How did you choose your kids' names?

We have one son and one daughter who have been given family names (DH'S family had the same names in his family as I did!) We like the names anyway. Our other son and daughters have quite ordinary names and all 5 have slightly unusual middle names.

GA, I hated, and was embarrassed by, my unusual name for years but have recently come to terms with it and, even, sometimes answer to it!!

We chose the names for our 4 children that reflected our international status so could fit into all of our cultures, had some link to literature or history and sounded beautiful with our lovely, surname. Nothing outlandish, though.

May sound strange, but it has worked. They all love their names and at interviews for uni or jobs, the interviewer invariably remarked on their names...and they got the place!

We just chose names we liked for our children. We don't have a tradition of family names on either side.

DD has the same first name as me but shortened it as soon as she started school. Problem is her shortened name is a man's name in the country where she now works.
I chose three names for DS but DH wasn't having the third and insisted on reversing the first two so that DS ended up with a very common biblical name.

My son has his dad's first name as a middle name....my first daughter just had a name that I had liked from my teens....not overly used,but not unusual same as my sons,my 2nd daughter,was a traditional and I used a name for a middle that had been used by several generations...Mary but slightly changed to marie .....surname of smith needs careful choice.....my DGD has a made up adapted name and a beautiful French middle name she is mixed race and her names are unusual and suit her.
with my children I wanted names that would grow with them (sadly 2 girls didn't make it) and like bags could holler up the street and down the alley .

baubles - was it Anne?

I wanted my daughter to have a classic name that would carry her anywhere and sounded classy but also a beautiful sound so I looked to the classics for her first name Helen and history for her middle name Josephine and thankfully she loves her names. (She was Helen the Melon at school but it was affectionate and she didn't mind).

When a very voluble Welsh friend heard that my (Scottish) dad was David, she said,'Oh that's a good Welsh name.' My dad, riposted,'I was under the impression that it was Biblical'. Collapse of Welsh friend.

judy no, but same number of letters. I was a huge fan of Jane Austen.

Does anyone like their own name ? I was named after my mother and hated her name especially having two with the same name in the family. I gave in to HD and called our son after him and generations before him and regretted having the same two name problems in the house . Daughter hated her name too .

I chose DDs names because I had never taught a child with the names and they were traditional but, at the time, not popular. I liked them and they were not long (they have a longish surname). I had taught too many Christophers and Carolines some of whom took ages to master the writing of theier names

Hi Flora, I didn't used to like my name - it's nothing like my user name BTW - but now it's quite popular and I am glad to be called it!

DD1 was called a name I had always liked . DD2 was a name my Mum mentioned in a conversation whilst I was pregnant and immediately liked .Dd3 was one from a shortlist after looking at a name book. Our only real consideration otherwise was that any name needed more than one syllable as our surname is short and quite sharp sounding.

Never liked my name - but have grown to like it, in old age...
DD had a lucky escape. I had wanted "peridot" but DH didn't like it; we argued about a girl's name throughout pregnancy and finally called her a very ordinary, but lovely name. the boys were no problem, they have biblical names - both apostles as it turned out!
it was the initials which were the problem. with a surname starting with an S, some pretty nasty acronyms and words could have ensued.

DS has one name that I always said a boy of mine would have, plus my father's name and DH's name. DD was going to be something different to the name she has, but we already had one in the family. But she has a pretty name and it suits her. I have always hated my name and never use it.

I don't like my Sunday name, flora. Ten a penny in my age group and very uninspired (imho, I hasten to add). In fact, I was named for my grandmother, who didn't care for it either! I don't mind Maggie though, and sometimes get Meg or Mags, which I also quite like. Certain people insist on the full name though, as it's what they were used to when I was little.

We found a name for DS1 that was not a family name, but we liked it and it is not heard very often. DD was to be a certain name, until she was born, but then she didn't look like an "X" So we called her "Y" , just right, and we love the shortened version. By the way, when DGD was born, she was given her mother's first choice of name. DS2 was to be "M", but heard that name bawled out at a beach, and thought NO. So he became "P". I have always been fond of my own name, and it is only recently that I have heard of a few others.

I always knew my daughter would be called Sarah . Just one of those things.

But we were sure our second child would be a boy so only had a boys name chosen. When our new baby arrived and was a girl we were stumped .

Then I heard a song on the radio and realised it was the perfect name. It's my grandmothers name, a derivative of my mothers name , a Danish derivative of mine too.

We named her Katherine but through the years she's been known as Katie, Katherine and Kat.

The song was Katy by Tom Paxton

We had chosen a girl's or boy's name for DD1 but the minute I saw her I decided on something completely different - DH just said 'Oh, but I thought we decided on ... ' then decided saying nothing was the best policy.

This has gone from a thread about being upset about not being recognised in GC names to a discourse in what we named our children. Oh well!

trueblue I think that was a different thread, there are two, one being this one and the other about people who are upset over the choice

Left to me my DS would have been called 'Freddie Mercury' but as my DD always referred to my bump as 'Baby Thomas' thats what what we called him.

We did not call DD1 'Herbert' which is what DH called 'bump!

Found it trueblue
www.gransnet.com/forums/ask_a_gran/1233965-Grandchildren-named-after-SIL-side

SIL (American) has a nephew whose surname is Gordon so his parents called him Flash! Only in America