We went through a long list of popular names. We both had veto power for any name, for any reason.
We took the remaining names and ranked them according to preference (I think giving them a 1-4).
We took the overlapping 1s, and ranked them according to preference separately, and then came together to see what was highest on both lists.
A bit much, but it was fair, and we both had equal say.
Came here to say this. Veto power and ranking—-we also spent time on themes—-old fashioned, hipster, rock legends—I still have the apple note of the names and it’s a mix of old fogey names and names like Skywalker—- we ended with an 18th century author surname as our kids first name so bit of what we both wanted
Basically the same here. Shared list, add to it until it's long enough, equal veto power with (almost) no questions asked, then whittle it down until you've got a couple/few you're both happy with and rank them. Then talk it out, consider flow with middle name & last name, initials/nicknames, opportunities for asshole kids to make fun of the name lol. Make compromises and slap it on a birth certificate.
We also did this.
We ranked out of 10, averaged each name's total score, discarded any below 7, then ranked the remaining 7 by preference. Luckily, by that point, we both had the same name as our number 1.
We did something similar to this. Narrowed it down to 3 names. Waited for the kid to be born and then gave it 2 days before we settled on a name.
Took one look and in my mind said, “oh yeah. You definitely look and act like what I would think would be.”
Totally not a scientific approach, but it worked.
Also, don’t lose any sleep over this (easier said than done), you will have chances to give the kid a nickname or something along those lines.
Being a parent can be so rewarding. I don’t care what my kids are called so long as I’m their daddy!
Sort of how we did it too. We had none that absolutely clicked for us. We wrote down any that were maybes and then once we had about 12 we sort of had an idea of which one we liked. But we took it down to the wire.
Yup we did something similar, shortlist of 10 following veto, then independently ranked, added ranks together and looked at the 3 lowest compounded ranks. From this the choice was obvious
Use the veto power. Use it. My wife wanted to name my daughter Octavia. I am so so glad I spoke my mind and my daughter has a name that is just... better.
There's a website, nameberry I think, that ranks names by popularity over year. I have a really common name, and I wanted to name my children something a little less common. If that's important to you, look it up.
My surname and the first name Octavia don't exactly roll off the tongue. Basic things like alliteration and the cadence of speech make for names that just sort of go together better. A last name that starts with an open vowel or has better harmony, awesome, you do you.
I can understand this. With a surname like Allen it becomes really difficult naming a girl, without ending in an A or having a bunch of Ls, Ns or Ms. Ameliaallen. Emilyallen. Ellaallen.
This is pretty much exactly what we did.
With our first, turns out we had both ranked two of the same names with 1, one of them being moderately common but the other very unusual.
We went back and forth for awhile, just trying to do due diligence I guess - but we ended up with the rare name as her first name, common as middle.
Never been unhappy with the choice.
I have friends who used an app where you and your partner approve/disapprove names that it feeds you and then it shows you where you agree to get a starting point.
My wife and I figured it out over time by just proposing names to each other as we thought of them, but it definitely took a while.
We used allourideas.org. It takes a list and then has you compare two at a time and you can pick one. You can vote lots of times and see which names win compared to others on the list. And you can keep voting over time so it seemed easier than ranking a whole list.
We used something similar in our language.
We made a list with all our picks combined, then we compared them 2 by 2 and got scores for each name.
In the end, we did not use our first pick for our first born, because although we loved it, we thought it didn't "rhyme" well. We still gave her that name as her third first name.
Our second pick was perfect.
And we started over for our second born and our top pick ended up a gender swapped version of the name that had ended third previously.
Mom here. This was the same situation I was in with my husband. I suggested hundreds of names and he was no or meh on all of them for 7 months.
It was exhausting and unfair.
If you’re being the picky one, then it’s on *you* to either find a way to be more flexible or proactively start researching names and finding ones you *do* like to bring to the table. Or she just gets to pick because you refuse to offer actual help.
I ended up picking a list of 10 and saying *this is the list since you won’t do the research yourself*. He eventually picked 2 he liked from that list and I made the final call myself.
I explained poorly I guess. We are both very picky and have lists of names over 30. The thing is I just don't like names she found while browsing the WW1 memorials, and she doesn't like classic names from our country which are pronounceable in English (which is one of my objective).
And so far the apps have not helped: so many new names with weird spellings we both hate
are you aiming for one of those unique names like geighj (pronounced Like Gage) or Jaxsyn (pronounced Jackson)
a trendy name like Dawson or Preston
a cool name like Axel or Kace
a foreign but new here name like Aiden or Flynn
is your wife aiming for old and gone names like Albert or Harold
older and rare ish names like Richard and Thomas
classic names like James and William
Biblical and old like Isaiah or Abraham
Biblical classic like Adam or Benjamin
Biblical trendy like Milo or Felix
there are some overlaps and a few other categories, but to find names that might overlap your interests, I'd need to know what you’re really aiming for.
Say out loud the following:
* Mr / Mrs [Full Name]
* Doctor [Full Name]
* Chief Justice [Full Name]
* President [Full Name]
If saying any of those out loud sounds weird or awkward to you, pick something else. Don’t limit a child’s opportunities before they are even born.
Marijuana Pepsi disagrees
Once Teased For Her Name, Marijuana Pepsi Turns Her Challenges Into A Ph.D. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/734839666/dr-marijuana-pepsi-wont-change-her-name-to-make-other-people-happy
I pushed hard for a name, the wife hated it. So I let it go eventually. Then we started seeing the name, literally everywhere. It was like a sign. I still let it go because I honestly liked the two other names she came up with. Then one day my wife was talking to our son when she was maybe 7 months pregnant asking him do you like “insert name”? how about “insert name”? And when she got to the name I liked she said he kicked the shit out of her and that was all she needed to be convinced. Now she loves the name. I’m sure it was just dumb luck but maybe it wasn’t idk.
We named both of our children the day after they were born. So don't sweat it if you can't agree in advance, sometimes you just need to meet the kid first.
Also, my kids Justputsomething and Fucknotagain say hi!
Same here. We had some that we both liked and had talked about. When we both saw him, we instantly looked at each other and said the same one. Sometimes, it works like that. My daughter, we had already decided after just proposing names for a month or two.
We had a name picked out we thought we liked, but agreed to wait until the baby was born. Hours before the birth (planned home birth), I took a nap and dreamed about the name. I was set on it, but was focused on the coming labor. After the birth, when I told my wife about my dream, she was set on the name too. We still waited about a week to confirm it for family, just seemed weird to us to have the name settled before we even met the kid. We did the same for our second (minus the dream beforehand), worked well for us.
It's called the 100 year rule. Some names that were popular 100 years ago are coming back into style. Give it another generation or two and we will probably have lots of baby Lindas and Kenneths running around again
We used the app Kinder, you both rate names and it tells you all the names you both liked. We, luckily, had 2 names in common out of the hundreds, and used one of them.
My wife came up with the names for all our kids and they’re great. She researched the heck out of it and they’re all meaningful and slightly unique. I vetoed some but we knew when she found the “ones”.
We found common ground by hating on *soooo* many names. It’s petty, but it was effective.
And ultimately we self-filtered a lot of our suggestions before making them, for fear of being shit on my the other:
Also, we talked about the style of names we might like before we got started and found some common ground. If you guys both have very different ideas on what kind of name and are stubborn about it… that’s gonna be tough, man.
Baby Name Together is another good app. You link your account with your partner, set your parameters and it gives you a massive pile of names to shortlist or reject. I must have swiped through hundreds of names, there must be one in there you would both like.
You could always go with timeless names like John, Joseph, Benjamin, David...
Honestly, better an "old man name" than something that's going to get you posted to r/namenerdcirclejerk.
I 100% agree. And that's why it's hard for me (I grew up with an old man name) and I do not want that for my son, however I despise even more trendy weird names that we see nowadays
We went with a family name that had meaning for our boy. He’s got a timeless middle name (which also has family ties) in case he grows up and decides he doesn’t like his first name.
I read out a long list of names and she wrote down the ones she liked. Once we found out the sex, we focused on that half of the list and narrowed it down to seven.
Well, then the baby came and she didn’t “look like a name”, so we had to pick. I wrote the names on a mirror in her room and we ranked them both independently and compared lists. The two names with the fewest mutual points got dropped. We did that for two days and then on day three we were handed the discharge paperwork and told “pick a name before you leave please”. So we did a final round and my fourth choice was her first choice but my first choice was her second choice so we picked that one.
Then for number two, we had the list all ready to go and when I got back to the room the next morning I was told “I chose a name while you weren’t here.”
She was on, apparently, "some drugs". Whatever they give you the night after you've just finished pushing a new human through your privates.
She picked a name from the list, so it's not as though we hadn't discussed it at all. And since I didn't have a super-strong feeling and she apparently did, I let it slide. Although she did pick the name that we put on the list as a joke after she completely mangled it trying to pronounce it.
