Shelby was a boy's name.

Emily- That was my first name choice until Dave turned out to be a boy. Finally got my Emily. One inspiration was John Conlee's " Miss Emily's Picture".

My name got made fun of a lot in a working class Italian neighborhood. I wanted my kids to have tease proof names...guess I did okay, nobody complained. Except the youngest, an Uncle breaks into "Danny Boy" whenever they meet.
 

The eldest boy in my father's family was always William and it was common for girls to have their mother's maiden name as a middle name, so my sister's middle name is Allan.
We did not want to name our children after any relative. (note that we Brits say 'named after', not 'named for') Our son is Graeme and the girls are Kirstin and Emily. We later discovered from records of our family name in Melrose Abbey, that Kirstin was once a popular choice.
 
I have an unusual name that, for some reason, is difficult for Americans to pronounce, spell or remember and have spent a lifetime spelling it, pronouncing it and reminding people what it is. Therefore, my kids' names were chosen from ordinary names...Thomas, Daniel and Susan.
 
My son was called Mitchell because I just liked the name. My daughter was called Erin because I had loved that name ever since the days of Bewitched....Tabitha was played by Erin Murphy. I also liked Erin because of my Irish ancestors.
 
I thought so too, Mitchezz, until I saw a video of Ms Flack singing the song. It showed footage of what looked like soldiers probably in Vietnam. That is why I wondered at the symbolism?
 
If I had a boy I was going to give my baby his father's name, since I had a girl, I just took the last couple of letters off and it was set. In hindsight rather glad I didn't stick a boy with the name Reginald.
 
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We went nuts trying to figure it out. We knew they were twins (From an x-ray) but didn't know the gender.

So we had to think of names for 2 boys or 2 girls OR one of each.

Thing is, turned out to be TWO beautiful PERFECT IDENTICAL BOYS.

Don't ask why, but we chose Douglas and Donald; two common manly men's names; nothing fancy.

One thing I don't understand is why some people put a "Jr" after a son's name, not considering any other sons being born.
Makes any subsequent sons feel inferior. Why having the same name as your father? Same goes for "II" after your name! BFD, I say.

Also people should give thought about giving sons unisex names, like Lynn etc.
 
The names we chose for our kids were for many different reasons.

Shauna was our first. My bff in high school (just a year prior lol)had a sister by that name and I like it.

Next was Linda. We were sure we would have a boy this time and had no firm name for a girl. When she was born,nothing we did have "fit",so hubby started asking the nurses what their names were. There was Ida and Dorothy and Agnes. Ummm,no. We both had sisters by the name of Linda so decided to name her after her aunties. Linda fits her very well. Her middle name is Marina,after the Argentinian exchange student who lived with my family in high school and was in hubby`s graduating class.

Third was Shea,another girl. For any of you who may be baseball fans,I got her name from the sister of baseball player Eric Byrnes (Oakland A`s,Arizona Diamondbacks-now with ESPN) We were friends of Eric`s parents for years earlier in our marriage,and they named their firstorn Erin Shea,but called her Shea. I loved,loved.loved it-still do. She ended up being Shea Weslie,after her dad,as we knew she was the last. She loves her middle name and has never been mad at us for it lol.

BUT,surprise,surprise! 18 months later,along came Wesley Jr! (no worries about another son feeling "put out" Falcon-we KNEW he was going to be the last lol) If I had it to do over though,I would never,ever name a son the same name as his dad. Too confusing. And "little" Wes is now 6 inches taller than his dad so who do you mean when you say "little Wes"?????
 
It's funny to see this question here today, as just yesterday our youngest son was visiting and he was telling his wife how he got his name. Which he doesn't like and I'm not to fond of it either. By the time I was pregnant with a 4th child I was just tired of being pregnant and trying to raise kids when I was so young myself. My husband and I couldn't agree on a name so according to our son Ron, he was named Ronald Leroy, because his sister loved Ronald McDonald from McDonald's fast foods. And his oldest brother (age 9) loved the song Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown. That's a sad story, I do like the name Ron but not Ronald.
 
I was just talking to my son last night and had a similar conversation. I guess he thought I just plucked Daniel out of a hat. He had never heard the song...eeeeks, when I was his age I had every Elton John album in creation. But I showed him the video on YouTube. Also noticed later on he had researched and downloaded the whole original album the song came from...pretty neat introducing them to the music we loved. The eldest played several instruments...he appreciated Miles Davis and Coltrane.

 
My children's names were chosen by the traditional
Scottish method, if it is a boy he gets the father's,
father's name and if it is a girl she gets the mother's
mother's name.

My two were called Margaret & Peter, in that order,
with second names added in case they wanted a
change in later life.

Mike.
 
My Mother hadn't picked out a name for me before I was born,because she lost my twin in her 3rd month of pregnancy and they weren't sure if I would survive but as you can tell I did,so my Dad asked the nurse her name and she said Barbara,so I was named Barbara Ann.
When I had my fist child I named him after his Dad whose name is John. Our second child was a girl so I said to my Hubby we should name her Barbara. He said that would be dumb because then we would be John,John,Barbara, Barbara. So we named her Stephanie. When our first grandchild was born he was named John. So now there are 3 John's and one Barbara and that's ok. I guess you can never have too many John's ! :D;);)
 
We have too many Richard's to figure out...I understand John, maybe you can cross borders and go to Jacques or Jan for variety?
 
Son Donald Ernest was named after his dad and his grandfather. My husband and I had a hard time finding a name for our daughter that we both liked. He came up with Robin but I changed it to Robyn. We added my first name Lynn so she became Robyn Lynn.
 

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