Process of elimination (ie someone had veto power and this was the one left at the end?)

One person suggested it and that was it?

Namesake?

For us, I had a big list of names, that Patrick never even looked at! He just said one day, "how about Mason?" I said, "Done. Now what about for a girl?" :lol:

DH and I came up with the name K when we had one of those what-will-we-name-our-future-children discussions. Many months later, when we learned we were having a girl, we remembered that name and started calling her K before she was born. We never seriously discussed any other name after that -- she just felt like a "K." We did, however, spend some time figuring out how to spell it.

K's middle name, Ruth, was my grandma's first name and DH's grandma's middle name. Also a pretty clear choice.

We never really did firm up a boy name, but we didn't need one.

We decided on Benjamin's name when I was 7/8 months PG. We had all sorts of lists beforehand but didn't really use them. For us, the meaning of the name was very important since we both believe that a name affects the person's personality. I wanted to call Yumi Yedidyah. Yedidyah means God's friend. I love that meaning. So in the end DH suggested Benjamin because Benjamin is referred to as God's friend in the Bible. How did that come about? We were listening to a song with the quotation from the Bible saying (I am tranlsating here, so it might not be too accurate) "And to Benjamin he said: God's friend will always remain safe..." I love this sentence from the Bible and couldn't wish for anything more for my son in this crazy country! From that moment on the choice of his name was sealed. His middle name is Shlomo (Salomon) after DHs great-grandfather. As it turns out (we didn't know that!), also Salomon is referred to as God's friend in the Bible!
With Shoham the choice was much more difficult. I don't know why this is so, but everyone I have spoken to here has trouble finding a girl's name they like. We went over the online lists of girl baby names again and again, each picking the names we liked. Then we compared and crossed out the names form the other ones' list that were out of question. Shoham was always on the list of remaining names for some reason. We finally had 5 names on our list when she was born. The reason we didn't immediately go for Shoham was me saying since Shoham is the name of a gem- Onyx- i.e. a stone, she might end up being as stubborn as a rock. Little did I know!!!! We decided on her name when she was 2 days old and only because the Sabbath was about to begin and DH had to announce her name in the Synagogue that Sabbath (as is customary with girls. Boys get their name at the circumcision ceremony when they are 8 days old...) So Shoham it is. Shoham is a gem on the breastplate the High priest wears when serving God in the Holy Temple. On the breastplate there are 12 different gems, each representing one of the 12 tribes. DHs name is one of the tribes, Yehuda (Juda), and so is Benjamin. So by chosing a gem of one of the tribes, we pretty much continue our naming tradition after the the 12 tribes. Shoham is the gem representing the tribe of Josef. And Josef and Benjamin are Rachel's only sons. Does that mean we won't have #3? Naaaaa... we still have 9 other names to choose from, don't we?

So that is how we ended up chosing our kids' names.

Olivia was one of the few names that we agreed on. Rayann was going to be her middle name no matter what her first name was. Rayann is after my parents' middle names.

I made a list of names, about 15, that I liked and Paul put check marks by the ones (2) that he liked. He also wrote "not too bad" by a third. Then I picked the one I liked best out of those and he agreed... Matthew. I found the list a couple weeks ago and I don't like a lot of them on there anymore. Oops. For a girl it would have been Sara and will be if we have a daughter. I'm not sure how we came up with that, but it was an easy one for us.

tony's a namesake.

It was a very hard, long process.

Originally, she was going to be Isabel. But my dad and Darren both kept saying "Oh, Isabella" and I don't like Isabella so I abandoned Isabel all together.

I made list after list of names I loved and Darren would say "No, don't like it, dated her, didn't like her in high school" or come up with a way to make fun of EVERY name I listed. I was so angry! But his only suggestion out of the entire baby name book was "Daphne" :dead:

Since his family is pretty religious and likes bible names, I started thinking and remembered that there was a Rebekah in the bible. I chose that spelling because I like Bekah but not Becca. When I suggested it to Darren, he said "That's it. Rebekah it is" and it wasn't up for further discussion.

He also has chosen our boy name - Zachary Christian - and is not willing to discuss other options.

Therefore, if we have another girl, I get complete control over her name! She will be Jocelyn Diana. For some reason, Darren has already agreed to it.

Complicated. She was going to be Olivia (one of my favorite names) up until about my 7th month of pregnancy when I realized how popular it had become. So one more trip through the baby name book and we ended up with Caroline and Jessica as final contenders. When she was born, we looked at her, and I said I couldn't make up my mind, I liked Jessica and Caroline equally, so told James to pick which one he liked better. He said Jessica was nice, but he liked Caroline a tiny bit better, so there it was. And her middle name is Rose, after James' grandmother.

