Great answers, really inspiring, can anyone add to that ?

I like to stay away from the names that are super popular because i remember having 4 Tammy's and 3 Lisa's in a class with only 14 girls when I was little.

The best advice I ever got was to picture cuddling your baby and crooning his/her name. Then picture yourself calling your youngster to supper with that name. Imagine the teenager hanging with their friends having the name. And then picture them at work answering the phone or introducing themselves. This technique totally narrowed down my choices for my son and to this day i still love the name I chose - and he's proud of it too.

Someone famous once said when you're considering a name for your child, go open your door and yell it 3 times. If you feel silly or can't see your child in that picture, it's the wrong name. I think if some people had tried that, we'd have far fewer "Apples" and "Moxie Crimefighters" saddled on some poor kids.

Ask alot of people about the name, in case you end up missing a bad teasing opportunity. A friend wanted to combine hers and her mother's name and was considering Maranne, until another friend pointed out they'd probably live with 'Moron' for a long time.

Lastly, watch for combinations that are hard to pronounce. My friend's last name is Schwartz and she loved the name Troy. Try it out loud and you'll see how jarring it feels to say. It's the same problem when names run together so it's hard to hear what the name really is.

Oh, and I went to school with a guy named Graham Barr, and worked with another guy named Robert Roberts. Enough said about both of those issues....

think of something that you love and then look up different meanings for whatever that may be for example I am part french and I always loved the name Soleil (sun in french) but I did not want to use that as a first name and since my family loves spending time at the ocean I came up with Kai which is Hawaiin for Ocean or the sea my daughter Kai Soleil is almost 3 and she loves the beach which is a total bonus to her name. Kai has many other meanings but I love the hawaiin meaning best.

I have a 6 year old boy and a 1 year old girl. When I was chosing names, the meaning of them meant the most to me. My son was born premature, weighing 2 lbs. 11 oz. We named him Zachary Ryan.
Zachary: The Lord Remebered, Ryan: Little King. Given the situation that name was the best one for him. When I had my daughter, she too was premature, I had only know for 3 weeks that I was having a girl.
Unfortunetly, she went the first whole day of her life without a name. When I was searching for a name for her, everywhere I looked the name Emma stood out. She was born weighing 1 lb. 10 oz. While laying in the hospital bed reading my baby name book, I went straight to Emma. It was the perfect name for such a tiny perfect little baby girl. Emma: Strong. I also wanted to name her after my mom because she has been my rock my whole life. Christene: Faithfull. Strong and Faithfull. Emma Christene has been both since the day she was born. I could never imagine naming my child something that meant something silly. Example: the English meaning of Haley is field of hay.

I saw the post about names like Aaron/Erin and Berry/Barry. My name is Erin. I like it, now that i'm older. But when i was younger, i wouls sometimes get teased because it was a unisex name. For example, my brother's friend used to call me Aaron Carter. It annoyed me, at that age. But then again, i don't recall kids getting teased because their name was Alex, boy or girl.
But it's just my opinion. One of my favorite names is Bailie and my mother says it remindes her of a dog's name.

you need to think of a name that will be easy to use when they get older.

also try a name that has a nick name?

my babies names are Jaina and Jacen.

it also matters what the meaning of the names are.

also think of when they get older. like picture yourself with the baby cooing its name.

then picture yourself calling to for school.

then when it is a teenager.

then answering a phone call at work.

narrows it down, doesn't it?

also you NEED to make sure you don't ,iss out any name-calling opportunities. Like once i knew this poor guy named Ben Dover. how horrible! you really need to think out each name. best of luck


Hope i helped.