I really don’t think it’s that big a deal.
My parents reused the name for the baby stillborn before me. They told me about the re-use when I was in grade school. It has no negative emotional impact on me whatsoever. It’s a name they liked (my maternal grandfather’s name) so I got it. Why in the world would any one be throwing a fuss about this? It may be an issue for the parent, but IMO it would not be a big deal to the child.
Yeah, I wouldn’t name the kid until said kid’s arrival.
This wouldn’t have worked for me. Just the fact that I was assigning what is essentially an arbitrary word to a human being seemed crazy to me when I had my daughter, like how am I qualified to do this? No name would have seemed to be “her” until she grew into it (or until I got used to it, really). That probably would have just taken longer if I hadn’t even settled on a name until after she was born.
Not that I care how other people handle it. I just would never see any newborn and think any particular name was “them”.
I’d pretty much decided my daughter was going to be Rachel, till she was born, and I thought “Oh, you’re no Rachel!”!
My recent ectopic pregnancy, I hadn’t had a chance to think of a name for the fetus, before it became obvious that something was wrong (I think I had a total of three days “huh, pregnant again?!” before it all started going downhill).
My son who was born at 34 weeks and lived for 12 days, had his father’s middle name as his name, and I’d **never **re-use that. My ex is now having kids in a new relationship and I do occasionally worry he might not feel the same and might re-use it, it being a family name and all that 
I’d change “head” to “groin”. Friends told everyone they were having a boy, based on ultrasound. The ultrasound was incorrect. They spent the kid’s first year of life explaining.
I have 4 specific names I’ve give to my daughters if I had any (although I’d let my wife pick from the four :)), but less picky about boys. I would recycle the girls names until I had one that survived, but might or might not recycle the boys names.
(With my luck, I’ll marry Rachel Elizabeth Alice Caroline and won’t be able to use any of them except as middle names.)
OK, you got me. Unless the name is “Sue” of course.
Two early miscarriages, far along enough to identify gender. The first, Daniel James, James being the father’'s name. Second, a girl, different daddy. Rebecca Miriam. It was devastating enough when Rebecca’s daddy decided to marry my best friend instead of me; doubly awful when they named their firstborn K. Miriam. These decisions can have repercussions.
We did have names picked out - both boys’ and girls’ - for both pregnancies, but didn’t know until the babies arrived which ones we’d end up using. (Both girls, as it turned out.)
Never been a father myself, so it’s hard to say exactly how things would play out, but I don’t think I would want to name a baby until after the birth. Even if I picked a list of possible names, I really don’t think I would settle on the name until after I’d seen the baby and interacted a bit. Would I actually learn anything that would change my mind? Maybe not… but I’m not a cart before the horse kind of guy. Step 1: give birth. Step 2: fill out the birth certificate.
Once a name was assigned, I would not re-use it, but the way I’ve described the process, there wouldn’t be a name until after the birth.
Maybe this is partly colored by the birth of my youngest brother; I was about seven at the time. My parents were just sure he was a girl and had picked out the name and everything. Surprise! Time to pick a new name!
Male who would never name a potential baby before it took. My own original name was “Baby zone.”
Against my better judgement my children had names before birth, including one named after a squirrel. Don’t let a barely older child name her new sister.
My parents did, with my younger brother. Miscarried, then had my brother a few years later. Used the same name they were going to use. He knows. It’s never seemed to bother him, and I’m not sure I see why it would.
Alexander & Eliza Hamilton had 8 children. The first one, Philip, was born in 1782 & died after a duel in 1801. Their last child was born in 1802; they named him Philip. (Then, in 1804, Alexander Hamilton was shot fatally at the same dueling ground as his son.)