How the hell do you name a baby?

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shortyjacobs

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Any hints? I'm looking over lists of names, and none of them look good. SWMBO/SWIP, (She Who Is Pregnant), is firing names at me, and none of them sound good.

So, fathers/mothers out there....how the hell did you come up with a name? Do I just not like any names?
 
shortyjacobs said:
Any hints? I'm looking over lists of names, and none of them look good. SWMBO/SWIP, (She Who Is Pregnant), is firing names at me, and none of them sound good.

So, fathers/mothers out there....how the hell did you come up with a name? Do I just not like any names?
Click to expand...

I have no idea. My girlfriend had a hard enough time naming our 3 dogs and 3 cats. I can't imagine a baby.
 
You don't really have to decide until you take a look at him or her. I had pretty much made up my mind on the way up the hospital steps but I had to look at her to know for sure it was the right name.
 
Nurmey said:
You don't really have to decide until you take a look at him or her. I had pretty much made up my mind on the way up the hospital steps but I had to look at her to know for sure it was the right name.
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Well shyte, that's like 8 months away....and SWMBO is already making lists and they all look like stripper names or pimply bookworm names, (note, I am a pimply bookworm, so no offense intended to fellow bookwormios)....And apparently this won't even be the hardest thing I'll face in the next 18 years, 8 months.

Sweatin' bullets, (and we were trying, so I bought this upon myself....)
 
meddin said:
I have no idea. My girlfriend had a hard enough time naming our 3 dogs and 3 cats. I can't imagine a baby.
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Funny story that. Our dog had 6 names within our first 36 hours of ownership. He was Ace, Max, Brewski, Barley, Harley, then finally Riley.

Just told the 'rents Sunday night about the fact that they would be grandparents....they told me that I was nameless, (well, Baby Jacobs) for the first 48 hrs of my life....
 
Isn't it the name of your first pet and the first street you lived on?

Or is that for something else?


Honestly though, someone in your family you respect. An old name from your families past....
 
My wife is pregnant, she's due in April. We just went through all this. We each went through one of those baby name books and each made a list of all the names we liked. Didn't have to love the name, just liked it enough to write it down.

Then we took each others list and crossed off any names we hated. Then went through and compared them two at a time. Whichever one we liked better stayed, the other was crossed off. I found it easier for me to say each one out loud a bunch of times. We finally got it down to a short list of 3. We have a name picked out, but keeping the other two as possibilities.

It took us about 3 weeks to pick. Hope this helps and congratulations.
 
I preferred to name my children while nurse Rachet stood in the doorway glaring at me over crossed arms and slapping baby naming forms against her hip. Those nurse's sense of humor diminished rapidly as various little baby Fingers aged.

My first two children either did not have a final name picked out or had it changed after they were born. Just ride the wave until you annoy someone with your procrastination. It's at that moment inspiration will come.
 
This was tough... My wife and I both read through a bunch of baby name books and wrote down our top 10-15 choices. We then compared and found we only had two in common. We chewed on those for a couple months, but still didn't decide for sure until after the little guy was born.
 
First step to do is remove all the names you hate, kids you hated in school, names that can be made fun of and any ex's name your significant other knows about.

Then just go with names that sound good with your last name, maybe a special relative or really close friend put them on a list.

i picked the boys names, wife picked the girls. we had 3 to choose from when wen went to the hospital on the big day.(we didn't know what we were expecting on any of mine)

Finally look at the baby and pick what you feel.


the current trend is unique names. the biggest thing on picking a name, thinking about the kid in school... anything that will rythm with it, that can be bad... cross that name off the list... kids are crule!
 
shortyjacobs said:
Funny story that. Our dog had 6 names within our first 36 hours of ownership. He was Ace, Max, Brewski, Barley, Harley, then finally Riley.

Just told the 'rents Sunday night about the fact that they would be grandparents....they told me that I was nameless, (well, Baby Jacobs) for the first 48 hrs of my life....
Click to expand...

So don't worry then :). If you didn't need a name for 48 hours than yours wont either...lol

BTW, our last dog took almost 2 weeks to name. It was by far the hardest one we had name-wise.
 
The deal was if it was a girl the wife chooses the first name and I choose the middle and if it was a boy I name the first and she names the middle. Neither of us divuldged our choosing.

2 boys.

Kiernan Alexander and Tristan Mikhael.

The girl will be Amelie' Sophia.

My choices were based on family tree. We are welsh/french at our roots. God only knows what makes up the leaves. Her choices were based on "they sound nice".
 
My rules:
1. Nothing gender neutral that would cause a them to get beat up.
2. Nothing that rhymes easy.
3. No hippy names.

