My wife and I have picked out four names for our children:
Riley Patrick(b) - Because Riley was the name my mother originally wanted to give me, but my Scottish father didn’t like the idea of a highlander with an Irish name. Patrick just fits well with Riley.
Renée Sierra(g) - My wife was to be named Renée, but when it came time to write the name on the birth certifocate, both her parents forgot what name they chose. (They named her Andrée instead)
Marie Georgina(g) - The names of both of my grandmother.
Dominic Sebastién(b) - My wife likes the name, and it will help her children keep identity with their Quebecois roots.
If we have any other children, the boy would be named Steven Jr., and the Girl would be named Stephanie. Any others after that would get Andrée’s name. Course, as a boy, I wouldn’t want the name André Marie Joseph Phillippe Chenier.
Aurek Lidia for a girl: Aurek being a name somewhat common in my family, and Lidia after a neighbor girl I idolized when I was a little girl. I wanted to be just like her when I was 7. She was 13 and had braces. She was the cooest girl ever.
A boy would be Terence something. Chaim, likely, after my grandfather, or Hershel because I like it.
Katherine Rose. My great-grandmother was Rose Katherine, and my MIL is Rosemary, but called Rose, so we honored both. Had she been a boy, she would have been Daniel Vincent - Daniel because I love the name and Vincent for one of the WryGuy’s grandfathers.
I thought I had conceived again and started discussing names, and the WryGuy said, “Well, if it’s a boy, we’ll go with Daniel Vincent, right?” I said, “Uh. No. We can’t, that was Katherine’s name and I can’t give it to another baby.” (OK, so I’m a little weird that way.) We eventually settled on Andrew John - my brothers’ middle names are Andrew and John, his grandfathers were William Andrew and John Vincent, the WryGuy is John, my mother’s father and her twin brother are John. We’d have pretty much covered everyone! Then we started discussing girls’ names and decided it had better be a boy, because we could not agree on anything. As it turned out, it was a false alarm, so it became a moot point.
Funny, I had a very vivid dream about having a daughter named Quinn, and that is definitely a frontrunner if I ever do breed.
I never think of middle names, probably because my first and middle blend together to make one word. I used to be called by my first and middle names as if it was one (and still get xmas cards from aunts, cousins and various other relatives addressed to a person named Merrily). Drives me nuts.
I would also like to name a daughter Matilda, after my aunt, who was my dad’s second mother and never had children of her own, but was really cool.
And I used to think that I would name a daughter after my sister Peri. But only because it’s a cool name for a girl, not because my sister’s name is the same.
I have three. Their names are Andrea, Alexander and Sebastian. The baby, Sebastian, will be 20 quite soon. Personally, I don’t like names that can be shortened into ugly names (Charles = Chuck). My hope was that they could each be happy with their full names. It appears to be working thusfar.
If I ever have a daughter, she’ll be named Iris. A son, Nicholas.
And I read through Horseflesh’s entire post before I thought, “Kala Shae, that sounds familar,” and then realized I met her at the KC Dopefest. A very cute little girl.
We have Melissa Jean - after my favorite cousin and his mother’s middle name (the first name is unspeakable) and Kathleen Mary. I wanted “Catherine” because it’s a family name, but Mr. Legend didn’t like it, so we used a modified version. “Mary” is my mother’s name.
We’re very lucky we didn’t have boys, because we never could settle on a name we both really liked, and both grandfathers’ names are ones no one really wants to inflict on an innocent child.
My two kids’ names are Bianca Rieta (pronounced “Ree-etta”) and Sean (pronounced Shawn) James… hardly exciting names, but at least they come when they’re called!
Senia (Finnish after my grandmother from the old country)
Misaki (Japanese…from my wife, our daughter was born in the spring)
Looking back I think we’ve cursed cursed the poor child to a lifetime of S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G, especially since my last name is Polish and I generally spell it before they even try.