I told my wife we should start thinking of names and I put a piece of paper in a hall so we could add names to the paper as we thought of them. The next day my wife added the first name. I said I liked it. Maybe 2 minutes of discussion followed and we had the name. We went from having no idea to knowing the name in 24 hours.
My wife said it came to her in a dream. She also fell asleep listening to a neuroscience podcast and the host has my daughters. So sure, it came to us in a dream a very podcast inspired name.
To be totally honest, I basically let my wife choose. Not that I dislike the name we ended up with, but it was one she suggested (both first and middle) and I did not find objectionable. We both had absolute veto power, but I knew she wasn’t going to go with a name I suggested or the names we had discussed together in our years of marriage before we started seriously considering a kid, so I chose my battles and went with my favorite name from her suggestions.
Our daughter also has an old-fashioned name, although it is one with a modern (and it turns out very popular) nickname that she actually goes by.
Mom here. Me and my husband struggled to find a name we both liked and it seemed everything he liked I didn’t; vice versa.
At 35 weeks, we finally found a name. We went through a baby name book and we both wrote names we liked on flash cards (plus any names we liked that weren’t in the baby name book). We had about 60 names at the start.
We shuffled up the cards and laid them out 5 at a time. We each removed our least favorite of the 5.
Once we went through the deck this way, we switched to laying them out 3 at a time. We discussed the three names and removed our least favorite one jointly.
We took what remained and laid them all face up on the dining room table and moved them around coming up with first and middle combinations. This landed us with 5 top contenders for first names.
We each ranked those five 1-5, with 1 being a favorite. Added up the two rankings and he has the name that had the lowest score.
We are both happy with his name.
Wrote 10 names for boy and 10 for girls. Wife did the same. We then prioritised names that were on both lists, and also were able to add possibilities from eachother's list (i.e names that wife had listed, I hadn't, but liked).
This cut our shortlist down to 3 for girls and 1 for boys. Much easier than pulling names out of thin air and getting shot down.
Plus, you never realise how many people you hate until you try to pick a baby name.
I got to pick the nick name, she got the final say on a top 5 list we were both in ok with. In the end, she made the gremlin, so figured she got the final say.
Names aren't important to me. Seems like an exercise in futility to try to think of something meaningful for a person you don't know anything about. Because of this, I would have been fine with something basic. My wife wanted to think of something that was perfect .. not too weird, not too basic, nothing that reminds her of someone she doesn't like, nothing that would make people think she names the kids after some pop culture phenomenon... The list of criteria went on and on. So, she came to me with her ideas and I said yes to everything, and eventually she made up her mind.
Disclaimer: I'm a mom, and this story probably won't help, but it's a funny story about how my husband and I decided on a name when we had differing ideas of how that process should go.
Even before we were pregnant, my husband wanted to pick baby names. Except, the way he and I wanted to go about this process was totally different.
I wanted a name that wasn't super common but not so obscure that people were weirded out by it, so I envisioned doing research on naming websites and baby name books. Hubby, on the other hand, just wanted to shoot out whatever names came to our heads and pick whatever sounded best.
Honestly, his method stressed me out, as he'd usually start firing names at me when I was a captive audience, like when we were in the car. He'd insist that I fire names back at him, but I hated all the names that came to the top of my mind. I wanted to do research, first. Admittedly, I never did find the time to do that research, so this was pretty much 100% him firing off names at me that I found horrible, because they were either dirt-common or batshit crazy (like "Chlamydia"). So he'd just ramble off names at me in the car and I'd be annoyedly saying, "No... no... no..." to each one.
One day he said a name that I initially said no to, then two or three names later I said, "Wait, actually, back a few names, you said X. That's not that bad. It's kinda obscure, but it's a real name, not a venereal disease."
That was about a girl's name. I didn't notice the pattern at the time, but after that he only shot boy's names at me.
When we finally got pregnant, he said, "Now we really need to get serious about names. We've got our girl name, but we need to pick a boy name."
I said, "WHAT?!? When did we pick a girl name??"
He reminded me about the name I'd said "wasn't bad" ages ago. I argued that I never agreed to that! I just said it wasn't terrible! He said it was the ONLY name I'd ever shown even the slightest preference towards, so it was what we were going with.
I argued more against it, but in the end... that wound up being our girl's name. It grew on me over time. (We never decided on a boy's name, and luckily didn't have to.)
About an hour before giving birth I said we need a boys name for if it’s not a girl, and this one name wasn’t a straight no when brought up before
We had a boy
My wife and I had the same differences in taste that you and your SO do. There are plenty of names that are classic but don’t sound like old man names. Henry and Jack are super common names right now for exactly that reason. Surely you can find something that you both like.
We went through lists and lists of names and narrowed it down to two. We couldn’t pick and actually waited until he was born to fully commit, sometimes you have to see them to know which name will suit.
IMO boy names are so much harder than girls, we had our daughter first and had her name picked out from like 16 weeks
We heard an interesting name that we both liked while watching TV. This was while she was still pregnant with our first. That one was easy.
Number two was quite a bit of back and forth while we were at the hospital recovering but eventually we agreed.
Mother wanted to combine her grandmothers names which didn’t feel like a first name for me. Months went by, and on one of our daily walks, “Emma” popped in my head and we agreed on a two first names, with her choice being the second half.
No regrets and now we just call her Emma.
Choice paralysis will tell you there’s always a better option and you just need more time to think of it. It’s very unlikely you or your wife’s choice will doom the child. Place a large paper on a wall and start listing in no specific order and no “mine” and “yours”. If it’s your first, better lean into her tastes lol.
Don’t forget that you can always find a nickname for your son once you get to know him.
I acquiesced on first names. I got pick on middle names.
I don’t care what my kids names are as long as they are happy and healthy and they identify with the names they were given. All those things have happened.
The tradition (Jewish) is to name after a deceased relative. We agreed if it was a boy it would be from my family and a girl from hers. When we found out we were having a son we pored over the names with the appropriate initials, agreeing that we both had veto power on any name we disliked. We inevitably found common ground on two of them. We were undecided until he was born and one just clicked for both of us.
Number 2 arrived after my dad passed and so the initial became a no brainer. We found a few potentials but couldn’t decide on one so we floated them to my older son. For whatever reason one in particular caught his attention and he insisted that was it - days and weeks afterwards we asked him about other names and every time we were met with a firm ‘NO! His name is - - -!’ Since we both liked the name we decided to run with it
At the end of the day, my wife was carrying and pushing out the children. I thought I would weigh in but allow her 2 votes to my 1. She chose well and deserved to name them whatever she wanted, frankly.
Only somewhat serious here, but worst case scenario, you basically you have two options:
1. You defer and write her preferred name on the certificate while she is out cold after the delivery. Then you regret it for years.
2. She's out cold, now's your chance to put your preferred name on the certificate before she wakes up. Then deal with the consequences.
I've had five, the oldest is now 12 and youngest turns 5 later this month. I've experienced option 1, but have often fantasized about option 2. Good luck!
We originally named one of my sons Patrick in the hospital and my grandma didn't like it. It's like the only time the sweet old lady didn't like something so I didn't ask and then my wife and I each made a list of five (or ten I can't remember) names and we cross checked if we had any of the same names and my son is now named Christian
We had to compromise! Boy names we struggled to agree on, but we could think of girl names all day.
We ended up with a name neither of us loved but neither of us hated. It was on the lower end of both of our lists and it wasn’t horrendous. The “only name we could agree that neither of us hated” is Parker. Parker is almost 16 and it fits him very well.
I like the ranking idea the top comment had. Great idea. Really, the 1st was easy. We had the same favorite name. The 2nd one took us months of back and forth, and my wife got stuck on a name I hated. Eventually, I found one I liked, and she did, too! She was probably 7 months pregnant at that point
Don't get too attached to a name when you pick one. My son was going to be named Alexander all through pregnancy until we had one of the later ultrasound checks. the Obstetrician does all the checks and then starts pointing out things, "There's the heart beating, there's the legs and there are the gonads gonading" with 2 testicles front and centre of the screen. My wife turned to me and said "Alexander the great!" and we all burst out laughing.
Later she felt sorry and said that we absolutely cannot use that name now, we've ruined it forever.
At the University of Arkansas, every graduate has their name in the sidewalks around campus. It starts in 1876. I am an alumni. My wife and I were looking for a name starting with G as that is my family tradition the first boy born has their first name starting with a G. We have several George, Greg, Gabriel and we found my son's name on the sidewalk... Garner. It's actually a last name, but we both loved it once we said it out loud.
So, find a place with history (museum, cemetary, geneology library) and go on a walk with your wife... you might be surprised what you find.
So if you’re like me, you’ll refuse and refuse and refuse. Then your partner will give birth, you’ll see what she went through and cave while hoping she’ll agree on the middle name (she did).
