How Did You Choose Baby's Name?

This past week I was so amused as I read through a little post on one of my “mommy group” pages. My friend, Michelle, asked about how each of us came up with our child(ren)’s name. It was so fun to read through all of the comments! So I asked permission to share some of their baby names and reasons here. If you are still searching for baby names (aren’t we always!?), maybe this will help to get the ball rolling! 

***Mamas- I may have added a couple words to have your comment make sense!***

Carly- It was the only boy name we could agree on that no one that we knew had! Cameron is the first name and his middle name is Christopher. His initials are CCC, just like Chris's (his dad).

Terri- We both really liked the name Lily but wanted a more "formal" name in case she chooses a profession where a "serious" name might be helpful. Add to that our love of ‘Doctor Who’ and mutual crushes on Billie Piper's character Rose Tyler and we landed on Lillian Rose.

Diane- Lysandros was conceived in Greece. . .and it's a Greek version of my grandfather's name.

Megan- I loved Grace but hubby wanted 2 syllables. We finally agreed on Hannah and he was ok with Grace as the middle name. When I looked up the meaning of Hannah, what do you know...."God's grace." Then my sis guessed the exact full name the next day! Meant to be, and I got my Grace after all.

Kasha- Joshua is my husband’s name and then I heard the name Luca- looked up the meaning which said "man from Lucania(a province in Italy), and my husband’s grandmother’s family is from the province of Lucania...it seemed perfect!

Melinda- Our new baby's name will be Kailis. My husband likes Kai, and I liked Silas.

Jennifer- We had 3 names narrowed down: Henry, Logan & Ethan. When he was born, my husband and I looked at each other and said simultaneously, "Logan." He just looked like a Logan! It was such a sweet moment. (and the name Logan came from Wolverine, X-men. we're nerds that way! haha).

Leah- My son's name is Axel, its Danish (as is my husband's family), and it's his great great grandfather's name. I wanted to name my daughter Isabelle, so I could call her Izzy, but after 53,652 people asking if I named her after Isabella/Bella from Twilight, I had to change it. I had a client whose daughter's name was Lilah and I fell in love with it, so Lilah it was!

Alex- We wanted to include one of our names as a middle name but were determined to give him his own first name. We love traditional names, and I've loved 'James' since Day 1. So he is James Alan, which I love since it includes his father's name.

Susan- I have a degree in English Lit and I've long been obsessed with John Steinbeck. (One of my dogs is a black standard poodle named Charley from "Travels with Charley.") I wanted a name with meaning, so my son John was named after John Steinbeck. We used my maiden name of Elliott as his middle name, and I also have a grandfather named John Elliott, so I liked that connection as well.

Murphy- In my husbands family, it's been a tradition for the first born son to name his first born son his middle name. I have always liked Daniel from the Bible, so that was an easy tradition to carry on. His middle name is Samson. Which means ‘strong man’. My labor was a week long, and my son was a champ through the whole thing. He was 10lbs, 14 ounces and we knew we had given him a name he was already living up to.

Michelle- Ruby Michelle- Ruby is from this song. There are a few other Ruby songs we also sing to her, but her name came from this Kaiser Chiefs song. My husband's family has the tradition of giving the first name of the parent as the middle to the baby- so Michelle it is.

Erin- We had about ten girls names we loved and zero boy names. I suggested Oliver early on but Brent wasn’t a huge fan. Every other name we liked our families hated. We decided he would be Oliver unless the name didn't fit but then he came out looking like a perfect Oliver. Brent chose James (for a middle name) because it flows well.

Jessica- We wanted to give our kiddo a blessing in her name, so we [very systematically] whittled down the list to three sets of options for her to choose from. When she was born & we presented them to her, we got to "Moxie" and she exclaimed, "aaaahhhh!" and so she became our wit & wisdom: Moxie Sofia.

Leesha- We didn't have her name picked out till a few weeks before she came. We had thought she was a boy in the beginning and had several boys names that we liked. Liam, Colin, Aiden, and Vincent, but then at her 20 week ultrasound it all changed. (I made the tech check 3 times because I was SO sure she was a boy! We wanted to have 3 names and then decide when we met her, but we ended up only having one and being certain it was her name while I was still pregnant. We really liked the idea of a spunky girl nickname and a ladylike name. The lead singer of one of Wesley's favorite bands was Edie (pronounced eedee) short for Edith, which he loved. I thought the name Edith was a little old lady-ish, so then we liked Izzy, short for Izabella, but we had a similar ‘Twilight’ experience. We settled on the nickname Evie (eevee) but couldn't decide on her full name. On a date we walked by a magazine rack with Evangeline Lily from ‘Lost’ on the cover. We liked it and then in the car later I said Evangeline Rose Willard, and we both started crying. We just knew it was her. Rose is my cousin (and best friend's) middle name as well as his Grandmother's middle name who helped raise him. And it was her grandmother's name as well so we liked the idea of Rosé as a middle name for a while. It flowed and was both ladylike and spunky. We call her Evie Rose most of the time. It suits her.

