I would have been David if I was a boy. Nice name, too bad. My cousin born seven weeks later got it. Now one of my sisters(born in late 1959) had a narrow escape. She would have been Dwight, for the president.
I was named after my father. I have never confirmed this, but I suspect my parents would have named me Charles, after my paternal grandfather, had not my father’s younger brother beaten them to the punch by giving that name to his son, born a few months before me. I don’t know what kind of a Charles I would have turned out to be. My cousin hasn’t done much for the name, I can assure you.
My father used to tease me when I was little that had I been a girl, they were going to name me Ember Hearth after a local fireplace store. I have no idea why this amused him so, but it did.
I should add that my brother, whose name is Jon, might have been named Christopher, or Priscilla if he’d been a girl. My sister, whose name is Stephanie, might have been named Bernice (my dad’s idea of a good name), or Ivan if a boy.
F_X
If I’d been a boy, my parents would have named me Abe. I feel that I really dodged a bullet there.
A friend of mine with the surname “Brown” would have been named “Charles” if she’d been a boy.
My father was a painter and so my brother, who was only three at the time and fascinated by all the different colors of paint, suggested two names for his new baby sibling: Burnt Sienna or Yellow Ochre. :smack:
Fortunately for me, more practical minds prevailed.
Cerulean Blue
My parents considered Matthew for my name. They changed their minds and named me Peter-James. Good thing, because in my first grade class, there were three Matthews.
As for the hyphenated first name, it’s common among francophones (my mother is French-Canadian). So my name roughly translates to Pierre-Jacques.
My middle name is Frederick, after my paternal grandfather.
I find it interesting how babies are named. My first nehew was named Adrian Douglas [last name]. Douglas was my grandfather’s and brother’s middle name. My goddaughter was named Julia Beatrice [last name]. Beatrice was the name of my maternal grandmother.
My sister and her husband haven’t gone that route.
If I were to adopt a child, I’ve chosen names: Justin (for a boy), and Saffron (for a girl, Saffy for short). I doubt it’s going to happen.
I was named Rose after one of my fathers sisters.
His other sisters were named Agnes and Bertha.
My mom never ead a baby name book.
She even once said she almost named me Mimi.
Gack.
I was almost Helga, and my brother was almost Hermann. Two n’s. Thankfully, someone talked some sense into my parents, and we ended up as Sandra and Alan. Phew!
My father told me semi-seriously that he wanted to name me Vladimir. Good Dutch-Scottish name, that. I would have liked it, actually. Probably would have dressed up as Dracula every Halloween.
Caleb was another personality. Sounds like or a food, somehow…
I meant to say possibility. I really did. That’s a disturbing Freudian slip…:eek:
Bill Henry. My Dad’s first name is William and my Mom’s first husband’s name was Henry. 
If I’d been a boy, I would’ve been named Jase. Since I turned out to be a girl, I was named a very uncommon name that I love and am very VERY happy I wasn’t a boy…Jase seems too heavy somehow…dunno. My cousin, born when I was 8 or 10 or so is named Jason, and that’s a much nicer name 
“Elizabeth Sue”. But I came out a boy, so they had to think fast.
My dad was named after his father. When the doctor came to ask my grandmother what her son’s name was to be, she was still groggy. She said, “Bobby Jr.” And that’s what the doctor wrote down on the birth certificate – “Bobby Junior”. Dad, who always went by his intended name, once said, “I’ve been living under a false identity my whole life!” (Except for the birth certificate, every other piece of documentation had his real name.)
If I’d have been a boy, my name would have been Gabriel. My aunt remembered that, and eighteen years later, she named her son Gabriel.
My parents were actually going to name me Maya, but just before I was born, another aunt got a dog and named her Maya. So my parents had to come up with another girl name. Fortunately me me (ha), they decided to go looking in The New Age baby Name Book. That’s how I ended up as Kyla.
(apologies if this double posted.)
If I had been a boy, I would have been Sean Patrick.
If I had been a boy, I would have been Robert. I like that. Lots of flexibility. Depending on my whim, I could be Rob or Bob or choose the nickname of my epynomous great grandfather Bert.
Instead, I have a one-syllable name that is androgynous and often misspelled. sigh
If I had been a girl, I would have been named Annie.
I came close to being Karen (which I would have liked as a child and loathed as an adult), and if I had been a boy I would have been Sebastian (which I would have loathed as a child and eventually grown into, much as I did with my actual name).
Same story as |Johnny L.A.: I should have been Sloan. Instead it got pushed to my middle name.
My parents always came up with a boy and girl name for each child and passed on the one they didn’t use to the next child. So if I were a girl, I would be Emily Ruth.