I’ve been collected names since the second I got married in 2011. I was interested in the coolest and most unusual, for the most part. I tried to stay of the top 1000 completely, mourning when my faves, like [name_u]Juniper[/name_u], debuted.
But, like, three weeks ago, I mentioned to hubby how much I loved (insert name here, can’t remember it) but lamented that it was #6hundred and something. He went into analytical-mode and began researching exactly how common that name would be. I don’t remember what statistics he ended up with, but he convinced me enough that even using the number one name, [name_f]Sophia[/name_f], wouldn’t be as much as a common-name nightmare I’d assumed. So I went through the top 1000 slowly, and added a lot more names to my list. Names I LOOOVE but didn’t think I could use.
And that’s the story of how my name tastes changed. My priority of a unique name ceased and instead, the priority of a name we both love has taken its place. A month ago, I wouldn’t have believed my new name list, but there you go.
What about you all? Did you find naming priorities or tastes shifting after expecting?
Good question! I guess my taste also shifted to more common names for a couple reasons. A lot of the more obscure and longer names I loved just didn’t sound right with my surname, my focus shifted to what would flow, what would provide some good nickname options, and what would work in two languages rather than just what was gorgeous. My husband has a strong tendency towards “fitting in” names (maybe a side effect of moving to the US during middle school with zero english) so that came into play too.
I dismissed my daughters name entirely ([name_f]Olivia[/name_f]) until the 20 week ultrasound when none of my picks seemed right. She was not a [name_f]Penelope[/name_f] (or a [name_f]Violetta[/name_f], or a [name_f]Magdalena[/name_f], or an [name_f]Eloise[/name_f], or a…) [name_f]Olivia[/name_f] had been my husband’s favorite all along so I pretty much settled it in the car when I asked him if he still liked it best. We did balance it out with a family name in the middle that satisfied my old need for unique.
No babies here yet, but I’ve definitely experienced a shift in names I liked in the last few years, and I imagine it will continue when I do start having kids. My choices have changed slightly since I got married, since I have to take my new last name into consideration (when I wasn’t really thinking about last names at all before)… I’ve also noticed that I tend to only think about first names for my hypothetical children at this point, but when I’m actually pregnant and planning on a name to use for a real child I’ll have to think about all of that, and a lot of other things I’m not really concerned about yet at this point either.
Mine changed a little bit between girls I guess. With number 1 I wanted a unique enough name, then with 2 I was less concerned and just wanted it to be a name I loved and to go with big sister’s name. Then with baby girl 3 I wanted a name that was a bit unique and also went with the other two names… I guess my tastes stayed the same but there were more restrictions! I wouldn’t want a top 10 name with an out of the top 1000 name as a sister I guess. That’s probably daft, but makes sense to me! While my girls names are all from different styles etc… I hope they ‘go’ together in other ways.
If I’d had a baby at 20 and then another at 35 I think my tastes would be very different (I would not have been thinking of baby names at 20 though!). In my late 20’s I liked names like [name_f]Madeleine[/name_f] and [name_m]Jake[/name_m], but 2 years later when I had [name_f]Tallulah[/name_f] they were no where near my short list! So maybe that’s a yes to your question. Before babies I had a certain taste and then when I had to name an actual real baby things became quite different!
I’ve always been really into names for as long as I can remember. Some of the names I really liked when I was younger are really popular now and while I’m not into super rare names I’d want to avoid the top 10 preferably top 100. Also I’ve had to take my husband’s feelings into account. For example I never really considered the name [name_m]Patrick[/name_m] before he mentioned it while we were dating. But it immediately felt perfect. There are also names I love that he doesn’t share my feelings plus I want my kids names to work together. I really like the name [name_m]Thaddeus[/name_m] but I can’t imagine having a sibling group of [name_m]Patrick[/name_m], [name_f]Mary[/name_f] and [name_m]Thaddeus[/name_m] it just doesn’t work in my opinion. Similarly rhyming names have to be excluded my husband and I both love the name [name_m]Matthew[/name_m] but we call our son [name_u]Pat[/name_u] sometimes and [name_m]Matt[/name_m] and [name_u]Pat[/name_u] just wouldn’t work.
Yes yes definitely! I’m way more focused on what I would actually call the kid. We went with easy-to-say [name_m]Asher[/name_m] and still often use a silly unrelated one-syllable nickname instead. I still like our choice, but next time I’ll keep it in mind more and probably rely way more on how something rolls off my tongue… As well as passing all the other requirements! Hmmmm we had a hard enough time picking this one…: p
Mine hasn’t really. I’ve always liked classic names and when looking to name our sons I always liked the classics, and they both have classic names which I love! Luckily my husband likes classic names too, I don’t know what our boys would have ended up being called if he liked trendy names.
