Namer's Remorse!

Absolutely no regrets about the names we have given our children... and just as well... the research was soooo rigorous!

My name is quite unusual and my parents said they gave me a plainer middle name just incase I didn't like my first name... but I'm ok with my first name, it suits me. We did the opposite with our kids, gave them unusal first names... but REALLY unusual middle names! LOL If this wasn't a forum with general public access i'd share the names but I don't want the world to know the names of my children.

Personally i couldn't change a child's name... well, it would have to be a REAL good reason. I think past generations got it right with simply allocating an alternative name, or using their middle name instead without an offical change. JMO.

I dont think I could ever change a baby's/child's name at any time. My cousin named her baby Monique, sent out thankyou cards and intro cards with Monique on them and then changed her name to Rachel only 4 weeks later. Bizarre! I couldnt get my head around it. My aunty was named elizabeth angela but my grandmother never intended on calling her elizabeth so always called her angela....i still cant figure out why she wasnt called angela to begin with!!! Elizabeth isnt even a family name so who knows.

DH and I always intended on calling our DS max, but when we saw him, he didnt look like a max and after a day of rethinking the name, we settled with Isaac. Isaac wasnt even on our list of preferred names, I hadnt ever considered it before, it just came to us on the day. Im not religious or anything, but it was like he was given the name by someone else. It suits him perfectly too, Isaac means the laughing one and that describes my son so well...he is such a giggler, right from an early age!

I'm glad we had a girl because we were set on our girls name but couldn't find a boys name we both absolutely loved! I think if we'd had a boy I wouldn't be too excited about his name and would probably be questioning if it was the right choice. But then, I would never change it, I think all kids grow into their names eventually anyway.

my brother is named barry james after my father but mum always wished she had put it as james barry on the birth certificate cause barry was an older fashioned name and he suited james far better, so for that reason we've always called him james since he was born.
now he is 22 he still gets james however if he does sign any legal documents he has to remember to put it as barry james.

We are thinking of changing our 8 month old son's name. We were excited about the girl's name we had picked but were still searching for boys names after my waters broke! About 3 months after my son was born we came across a name that we both really like and would have used if we had thought of it in time. I think it suits my son more as well. My family like the first name we chose but it gets mispronounced which wouldn't happen with the new name. I suppose we could wait to see if the next child is a boy but I keep thinking about it. I haven't looked into how easy it would be to change legally.

My youngest sister was named Jessie, for the first few days of life, but mum didn't think it suited her cause she didn't look like any of her other babies, and when she picked the name Jessie she was picturing a baby that looked like her others. She changed the name to Tessa. Jessie would not have suited her at all!

We named DS Archie Connor. Archie after DH grandfather and Connor is my maiden name. I love that we used my maiden name, but I have often thought I would have perferred the name Alex for him, which is what I had picked. We ended up going with Archie cause of the sentimental reassons. He is an Archie and I love it, but he would have been a great Alex too.

My great-aunty wanted to name her son Robert. He was born...and her hubby went off and registered him as Anthony. She hit the roof and refused to call him Anthony...so he was always Rob. I could never understand as a kid why the whole family called him Rob but his wife called him Tony.

I never met my great-uncle so I have no idea if he called his son Rob or Tony. I'll have to ask my mum that one actually, now that I think about it.

I have no regrets with my kids' names. We spent pretty much the whole pregnancy discussing it and didn't ask for anybody's input so that there would be no "ewww I don't like that name" comments that would put us off. I more or less picked out DS' name and DH picked out DD's...but with the 100% agreement of each other.

Having said that, I don't like DD's middle name at all, it's DH's mum's name. But his mum died when he was young and it was so important to DH...and I thought "well, it's only a middle name." DD can take it up with Daddy in the future if she hates it.

I don't regret any of DS's names - in fact, he has two middle names because we couldn't decide between the two and didn't want to regret our choice if we only chose one!

DP has always been known by his middle name...no idea why his parents even chose his first name :p

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... I could never understand as a kid why the whole family called him Rob but his wife called him Tony.

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Lol nobody ever understands why I refer to DH (and previous boyfriends) as their nickname rather than their given name (unless they're in trouble, and then they know it, the way the kids know they're about to get an earful when the middle and/or last names are used!)... Even my parents refer to DH as his nickname 'Chief' because I barely ever use the name on his birth certificate.
With me, it's simply that the guys I used to date, and the one I married, started out being friends first, so I've always called them by whatever those in their social circle call them - whether it's their last name, first/last name with '-o' or '-ie' tacked on the end, or another nickname that their mates refer to them as.

Maybe I'm weird :) But it will be interesting to see in a few years what the kids think of mummy always calling daddy 'Chief' when it's not his real name lol :D The situation you described is pretty funny though, good on his mum for sticking to her guns and calling him the name she intended for him!!

Wow...10% considered changing the name. That is a lot! I am surprised by that, considering, as the article points out, most people give it a great deal of thought, have a lot of discussions/arguments.

I wish DS' name wasn't so popular, but I wouldn't change it in a million years, it suits him, it has very very special meaning to me.

Interesting article...thanks for sharing!

Julia was going to be called Emily! but there were so many Emily's about at the time of her birth we picked Julia and it suits her so well! We both chose Tara's name to be Tara. No regrets at all here with either girls names! We still have Luke picked out if we have a boy!

^ Lol I admit I almost had a change of heart before I was discharged from hospital with DD - I had her on Friday afternoon and a woman was admitted early Sunday morning (like 2am) and when she got into the ward after delivering (she was put in the bed next to mine) I overheard her saying she'd decided on 'Emily Faye' for her baby - and DH and I had pickd out 'Emily Paige' (which obviously sounds almost identical!) months before her birth... I freaked out and thought, 'Ah, this cow stole my name, I need to pick a new one!!' but DH and I really love Emily Paige so we stuck with it - I figure 'we had it first, she's the big copycat, not me!!'... it is very popular, but that doesn't really worry me, it was more the fact that the middle name as well sounded so similar!!