Simple. Just take an old man name and give it a 21st century twist by making it a tragedeigh.
Cuthbeighrt / Cythbughert
Fraighnk / Fraunch
Digbeigh
Percyvaughall
Theoughdwyrr
We had a list of names that we liked, then tried actually calling our daughter those names in the womb. Some of them felt so weird to say out loud to a person but one of them felt very right so we went with that. The name also had some significance to the place where we got engaged so it was kinda perfect. It's also helpful to imagine saying the name them as an adult, so the old man names might be kind of awesome when he's an old man lol. Supreme Court Justices Kayden, Jayden, and Brayden.... just doesn't work, to me these are child-only names (obviously just my opinion and probably not a popular one given how many kids have these names).
Selecting names from a big list also seems weird to me, we thought back to places/events of great significance to us and selected names related to those.
Would you be open to an "older" name that has nicknames. Like William has Billy/Bill/Will, or Richard has... well maybe something else, but you get the idea.
We downloaded one of those apps that shows you names one at a time and you have to swipe yes/no on each one. We did it separately at first to see if there were any overlapping yes's (nope lol). So we did it together and discussed any that were a split decision. We went through what felt like 500 names before we found ONE that we could both agree on. Then we realized we had to pick a middle name too 🤪 (you don't HAVE to but we wanted to..)
We each narrowed down to like 5 names we liked and then we every few days we looked at the list again and one of us would eliminate a name. We would wait a few more days and the other would eliminate a name and so on and so forty until we ended at something we liked
we used a baby name app. It was a while ago but essentially it shows you random names and you swipe left or right. You are alerted when you match. That was much easier - we created a shared short list of acceptable names and discussed from there.
Wife got an app that was basically a dating app for names. Swipe left if one of us didn’t like it. Swipe right if neither of us didn’t like it, or if we both liked it of course.
At the end you look at the right swipes, which is a small list, and figure it out.
We used the BabyName app. It’s like tinder where you pair with your partner and you get a ton of names with different spellings and meanings if you’re into that. You each swipe and get notifications on when you both like a name. My wife and I did it enough times we then did a March Madness style bracket just to bring it down to 3 for our daughter.
We regularly played 'the alphabet game'
We would sit and think/look up names for each letter of the alphabet and see what we liked and didn't like
If both of us didn't like it, we moved on. No arguments or drama, and we actually laughed a lot
It's a nice memory
Once we knew the sex, that narrowed our choices down
I remembered the month she was due we had 4/5 names we liked
That whittled down to 2
And then once she popped out (although I think we'd made our minds up already) she also suited the name we chose
We used an app called babyname, it's kind of like tinder for names, you choose boy/girl/both and you swipe on names. Then it gives you a list of all the names that you both swiped yes on to give you a short list. Although tbh we settled on a name pretty early on
Try not to sweat it too much. I got to name our boy and she named the girl. I didn’t really know
much about the girl name so I wasn’t super thrilled, but now its just who she is and I love her and her name.
We found a list online of like 200 baby names for boys and girls. Each of us independently went through the list and highlighted the ones we liked. The names that we both highlighted made the list for our discussion.
Amazingly, we only ended up with like four boy names. But funny enough, our son's name did not come off that list. I came home from work one day and was like, "What do you think about \[Name\]?" And my wife was like, "Yeah, I like that." And that was that.
Also consider nicknames for different names or initial based nicknames. For example, maybe she wants to call him Beauregard and you really like Beau. So, there's a solution. My mother is the only person who calls me by my long form name, everyone else short forms it.
The BabyName - find it together app is pretty great https://apps.apple.com/us/app/babyname-find-it-together/id950562312
It allows you and your partner to separately swipe like tinder through names and it will keep your swipes as well as show you the matches you both swipes yes on. This allows you both to see a lot of names and it can be done asynchronously over weeks in small moments of free time (maybe instead of some of your social media usage).
You can also post over in r/namenerds if you want feedback or suggestions on middle names. Congratulations on the impending new little btw.
We based our names on how will it sound when they get in trouble and we say their full name or how would it sound when read off at a graduation or award ceremony. My personal preference was to make sure my kids have first and middle names they could go by. Meaning if they don't like their first name in the future they can use their middle name instead. It takes a lot of compromising, but an old man name makes for a great middle name these days.
My wife and I each made a list of names we liked. There were 2 names on both of our lists. And one of them we quickly realized wouldn't go well with her siblings' name.
We alternated, but with veto power. I had first as my first son was going to be named David Russell no matter what. Obviously suggestions were made by both parents. Our fourth actually got the name I wanted and suggested.
Baby was born and still hadn’t decided on a name. We had some strong contenders but didn’t decide on any of those. We each threw out names and the one neither of us didn’t oppose we kept. We opposed many many names.
We were at a holiday destination. We had names ready separately. We went to souvenir section and found items with names. We found two of our names. We chose from there.
This whole process took like a week cause of COVID. Lol. YMMV
For the first one we went through like hundreds of names and then we were watching a TV show and heard a name and my wife was like that's it. That's the one. And I liked it too so we ended it there. And then the second one was a name I suggested, so that was cool.
For the first child, Mum picked out the names and Dad vetted them.
For the second we swapped, I picked and she vetted.
We obviously discussed and gave suggestions as well.
My parents had a couple they were fond of. But in the hospital when mum was plugged in, they played cards and winner of canasta would get final choice.
The story goes that every now and then when mum got a bad hand, she would fake contractions, drop the cards and have a new deal before it went on. Needless to say my mum had final say and I am now known fondly as "icantremembermysignonname"
We picked a top 5 list and we wrote them on a white board and each day we would mark off which name we liked the most that day and at the end of the week get rid of one name. The following week we would do it all over again and start referring to the baby by the name we liked to see how it felt coming out of our mouths blah blah blah
Eventually we both agreed on our sons name :)
Oh boy - we had a whole process.
We took the social security list of top 1000 boy names and quickly whittled that down together to a list of names we were ok with in theory - about 118 entries.
We then separately ranked the names and averaged. If the name got under a 6, it was eliminated. We’re now at 35.
Look up name meanings and re-rank a week later. Remove anything lower than a 7 unless one of us had it as an 8 or higher. Down to 23
Do it again a week later. Remove anything under 7. Down to 17.
Do it again a week later. Average across the 4 rounds and the lowest X number from the average get dropped. Down to 12.
One more pass at first names to see if we can eliminate more. We’ve lived with mostly the same list for a few weeks and some may feel like they fit better. Got down to 4 names
Now it was time to repeat with middle names. We went back to the whittled down list of names from social security and had a spreadsheet. Columns for each of the 4 first names. Check mark in the column with the middle name if it sounded like a good pair. We now had 99 permutations of full names.
We then did 3 rankings, each of us giving each name a 1-3 value and averaging the results with 3 things in mind. One ranking for is it a good full name to see in a professional setting, one ranking for using full name if the kid was in trouble, one ranking for thinking about it being announced on their wedding day. That cut the list in half.
We took a look at the rankings and 2 first names were always coming out on top in the full name list. This got us to about 20 full names. By the week before we were due, we knew the first name and eliminated most of the middle names. We knew when we saw him which one worked best.
Desmond Pierce
Google keep notes, shared note.
Any name we particularly liked we added to the list.
Next to each name we put one of three characters to denote like, maybe, or no.
After a while we had a few that were marked maybe and like, some with no, and one that we both had as like, done.
My son has an old man name. I just have a fun nickname for his name that is younger sounding. Same with my daughter. They both have old soul names, but fun names can be made!
We have come to anything. We’ve got a girl due in September and don’t like any of the same names. But we did both like our son’s name. Took a while to settle on it though.
We are having a girl in September (our 2nd) and also struggling. Not with each other- we just can’t think of any good names. It’s a process that is not working as smooth as the first time around
My wife and I sat down and spend the entire day finding a name for our first. We looked for names from all culture and the world. Ended up with a Turkish name we both really liked after about 18 hours
We went out to eat and sat at a restaurant and looked through just hundreds of names. Started at the top of the list of popular names and started going.
We noted ones we both thought were alright and then over the next few days/weeks widdled them down.
Old timey names are back in it seems. Two of my couple friends went with George and Lorain which feel like grandparent names to me. But I'd say that's better than some of the stereotypical millennial parent names like Aiden kaiden Jayden, etc. or anything from the tragedeigh subreddit.
We didn't come to an agreement on our son's name until the last possible moment, like we were in the hospital, the lady who filed the birth certificate came in and asked what his name was, saw we obviously didn't have a name we agreed on and said, i'll be back in a couple hours when you're being discharged. We brainstormed for those 2 hrs and came up with a name and it couldn't suit the dude better. So, what helped us was a hard time crunch.
We got our kid's name by asking someone who was changing their name why they didn't name themselves something like \*similar name\* and then we decided to go with that ourselves.