Oh yes, my tastes have changed so much. I used to love very feminine vintage names (and I still love a lot of them) but since I had my daughter and we’ve been through the play groups, day care, swim lessons, etc., I’m growing so tired of those same names, which I now find overused and predictable. The more I hear them, the less I love them. Overuse is a curse. But one thing I find myself rebelling against in particular is all those long, frilly, pink and lace names ([name_f]Isabella[/name_f], [name_f]Annabella[/name_f], [name_f]Ariana[/name_f], [name_f]Amelia[/name_f], [name_f]Victoria[/name_f], etc.) that every second little girl has these days. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to hear a short, no fuss, unisex name on a girl. Like [name_u]Quinn[/name_u] or [name_u]Tate[/name_u] or [name_u]Jude[/name_u] or [name_u]Sage[/name_u]. I never thought I’d be a lover of unisex names, but here I am.
Maybe it’s just where I live, but there aren’t many “frilly” names in my mommy social groups. The girl babies I know are [name_u]Peyton[/name_u], [name_u]Emerson[/name_u], [name_f]Harriet[/name_f], [name_f]Grace[/name_f], [name_u]Charlie[/name_u], [name_u]Haven[/name_u], [name_f]Natalie[/name_f] and [name_f]Ziva[/name_f]. The boys are a mix of familiar but unique, or classic - [name_m]Oliver[/name_m], [name_m]Jonathan[/name_m], [name_m]Gideon[/name_m], [name_m]Wyatt[/name_m], [name_m]Sebastien[/name_m], [name_m]Isaiah[/name_m], [name_m]Liam[/name_m], [name_u]Walker[/name_u], and [name_u]Emmett[/name_u].
My name tastes haven’t really changed, but my appreciation for what others choose has grown, and I find myself being a lot less judgy of names I used to loathe.
My taste changed slightly after I got pregnant, I then had to include DH’s thoughts and opinions where as previously it didn’t quite matter if he didn’t like my favorites. Additionally, my hubby has spelling issues and so it had to be easy to spell.
I too, like other posters have stated, wasn’t as concerned about popularity when we picked a name, being common wasn’t such a bad thing anymore.
It did definitely. I’ve had really long lists of names that I’ve loved but when it came time to name my child my lists are much smaller and narrower in style. I mostly like old fashioned and classic names. Most of the names that I though were unusual are in fact really popular now and I learned that popularity isn’t what it was when I was young. I think the biggest reason for the change was that when I was younger the idea of a child was a fantasy, so my idea of it was more like a cute little boy or girl in a movie or book but by the time I was pregnant the baby was really real and would become a part of our family and their life would expand beyond the limited idea I had of a child before. So I realized my child might be sweet or spunky, pretty or plain, gender conformist or non conformist, had to work for a baby and an adult, an artist or a lawyer. Not to mention fit in with our family, so frilly names or really unusual names or long and elaborate names (that we would only use a nickname with in real life) or unisex names just didn’t fit us.
Once I had kids then I have to consider how much that impacts my next name choice. I like and believe that children are distinct individuals so I want that to be reflected in my name choices. [name_m]Even[/name_m] with twins, I don’t match their names other than they sound good to me in a sibset, and I’m not too particular about style matching there. I did also find though that I am increasingly drawn towards names that have the same sound in my current children’s names and I have to fight against that for the next, since I want him or her to have a distinct name.
Another thing that has changed is my perception of the names, once I found out actual popularity from the internet, name forums and in the playground the names feel different to me. Names I once thought of as very old fashioned (but still liked) are now fashionable revival names so interestingly, I’ve been drawn to even older names that I never would have considered for a child, like Agatha, which I am increasingly fond of now.
I’m not pregnant, but I did begin to see my name tastes change after I got married. Some names (like [name_f]Estelle[/name_f]) just weren’t feasible because of our last name (E.stes). But mostly I just started thinking of names on actual little people, instead of just as pretty combinations, and that meant that some names just didn’t work for me anymore.
This might be a bit weird, but I’ll sometimes have little conversations with myself, practicing potential baby names. “Today I have to take [name_m]Shepherd[/name_m] to register for kindergarten,” or “[name_f]Camille[/name_f]'s spending the night at a friend’s house.” Some names felt right, others didn’t. There wasn’t necessarily a rhyme or reason to it, but it helped me to knock some names off the list and narrow my options.