Katie was the first name I suggested that Phil liked. :lol: He let me choose her middle name after my incredibly difficult labor and delivery, so the Gabrielle part is all my doing.

Emma just came to me one day when I was trying to remember a friend of a friends name. Came up with Gabrielle by going through a name book until we agreed on one.

Kenneth was DH's dad's name. His middle name, Patrick, is DH's name.

Clark Joseph is the name of Superman ;) And since I told DH he could name baby #3 that's what he picked.

When I was pregnant with Victoria we had a list of names that we both liked and talked about it. We had almost decided on one when I was watchign Beaches and fell in love with Victoria. I told Jim, he said he loved it right away so when I said to him we need a middle name he blurted out Elizabeth (I'm sure it's because that's his mom's name). If Victoria had been a boy she would have been James William the III. I was so happy we had a girl! :lol:

For Alex, we found out ahead of time that he was a boy. I told Jim I really did NOT want another James (Jim, Jimmy) in the family since there was already 4! He agreed so we looked at boys names and both really liked Alexander so we used James as his middle name.

We found out with Lauren that she was a girl ahead of time too. This time I was having a hard time picking out names and the more I saw the name Lauren the more I liked and so did Jim. WE had originally wanted her middle name to be Nicole but she was born two days after my sister's birthday so she has the middle name of Carie. (That's the only name I would change. In my own defense, I was drugged and losing a lot of blood. :lol: )

Dawn

I was a sophomore in college in 1993 and I was standing in an astronomically long line in the campus bookstore. I grabbed a baby name book off the shelf to pass time and saw the name Aidan and immediately fell in love with it (THIS WAS 1993 BEFORE IT BECAME POPULAR :complain: ) So naturally, when I was PG, it was #1 on our list.
With all our kids, we went thru the baby name book and came up with lists of names we liked. Then we crossed off the stuff we disliked on each other's lists and came up with a list we agreed on. That list went on the fridge and we'd look at it daily and cross off names when we decided that we didnt like them. After looking at Aidan long enough, DH decided he liked it. :biggrin:
Aidan's middle name is Thomas, after my mom's brother who died in vietnam. Elliott's middle name is Robert, after my paternal grandpa who passed away last year. All three kids names...Aidan, Elliott & Norah....are Irish, as well....and DH is Irish.

We went through a baby name book and both wrote down names we liked. And then we went through the list together and we marked off ones that one of us didnt like. So, we basically did process of elimination. When we got down to about 3 names it got very hard though!

Everybody has such different methods. Nadine, that is a very interesting story, so are you having 9 more kids then? :lol: I didn't know Clark Kent's middle name was Joseph. I have learned a lot today. :) Lots of good names out there, it's funny how we ultimately decide. :)

We went through a baby name book and both wrote down names we liked. And then we went through the list together and we marked off ones that one of us didnt like.
This is essentially what we did too. We had it narrowed down to four or five names, and we decided on Amelia once we saw her in the delivery room

Her middle name, Kathryn, if after DH's great-aunt.

I first heard the name Tyrus at my dh's high school graduation. That "Tyrus" was one of the people graduating that day, and when I heard his name read aloud, I thought to myself, "I will name my son that some day." Thankfully, Josh liked the Tyrus he graduated with, and had no problems naming our son that. For his middle name, Austin, we had originally agreed on "Anthony" and then my cousin named his son that. I never really loved "Anthony" and so Josh went through the baby book and we agreed on Austin. So, he's Tyrus Austin.

As for our baby girl, who's due to arrive any day, we've decided her name will be Alexis Jade. I've always loved the name Jade and knew at some point, I'd want to name my daughter that. However, we had a hard time with Jade as the first name, because we couldn't find a middle name to work with it. So, we finally decided to switch it around and have it as the middle name. And then, we just started throwing first names out there, and both fell in love with Alexis as soon as one of us suggested it.

The funny thing about this whole story, is that this whole name discussion happened way back before we were even married or engaged. And, once we had agreed, we made a pact that we wouldn't tell anyone the names we'd picked out, until we were pregnant, and knew the sex of the baby. And, we stuck to our word.

I do think it's pretty cool that we have a son named Tyrus Austin, and within a few days, we'll finally get to meet our Alexis Jade. :biggrin:

I had always liked the idea of having a son named after my dad whose name was William. In 1997 (before I had met DH) a friend of mine was pregnant and I was looking through her baby name book and saw that Liam was the Irish form of William and I fell in love with the name. When I met my DH and we started mentioning children's names I told him about Liam and he liked it. So there you go. His middle name is Michael, DH's middle name as well as my FIL's middle name.

