Names you might have chosen

If I had had a girl she would have been named Elizabeth Jane, mainly because I like those names, and partly because she is a character in "The Mayor of Casterbridge" which I liked.
I would still choose the same names for my sons.

Max, Billy and Jessica happy with the names we chose…
Cassie
Skyler
Jet

I always liked the name Louise but did not have a girl.
My favourite boy's name was discounted as my cousin used it a few months before my son was born.
My DH's favoured Peter but discounted it as Princess Anne used the name.

Clovis for a boy
Emmanuelle for a girl

My D has a name we all including her really like.
My second child was going to be Caroline but she turned out to be he and is called a name we also all like.
My D’s middle name is mine as is her D’s but I wasn’t fond of my H’s name, shock horror, so he has a family name, James for his middle name and my GS has the same for his first name.

I still like the names we did use by the way.
And actually also like these ones.
One of our granddaughters has my name as a middle name. I would not have chosen that. Another has a middle name I wouldn't have chosen - however in the end if you love someone the name really doesn't matter does it?

Names we didn't quite get to use but liked...
We had five children and each have two names so have "used up" our favourite 10! This is what we may have chosen if we'd had more babies and they had "suited" them.

Nathaniel
Ged
Morgan
Gethin
Finn

Saffron
Eithne
Aoife
Yasmin

We came very close to using the first 2 girl's names but they didn't suit our babies once they were born. Our second child nearly had two of the boys names but his older sister's preference was for the two we used instead (we let her pick from two "pairs" of names).

I’m still pleased with the names chosen for my son. If I had had a daughter her first name would have been Felicity.

Whatever the name I would have chosen I always felt it should see a child through from pram to boardroom/building site! i.e. Stephen - Stevie - Steve. There are some modern names I can't stand but won't offend anyone and I think that names change from generation to generation. I was in a shop once and there was the cutest little girl with curls who was called Ada. Ada to me is a name from my gran's generation i.e. 1890s.

My son and daughter were named after favourite actors I know not original! I gave them both shortened versions of their name as they would probably have been addressed that way anyway. They both really do suit their names so I think it was the right choice.

My son was named after my exh favourite singer. We gave him a middle name but when he grew up he excised it from everything as he hated it. My daughter was going to be Jennifer, however once she was born, it didn't suit her at all so we called her something else.

DS has the name we always had in mind for him, but if we had had another boy, he would have been Alexander. As it was we had a girl, and would have called her Elizabeth, had there not been an Elizabeth in the family already. Angharad (one of his grandmother’s names) was mooted and discarded as being lovely but a bit of a mouthful! I do like it, though, and Freya, too.

I doubt we would have changed the names we gave them, although when we gave DS, the name we gave him we did not realise that, along with Paul and Steven they were the most popular boys names (which we also considered) of their year and period, so had we known that we might have reconsidered.

DD got a family name, plus her paternal grandmothers name - and would always have been so named.

However, I always liked the name Jonquil, not sure why and that would have been in the running had we had two daughters, as it was we had one of each. If DD, our second child, had been a second son, she would have been called Matthew, again a very popular name, although, again, we didn't realise this.

When I was expecting my second child, we liked the name Felicity, but found that child no 1's rendition of this was " Facility ". We decided against it.

I had very different criteria for choosing my boys' names. But, in retrospect, we made good choices.

1. In-laws staunch Catholics
2. Names should be pronounceable in several languages
3. Names should not be too old- or new- fashioned (easier for boys)

They all have names of Catholic saints, one named after my father ( and he is VERY like him, too), one after DH's grandfather. There were always a sprinkling of others in roughly the same age group with the same name, so they didn't stand out as odd.

If I had continued in the same vein, I would have had a Benedict and/or a Constantine.

For a girl, I would have liked Daphne, but DH, despite his classical background, wasn't too keen, and favoured Jasmine.

I would probably call them different names, but we are talking nearly 50 years ago.

Our ideas on names, like most things, change over time.