When I was pregnant with Darah, I came up with her name long before we even knew that she was a girl. I was completely confident in my choice for her first name. Her middle name did take us a while longer, but we had it all settled by the time I was 7 months pregnant.
This time around, we settled on Layah at 38 weeks pregnant. Talk about a nail-biter! I do believe that we over-thought the process, and I also think that naming your second child, particularly of the same gender as the first, is just a lot harder!
I started out quite optimistic, having roughly 25 girl names on my list. I got that list thanks to the book, The Baby Name Wizard. This is a book that I HIGHLY recommend. It is so different from your typical name book because it divides names up into categories. Some categories will resonate with you and you might find 5 or 6 names from that list that you love, while other categories you will find yourself skipping right over because you don’t like how any of them sound. It’s a much smarter approach to thinking about names, and it just really made a lot of sense to me. It certainly got us off to a good start when we were first thinking about names.
And then I made the mistake of over-analyzing each and every name, picking them apart until I found flaws. So I was left with nothing!
But then I got some additional help. I got an expert subscription to babynamewizard.com. This online resource takes the information found in the book to an entirely new level. It has a tremendous database that you can access and that can help you find the right name match for your child, based on particular preferences or dislikes that you have (for example, are you drawn to Irish names? Do you NOT want the name to start with a particular letter? Do you want a name that is popular or more rare?). This database gave me an entirely new crop of names to consider, and I really loved that I was able to save anything I liked online so that I could go back and look at it later.
I also really liked that for each name, there was a place for people to leave comments about the name. For example, people would leave comments about how much they enjoy (or don’t enjoy) having that particular name and why, or why they chose that particular name for their child. Reading that insight was extremely helpful, as it caused some names to rise further up our list, and others to fall off of it.
But the very best resource of all for me was the forums. There’s a section where you can post your baby name dilemmas and ask for advice, and we did just that! We didn’t mind sharing out list of possibilities with people who weren’t personally invested in what we name our child, so their feedback was more objective. What we discovered is that the name at the top of our list was preferred by ABSOLUTELY NOBODY. And there was one name that stood out quite a bit from the rest. In the end, we didn’t go with the online crowd favorite as her first name, but gave it to her as her middle name, because we realized based on feedback that a name we thought might be perceived as incredibly weak actually wasn’t, and in fact, was seen as quite strong by many. We really needed fresh perspectives on our names, and we definitely got it on this site. I can’t say enough what a big help it was.
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Disclosure: I received a complimentary product for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are strictly my own.
I loved the name Luna and I realized how much I liked it reading the Harry Potter books! There are tons of cool names in that book!
I chose Biblical names for all my children
we went with our gut feelings on our childrens name both the middle names where picked to honor family members that had passed.
I named my first one Zoey, I think I got that name from two guys, a girl and a pizza place. I wanted something unique that wasn’t a common name for babies back then.
Some named we picked out of the bible, some were names from our backgrounds (Irish & Italian) and some we named after family members.
We loved it and never met anyone in real life with the name.
My son is named after an actor i like.
My oldest sons name is Brandon jr after my hubby 🙂 His name was easy my husband always wanted a Jr…. My 2nd son I changed his name a hundred times when I was pregnant nothing felt right! I remember with my first he felt like a Brandon… sorry if that sounds crazy. But anyway to make a long story short I’m part Irish and I feel I never give that part of my heritage enough respect so I picked an Irish name for my son… “Quinn” he is now 18 months and I could not imagine another name for him……. Now my hubby is talking trying for a little girl 🙂 Even though we would be happy with another little boy.
Gave all the kids middle names after relatives
I gave my boys the names Ethan and Emmett (at the time they were born 2005 & 2010) they were not that popular. We didn’t want something that was overly popular, although since then both have taken off on the charts! Baby #3 is due 9/7 and I just don’t know what to name her! 🙂
I dont have any children, but have names picked, i REALLY LOVE QUINN for a girl. Because it so unique and beautiful. My sister named her daughter Kyla after our brother Kyle.
named our oldest son after derek sanderson a boston bruin hockey player who my husband loved
One of the girls is named Kadence, I was in the Army reserves and we just liked it.
We chose Cooper for my first son. We didn’t want a traditional name and Cooper wasn’t very popular (although it’s much more popular now!). We had two names picked out, but my husband was really leaning toward Cooper & when he was born I had to admit he looked like a Cooper.
My youngest is Dexter because I liked it & kept bringing it up until my husband liked it too. 🙂
Out first was named after his paternal grandfather (Samuel). And for our youngest we couldn’t agree and ended up letting our oldest name him (John).
I haven’t named any children just yet, but I’m considering the name Athena. She was the Greek goddess of intelligence and discipline, which I think are wonderful traits to wish for in a daughter. It’s also one of the few ancient names that I think works well in the modern world.
Naming our first two – a girl and a boy – was simple. We used the names we loves the most. Now that boy #2 is on the way it’s so much harder. Both my husband and I have named we prefer and they are not the same! Many people think my husband’s choice goes better with our son’s name, and my choice goes better with our daughter’s name.
I love Baby Name Wizard – both the book and the site. I would love the expert subscription!
My daughters are Isabella and Eleanore because my Mom named my sister and I after queens of England (my Mom is English). I wanted to continue the tradition.
We use the nickname Ellie for my oldest and Izzy for the youngest (rather then the overused Bella)
We named our daughter Alice. I had never considered the name before we conceived her – it seemed to come with her! I do love it for many reasons. It is an awesome, underused, cute kids name (i.e. Alice in Wonderland) and it grows really well also – it is a sophisticated old lady name and it has the potential for edginess as well. It is absolutely girly without being too pink or flowery. It has some spunk to it! There are lots of powerful Alices in history. When she’s a teenager, if she wants to, there is a built in nickname (Ali) as well. She is turning 3 tomorrow and it suits her so well – we are very happy with our choice! 🙂