Names you might have chosen

I’ve always been fascinated by names. Both my boys (no daughters, alas) have a fairly unusual, but traditional, first name, and a more ordinary middle name in case they disliked the first one - but as it happens they are both quite happy.

I very much like Benjamin, but it didn’t go well with our surname, so we didn’t use it. He’d always have been called Ben, anyway, though my friend has a Ben who is Benedict. Our younger boy was going to be Charles, but since his middle name had to be Philip for a particular reason, we thought Charles Philip was a bit too royal for comfort! So he wasn’t called Charles. My grandson was nearly Charles, too, but in the end called something else. My grandchildren have three names each, plus the surname. Plenty of scope there!

Both my best female friend and I wanted to call our sons Sebastian, but didn’t quite have the nerve. Our sons are glad we didn’t use it, but I still like it. A girl would probably have been Caroline, still my favourite girl name. I also liked Antonia at the time, but she would always have been Toni, which I’m not keen on. Now, I like Imogen and Phoebe.

I was very nervous about my grandchildren’s names, in case I didn’t like them. I’m happy with both of them, though, thank goodness.

My son was named after his grandad & great grandad but we had to juggle them a bit as he would have sounded like a cowboy from a western film. My daughter was desperate for me to give her a sister called Katie Star after one of her My Little Ponies at the time. She was far from happy when I gave birth to her brother.

A relative who comes from the middle east tells me that they never call a child after anyone who is still alive if choosing a family name . In the west of Scotland and the isles any first child was called after the paternal grandfather so there are lots of Colinina and other strange names . My husband insisted his first son be called after him and I gave in . I have always regretted doing so as it causes so much confusion in the house .

Greyduster

DS has the name we always had in mind for him, but if we had had another boy, he would have been Alexander. As it was we had a girl, and would have called her Elizabeth, had there not been an Elizabeth in the family already. Angharad (one of his grandmother’s names) was mooted and discarded as being lovely but a bit of a mouthful! I do like it, though, and Freya, too.

Our Alexander turned out to be a girl.

Oddly enough, some of my DC have second names which are those of my ancestors of the 1800s, although I didn't know that when I chose them.

However, I always liked the name Jonquil, not sure why and that would have been in the running had we had two daughters
I knew a Jonquil, M0nica and she's the only one I ever knew. She was older than me so must be late 80s or 90s now.

Both ours have family names. As far as i know they are happy with them. I wouldn't be up set if they chose to change to one they preferred.

I have always been uncomfortable with my given name but haven't changed it as it was chosen with care. I don't suit it though and would choose to be called something much more down-to-earth if it wouldn't cause upset.

If I had had another daughter she would have been Jennifer/Jenny (both OH and I have a soft spot for wrens) another son would have been Felix.

My daughter was named Lianne after my Dutch cousin's girlfriend. We had never heard it before (mid 1970s).
She doesn't use that but is known to all except family as Lily. My grandma would have been delighted as that was her name. I hadn't used it as we thought it would sound old fashioned!
Our son has a short name which he is happy with and uses.

I wanted to call my daughter Claire, but after having heard it pronounced the Liverpool way, I decided not.
If I’d had more, I’d have used Dominic or Alexander for boys and Jacinta or Rosalind for a girl.
I like the 2 names we actually chose for each child we did have; -one less usual and one quite plain in case they wanted to swap.

I have a 'thing' about pairing first and surnames. For instance I'm not keen on aliterative names (although you can't help it if you change your surname through marriage and end up with one!).
I'm also not keen on first names ending in 'a' if your surname starts with 'A'. I think ,when spoken, the end of the first name tends to run into the beginning of the surname.
I also like names to be spelled properly. The trend for imaginative spellings just condemns the child to a lifetime of explanations and spelling their name out every time.
And (I'm on a roll now!) I prefer full and proper names on a birth certificate even if you are always going to use a shortened version or other variation.
My daughter was born in West Wales and I now wish I had given her a Welsh middle name. I would not have felt comfortable giving her a Welsh first name as we were definitely 'incomers' at the time, although we ended up living there for 20 years!
Particular favourites of mine are Eleri (with the emphasis on the middle 'e'), Delyth and Seren.
I was always fascinated by Non (to my English ears it sounded like the parents almost didn't want the child!) and Buddug (pronounced Bithig) sounded a bit harsh.
But I'm still happy with my daughter's name. It has a nod to both my grandmothers names so it kept everyone happy!