Kevyn- We wanted to keep a Celtic theme going from my husband's side, we both agreed on William but I just imagining nicknames Billy and Willy which I didn't want so, Liam stuck. Nikolas came from his favorite uncle who's been a huge part of his life but the spelling is after a hockey player. But I love it.

Trinette- I was in labor and we still hadn't decided on a name. We were on our way to Babymoon and my husband looks over and asks the same question we had been asking each other the whole pregnancy: "so what are we going to name this baby?" I told him I still didn't know and he threw out the names we had discussed - Anisa and Naomi, and added a new one: Anaya. I loved it and upon looking it up found out it means "God answered." So our oldest is Terrance, named after dad. Second is Amani, and third is Anaya, both of whom were named by dad.

Kassie- Fell in love with the name ‘Emma’ after seeing the movie "Emma" when I was 10 years old...I still watch the movie over and over and never get tired of it....

Amy- Michael: "what do you think of the name Timothy?"

         Me: "...I like it!"

Timothy was just random and we liked it’s meaning (one who honors God). For the middle name, we read Eric Metaxas' biography about Dietrich Bonhoeffer while I was pregnant, and chose Timothy Dietrich soon after.

Stephanie- We looked through 1 and 2 Chronicles at names and saw Hezekiah. We both liked it but thought it was a little old school so we made it more unique by taking out the "He" so it was just Zekiah. It means ‘God strengthens’. Zoey-Noel got her name because we wanted a Z name to match her brothers. Heith was watching a show called Terra Nova and there was a little girl on there named Zoey. We decided to add Noel to her name to make it more unique and because we liked the meaning. It means ‘life at birth’.

Kandice- Web page titled ‘Superhero Baby Names”. His name is Logan.

Amber- Nameberry.com...I wanted a less simple name and Seth wanted a simple name (one that’s common)... We decided on Corinne (because daddy actually liked it)... Her middle name Lindsay came from Seth's side of the family.... Hayden was a name that we could agree on, and his middle name William came from my late father's first name (May he rest in peace ).

Chelsea- Before my husband and I were married he had a dream from The Lord that he would have a daughter and her name was TOO BE REBECCA!

Abigail- #1 Lilliana (Lily's are my favorite flower) Faith (cuz it took a lot of faith to get through her pregnancy). #2 Sophia ( the only name her daddy and i could agree on) Michelle (my second oldest sister’s middle name). #3 Elizabeth (Josh has always loved this name and it was his grandmother’s middle name) Evelyn (Josh's mom’s middle name). #4 Elijah ( He was the priest who came to pray with Hannah in the temple when she asked God for a baby) Patrick (He was born on St. Patricks day). #5 Amelia (A name I have LOVED for ages and I finally got my way) Genavieve (the french version of Gwendolyn who is my little sister and Amelia's Godmother!) Wow, I’ve got a long winded set of stories!

Andrew- I'm a bible geek and Zoe is the Greek word for life. "ζοε"

Miguel- Believe it or not, the day that we found out the sex of our child, is the day that his name came to my mind. I believe it was from God when 'Tobias' entered my mind. My wife is big on having a meaningful name for her child. I looked up the meaning before suggesting the name to her and in front of my parents that day. Tobias is greek for 'God is Good'. Funny, people won't even realize what they are calling out when they say his name.

Jessica- #1 Gabriel is because of Nate's (my husband’s) brother (who passed away shortly after we were married). Eric is my dad's name. #2 Austin is the only name we both could agree on and James is Nate's middle name.

Virginia- Cecilia was my confirmation name. St. Cecilia is the saint of music and music has always played a large part in my life (I hope it will in hers too). Also, Cecilia is a classic name (last time it was popular was the 20s.) Marie is my mom and my middle name, I thought it was nice to have a piece of my family in her name.

Jeff- Made a list from baby name books and the Bible. We had it picked out and when he was born, we changed it to Samuel. The middle name is a family name.

Aubrey- I wanted to name her Poppy, but my husband didn't love it. I liked Piper, but it seemed too strong for a sweet little girl. We got Piper from John Piper, a very respected author and pastor in Minnesota that we love. We agreed that we would wait until the birth to decide, and if she just "popped out" it would be Poppy. 67 hours of labor later... She was Piper. Her middle name is Renee, passed down from my mother to me (first-born daughter) to Piper (first-born daughter). 

Catt- Duhhh!! From Saved by the Bell!! My hubby and my favorite show growing up was Saved by the Bell and when we started dating we talked about baby names and we both said 'Zak' from Saved by the bell and that's what it is...just spelled different.