Office space “Why the hell can’t anyone in this country pronounce my name…?” or words to that effect.
I would like to name a girl after my grandmother, Vera, although there are plenty of Veras in my extended family named after her. For a middle name I like Ruth, maybe, or Grace.
I also like Esther Rose.
I can’t possibly have boys, as they wouldn’t have any names and would have to either answer to Vera or to “Hey, you.”
I have, as long as I can remember, wanted to name my first daughter Zoe Rose. As it turns out, Mr. Armadillo’s mother’s middle name is Rose, so that’s a nice coincidence.
We also like:
Arianna
Rhiannon
Alexis Lily
Katerina Iris
Note: I’m still a little irritated by the fact that I like several first names with flower middle names, which seems rather barfy-cutesy to me. Guess I should hope I only have one girl. I like the sound of Arianna Rhiannon, but it seems a mouthful, so maybe I should come up with separate middle names.
It hasn’t been hard at all to come up with a list of girls’ names that we both really like, but we can’t seem to come to a strong consensus on boys’ names. He likes Damien as a first name, and is insistant that there’s a tradition that every male born into his family have the middle name Edward. Yes, he wants me to agree to name every single male child born to us Something Edward. I really dislike the name Edward. I don’t hate it, but it’s definitely not on my top 100 list of favorite boys’ names. I’m insistant that I only ever agreed to our first born son carrying the name, but now he wants 'em all. Thus, the only boy name we’ve currently got slated is Damien Edward. Meh. 'Sokay. I also am fairly partial to Hayden and James. I liked Logan and Luke as well, except my brother really wanted to name his first son Luke, and his wife wouldn’t let him*. Logan, as it turns out, is my sister’s first love trainwreck of a highschool sweetheart. Doubt she’d appreciate the lifelong reminder, heh.
*he wanted Luke, she said no, he settled for Nick, then she decided, dear god, that "if he gets to pick the name, I get to pick the spelling–the poor kid’s name is Nickolais. Or Nikolais, I’m never sure which.
Kirk because it was not common, but not “weird.” My husband was teaching that semester, and had a Kirk in his class. He mentioned the name and it reminded me of some other really nice Kirks I’ve known. As it happens, it also means church (or the guy who lives in one) in Scots, and I knew that would appeal to my in-laws. They’re not Scottish, but they are sort of religious. Incidentally, my dissertation advisor’s mother’s maiden name was Kirche, so she was tickled my son’s name sounded like that name. I didn’t know it when we chose the name, but you don’t look a gift horse (a happy advisor) in the mouth.
Zachary because we wanted him to have a “Z” name. We wanted him to have a “Z” first name, actually, but Zachary was too common and the other Z names were too unusual for us. I was okay with him having a fairly popular name for his middle name though. My last name begins with Z, and my Dad has always been called “Z” (like just the letter) so it was in homage to my family. Incidentally, my husband thought it would be neat to make Kirk’s middle name just Z (like Harry S Truman) but again, I thought it was too unusual and would require too much explanation.
For a boy: Something Finnish (Urho, Heikki, Veikko, Ukko, etc.) or Icelandic/Old Norse (Odin, Thor, Leif, Hrothgar, etc.). I really think the name Hieronymus is cool, but I doubt that many hypothetical mothers of this child would agree.
For a girl: Vashti (coolest woman in the Bible), Theda, Zenaida, Liberty.
Emma because it was the only name we agreed on, and Elizabeth because it was my husbands most favorite name of all time. It’s also my middle name, my grandmother’s name, my aunt’s middle name, and another aunt’s name, so I figured why not.
Kieran because I was hormonal and watching far too much Ballykissangel at the time. It’s also very apt because its means dark, and he has dark brown hair and the darkest eyes on the planet (we had Aidan as a back up if he was born with my red hair.) Ian because we wanted his middle name to begin with I, and it happens to be my father’s name. We discussed Ignacio, for my favorite Pogues song, but decided it was too cruel.
