So my partner and I have completely different ideas about names, we both agree that a nane is one of the most important things you can give to a child, it identifies them, becomes a part of their personaility.
For him this means that it should be well known, easily spelt, be relevant to the culture of where you live and that of the family. ([name_f]Jane[/name_f], [name_m]John[/name_m], [name_m]Charles[/name_m], [name_f]Faye[/name_f], [name_m]Jack[/name_m] [some of these I do like but not when paired with an equally common middle])
For me I think this means that a name should be unique but have history, a story behind the name. I hate the idea of a child being one of 3 in a class. I’m [name_f]Kate[/name_f] and I always hated it when there was another [name_f]Kate[/name_f] in the class (didn’t happen that often, not as many [name_f]Kate[/name_f]'s around as you’d think). ([name_f]Gwendolyn[/name_f], [name_f]Aoife[/name_f], [name_m]Wolfgang[/name_m], [name_m]Fox[/name_m])
So I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have children but all thoughts are appreciated.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] you and your partner have different naming ideas?
[name_m]How[/name_m] did you come to a conclusion?
Did one of you have to settle?
[name_f]Do[/name_f] either of you regret the name picked?
Since I am a [name_f]Jennifer[/name_f] born in 1991, I understand what you went through. I look up all the names I like to make sure they aren’t too popular. And of course, I don’t want to use a name everyone I went to school had either. (My husband suggested [name_f]Rebeca[/name_f] and [name_f]Jessica[/name_f]).
My husband is from Mexico, so the names I am so used to hearing in the US are different for him, because not many people he grew up with have those names. We are trying to figure out a name for our second daughter now, and have a few we both like, and several months to get one finalized. For my daughter, he picked the middle name because it is part of his culture. I did not want it as her first name because I knew no one here in the US could pronounce it correctly and didn’t want to give her teachers a hard time. I had a list of names, and we agreed on [name_f]Noemi[/name_f] as the first name. We all love her name now, even though my dad and brother gave me a hard time about her middle name.
My hubby and I have different styles. I’m not sure what I would call my style, maybe classic eccentric ([name_f]Araminta[/name_f], [name_f]Eulalia[/name_f], [name_f]Rosalie[/name_f], [name_f]Lavender[/name_f], [name_f]Josephine[/name_f], [name_m]Alaric[/name_m], [name_m]Lachlan[/name_m], [name_m]Lorenzo[/name_m]). DH is very picky on names, the only names I know he likes for sure are [name_m]Ares[/name_m], [name_m]Dallin[/name_m], [name_f]Dahlia[/name_f] and [name_f]Constance[/name_f]. While I like them i don’t love any of them. since we have a common last name we do prefer an uncommon first name.
Honestly we just got super lucky that we both love our sons name. He first mentioned the name Allister to me when we were thinking about TTC, at the time I hated the name then it slowly grew on me and once we found out we were having a boy, I was 100% on board with Allister. His middle name is [name_m]Vaughn[/name_m] after my favorite uncle that passed away and DH always knew I wanted to use [name_m]Vaughn[/name_m] for a middle name if we ever had a boy.
Hopefully with our future kids, it’ll be just as easy but I don’t see that happening.
My husband and I have different styles. I’m lucky because I’ve heard some partners are super unhelpful, sarcastic, veto-happy, or silent when it comes to names. We set aside specific times to discuss names so we could each be prepared with suggestions/lists, and we weren’t allowed to have knee jerk reactions–we had to listen to why the other liked/loved a name. Obviously there are some names we’ll never come around to, but when the tone is respectful and both parties feel like their voices hold equal weight, the vetoes sting a little less and we now have a short list of names I feel very happy with.
Now what happens with the final decision? [name_m]Oy[/name_m], who knows. With our first, my family has a tradition of dads naming first daughters, so I was very open to picking my favorite name from his list. I’m hoping this means my list/choice gets the slightest bit more weight for baby #2.
DH and I aren’t parents, but have agreed on boy names… but not girl names.
We both want the middles to be honor names, but have very different styles of first names for girls. (Our boy styles are fairly classic, so not too much trouble there).