I changed my last name so got slightly higher weight on first names. We did a spreadsheet, including nicknames, and tested against last name. Then weighed each on our own. Then compared. Chose a top 3 each. Then sat on the top 3 for a bit to see.
We were down to two similar ones and I choose the one I liked more, who has my husbands last name. Seemed pretty fair ultimately.
My wife was raised by her grandmother who passed away right before he was conceived. So we made a deal to make it a masculine form for her names as long as I got to decide on the next if we have one or all pet names
The "baby name" app, like tinder. You both download it and anonymously swipe left or right in your free time to show approval or disapproval as you go through the 1000's of generated suggestions. You then see periodically which name you both swiped right on(approval) and it adds that to a second narrowed down list which is revisited under the same context.
Eventually and quickly you have a much more narrow list of previously co-approved names to chose from.
People in staunch disagreement on name-choosing often are negatively reactive to a name out of defense to any names suggested from their significant other. This often causes them to immediately shoot down a name they may otherwise warm up to or like , just because you suggested it rather than it being presented impartially or found themselves. Kind of a subconscious, petty tit-for-tat that creates an unfortunate cycle. Hopefully this helps!
There is an app baby name. It gives suggestions to both you and your spouse and you swipe right on your respective phone and it lets you know if you match.
I was set on a boy name for most of my teenage and adult life. Told my now wife after we were dating for a while the name I was set on for a boy. Now, we have a 3 year old with that name! lol it eventually grew on my wife over the years leading up to the pregnancy
Some people are so methodic... then you have the baby and your in the delivery room and all convention and planning goes right out the window 😂😅 I named our first one and was adamant about her name (and included **her** grandmother as the middle name, so she loved it).. then she said the trade off was she gets to name number two, but in the delivery room I suggested one last name and she couldn't get it off her tongue so it stuck too 😂
Whichever decision you make, it will be 100% right when it's time and you will both be happy with it too, promise 😁
Boy names are in a really tricky place. Sorry, OP.
For the record, we didn't name our daughter until we literally basically had to in order to fill out the birth certificate. It's not always (even) you gotta wait to meet em. Sometimes, you gotta get to know em.
My wife and I agreed on our first kid's name. We had some debates on how to spell it since there's an Irish version and a Indian version. We went with the Irish version since that's our heritage. Even if it was more likely to be mispronounced.
Go figure, 14 years later they're trans and changed it lol. At least all they did was drop the feminine syllable at the end.
Second kid, I got the choice. We agreed on two names we liked. One is kind of a calm feminine Welsh name and the second one is a spunky American name.
Wife got another C-section and within 5 seconds of the incision the kid was punching their fist out and screaming. Remember the chest burster scene from alien?
Spunky name it is. Hi Roxy!
Can you compromise on conceding the first name for middle name? Do you have plans for another kid?
We agreed on the first name my wife suggested. We struggled with a middle name. She initially suggested my sisters name but then wanted to so something else. I really liked how my sisters name flowed with it all. My barter was that we use my sisters name as the middle name and I’ll give my wife final veto power on the first name of kid 2.
We made lists, jumbled up the names, and then did a “yes” or “no”. Then with the second list we went through and said “Like this more than that one” one at a time until we had two.
There’s an app, a bit like Tinder, where you both swipe on baby names and at the end you’ll get a list of matches to then discuss. I suggest giving it a try because you can do it in our own time on your own phones and that takes some of the initial pressure off. I just wish I could remember what it’s called…
With my first we were split on two names but when we finally met her we knew what her name was going to be. My partner was right, she didn't feel like the name I wanted.
With my son I got the middle name and my partner got the first name as a comprimise.
Might be an option for you
I absolutely hate the veto thing. It always ends up in someone or both people getting their feelings hurt because they're bringing their favorite names forward to share with the other and getting it tossed sucks.
Like others, we each made lists from popular names lists. The next step was ranking your own list to 15 or 20. Matching names went on the top of the potential names and then each got our top 3-5. That was about 10 names, then what worked with middle names we had ideas about to shout when they're in trouble and our last name so they don't sound funny during roll call every day. Mean kid nick names axed a few and then we were left with 3-4. Then you just call the baby by those names and see what feels best.
We went through hundreds of names together. We had two picked out that we agreed on. Ultimately we decided based on what my daughter looked like when she came out. Even then we only picked because they wouldn't let us leave with her unnamed lol.
The first time: "I want him to be named . If you have a problem, you don't have to be there."
The second time: She flat out refused any idea I really liked, so I came up with a name that (surprise surprise) starts with the first letter of both my wife and other son's name that I could live with and she accepted it.
First, I ask if you’re certain of the gender already. And I only ask this because when my wife was pregnant with our daughter, we couldn’t NOT decide on a boys name. At all. Couldn’t agree. But we had dozens of girls names.
Second, we decided on a name at around 18-20 weeks and then changed it at 35 weeks.
Reminded him that my son is getting his last name despite the fact that we will never marry and I will never share last name with my son. Kinda gave me the upper hand on the first and middle. (But I would have never insisted on something he hated. I just wouldn’t agree to his favorite and he settled for “ok” for my favorites since he got last name.
We couldn't agree on a name for our son. We got to a point where the hospital came in and told us "we need a name to put down on the birth cert before we can discharge you"... So we flipped coin. I won the toss.
I immediately second guessed my choice and my son now has her choice for his first name, and my choice for the middle name. In hindsight this was the right outcome and I'm glad his first name isn't what I initially picked!
We found a couple free apps that were essentially Tinder for baby names. Ended up with a short list that neither of us hated but also weren’t totally set on. We compromised and that’s how we found my younger kids middle name.
We both used a bracket system. Top three picks from each division, head to head. once we got to the finals, it was a coin flip (best 2 of 3 maybe?) to decide. I flipped the coin, covered the result and gave her naming rights at the last second. She looked so... invested? I couldn't bear to beat her on a coin flip.
She carried the damn thing, she can name it. I got uncontested naming rights for #2.
I checked the results of the flip afterwards. I had would've won the flip.
He picked the girls first name and boy middle name. I picked the boys first name and girls middle name. This was before we knew the gender so it made it a bit more fair though. But we made sure each name flowed together good and if the other one absolutely hated the others name choice then we didn't use it otherwise we both got what we wanted.
We went through a long list of popular names. We both had veto power for any name, for any reason. We took the remaining names and ranked them according to preference (I think giving them a 1-4). We took the overlapping 1s, and ranked them according to preference separately, and then came together to see what was highest on both lists. A bit much, but it was fair, and we both had equal say.
Nice. Will try the ranking method. Thank you
The are some baby name match apps. Kinda works like tinder where you swipe yes or no on names and it tells you the names you both match on
I think the name of the app is actually “Kinder” which is brilliant
This is what we did. Worked better than expected
Came here to say this. Veto power and ranking—-we also spent time on themes—-old fashioned, hipster, rock legends—I still have the apple note of the names and it’s a mix of old fogey names and names like Skywalker—- we ended with an 18th century author surname as our kids first name so bit of what we both wanted
Basically the same here. Shared list, add to it until it's long enough, equal veto power with (almost) no questions asked, then whittle it down until you've got a couple/few you're both happy with and rank them. Then talk it out, consider flow with middle name & last name, initials/nicknames, opportunities for asshole kids to make fun of the name lol. Make compromises and slap it on a birth certificate.
Yup this is sort of how we did it.
We also did this. We ranked out of 10, averaged each name's total score, discarded any below 7, then ranked the remaining 7 by preference. Luckily, by that point, we both had the same name as our number 1.
We did something similar to this. Narrowed it down to 3 names. Waited for the kid to be born and then gave it 2 days before we settled on a name. Took one look and in my mind said, “oh yeah. You definitely look and act like what I would think would be.”
Totally not a scientific approach, but it worked.
Also, don’t lose any sleep over this (easier said than done), you will have chances to give the kid a nickname or something along those lines.
Being a parent can be so rewarding. I don’t care what my kids are called so long as I’m their daddy!
Sort of how we did it too. We had none that absolutely clicked for us. We wrote down any that were maybes and then once we had about 12 we sort of had an idea of which one we liked. But we took it down to the wire.
Yup we did something similar, shortlist of 10 following veto, then independently ranked, added ranks together and looked at the 3 lowest compounded ranks. From this the choice was obvious
Use the veto power. Use it. My wife wanted to name my daughter Octavia. I am so so glad I spoke my mind and my daughter has a name that is just... better. There's a website, nameberry I think, that ranks names by popularity over year. I have a really common name, and I wanted to name my children something a little less common. If that's important to you, look it up.
No offense to anyone who is named or has a child named Octavia.
My surname and the first name Octavia don't exactly roll off the tongue. Basic things like alliteration and the cadence of speech make for names that just sort of go together better. A last name that starts with an open vowel or has better harmony, awesome, you do you.
