Philosophy when naming the first child

[Archer27]

I lnever have any idea what to name threads so sorry if this is badly worded! Basically I have a naming-philosophy question that I thought might be too long winded for the Quick Poll Thread.

I was basically thinking about how much future sibsets play a role in combo making on NB, when in actuality most people don’t know how many children they are going to be to have until after they start naming (this thought process was partially inspired by @OpheliaFlora’s “Naming Children Realistically” thread, if you haven’t done that you should totally check it out).

I have seen discussions about this before but I was wondering what the majority response is! Basically my point is that when you have your first child, you don’t know whether or not you’re going to be able to have more children. You might plan to have more, but ultimately you can’t know for sure that you will - for example, my mother wanted 4 children, got divorced at 26 and ended up with 2 (whoops). Equally, you might put all your favourite/honour names on the first child and then unexpectedly go on to have 6 more, which could leave the later children with less “balanced” or meaningful names. So which, in your opinion, is the best policy for when you ~acquire your first offspring?

• I would go all out on the child’s name, knowing that I might be putting all my eggs in one basket/could be left short if I had more children
• I would conserve some favourites/honours for potential future siblings, knowing that I might not get a chance to use them at all
• Other

Disclaimer-y Bit

This does assume a few things, i.e. that you have several “favourite” names that you want to use, that you won’t reuse names, that you get to name your children in the first place etc. Also I did put “other” in the poll in case I’ve missed something, but I also know that some people are going to want to compromise/find a “get out of jail free card” in some way which is not really the point of the poll ! So, if it’s possible, if you have a longer answer please pick a general approach and then explain more in the replies (unless it really can’t be summarised in the two options).

[jenni_lynn91]

So I ended up having three girls. I never really used any “favorite names”, but I did use names that were on my list of girl names that my husband got to pick from. Of course I love all of my girls’ names, but they aren’t necessarily names I had loved for a long time.

For my first, I had quite a long list, and my husband went through and said which ones he liked, and it came down to [name_f]Noemi[/name_f] and [name_f]Kiana[/name_f]. He chose her middle name and we went with [name_f]Noemi[/name_f] for the first name.

Once we found out the second was a girl, I gave some old and some new name suggestions, but my husband still liked [name_f]Kiana[/name_f], so we went with that for the first name and I chose [name_f]Rosalie[/name_f] to go with it for the middle.

We both thought I was going to have a boy this time, so we barely discussed names until I found out it was another girl. Again, I asked my husband for suggestions, and then I went through some names that I liked, a few at a time. There were four names that he didn’t say no to, so I made some first and middle name combos to show him. He came up with a name combo that combined two different names, and that was what we went with, [name_f]Magali[/name_f] [name_f]Belén[/name_f].

[name_f]My[/name_f] philosophy is that you never really know what you will name your future children until it actually happens. We never said “our next child will be named ______”. Except for that if we ever had a boy, he will probably be Zenón, but again that could change. If one of his brothers ends up naming a child Zenón, we wouldn’t use it because they would be cousins. Also, it’s fun thinking up different names that you would want to use, but it depends if your partner likes the same names.

Plus, another factor is the cultural or religious background of your partner. In my case, my husband is Aztec from Mexico and his family speak the Nahuatl language. You can’t exactly plan for that until you have a partner. The names I chose would have been a lot different had my husband been of a different nationality/culture.

[OpheliaFlora]

Unless I was absolutely sure that I would only have one child, I would conserve some names for potential future children, especially as some names don’t really sparkle in the middle name spot for me, [name_f]Lola[/name_f], for example.

As for honour names, there are only certain names I use to honour people, for example, the person that I would honour [name_m]Nicanor[/name_m] with, I would only through using [name_m]Nicanor[/name_m], because I love that name and the story behind it and the special connection it has. Other names that could also honour that person just don’t have the same feeling to me and I don’t believe you have to honour people through names (in this case, for example, there’d be many other ways of keeping the person’s spirit alive even for my children, who’ll have never met them).
If I never have a boy, I just might not honour the person through a name.

However, I’ve also become a lot less clingy with favourites, I know I’ll never get to use them all, but I also know that I can get excited about new names that weren’t previously on my list or hasn’t been for a long time (something the compromise thread showed me).

Also, there are always special plush toys or pets you can give the names “that got away” to, I suppose!

[lolalollylegs]

I voted I would save some favourites for possible future children knowing I might not get to use them. I thought I would explain further why that is my vote. We decided to give our children only a first name and a single middle name and are planning four maximum children. We have one child so far. So already, at most we are expecting to use only six more names if everything goes to plan. However there are heaps of honor names and favourites that I would adore using and I could easily name ten more children with equally special and meaningful names. So I know already there will be favourite names and special names that I can never use so there is no way to go all out on the first couple of children.

