Choosing the perfect name for your baby can be one of the most stressful parts of pregnancy. It is such a huge decision that can seemingly affect your child’s entire life. When you finally do come up with one you like, your partner inevitably tells you he hates it or it sounds funny with your last name.
Then there is the problem of making the name flow with the other people’s names in the family. When we were expecting our fourth, it seemed like every name either rhymed with or clashed with one of our other kid’s names. The boy name we had picked out for Elle was Leo, but we felt we couldn’t use Leo for number 4 because when saying “Elle and Leo” I was afraid it would sound like “LELELELELO”.
Maybe I was over analyzing things, but at the time we totally struggled with the decision and didn’t decide on a name until the absolute last minute. Baby names are hard.
Now that we are done having kids, I have certain names that give me a little twinge of regret whenever I hear them. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love our kids’ names and they suit their personalities perfectly. But I am a little sad for the names I used to lust over that I’ll never get to use.
My baby name crush list:
Mabel- The husband declared I had pregnancy-induced insanity when I suggested this one. I tried to sell him on “it’s so ugly it’s cute” but he wasn’t budging.
Meadow- He called me a hippie (like that’s an insult?)
Ava- I love it but so does everyone else. Too popular.
Penelope- Our last name also has three syllables and starts with “P” so yeah, it sounds ridiculous.
Reese- Love the name but feared a complex relationship to a certain chocolate.
Sylvie- I liked Sylvie, he liked Sylvia, and we were never able to meet in the middle.
Leo- I still sweat this so name hard!
Jude- Such a cute name but we tried to avoid any names that people associate with songs.
31 comments
I have always loved Natalie, Ariana, Marcus, and Vincent! ❤️
I love Natalie too! 🙂
I won’t be having children, so all my names are names for pets, like Phase. That said I really do love the name Ava but it is really popular right now!
Phase, I haven’t heard that one but it’s pretty cool!
Zoe. My husband was like …no.
I like Reese too.
We both liked Olivia (my daughter’s name). I always liked Liv Tyler’s name, so wanted Liv /Olivia as a choice.
Boy name was easy. I always loved Alexander, which is my son’s name so no issues there.
We had it pretty easy with names I guess!
You are so lucky to have somewhat compatible naming styles with your husband! It’s impossible when you have opposite tastes! I’m actually glad I never have to do that again.
Okay, I am crying laughing over Mabel! I bet that name will come back as very trendy one day! Reese is a good one but I’m with you – it would probably encourage me to keep too many of those namesakes around the house!
Haha the link between the name and the chocolate is just too strong for me 😂
you sure have some great baby name crushes… I took naming my kids pretty serious, although in my family it’s tradition to have the entire family make a list of all their favorite names and we go around saying the list and see if one name comes up multiple times… In the end the parents make the ultimate decision… but it’s a great way to get ideas and help pick a name ; )
Whoa! We had a hard enough time finding something the two of us liked, I can’t even imagine opening it up to more people’s opinions! Although that is so special and cool for the other family members to get to be included!
We had some rules when we were coming up with names. Nothing that started with the same first letter as us (J&S) and nothing that started with L because of our last name. It had to be common enough to pronounce correctly, and we don’t care for names that can be shortened. That really narrowed down the list. I’ve always loved James but that was out because my husband is Justin (so no J names), but it would have to be James, not Jim or Jimmy or anything like that. We narrowed it to either Tyler Michael or Alyssa Lynn for our first (ended up with our Tyler) and Ryan Lee or Alaina Lynn for our second (and have our Ryan).
Those are some tight parameters to work around but I totally get it! I love the ones you came up with, very classic but not overdone.
I love seeing others lists of names they like the best. I have a small book worth of names and various spellings that I’ve curated over the years of creative writing.
Annabel, Elizabeth, Nadia
Aleksandr, Dimitri, Rafe
Very cool and unique names!
I don’t have a name for boys that I wish I had picked… Our first born son was named after his daddy and we named our second after both our grandfathers…
That worked out well! It’s so nice to have family names that are meaningful to you both
Honestly when it came to naming my baby I wasn’t as worried about it as I could have been. I didn’t feel the need to come up with a name and thankfully my ex didn’t make me. I just wanted veto power over names I felt like would scar the child. And thankfully that worked for us.
I would love to name my child a virtue name as the middle name. My middle name is Faith so Hope is the first one that comes to mind as does Clarity & Grace. Perhaps Chance if I had a boy. I’m unsure about first names though. hahahaha.
I like the meaning behind those names. I feel like middle names are a lot less pressure since they aren’t used very often in the child’s life, which makes it easier to decide on one!
Naming a baby is really matter,because i want a unique name from bible!But i want the meaning behind those names.
Good point, the meaning of the name is another important factor.
I love the name Mabel…it’s like a little old lady’s name for a munchkin! You had some cute choices…I like that they aren’t all the “typical” names that trend.
Thanks! I try to avoid trending names because those will be the names that “date” them as they age. Plus I don’t want my kids going to school with several others with the same name as them.
I am very happy with my kids’ names although my youngest son does not like his name at all and I feel bad about it. I would do his over again and give him something more traditional to make him happy but I’m not sure what name I would choose.
That is tough that your son doesn’t like his name 🙁 Hopefully just a phase and eventually he appreciates his unique name that you chose for him.
I have always loved the name Liam but so many friends already used it before it was my turn for a boy. Now that I am done having babies I get to have fun helping friends name there’s.
I won’t be having kids so I don’t really have a baby name crush. Those are some really adorable names you’ve chosen!
Meadow and Jude are beautiful names, for sure! I love Emmitt and Penelope! Classics!
I have always been in love with mystical and old fashioned names. For girls I like
cordelia
cleo
shiloh
lennox
juniper
margeaux
loralei
virginia
durham
zara
charlotte
luna
nova
and for the little boys, I would say
bodhi
ollie
cash
Milo
krew
leovanni
Kylo
Love your name style! 😍
I am a soon to be mom from Germany with A LOT of ideas. In our family, everyone has a first or at least middle name that begins with a C (my husband as well) but I still want it to be melodic, so here are my ideas:
Alena Christin (my middle name is Christin)
Nora Catharina
Cilia Johanna
Justus Constantin (Constantin is the middle name of my Husband)
Julian Conrad (my Grandpa)
or any variations of those, I have so many for girls and only a few for boys.
My husband likes Lenka for a girl