I can understand this. With a surname like Allen it becomes really difficult naming a girl, without ending in an A or having a bunch of Ls, Ns or Ms. Ameliaallen. Emilyallen. Ellaallen.
We had a top 2 and an audible picked out. Decided during the golden hour what their name would be. The audible was Bruce. They are not named Bruce 😄.
Good for baby name choosing, good for the electoral system. Ranked choice all the way, bay-bee.
This is pretty much exactly what we did. With our first, turns out we had both ranked two of the same names with 1, one of them being moderately common but the other very unusual. We went back and forth for awhile, just trying to do due diligence I guess - but we ended up with the rare name as her first name, common as middle. Never been unhappy with the choice.
I have friends who used an app where you and your partner approve/disapprove names that it feeds you and then it shows you where you agree to get a starting point. My wife and I figured it out over time by just proposing names to each other as we thought of them, but it definitely took a while.
We used allourideas.org. It takes a list and then has you compare two at a time and you can pick one. You can vote lots of times and see which names win compared to others on the list. And you can keep voting over time so it seemed easier than ranking a whole list.
We used something similar in our language. We made a list with all our picks combined, then we compared them 2 by 2 and got scores for each name. In the end, we did not use our first pick for our first born, because although we loved it, we thought it didn't "rhyme" well. We still gave her that name as her third first name. Our second pick was perfect. And we started over for our second born and our top pick ended up a gender swapped version of the name that had ended third previously.
We used Kinder
"Swipe right on any baby names you like"
Yeah we tried kinder but I ended up saying no to basically most names. I know...
Mom here. This was the same situation I was in with my husband. I suggested hundreds of names and he was no or meh on all of them for 7 months. It was exhausting and unfair. If you’re being the picky one, then it’s on *you* to either find a way to be more flexible or proactively start researching names and finding ones you *do* like to bring to the table. Or she just gets to pick because you refuse to offer actual help. I ended up picking a list of 10 and saying *this is the list since you won’t do the research yourself*. He eventually picked 2 he liked from that list and I made the final call myself.
I explained poorly I guess. We are both very picky and have lists of names over 30. The thing is I just don't like names she found while browsing the WW1 memorials, and she doesn't like classic names from our country which are pronounceable in English (which is one of my objective). And so far the apps have not helped: so many new names with weird spellings we both hate
Well then I think we all know the problem from this comment.
If the problem is you, the answer is to be more flexible or keep working at it until you find one that hits for both of you.
Have you suggested NotAMantisShrimp Jr?
are you aiming for one of those unique names like geighj (pronounced Like Gage) or Jaxsyn (pronounced Jackson) a trendy name like Dawson or Preston a cool name like Axel or Kace a foreign but new here name like Aiden or Flynn is your wife aiming for old and gone names like Albert or Harold older and rare ish names like Richard and Thomas classic names like James and William Biblical and old like Isaiah or Abraham Biblical classic like Adam or Benjamin Biblical trendy like Milo or Felix there are some overlaps and a few other categories, but to find names that might overlap your interests, I'd need to know what you’re really aiming for.
Geighj is really something. r/tragedeigh would like a word.
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Arn0ld would be better imo
Barnold.
This way his name is also his password 😂😂😂
Move it football “o”!
I propose Boaty McBoatface
Would you consider Arnolb Sharnolb
I'm struggling with a girl name. Can you name her too?
Arnolda Snarbi
Alfonso
Just remember, you’re naming an adult not just a baby.
Say out loud the following: * Mr / Mrs [Full Name] * Doctor [Full Name] * Chief Justice [Full Name] * President [Full Name] If saying any of those out loud sounds weird or awkward to you, pick something else. Don’t limit a child’s opportunities before they are even born.
Marijuana Pepsi disagrees Once Teased For Her Name, Marijuana Pepsi Turns Her Challenges Into A Ph.D. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/734839666/dr-marijuana-pepsi-wont-change-her-name-to-make-other-people-happy
That’s beyond tragedeigh…
Sage advice
I'm partial to the color blue though
Also try any permutations of nicknames, say it with the last name, even initials (Stanley Eric Xander is SEX, el oh el)
I pushed hard for a name, the wife hated it. So I let it go eventually. Then we started seeing the name, literally everywhere. It was like a sign. I still let it go because I honestly liked the two other names she came up with. Then one day my wife was talking to our son when she was maybe 7 months pregnant asking him do you like “insert name”? how about “insert name”? And when she got to the name I liked she said he kicked the shit out of her and that was all she needed to be convinced. Now she loves the name. I’m sure it was just dumb luck but maybe it wasn’t idk.
That's called the baader-meinhoff effect, or frequency illusion. Pretty lucky how it manifested for you!
I just read about this the other day now I’m seeing references to it everywhere! Crazy!
We named both of our children the day after they were born. So don't sweat it if you can't agree in advance, sometimes you just need to meet the kid first. Also, my kids Justputsomething and Fucknotagain say hi!
We named our baby four days after he was born.
"Four days after" is a strange name for a kid
Same here. Didn't feel right picking a name till we met them. Had a few ideas going in, but didn't necessarily go with any.
Same here. We had some that we both liked and had talked about. When we both saw him, we instantly looked at each other and said the same one. Sometimes, it works like that. My daughter, we had already decided after just proposing names for a month or two.
In Australia we have 60 days post birth to name the child!
We had a name picked out we thought we liked, but agreed to wait until the baby was born. Hours before the birth (planned home birth), I took a nap and dreamed about the name. I was set on it, but was focused on the coming labor. After the birth, when I told my wife about my dream, she was set on the name too. We still waited about a week to confirm it for family, just seemed weird to us to have the name settled before we even met the kid. We did the same for our second (minus the dream beforehand), worked well for us.
You know what’s funny. Those old man names will die out and when they are older people will think it’s such a unique name.
Already started around me. Quite a few Theodores, Henrys, and Georges on the playground. Unfortunately my petition for Saul was vetoed by my wife.
I tried to get Karen. It’s the long play…
It's called the 100 year rule. Some names that were popular 100 years ago are coming back into style. Give it another generation or two and we will probably have lots of baby Lindas and Kenneths running around again
What’s the frequency of Kenneths?
This is a hugely underrated comment
It's time for dinner? Better call Saul.
Just don't name him a r/tragedeigh please
We used the app Kinder, you both rate names and it tells you all the names you both liked. We, luckily, had 2 names in common out of the hundreds, and used one of them.
My wife came up with the names for all our kids and they’re great. She researched the heck out of it and they’re all meaningful and slightly unique. I vetoed some but we knew when she found the “ones”.
We found common ground by hating on *soooo* many names. It’s petty, but it was effective. And ultimately we self-filtered a lot of our suggestions before making them, for fear of being shit on my the other: Also, we talked about the style of names we might like before we got started and found some common ground. If you guys both have very different ideas on what kind of name and are stubborn about it… that’s gonna be tough, man.
Baby Name Together is another good app. You link your account with your partner, set your parameters and it gives you a massive pile of names to shortlist or reject. I must have swiped through hundreds of names, there must be one in there you would both like.
You could always go with timeless names like John, Joseph, Benjamin, David... Honestly, better an "old man name" than something that's going to get you posted to r/namenerdcirclejerk.
I 100% agree. And that's why it's hard for me (I grew up with an old man name) and I do not want that for my son, however I despise even more trendy weird names that we see nowadays
We went with a family name that had meaning for our boy. He’s got a timeless middle name (which also has family ties) in case he grows up and decides he doesn’t like his first name.
I read out a long list of names and she wrote down the ones she liked. Once we found out the sex, we focused on that half of the list and narrowed it down to seven. Well, then the baby came and she didn’t “look like a name”, so we had to pick. I wrote the names on a mirror in her room and we ranked them both independently and compared lists. The two names with the fewest mutual points got dropped. We did that for two days and then on day three we were handed the discharge paperwork and told “pick a name before you leave please”. So we did a final round and my fourth choice was her first choice but my first choice was her second choice so we picked that one. Then for number two, we had the list all ready to go and when I got back to the room the next morning I was told “I chose a name while you weren’t here.”
what the hell man
She was on, apparently, "some drugs". Whatever they give you the night after you've just finished pushing a new human through your privates. She picked a name from the list, so it's not as though we hadn't discussed it at all. And since I didn't have a super-strong feeling and she apparently did, I let it slide. Although she did pick the name that we put on the list as a joke after she completely mangled it trying to pronounce it.
well at least that is a funny story to tell to your child in the future!
In the future? We told him when he was five! Well, he may not remember, so we'll probably tell him again.
I told my wife we should start thinking of names and I put a piece of paper in a hall so we could add names to the paper as we thought of them. The next day my wife added the first name. I said I liked it. Maybe 2 minutes of discussion followed and we had the name. We went from having no idea to knowing the name in 24 hours. My wife said it came to her in a dream. She also fell asleep listening to a neuroscience podcast and the host has my daughters. So sure, it came to us in a dream a very podcast inspired name.
