Just curious

I did a similar thread in FY and it was a lot of fun to read about the meanings and where abouts of all the names.

Well, you can see where my girls names came from on the top of the tickers
Arwen's middle name is Skye. We just liked that name a lot
Lorien's middle name is Elisabeth which is my middle name, my mom's middle name, my sister's name and my aunts name. So, I guess that would be considered a family name

How about yours?

 

Lauren and Emma are just because we like them. Lauren's middle name, Grace, is kind of a long story. I guess the quickie version would be that one of my friends was in church and they were playing Amazing Grace and she thought what a miracle it was that I was pregnant with twins so she told me one of them will always be Gracie to her. My dh and I fell in love with it. Emma's middle name, Jane, is after my grandmother's cousin who is a nun and is by far the sweetest person I have ever met.

 

I printed off the Social Security list of the top 1000 names for boys and girls, told DH I didn't want anything in the top 100. We each looked through the list and picked out names we liked, and then checked to see if any names were on both of our lists.

Clarissa's middle name is Rose, which was my grandmother's name. Elliot's middle name is John, named after DH's father (his name was Jean, as he was Belgian, but DH didn't want everyone mispronouncing Elliot's middle name the way that they always messed up his dad's name).

That's all . . .

-Rachel

 

Jackson Riley -- my FIL's nickname is Jack and we wanted to honor him, Riley is my mom's maiden name.

Ethan Daniel -- Ethan was the name of a very cute and well-mannered little boy sitting in the perinatologist's office while we were waiting for our appt (LOL) and Daniel is my husband's name. I wanted to name him Jason after my favorite character on General Hospital, but DH overruled me . Ethan suits him better!

Mendy

 

QUOTE(RachelJoy @ May 29 2007, 12:26 PM) [snapback]271299[/snapback]
I printed off the Social Security list of the top 1000 names for boys and girls, told DH I didn't want anything in the top 100. We each looked through the list and picked out names we liked, and then checked to see if any names were on both of our lists.


:laughing: What a great idea! Of course we picked one that has been on the top ten 2 or 3 years in a row now.

 

I have loved the name Jamie since I was young. When we played pretend I was always Jamie (my friend just recently reminded me that I used to have a poster of Lindsay Wagner when she played "Jamie Summers" the bionic woman--that could have been where the love of the name came from but for the record my daughter is NOT named after the bionic woman.)

So we had the name Jamie and we were struggling with a second girl's name. The same friend who reminded me about the poster was also pregnant and was considering "Nicole", but this was already her daughter's middle name. After she told me this, I called her later and told her I was taking this name because it just sort of clicked with me. She had already really decided on Lana for her baby's name so no big deal. Jamie's middle name "Rain" was my SIL's suggestion. I loved it immediately and we had a middle name for Jamie. Mike said that Nicole would have to have a kind of "earthy" middle name also so he came up with Sage. Now I can't imagine them being anything else but Jamie Rain and Nicole Sage.

 

Trevor File-Trevor was our boy's name for our oldest DD if she was a boy. And we still like it so that is how he got it. File is my DH's middle name, his dad's middle name, and his grandmother's maiden name.

Emilie Michelle-Emilie is a big family name in my family, there is one in every generation but no one had had an Emilie yet of us grandkids, so we named her Emilie and she has the personality to fit it, spunky. Michelle is my middle name.

I love hearing how all the names came to be.

 

We just sat down with a baby names book and I started naming off names. The ones we both liked we put on the list.

Nathan Alexander:
When we thought we were having one baby ( ) I had Xander at the top of my list. But then when we learned we were having 2- I couldn't find anything that I liked to go with Xander. So - I switched it and made Nathan's middle name Alexander. So he ended up as Nathan Alexander.

Gabriel Lucas:
Again, we liked Gabriel from the names book. It sounded good as "Nate and Gabe." But for his middle name...we searched and searched. We ended up with Lucas due to DH's LOVE of everything George Lucas. Please don't laugh! :blush: I actually really like the name Lucas, and thought about having it as a first name...Lucas Robert...but if you watch Days of our Lives, I didn't want him to be named the same as a soap opera character

 

My girl's names are Anna Lauren and Ava Lane. We've had the name Anna Lauren picked out ever since DH and I got married. We were going to call her by her middle name Lauren. I found out that we were have twin girls so I had to find a classic name to compliment it. I thought of the name Laney but couldn't find anything else to go with that name. I wanted Laney because it's a combo name of my DH's middle name Lane and my maiden name Haney. I decided that we would just call her Laney and have Lane as her legal name. I had to come up with a first name to go with that one. I loved the name Ella but a good friend of mine had twins named Eden and Ella. I didn't want to copy her name. So, Ella became Ava. Ava Lane fit perfectly. It worked out that my girls had the same initials. BTW, a have a good friend that lives 4 houses down from me that has twin girls the same age as my girls. Their names are Ella and Laney. We think it's so funny that we were thinking of the same names and didn't even know each other at the time.

