Were they named after a family member, a favorite teacher, the city in which they were conceived?
Is it tradition to name the first born male in your family after so and so...
You get the idea...
So when I read this blog post from my friend Missy ~ it was fun to go back and look at the different trends with our kids' names like she did.
I used the social security administration site that she linked to back when we were choosing our baby names, but it has been awhile since I've tooled around on the site...
After all, our family is complete - I have no reason to right?
I had a long list of names for our first born daughter - Ava, Kate, Grace, Nora (my great grandmother's name), Carly, Ryan, Victoria...
My first choice was Harper -
Harper Josephine - with the middle name being after my dad - Joseph, a grandfather whom she would never meet.
It fit my criteria of not being very common -
Ranking at #745 the year our daughter was born (2005)
Rob wasn't so big on the name Harper the first time around...but when we were expecting baby #2 to be delivered just 15 months after having our first born - Harper Josephine was the name for girl #2.
Hailey (the name we chose for baby #1) and Harper - cute right?
Alas, a second daughter was not to be...and just LOOK at the popularity of that name now! #54 for 2011!
WOW!
(For the record, I still love that name!)
I'm still not exactly sure why we decided on Hailey, other than that we both really liked it - but I think once we had settled on her middle name - Elizabeth - named after my husband's mother, (also the name of a dear friend & neighbor) and a traditional, classic name that we both really loved...Then the hunt was on for a name that went nicely with Elizabeth.
The other middle name contender was Ann - my birth mother's middle name, my middle name, and the name of one of my husband's dear Aunts...
But, if you name your child Victoria Ann - with a last name like ours, and you have their initials monogramed on towels for their graduation ...Well, it's just not very pretty hanging on the bathroom wall in their first apartment - (or, the horror of a monogramed back pack in elementary school!)
The name Hailey was more popular than we really cared for -
but, it's a name that fits her and we are glad we picked.
Just shy of 15 months later, and we delivered our first (and only!) son. We no longer loved the name Landon (weird right?) and had a lot of trouble deciding on a name.
I would often email my husband a list of names, in no particular order
Joseph
Henry
Jack
Noah
Nolan
Robert
Andrew
Gavin
Ryan
And each and every time - he would write back - with JETER on the top of the list.
Eh...No thanks. The hubs has a favorite baseball player, and I bet you can guess where this is going...
We put Derek on the short list (thank God I was conscious for this delivery, or our son might very well be named Jeter!) and that, is what we decided. I love that it is not very common for kids his age...and still isn't!
We struggled a little bit with his middle name.
I really wanted to use Joseph after my dad - There were some fun options out there - Robert Joseph - AKA RJ, Andrew Joseph - AKA AJ, but in the end...
It was very important to me, knowing that this was most likely our only son, that he be named after his dad.
Derek was decided to be a good, strong, somewhat uncommon first name. And Robert - after his Dad. Add in the fact that my husband's family has used the father's first name, for the first born son's middle name for several generations, and it was a pretty easy decision!
So there you have it!
More than you ever wanted to know about how we chose our children's names...(which will be great to have included in the Blurb books that I turn my blog into every year for when the kids are older! Thanks for the great post idea Missy! )
So, how did you choose YOUR child/pet name?
After a special person, place, or thing?
I'd love to hear!
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