I often struggle to decide what my top names are, and although I’m only 16 and children are a long, long way off, I still wonder how difficult or easy it will be to choose a name for a real baby opposed to one that is purely hypothetical. So to those of you who have named a real baby {or babies}, how hard/easy was it?
My first, [name]Maximos[/name] [name]Alexander[/name], was hard for me but easy for his father. He had mentioned to me at some point when we were dating that if he ever had a son he wanted to name him [name]Maximos[/name]. I had a really hard time coming up with boys names that I liked, and still do to this day (he’s almost 10!), so I just picked [name]Alexander[/name] as a middle name and started calling him “[name]Baby[/name] [name]Max[/name]” until he was born and I eventually came to love it. My second, [name]Iris[/name] [name]Leia[/name] [name]Ann[/name], was super-easy. The day I found out I was pregnant my husband was looking over a list of Latin names online and called me and said “[name]How[/name] about [name]Iris[/name]” and that was it. We paired it with [name]Leia[/name] because he is obsessed with [name]Star[/name] Wars and I got guilted into later adding my family mn of [name]Ann[/name]. My third, [name]Cora[/name] [name]Noel[/name], was not quite so easy. I LOVED [name]Pepper[/name] for a girl and my husband was dead-set on it but once I got pregnant I just couldn’t see myself naming our little girl [name]Pepper[/name]. We couldn’t agree on anything until one day we were watching Tron and I said “What about [name]Cora[/name]” and that was it. We paired it with [name]Noel[/name] because [name]Christmas[/name] is my favorite time of the year and DH thinks it sounds good with [name]Cora[/name]. DH is still set on [name]Pepper[/name] if we ever have another girl but I don’t know if I can do it.
The names I loved when I was 16 drastically changed by the time I was 30 and had my first baby. Our daughter was very easy to name. We loved the name [name]Louisa[/name] instantly and it met all our criteria – classic, unusual but recognizable, similar pronunciation in [name]German[/name] and English (we’re a bilingual family). We picked out her name very early on and never had any doubts about it.
Our son (due in a couple months) has been an entirely different story. We’ve been going back and forth for months now, although I think we finally have decided on [name]Frederik[/name]. I don’t think I’ll be ordering anything with monograms or personalization yet though because we’re still not 100% sure. Maybe 99%. 
I think it won’t be a final decision until it’s on his birth certificate.
It’s interesting for me how different it is this time around compared to the first time.
Since age 7, I always had names picked out for my future son and future daughter. Over the years, the names changed a few times, but I always felt confident in my choices. So, for me, the only hard part in naming actual children was struggling with my husband to find boy names we could agree on. In each case (for our boys), we ended up using names my husband initially suggested. That was so unexpected and ironic to me after I had spent so much time from an early age thinking about and planning ‘ideal’ names for my future children. However, it all went much more smoothly in naming my daughter. I had fallen in love with her name before I got married and, luckily, my husband was in full agreement with it.
[name]Jordan[/name] [name]Casper[/name]- Easy! I’ve always loved [name]Jordan[/name] for a boy & OH loved [name]Casper[/name] , win win situation 
[name]Lucie[/name] [name]Jess[/name]- Me and OH liked [name]Lucy[/name] but weren’t keen on the spelling, [name]Jessica[/name] is my mn so is a variation.
[name]Emilia[/name] [name]Florence[/name]- Difficult :-/ We had decided [name]Florence[/name] as a mn quite early on in the pregnancy and just simply loved it then… We were stumped for names 
eventually we had our top 3:
[name]Lila[/name] [name]Florence[/name]
Ameli [name]Florence[/name]
[name]Carmen[/name] [name]Florence[/name] , we decided on [name]Carmen[/name] [name]Florence[/name] but when DD2 was born we just knew she had to be an [name]Emilia[/name] Her full birth-certificate name is [name]Emilia[/name] [name]Florence[/name]-[name]Carmen[/name] [name]Lois[/name]
Expecting DD3 19-03-12 and are torn between [name]Carys[/name] [name]Isobel[/name] & [name]Carys[/name] [name]Imogen[/name]
It can be tricky as there are so many choices available! The first thing I would advise is to narrow down your options and form a list of say 7-10 names.
