Hellobee Boards

Clear, unambiguous pronunciation for English speakers (ideally for Spanish too)
Unusual - I want my kid to almost certainly be the only one in any given social or academic situation that has that name

@ElbieKay: my criteria are really similar to yours. #1 one commonly accepted way to pronounce and spell. I didn’t want them to deal with having to spell their first name or have it Mia pronounced all the time.
Must like all possible nicknames.
Didn’t want it to be very common. DD1 was perfect- I love love love her name and we rarely meet another girl with it, but everyone knows it. Ironically, I did meet another girl wth her name who might be in her grade in public school in our really small town!

DD2 we just couldn’t find something else we loved as much that wasn’t super common. We ended up going with the 9th most popular name in our state. I do love her name and it suits her but we really do meet other little girls with her name ALL the time. Like on my block if 16 houses there is a 9 year old with her same name. Oh well- it’s popular for a reason. She is just doomed to be G—— H for life.

1. Not common (LOs names are all ranked below 400), but not “made up”
2. Easy to spell/pronounce (although I’ve noticed that people inevitably throw in vowels/z’s/weird spellings anyways, so....)
3. Flows well with our last name (no alliteration, our last name ends in “-er”, so no first names that end in “-er”)
4. Passes the Senator test
5. More traditional middle name
6. No unisex names

All that being said, we are naming our third boy, so these rules have been harder to stick to Also, my husband thinks I’m insane for all of these “stipulations”.

I feel like I should also add to the list “sounds ok when your three year old runs around incessantly screaming his brother’s name”

1. Liked by both myself and my husband.
2. More than 1 syllable (our last name is 1 syllable, and it would sound weird).
3. Middle name should be meaningful in one way or another (doesn't have to be a family name, but I don't want a middle name for the sake of having one).
4. Easy to pronounce, easy to spell.

BONUS: Not in the top 10 in popularity. Some of this can't be avoided (my mom hadn't ever heard of a person with my name, and I ended up having a top 10 name anyway).

Names that can be pronounced easily (with similar pronunciation) in English and French.

After that, it was more preferences than hard criteria. We both tend to like classic names, and our LOs’ names reflect that.

@ElbieKay: I agree with almost all of your criteria but it does seem like #1 wrecks all the options, at least options that you actually like We ended up with a top 100 but not top 50 name for our boy and it is still so, so common--it gets to me.

My other requirement is that it can't be that trendy category that reminds me of Pottery Barn customers: Hugo, Knox, Hudson, Kai, Asher, Zoe/Chloe--so many names that I can imagine phasing out and becoming very dated-sounding.

#1 Works with our last name (automatically eliminated A LOT of names)

#2 Has some sort of meaning or significance to us (family name)

#3 Not a Younique name. Must be traditional/standard/historic

Our last name is unusual so we didn't mind a more popular first name so LO1 was actually a top 10 name, LO2 & LO3 were actually ranked the same the years they were born, in the mid 100's.

We’re Jewish, so names that aren’t too Christian, like no Christopher/Kristina/Noelle/Mary/etc

Names with family significance but also that we really loved

Fit the senator/Supreme Court rest but also work for a kid

Good nickname potential (lo2’s nn is actually pretty popular, like was 41 on the SS database the year before she was born, but has lots of nns and we use a less popular one)

Not hugely popular but “real,” not-made-up seeming names.
I tend to gravitate towards older/grandma names, lol. Like my girls names were super popular in the 30s. So like, total identifiable as a name but leas likely there will be 4 of them in their classes. We live in an apt building with a lot of older residents and I love when they ask my girls’ names and are like “oh that was my friends name when I was a kid, I haven’t heard it in decades!”

@ElbieKay: Tobi is a late 40s blonde female yoga instructor from LA name, not a little boy name. ETA I do think it's impossible to underestimate and anticipate all the ways people are illiterate.

@ElbieKay: So funny you have such an issue with Tobi as this is the totally normal way how to spell the name in my native tongue (German). It is pronounced toh-bee here.

Here's our list:
1. Had to work in German and English
2. Had to be multi syllable
3. Had to be easy to spell
4. Had to have a nickname that was easily pronounceable by a young child
5. Had to work with our other kid's name (#2 and following)
6. Had to pass the CEO test
7. Had to pass the initial test

@ElbieKay: Something that wouldn’t be mistaken several times a week for a more common name. Mine (Marissa) is mistaken constantly (for Melissa) and I’ve hated it my whole life. DS’s name (Cooper) is pretty hard to mess up (but alas it has happened - he’s been called Connor a couple times already!!).

Nothing so specific. We just both have to like it.
I guess I don’t like super common/trendy names. And nothing made up or weird spellings.

@ElbieKay: Regarding rule 1, I was always anti-too popular a name too, but I did realize at some point that the most popular names these days are used much less frequently than in the past. For example I just looked up, and there were 50 thousand Jennifers in 1984 versus less than 20 thousand Emmas in 2016. Also I think the very top names change more rapidly in popularity than in the past (Jennifer was number 1 for 14 years). So anyway, this criteria is less important to me now that I've actually had to name 2 babies. I still would try to avoid a top 10 name if I could, but I also look more to the trends in my state than nationwide because they are different.

Other criteria:
1. Sounds good with last name
2. Sounds good with and has a meaningful middle name
3. No weird initials
4. Sounds good with LO1's name - this has made naming baby 2 so much harder!
5. Both Dh and I like. Trying to come around to the fact that I am probably not going to LOVE LO2's name as much as I do LO1's.

First name:

Racially ambiguous
Classic/ has some history to it
Easy to pronounce in many cultures

Middle name:

Sentimental

We have a second first name for another boy all picked out that fits the first name criteria. Totally stumped on a sentimental middle name though.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: it means “could this name be the name of a Supreme Court justice and not sound silly”, Bascially.
Like I’ve been seeing a lot of Jett’s and Jaggers around here lately and someone might say that they can’t picture a Supreme Court justice named Jagger Smith.

Short, nice meaning, not too popular, sounds good with last name.

1. Meaningful to us as the parents. We are Christian and we really connected with Samuel and Caleb for our son’s names. Samuel was a gift after a long struggle (3 years IF and miraculous natural conception) who had the gift of hearing from God and was judge over Israel (we’re attorneys). Caleb had a dogged, loyal, and courageous faith that set him apart and for which God honored him for. Both men were of great faith, which is important to us.

2. Middle names that honor my ethnic heritage but are easy to spell and pronounce in English.

3. Passes the Supreme Court Justice test.

4. Easily simple nicknames to say and spell for little people. Our boys go by Sam and Cal.

@Anya: I’m somewhere between 2 & 3.... only 50 kids with DDs name were born in the US in 2015. For sure not top 1000.

But DDs name is easy to spell, say, explain- people usually ask about it once then never say anything else. Her NN is similar to Jenny which I think suits her.

We wanted something unusual but not weird. DDs name sounds masculine but has a girly NN. It’s a traditional English surname.