What do you take into consideration when choosing baby name? (choose all that apply)

[Gendenwitha]

...and in comments, which aspect was most important and why?

[Justmee]

It has depended on the child. Three were named for the meaning of the name, one directly for a relative, and one indirectly for 2 relatives (and we liked the name). We have considered seasonal names before, but we never make a decision until after baby arrives. With my baby several seasonal names were on the list but when he was born and needed open heart surgery we chose a name for the meaning.

[etsdtm99]

our current kids are named for family members, then NN'd names we like - the newest addition's NN also has a meaning that means something to us .. I'd say at this point the family name thing is most important.
 

[kimble]

We are looking through family trees to find names that are uncommon today but used by distant relatives, ideally on both sides. I grew up as one of 5 girls in my 30-person class with the same name, and want our children to have names that while not "popular", are easy for others to spell, pronounce, and remember. Going back a few decades seems like a good way to find these, and the family connection is secondary. As a last consideration, I want to avoid initials that spell something  (or for a girl, could spell something) like A$$, etc.
 

[Peony]

I take a lot of things into consideration. Type of name, I prefer more classical, timeless names that are not going to sound dated in 15 years. Think Tiffany, no offense to any Tiffanys out there. Extreme popularity, while I like Isabel, there is also a sea of them right now. I also don't want a name that no one can pronounce or spell. It's the little things that make kids happy sometimes, like finding their name on a nameplate at a trinket store. I stick with traditional, nontrendy spellings. Initials are big, just to make sure that they don't spell FAT or something else that every 4th grade boy is going to notice. We didn't name for family members, that was not important to me. All of my kids names (4) are in the top 75 names but none in the top 20. I am not a fan of matchy names for siblings so that was not a consideration in choosing names, like all As. I just made sure they flowed together so I wasn't choosing completely different styles of names. Interesting all my kids ended up with 3 syllable names despite me not choosing that, I guess I like longer names! 

Nicknames could be another one. We don't use them but many kids do. 

[skycheattraffic]

Originally Posted by kimble 

want our children to have names that while not "popular", are easy for others to spell, pronounce, and remember.

This exactly. Name also has to translate fairly readily into another language (my mother tongue) and we scrutinize initials also (just so they don't spell something unfortunate). We use middle names to honour family or heritage and first names are picked to be easy and traditional but not wildly popular. To that end we named DD Kassandra Diane (middle name is shared with my MIL) and our currently expecting is not yet decided. We like Thomas István for a boy (middle name is my late father's first name) and are toying with Lydia Siobhan (DH has Irish roots) for a girl. I think it's a fair compromise: easy first names and meaningful, possibly unusual middle names.

ETA: we have names ready but wait to meet baby to see if it fits. When DD was born and I got to hold her, the first coherent words out of my mouth were "hi Kassie". She was a Kassie from the get go, no doubt about it!

[alaskanmomma]

I just pick names I like, and that sound good :) I do look into initials as well. I like different names, I was 1 out of 439859038 Megan's growing up, and my DH is a Josh, so.. So far we have an Autumn and Sylas, if this baby is a girl her name will be Calliope, boy will be Boston.

[scary biscuits]

My dh and I originally picked our son's name because of Nikola Tesla and then found out that dh's great great grandfather's name was Nikola, so we had a family connection as well. I tend to prefer names that are more unusual and if possible honour a family member, especially the middle name. But nothing to out there, I have joked that if we have another son we should name Farquhar after an ancestor on my mom's side. For some reason my dh doesn't want to go for it:)

[CoBabyMaker]

Another thing I consider is how the name might grow up with the child. Meaning, does it seem fitting for a baby, teen and elderly person. Some names (even if I like them) seem like they would be strange in later life stages.

[sageowl]

I'm currently having a really hard time coming up with another boy name...thought this kid was gonna be a girl, so I had invested all my energy in that direction.

I think names are really important in shaping who you are (and who you become).  Here's my main criterion for choosing them:

How it sounds overall (does it flow, or sound awkward?).

Name's meaning (and the kind of personality that goes along with that name) in a very wholistic sense.  What kind of vibes does this name have?  What are people like who share this name?  What traits does this name seem to encourage?  For instance, I've had sooo many kids with ADHD named "Brandon" and "Cody" in my classes , I'm kinda leery of those names.  Ditto for girls with issues named Breanna.  (Feel free to disagree, but I've taught thousands of kids, and keep seeing the same patterns over and over and over).

