Chlidren's names...

[ProtoLawyer]

How would you characterize your kids' first names? Check all that apply.

I'm just curious about this--I see so many unique names here.

For the record, my stepdaughter has a long, unconventionally spelled, not-from-her-ethnicity name that is inspired by a movie, but she uses a nickname. (Out of respect for her and her mother's privacy--because she is literally the only one with her name I have ever known-- I will not be sharing her name.)

[Alyantavid]

I need an other.

My oldest son has an unusual name that I haven't heard anywhere else. Its a spinoff of his grandfather's names. My youngest has a name I've only heard a few times and they were girls. His is from a movie.

[ProtoLawyer]

Heh--I ran out of choices.

We have a girl's name picked out (no, I'm not even pregnant)--Lyla.
Acronym for "love you lots, always," which is how my partner and I signed our emails when we were long-distance. So, I guess, if I ever have a daughter, she'd have a consistent-with-ethnicity (I think), semi-common-these-days name but a variant spelling (but I'm not sure what I'd check), maybe a nickname in itself (Delilah?) and my mom would probably tell people she was named for my late grandfather (my family often names their kids with the same first letter as a deceased relative).

So, yeah, this is a tough poll.

We don't have a boy's name picked out, though.

[birdie22]

Jack is actually John William Jr., and David is David Thomas. I'm sure some would think they are boring names, but I think of them as neutral-- ready to be filled in with my boys' unique personalities.

And of course, we have a difficult-to-spell last name, so I didn't want to saddle them with difficult first names as well.

[LaLaLaLa]

Okay, so DH and I both have unusual names (not, like, made up but also not in the top, say, 500 of our birth years). Both of our names are spelled in slightly unconventional ways.

We have both spent our entire lives spelling our names for people, constantly seeing our names misspelled anyway, and wishing we could walk into stores and find stickers/pencils/zipper pulls/whatever with our names on them.

We decided to give our kids normal names, spelled normally.

Wouldn't you know it, normal names have gone out of fashion. We can't find stickers for our DD, even though every other person I meet my age has her name. But we walked into a store and found stickers with Shiloh and Dakota and Sierra on them. And MY name, for goodness sake. Which has recently vaulted to the top of the lists.

Big plan backfired. At least people recognize our kids' names and spell them correctly, though, so half of our victory is won.

[sunnmama]

I love Lyla, and what it means!

My ds's name is an English date-type word, not traditionally used as a name (but not unheard of). It is traditionally spelled.

Dd's name is more unusual, but she is named after a public figure. The public figure just happened to have a very unusual name.

[ProtoLawyer]

Originally Posted by birdie22

And of course, we have a difficult-to-spell last name, so I didn't want to saddle them with difficult first names as well.

Heh...I've got the long, difficult last name -- and a common first name for my generation, with one of the less common spellings.
My partner's last name is four letters, hard to screw up. Any children we have can have his last name.

His daughter's nickname + last name is actually very simple and elegant. It would not surprise me if she changes her name legally to her nickname at some point--her full name sounds pretty when properly pronounced, but it's so rarely done (I don't even get it perfectly, and her paternal grandmother mangles it).

[Honey693]

DD's name (Eleanor, we call her Ella) is old fashioned and common around here, but not really common. Ella is though b/c it's a nickname for a billion names.

[Miranda2r14]

My son's name is Braden. We named him after DH who is Bradford, a very English and formal name we wanted something a bit more modern and casual but still similar.

I voted:

"Unconventionally spelled" (It's conventionally Braedon)
"Inconsistent with my child's ethnicity" )it's Gaelic and as far as I know we are not but I don't know my family history all that well either, and
"Popular amongst my child's peers" (The conventional spelling is in the top 50 for his birth year)

[mamabeca]

We have a Rebecca, who is calling herself Beckey. So does that count as conventional spelling (official) or not conventional (nick name)? And we have an Orin. Very unconventional name overall -never actually popular lol, as well as a less common spelling (orren is more common, if you can call any spelling of this name common). In Hebrew it means Pine Tree - my husband and I are both foresters. So job related lol! Anyway, I wanted Hebrew names for both my kids. I didn't choose Rivka only because it was too ethnic, even if we are Jewish! So I chose their names fit w/their ethnicity, but there's more to it than that. Orin's middle name is Clarence, which was his paternal grandaddy's name, and his great grand daddy's before him. He's the only great-grandson w/that name, out of more than 30 cousins (granddad was one of 8 kids, and dad is one of 4). Rebecca's middle name is Lou-Belle. Lou is for both my Grandpa, Louis, and my dh's Aunt LouElla. Belle is for my MIL's maiden name, Bell. And that's the story here lol!

