I like Carter, but you lose points with me if it’s not actually a family name; i.e., your wife’s maiden name or your mother’s maiden name or something along those lines. I’m not really fond of ‘last names as first names’ if it’s not a family name.
Conde and Kayden fall into that category I’d call Pretentious Yuppie Names. McKenna, Pashleigh, Grayson, Stratton… I teach preschool part-time and have had my fill of them.
My brother (who is 47) is named Carter. There are 3 boys in #2 son’s grade (4th) that have that name. Carter is hugely popular for the first time, ever. It started about 10 years ago and has been growing.
Ultimate pretentious preschool name: Logan.
I think Conde and Kayden sound feminine to me. How about Cartwright instead? Just throwing it out there… What about a middle name?
Have you been to baby’s named a bad, bad thing? I think that may be the name of the site. She should be able to help you. And there’s a baby name graph site that will tell you how popular your choices are. Sorry I don’t know the urls.
Throwing these out there for fun and no real reason:
Andrew; Howard; Edward; Edgar; Baker; Chandler; Roger; Nigel; Arthur; Everard; Harold; James; Charles; William; Philip; Adlai; Dwight; Richard; Robert; Douglas; Kenneth; Giles; Geoffrey; John; Nathan; Daniel; Dennis; Stephen; and hundreds more.
+1
While I like that you want to give your kid a unique yet respectable name, I agree that anything in the “rhymes with -aiden” category is not going to grant you uniqueness points at this moment in time. Neither is choosing a name that is typically a family name, IMO (i.e. Carter). Names like Caiden, Madison, etc. are not “usual” in the context of ten years ago, maybe, but are the rage right now (BTW, was “Madison” actually a popular girl’s first name before the movie Splash came out? Is this like J.M. Barrie inventing the name “Wendy”?). I’m 26 years old. I remember going to school with a lot of Brittanys, Ashleys, and Kristens, their mothers all had names like Susan, Carol, and Margaret, and my peers are now naming their kids Caiden, Kayla, and Madison. Baby name trends aren’t new, the variables just change.
My family typically goes with the “name after family member and/or favorite person” system. If this leaves you with too traditional a field of choices for your taste, another avenue might be to honor yours or your spouse’s heritage with a traditional but not-often-used-nowadays name from whatever country your ancestors hailed from. My niece had a friend in kindergarten named “Lazlo”, which I thought was a very cool name for some reason. It was unique in the context of American culture AND it has traditionally seen use as a first name somewhere.
Carter is a last name, not a first name.
Just sounds like you’re modifying Condi Rice. Also not a boy’s name, at least not to English ears.
Also sounds feminine and is trendy-sounding; will end up very dated. Not actually the original spelling; looks made up, though I guess technically it’s just a re-spelling.
If you’re going to have a boy, why not a nice, traditional name that isn’t too common? Alan, Stephen, Richard, Patrick, Charles, Jeffrey, Edward, Drew; all really nice names but not too high on the popularity list right now.
Intravenus, it’s an urban myth that Barrie invented “Wendy,” but it is definitely true that he made it vastly more popular. And yes, “Madison” was caused largely by “Splash.”
Please allow me to echo these sentiments. Vincent hasn’t cracked the top 100 names in the US in 15 years. Neither have Louis, Keith, Martin, Karl, Mark, Paul, etc. in the last 5. The regular names are falling out of style. I’m not sure what this obsession is with giving your kid an unusual name, or making it unusual by spelling it weird. I mean, pick a name you like, but do consider he will carry it with him as an identity for the rest of his life.
I have had several students with really odd names. When I ask them about the origins of their name, invariably they tell me their mom made it up, or named them after a basketball player, or it came to her in a dream. Then the kid does this
→ :rolleyes: . So it’s not like they are reveling in this so-called uniqueness. At least, not at that age. Usually, they are just tired of having to correct everyone’s spelling of it all the time.
Note on the popularity of variations on Kayden in popularity rankings from 2006:
Kayden = #230 (up from 782 in 2000)
Caden = #91 (#239 in 2000)
Kaden = #92 (#273 in 2000)
Kaiden = #242 (#840 in 2000)
So you’re setting up your kid for a lot of misspellings if nothing else. Also, you can see that it’s trendy. Maybe this is a situation for the dreaded “think inside the box.” Weirder is not better.