Popularity:  Prefer uncommon names because I have a very common name, to the point where if I'm in a crowd and hear someone say my name, I always automatically assume they must mean someone else.  Having grown up with that annoyance, I veer towards uncommon names.

Potential for teasing--I'm a teacher, so I'm very aware of that dynamic since I get to see it regularly!  Poor kids.

I don't like naming children after other family members (because I think it would be weird having to follow in someone else's footsteps all the time)

[Cyllya]

I guess how it sounds is most important.

I picked "Other" for avoiding names that make most people in the child's culture think of something unpleasant.  (I figure by "meaning" you meant etymology.) For example, "Lucifer" fits all of my other criteria nicely, but I still wouldn't name my son that.

[katelove]

I tend to start with how a name sounds and then move on to how it fits together, middle and last names, avoiding unfortunate initials etc.

I ticked ethnicity because I want to broadly fit with our last name but its not super important. Our, recently born, second daughter has a name which is popular in Scotland and neither DH or I are Scottish but we both have UK origins so I'm ok with that.

We also avoid names which are super popular where we live.

Spelling is more important to DH than to me as he is still mildly traumatised by the silent letter in his name. We tend to prefer traditional spellings and avoid trendy ones.

We don't have themes although we did use plant names for both our girls middle names. It was important for me that the names sort of went together in that our oldest daughter has a fairly traditional (but not comonly used) name and I didn't think it would go with one of the more hippy names so that was off the list for our second daughter even though I still really liked the name.

[erigeron]

Somewhat considered a lot of those. I wanted a name that sounded nice, went with our last name, and wasn't too common (and didn't sound trendy or made-up) but wasn't unusual, "weird", or unknown. Our last name is unusual and I don't want our kids to also have a first name that nobody will recognize. I kind of relaxed on how common a name is because my first choice (Amelia) turned out to be more common than I liked but I couldn't find an alternative I preferred that wasn't as common. So she's Amelia, and I console myself with the thought that even common names aren't as common as they used to be. Last year's #1 names were Jacob and Sophia, but those names only account for 1% of babies that were born. 3 out of every 1000 baby girls was named Amelia. There probably won't be another in her class. Those are odds I can deal with. She has a family name as a middle name and we'll probably continue doing middle names after people who are significant to us. The first name of the next one will probably be Alexis or Samuel, unless we come up with something we like better--which, since we have wildly different taste and it took us forever to agree on anything, isn't terribly likely. 

[philomom]

Originally Posted by kimble 

We are looking through family trees to find names that are uncommon today but used by distant relatives, ideally on both sides. I grew up as one of 5 girls in my 30-person class with the same name, and want our children to have names that while not "popular", are easy for others to spell, pronounce, and remember. Going back a few decades seems like a good way to find these, and the family connection is secondary. As a last consideration, I want to avoid initials that spell something  (or for a girl, could spell something) like A$$, etc.

 

That's very similar to what we did. Using both sides of family trees, we have kid's names that are easy to say, easy to spell and not common as water. It honors those who have gone before us and yet avoids the "jr" and "little bob" stuff that hubby and I both detest.

first boy named after two great grandpas one for first name and one for middle name
first girl had two great grandma names .. one from each side, one is the first name and one is the middle name
second boy named after great uncle and a beloved family friend who passed the year he was born

I don't post their real names on the internet but think along the lines of Walter Allen, Rosalie Ada, Neal Harris .... that gives you the "flavor". Everyone compliments us on their names.

[Starfish11]

Meaning and sound are really important to us. Our kids first names are ones that we've picked together that we both like. Middle names are from my side of the family because our kids have their dad's last name.

[AmandaT]

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Edited by AmandaT - 12/3/12 at 8:52am

[Sharlla]

x and i named our boys Wesley and Seth because those are the names he agreed to.  i like the names and they arent super popular (both not in the top 100)

DH and i chose Pandora and Nevermore for our girls because they are unique and we really like the names
 

[Bokonon]

DH and I chose names that are familiar and only have one standard spelling, but weren't super popular when our kids were born (they were both around #50 on the SSA lists).  Of course, now our son's name is in the top 5, but there are no other boys in his class with the name, so it's not a big deal, and it doesn't feel trendy to me but may to others.