I agree, you pick 3 names, your wife pick 3 names. Pitch them to each other. Come to a concensus.

Naming our daughter was relatively easy.
 
oh yeah i forgot about the middle names... yes we did the same thing. which was cool with me.

I HATED my middle name growing up, but wanted to name my son after me, so we took my first name and she picked her passed on grandfather. Johnny Joseph is what we came up with.

funny thing is this is my 3rd child, first boy. And i couldn't tell you any of the other names we had in the hospital...
 
Process of elimination. Watch nothing but WWE Smackdown/Raw for a week straight. Rule out any name mentioned.

Or mix and match for epic combinations: Primo Regal, Yoshi Swagger, Kung Fu Layla, Mysterio Grisham, etc



In all seriousness, look to your roots. Pick something from your ancestry or national origin.

Unique is cool...but only to a point. Often times, unique is more cruel than cool.

Rhyming/singsong/pun names are terrible, and names that rhyme with body parts and their euphemisms are no better.

Lastly, every Richard is a Dick.
 
Yuri_Rage said:
Rhyming/singsong/pun names are terrible, and names that rhyme with body parts and their euphemisms are no better.

Lastly, every Richard is a Dick.
Click to expand...

I went to school with a girl named Candy Barr. Please take pity on your offspring and don't do anything terrible as that.
 
Nurmey said:
I went to school with a girl named Candy Barr. Please take pity on your offspring and don't do anything terrible as that.
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I can top that. I knew a guy whose given name was Harold Beaver. No joke. He tried going by 'Steve', but then his real name was discovered. Think about it. Ouch.
 
GilaMinumBeer said:
The deal was if it was a girl the wife chooses the first name and I choose the middle and if it was a boy I name the first and she names the middle. Neither of us divuldged our choosing.

2 boys.

Kiernan Alexander and Tristan Mikhael.

The girl will be Amelie' Sophia.

My choices were based on family tree. We are welsh at our roots. God only knows what makes up the leaves. Her choices were based on "they sound nice".
Click to expand...

I am 100% with Gila on this. Names based on your family are great - my boys, now 16 and 18, both appreciate where their names come from - that their names have meaning.

Ok, true story. When boy #1 was on the way, we were discussing names. I have a forebear on my father's side who was named, I kid you not, Hiram Horace. After I suggested this, and made the case for it, our eventual choice of Hugh didn't seem nearly so odd or unconventional.

And his middle name is Douglass, my mother's mother's family/maiden name. Hey, it could have been Hiram Horace.
 
shortyjacobs said:
Any hints? I'm looking over lists of names, and none of them look good. SWMBO/SWIP, (She Who Is Pregnant), is firing names at me, and none of them sound good.

So, fathers/mothers out there....how the hell did you come up with a name? Do I just not like any names?
Click to expand...

In short: Just pick one & stick with it. OK, that's over simplified, but it IS pretty much what it boils down to.

I've always thought names should have some meaning other than "I just liked the sound of it." A name that recognizes somebody (family or not) who you love and/or respect, maybe even a name from a historical figure.
Traditional names that reflect/honor your family's heritage are good too.

There are some name combinations that work well too, or even made up names. Have a look at some baby name lists & see if you & the missus can at least narrow it down to 5 male & 5 female names; then you can pick 1 out of a hat, or have a poll here & let us choose one for you. Somebody else did that just a few weeks or a month ago, never did hear what they finally decided on. Regards, GF.
 
We just had our first on January 1. I tried very earnestly to get some sort of family significance in his name. My mother's father was Norwegian and I lobbied heavily for the middle name Thor. She would have none of it. "You are NOT leaving me at home with the Norse god of thunder", she would say. Settled on "Liam", which is fine because the other side of the fmaily is solidly Irish, as is her mom's family.

We retained my middle name, which is also my father's middle name. I still would have preferred Thor.
 
JetSmooth said:
We just had our first on January 1. I tried very earnestly to get some sort of family significance in his name. My mother's father was Norwegian and I lobbied heavily for the middle name Thor. She would have none of it. "You are NOT leaving me at home with the Norse god of thunder", she would say. Settled on "Liam", which is fine because the other side of the fmaily is solidly Irish, as is her mom's family.

We retained my middle name, which is also my father's middle name. I still would have preferred Thor.
Click to expand...

Kiernan = Little one from the past
Alexander = Defender of men

Little defender of men from the past?

Tristan = Noisey One
Mikhael = Gift from God

Noisey gift from god.
 
Excellent advice folks! I started in on it yesterday night and started the "write down any names you don't detest...." Seems like a good jumping off point.

Gila, I LOVE Kiernan....I just wish I wasn't so freaking vanilla white that I could have a kid pull off such a cool, exotic sounding name...

