"Stolen" Baby Names

[2CheekyMonkeys]

yeah it is annoying. for first pregnancy i told everyone our planned middle name would be the first name and then when bub was born lo and behold we decided we liked hannah as a name better. ;-) this time round i have been quite open with the names i like.

DH and i were going through a name book and came up with a name we liked but it sounded very familiar. i then remembered that a friend of mine who is due a week before me had 3 names that she has loved since highschool and so i emailed her to confirm that it was the name she liked, saying that if it is i would cross if off my list and not think of it again. she wrote back that yes it was the same name and if i really liked it it didnt matter to her if we named our baby the same as hers it just means there would be two ethans coming into the world. i thought that was absolutely generous and lovely!!! we usually cling to our liked names so getting this perspective was refreshing. and truly.. does it matter if there are two babies with the same name? not really.

[Pandora]

I think it depends on the situation.
If two people re pregnant at the same time and one uses the name the other was going to use, especially if they know the sex, then i think thats a bit rude.
But to rule out a name because someone (who may not be UTD, or even TTC) has told you they like it? Soooo, what if they dont ever have a baby, or dont have one of the right sex, are you suppoed to not use a name on the off chance that they do have the right baby, and still like the name by then?
What if that name happened to be at the top of your list to, and you are pregnant, but hadnt been talking names and they just blurt out oh i really like Susan for a girl...so what you cant use it now? Not in my book.

[JordieC]

I agree that if you are pregnant at same time as someone and you have said names then it would feel unfair to use them but if people wanted to use my DD"s name then I would be honoured not ****ed off!

[~Trish~]

It would bother me personally! I would go out of my way not to name my child someone I know well's favourite name out of respect, but that's just me and how I feel! Not everyone feels the same way and that's great.

With DS2 we didn't tell anyone (except my sis) what we were naming him so we didn't risk anyone else hearing it and liking it too! We will do the same thing this time around

[Pandora]

Trish, what if someone tells you when you are say 38 weeks pregnant oh I really like XYZ name, and thats the name you've chosen and not told anyone...would you change it?

[~Trish~]

Trish, what if someone tells you when you are say 38 weeks pregnant oh I really like XYZ name, and thats the name you've chosen and not told anyone...would you change it?

I don't know if I'd change it at that late stage, but I'd probably freak out a little LOL! I would tell that person straight away that we have already chosen that name and I guess just guage their response. If that person wasn't currently pregnant it wouldn't bother me as much.

I don't know why I feel weird about it, I just do. But, I am weird

[OceanPrincess]

A friend of ours was pregnant about 8 weeks before we were, she actually said to us that if we had a favourite name we should tell her so that she would not name her baby that. Her reasoning was that she'd already had 2 girls, she'd used her fave names and was working on a list for the third, if it was a girl.

DH and I said we'd think about it but never gave her our prefs - we just thought if she chooses one we like, we'll get over it.

They ended up having a boy so its not a problem...

I think it depends too on how much you think you'll see the child with the stolen name. If its infrequent, who cares? But if they are a close friend, it might be a bit weird - IMO anyway!

[Nelle]

I agree that generally we all nick our names from somewhere. I think the only time it might irk me is if it was someone I would be seeing a LOT. For example, there's a name my little sis has always LOVED for a girl, and I definitely wouldn't call my little girl that, because it's a really unusual name - the name-pinching would be obvious, and I know it would hurt my sis - if I really really liked it, I would at least test the waters, hoping she didn't like the name anymore.

Really though, there are SO many names in the world, it wouldn't be too hard to find a different name would it? But like LoriRae, I don't really share name suggestions before bub is born too, so at least then if someone picks the same name, I won't have hard feelings.

[kitten76]

My SIL is due 16 days before I am and shes having a boy and told me that Liam John was a name she had chosen as well. I have already told my DH that if we have a boy his name will remain the same even if his sister choses it, and he has agreed. He understands the my reasons for the name as its my late fathers and grandfathers names. BTW my SIL knew that we had chosen that name as I was 5 months PG when my dad died in 2003 and all of our family and friends knew if we had a boy that I would name him in my fathers honour.
So in a way I do call that stealing a name especially since its been family knowledge.

[ameylynne]

If the name was in my family, for a child my child's name I would not use it, unless it was named for someone special to the family. In my family, all the family names are middle names so there are no issues with that to anyone.

