I know exactly what I would want to name my baby! But I don't want to say!

I always like the name Dakota. It's a little awkward now that my roomate's dog is named that though. I heard the name Britton on tv the other day and liked it too. I haven't figured out to use them as male/female names yet, but I'm not in a rush since I'm not having kids anyway!

Oh, and my great grandmother's name was Genevieve. Since my name is Jennifer, I always appreciated her name more, because she could still be called Jen (or Gen I guess), but it also isn't as common a name like Jennifer is.

I know you aren't supposed to tell people the names you are thinking of just in case someone else wants to use them...but I think I am safe with all of you.

My grandfather's name was Noel and it is my father's middle name. My dad wanted to keep the tradition alive with me, but with a feminine version, so my middle name is Noelle. The hubby loves the name so he said that if we have a baby girl he wants to name her Noelle and I could pick the middle name. I picked Christine. So a daughter may end up with the name Noelle Christine.

If we have a boy his middle name will be the hubby's first name. It is tradition in his family.

Not sharing either

I have alot for girls--Dora Winifred (Winnie, for short), Winona (also Winnie!), Blair, Cleo, Ginger, Zooey, Daphne, Piper, Bijou, Toula...

For boys--Jack, Joel, Eddie, Giovanni, Julian...

Thats all I can think of right now!

I always tease my mom by telling her that if I have a boy I will name him Bunker or Carlito.

I married an Italian. Agreement is, boys' names are Italian, and for girls I get to throw in a little of my Irish if I want. So our boys are Vincent Jr and Giancarlo. I'm not telling what the unborn one is going to be.

I would never hire a consultant to do it, it's entirely too personal for me. What matters is what my husband and I like, not what anyone else likes.

I named my daughter Skyla-Ann, Skyla for short, and I would never have wanted a consultant to help pick out the name! It's way too personal and fun to do it on your own:)

If I have a baby girl, I'd name her "Mikaela Christianna"---from Michael the archangel and Christianna because she comes from Christ and honor her to Christ Jesus

I don't care about sharing the name or if somebody would copy that name. They're not gonna be the same persons. A lot of people share my name and I'm sure there gazillions of people also named the same name you have. But who cares? Is this a big deal?

Well, it can be vienvien. Some of it is about respecting friends and family, and "stealing" a name isn't so nice. The other part is that is can be confusing to have multiple people with the same name that are around each other a lot. My uncle's name, my cousin's name, my cousin's ex-husband, and my hubby all have the same name. I can honestly tell you it can get crazy when all of them where/are together. In some families, cultures, regions, etc. it is normal and people don't think twice about it. Where I come from, it isn't the best idea.

sometimes i don't understand why people name their kids what they do -- esp with those with last names that make kids an easy target to be made fun of in school growing up. luckily i didn't get such a name but i definitely will be sure not to do this to my kid!!

I will probably go the route of naming my children after late relatives. My name is a little unusual and my parents really went all out when trying to be creative with my name. Let's just say that my full name is an acrostic poem and my initial actually spell my name. Anyways, things have been a little difficult for me because I pronounce my name in a strange way too. I would want to give my child a good, strong name but nothing too generic or out there.

For us and our families, it's a big deal to not use a name similar to someone else very close within the family. A cousin I rarely see? Wouldn't be problem. But to use the same name as my sister had used for her child, I wouldn't even consider.

I think if it's common courtesy to ask someone if they mind the same name being used, if it's someone you anticipate being close to in the years to come. You don't have to not use it if they do mind, just take it into consideration.

Oh, and some people believe that talking about a baby name before the baby is born is bad luck, bad karma, etc.

It's too personal to hire someone, jeez just name the kid yourself! You're the one who is going to be yelling it all the time, you should be the one who picks it!

Anyway, we aren't having anymore kids, so I'm giving away the names we didn't use:

Jade Rayne (girl)
Tabatha Violet (girl)
Jaylen Anthony (boy)

When I was little, I hated my first name. But now I have grown to love it. It is different and unique. It is a pain the butt when you have to repeat it several times, no one ever spells it correctly and people end up calling you something that sounds similar. But when they do FINALLY get it, they say they never heard it before and I am usually the only one they know. I feel special!

If I ever have kids with my boyfriend (hopefully one day future husband) our names both start with J...I think it would be cute to keep on the J name.

I DONT know YET

I love the names Serena, Kate, Calum, Skyler, Rhys (pronounced like 'Reese'), and Lena.

If I wanted to have a baby I would make sure that there is only ONE way to spell the name and it sounds nice in more than one language. And that nicknames sound okay.