We are looking at family names, and most likely there will be some familial roots mixed in there, (at least some from my wife's side, as her name "line" ends with her, so she wants to do something to carry that on).

I also don't like "uniqueness" (apologies to anyone who went this route)....I feel it just means the kid will have to spell his/her name EVERY time...Unique due to history, (Mikhael instead of Michael), is great, but unique just to be unique, (Jecika instead of Jessica) is just silly. I'm even steering away from "J" names so my kid isn't "JJ" or something like that, (again, nothing wrong with nicknames, just a personal preference).

LOL @ Norse God of Thunder.

I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one with trouble picking names, (I swear my wife had 10 picked out for the last 10 years now....maybe it's a woman thing to "know" what your kids names should be long before you even start trying?).

OK, now this post is turning into a novel, but thanks again to everyone for the advice...I'm reading and heeding! And thanks for the congratulations....we sure are happy :D.
 
First off, we found baby name books to be USELESS...too many choices, you go numb before finding a name you like. Plus, all the names either mean "gift of God", "victorious", "king" or some other BS designation.

Guess what: all of those meanings are MADE UP. How do I know?...Look up the same name in a different baby book....it will have a different meaning. Also, ever notice there isn't a name that means "goat-humper"? There have been plenty of goat-humpers through the ages; how come somebody's name hasn't been stuck with this meaning, but instead also gets a glowing and uber-positive designation like "Goddess-like"?

Anyway, I'm going to stop ranting. We found the best way was to keep an ear out for names you come across that you like; make lists and compare notes. Towards the end we had a final list of three that we had written down on our whiteboard in the kitchen. We didn't decide until we were on the way to the hospital.

Personally, we went with a simple, straight-forward name. What you'll ultimately choose might be totally different.

good luck....you do have 8 months to figure it out!
 
shortyjacobs said:
Excellent advice folks! I started in on it yesterday night and started the "write down any names you don't detest...." Seems like a good jumping off point.

Gila, I LOVE Kiernan....I just wish I wasn't so freaking vanilla white that I could have a kid pull off such a cool, exotic sounding name...

We are looking at family names, and most likely there will be some familial roots mixed in there, (at least some from my wife's side, as her name "line" ends with her, so she wants to do something to carry that on).

I also don't like "uniqueness" (apologies to anyone who went this route)....I feel it just means the kid will have to spell his/her name EVERY time...Unique due to history, (Mikhael instead of Michael), is great, but unique just to be unique, (Jecika instead of Jessica) is just silly. I'm even steering away from "J" names so my kid isn't "JJ" or something like that, (again, nothing wrong with nicknames, just a personal preference).

LOL @ Norse God of Thunder.

I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one with trouble picking names, (I swear my wife had 10 picked out for the last 10 years now....maybe it's a woman thing to "know" what your kids names should be long before you even start trying?).

OK, now this post is turning into a novel, but thanks again to everyone for the advice...I'm reading and heeding! And thanks for the congratulations....we sure are happy :D.
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Just for the record, Mikhael is actually Hebrew and from the Torah originally. And is aka Michael in biblical reference, Old Testament. Not really a "unique" use of the name. Just historicabiblical.
 
GilaMinumBeer said:
Just for the record, Mikhael is actually Hebrew and from the Torah originally. And is aka Michael in biblical reference, Old Testament. Not really a "unique" use of the name. Just historicabiblical.
Click to expand...

Yup, that's kind of what I meant. Michael is the most common spelling, and you went with something a little less common, but you went with it for a reason, not just so the name would be different....(again, hope I'm not offending here)...I'm all for less common spellings if the reason is more than, "I think it's cool to spell it different....".
 
My wife and I just went through this all. Logan Alexander W. will be born in May. I too pushed for Thor or Odin for middle names. But, I got a good deal in the end. Wolverine as a first name, my name for a middle, and the initials are LAW.
 
McKBrew said:
Isn't it the name of your first pet and the first street you lived on?

Or is that for something else?

.
Click to expand...

I think thats how you come up with your porn star name.

As far as baby names, I am in a similar situation. Ours is due in July. We find our the sex soon but we have discussed names for both genders. I noticed that I was shooting down names based on childhood and adolescent experiences. For example, my wife proposed "Deidre." I said no because there was this slut in high school named deidre that got preggo senior year and was just generally a hot mess. Its pretty rediciolus to base my childs names off my (or my wifes) younger years, but I guess thats how the brain works.
 