 

Katelyn Nicole-- We always liked the name and Nicole is my first name and we thought they sounded good together with our last name.

Blake Austin-- Blake was the only boy name DH and I agreed on (thank goodness we did not have 2 boys!). We were not passing on any family names, so we started brainstorming a middle name. During one of our talks DH realized that our last name started with a 'T' and we were going to use Blake, so the middle name should be an 'A' name so his initials would be BAT. You have to understand that my DH played baseball since the age of 4, is a college baseball coach and run his own baseball business. So, I went along with it and we decided we liked Aaron and Austin. We did the yell test and I liked how Blake Austin sounded versus Blake Aaron and that is how we came to Blake Austin.

 

My name is unusual, and although I like it now, I've always sort of thought I wanted to give my kids very "normal" names -- easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and non-gender-ambiguous. Fortunately DH agreed. We did want to avoid the top 10-20 baby names, but we both liked Sarah, and even though it's always up there somewhere, it is more classic than trendy. We came up with Sarah first but didn't hit on Amy till several weeks later. I made a list of names I liked, and DH vetoed most of them , and we chose from the remainder.

Sarah's middle name (Ellen) is my grandmother's middle name. She is my only surviving grandparent, and it was important to me to have names from my family, since the girls would be getting DH's last name.

Amy's middle name (Elizabeth) is my middle name.

I'm sure Sarah will hate her name at some point because it's so common -- every Sarah I've ever met has felt that way -- but we still like it, though sometimes I wish I had chosen something a little more distinctive.

 

Since it was twins, I just kinda wanted them to have the initials that dh and I have. It took 8 years to get pregnant so we thought we would never get pregnant again. So it just kinda worked for us.
So dh is Jeffery Earl
I am Brandi Michelle

So we have a Jaylen Earl
and a Brycen Montana

Then low and behold - we were pregnant again when the boys were 15 months old. Surprise!!!
I would have felt bad if we hadnt stuck with the same initials so that weekend I had been visiting my mother and discussing names. I told her I had to go with a J or B wether it was a boy or girl. For a boy she had written down Jordan and Blake. For a girl I had already decided on BreAnn Michelle. Well exactly one week later from finding out I was pregnant my mother passed away unexpectedly. From that moment, I decided I would use both names she picked out if the baby was a boy. So now we have 5 week old Jordan Blake! I know you didn't ask about other children but I had to share that too because it is very special to me!

Another side note - If the next one is a girl - she will be BreAnn (my mother middle name is Ann) Michelle (after me)
And the boy would be Braxton MaKale (kale as in ryhmes with pale - Makale is the male form of Michelle)

Anyway - neat question! Its always interesting to see where names come from!

 

QUOTE(Minette @ May 29 2007, 12:34 PM) [snapback]271678[/snapback]
My name is unusual, and although I like it now, I've always sort of thought I wanted to give my kids very "normal" names -- easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and non-gender-ambiguous. Fortunately DH agreed. We did want to avoid the top 10-20 baby names, but we both liked Sarah, and even though it's always up there somewhere, it is more classic than trendy. We came up with Sarah first but didn't hit on Amy till several weeks later. I made a list of names I liked, and DH vetoed most of them , and we chose from the remainder.

Sarah's middle name (Ellen) is my grandmother's middle name. She is my only surviving grandparent, and it was important to me to have names from my family, since the girls would be getting DH's last name.

Amy's middle name (Elizabeth) is my middle name.

I'm sure Sarah will hate her name at some point because it's so common -- every Sarah I've ever met has felt that way -- but we still like it, though sometimes I wish I had chosen something a little more distinctive.



Alden I think I told you before my sister's name is Sarah Ellen. And I'm Amy Michelle, but Amy Elizabeth sounds good too.

 

Anya Grace -- I had always loved the name Grace. My hubby & I thought that since I didn't have any grace (I fall up steps, have had 8 broken bones, 28 stitches and a couple concussions) the only way I would ever have any would be to name a baby Grace!!! I wanted to maintain some family heritage and I love the German name "Anja" but hubby thought everyone would mispronounce it so we went with an Anglicized spelling of Anya.

