[name]Just[/name] curious to know if you prefer Older sounding names or Newer sounding names? [name]Do[/name] you go with a theme in mind or do you pick from just about anywhere?
I don’t know exactly what mine is, but I don’t like “unusual” names. I like good, old, traditional names that my grandparents would recognize and be able to pronounce. If that makes sense? You can check out the names in my signature for a better idea.
My style differs for boy’s and girl’s names and I don’t necessarily think they fit together but I can nail down my style, I think. For boys I adore biblical name, as well as softer sounding boy’s names such as [name]Ezra[/name], [name]Jude[/name], [name]Micah[/name]. I love boys names that many consider to be “unisex” but are in fact just masculine names being used on girls; [name]Harper[/name], [name]Aubrey[/name], [name]Avery[/name], [name]Addison[/name], [name]Morgan[/name], [name]Riley[/name], Emersn etc.
As for my girls name style I am into longer names, often very princessy and over the top, including [name]Arabella[/name], [name]Jemima[/name], [name]Emmeline[/name], [name]Clementine[/name]. Most of my favourites girls names are vintage (perhaps very nameberry names) such as [name]Beatrix[/name], [name]Delilah[/name], [name]Matilda[/name], [name]Eloise[/name], [name]Tabitha[/name] and [name]Harriet[/name].
My other soft spot is for Mythological names! [name]Pandora[/name], [name]Persephone[/name] and [name]Atlas[/name] being three favourites.
Fir girls, I love long, frilly classical names with a bit of spunk mixed with some exotic / unusual / mythological names, a few word / nature names and a few select modern names. NO gender bending, though.
For boys, I love old man names - clunky, outdated and a little quirky and quite a few surnames as first names. I also like a few nature / word names and some exotic mythological names.
I don’t care for themes at all and try to actually avoid them.
I [name]LOVE[/name] a lot of the male names used for girls (for boys) - [name]Avery[/name], [name]Emerson[/name] and [name]Morgan[/name] are on my boys list and I’ve been playing with adding [name]Mackenzie[/name] lately, too. I think they are so handsome and when I see them on girls, I cry a little inside lol.
Yes, same here! My heart sinks a little more when I see a new name going over to that side. Luckily for me, I live in the UK and the problem isn’t as big here. [name]Riley[/name] is one of the hottest boys name right now, and it sits just outside the top 10. [name]Morgan[/name] is relatively even but more dated on girls, while [name]Aubrey[/name], [name]Addison[/name] and [name]Avery[/name] are basically unknown here so fine for me to consider.
[name]Harper[/name] is the one that will shoot up next year, I think.
I only know of a female [name]Finleigh[/name], a couple of girl [name]Rowan[/name]'s, several [name]Jaeden[/name]'s and [name]Bailey[/name]'s and a few [name]Morgan[/name]'s and [name]Darcy[/name]'s but that’s about it really. I know of one female [name]Mackenzie[/name] but generally it’s more boy than girl here - it sits at #239 for boys in 2010 (not sure about 2011) and #1332 for girls so massive difference. It peaked for boy’s at #109 in 2005 and has steadily dropped down in popularity.
Gosh…I wanna move to the UK. Simply for the naming taste over there. I’m sure not everyone uses fabulous names, but the taste in general isn’t anywhere near as bad as the US. I considered [name]Morgan[/name] in my last pregnancy for a boy and I got SO many comments about how [name]Morgan[/name] was “feminine”. Ugh…
Simple, clean, and classic saint names. My style is best represented by my oldest kids names – [name]Paul[/name] and [name]Clare[/name]. I love those names because [name]IMO[/name] they are both formal and friendly at the same time. I think [name]Mark[/name], [name]James[/name], and [name]Andrew[/name] hit that style target as well. In retrospect, I think [name]Katharine[/name] was a bit more formal than our style really is but it’s a family name and we were thinking we’d call her [name]Kate[/name] – which we didn’t. We came close to using [name]Sarah[/name] for her which is probably more reflective of our style, but no regrets =)
Sometimes I do wish we’d stuck with the one-syllable name pattern. I had worried that if I had given [name]Katharine[/name] a one-syllable name (we considered [name]Grace[/name]) then I would risked running out of girls names to use but since that time I’ve discovered more love for [name]Ruth[/name], [name]Rose[/name], [name]Jane[/name], [name]May[/name], and [name]Anne[/name].