Try to limit you options to first initials, ending sounds, or any names that connect you and your other half to memorable experiences, personal history or traditions. For more contemporary names, think about a location you like or one which has some significance to you and your partner e.g. [name]Brooklyn[/name] ([name]Beckham[/name]), [name]Paris[/name] ([name]Hilton[/name]) etc
Here are a few other things to consider
- Think about all the possible nicknames.
- Does the name age well?
- Are there many different ways to spell the name?
I used a few of these suggestions and it helped me and my hubby come up with a name for our second child!
[name]One[/name] final thing, try not to get your relatives involved in the baby naming process unless you have to. Your situation might be different, but for my first child we fell into this trap and it caused a few arguments!
[name]Hope[/name] these tips help you out some day!
Naming our daughter was easy as we were both in love with the name [name]Emmi[/name], her middle name is my mothers name, [name]Jayne[/name]
Although naming our son, who is due in a few months is proving difficult. He’s possibly going to be an [name]Oliver[/name] ([name]Ollie[/name])
Short answer: hard!
My husband and I are currently in mid-naming process, and it’s gone anything but smoothly so far. [name]Both[/name] of us are super picky (him moreso than me, at least from my perspective!), and our taste doesn’t seem to coincide all that well.
I’ve been interested in names for years and years now, so it was hard to let go a multitude of old favourites that my husband vetoed.
Something that I think a lot of teen name nerds don’t take into consideration (at least I know I didn’t) is that there will be a lot of real-life limitations on their name choices by the time that they actually have children. Not only will you presumably have to compromise with the child’s father, but you’ll have an ever-increasing pool of off-limits names as close friends and relatives start producing their own little ones.
Another interesting note: I’ve discovered that my own taste has become much more conservative/traditional when there are real babies to be named rather than hypothetical ones!
[name]Both[/name] of my daughters ([name]Gretchen[/name] [name]Sofia[/name] and [name]Cordelia[/name] [name]Violet[/name]) were named almost two days after they were born. I went to the hospital with 12 names with my first and six or seven with the second.
But… I am extremely indecisive by nature. I’m pregnant again and already stressed out because I took so much grief for how long it took the last two times.
There are a lot of names I really loved in theory but once I was actually pregnant many went out the window! I was naming a real human being so what I liked had to also mesh with what I felt would be acceptable for an adult to introduce him/herself one day at a job interview. DH has always liked more “usual” names…some of his favorites which I have vetoed for not being my style are [name]Patrick[/name], [name]Allison[/name], [name]Megan[/name] and [name]Jonathon[/name]. All nice names, just not for my kid. He also cannot get behind [name]Astrid[/name] no matter how hard I try, he just really dislikes this name and will not bend so I’ve had to give that up. Choosing a name with somebody made it harder but also easier to some degree…knowing what was off limits and also getting excited when we found common ground. He lived in Spain for 6 months through an exchange program with his college and imagine my excitement when I bring up the name “[name]Sebastian[/name]” and that he had read an email I wrote in the town of San [name]Sebastian[/name] and that is when he realized he had fallen in love with me. I liked it for the nod to Shakepeare and that it was heard of yet unusual (I know its been in the top 100 for a while, but, local to me it is still very unusual especially for a non-Hispanic child) and for him in brought back fond memories of his time living overseas and the sentiment of that moment for our relationship. All this to say that us having common ground with his name (and similar stories with the other kids) and the fact that before I was pregnant the name [name]Sebastian[/name] was not even a thought in my head, made it “the right name” and so far, no regrets in naming any of our kids, all of them names I know I did not like as a teen or even much in my early adulthood, but names that just worked and continue to work on real people. [name]Sebastian[/name] and [name]Linus[/name] are the only ones we named before they were born, [name]Bronwen[/name]'s name was chosen from a list of 5 names after she was born and [name]Violet[/name]'s honestly came out of the blue (well, we had talked about the name [name]Violet[/name] before and DH loved it but I was only so-so with it…but she is a [name]Violet[/name] and I knew that after spending a few hours with her).