We were racking our brains to come up with some possible boy names. We had liked Ryan Patrick or Ryan Alan.

Josephine Olivia -- During the ultrasounds at the amnios the tech said she was sure they were both girls! Now we had to come up with another girl name. SO in the 10 mins. from when the tech left the room to go get the doctor for the amnios and come back with him we came up with.... Josephine (maintains my hubby's French Canadian heritage, my French heritage) and we had already liked Olivia but it was too popular for a first name.

How cool to hear everyone's ideas! Thanks for sharing. :a_smil09:

 

This is a very interesting thread. Thought I would join in

Nicholas Joseph: These are both HUGE family names on both sides. Dh side has a Nicholas or Nicole in every generation. My side has several Josephs in every generation. I have an uncle who is Joseph Nicholas, etc. etc. We just had to use these names!

Alexander David: I originally liked the name Andrew, but Dh was too hot on it. He then threw out Alexander and it kind of grew on me. David is Dh name. Of my 3 boys (6 name total if you count first and middle) Alex is the only name we picked just because we liked it. All the rest are family names.

It was only after we chose these names that one of my nieces pointed out that the Uncle Jesse and Becky's boy twins from "Full House" were Nicky and Alex. We had already decided on these names and stuck with them, but it is amazing how often people still point this out.

 

We chose not to name our girls after any family members. I personally don't like any of our family members names well enough to give it to my children. Their middles names I've loved since I was a child I always said I wanted to name my girls Grace and Faith. If we have another girl her middle name will be Hope.

Liberty, I came up with when my DH was in Iraq. I though it would be fitting. When I told DH the name he fell in love with it instantly

Leighanna, was the only name DH and I could agree on. We wanted to stay with the L theme. DH wanted Leanne and I can't stand that name (sorry don't mean to offend anyone with that name). I wanted Leona but DH didn't like how it sounded so we compromised and went with Leighanna. But I got chose the spelling.

 

Connor Daniel:

My MIL maiden name is OConnor, and My husbands name is Daniel

Sean Micheal:

We loved the name Sean...suprisingly, in both our irish families there is no Sean...lol. Michael is my fathers name, and for the arch angel Michael.

 

There were 5 other Kellys in my graduating high school class in addition to 3-4 in every other class and I swore that wouldn't happen to them! (Kelli, Kellie (me and another) Kelley and Kelly)

Sooooo I looked at the SS name list and for every year and tried to select names not in the top 50-75 for first names. We went into the delivery room with 3 boys names and 2 girls... Liam Victor, Gavin Carroll, Joel William and Evelyn Victoria and Jocelyn Carole. The middle names are for my parents: Victor and Carolyn and DH's dad George William (DH's mom is Gilda, pronounced Jill-da not middle and her 1st grandkid is Jillian, nothing more I could do!) FIL HATES HATES HATES his first name and always has so we focused on William. We waited to see their little faces to name them and I have had people tell me they have never met kids that look so much like their names!

Liam just looks like a Liam. ANd Joss well she came out SCREAMING and girls named Evelyn don't scream like that!

 

I knew I was having twin boys, but the day we were diagnosed with TTTS, it became a mad rush to name them. I didn't want them to die without names OR I didn't want them to be baby A or baby B -- we were fighting for their lives and they were going to be known as REAL babies, not fetuses.

I chose the name Lucas that night for twin A (my recipient). St. Lucas is the patron saint of doctors and God knows we needed their help! It took a couple of more days to settle on Matthew for twin B (my donor). I chose it because it means gift from God. These boys already were a gift, but since Matthew was more likely to pass away first, I was asking for yet another gift. So they were Lucas and Matthew from 19 weeks on. Their father decided he didn't like the name Matthew when I was about 24 weeks along and I told him too bad -- that was his name and there was no way I was changing it. After what I had been through, it would have been traumatic to have to change this babies name.

It wasn't until after they were born that I chose their middle names: Lucas Gabriel and Matthew Michael -- the names of the archangels. I did this because I wanted to acknowledge that these children are true miracles and that only God could have saved them. (TTTS at 19 weeks, PPROM at 20 weeks, multiple abruptions, placenta previa, both born in renal failure and respiratory failure from having no fluid for >8 weeks). Also, Michael is the name of my favorite uncle who had passed away 8 years before the twins birth. Their brother, Nicholas Conner, was named in honor of my favorite aunt, Connie, who passed away 4 years before they were born. I like to think that my aunt and uncle know that is a small way of keeping their memories alive in my children, although they never got to meet them.

