Names husbands love

General Name Discussion
1

So there is already a NB thread about names husbands veto. What names do husbands love?

We are currently TTC and I am regularly dumbfounded by the names my husband suggests to me. They are all either names from the early 80s (ie names of kids we went to school with), or mega popular ([name]Olivia[/name], [name]Emma[/name]). We have a super-common last name and I keep telling him that you don’t want something from the top 10 list or the poor kid is going to have the wrong mail delivered, confusion with other kids at school with the same name etc.

The other thing DH keeps saying is that it needs to sound like it could be a byline in the [name]Washington[/name] Post or New [name]York[/name] Times and I’ve looked at these newspaper bylines and don’t really see a pattern, so this doesn’t really help me . . . :roll:

I’m wondering, what genres of names do most husbands prefer? That is, in your experience do most guys go for names they grew up with? Ultra-popular names? Or are some guys into classic or artsy names?

2

My DH is definitely drawn to names he hears a lot - so popular ones. He doesn’t really get why I won’t go into the top 20 - but he humors me :). He also won’t do a name that has too strong a connection to someone in particular - so although I love [name]Phoebe[/name] she’s out because of Friends, even though there have been millions of Phoebes before her.

3

@Gwensmom-That is too funny b/c DH was dead set on [name]Phoebe[/name] from the beginning of my pregnancy. He likes more unusual names, I guess, but he really loved [name]Phoebe[/name] because of [name]Phoebe[/name] Cates.
Now, he is lobbying hard for [name]Clementine[/name]. He also likes [name]Penelope[/name] and [name]Helena[/name]. Now that I think of it, DH has pretty good taste!

4

Mine’s not actually a husband yet, but he’s pretty close, so I’ll add my 2 cents. :wink:
[name]Chris[/name] likes classic names that you hear day-to-day, but not the super-popular ones. Like, he likes [name]Katherine[/name] and [name]Caroline[/name], but not [name]Emma[/name] or [name]Olivia[/name]. He loves names that have a special connection to him or to me, we plan on naming our first son [name]Donald[/name] after my grandfather, and [name]Donald[/name] is also the name of a character in his favorite book series. So I guess he likes names that are established, heard-of, and that he can find a connection to.

5

My husband is all over the place when it comes to names.

He loves the name [name]Fiona[/name] but doesn’t like [name]Olivia[/name], [name]Giselle[/name], [name]Amelia[/name], [name]Isabelle[/name]/[name]Isabella[/name] or [name]Sophia[/name] (these are names of little girls in our extended family).

Other names he likes:
[name]Jacqueline[/name]
[name]Ivette[/name] (go figure)
[name]Amy[/name]
[name]Katherine[/name]

For boys he likes classic names like [name]James[/name], [name]David[/name], etc and I do agree with him on that. He absolutely loathes [name]Hunter[/name], [name]Gage[/name], [name]Aiden[/name], [name]Jayden[/name], [name]Haden[/name], etc.

So if we have more children and I let him name them they would be [name]Fiona[/name] [name]Katherine[/name] or [name]Jacqueline[/name] [name]Ivette[/name] and [name]James[/name] [name]David[/name].

6

Interesting. I guess I can’t chalk it up to a “guy” thing. It sounds more like it’s just really a case of the both of us having different tastes (which I hear about pretty often online). It will be interesting to see what kind of a compromise we will end up making . . .

7

My husband hasn’t really vetoed any of the ones I seriously wanted, but I’ve had to firmly forbid [name]Magnus[/name] and [name]Matthias[/name]. (He seems to like the trad. Scandinavian/Germanic ones, Adegrim and [name]Soren[/name] or [name]Stellan[/name] or something like that came up too.)

8

Mine loves [name]Aria[/name], but hates [name]Ariana[/name].

Strange…

9

Well, I’m a husband so here’s my opinion…

I feel I’m a little bit in the minority because I am even on this web site…most of my friends had never heard of our daughter’s name, [name]Gemma[/name], before–but they liked it because it sounded familiar and kind of like [name]Jenna[/name] and [name]Emma[/name], I suppose. My wife is a little more adventurous about names than I am, but in general, here’s my criteria:

Nothing with a made up spelling…I can’t stand the [name]Jayden[/name] trend. I wouldn’t choose a trendy name for my kid that would date them to a specific decade. That said, I tend to like classic names that have an edge to them, or at least a little bit of hipness to them…ie: [name]Henry[/name], [name]Samuel[/name], [name]Graham[/name], [name]Ruby[/name], [name]Eloise[/name], [name]Clementine[/name] (love it/hate it name), [name]Pearl[/name], [name]Lucy[/name], but I also like names like [name]Sawyer[/name], [name]Finn[/name], [name]Benjamin[/name]. I think my affinity for these names is because I associate them with children and adults, they age well and I can picture the adult being a stand up guy. I associate [name]Sawyer[/name] and [name]Finn[/name] with literary [name]Mark[/name] [name]Twain[/name] rather than Glee and Lost. (American TV shows for those in other countries or those living without tv!).