Ever since I was younger I've loved the name Emily, but it was way too popular by the time we got pg. Our last name ends in an "a", so we started by trying to find names that didn't end in an 'a'. We had a list of about 5, and I wrote them out so we could visualize what her name would look like at the top of a resume! :lol: None of those names jumped out at us, and I kept going back to some form of Emily. To be honest, Emma comes from the character on the TV show "Kate and Allie". I always liked Ari Meyers, who played Emma! DH liked it as well. For the middle name, we wanted something that had a nod to Hinduism (DH's background). Jayne was a nice compromise- it's Hindu for "victorious", yet not too ethnic.

A boy will be Krishan James- named after both fathers. DH's father passed away 2 months after we were married, so we wanted to honor him.

If Little2 is a girl, we're stuck again- current fave is Kate (another nod to the TV show?!?), b/c DH loves the name "Katie." I know it's getting popular, but it is nice and simple, and goes well with Emma.

We named our daughter Maya because DH wanted her to have an M name like the two of us. There weren't very many M names that we could agree on. Eventually we narrowed it down to Maya and Madelyn, but nixed Madelyn because it's getting so popular. However if we have another girl in a few years, we only have one choice. :lol:

I made list after list and ran the names by DH (who was not interested in making his own list :rolleyes: ). I wanted her middle name to be Carmella after my grandmom and he liked it, so that was set. I really wanted her name to be Elizabeth (my middle name), but DH hated it. Gabrielle was my next favorite name, and since DH liked it, Gabrielle it is.

About a month or so before she was born, DH said that if I really wanted to, I could name her Elizabeth. It meant a lot to me that he was willing to "give-in" knowing that it meant so much to me. However I knew he didn't like the name and I didn't feel as though it would be fair to him to name her something that he didn't like. I know I wouldn't want my child to have a name that I didn't like.

When I was pg with Isabella, I sat down with a book of names and compiled a list. The list ran the gamut from "Cordelia" to "Ava" to "Dita" to "Marta" to ".....". DH and I looked the list over and decided on Isabella. Her middle name-Karenna-was voted as "best middle name" in one of my UB polls.

The same thing happened with Amanda...with the exception of her middle name. I had an awesome CNM who took excellent care of me. No tangible gift seemed "good enough"....and so I gave her the "gift" of including her first name-Robin-as Mandy's middle name.

Oh, and btw, had #1 been a boy, the name would have been Brendan Nathan. #2 would have been Hunter Nathan.

You know what strikes me as interesting is how naming is different in the different cultures/religions. For (religious?) Jews, it is very popular to call a baby after someone. However, there are two main stream traditions in Judaism, Ashkenaz and Sephardic. Ashkenaz Jews are the ones living in European countries mainly. Sephardic Jews mostly come from Spain/Asian/African countries. There are many customs that are the same but quite a lot that are different. Naming is one of them. In Ashkenaz families, you never name after someone who is still alive- that would be the same as killing thst person (since only naming after the dead is traditional). That's why our 2 favorite boys' names were out of question- Moshe Shmuel (=Moses Samuel). That's DH's grandfather's name, may he live until 120.
In Sephardic families, the kids (especially the boys) are usually named after the often still living grandparent.
But that is very much a tradtional thing. It's not forbidden or a must acc to the Jewish law. So it also tends to change these days. People don't call their kids after namesakes that often, and if they do it is usually the Middle name.
Interestingly enough, though, on DHs paternal side, the family tradition used to be to call the father and sons Jacob and Simon. So there was this loong line of alternatively Jacobs and Simons in the family. It stopped in DHs generation in a way (his father is not Simon, DHs uncle is). DHs cousin named Simon died of cancer at the age of 4. The grandfather named Simon was still alive then. But DHs cousins (sisters of simon) kind of ciontinued the tradition. One called one of her sons Simon and the other called her son Jacob (DHs uncle passed away 8 yrs ago).

Another thing is the middle name. I see that is really the norm to have a middle name. We don't necessarily give middle names. Yumi has one, Shoham doesn't.

Whew- that came out longer than planned....

We wanted an Irish sounding name (DH is Irish, just part though). We went through lots of baby books. I wanted a name you couldn't shorten. I wanted Aiden. But I kept hearing it everywhere and it was freaking me out. So we went with Ian, which is Celtic for John, which is part of DH's first name. It worked out well. We chose Harrison because it's a strong sounding name and it's visually long to offset the short first and last name.

John Anthony was DHs grandfather's name, who died the day after we found out we were having a boy. DH always wanted to name a son after his grandfather, and I never questioned it. John Anthony fits our son, and it made it easy not having to think of the name LOL

I wanted to name my first born either Michael David or Jonathan David. David and Michael are my cousin's names who passed away. Jonathan was a very good friend of mine who died. I told Sean about these names and then he tells me that he doesn't want our children named after people. So, we started throwing out names. Cameron is one of them. Sean's Scottish roots are from the Clan Cameron and the name stuck. Alexander because I like it and because during the Jacobite Rebellion the brother of the laird of Clan Cameron was named Alistair.