 

Delaney Marie It took us a long time to agree on the name for her we never even picked it in the baby book and then one day I was like her name is going to be Delaney Laney for short and Marie after my partners middle name.

Riley James We fell in love with this name when we heard it in my daughters gymnastics class for a little boy James because we could call him RJ for short.

Silly me didnt think how coufused the kids would get when I call or disipline them because if they dont listen to the full Name they all answer. My oldest DD is Caylee Lynn all the kids names end in lee sounds ooopppss bad mom :blush:

 

This is such a fun topic. I love reading about how you all came up with your babies names.

Audrey Grace........I have always loved the country singer Faith Hill and her real name is Audrey Faith so I picked Audrey and then wanted something to do with me for her middle name and came up with Grace because my name ( NANCY ) means Graceful.

Aiden Bryce...........I love the actor Aidan Quinn ( Legends of the Fall ) and so I picked Aiden using an e instead of an a to make it different. Bryce is my DH's name and I've always loved it so we went it for Aidens middle name. Thankfully my DH liked my favorite names and agreed to them

 

We wanted to avoid the top 100 but stay in the top 1000. We wanted both names to be easy to pronounce and easy to spell as well as being gender specific and with a preference toward names that wouldn't be shortened into nicknames. We also discussed having the names start with the same letter but we weren't decided on it. One morning, DH said he had thought of names he liked and I was happy with them. He hadn't checked "the list" but when we did, they were between 100 and 1000. It was surprisingly easy and sounds much more scientific in my description than it actually was. If we had thought of two names we both loved that didn't "fit the rules", the rules would have gone out the window :lol: Their middle names are family names and were chosen before the first names but then assigned based upon how they sounded with the first names.

 

I think I remember this thread from FY...

Noelle Marie: My DH and I were just throwing out names we both liked. I remembered a girl who went to school with my older brother and I always liked her name, even when I was in grade school. I mentioned the name to DH and he loved it too. It reminds most people who hear it about the Christmas song, the First Noel. I hear people humming it after they hear her name--so funny! Noelle's middle name was going to be Margaurite, but that would have been a pretty long name, so we changed it to Marie. Marie is after Mary, Jesus' mommy!

Karl Martin: It was a toss up between Karl and Micheal up until right after delivery and I saw his face. Karl is a family name for my DH. Karol was Pope John Paul II's birth name before becoming Pope and we have a fondness for him. My sister's name is Martina and I'm pretty close to her, hence, Karl's middle name Martin. St. Martin de Porres is also a great saint!!

A few months ago I realized that each of our children have an 'L' in their first names and a 'R' in their middle. This was completely unintentional--hee, hee...BTW, my DD1 is Elena Rae.

 

Alyssabeth Anna: I love the name Elisabeth, but I don't like the way capital, cursive E's look....I know, it's silly. So I was doodling names one day and came up with Alyssabeth. I wanted her middle name to be Ann, after my sister and my grandma, but dh thought Anna would flow better with our last name, so I gave in.

Jackson Randall: All along, our boy name was Alexander John (dh's middle name and my grandfather's first name) then a relative named their son Alexander first, grrr. So, I sent dh to a name website and told him to look through it and email me the names he liked. Jackson was the name we agreed on. Randall is my dad's name.

 

Grayson Harry - I have always loved the name Grayson after watching an Olympic swimmer with the name. Harry is my DH middle name and his grandfather's (who was a twin!) name.

Heath William - We loved the name Heath after visiting Scotland. William is my dad's, brother (who died when he was 4) and both Grandfather's names.

We thought about naming them William and Harry, but can you see the problem :lol: !!!!!LOL

Our girls names were: Piper Elizabeth and Victoria Margaret

 

DS has his paternal grandfather's first names and DD has a 'name from the heart' and my twin sister's middle name. I'm surprised that dh & I agreed!

Clayton Jacob & Audrey Lynn

 

Ian Matthew - I liked the names Ian, Ethan and Aiden for boys names...DH decided he didn't like Aiden (no offense to anyone) and Ethan kinda fell off the radar...so Ian stuck...Matthew because of gift from God - we had a heck of a time getting pregnant...

Abigail Rose - Ever since I was a teen I knew if I had a girl she'd be an Abigail - I just like the name...Rose also because it is a classic name...

neither are family names...DH is a junior and he didn't want a third in the family

I had only one girl name picked out but 2 boys names...I knew deep down we'd only have one girl if we even had one...if Abby had been a boy she'd have been a Philip!

 

The Manning QBs and Tom Brady. Hunter we just liked, it was a name someone at dh's work mentioned.

 

I thought we would never agree on names LOL.