[Wandarine]

I voted conserving some names, but my thought behind this is not really about conserving them. I have different philosophies and thus different lists for first an middle names (“philosophies” is a big word, it just means I want to use honors as middles but not firsts), and I don’t want to use more than one middle name per child (also it would get vetoed anyway). So the “going all out” approach simply doesn’t make sense for me. Plus, my lists are never long enough to run into the problem of not getting to use all the names.

[lucyxo]

i have a “pattern” for my future kids’ names, so no matter how many kids i have they’ll all have balanced names. my pattern is: name i like, obvious family honour, welsh name. of course there’s a bit of overlap (Julian & [name_f]Isobel[/name_f] could both fit in either of the first 2 categories), but in general this results in no “wasted names” (ie middles that i would’ve liked to use as firsts)

[Emarkulics]

I was going to vote “other” but then I read the disclaimer and changed my vote to “would conserve names” but figured I’d explain more.
I don’t plan to use any honor names at all, so fitting them all in isn’t a thing for me. I can understand why this question would be a much harder dilemma for someone who’s using names that honor people rather than just names you like.
I have favorite names, but honestly I don’t think anyone gets to use all their favorite names anyway once a partner is involved. Many get vetoed, or don’t work with the last name, or get taken up by family. I have a few names that I am very upset I won’t get to use (for example, I love Cadence but we have a nephew named Caden, and I love Lux but SO’s last name starts with L so we won’t ever use an L first name).
But favorite names evolve often anyway. If you would’ve asked me just a few years ago what my firstborn son’s name would’ve been I would’ve said absolutely 100% Rylan without a doubt. Just had a baby boy and his name is not Rylan, and we barely even considered Rylan. I would be ok with using Rylan now but I’m also not willing to plant my flag on it either. But anyway I have names that I definitely would love to use on future children, and would be a little upset if I never got to. But I only like the idea of one middle name so there’s only so much I can do. Even if those other names get away I will at least always know I am very happy with the name we have chosen and there’s nothing more I could’ve done without giving my baby a 12-part name or something. So basically I didn’t conserve names on purpose, but when you have a long list of names you love and can only choose two of them you end up accidentally conserving with a lot of hope you’ll get to use some of the others.

[otri]

At this point in time, I would conserve some names for future children. However, if I were older or had great difficulty conceiving I’d definitely put all my eggs in one basket as far as the name goes.

[hellobanjo]

[name_f]My[/name_f] goal isn’t to use every favorite/meaningful name I like. Its just to give a good name that I can love. I said go all out and other because I do want to not get hung up on the what ifs of more kids but Im not stressing to use every favorite name. Plus I might develop new favorites later.

Most people won’t have enough kids to use a ton of names. Isnt the birth rate less than 2 in a lot of places? So plenty of people have 1 or 0 kids!

[lateaugust]

I think I would focus primarily on using a name that my partner and I love and that felt “right” for that baby. If I were blindly naming I might do [Honor First] [Honor Middle] but if, for lack of a better phrase, the vibes were off I would be fine to use a name that maybe didn’t have as much meaning or maybe I hadn’t considered before.

For me it gets more complicated when I consider later/potential “last” kids. Even if my first were my last I probably wouldn’t know, so if I didn’t get to use xyz name it would be a turn of fate and not something that I would have to worry about when choosing a name. As an example, I have Important Honor Middles chosen for a boy and a girl but at some point I would be willing to gender bend or use the masculinization/feminization if I hadn’t used it yet/only had boys or girls.

I do think that I might be more interested in double middles when IRL naming than I am right now…

[rosepip]

because i don’t want a lot of children, it doesn’t make sense for me to hold back on important names, especially since i don’t know the sex of the children i’ll be having. if i end up with my ‘expected’ two, it doesn’t make sense for me to hold back on using one of my favourite girl names (for example) on my first when there’s no way of knowing that my second will also be a girl, and i’ll get to use it then. i expect my philosophy would change if i wanted a large family, but since i only want two (and have no way of guaranteeing i’ll get them), i’d prefer to go all out and just use the names i love.

[lulujujuollie]

I always had strong ideas about what I would name my children. But it is completely different when you have them and you have to include your partner in the naming process. I voted to conserve some names for future children. None of my four children have names that were my “favorite”. However I do love all 4 of there names and am very happy with the names that we ended up choosing.