So we’re just hoping for boys since girls would mean fighting - my style is more literary meets nature, and his I would describe as 90s girly-girl names.
Interestingly enough I started a very similar thread to this a few months ago!
I can relate to you very well. We are pretty much on the same page as you, he thinks a good name is a well known, well used, tried and true name. Often they’re names of people his age ([name_f]Natalie[/name_f], [name_u]Brooke[/name_u], [name_u]Jay[/name_u], [name_m]Luke[/name_m], [name_m]Josh[/name_m]) or just popular names or names of children he knows and loves ([name_f]Chloe[/name_f], [name_m]Joshua[/name_m], [name_m]Cole[/name_m], [name_u]Noah[/name_u]).
Whereas I love unusual and rare names. Preferably word or nature names, but I also love magical, over the top names. ([name_f]Azure[/name_f], [name_f]Alaska[/name_f], [name_f]Araluen[/name_f], [name_f]Sapphire[/name_f], Zaffre [name_u]Willoughby[/name_u], [name_m]Forrester[/name_m], [name_u]North[/name_u], [name_u]Brighton[/name_u])
We do not have any children yet, so I can’t offer any insight on naming real children. But we have talked about names various times (and have found one name we agree on!) It does worry me some times, what will we do when we have to agree on names for real? I think we will meet in the middle, somewhere between our two styles, but it is a little sad for the namenerd in me to think that I may never use some of my favourite names!
I’m going to watch this thread and read the ideas and contributions that others have! I wish there would be that aha! moment, and there would be a perfect solution to a problem like this, but I’m afraid thats not how it works! It’s just all about both people compromising and finding something new that you can both agree on.
We both want first names that are fairly easy to pronounce where we live. Also, in his family the first name is “western” (for lack of a better term) and the middle name is Chinese. We followed that tradition. I don’t know that I really have a style, but I do have some rules, so some names I like are ruled out.
Basically I obsess about names, make a big list, and he helps me narrow it down. I don’t get upset if he vetoes a name, because without his vetoes I would never be able to choose! He made a few suggestions, but I don’t mind that he doesn’t have a big list of his own, it makes it easier for us to do it this way.
For our daughter, we got to the point where I couldn’t decide between [name_f]Athena[/name_f] and [name_f]Thalia[/name_f]. His parents helped us with her Chinese name.
I don’t even know what my SO’s naming style is. He never wants to discuss names. I’ve tried asking what type of names he likes and nada. So it typically falls on me, but he apparently doesn’t like my taste in names. If I ask about a specific name there’s always something about it he doesn’t like. If I show him my list and ask which ones he likes he’ll only list one(at least with the girls list, apparently he doesn’t like any of the boy list, which is fine b/c I feel meh about that list too). With our two current children I picked firsts and he picked middles. It wasn’t a rule with our first but the rule is two syllable first and three syllable middle. The kids have a one syllable last name and I just like the way it flows, plus for some reason I’m more comfortable with saying two syllables all day long. With my daughter he picked a random page in a baby name book then picked his favorite name from that page. Not sure how he came about our son’s middle. Our son didn’t have a middle name until right before I was about to be discharged. With this third pregnancy it’s been a lot harder for me. I’ve found middles I love but not firsts so I’m gonna have him be in charge of that. Not sure how that’s going to go since it took him so long with our other kids. -_-
Thanks for the replies everyone!
I guess I should be happy that he will discuss names with me considering we’re not even expecting but sometimes I wish he didn’t have such strong opinions about names.
The irony of him liking really common or well known names is that his is [name_u]Tristan[/name_u], not unheard of but he certainly never went to school or worked with any other [name_u]Tristan[/name_u]'s, and he likes his name so much so that he actually wants to use it for a boy or girl. I’ve said absolutely not for girls, maybe for boys, if I get to pick the middle and call him by that.
The only other names we can agree on are [name_f]Celia[/name_f] and amazingly he suggested [name_m]Ulysses[/name_m] (it’s a freaking miracle). He likes [name_f]Sadie[/name_f] and [name_f]Faye[/name_f] too which I don’t hate but don’t love.
I just don’t want to settle! I want to really love whatever names we eventually pick for our children and at this point I really worry that I won’t.