[BeautifulMadness]

Cant say ive ever had it happen to me. but if it did id be pretty peeved off. i remember a friend of mine who got Prg and was thinking of using the girls name i had picked out at the time not the same but still lol.

a name is a name. there are millions of ppl who share my name and my sons.

[maz]

My SIL and I were pg at the same time with our boys...i had mentioned I wanted to use FIL's name as Nikolaus' middle name as he was the first grandson but then she was telling everyone she was doing..turned us right off. She did use the name and I stepped back too cause I sort of thought she is his daughter...you know respect thing.

THEN I was pg with Wilhelm and we were tossing up between his name and Mateauz..(matthew in german) and BANG 3 friends named their son's matthew (they dont know each other) within a year of knowing it.

IF I ever do have anymore children (which is highly unlikely ) Im not going to share until the baby is born

[paradise lost]

I suppose i don't understand why one might feel a name is stolen. Like i don't see how using a name someone else likes COULD be hurtful - to me it's like someone "stealing" a glance in my mirror - they won't wear it out!

I guess i feel that i could call my kid anything i wanted and even if every friend i had also used that name, it wouldn't mean i couldn't, kwim? And if i didn't want to, because it put me off there being so many babies with that name already, well, that's my decision, not theirs, so they didn't take anything from me. Does that make sense?

With DD there was only really one name we liked. We had zero boys names lined up and only one for a girl, nothing would have made us use another name. I actually have 2 friends who never speak now because one called her son the name the other one wanted to call HER son (the one who wanted the name so badly wasn't pregnant and still has no kids). I know the little boy is named after his dad's dad, who died when bubs was still in the womb, and i've no idea if the other girl knows that, but she did have a big rant about how "she KNEW i wanted that name!" and then kind of dropped the new mother. At the time i thought probably there were other issues happening, but it's been a fair few years now and they're still very distant. It's ironic now too - if she HAD a baby boy now the other boy with his name would be 5 by the time he was born, not exactly 2 babies with the same name...

Bx

[Ryatha]

we have always kept our names a secret, with DD we told everyone we would call her Bambii for a girl or Ferris for a boy - people didn't know if they should take us seriously! But we did accidentally take our friends girls name - they didn't tell us and we didn't tell them and our girl came first!

We also had a list of boys names just in case and the top 4 got used in the last few months of my pregnancy... lucky we had a girl.

But we just make a habbit not to tell anyone as we want it a surprise when the baby arrives.

[Lolli]

THis is going to sound so silly but I have a girls name picked that I am still keeping a secret from everyone... I won't even suggest it on the BB threads!

I'm very attached to it, it's pretty unusual and I have a stupid paranoid fear about it becoming really popular before I get to use it- if I ever get to use it.

[DoubleK]

i guess its different if you're the one who had the name 'stolen'
but then again, if you have picked a name, i say use it regardless of who else has used it!

also, i think my best friend is calling her bub Jack, he is due next week... we've picked the name Zac if our bub is a boy! i think Jack and Zac is cute! lol

[Sequoia]

THis is going to sound so silly but I have a girls name picked that I am still keeping a secret from everyone... I won't even suggest it on the BB threads!

I'm very attached to it, it's pretty unusual and I have a stupid paranoid fear about it becoming really popular before I get to use it- if I ever get to use it.

Nope, not silly at all. I have a quite unusual girl's name picked out too, and I'm not sharing online either.

[Willow]

I'm with Trish on this one. It bothers the hell out of me. I think that if you're close with someone and they share a name they love and have had their hearts set on (whether they're prg or not - to someone who's been ltttc it could be even more hurtful) I would NEVER use it out of respect of our friendship and their feelings. And so I expect the same in return.

When I was prg with DS we'd picked a girls name which we did not discuss with anyone. SIL was about 12 weeks behind me and one day my MIL and (other) SIL were over and were talking about the name BIL&SIL had picked as they knew they were having a girl - I nearly died becasue it was the same name! I immediately told them that and although I was due first, I would have felt terrible if she'd had her heart set on that name and while we did too, I would have at the very least called her to talk to her about it.

Thankfully, we had a boy and in the end they called their DD something else entirely - Matilda, which I also LOVE so obviously we just have similar taste in names.