Okay, I just had to share this and figure many of us have stories in this category. I would love to hear them!
Here is mine:
My son-in-law’s younger sister and her SO already had one daughter (normal popular name) and were expecting their next. If it was a boy, he wanted a [name]Junior[/name]. If it was a girl, they agreed to name her in honor of her mother, whose name is Bethxxx.
The baby is named [name]Gemini[/name] [name]Justis[/name]. She was not born in [name]June[/name]. Her MOTHER was born in [name]June[/name] and that is why she chose the name. She chose because she like the way it sounded with [name]Gemini[/name].
OMG!
Uh, hey, I’m a [name]Gemini[/name] born in [name]May[/name]! Some [name]June[/name] babies are…I don’t know, some other star sign. Who cares! ([name]Gemini[/name] is clearly the only important one.)
I don’t really dig the name [name]Gemini[/name], but I think it’s valid to use it on a non-[name]Gemini[/name] baby, just as I think it’s okay to use [name]April[/name], [name]May[/name], [name]June[/name], [name]August[/name], etc. for babies not born in those months.
Some of the more interesting name stories I know of:
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A [name]Neil[/name], originally named [name]Andrew[/name], whose father couldn’t remember his name and kept referring to him as “[name]Neil[/name]”. I don’t know if this was deliberate manipulation on his part (if so, well played, sir) or if he genuinely couldn’t remember, but that always struck me as weird.
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A Shanley whose parents planned to name her [name]Shannon[/name]…until their friends had a daughter first and called her “[name]Shannon[/name]”.
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My great-grandmother’s middle name was [name]Columbia[/name] because she was born in Chicago on the day the Chicago World’s Fair (aka the World’s Columbian Exposition) opened. Her first name was [name]Leora[/name], but that doesn’t really have any kind of a story to it, as far as I know.
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My uncle was named [name]John[/name] because the doctor delivering him was named [name]John[/name] and my grandma decided that it sounded nice.
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My grandma was named Verlah because when my great-grandma was pregnant, she heard my great-grandpa call out “Hello, Verlah!” (or, more likely: “Hello, [name]Verla[/name]!”) to some woman on the street. My grandma hates her name and has always resented this.
My great aunt reported to her teacher in 1910 that ‘Mammy’s had the baby, it’s a girl and we don’t know what to call her’. Great Aunt [name]Bridget[/name]'s teacher then wrote down a name on a piece of paper and said ‘call her this’. Which is how my grandmother came to be called Leontia! In defends of my great grand parents she was their 8th child.
My mother’s name was chosen at random by her uncle because my grandparents were fighting so heatedly about the name. He just filled out the paper without telling them and gave it to the nurse. My grandma still calls my mom by the name she wanted to use ([name]Dolly[/name]). I understand my grandmother’s position though, my grandpa wanted to name my mom after an old girlfriend.
I was going to be named [name]Kelsey[/name], and it even got on the birth certificate, even though a name kept popping into my mom’s head all throughout her pregnancy. Coincidentally, she ended up liking it much better. At the split second she trusted her gut and asked to change it. The nurse took white out over [name]Kelsey[/name], and instead of [name]Kelsey[/name] [name]Taylor[/name], I ended up [name]Olivia[/name] [name]Taylor[/name].
I recently learned that my parents named me after [name]Avalon[/name] by [name]Roxy[/name] [name]Music[/name] which I find to be a strange reason having listened to it.
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpA_5a0miWk
My mother was accidentally [name]Baby[/name] Girl [name]Allen[/name] until she was 16 because her parents couldn’t agree on a name, and in the 1950s in her rural area, they didn’t require parents to complete the paperwork before discharge. Although they later agreed on [name]Patricia[/name] (not super-creative of them since my maternal grandmother’s maiden name was [name]Patrick[/name], my mother’s older brother’s name was [name]David[/name] [name]Patrick[/name], and the dog’s name was [name]Pat[/name]), neither mailed in the official name choice to update the birth certificate. She attended a one-room school taught by her own aunt, so no birth certificate had to be produced for school registration. She never needed it and therefore no one requested it until she wanted a driver’s license at 16… and discovered she was still [name]Baby[/name] Girl [name]Allen[/name]. Needless to say, when she got pregnant with me, she bought the world’s biggest stash of baby name books in her determination to make sure that I would HAVE a name. I found those books much later, and have been a name nerd ever since.
My parents was not really “good” friends, when my mother was pregnant with me. They had long discussions about my name, ince my father wanted me to be named [name]Dagmar[/name], [name]Marie[/name] or anything oldschool Danish. And as I my mother liked the name [name]Elisabeth[/name], she wanted that, untill my grandmother Bente told her, that it seemed as I’d be named after my other Granny. In the end they went with [name]Elizabeth[/name] and I’ve never really been called anything but E, since I’m “still” named after granny Birthe [name]Elisabeth[/name].
Whe my younger brother was born my parents had picked out [name]Adam[/name] or [name]Alan[/name] for a boy (though they didn’t know the gender and didn’t have a name for a girl). Luckily for them he was a boy so the asked the doctor/midwife/somebody which they should choose and he/she told them [name]Alan[/name] because [name]Adam[/name] was so popular. So [name]Alan[/name] he is.
Not a particularly strange reason, but when I was four my parents let me choose my little sister’s name out of their short list.
I picked [name]Georgia[/name] out of [name]Gemma[/name], [name]Jessica[/name], [name]Georgia[/name] and [name]Charlotte[/name].
I have no regrets 
They did also very seriously consider my suggestion of [name]Tallulah[/name], after the [name]Maisy[/name] Mouse character. It sadly didn’t make the final list (funny, [name]Tallulah[/name] is still one of my favourites).
A friend’s brother is [name]Masen[/name] because [name]Mason[/name] reminded her mom of the Stonemasons.
I know I started this but here are to from my family:
My mother is called [name]Gloria[/name], but she was originally named [name]Gertrude[/name] [name]Gilda[/name]. Her birth certificate has [name]Gertrude[/name] scribbled out and [name]Gloria[/name] printed in - Her dad sometimes called her [name]Trudy[/name] as a nickname but she never knew why until she saw her birth certificate as a young adult.
And my daughter is named [name]Johanna[/name] because I kept humming the song “[name]Joanna[/name]” by [name]Kool[/name] and the Gang. I called my husband from the hospital at about 2 or 3 in the morning (she was born around 10 pm after a very short labor) and hummed the song to my husband and asked what the girl’s name was - and she became [name]Johanna[/name]. I was worried the song was [name]Rosanna[/name]!
I have a friend who is a twin. Her sister was born first and named [name]Kim[/name]. I’m not sure whether they didn’t know it was twins, or just didn’t know the genders (this was in the mid-70s), but when my friend was born soon afterward, her parents were surprised to have another daughter. They were going to name her [name]Jennifer[/name], their second choice girl name. Apparently one of the nurses told them that twins should have the same first initial, so my friend was named [name]Karen[/name] instead.
I got to pick out my sisters second middle name and it’s [name]Hope[/name] because my middle name’s [name]Faith[/name] and we’re the only girls so we’re “[name]Hope[/name] and [name]Faith[/name]”