Back in 1974, Susan was the 27th most popular girl name. Hazard a guess at who took the top spot? Jennifer. Makes sense because Jennifer crushed the competition on my Facebook friend list. The Social Security Administration Baby Name Tracker is a delightful time waster. I wonder if you will type in as many as I did…my sister Margaret #111 1977, my husband Doug #34 1969, my college bestie Stephanie #9 1975 and on and on and on…
The top 10 boy names for 2011 are Jacob, Ethan, Michael, Jayden, William, Alexander, Noah, Daniel, Aiden, Anthony. For the girls, there’s Isabella, Sophia, Emma, Olivia, Ava, Emily, Abigail, Madison, Chloe, Mia.
Selecting a name for your baby is one of life’s greatest priveleges. This honor comes with great responsibility and sometimes much hand wringing. You hold the ultimate magic wand and can choose or create whatever you desire. The derivation of a name is so intriguing. Did the parents give a shout out to pop culture such as a sports figure, entertainment star or character from a popular book/movie/television? Is it a family name that has been handed down for generations? From the bible? Geographic significance like after a city or country? My parents were family namers and I was named after my paternal and maternal grandmothers.
When we named our children, we used family names. My daughter is Ella James. Ella was my paternal great grandmother and my husband’s great aunt. James is my paternal grandfather. My son is a junior and goes by his middle name, Clay. My husband is the only son of an only son and the Bowman name was in danger of being obselete. Clay was my husband’s paternal grandfather’s middle name and paternal great grandfather’s first name.
We were “name tellers”. We decided quickly and shared with anyone that would listen. Others keep the name shrouded in secrecy. I totally get that because people say the rudest things and you also have to watch out for name stealers.
Smarties, how did you choose names for your children? Did you consider the “family factor”? Were you a name teller or not?
7 comments
We are a family name person too! First name is her paternal great grandmother’s name and middle name is her maternal grandmother’s name. And we told everyone! I was proud of the name (Katherine Rose) and loved it! We thought we would call her Katie, but turns out once she was born she was all Katherine. Too bad I had to take down the letters on her wall that read Katie!
We were part family name and part find a new one. I didn’t necessarily need to be unique, but I thought the name game was very important. So I wanted to make sure it felt right and it would fit our daughter. My husband found “Carson” in a baby name book, and my first reaction was “that’s a boy’s name.” But it seemed to work and grow on us. Marie is my maternal grandmother’s name and my best friend from college middle name, so it has a special place in my heart. So we came up with Carson Marie and it totally fits our daughter.
I loved having a unique name and my husband loved having a short, simple name. So we tried to compromise with unique (for now, anyway), one-syllable names for our daughters, Blake and Quinn. Both of which *could* potentially have celebrity origins…
I love names! I had a spreadsheet with my second because I wanted to have just the right name. We did not have any good family names so we came up with unique new ones. The middle names are classics so if our kids grow up and hate their first name, the will have a classic middle name to switch to. Funny thing is I always said I would name my daughter something that could be found printed on things since I could never find Melanie when I was growing up.
We really wanted to use family names but that was tough for us! We knew we were having a boy so that narrowed down the possibilities. Then we had some issues. For one, we have some very southern names names like Odelle and Morris. The other problem is that in our family the use of family names has been overdone and there are at least 2 or 3 people with the same name (my dad and husband both have the same first name, my brother and uncle have the same name, I have 2 Aunt Bonnies…you get the picture. No one ever knows who is being talked about!) We also were adament that we were naming him the name we were planning on calling him. In the end, we picked Sam because it was short, sweet, classic and fun (his room is Dr. Seuss theme!) It isn’t short for anything. He is just Sam and that fits him to a tee! We did get a little creative with his middle name. We combined his grandmothers’ maiden names of Hill and Hadden and came up with Hilden. turns out that is a city in Germany. Who knew! He is kind of like a bride…something old, something new!
My water broke 10 days early and we didn’t have a name. At the hospital, my husband and I frantically went through the baby book and each wrote a list of acceptable names. We cross our lists and picked out the common names. There were only 2 so the final decision was not too hard! We used this same method to pick a dog breed.
We didn’t tell anyone our name until a few weeks before our daughter, Parker Rae, was born. Mostly, we didn’t want other people’s opinions. When we finally told our families, we said “We’ll tell you, but you’re only allowed to tell us how much you LOVE it!”.
We had gone back and forth between unique names and classics, and I finally decided that I always liked having a unique name (although I wanted people to be able to pronounce hers). Her middle name is my sister-in-law’s middle name – without her, my husband and I would never have met.