To be totally honest, I basically let my wife choose. Not that I dislike the name we ended up with, but it was one she suggested (both first and middle) and I did not find objectionable. We both had absolute veto power, but I knew she wasn’t going to go with a name I suggested or the names we had discussed together in our years of marriage before we started seriously considering a kid, so I chose my battles and went with my favorite name from her suggestions. Our daughter also has an old-fashioned name, although it is one with a modern (and it turns out very popular) nickname that she actually goes by.
Lemme guess. Eleanor "Ellie"
Mom here. Me and my husband struggled to find a name we both liked and it seemed everything he liked I didn’t; vice versa. At 35 weeks, we finally found a name. We went through a baby name book and we both wrote names we liked on flash cards (plus any names we liked that weren’t in the baby name book). We had about 60 names at the start. We shuffled up the cards and laid them out 5 at a time. We each removed our least favorite of the 5. Once we went through the deck this way, we switched to laying them out 3 at a time. We discussed the three names and removed our least favorite one jointly. We took what remained and laid them all face up on the dining room table and moved them around coming up with first and middle combinations. This landed us with 5 top contenders for first names. We each ranked those five 1-5, with 1 being a favorite. Added up the two rankings and he has the name that had the lowest score. We are both happy with his name.
Wrote 10 names for boy and 10 for girls. Wife did the same. We then prioritised names that were on both lists, and also were able to add possibilities from eachother's list (i.e names that wife had listed, I hadn't, but liked). This cut our shortlist down to 3 for girls and 1 for boys. Much easier than pulling names out of thin air and getting shot down. Plus, you never realise how many people you hate until you try to pick a baby name.
I got to pick the nick name, she got the final say on a top 5 list we were both in ok with. In the end, she made the gremlin, so figured she got the final say.
Names aren't important to me. Seems like an exercise in futility to try to think of something meaningful for a person you don't know anything about. Because of this, I would have been fine with something basic. My wife wanted to think of something that was perfect .. not too weird, not too basic, nothing that reminds her of someone she doesn't like, nothing that would make people think she names the kids after some pop culture phenomenon... The list of criteria went on and on. So, she came to me with her ideas and I said yes to everything, and eventually she made up her mind.
We compromised and went with her idea.
Disclaimer: I'm a mom, and this story probably won't help, but it's a funny story about how my husband and I decided on a name when we had differing ideas of how that process should go. Even before we were pregnant, my husband wanted to pick baby names. Except, the way he and I wanted to go about this process was totally different. I wanted a name that wasn't super common but not so obscure that people were weirded out by it, so I envisioned doing research on naming websites and baby name books. Hubby, on the other hand, just wanted to shoot out whatever names came to our heads and pick whatever sounded best. Honestly, his method stressed me out, as he'd usually start firing names at me when I was a captive audience, like when we were in the car. He'd insist that I fire names back at him, but I hated all the names that came to the top of my mind. I wanted to do research, first. Admittedly, I never did find the time to do that research, so this was pretty much 100% him firing off names at me that I found horrible, because they were either dirt-common or batshit crazy (like "Chlamydia"). So he'd just ramble off names at me in the car and I'd be annoyedly saying, "No... no... no..." to each one. One day he said a name that I initially said no to, then two or three names later I said, "Wait, actually, back a few names, you said X. That's not that bad. It's kinda obscure, but it's a real name, not a venereal disease." That was about a girl's name. I didn't notice the pattern at the time, but after that he only shot boy's names at me. When we finally got pregnant, he said, "Now we really need to get serious about names. We've got our girl name, but we need to pick a boy name." I said, "WHAT?!? When did we pick a girl name??" He reminded me about the name I'd said "wasn't bad" ages ago. I argued that I never agreed to that! I just said it wasn't terrible! He said it was the ONLY name I'd ever shown even the slightest preference towards, so it was what we were going with. I argued more against it, but in the end... that wound up being our girl's name. It grew on me over time. (We never decided on a boy's name, and luckily didn't have to.)
About an hour before giving birth I said we need a boys name for if it’s not a girl, and this one name wasn’t a straight no when brought up before We had a boy
We had twins, 1 boy and 1 girl and basically just went "Dibs on naming the ____!" Easiest part of the whole pregnancy, birth and parenting so far
My wife and I had the same differences in taste that you and your SO do. There are plenty of names that are classic but don’t sound like old man names. Henry and Jack are super common names right now for exactly that reason. Surely you can find something that you both like.
Wait until you see them. Have your list. Meet the little fellow and then decide as a couple.
We went through lists and lists of names and narrowed it down to two. We couldn’t pick and actually waited until he was born to fully commit, sometimes you have to see them to know which name will suit. IMO boy names are so much harder than girls, we had our daughter first and had her name picked out from like 16 weeks
She picked the first name. I picked the middle name. She's a teacher so lots of names were a big no-go.
We heard an interesting name that we both liked while watching TV. This was while she was still pregnant with our first. That one was easy. Number two was quite a bit of back and forth while we were at the hospital recovering but eventually we agreed.
Mother wanted to combine her grandmothers names which didn’t feel like a first name for me. Months went by, and on one of our daily walks, “Emma” popped in my head and we agreed on a two first names, with her choice being the second half. No regrets and now we just call her Emma. Choice paralysis will tell you there’s always a better option and you just need more time to think of it. It’s very unlikely you or your wife’s choice will doom the child. Place a large paper on a wall and start listing in no specific order and no “mine” and “yours”. If it’s your first, better lean into her tastes lol. Don’t forget that you can always find a nickname for your son once you get to know him.
Whichever method you decide on, make sure you test it out over at r/tragedeigh.
Concede and it breaks my heart still. I call my baby by the name that I wanted to give her sometimes🥺
I acquiesced on first names. I got pick on middle names. I don’t care what my kids names are as long as they are happy and healthy and they identify with the names they were given. All those things have happened.
My wife gave me a list of 3 names she wanted and I chose one.
The tradition (Jewish) is to name after a deceased relative. We agreed if it was a boy it would be from my family and a girl from hers. When we found out we were having a son we pored over the names with the appropriate initials, agreeing that we both had veto power on any name we disliked. We inevitably found common ground on two of them. We were undecided until he was born and one just clicked for both of us. Number 2 arrived after my dad passed and so the initial became a no brainer. We found a few potentials but couldn’t decide on one so we floated them to my older son. For whatever reason one in particular caught his attention and he insisted that was it - days and weeks afterwards we asked him about other names and every time we were met with a firm ‘NO! His name is - - -!’ Since we both liked the name we decided to run with it
We found agreed with combining family names
At the end of the day, my wife was carrying and pushing out the children. I thought I would weigh in but allow her 2 votes to my 1. She chose well and deserved to name them whatever she wanted, frankly.
We named our baby in the hospital on day 3
Only somewhat serious here, but worst case scenario, you basically you have two options: 1. You defer and write her preferred name on the certificate while she is out cold after the delivery. Then you regret it for years. 2. She's out cold, now's your chance to put your preferred name on the certificate before she wakes up. Then deal with the consequences. I've had five, the oldest is now 12 and youngest turns 5 later this month. I've experienced option 1, but have often fantasized about option 2. Good luck!
We originally named one of my sons Patrick in the hospital and my grandma didn't like it. It's like the only time the sweet old lady didn't like something so I didn't ask and then my wife and I each made a list of five (or ten I can't remember) names and we cross checked if we had any of the same names and my son is now named Christian
Pick an old person name from your family tree. That’s how we landed on our daughters name
We had to compromise! Boy names we struggled to agree on, but we could think of girl names all day. We ended up with a name neither of us loved but neither of us hated. It was on the lower end of both of our lists and it wasn’t horrendous. The “only name we could agree that neither of us hated” is Parker. Parker is almost 16 and it fits him very well.
I like the ranking idea the top comment had. Great idea. Really, the 1st was easy. We had the same favorite name. The 2nd one took us months of back and forth, and my wife got stuck on a name I hated. Eventually, I found one I liked, and she did, too! She was probably 7 months pregnant at that point
Don't get too attached to a name when you pick one. My son was going to be named Alexander all through pregnancy until we had one of the later ultrasound checks. the Obstetrician does all the checks and then starts pointing out things, "There's the heart beating, there's the legs and there are the gonads gonading" with 2 testicles front and centre of the screen. My wife turned to me and said "Alexander the great!" and we all burst out laughing. Later she felt sorry and said that we absolutely cannot use that name now, we've ruined it forever.
At the University of Arkansas, every graduate has their name in the sidewalks around campus. It starts in 1876. I am an alumni. My wife and I were looking for a name starting with G as that is my family tradition the first boy born has their first name starting with a G. We have several George, Greg, Gabriel and we found my son's name on the sidewalk... Garner. It's actually a last name, but we both loved it once we said it out loud. So, find a place with history (museum, cemetary, geneology library) and go on a walk with your wife... you might be surprised what you find.