We didn't find out the sex until the birth so we had to come up with boy and girl names. First we nailed down the middle names. Girl it was a middle name of Anna after my grandmother, Boy it was Steven, after her father. Then the battle was on for first names. I wanted Ash for a boy. No dice. :( We decided on Avery. There boy name done. That took two days. Girl first name, I had a dream and my grandmother was in it and referred to our daughter as Jocelyn. Done.

We did do the ruling out episode of names and that helped. But we actually came to the names fairly painlessly. And on the day she was born SWMBO asked what it was and I told her it was Jocelyn. :) I was grinning ear to ear behind my hospital mask.
 
Take a look at "most common names" lists for the current year, and pick something else. But don't name your kid after a car, shampoo, or anything you'd find in a supermarket*. Family names are good: no IIs, 4ths, etc. though unless money is involved. Names that have diminutive forms are better than ones that don't, Robert vs Bob. Gives the kid some slack.

*Unless a family member works in one.
 
FourBeastsBrewery said:
My wife and I just went through this all. Logan Alexander W. will be born in May. I too pushed for Thor or Odin for middle names. But, I got a good deal in the end. Wolverine as a first name, my name for a middle, and the initials are LAW.
Click to expand...


Ooooooh. That's good! My mother's maiden name is Texley, which is Norwegian (Teksle, is the original spelling). I really wanted his Middle name to be Texley so I could call him "Tex".
 
The ancestry thing is a good idea. Maybe do the ancestry.com thing to see some old timey names in your family history. My brother did this and we confirmed the rumor in our family that we are related to Abraham Lincoln. One of his great-great grandfathers is our 8X-great grandfather.

Baby naming can be difficult. As the time gets nearer, something will surface that you think is cool. I don't prescribe to the notion of waiting to see your baby. It's definitely the most amazing experience of life, but if we had waited, our daughter would probably be named Purple Slime instead of Elsa... a fine German name from my ancestry.;)
 
david_42 said:
Take a look at "most common names" lists for the current year, and pick something else. But don't name your kid after a car, shampoo, or anything you'd find in a supermarket*. Family names are good: no IIs, 4ths, etc. though unless money is involved. Names that have diminutive forms are better than ones that don't, Robert vs Bob. Gives the kid some slack.

*Unless a family member works in one.
Click to expand...

Blasphemy, my son's first name was literally taken from a brand of hot dogs. I was inspired while watching a certain hot dog eating competition one Fourth of July. Plus, his name is already the diminutive form of a longer name, but has a common third abbreviated option.

I wanted to continue the trend and name baby number two Oscar, but, for some reason, my wife wasn't big on that idea. Go figure! :D
 
Shooter said:
Blasphemy, my son's first name was literally taken from a brand of hot dogs. I was inspired while watching a certain hot dog eating competition one Fourth of July. Plus, his name is already the diminutive form of a longer name, but has a common third abbreviated option.

I wanted to continue the trend and name baby number two Oscar, but, for some reason, my wife wasn't big on that idea. Go figure! :D
Click to expand...

I agree...the problem is that if you dig far enough, you are going to come across something you don't like about the name, about somebody you didn't like who had the name, a product that uses the name, something derogatory that rhymes with the name, etc. Sooner or later you have to say enough is enough...
 
I wanted to name our daughter Mary Chris Smith, (say it out loud), but SWMBO would have none of that!

Whatever name you pick, go out on the front porch and yell it as loud as you can 10 times. That is exactly what you will be doing for the next 18 years!
 
There was a kid in my school named Richard Head... no joke... also his dad was named Richard Head. Are these people for real?

Family names are good, at least for middle names in my opinion.

I have the issue that I work in a place with 400 other people, I look at client's accounts and see the weird things they name their kids, I have an education degree and have seen what kids can come up with from names... I have no idea how I will come up with childrens' names when the time comes. I do think that veto power is pretty important.

Also... FYI: don't spread your name around in the real world when you decide on it. People have a tendency to "steal" them (or come upon it on their own, but your wife won't care which is the reality) - you kid will end up with a cousin or playdate that has the name they were meant to have.

And 8 months is plenty of time. I wouldn't be worrying about it yet if I were you (or if I was her), but then again to each their own...

:mug: and congrats!
 
Before Chelsea Renee was born, SWMBO and I went through all the books. I was listening to a Joni Mitchell album and the song "Chelsea Morning" was playing. We had discussed Felicia Louise as a possible name, but at that moment I remembered a really hot chick from high school named Renee.

I asked, "How about Chelsea Renee?" Her response was,"Better than Felicia Louise!"

We discussed baby number two, and I, hoping for a boy this time, offered two possibilities of the the same names.

"Do you like Benjamin Andrew better, or Andrew Benjamin?"

Delivery room visit number two became Benjamin Andrew Karr.

Cool process, eh?
 

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