I would like to hear from you berries whose partners have opposite styles then you. [name_m]How[/name_m] do you agree on names? [name_f]Do[/name_f] you compromise and meet in the middle, somewhere between your two styles? Does one choose the first name and one the middle name? Take turns by children? Go with names a completely different style from what either of you love, something more middle road that you can agree on?
I know a family where the dad named the sons, and the mother named the daughters. First names only, all middles were family names. That of course, only works if you have at least one of each!
My SO loves common, popular, traditional, well used, established names. I love uncommon, sometimes rarely heard of, contemporary, modern and often work/nature names. It will be a few years before we try for a baby, but names are something we have already talked a bit about, of course, me being a nameberry ;).
I’d love to hear from those of you who’ve named children under such circumstances, but feel free to comment even if you have no children. Tell me how you found/find an agreement with your SO on names when you have completely different styles!
Haha, oh my, I could easily talk about my experience with this for hours 
So, when I met S/O, it didn’t take us long before we discussed children or names (about a month into the relationship I think??). When we met, my style was essentially the UK top 100 and vintage nicknames - [name_f]Florence[/name_f], [name_f]Harriet[/name_f], [name_f]Millie[/name_f], [name_f]Minnie[/name_f], [name_f]Martha[/name_f], etc. and the occasionally name from the 1996 list in [name_f]England[/name_f] that never appeared in my class lists - [name_f]Kirsty[/name_f], [name_f]Sian[/name_f], [name_u]Nicola[/name_u], [name_f]Rhiannon[/name_f].
His style was more exotic and less girly, less vintage - [name_f]Zara[/name_f] was his top name for months after I first mentioned it, followed by [name_f]Freya[/name_f], [name_f]Layla[/name_f], [name_f]Alannah[/name_f] etc.
We didn’t exactly disagree, I liked what he liked, but he was not a fan of hardly anything on my list. However, I always kept a large list of all the names that I felt I liked, even if I only liked them a little bit, because I kind of adapt easily/can learn to see the beauty in names and fall in love with them rather quickly.
This meant that, while I couldn’t use names like [name_f]Florence[/name_f] or [name_f]Harriet[/name_f], I could keep [name_f]Millie[/name_f] and [name_f]Martha[/name_f], combine it with [name_f]Layla[/name_f], and pull out other favourites that were more his style - [name_f]Kayla[/name_f], [name_u]Kenzie[/name_u], etc. It turned out that we found something that worked for both of us - 80s names replaced my vintage (they’re more retro, I suppose??) and my nickname names turned from [name_f]Minnie[/name_f] and [name_f]Betsy[/name_f] to [name_u]Kenzie[/name_u] and [name_f]Lottie[/name_f]. [name_u]Addison[/name_u], [name_u]Riley[/name_u], [name_u]Hayden[/name_u] and [name_u]Finley[/name_u] were all names I loved for a boy, but he liked for a girl, so, they made a transfer. Some, like [name_u]Riley[/name_u] and [name_u]Hayden[/name_u] actually sit on both lists, but still.
I basically just learned to adapt, and took it as a way to narrow down my one-time 800 name long list and turn it into a list of about 100 names instead.
Thank you @lawsonhaley! I find that interesting how your style shifted, and you found common ground with your SO. Sometimes it seems a little hard, to have to accept that I’ll probably never get my baby [name_u]Brighton[/name_u] or [name_f]Azura[/name_f]. Some names you get so attached to it’s hard to imagine letting go! But his serious favourites so far have [name_m]Charles[/name_m], [name_f]Marianne[/name_f] and [name_u]Brooke[/name_u]! So we both obviously have a long way to go ;). The one name we have actually sort of agreed on is [name_u]Dakota[/name_u], but he likes it on a girl and I prefer it for a boy!
Thank you again for sharing your experience:). I love to hear about real life situations like that.
It is really hard at first, I’ll definitely admit that! I always liked [name_f]Kayla[/name_f], [name_f]Stephanie[/name_f], [name_f]Kaitlyn[/name_f], etc. but I hadn’t kept them on my list in years, and they were more on my guilty pleasure list than anything else, so really, my GP names and my short list just changed places 
My big thing with unisex names was, if I love it on one gender, why couldn’t I love it for the other? I loved [name_u]Finley[/name_u] for a boy, but it’s more used for girls where I live, and so, my fiancé thought it was actually a girl’s name and didn’t like it for a boy (it has the same ending as my name, so I can kind of see why he’d think that). [name_u]Finley[/name_u] just easily made the switch between my lists, and so did [name_u]Addison[/name_u] (my one time #1 name for a boy).
If you want to know more about it in detail, feel free to PM me 
I’d be happy to share the full story if it might help you with ideas on how to compromise!
PS: [name_u]Brooke[/name_u] and [name_u]Brighton[/name_u] aren’t terribly far off in style, even if [name_u]Brighton[/name_u] is on your boys list. Nymbler is a pretty good tool for finding names using both your styles - put in your 3 top names and his 3 top names, and it generates suggestions based on those 6.
My husband’s name and his sister’s name (and my name) are 3 syllables long. He says they’re borderline too short with our last name. It became very clear early on that 4 syllables are the gold standard, with 5 syllables being even better but much harder to achieve. Although his style has really progressed and developed over these years we’ve been together, his early favorites were very conventional 4 syllable mostly regnal-sounding names like [name_m]Alexander[/name_m], [name_m]Antonio[/name_m], [name_m]Sebastian[/name_m], [name_f]Alexandria[/name_f], [name_f]Anastasia[/name_f], [name_f]Elizabeth[/name_f], [name_f]Christiana[/name_f], [name_f]Victoria[/name_f], etc.