[ProtoLawyer]

Oh, for completeness--
My partner has one of the three or so names that if you shout it into a room full of men in their 30s, half of them turn their heads.
If you google his full name, he is the first hit, only because he does a lot on the Internet. But only the first hit out of the top 20 is his--and maybe 15 people make up the top 20 hits.

Google me, and I am 8 out of the top 10 hits--the other 2 are different spellings.

[Miranda2r14]

Originally Posted by ProtoLawyer

Oh, for completeness--
My partner has one of the three or so names that if you shout it into a room full of men in their 30s, half of them turn their heads.
If you google his full name, he is the first hit, only because he does a lot on the Internet. But only the first hit out of the top 20 is his--and maybe 15 people make up the top 20 hits.

Google me, and I am 8 out of the top 10 hits--the other 2 are different spellings.

Oh, I just googled myself to see and I'm six of the listings on the first page, the top 3 are all me haha :

[EFmom]

I like names that are traditional, recognizable and a bit uncommon. I also like conventional spellings and names that aren't impossible for your average person to pronounce.

[RebeccaWo]

Great thread! DD's name is "Inspired by a book/movie/other media". Annalee Austen: Annalee is from the The Band song The Weight; Austen is, of course, homage to Jane Austen.

[limabean]

I checked:

Conventionally spelled
Consistent with ethnicity
More common in GP/GGP generations

Our kids' names are old-fashioned but easy to say and spell.

[Peony]

I'm a fan of classic names, names that everyone knows, traditional spellings... I would prefer to stay out of the top 50 but if a name really calls to me then I'll use. One of my DD's is Madeline which is a little more popular then I'd like but that's ok.

[lilyka]

My kids have their every day names that are on their birth certificates and their baptismal names which are um on their baptismal certificates. they are very much both the "real" names.

#1 is Madeline (lyn not line)/Magdalini, he godmothers dd calls her Ni for short. very funny. we are not greek and this is a very greek/eastern european name. weather or not Madeline is spelled conventionally or not I suppose is open to interpretation. And Madeline was insanely popular even though I had never heard it before. I believe it was in the top 5! Top frickin five!

#2 is Lilyka (not just a clever screen name.) it is an unconventional name spelled unconventionally. the proper spelling is Lillica. I have only met one other and after much digging found it in a baby name book once. Her baptismal name is Angelyka. not popular, not weird, spelled funny in keeping with her every day name. Ethnically neutral I think.

#3 - Ava. you owuld think this is the most complicated name in the world because no one is sure how to pronounce it. maybe it is because none of our other kids follow properphonetic rules but Ava is pronounced according to the rules and laws of phonics. Long A, v, short a. very onsanely popular. again, never met one but within a year it shot from obscurity to the top 10 I think. her baptismal name is Ketavan (all short vowels). Obviously this is not a popular name in the states but i think it is fairly popular in Eastern Europe, specifically Georgia (Queen Ketevan was a martyred queen of Georgia. Much loved. Much honored. at least by the Christians.)

I guess weather or not their baptismal names belong to an ethniticity that we do or do not belong to is actually sort of debateable. I mean we go to a church that has a heavy Greek and Eastern Europe population (as well as East African) and thechnically we are part of that culture as in they are our family and that culture is what defines as we go out from there. We chose names that were cuturally significant even though we are not that ethnicity.

[frontierpsych]

Conventionally spelled: for the most part. I've also seen it spelled Brody.
Consistent with my child's ethnicity: It is Irish, we are part Irish (among many other things)
Inspired by a book/movie/other media: 10 points to anyone who can guess the movie

[ani'smommy]

Our kids are Anneke and Jonah.

Conventionally spelled, yes
Biblical (Anneke, Anne derivative, Jonah, obviously)
Ethnically fitting, Anneke is, our family is Dutch. Jonah not so much

[ShyViolet]

Originally Posted by mamabeca

Orin's middle name is Clarence, which was his paternal grandaddy's name, and his great grand daddy's before him. He's the only great-grandson w/that name, out of more than 30 cousins (granddad was one of 8 kids, and dad is one of 4). maiden name, Bell.

I am crawling out of lurkdom here.

My FIL's name was Oren Clarence - he was named for the doctor who attended his birth and his father.

The baby we lost would have been Felix Oren.

Back to lurking now....