For girls, I like names that have a sweet connotation, and also age well. [name]Lucy[/name] sounds like a nice, sweet daddy’s girl but also a friendly young adult and adult. [name]Gemma[/name] seems to me like a name that fits a baby and an adult as well. And it’s not heard every day.

My wife suggested [name]Atticus[/name] for a boy and while I like the name, I pictured myself calling up a friend and asking, [name]May[/name] I please speak with [name]Atticus[/name]?" It just didn’t sound right. Being a boy once myself, I pictured myself saying the name among friends or having the name and that’s how I formed my opinion.

I think the majority of dads don’t get this involved with the name and don’t have such strong opinions. I could be wrong, but most dads might like popular names because they are more inclined to seek approval of their friends and they simply haven’t done the research. I could be completely wrong about this. Then again, I can’t understand why a dad would want his kid to be named something totally out there like [name]Thor[/name] or Magnum. To me, that’s selfish as hell.

Maybe my ramblings made sense, maybe not.

10

My husband named his daughter from a previous relationship [name]Mackenzie[/name]. For girls he likes the popular/mainstream names that have a little edge to them. If [name]Mackenzie[/name] had been a boy she would have been [name]Riley[/name]. [name]Riley[/name] was the only name him and his ex could agree on, because for boys he has very different taste… His number one boys name… [name]MAYNARD[/name]. He’s a huge Tool and A Perfect Circle fan.

11

I may be in the minority, or not, but I would never name my kid after something “I like”. They are individuals and probably won’t like the same things I like. I don’t mean to offend, but sometimes I had to catch myself when I said, “well, I really like [name]Bob[/name] [name]Dylan[/name], or I really like [name]Phoenix[/name] the city…” I can see it both ways, especially if family names are involved, but naming my own kid after my favorite band or tv show just seems wrong and very shallow.

12

I’m pretty lucky in the husband department in terms of naming taste I have to admit- he’s usually on the same page as me! I will say he surprisingly likes old fashioned names more than I do. He’s into [name]Vera[/name] (so we settled for [name]Veda[/name]) or names like [name]Gertrude[/name]. I don’t know where he got this strange middle aged woman gene in him… he’s a 29 year old guy… but sometimes I have to modernize his name selections just a bit! :slight_smile:

13

Thanks for the your feedback, jackobeam. I hadn’t really thought of it before your post, but your comment about acceptance spurred me to realize that it’s mainly an issue of worrying about teasing. When I asked my husband he agreed that this is his main motivation in suggesting names that sounds as “normal” to him as possible (and as you said, he hasn’t done any research so he’s just picking what he is familiar with). I wonder if guys are much harsher to one another about names than girls are. I can’t really recall any girls growing up that endured lots of teasing about their names – but I still do remember boys that were labeled “germy [name]Jeremy[/name]” and “[name]Tiny[/name] [name]Tim[/name].”

14

My DH has interesting taste… I can usually count on him coming up with some interesting choices. These have been some of his faves so far:

[name]Beatrix[/name]
[name]Sophia[/name]
[name]Barbara[/name] (ugh!)
[name]Giselle[/name]
Arowen (and he’s not a [name]Lord[/name] of the Rings fan)
[name]Lucienne[/name]

15

It’s not very often that my husband gives me input on names that are actually names. A lot of times he just comes up with some random word and jokingly says that would make a good name.
But he’s definitely a lot more into coming up with boy names than girl names. And he has baseball on the mind a lot- he wants his future son (if that’s what we’re having) to have a name that sounds like a baseball player. The boy’s name he has mentioned the most is [name]Dexter[/name]. I suggested [name]Everett[/name] to him and now that’s the one he seems most set on.

For girls, he’s given me a bunch of varied suggestions like [name]Dixie[/name], [name]Marianna[/name], [name]Harper[/name], and [name]Evelyn[/name]. I have the feeling picking out a girl’s name with him will be more difficult than a boy’s name.

16

Mine has been fixated on the name [name]Nora[/name] for, oh, two years now. But that’s okay because my #1 girl’s name is [name]Eleanor[/name]. For boys’ names, he’s really into old family names – [name]Charles[/name], [name]Henry[/name], [name]Solon[/name] etc.