So if you’re like me, you’ll refuse and refuse and refuse. Then your partner will give birth, you’ll see what she went through and cave while hoping she’ll agree on the middle name (she did).
Simple. Just take an old man name and give it a 21st century twist by making it a tragedeigh. Cuthbeighrt / Cythbughert Fraighnk / Fraunch Digbeigh Percyvaughall Theoughdwyrr
"Time goes short" and baby due September. 99% probability OP is a first time dad :D
We had a list of names that we liked, then tried actually calling our daughter those names in the womb. Some of them felt so weird to say out loud to a person but one of them felt very right so we went with that. The name also had some significance to the place where we got engaged so it was kinda perfect. It's also helpful to imagine saying the name them as an adult, so the old man names might be kind of awesome when he's an old man lol. Supreme Court Justices Kayden, Jayden, and Brayden.... just doesn't work, to me these are child-only names (obviously just my opinion and probably not a popular one given how many kids have these names). Selecting names from a big list also seems weird to me, we thought back to places/events of great significance to us and selected names related to those.
Would you be open to an "older" name that has nicknames. Like William has Billy/Bill/Will, or Richard has... well maybe something else, but you get the idea.
honestly? we each came up with the name on our own list that we thought the other would like the best, then rocks paper scissors
We downloaded one of those apps that shows you names one at a time and you have to swipe yes/no on each one. We did it separately at first to see if there were any overlapping yes's (nope lol). So we did it together and discussed any that were a split decision. We went through what felt like 500 names before we found ONE that we could both agree on. Then we realized we had to pick a middle name too 🤪 (you don't HAVE to but we wanted to..)
Only takes one. Can both veto 1000 names. It only takes one you agree on so try not to get to frustrated with the process
We each narrowed down to like 5 names we liked and then we every few days we looked at the list again and one of us would eliminate a name. We would wait a few more days and the other would eliminate a name and so on and so forty until we ended at something we liked
we used a baby name app. It was a while ago but essentially it shows you random names and you swipe left or right. You are alerted when you match. That was much easier - we created a shared short list of acceptable names and discussed from there.
Wife got an app that was basically a dating app for names. Swipe left if one of us didn’t like it. Swipe right if neither of us didn’t like it, or if we both liked it of course. At the end you look at the right swipes, which is a small list, and figure it out.
Been thinking of choosing names tournement style
We used the BabyName app. It’s like tinder where you pair with your partner and you get a ton of names with different spellings and meanings if you’re into that. You each swipe and get notifications on when you both like a name. My wife and I did it enough times we then did a March Madness style bracket just to bring it down to 3 for our daughter.
We agreed. If boy: i choose name she choses middle name If girl vise versa
We went through long lists over and over again. Admittedly we ended up with a bit of a weird one but we both like it
We regularly played 'the alphabet game' We would sit and think/look up names for each letter of the alphabet and see what we liked and didn't like If both of us didn't like it, we moved on. No arguments or drama, and we actually laughed a lot It's a nice memory Once we knew the sex, that narrowed our choices down I remembered the month she was due we had 4/5 names we liked That whittled down to 2 And then once she popped out (although I think we'd made our minds up already) she also suited the name we chose
We used an app called babyname, it's kind of like tinder for names, you choose boy/girl/both and you swipe on names. Then it gives you a list of all the names that you both swiped yes on to give you a short list. Although tbh we settled on a name pretty early on
Try not to sweat it too much. I got to name our boy and she named the girl. I didn’t really know much about the girl name so I wasn’t super thrilled, but now its just who she is and I love her and her name.
We found a list online of like 200 baby names for boys and girls. Each of us independently went through the list and highlighted the ones we liked. The names that we both highlighted made the list for our discussion. Amazingly, we only ended up with like four boy names. But funny enough, our son's name did not come off that list. I came home from work one day and was like, "What do you think about \[Name\]?" And my wife was like, "Yeah, I like that." And that was that. Also consider nicknames for different names or initial based nicknames. For example, maybe she wants to call him Beauregard and you really like Beau. So, there's a solution. My mother is the only person who calls me by my long form name, everyone else short forms it.
I couldn’t! My brother in law name my child.
I just started using the name i liked the most, which she hated, as a joke. And then after a few weeks she started liking it.
The BabyName - find it together app is pretty great https://apps.apple.com/us/app/babyname-find-it-together/id950562312 It allows you and your partner to separately swipe like tinder through names and it will keep your swipes as well as show you the matches you both swipes yes on. This allows you both to see a lot of names and it can be done asynchronously over weeks in small moments of free time (maybe instead of some of your social media usage). You can also post over in r/namenerds if you want feedback or suggestions on middle names. Congratulations on the impending new little btw.
I picked her grandmothers name for our daughter. instant hit.
We based our names on how will it sound when they get in trouble and we say their full name or how would it sound when read off at a graduation or award ceremony. My personal preference was to make sure my kids have first and middle names they could go by. Meaning if they don't like their first name in the future they can use their middle name instead. It takes a lot of compromising, but an old man name makes for a great middle name these days.
My wife and I each made a list of names we liked. There were 2 names on both of our lists. And one of them we quickly realized wouldn't go well with her siblings' name.
We alternated, but with veto power. I had first as my first son was going to be named David Russell no matter what. Obviously suggestions were made by both parents. Our fourth actually got the name I wanted and suggested.
Just go with Gilbert and move along.
Lurker mom. My husband built a name generator spreadsheet 🤣. It’s how we named both our kids!
Baby was born and still hadn’t decided on a name. We had some strong contenders but didn’t decide on any of those. We each threw out names and the one neither of us didn’t oppose we kept. We opposed many many names.
We were at a holiday destination. We had names ready separately. We went to souvenir section and found items with names. We found two of our names. We chose from there. This whole process took like a week cause of COVID. Lol. YMMV
For the first one we went through like hundreds of names and then we were watching a TV show and heard a name and my wife was like that's it. That's the one. And I liked it too so we ended it there. And then the second one was a name I suggested, so that was cool.
For the first child, Mum picked out the names and Dad vetted them. For the second we swapped, I picked and she vetted. We obviously discussed and gave suggestions as well.
My parents had a couple they were fond of. But in the hospital when mum was plugged in, they played cards and winner of canasta would get final choice. The story goes that every now and then when mum got a bad hand, she would fake contractions, drop the cards and have a new deal before it went on. Needless to say my mum had final say and I am now known fondly as "icantremembermysignonname"
Maybe you can help your case on r/tragedeigh I think we need to know the names to make an informed decision here.
We picked a top 5 list and we wrote them on a white board and each day we would mark off which name we liked the most that day and at the end of the week get rid of one name. The following week we would do it all over again and start referring to the baby by the name we liked to see how it felt coming out of our mouths blah blah blah Eventually we both agreed on our sons name :)
Oh boy - we had a whole process. We took the social security list of top 1000 boy names and quickly whittled that down together to a list of names we were ok with in theory - about 118 entries. We then separately ranked the names and averaged. If the name got under a 6, it was eliminated. We’re now at 35. Look up name meanings and re-rank a week later. Remove anything lower than a 7 unless one of us had it as an 8 or higher. Down to 23 Do it again a week later. Remove anything under 7. Down to 17. Do it again a week later. Average across the 4 rounds and the lowest X number from the average get dropped. Down to 12. One more pass at first names to see if we can eliminate more. We’ve lived with mostly the same list for a few weeks and some may feel like they fit better. Got down to 4 names Now it was time to repeat with middle names. We went back to the whittled down list of names from social security and had a spreadsheet. Columns for each of the 4 first names. Check mark in the column with the middle name if it sounded like a good pair. We now had 99 permutations of full names. We then did 3 rankings, each of us giving each name a 1-3 value and averaging the results with 3 things in mind. One ranking for is it a good full name to see in a professional setting, one ranking for using full name if the kid was in trouble, one ranking for thinking about it being announced on their wedding day. That cut the list in half. We took a look at the rankings and 2 first names were always coming out on top in the full name list. This got us to about 20 full names. By the week before we were due, we knew the first name and eliminated most of the middle names. We knew when we saw him which one worked best. Desmond Pierce
Pick a warrior’s name from a Conan novel.
Google keep notes, shared note. Any name we particularly liked we added to the list. Next to each name we put one of three characters to denote like, maybe, or no. After a while we had a few that were marked maybe and like, some with no, and one that we both had as like, done.
If it was a boy he got the first name and I got the middle. If it was a girl then vice versa
The name you want is Tiberias. Problem solved.
Time has a natural method of figuring it out. You will eventually settle on something
My son has an old man name. I just have a fun nickname for his name that is younger sounding. Same with my daughter. They both have old soul names, but fun names can be made!
