For girls I tend to aim for stunning but realistic combos, names with strength/depth to it but a touch of whimiscal, fairy tale like qualities. A name that my daughters would hopefully love to write, and be happy to have. My names often have less whimsical nickname options so if she should dislike her full name, she could use a nickname. I try to balance it out with a more grounded, or whimsical middle name.
For boys I tend to aim for handsome names, with class and stability to it. Something that’s not overly common, but not obscure. Names that I attribute with reliability, and intelligence. Names that sound like they belong to a responsible person, but also have a touch of “life”.
Not all of my combos meet this, but it’s the general feel I go for.
What about you?
For girls I go for the “ballerina” type, which is odd since I don’t do ballet, lol, but generally sweet sounding names like [name]Luna[/name], [name]Euphemia[/name], Euleta, [name]Flora[/name], [name]Minette[/name]…
For boys I tend to look for the type that would be on handsome, friendly, nice, boy, the gentlemen type like: [name]Ezra[/name], [name]Everett[/name], [name]Etienne[/name] (I have a bad thing for E names), [name]Frederic[/name], [name]Nathanial[/name]…
For both boys and girls, I like strong, relatively simple names with clear pronunciations (we have a difficult last name, so I want to give my kids a break), long and rich histories, and positive associations. I stay away from too-frilly or unisex names for girls and names that are super-macho for boys, as well as any names I see as too “lightweight” or too “heavy,” and too strange or too dull. I guess I seek a middle ground; I go for names that are both attractive and easy to live with.
[name]Both[/name] my boy and girl lists are skewed toward 1 or 2-syllable names ending in consonants, though the occasional 3 or 4-syllable and/or -a or -ie ending sneaks through.
For girls, I tend to like feminine but not frilly. I’m not keen on unisex names or boy names on girls, and I lean towards ‘known’ names and classics rather than tryndee names that will date easily. For boys, it’s a mixture of classic and a few slightly more quirky ones, though nothing too obscure. I stay away from surname names and anything too trendy as well.
For the most part, all my names are two syllable names (OH has a one syllable surname so I need to balance it) though there’s a few longer ones, but nothing over the top and all easy to pronounce.