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How to name a baby - let's hear your stories

2K views 30 replies 24 participants last post by  okcomputer 
#1 ·
I think it might be fun and informative to hear how you were named or how you named your kids, ehMac!

Did you choose a name out of a book? Name your baby after your favourite uncle? Did mom and dad agree or were there some epic disagreements? Maybe you were supposed to be called something else and your parents made a last second switch? What traditions does your culture have about naming babies?
 
#2 ·
My daughter was born profoundly disabled, and it was doubtful that she would even live the first few days of her life. Still, the nurses said that she was so beautiful, so we named her Shaina, which is derived from the Yiddish word for "beautiful".
 
#4 ·
Cool. Great story and a great name, Sinc. :clap::clap:
 
#5 ·
Cools stories so far!
I was supposed to be names Steven, but when I was born I looked so much like my father I was named after him, first and middle.
My wife and I named our first daughter after my wife's cousin and our first daughter was given the opportunity to name our second and she chose to name her after my grandmother.
 
#6 ·
We decided to choose names that were not popular/common, also our religion had influences in the naming.
Plus names that could not be shorten or have double meanings. ( i.e. Richard means Dick or John means Jack )
Read lots of books regarding naming.
One important thing to remember, as we took into effect is initials - we have middle names for our kids - so you want to make sure initials do not mean anything now or possibly in future.

Lots to think about - not so easy to name a child.
MOST OF ALL - NEVER TELL ANY THE NAMES before you actually name your child.
Otherwise be ready for name theft.
 
#7 ·
For a very brief period, until I was placed with my parents, I was called Lee.
 
#8 ·
I wanted my children's names to start with a J (since my name is Jay) and I also wanted to their name to be in 3's.

Hence the first born daughter, Jennifer (Jenny and Jen), the second daughter Jacqueline (Jacqui and Jac) and my son Jonathon (Jonny and Jon).

My second wife turns out to be a Janet, who brought three kids of her own - Jennifer, Justin and Jim.
 
#9 ·
My wife and I are not named after anything or anybody.

Our son is name Thoren, because I was Asatruar when he was born and wanted a good strong name for a boy. I wanted just Thor, but she wanted to add the "en" so that he would have a "long" name and a "short" name.

I wanted a variation of Lily for our daughter, but my wife did like Lilith or Lilian or anything else. It was actually my brother in law that suggested Lily-Marie and seeing as my maternal grandmother's name is Marie it fit and my wife liked it.
 
#13 ·
Since our son is Canadian-Mexican, we wanted his names to come from both sides of the family and hopefully to leave him curious about his family history. So my wife chose a great-uncle, Maximo, for his first name. I chose his second - after my great-uncle who emigrated to Canada from the Czech Republic at the turn of the century: Francisec. As you might imagine, his second name (and my surname) have caused no end of grief / entertainment with the bureaucracies down here...
 
#16 ·
I think it might be fun and informative to hear how you were named or how you named your kids, ehMac!

?
Fun and informative? Not so much!

My parents fully expected a girl, and had a name picked out. (My brother later found out what it was, and tended to use it to refer to me, hence I have suppressed all memory of same.)

When the hospital pestered my mother for a name for her son, she happened to be reading the comics, and in particular the comic strip, "Terry and the Pirates". Which is why that is my name, it is NOT short for "Terrence" thank you very much.
 
#17 ·
Cool. Having a name Terry and the Pirates sure beats being just Terry. It makes you seem regal ........... sort of like Prince Charles Philip Arthur George.

Paix, mon ami.
 
#19 ·
Having grown up with a name that was totally wrong (as in "that's not my name" being the defining thought of my childhood - I finally found my true name, had it legally changed, and lived happily ever after …), I am a great believer in getting to know who the person is before you give them their name … as it turned out, my son sent me his true name in a dream shortly before his birth, and when I got first glimpse of him outside my body I knew this was the right name … he has been happy with it all his 41 years …
 
#20 ·
We just went though the baby name web sites and selected names we liked that weren't in the top 10 for the last few years as we didn't want our kids to be named the same as half their class. We then short listed the names and did some research on what they meant etc before we got down to a couple of names. The final name was picked upon seeing our daughters after being born. Their middle names are both family names though that have meaning on both my wife and I's families.
 
#21 ·
I chose one name, My wife chose another and when my daughter was born, my wife informed me that she chose the correct name...
I chose not to argue the point in the delivery room...
 
#22 ·
Named my son Alex after Alex Keaton of Family Ties. I'm a great fan of Michael J. Fox esp. his personal life. My daughter was unnamed two days after birth, so the wife and I quickly looked through the baby name book starting from "A". When we got to "B", I liked Brittany and that was it.
 
#31 ·
Named my son Alex after Alex Keaton of Family Ties. I'm a great fan of Michael J. Fox esp. his personal life..
Ha. My parents were big fans as well and my sister's first and middle names are: Mallary Justine

Mallary was the character Justine Bateman played on the show.
 
#23 ·
We had a list of names but hadn't really decided on any one name, and didn't know which gender to expect. When our daughter was born we waited until we had an idea of her personality and then named her 'Kathleen', with 'Kate' for short. She seems happy with it. All her friends call her Kathleen, while her father and I still call her 'Kate'. If I call her Kathleen she figures she's done something wrong.

The name came from the song 'I'll take you home again, Kathleen'. (My husband is a big John Wayne fan.)

When I was born, I was 'hoped' (expected) to be a boy, so they had a boy's name all picked out - Douglas Charles. They didn't have a girl's name picked out at all. My mother had used up all her favourite girl names on my two older sisters, so it fell to my father to name me. For the best part of my childhood I was just 'the baby' until I went to school. (It was my older sister who told me I was supposed to be a boy, and my mom also tells how my sister said "Well, she's wrong so we're not going to keep her, are we?" thus starting the sibling rivalry from the moment I showed up.)
 
#25 ·
In a show of narcissism, I named my daughter Kacey, after me...morphing my own initials and childhood nickname, into a full first name.

I used my (then recently) ex-husband's first name as her second name, in a failed attempt to appease him enough to agree to her last name being mine, not his. I secretly regret the middle name to this day, but my daughter doesn't seem to mind it because even though she knows where it comes from, she likes the meaning of the name as a noun.
 
#27 ·
My wife and i are both pastors, so we knew we wanted biblical names.. My 2 sons are named Seth and Micah.. My wife and I went through 5 miscarriages before Seth was born, and if you know anything of the bible you know that Seth was the son God gave Adam and Eve after their son Abel was killed.. So it seemed to fit that our son would be named Seth.. As for Micah.. Also a biblical name.. Though our reason for picking it was simply because we liked it..
 
#29 ·
In the time leading up to the birth of our son, we chose not to name him or find out the sex until he was born.

In full respect to High Fidelity, we each had our top 5 lists of names for boys and girls.
We had a plan, keep our lists secretive from everyone else of fear of name stealing and keep one or two names for the delivery room. It seems that 8-12 months before he was born there was something in the air or water, because several friends and co workers seemed to be getting pregnant.

With regards to our lists, we had an agreement that we were able to outright Veto one name from the other persons lists, but nothing would be decided upon until the baby was born and we had a chance to meet.

It didn't take long once he was born to decide. We ended up naming him after my grandfather, a name we both knew was common to our lists.

He's just turned two a couple of weeks ago and is very happy to run around the house saying his name. So we hope he is happy with it.

On a side note he is also fond of running around yelling the cat's name of "Charlie" as well, so on that basis he could have been just as happy being named after the cat, but hey that's what happens if you read too much into the things a two year old says... ;)

BReligion
 
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