Our style is pretty simple: we like names that mean something to us and ideally help connect our child to his/her heritage. Of course, it’s nice when names sound pleasant too 
I don’t favor names that are invented like [name]Nevaeh[/name] or are spelled in non-traditional ways like Kaytlinn . I guess we’re sort of square but I don’t mind “hippie names” like [name]Sage[/name], since those are real words and, well, plants are real things!
Old Fashioned with a slight hint of eclecticness. I don’t love core classics like [name]Mary[/name], [name]Elizabeth[/name], [name]Jane[/name] or [name]Sarah[/name], but I like the more eclectic choices, like [name]Beatrice[/name], [name]Alice[/name], [name]Dorothea[/name], [name]Cornelia[/name], and [name]Edith[/name]. There’s something about them that’s so appealing- especially compared to what girls are being named in my hometown.
The same goes for boys names, I don’t like the core classics like [name]John[/name], [name]Thomas[/name], [name]Paul[/name], and [name]Peter[/name], but the more eclectic names (most that were popular in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s) like [name]Frederick[/name], [name]Theodore[/name] and [name]Edmond[/name]. I think the only name that I really love that’s been in the top 1000 for the past few years is [name]Darwin[/name]! Oh, and the names that have been used for girls recently- like [name]Aubrey[/name] and [name]Avery[/name]- I would use for boys (in the middle name spot.)
- [name]Athena[/name]
I like to think of my naming style as a mix of eclectic vintage ([name]Mary[/name], [name]Dorothy[/name], [name]Susan[/name] - no; [name]Florence[/name], [name]Edith[/name], [name]Penelope[/name] - yes) and hipster. For a really long time I fought the hipster label but I finally just gave in and accepted that I love hipster names ([name]August[/name], [name]Oscar[/name], and [name]Stella[/name] anyone?). Nothing about me otherwise is hipster though, so it’s just funny.
I don’t like anything hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine, so you’ll never see me asking about names like [name]Butch[/name] or [name]Rocky[/name] or [name]Seraphina[/name] or [name]Anastasia[/name]. If a girls’ name is associated with a princess, Disney or otherwise, I probably don’t like it. My favorite thing for girls is vintage names with quirky/tomboyish nicknames (for example [name]Leona[/name] NN [name]Leo[/name] and [name]Florence[/name] NN [name]Wren[/name]).
For boys names, other than the no hyper-masculine names, I tend to like soft but strong names like [name]August[/name] and [name]Henry[/name]. Other than those two my likes and dislikes change a lot, so I guess I’m super picky without any specific criteria, I just like it or I don’t.
ETA: My guilty pleasure names are usually word names ([name]True[/name], [name]Cameo[/name], [name]Wednesday[/name], Merit, [name]Valor[/name]) or names with bad associations that I wish were usable again ([name]Olympia[/name], [name]Lilith[/name], [name]Pandora[/name]).
I have no children yet, so my style has not been tested, but it was defined by a Nameberry friend as “quirky conservative.” I think she’s right. I yearn for names that sparkle, that would make people smile delightedly when my child was introduced, but I would be afraid of stepping too far over the line and giving my child a name difficult to live with. Therefore my picks tend to be more traditional firsts paired with a more clunky, exotic or otherwise unusual middle (i.e. [name]James[/name] Deliverance and [name]Joseph[/name] [name]Nicodemus[/name].)
I think my styles are pretty different for girls and boys. For girls, I tend to lean toward ultra-feminine, fairly mainstream (or variations of mainstream) sweet, pretty girls’ names that are on the longer side, with several nn options. I tend to lean toward the French variants, as well ([name]Isabelle[/name], [name]Arianne[/name], [name]Olivia[/name], [name]Violet[/name], [name]Rachel[/name], [name]Liliana[/name], [name]Charlotte[/name], [name]Eleni[/name], [name]Hannah[/name], etc.). [name]Even[/name] better if they have a Biblical or literary tie.
For boys, my style is a mix of Biblical ([name]Caleb[/name], [name]Daniel[/name], [name]Joshua[/name], [name]Asher[/name], [name]Elijah[/name], [name]Samuel[/name], [name]Ezra[/name], etc.), surnames ([name]Grayson[/name], [name]Brody[/name], etc.), and I adore unisex names on boys ([name]Avery[/name] and [name]Bailey[/name] are currently the ones on my list). I really don’t know how to define my boys’ style–I just throw these 3 or 4 different types of styles together and somehow it works, haha. It’s sort of eclectic.