**UPDATE: Thanks to a suggestion by a fellow Berry here, we are now considering Ella, which was one of my very favourites in the past, however it had been removed from our final list because my husband had not been open to it before. As we’ve been discussing Charlotte, he has expressed that he thinks the baby actually does look like an Ella and is now open to it if that’s what I would like in my heart of hearts. I do feel a lot of relief that this option is on the table and that he is so supportive. I am also still trying to give Stevie an honest shot and trying to picture the name on her.
We have also been discussing Violet as we both agree this one suits her as well. My husband’s favourite colour is purple so that’s kind of nice, and my son is quite the little garden helper at just three years old so that’s also a sweet connection - he loves flowers!
So as of now, we have four options on the table. I’m putting another poll here with our latest options but of course, we are not using this to reach any final decisions - just gathering perspectives as we can’t really talk to anyone about this in real life since it’s such an unconventional situation. We are also still taking time and not making a final decision for about a week. Each day that goes by and she opens her eyes more and interacts with us, and the hormones calm down, I do feel closer to being able to name her. But my goodness, naming a child is much harder than I ever thought, especially during the post-partum period. If we ever have another child, we will certainly be approaching it differently from the start!
- Stevie Marie (Leo + Stevie)
- Ella Stevie Marie (Leo + Ella)
- Charlotte Stevie Marie (Leo + Charlotte)
- Violet Stevie Marie (Leo + Violet)
*Long explanation below. Short explanation: Experiencing name regret and trying to decide whether to stick with the name we gave baby girl, which is Stevie Marie, or to change her name to Charlotte Stevie Marie.
- Stick with Stevie Marie
- Change to Charlotte Stevie Marie
Our team green turned pink this week and we welcomed a beautiful baby girl! 
She is absolutely perfect and we are so in love.
She was, however, quite the surprise as I had really felt throughout my whole pregnancy that it was going to be a boy. I agonized over the boy name and painstakingly researched all the options and felt really good about our final two boy names.
For girl names, we had a loose top four that we went into the delivery room with thinking we would know “the one” when we saw her if it happened to be a girl. I now realize that was a huge mistake.
I am now having major name regret with the one we chose and feel so overwhelmed and upset that I let this happen. I had so much time to pick the perfect name, yet here I am writing a name regret post and don’t know where to go from here.
The name we chose for our daughter is Stevie Marie. It’s a double honour name for my mom and dad. It was one of our our top choices leading up to the birth and while I was never 1000% on it, I felt that it was as close to “the one” as we were going to get.
Since coming home from the hospital and naming her that, things have taken a turn. I look at her and wonder why I gave her that name when I could have chosen a more beautiful and classic name like our second choice, Charlotte. She is so stunning and precious that I feel a more vintage and established name suits her. It’s difficult because she’s still a newborn but when I look at her, I do see a little Charlotte/Charlie and not really a Stevie. I still like the name Stevie, but people have made comments about it being “spunky” and “unique” and “edgy” and honestly, this was not exactly my intention with the name. In my mind, Stevie was also supposed to be sweet, cute and stylish - not super out there and “alternative”.
The reaction from my parents to the name was also not quite what I had hoped. They were surprised and honoured but they did not gush about it or seem particularly overjoyed with the name specifically. I am making some assumptions but it seems that while they feel the love that I chose this name to honour them, it’s also not a name their generation has really heard much and they think it’s “different”. My mom also said “like Stevie Nicks!” right away which was super disappointing because that was not the point at all - she is not named after Stevie Nicks. I realized in that moment that if I am going to get that type of response from my Mom, then we’re going to get that type of response from a lot of people for her whole life. Other people also went “Like Stevie Wonder!” right away, which also was discouraging to me because clearly that’s not why we gave her that name.
I have also been doubting how the name Stevie fits with her big brother Leo’s name. At first I liked Leo + Stevie but now I am wondering if it’s too much of a style/vibe mismatch with a classic more traditional name like Leo and more of a modern name like Stevie. I feel Leo + Charlotte are more appropriately matched in terms of style.
Now I am torn on how to move forward. She is only four days old and we have only shared her name with some close family and friends. We also left the hospital without filling in the name paperwork because I had started to feel unsure and wanted more time. So technically, we don’t have to “change” her name if that’s what we want to go ahead and do. We would just need to send out an embarrassing text message to the few friends and family that we shared the name with already.
Lastly, just to complicate things further, my husband does not feel the same way as I do about Stevie and is 100% solid on the name. He loves it and says he really feels that Stevie is her name and that he’s already formed a connection with her and the name. He is very supportive though and has said that he will understand if I want to change it and that while he’ll be disappointed, he will get over it.
So here we are with a complicated decision to make. Do we stick with the name Stevie even though I am having some name regret? Or do we change her name to Charlotte? If we change her name, we have decided to keep the honour names as middle names so those will still stay to honour my parents.
*Just a sidenote, I realize that advice on the Internet is not the be-all-and-end-all and also I am obviously very newly post-partum and so the hormones and emotions could be having an impact on how I’m feeling about things. I’m just looking to get some unbiased feedback and will be weighing that with lots of other factors before making any decision. And likely getting some mental health support post-partum too.
[name_f][/name_f] And I definitely think your husband could (and should, if he loves the name) still call your daughter [name_f]Stevie[/name_f], from her middle name! I have nicknames for my name one parent uses and the other doesn’t and it’s never been weird.
