Open Thread: Kid & Baby Names
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Here’s a fun open thread for halfway through the week: Let’s talk baby names!
Readers, how did you choose your kids’ names? We’d love to hear any and all name-related anecdotes — including partner or family member conflicts about your ideas…
Kid & Baby Names: Let’s Talk About It!
Here’s some questions to start us off:
- What was the inspiration for your kids’ names?
- What was your preference: classic? unusual? a family name? a name with a particular meaning?
- Do your kids’ names lend themselves to particular nicknames, and did that figure into your decisions?
- Did your experiences with your own name affect your choices?
- For readers with more than one kiddo: How are your children’s names related; e.g., did you choose a “theme”?
- Did you share your choice(s) with friends and family before you gave birth — and if so, what feedback did you get?
- Here’s a question for you elder millennials/younger Gen-Xers (and beyond): Did you choose something that was a popular name for babies when you were growing up but isn’t common today? (For example, my son’s name was among the top 20 most popular boys’ names in the ’80s, but now he is the only one with that name in his entire grade — and school, I think.)
- Have you ever regretted one of your kids’ names, or even changed it? For those who have older kids, have any of them changed their name, either officially or otherwise?
Pictured at top: Etsy is full of these baby name cutouts! The pictured one is available for purchase from seller EngravedHappyism (with lots of customizations, including fonts!) for $28.08.
Syllables and Kids’ Choices…
This post was inspired by a call Kat and I had the other day. In the personal portion of our call, she said that her younger son, who’s 9, has decided he now only wants to be called by his full first name (three syllables), and not his nickname. With apologies for the additional name-vagueness here, I told her I thought it was interesting that my 12-year-old’s three-syllable name, which has at least two possible nicknames, has always been his strong preference. (Interesting tidbit: Coincidentally, Kat’s older son’s name can be a nickname for a shorter form of my son’s name.)
So, that led to today’s discussion — and somehow, our only past CorporetteMoms post about naming kids was this post about deciding on your children’s last names, with perspectives from four moms. It prompted a great discussion, so here’s to another chat about names and everything that comes with them!
The Most Popular Baby Names by Decade (Just for Kicks)
Finally, because these lists are so interesting to browse, the most popular names by decade, according to the SSA’s baby names website:
- Top Names of the 2010s (Noah/Emma)
- Top Names of the 2000s (Jacob/Emily)
- Top Names of the 1990s (Michael/Jessica)
- Top Names of the 1980s (Michael/Jessica)
- Top Names of the 1970s (Michael/Jennifer)
- Top Names Over the Last 100 Years (James/Mary)
Readers, do tell! How did you choose your children’s names?
We went with very traditional European names. My husband is from Spain and I’m French, and we wanted names that are classics in all 3 languages (the third being English). They have the English version/spelling of their names on their birth certificate since we live in the US.
My kid is named after two of his great-grandfathers who were from a non-English speaking European country. First name works in both languages as is, and middle name is that language’s variation of the name. Both names are “old-fashioned” and first name is not overly common.
We found ours on a random low budget tv show. It was the characters last name but also an uncommon and old school first name. It was the only boy name we agreed on and coincidentally it was the same first letter as 3 of baby’s 4 deceased great grandmas and husband is Jewish. Middle name is the other great grandma’s first name initial and also a tribute to her genetic lineage. Husband is atheist Jewish fwiw so deceased relative is common
If you can’t imagine a Supreme Court Justice being named anything except your boring white names you mustn’t have noticed Ketanji.
My husband and I picked a girl’s name in the super early stages of dating. At the time it was popular, probably top 20, but not SUPER trendy. It absolutely blew up in the intervening years and was the #1 baby girl name the year our daughter was born. Once I was pregnant and we found out it was a girl I wanted to pick something different, but he was too sentimentally attached to the name and he won in the end. As soon as she was born I was glad we didn’t change it. We’d talked about her by name for years, and then she was here and it just felt right. And we do use a fairly non-traditional nickname, like Ollie for Olivia instead of Liv or Livvy, so she has some uniqueness in that regard.
I have an uncommon family name that’s hard to spell and pronounce and I HATED it. So it was important to me to have a simple, easy to spell and pronounce (for English speakers) name for my daughter.
We’re considering converting a family surname into a first name for our second. It’s easily spellable and pronounceable, but sounds like a trendy variation of a popular 80s name.
I’ve been meaning to post here asking what y’all think. Will they always be “Emily, I mean Emery”? Will they always feel like they have an old lady name?
Interesting post. The comments are very Euro-centric. Not a criticism of the commenters in any way, but their references to ‘classic’ and ‘traditional’ mean one very specific thing that I don’t relate to.
I’m planning to solicit Seafinch’s advice on baby names when the time comes, hopefully this year :) Seafinch, you once described liking “classic, pan-European” names and that’s exactly what I need with our family background.
Overall, I love classic names that can be found in any decade, but that never become SO common that they’re everywhere. I also love names with a clear spelling and no confusion on pronunciation.
We sort-of-accidentally named our daughter after a dog my husband’s family had when he was a toddler.
I like names with a long history, classic and somewhat timeless. For my daughter, I wanted a name that was feminine and strong, with lots of nickname options, of varying ‘cutesy-ness’.
We chose Elizabeth. She gets called the full name and a couple of different nicknames.
The only thing I slightly wish it had was an easy gender neutral nickname option in case she wants to explore that at some point.
I am a real traditionalist. I wanted plain, classic names, and official names given as full names even if nicknames were planned from the start. I do have higher standards for girls names: I want full names that can sound strong and serious (Anne, Claire, Eleanor), and avoid anything sort of frilly or precious (think Amelia, Daisy, May, nicknames as full names). It’s really important to me to make sure my daughters have a name that I can imagine being announced at a med school graduation or as the next Supreme Court nominee or at other dignified and serious events: I do actually think different names get treated differently and it’s one thing to use a cutesy nickname informally but another if you have no other option to use but that cutesy nickname.
My boys have classic names that were probably one and two in the charts in the 1950s. I wanted names that were recognizable and easy to say and spell, and nothing too “trendy.” We call our younger one by a nickname, although there is another nickname for it that I don’t like so we may have shot ourselves in the foot there. I like my older’s full name, so so on the nickname. My husband and all of his brothers go by short nicknames so we’ll see. Middle names were family name for the first and random for the second, although I like the combination of the first and middle name initials and could be another nickname.
I think their names fit them and no regrets.
I have a superstition that names shape personality, so I chose a strong, spunky name for my daughter. We loved both the name and its common nickname. My one regret is that we mainly called her by the nickname when she was little, so now she hates her actual name.
On our boy list we weeded out a lot of names that sounded like bullies.