He also likes a FEW slightly unusual shorter names like [name_f]Callixta[/name_f], Kjirsti, [name_f]Gretchen[/name_f], [name_f]Fiona[/name_f], and [name_f]Freya[/name_f], but worries that they’re too short. This is a major barrier as he prefers long names even for middles in theory, though in practice I’ve been able to mostly convince him that 4+4+1 is a bit much.
The main differences come in origin. While he and I both love Latin and Greek names and many English and English-sounding names (though he only goes for long ones), he doesn’t like Irish or Scottish or [name_m]German[/name_m] names nearly as much. For Irish names, this is particularly tragic for me. I’m over half Irish. There are many Irish names that I would have loved to use, and they’ve all been vetoed. Most of the longer Irish names I’ve tried to feed him over the years [“Sweetie, I remember you liking [name_f]Fiona[/name_f]. [name_f]Do[/name_f] you like Fionnoula/[name_f]Finula[/name_f]?”] have still come up flat. There’s not a single Irish name on our list of names for our children.
But with so many alternatives I love that he also loves, it’s hard to complain. Especially since he has given me every family name I’ve wanted. Overall, we agree on practically every boy’s name, loving [name_m]Horatio[/name_m], [name_m]Sebastian[/name_m], [name_m]Atticus[/name_m], [name_m]Ignatius[/name_m], [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m], etc. It’s the girl’s names that are much harder. They’re not harder because he vetoes everything, but just because it’s harder to ascertain what he genuinely likes. He is rather adaptive and malleable over time. So when I go through phases of loving and obsessing over one name in particular, he may be against the idea in the beginning [“I think [name_f]Gretel[/name_f] is just too [name_m]Hansel[/name_m] and [name_f]Gretel[/name_f]”], but I mention it over and over, and by the end of the phase when I’ve moved on, he’s like, “Hey, whatever happened to baby [name_f]Gretel[/name_f]? I liked that.” It’s a good problem to have, though.
my husband and I have very different styles. We basically found a middle ground or compromised for a lot of it. He likes names like; [name_f]Jessica[/name_f], [name_f]Brittany[/name_f], [name_u]James[/name_u], and [name_m]Luke[/name_m]. very common, top 100 names. I like names like; [name_f]Olena[/name_f], Ayita, Kailen, and [name_m]Callum[/name_m]. uncommon, under top 500. so we moved to familiar, but not heard often and found some names we both like.
@medfordkung I’ve been watching your name journey a bit, you have some wonderful names going on! I can hardly wait to see what you’ll end up with :). I’m happy you and your SO have managed to agree on that many great names! And I think long names almost always have so terribly much character, so that’s not a bad guideline to have!
@oneofthetrio I have admired [name_f]Rayna[/name_f] [name_f]Irene[/name_f] on your list so many times (and I think I’ve mentioned that before)! It’s on my own list, maybe I should offer that one up and see if it passes the test! Not sure if I ever have before…
Thank you all!
@columbiacharm, Thank you! It’s my top choice should we have a girl and I would definitely offer it up. It might be something you both like!
I’ve loved names for ever, and keep a running spreadsheet that has evolved over the past decade, since before SO and I were even together. I would say generally I like unusual names, from many histories and backgrounds. But, once the idea of naming a real human has come along (we’re still in the first trimester) I’ve found my taste has become somewhat more traditional. Before expecting SO seems to like very common names, though he may also forget the next day what he liked the day before. We’ve discussed names for our little human a few times, and I was really worried we wouldn’t be able to agree on anything, after casually bringing up some names in the car we could never agree, or if we did he would have changed his mind an hour later. I found this incredibly disheartening. I was also worried to let him just go through my extensive list, for fear that he would just hate everything I had loved for years. Finally, we did just that and I was relieved that we ended up with about 20ish names for each gender we both found at least worth considering if not that we loved. And since we did it together he realized he’s being very difficult when he can’t like a name for more than 5 minutes. We’ve still got months to go, but I’m glad we started early.
I guess to sum up this ramble, it’s all well and good to start discussing now, but things do change when it’s a real human in play. I always loved the name [name_f]Lyra[/name_f], couldn’t imagine another name for a daughter, SO has gone back and forth between liking it, finding it too short, and thinking I have too many “similar names” in my family (I have a cousin [name_f]Linnea[/name_f] and a cousin [name_f]Leorah[/name_f], so, no L names?! they are both adults now as well). I thought I would be devastated but I’m actually ok with it, I still like [name_f]Lyra[/name_f] but I too feel like it might be too short, I’d rather have a longer name with a short nickname.
Luckily we’re still several years away from children, because my boyfriend and I have very conflicting styles. And by ‘conflicting’ I mean that my boyfriend has NO style at all. For some unexplainable reason, he can’t seem to identify any names that he actually feels strongly enough towards to label as a ‘like’. Doesn’t matter what names I throw at him - the best I get out of him is a ‘meh’ or ‘that’s ok, I guess’. I don’t know if that’s just how normal (aka - non namenerds) are, or if he’s just super weird in general.
Having said that, he’s fully capable of pointing out names that he dislikes, even if said dislike it often aimed at my names - obscure, exaggerated, posh etc. His lack of interest and enthusiasm can be frustrating at times, but the bonus is, provided he doesn’t absolutely hate the names, it looks like I’m pretty much free to pick all of our future childrens’ names myself, which I will very much enjoy doing!