My parents named me Jasmine, which in German(which I am) is pronounced Yuss-meen. Which imho sounds nice. But I hate the way my name sounds in English. Plus in germany the usual spelling of my name is Jasmin so most people misspell my name as mine is spelled with an e at the end. Some people even spell my name Yasmin(e) in Germany as J and Y sound the same in German . It's VERY annoying. PLUS, most people call me Jazzy, how horrible is that?

Would it be disrespectful to "steal" people's names...is that stealing? Is that an exclusive property that you "own" it , "patent" it and "buy it"? What if my name is the same as your name ? Or what if you find 100 kids in your neighborhood has the same name as your baby's name? What would you do? Do you call me disrespectful ? Or do you call your neighbors disrespectful? What are we gonna do to these people ? Sue them because we think they stole our names and our children's names? It's much more disrespectful if you call people of superiority and in authority their names. Like calling older people by their names. But that's our culture.....I understand it's the culture that one comes from ....but I think it's universal that it's not "disrespect" when people have the same names as you have. How many Viviene's would I call "disrespectful" in this entire universe? How many Anne , Mary, Kelly, Julie, Bryan, Peter, Stephen do we know in one family generation ? Are they disrespectful to each other ? I have a friend who named her daughter the same name I have and I feel honored in fact.
I guess some people just like to be "unique" and have the privilege to assert that their child is unique too. It's a very good feeling that the names we come up arer "creataive" and "unique" and they belong to our children ----that our children have "beautiful, unique, and exceptional" qualities that no one ever has. But we should not forget that we cannot control others about naming their children the same names we have name our children. There is no law against it ----and never there is an implication in the entire universe that it is "against" one's dignity to share one's name with others.

vienvien, I say again - people CLOSE TO ME, we wouldn't consider it. Not for some person online I've never met or a neighbor I've only spoken to once.

No one said there was a law against it.

It's a very individual thing. If you're not opposed to it, then there's no need for people around you to ask if it's ok to use the same name you did. For us, it's understood that we all consider it a matter of respect, and wouldn't violate that.

Anyone who needs to hire someone to name their kids probably shouldn't be having any.

Okey I understand and agree in some terms but I wouldn't be sweating w/ the small stuff. There is more to life than being bummed out by "shared names". Afterall this is my opinion and I just couldn't understand why there's so much big deal about it.
Thank you guys....this is my last post in this topic...I'm sorry I blabbed too much because I don't like seeing people "sweating out the small stuff" ....And if I'm wrong about this "small stuff" ---I'm sorry . I only see what I see.

---The joy of the Lord is my strength. ---

I understand that for you it's small stuff. For others, it's not, and therein lies the respect issue.

Whoa vienvien. There was a reason I put stealing in quotes hon. I wasn't talking about people with the same names or honoring someone by naming your child something. I will use this an example. Say I told my pregant friend that I was going to name my daughter Noelle. She says that is cute. Then she has her daughter before me and names her Noelle without even mentioning it me. This is how some people see it at "stealing." Sure I could still name my daughter whatever I wanted and my friend has a right to name her daughter what she wants. It doesn't make it a nice thing to do.

lol Marci, I'm totally with you.

bfly, I definitely see your point about not wanting a close friend or family member to take the name you said you were going to name your child. I think it's a bit rude, too.

I also think if you want to name your child after someone close to you that it's polite to ask them. It's also a way of honoring them.

My sis is about to have her first baby and I went through the naming thing with her. There were so many names that I just hated. I can't stand names that sound like you are trying to raise a waspy prep school kid.

But happily I found there were many I really liked! They were more in the slightly off-beat, classics category.

There is a great book called Freakonomics that has a whole section on baby names. If you can get your hands on it, you should read it. It's great stuff!!

Vienvein- what a coincidence! If I have a girl, I have always been stuck on the name Michaela. It is so beautiful! But I will do Michaela CarolAnn, Since my Mom's name is Carol and my middle is Ann. I'd like to honor my family's names too, since she will have by hubby's last name. But...I want 2 boys too, Jack and Johnny. They are simple and adorable! Now I just need to make sure I have 3 kids- a girl and 2 boys. haha!

And Pop- I love the prep school kid comment, and I agree. =)

I tried to use my younger son's love for Cap'n Jack to push the nickname "Jack" on him because it's one of my favorite names. He didn't go for it.

That's pretty funny Greggie! It made me smile.

I've learned my lesson... My MIL and SIL (who we are not close w/) asked what baby names we were thinking about (I'm not prego nor trying, yet), and I told them. They just looked at me and said "Huh, what kind of names are those? Why don't you name your daughter Riley. We think their needs to be a Riley in the family". I then changed the subject and told myself I wouldn't tell many peeps again until it is a done deal. I know I shouldn't let it bother me and I should be confident blah blah blah, but it was hurtful. to them.