I was definitely leaning more towards classic names at the beginning of my pregnancy, I loved [name_m]Samuel[/name_m], [name_m]Sebastian[/name_m], and [name_m]Jedidiah[/name_m]. I was set on naming him [name_m]Darwin[/name_m] for the longest time, which is a name I still love, but as I got to the end of my pregnancy I started to really like the name [name_u]Sage[/name_u], which was a name I wasnt a fan of when It was suggested at the beginning of my pregnancy! Im very happy my tastes changed, I definitely think he seems more like a [name_u]Sage[/name_u] than he does a [name_m]Darwin[/name_m]. My tastes lean more now to name with a similar feel to [name_u]Sage[/name_u], but I am still a fan of most of the names I was before!
I used to hate baby name themes. I thought they were dumb. Kids are kids, not a line of furniture. They don’t have to match…
And yet somehow we ended up with a theme, and now I can’t envision naming baby #3 something that doesn’t match. That’s the main way my tastes have changed.
I have always loved really unique names though. Not boring names spelt badly, but truly different names. Luckily for our children my husband vetos all the really out-there ones!
My tastes have remained consistent through the years, but I will say that how I think about the names on my list has evolved.
I never really thought of last names when I would fantasize about baby names in the past. It was always only firsts and middles. I’m not really sure why a last name never entered my mind. Now, suddenly, I have this long, Germanic surname that is going to be attached to my child for the rest of eternity. It’s only 3 syllables, but it’s 12 letters. This makes me second-guess using the longer names (even my beloved [name_f]Elizabeth[/name_f]!) on my list because I don’t want my little first grader to spend 12 years writing their name on a test. Or, god forbid, have it not fit in boxes on forms. Our last name starts with R, so that has made me also think about what first names I could use. Our first son will still be [name_m]Henry[/name_m], but that R-surname makes [name_m]Henry[/name_m] sound a little odd. I had to really ponder if I wanted to keep [name_m]Henry[/name_m] in the top slot because of that. Finally, I decided that it didn’t bother me and just told myself to stay away from names starting with R (which included honoring my grandmother named [name_u]Ruby[/name_u]).
Furthermore, since I got married, I now find myself thinking about names on actual people, big and small, instead of just the surname-less babies of my fantasies. It makes me really think hard about [name_f]Anastasia[/name_f] and [name_f]Cecily[/name_f] and [name_f]Magnolia[/name_f] – they’re all so fanciful that I have a hard time imagining them on real babies and real grown-ups. I find myself being drawn to the shorter, more pragmatic, more ordinary names on my list, especially paired with that above-mentioned unique surname.
Then, of course, there’s my husband to consider. For the most part, he’s very laid back. He lets me rattle off names and tells me what he thinks about them, but most of his opinions are mild. So far the only names that he has shot down into burning flames is [name_f]Cordelia[/name_f], [name_f]Amelia[/name_f], and [name_f]Jemima[/name_f]. (I think he doesn’t like the “eel” sound, and he can’t move past the syrup. Lame.) The only suggestion he’s ever made is [name_m]Lucas[/name_m], which is his favorite name even if I don’t care for it. But he loves it so it’s now on the short list.
So, no, my tastes haven’t changed. I just now have to consider my husband and that name he brought to the table.
I went from wanting as classic as possible ([name_m]George[/name_m], [name_m]Peter[/name_m], [name_f]Mary[/name_f], [name_f]Alice[/name_f], etc.) to wanting slightly more spunky names (in my signature). Still pretty classic- but a little more unique.
I wanted to reply to this thread when I first saw it posted, but I’ve been so busy that I’m hardly ever here!
My name tastes have gotten less picky, but more picky at the same time. I don’t care about flow anymore. I don’t care if the names in a combo rhyme or anything else berries deem to be avoided. At the same time, the pool of names I want to choose from has gotten so much smaller and a lot of my old favorites are out the window for being too “out there.” I like very vintage (and nickname-y) names now, which I didn’t like as much before. It’s crazy how much my thinking has changed when it comes to putting a name on a living, breathing person that will have to grow up (and grow old) with what I choose. It’s definitely a much bigger deal.
Our last name starts with R, so that has made me also think about what first names I could use. Our first son will still be [name_m]Henry[/name_m], but that R-surname makes [name_m]Henry[/name_m] sound a little odd. I had to really ponder if I wanted to keep [name_m]Henry[/name_m] in the top slot because of that. Finally, I decided that it didn’t bother me and just told myself to stay away from names starting with R (which included honoring my grandmother named [name_u]Ruby[/name_u]).