We picked Janelle's name at 34 weeks after debating over a girls name forever, we just couldn't agree. One day a co-worker of Ryan's suggested Janelle, he liked it so he suggested it to me. It's also the name of a very close cousin of mine, so I thought it was perfect. I wanted to name her Janelle Ashley, dh hated it, so then he suggested Janelle Ashton and I said no, ashton sounds like a boys name, so then I suggested Janelle Ashlynn and that was that.

Kincaid Chance is the main character in a book (The Brother's K by David James Duncan) we had to read during creative writing class in College. DH and I both loved the name and on a trip to illinois we argued over who should get to use it, and decided whoever had a son first gets it. Well a year later we started dating, 2 years later we were married, and now, 4 1/2 years later we are having that son together.

When DH and I first started dating, he said he always wanted his first daughter to be named Hailey Morgan. So we pretty much decided on that. During my 7th month of pregnancy, he bought a baby name book because he started second-guessing his choice. He told me in the L&D room that he wanted our girl to be named Riley Morgan. I totally agreed, saying that I was convinced we were having a boy, so it didn't matter what he decided. :lol: Little did I know! And sure enough, little Riley Morgan was born the next day. :) So much for mother's intuition!

To be honest, Emma comes from the character on the TV show "Kate and Allie". I always liked Ari Meyers, who played Emma!
Ooh! I loved this show!!!

Some of you must remember my horrid, ridiculous, out of control search to name my children, in particular Colin. All in all, our name selections came from reviewing random lists - the Social Security list in particular - and Irish-oriented name sites. I had to fight DH on Seamus both times...but you all can rest assured if we have a third boy, I have no say: he's Seamus.

Like Karri, I am very, very bitter about how popular Aidan is. We just found it randomly - suddenly so has the world! :complain: Who knew? :shrug:

My girls names I just sort of came up with.

I worked with a guy who had a daughter named Kinley. I thought it sounded a little choppy...so we added an "s" and she was named Kinsley.

Kinsley's middle name is Jo. Both my mom and MIL middle name's are Jo...so naturally it was the first choice.

For Kamdyn - I really liked Kamry...but my SIL swears she is using Kammie if she has a baby girl someday. :argue: So I saw the name Camden for a boy online and changed the spelling to look more feminine. I'm SO glad we decided to use it. I absolutely adore it!

Kamdyn's middle name is Rae. DH's middle name is Ray and he was named after his grandpa. So another family namesake.

Kelli

DH and I pretty much have stuck to biblical first names and family middle names. When I was PG with Isaiah DH wanted to name him Ezekiel, I vetoed that right away! Were prety sure that if this baby is a boy he'll be Elijah Garwin (Garwin was DH's grandfather's name, he just passed away last October) and if its a girl she will be Hannah Elizabeth (Elizabeth was my greatgrand mothers name). I like the name Joshua Allen too (Allen after my grandfather), but DH says Joshua is too popular right now :crossfing maybe it won't be so popular in a few years when we have #3 or #4.

DH and I pretty much have stuck to biblical first names and family middle names. When I was PG with Isaiah DH wanted to name him Ezekiel, I vetoed that right away! Were prety sure that if this baby is a boy he'll be Elijah Garwin (Garwin was DH's grandfather's name, he just passed away last October) and if its a girl she will be Hannah Elizabeth (Elizabeth was my greatgrand mothers name). I like the name Joshua Allen too (Allen after my grandfather), but DH says Joshua is too popular right now :crossfing maybe it won't be so popular in a few years when we have #3 or #4.
I have twin boys in y class named Isaiah and Elijah!!

I had always planned on having a son named Ethan and and a daughter(s) named Emma and Hannah. You will notice I have neither!!:rotflmao: Oh the burden of compromise!!!

When we were pg with Nathaniel we were at Beau Jo's Pizza and wrote a list of our favorite boy and girl names on a napkin. Then we swapped the lists and crossed out the names that we didn't like. THe only 2 remaining names were Nathaniel and Elizabeth. THe he got to choose the boys middle name and I chose the girls. James was the name of both of our grandfathers.

For, Sarah, the day that I got my BFP he told me "it's a girl and her name is Sarah." I fought him for a while and then realized I was just being onry because I loved the name. I chose her middle name of Katherine for DH's late grandmother. Sarah was my grandmother's name.

John (really Ulreh John) is a namesake. And he's the fifth generation of it, so I had no say at all. :)

Kate