I love the name “Mark”. Marcel is also a great one.
Countdown had a baby-name segment late last year about what the most popular names were in 2007 and how traditional names fared against the trendy ones (not well, as many here might have guessed). The funniest part was how Keith Olbermann was bemoaning how no one names their kid “Keith” anymore. It’s true, you don’t see many young Keiths at all these days. I don’t know why not, it’s got a helluva lot more staying power than “Caiden” IMO.
Just for as a point of reference: I teach preschool, and in the last couple of years, I’ve had two brothers named Vince and Neil, and their older brother was named Keith.
Obviously, this one family isn’t pushing the names into the top ten, but it was a nice change from all the Trevors, Camerons and Harleys.
Oh god, they were Motley Crue fans. They must therefore be discarded as points of reference. 
My cat’s name is Harley, and that will always be a name I cannot take seriously for a person. I once had a student named Harley David ****son. Wow.
I don’t mind Carter, it’s okay. Not fantastic, but at least it’s solid and not spelt with a ‘K’. I’ve just finished up working at an OOSH (Out of School Hours care), and I’d like to chime in with almost everyone else and say PLEASE DON’T CALL YOUR KID KAYDEN! Out of around 30 - 45 kids attending care we had:
-2 Haydens
-Haidyn
-Caiden
-Cayden
-Jayden
-Braiden
It was confusing. Very confusing.
I think the best way to test out a name is to imagine a 40 year old introducing himself/herself to you with that name. Condé doesn’t stand up the that test IMHO.
I know a kid named Angstrom. Somehow it works for him.
Topic: Carter is OK; I hate the other two. Conde would make me wonder why you named your kid after a magazine publisher. Kayden just strikes me as yet another common name that people misspell intentionally in order to be original/creative.
My suggestion: Isaac. Call the kid “Ike” for short. (But I am biased toward names like that. Whatsit Jr. is an Ezekiel that we call “Zeke” and Whatsit the Youngest is August, called “Gus”.)
Poops?
Gesundheit
My wife is Cambodian. She does not like Cambodian names. Except we will probably give the baby a middle name which is her last name.
The middle initial will be ‘R’ and last name ‘M’.
blinkingblinking, one good rule to following in picking a name that will sound good with your last name is to choose a name that has the same vowel sound as the first syllable of your last name.
So if your last name is Marshall, for example, you might want to match the “a” sound in marsh or even the ar sound. Harlan Marshall (That’s just an exsample of repeating the sound – not necessarily a name I would or would not choose.)
A few years ago we had another baby naming thread and the parents chose the name “Atticus Gray” or “Atticus Grey.” I’ve never been able to get that wonderful name out of my mind!
I found someone on a geneology board named “Calla Lilly” today. You never know.
One thing I did was check the US census and baby sites for name popularity, and then deliberately ruled out anything in the top 20 or 50. I can’t remember.
As a male with a first name that is at least 99% of the time associated as a female name, I would say: may you burn in hell for doing that to a child.
Everyone - if you wanna pick a “fun” “cool” or “unusual” name, do it for the middle name. That gives your child the choice of what name they want to use.
None of those names appeal to me and here’s why:
Carter - Last name first names are pretentious unless the Last name first name has some meaning in the family. Also, just not appealing to me. There are a number of pretentious assholes where I live who do the Last name first name to death. Here’s the worst one I’ve heard: Thatcher. Unless the mom’s maiden name is Thatcher, just don’t.
Conde - Come on. Conde? It doesn’t sound great and nobody is going to get it.
Kayden- Screams trailer trash or ghetto baby. Too trendy, makes me think the mom is 15 and in 7th grade.
Also, I agree about reserving the creativity for the middle name. My own child’s middle name is Wilson, after his father’s musical here Brian Wilson. His first name is a real name, very popular but not trendy because there have always been boys and men with his name.
Conde makes me think of the magazines, as you already know. Bad idea. Also, accents are also a bad idea.
I think Carter is kind of cute. It’s totally a last name, but I still like it.
The others are not cool, IMO. Both sound pretty feminine, and it’s not doing your kid a favor to give them a name everyone is going to pronounce/spell wrong.
If you want to stay away from super common names like Joseph of Stephen, think about these:
Luke, Roman, Ethan, Mason, Gavin, Connor, Owen, Harvey, Harrison.