I had a doll I called Petronella. I used to adore that name but didn’t call any of our girls that because by then I wasn’t so keen on it. I am sure it would be shortened to Petrol here. Funny how people have an obsession with shortening names, especially here in Australia. Even a Helen gets Hel!

With Elizabeth, it is so versatile: Eli, Eliza, Liza, Liz, Lizzie, Beth, Betty, Libby.

My elder daughter is called my first,and still favourite, choice of name although she doesn’t thank me for it sometimes as it beautiful but oddly spelled. She shortens it! My husband insisted on naming our second girl, a pretty name but all too common these days. It is after his great aunt of whom he was very fond. I would have preferred to call her Rhiannon, which I think is a lovely name. She prefers her own though! I had liked my son’s name since I was a little girl; it is from a book I loved. I might have chosen Alexander but my husband preferred the other. I think my children like their names as I like my own. My name is tricky to spell and coupled with my unusual maiden name (which I have reverted to since divorcing) has been challenging over the years!

homefarm

I wanted to call my daughter Alexandra but my husband registered her as Zoe before I came out of hospital. She hates it and has always insisted on Nic. In fact she changed her name by deed poll

I would have been livid if DH had registered the birth without me, (have often heard how the names were spelt wrongly by the husband), and even more livid if he’d changed the name!

Think the next visit would have been the divorce court!

My Dd's are both happy with their names; one never shortens hers. The second DD has the name I wanted for the first but MIL put it into DH's head it was too pretentious, so I called her after a friend with a standard name but an unusual spelling. The second I was determined to get the name I had liked from school. My own name rhymes with moan and I wanted to give them happy names.
If I was naming them now I would use some of the family names that have come back into fashion and as for a boy I would not bother about offending and would call him after my father who helped me all his life.
I definitely kept away from any names associated with MIL family as she had so much to say about it all even after I had an emergency C-section that I would not have done her the honour.
Someone mentioned a character in a Thomas Hardy story. I loved his books at school and I actually have a Bathsheba in my ancestors that would have gone down well with MIL or Tess.

I always loved the name Rebekah and at the time I had my daughter Rebecca was one of the most popular names so we went for the alternative spelling. It did cause her a few problems but now everyone calls her Bekah and spells it OK. She would have been David if a boy. When we had a boy next I had a girl's name in mind - Sophie - but ended up with a Joshua, which we then found had become one of the most popular names! I wasn't influenced by fashion with Bekah as it had been my favourite name for years but wonder if Joshua becoming popular had influenced me. Josh hates his middle name - Stephen - so we tend to forget about that! Bekah's middle name rarely gets referred to either as it is Helene and tricky to type as it needs accents. I don't know haw to do that!

'how'

For another daughter I would have chosen Cathy, Juliet or Louisa.
For sons it would be Simon, Roger, Vince, Matt

I only had girls but two boy names lined up were Benjamin and Samuel. These later became the commonest dog names and calling Ben or Sam would have had you surrounded by Labradors.

watermeadow

I only had girls but two boy names lined up were Benjamin and Samuel. These later became the commonest dog names and calling Ben or Sam would have had you surrounded by Labradors.

😂😂😂
Benjamin was one possible I picked for DS but we decided against it for other reasons.

Our first daughter was Barbara Faye ,she only lived 4 days and would have been 46 last Sunday .her registration and death certificate were issued on the same day .
I was friends with a Barbara in primary school and met her again as an adult I'd like to think our Barbara would have been the same lovely woman as her namesake

I would have kept 2 of my 3 children’s names. If I had another I would have chosen Rafael and Genevieve. My grand mother was one of 4 sisters …. Lizzie, May, Lily and Daisy …. This was in the 1890s.

paddyann54 .

My husband and I had rather different choices about the name for our potential daughter for quite a long time during my pregnancy. We never agreed on any name for a possible son. We finally agreed on what I still think was a lovely name for our girl, but she hated it and legally changed it when an adult into something that I feel is dull. Still, it's her life, her name and her choice.

We chose family names, quite traditional and they seem to come in and go out of fashion but I still love both names. If second daughter had been a boy, he would have been called Felix, dd1 was relieved as she said she didn't want a brother names after cat food!

I liked Rebecca and Rachel when expecting number 3 - he ended up as Andrew, a name we'd chosen for child #1, who was a girl!

I wanted Veronica as a confirmation name but was told I couldn't so ended up with Elizabeth, not that I use it!