Ryan John Walter- Ryan just came to me and I liked it after DH nixed several, John and Walter are after my dad and FIL

Sierra Rose- Sierra, I heard this name on a soap opera when I was 15 and fell in love with the name and the mystery of the character. Rose was my gramma's middle name, and had DH of been a girl his mom was gonna name him Rose.

 

Ok well when I was pg with my DS I had picked out a boy and a girls name, Lane Alexander (DS) and Lorelei Gail. When I got pg again I picked out a girl and a boy name. I still really liked Lorelei but I wasn't so sure of Gail. I have always been a big fan of using family names so I gave Lorelei my mother's middle name, Roeshelle ( By the way the boy name was Ethan). Then we found out we were having 2 girls and I told my DH that we needed to picked out another girls name and he blurted out Rebecca Anne. I told him that if one girls middle name was after my mother then the other should be after his. Low and behold his mother's middle name is Anne.

 

Well, my mom's family is irish. My great grandmother's maiden name was Kelly, we have a Kelly in every generation, both male and female. My great great grandmother's name was (no I'm not kidding) Survannah Susannah Mulara Vogt (married names Kelly, then Dodson). For the longest time I thought I would name my daughter Survannah Kelly, but dh didn't like it so much. <_< He wanted to name dd Clara after his favorite great aunt whom everyone admired. Me....not so much. I told him that was fine, as long as I could do the same. I had a great aunt who was in the last stages of cancer while I was pregnant, her name was Donna Belle. So I told him we would name dd Clara Belle :laughing: No way was he gonna let his dd have the same name as a clown! So we compromised on the name Claire. Kelly didn't fit with Claire very well, and my sister is named Kelly, so to avoid comparisons and confusion I dumped the Kelly name. My name is Raye Lynn, so we reversed the names and combined them to form Lynae. Originally it was to be Lynnae Claire, but our last name also has 6 letters..........

My ds was the easiest to come up with, unlike the weeks of negotiations it took for his sister's name. My maiden name is Lucas, my father had no sons, so I told dh I wanted to use it as a middle name. He said, no, only a first name. Dh's name is Bradley. That was way too easy!

 

In Jewish tradition it is common to honor the deceased by using their names or initials in naming your children.

We went with Noah Thomas...Noah for DH Uncle Norman which we just adored; Thomas for my Uncle Tom.
Jacob Stewart........Jacob for DH Great Grandfather Julius which my DH is also named for; Stewart for a uncle on my side.

If they had been girls they would have been named after our grandmothers. Audrey Tamara which is our maternal grandmother names and/or Sarah McKenna.....Sarah was my great grandmother and McKenna would represent DH Grandma Mary

 

The funny thing is my dh and I don't have too much of a story......we each decided to pick one....I have always loved the name Lily Kate.
My dh had heard Parker and liked it so we put Stephen as his middle name since it is my dh's name.

so there you go Parker Stephen and Lily Kate all in the matter of about an hour of thinking about it.

 

We had picked Jazzlyn out when I first gor pregnant. As tradtion flows she got my mom's mn(I have my grandma's). Thus as baby A she became Jazzlyn Ranee. We wanted something to go with it also tradtion(other family twins include Luther & Lewis and McCaitlyn & McKenzie) we went thru several -lyn and J- names and finally settled on Jesslyn. Jesslyn's middle name is Dunae which is also my little sister's mn.

 

All of my girls have at least one family name as part of their name.

Anjanette Lorraine--DH is a Civil War buff and read the name Anjanette was some general's daughter/niece or whatever. It grew on me, so it stuck. Lorraine is MIL's first name.

Originally the twins were going to be Gwendolyn and Charlotte, but DH didn't like Charlotte and I didn't like Gwendolyn. We decided we needed names we could both live with, so:
Olivia Ruth--Olivia we just liked. It was a name we had thrown around before we found out there were twins. Ruth is MIL's middle name.

Josephine Dorothy--Josephine was my mom's middle name. Dorothy is for our Grandmothers, both shared the same name.

Elizabth Rose--Elizabeth is my sister's middle name. Rose we just liked, and I like to think of the Bette Midler song "The Rose" and its symbolism of life renewing itself after the loss of Olivia.

But all the girls go by nicknames: Annie, Joey, Ellie. I have had people comment that after choosing such classic names we shouldn't use nicknames. Anjanette just seemed like a mouthful for a newborn! Joey also gets called Jo-Jo. Ellie was my choice over Liz/Lizzie/Beth and all the other nn for Elizabeth, they just didn't do anything for me!