You have time yet and I am betting when it is time for you to name a baby, you will be ok.
[name]Even[/name] though we’re only TTC at this point, we’re already trying to finalize the name. Boys name has been picked for years now. Girl’s is proving difficult. For years it was [name]Stella[/name] [name]Melody[/name] L… Then I noticed how badly [name]Stella[/name] La_____ (the last name) sounded and that was nixed. We’ve been “100% set” on about five different names sense eliminating [name]Stella[/name]; from [name]Natalie[/name] [name]Claire[/name] to [name]Leah[/name] [name]Rose[/name] to [name]Annabel[/name] [name]Ava[/name] [name]Paige[/name]… it’s rough.
I’m lucky I have an entire pregnancy (plus however long it takes to get pregnant) to decide.
It was difficult. I have been a name nerd since I was 14 and while I DID have a grip on my “style”, my entire list went out the window when I got pregnant and I started from scratch. [name]Remember[/name] that you might have an boyfriend or husband who has family names or loves of his own he wants to use, so it’s great to have a running list, I wouldn’t set anything in stone until your actually there.
For us it depends on if it’s boy or girl names. Boy names I find easy, I could name a boy in a second, no second thoughts. A girl name on the other hand is sooooo hard. [name]Just[/name] too many beautiful names out there!
All of my life growing up I was dead-set on naming one of my sons [name]Alexander[/name], when my I got married at age twenty-three my husband was totally against the name, it reminded him of someone from his past that he couldn’t stand. It wasn’t necessarily hard for us to come up with other choices, [name]Brennan[/name] [name]Jack[/name] is named after his dad ([name]Griffin[/name] [name]Jack[/name]), their middle name has been in the family for three generations. Our next son, [name]Declan[/name] [name]George[/name] is named after my father, [name]George[/name] [name]William[/name]. Naming our daughter was probably the hardest, for every name that I liked he shot down. Finally we settled on [name]Laurel[/name] [name]Carys[/name]. Now we are expecting twins in February and we’re no where close to deciding on names. I think for each baby it’s been different.
My first, a boy, was easy. I had his name picked out as soon as I learned he was a boy. Very few of our friends or relatives our age had kids yet, so I pretty much had my pick of the names that I wanted. With my first, a boy OR a girl would have been easy to name. (I’m glad I had a boy though, because I really don’t care for the girl name that I had chosen anymore!)
My second, another boy, was slightly more difficult. I found it harder to name him, because I had used my favorite boy name for my first son. He would have been much easier to name had he been a girl, but we did end up coming up with a very nice name for him. (My girl choice ended up becoming very popular a few years later, and then one of my relatives ended up using it, which I was ok with. I didn’t want to use it after it became so common. I ended up finding another girl name that I liked even more.)
My third child, a girl, was the hardest to name by far. Several years had passed between my 2nd son and her. She actually would have been easy to name, if it weren’t for my big mouth. I had my girl name picked out for about 6 years, but I stupidly told it to the wrong friend (who also happens to have the same last name as us!). Needless to say, she ended up having a baby before me and giving that name to HER daughter! So when I got pregnant with mine, I was completely stumped. I felt my “perfect” name had been stolen and a lot of other good names had been used by people we knew over the years. We ended up giving her a name that is just one letter off from the “stolen” one because my husband liked it and thought it was a good solution. I feel like I “settled” on her name, because I specifically did not want that name for her - I wanted the “stolen” version. The name we gave her is a nice, pretty, classic name, but just too common for my liking. I’m getting used to it, though.
It was hard! I changed my mind about a thousand times. I even had a name chosen out that I thought I loved halfway through my pregnancy to the point where my daughter has some bibs embroidered with the name [name]Leah[/name] on it, which is not her name haha. In the end we chose a name that my husband suggested I initially vetoed. I actually was in the midst of telling him what a bad choice that would be, when I realized it was actually perfect! In the end, I think her name, [name]Matilda[/name], suits her perfectly.