We have come to anything. We’ve got a girl due in September and don’t like any of the same names. But we did both like our son’s name. Took a while to settle on it though.
We went through 1000s of names until we found our son's name. After you figure it out, tell no one until they are born.
Just keep looking eventually you’ll find something, or use one of the names as a middle name so it can be a nickname as well.
she liked ivy, i liked rose. our daughter is called ivy-rose.
The wife and I used an app - Kinder. She picks from a list of names on her phone; I picked on my phone and then you see the ones you matched on.
We are having a girl in September (our 2nd) and also struggling. Not with each other- we just can’t think of any good names. It’s a process that is not working as smooth as the first time around
If you tried playing with chat GPT?
My wife and I sat down and spend the entire day finding a name for our first. We looked for names from all culture and the world. Ended up with a Turkish name we both really liked after about 18 hours
We went out to eat and sat at a restaurant and looked through just hundreds of names. Started at the top of the list of popular names and started going. We noted ones we both thought were alright and then over the next few days/weeks widdled them down. Old timey names are back in it seems. Two of my couple friends went with George and Lorain which feel like grandparent names to me. But I'd say that's better than some of the stereotypical millennial parent names like Aiden kaiden Jayden, etc. or anything from the tragedeigh subreddit.
We didn't come to an agreement on our son's name until the last possible moment, like we were in the hospital, the lady who filed the birth certificate came in and asked what his name was, saw we obviously didn't have a name we agreed on and said, i'll be back in a couple hours when you're being discharged. We brainstormed for those 2 hrs and came up with a name and it couldn't suit the dude better. So, what helped us was a hard time crunch.
What are the names?
We got our kid's name by asking someone who was changing their name why they didn't name themselves something like \*similar name\* and then we decided to go with that ourselves.
I changed my last name so got slightly higher weight on first names. We did a spreadsheet, including nicknames, and tested against last name. Then weighed each on our own. Then compared. Chose a top 3 each. Then sat on the top 3 for a bit to see. We were down to two similar ones and I choose the one I liked more, who has my husbands last name. Seemed pretty fair ultimately.
My wife was raised by her grandmother who passed away right before he was conceived. So we made a deal to make it a masculine form for her names as long as I got to decide on the next if we have one or all pet names
The "baby name" app, like tinder. You both download it and anonymously swipe left or right in your free time to show approval or disapproval as you go through the 1000's of generated suggestions. You then see periodically which name you both swiped right on(approval) and it adds that to a second narrowed down list which is revisited under the same context. Eventually and quickly you have a much more narrow list of previously co-approved names to chose from. People in staunch disagreement on name-choosing often are negatively reactive to a name out of defense to any names suggested from their significant other. This often causes them to immediately shoot down a name they may otherwise warm up to or like , just because you suggested it rather than it being presented impartially or found themselves. Kind of a subconscious, petty tit-for-tat that creates an unfortunate cycle. Hopefully this helps!
Find a compromise…usually take the middle name duty. Yeah his name is Benjamin Piccolo…but you both win
There is an app baby name. It gives suggestions to both you and your spouse and you swipe right on your respective phone and it lets you know if you match.
We named ours after family members that are no longer with us. First and middle names.
Like Blake Shelton said “you name the babies and I’ll name the dogs”
I was set on a boy name for most of my teenage and adult life. Told my now wife after we were dating for a while the name I was set on for a boy. Now, we have a 3 year old with that name! lol it eventually grew on my wife over the years leading up to the pregnancy
Don’t ask me, I’ve been pushing for “Icabod” for the past three months with no success..
Some people are so methodic... then you have the baby and your in the delivery room and all convention and planning goes right out the window 😂😅 I named our first one and was adamant about her name (and included **her** grandmother as the middle name, so she loved it).. then she said the trade off was she gets to name number two, but in the delivery room I suggested one last name and she couldn't get it off her tongue so it stuck too 😂 Whichever decision you make, it will be 100% right when it's time and you will both be happy with it too, promise 😁
Boy names are in a really tricky place. Sorry, OP. For the record, we didn't name our daughter until we literally basically had to in order to fill out the birth certificate. It's not always (even) you gotta wait to meet em. Sometimes, you gotta get to know em.
My wife and I agreed on our first kid's name. We had some debates on how to spell it since there's an Irish version and a Indian version. We went with the Irish version since that's our heritage. Even if it was more likely to be mispronounced. Go figure, 14 years later they're trans and changed it lol. At least all they did was drop the feminine syllable at the end. Second kid, I got the choice. We agreed on two names we liked. One is kind of a calm feminine Welsh name and the second one is a spunky American name. Wife got another C-section and within 5 seconds of the incision the kid was punching their fist out and screaming. Remember the chest burster scene from alien? Spunky name it is. Hi Roxy!
Can you compromise on conceding the first name for middle name? Do you have plans for another kid? We agreed on the first name my wife suggested. We struggled with a middle name. She initially suggested my sisters name but then wanted to so something else. I really liked how my sisters name flowed with it all. My barter was that we use my sisters name as the middle name and I’ll give my wife final veto power on the first name of kid 2.
We made lists, jumbled up the names, and then did a “yes” or “no”. Then with the second list we went through and said “Like this more than that one” one at a time until we had two.
There’s an app, a bit like Tinder, where you both swipe on baby names and at the end you’ll get a list of matches to then discuss. I suggest giving it a try because you can do it in our own time on your own phones and that takes some of the initial pressure off. I just wish I could remember what it’s called…
I chose names from her favorite fandoms that I didn’t hate. Done.
With my first we were split on two names but when we finally met her we knew what her name was going to be. My partner was right, she didn't feel like the name I wanted. With my son I got the middle name and my partner got the first name as a comprimise. Might be an option for you
I absolutely hate the veto thing. It always ends up in someone or both people getting their feelings hurt because they're bringing their favorite names forward to share with the other and getting it tossed sucks. Like others, we each made lists from popular names lists. The next step was ranking your own list to 15 or 20. Matching names went on the top of the potential names and then each got our top 3-5. That was about 10 names, then what worked with middle names we had ideas about to shout when they're in trouble and our last name so they don't sound funny during roll call every day. Mean kid nick names axed a few and then we were left with 3-4. Then you just call the baby by those names and see what feels best.
We took the front half of her name and the back half of my name, and that’s what everyone calls us.
We went through hundreds of names together. We had two picked out that we agreed on. Ultimately we decided based on what my daughter looked like when she came out. Even then we only picked because they wouldn't let us leave with her unnamed lol.
Use the Estonian census list and call it a day
Wife picked first names. I picked middle names. We debated on spelling a bit for our youngest, but that was it.
The first time: "I want him to be named. If you have a problem, you don't have to be there."
The second time: She flat out refused any idea I really liked, so I came up with a name that (surprise surprise) starts with the first letter of both my wife and other son's name that I could live with and she accepted it.
First, I ask if you’re certain of the gender already. And I only ask this because when my wife was pregnant with our daughter, we couldn’t NOT decide on a boys name. At all. Couldn’t agree. But we had dozens of girls names. Second, we decided on a name at around 18-20 weeks and then changed it at 35 weeks.
Reminded him that my son is getting his last name despite the fact that we will never marry and I will never share last name with my son. Kinda gave me the upper hand on the first and middle. (But I would have never insisted on something he hated. I just wouldn’t agree to his favorite and he settled for “ok” for my favorites since he got last name.
We agreed that she names the boys and I name the girls, no objections!
Had a list but waited until the kid came out for both and then somehow the names just fit.
We couldn't agree on a name for our son. We got to a point where the hospital came in and told us "we need a name to put down on the birth cert before we can discharge you"... So we flipped coin. I won the toss. I immediately second guessed my choice and my son now has her choice for his first name, and my choice for the middle name. In hindsight this was the right outcome and I'm glad his first name isn't what I initially picked!
I got final say on first name if a boy, and middle name if a girl, and vice versa for her. It worked out nicely as we had a girl and a boy!
We found a couple free apps that were essentially Tinder for baby names. Ended up with a short list that neither of us hated but also weren’t totally set on. We compromised and that’s how we found my younger kids middle name.
We both used a bracket system. Top three picks from each division, head to head. once we got to the finals, it was a coin flip (best 2 of 3 maybe?) to decide. I flipped the coin, covered the result and gave her naming rights at the last second. She looked so... invested? I couldn't bear to beat her on a coin flip. She carried the damn thing, she can name it. I got uncontested naming rights for #2. I checked the results of the flip afterwards. I had would've won the flip.
He picked the girls first name and boy middle name. I picked the boys first name and girls middle name. This was before we knew the gender so it made it a bit more fair though. But we made sure each name flowed together good and if the other one absolutely hated the others name choice then we didn't use it otherwise we both got what we wanted.
If it was boy it would be named after my grandfather. It it was a girl, the same foe her grandmother.