My husband and I plan to start trying for our second child in a few months and I have started working with him on names because we had such a difficult time finding boy names we liked last time and I worry that the only boy name my husband actually likes is our son’s name [name_m]Samuel[/name_m] [name_u]Dean[/name_u] Lastname.
My husband likes longer boy names that have a nickname. So far the only one he has suggested is [name_m]Jackson[/name_m], which I vetoed because although we don’t mind common names I don’t want our kid to be the 5th kid in his class with the same name.
Names we can’t use because we already have family members with that name:
[name_m]William[/name_m]
[name_m]Andrew[/name_m]
[name_m]Lucas[/name_m]
[name_m]Aaron[/name_m]
[name_u]Shawn[/name_u]
[name_m]Stephen[/name_m]
[name_m]Matthew[/name_m]
One name I do like is [name_m]Charles[/name_m], nickname [name_u]Charlie[/name_u]. But my husband has a cousin with that as his first name, but he goes by his middle name. Is it ok to use it since his cousin has never gone by his first name? Or should we leave [name_m]Charles[/name_m]/[name_u]Charlie[/name_u] alone since it is already taken?
If the cousin goes by his middle name, I’d consider [name_m]Charles[/name_m] unused and perfectly fine for you. We’re in a similar boat, where we like [name_m]Charles[/name_m] but there’s an uncle [name_m]Charles[/name_m] on FI’s paternal side, but since he only goes by his middle name I consider it a contender.
My rule is we don’t use names our siblings used. My sister used [name_m]Johannes[/name_m], therefore we didn’t. We don’t use names of siblings or sibling in laws because we feel they have a claim to use it on future children. I would not hesitate for a second to use [name_f]Susannah[/name_f] even though I have a cousin named that.