That's awful jgasia! I can't believe the nerve of some people.

Yeah, none of my in-laws or family will probably appreciate whatever names I pick either, jgasia. I understand what you're feeling. I prefer the somewhat unusual or old-fashioned, but nothing outrageous. At least, not to me.

I have told them that if we have a little girl, her middle name will be Kathleen. It's my middle name, my mom's name, and my MIL's name. So that's a given.

But I did inform my husband the other day that when and if we have a little boy, I want his name to be Noah.

I just don't want my kids to have a name that every other person in the class has too. I never had that, but my husband's name is John. None of that!

I actually have a list too! I figure once I'm pregnant, I'll just hand it to my husband and say, get used to these!

jgasia, I got a lot of that with Giancarlo, too. Plus people think we made it up.

I think if someone asks "What do you think of the name...?" it's fine if there's an honest answer. But I am sincerely bugged by people who respond to "We're naming him Ben" with "Oh that's an awful name!"

*note: I do not think Ben is an awful name.

I work with Parents and Kids everyday, I see hundreds of names come across my desk everyday, and there are just some that leave me shaking my head. If you have to in parenthesis tell people how to say the name, chances are that child will have to explain it to every single teacher, agency and otherwise for the rest of their lives!
My family is from Norway, I still have 90% of my relatives over there, my fathers side of the family is Hungarian. My husband’s family is Scandinavian also. So we are thinking of traditional Norwegian names, maybe family names, although I would never ever stamp a “junior” on my kid.

The trend nowadays is to take a traditional name, like Brianna and TWIST it so much that you just are confused. Examples for other spellings I have seen are:
Brijuane
Breeauna
Bre’anna

I don’t know why I am seeing a ton of the apostrophes, like “Di’amond” and “La’kisha” it makes no sense.

I try to think of names that Mean something, give the child a good foundation. I try to also think of every single nickname that people can call them, or rhyme with their name.

omg, a professional baby-namer?!?! isn't half the point of having kids so you get to name them yourself?!?!

well I want my kids to be named Ayden Cole, Nathaniel Rhys, and Natalie Renee .....

ThePerfectScore - I LOVE the names Natalie and Nathaniel! They're both on my list...and Aidan might be as well, but it's gotten so popular...

I like Aidan as well. It's the Irish in me I think. But, you are right ALSW, it has gotten really popular.

we were going to name our first daughter shannon and then all of our family members said ugly things about it and we let them ruin the name for us (why did we care?). so we picked jenna and told everyone it was going to be a surprise. well a lot of people read more into the meaning of "surprise" than they should have and thought we were naming the baby after them, lol. then we got all of these "i thought it was a surprise" comments. yes, it was a surprise wasn't it!

dh and i had some working out of names. we agreed on a boy's name, patrick, and then my sil said she was going to use it IF SHE EVER HAD A BOY so we couldn't use it. um wanna bet? there is no saving names. when she did finally have a boy they named him something else. whatever.

Definitely Holly for a girl. I'm thinking Edward for a boy, but whoever calls him "eddie" or "ed" will be given very angry looks.

*there (correction)

thanks for the understanding, ladies.

lickey- some people!!!

I Love LINNEA!!!!!(girl)TYLER(boy)

Oh, sittingonawall, I have the same symdrome. Try Brigette. I will respond to BRI-git, bri-JHEET, bri-Jet, or bri-GEE-da, because they all are proper pronunciations in some European countries. But when I get something so uneducated like Bri-ged-DAY or something where it's obvious they made it up and are trying to be smartasses (themselves named Amy or Nikki of course:), I lose it. I hated my name when I was a kid because it was "weird", I love it now. I hate it when you pronounce your name for someone and then they repeat it -- purposefully not how you said. I'm sure you must get that too.

thats crazy, naming a child is too personal to be ebinging in outiders...its not like decorating a room,

I love thinking of baby names.

Girl names: Lola, Bella,

Boy names: Alejandro

I like Angus for a boy.

I don't get why someone would pay for another person to name their baby. By a book or go on line. I like my boys' names: Andrew and Luke. I liked the name Damian for one of them, but DH hated it. (I had never seen the Omen so, I didn't know the name had a negative connotation.)

I don't think I want kids even though I have names picked out since I was 15 (I'm 28!). They're all Irish, not like Aidan or Connor, which are really nice but too popular. These are VERY Irish.

What can put me off a name very fast is meeting someone with that name who is not a nice person. I used to like the name Luke until a tool of the same name starting working with me. Grrrrr! That's a whole other post!