[namergirl3]

Other: somewhere down the middle

It took us 3.5 years to conceive our son so we are very well aware he may end up being our only child (biologically, that is). We named him something we loved. We didn’t try to fit as much in as we could, in terms of honor names/names we also liked, nor did we think much about how his name would relate to other potential siblings. We figured we’d cross whatever bridge we came to. If he is our only child, we have no regrets on his name.

Oddly enough, the thought of naming another child is completely the opposite! Realistically, capping our family size at 2 children would be the most responsible decision for our family. With our son, there was a sense of “maybe we can have more someday” but with potential baby #2, that’s it. Unless a surprise happens, we will be done…99.9% certain. When I think of names now, there is some sadness and pressure to pick the name we love. I feel like part of me might always regret not using my top girl choice, for example.

[cactusgram]

I voted for both conserving and going all out. We chose 3 names for our girl and I feel like that’s appropriate as we may only have one. But I also have a few names that I saved for the first name spot if we do have another!

[Babies123456]

I’d probably use my #1 girl or boy name for a first child. While I will definitely have more than 1, I were to have a girl and name her [name_f]Rowena[/name_f] and then have like 5 boys, I’d be really sad that I didn’t use [name_f]Esther[/name_f].

[taisia1]

As it happens, I live in a country where they only give one name to children. If my children grow up in a different culture, I would keep my favorite choices for their first names and would have another list for second/third middle names.

[lyrasoxford]

[name_f]My[/name_f] parents basically did the opposite. I’m the oldest and have no honour names. [name_f]My[/name_f] first name is the only girl’s name they agreed on, and my middle is just a random name they thought flowed best. To balance it out overall, my brother got 2 honour names.

[sarahjane1]

[name_f]My[/name_f] husband and I have agreed on three full names (fn&mn)- and by agreed I mean I chose four names pretty much before we even knew each other and he vetoed one and liked the other three combos - so it was just a case of deciding which girls combo we were going to use when our DD was born. We chose [name_f]Eleanor[/name_f] [name_f]Ann[/name_f] because [name_f]Ann[/name_f] is a really important honour name for me, making her the 6th generation on my side to have some form of Ann/Annie passed down from mother to daughter. I couldn’t guarantee that I would have another girl in the future and I’d be really sad if I’d ended up not passing the [name_f]Ann[/name_f] down to one of my kids so that’s why we went with the [name_f]Eleanor[/name_f] [name_f]Ann[/name_f] combo and saved the [name_f]Xanthe[/name_f] [name_f]Jane[/name_f] combo for a future daughter.

[lavenderwitch]

I voted going all out, but wanted to clarify a little.

I have soooo many names I love that even if I had 30 children with three names each, I’d never use them all! So I want to treat every child as if they’re the very last one I will name, and pack each child’s name as full of magic and meaning as I can!

However, I wanted to clarify that I don’t mean I would string together as many of my favorites as is legally allowed. [name_f]My[/name_f] daughter has two middle names, and my girlfriend thinks even that is pushing it!

But I truly did go all out for my daughter’s name. I started with a list of all my favorites and painstakingly narrowed it down (with the help of the lovely [name_u]Berry[/name_u] community) to a final 30 names that we took to the hospital. One of my partners had very strong feelings about names due to being trans and having a very conservative family that constantly deadnames and misgenders them. They wanted our child to be able to choose their own name, but it’s just not feasible in this day and age to refuse to name a child until they’re old enough to pick their own. So we compromised by waiting until the baby was born and getting to know her personality before we named her. That narrowed down the list significantly - in the end, we all three agreed on her first name, decided between two options for her first middle name, and chose between three options for her second middle. It was a really involved process, but I could not be happier with the final result!

I expect that for any future children we have, the process will look very similar - making lists of all our favorites and narrowing them down through much thought and discussion to a pool of finalists, then letting the baby’s personality guide us to our final decision once we meet them.

But in the meantime, I’m going to keep collecting names and combos like a dragon hoarding treasures!

[SoDallas31]

I voted “go all out.” Our situation means that we may never have 2-3 children. We are 27 and 29 and my health plays as major factor.

We have clear winner names for a boy or girl and the rest comes back to happenstance. But their names are both packed full of meaning, first name and two middle names respectfully. Should we only have 1-2 children, I would hate to look at their name with disappointment, because didn’t use combos we truly wanted for fear of the future.

As a name nerd, I don’t really ever fear running out of meaningful names, I think an interest in names lends itself to an interest in so many things and can ignite all kinds of possibilities. The only thing I do acknowledge and think about the names are vetoed by our top names (e.g I like Lorenzo/Enzo but I can’t use it if we have an Elena due to Vampire Diaries etc.) Our children would also have monograms EOM and JOM respectfully, so I consider how this will work with a third.