# What You Almost Named Your Kids



## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

This is sorta spawned off the Parenting thread. I had so many lovely names I wanted for my babies but didn't get to use them for one reason or another...*cough-myhusband-cough* What are some baby names you wanted?  Here are a few of my favorites.

Knightly - I thought this would be cute for a boy or girl. I meant Knightly as in the hero from Jane Austen's 'Emma'. But hubby said people would think I was naming our baby after Keira Knightly. 

Gracie, Evie, or Meredith - Just because.

Morgase - from a book.

Eowen and Arwen - from Lord of the Rings

Gareth - After a character from the Wheel of Time books.


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## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

I was almost named Temperance Ann, but I came out redheaded and my mom could only see "Temper" as a nickname (she didn't think a redhead would need any help w/ the temper department).  Since I found out about it, I've wanted to name my daughter Temperance, but I didn't.  I realized that if I wasn't careful about what I named her, my dad would never spell her name right.  

I will say that when DH and I have a boy, we're going to name him Michael Robert.


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## PG4003 (Patricia) (Jan 30, 2010)

When my daughter was born, I almost named her Bernadette.  Didn't because I was afraid people would call her Bernie.  She cringes when I tell her that story.  (Ended up naming her Elizabeth.)

My husband wanted to call our son Arnold.  I said no, Arnold is a pig's name (from Green Acres, remember?)


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## JenniferS. (Mar 9, 2011)

When I was pregnant with my first child and we were picking both a girl and a boy name for just in case, we came up with the name Hailey Storm for our girl name. I loved that name and then we had a boy. With our second child we came up with two names like the first, I really liked our boy name, Blaze...we had a girl. And the name Hailey Storm didnt seem to fit. So, neither of those names got used and we dont plan on having anymore.


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## mscottwriter (Nov 5, 2010)

I was a huge fan of the movie "Thelma and Louise" by the director Ridley Scott, and the book "Ridley Walker", so I wanted to name my son Ridley, but we opted for Alexander instead.  My son now tells me that if I'd done that, he would have moved out of the house as a baby and never spoken to me again


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## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

When my mom was a teen, she wanted to have 4 kids and name them Dominique, Donovan, Delaney, and Delilah. Thank GOODNESS she stuck with just 2 and named us Jessica and Angela!


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## cegrundler (Aug 16, 2010)

I narrowly missed inheriting a great-grandmother's name and becoming Ursula, which I imagine would have been rough as a kid, though as an adult I do like the name. Definitely a more 'don't mess with me' type name than Cynthia. Somehow I couldn't sell my husband on that one, our daughter would have been Ursula Grundler -- though if she was a boy he was fond of 'Jareth' from Labyrinth. My grandmother was convinced the baby would be a boy and insisted I must (and she was adamant on this) name the child after her father -- Ignatz. Yeah. Ignatz Grundler. That's a kid who's either going to get beat up a lot or learn how to fight! Fortunately we had a girl and named her Felicia, meaning happiness.


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## Talia Jager (Sep 22, 2010)

I had some _great names in high school. I wanted to name my first daughter after a VC Andrews book. Her name would have been Heaven Leigh. And then I thought Tequila Sunrise would be an awesome name. LOL! Not sure what I was thinking. But, my kids are very glad that didn't happen.

As for names I've picked out as an adult... Nikole, Shauna, Kassidy were all on my list, but didn't get used. And my boys' name will most likely never be used, Lukas._


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## Sarah Woodbury (Jan 30, 2011)

I got to use 'Gareth' 

All my kids have Welsh names but when I was pregnant with Gareth, which is a common name in Wales and Australia apparently, we teased my parents by coming up with as completely unpronounceable names (to English speakers) as possible.  Some of our favorites:  ERCWLFF (Welsh for Hercules), GRONW, IEUAN, LLEUCU, and ILLTYD


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## tsilver (Aug 9, 2010)

I think I was off my rocker when I was considering naming my daughter Merry Melody.  When I told this to my daughter, who was subsequently named Maria Christina, she said "OMG" and rolled her eyes.  I wanted to name my son John.  My husband said people would probably call him Long John Silver, so we compromised with the name Edward.


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## julieannfelicity (Jun 28, 2010)

I love coming up with names! I had a list of over 100 when I was pregnant with my first, but my husband vetoed the majority of them. He wanted to name our first Patrick Howard or Edward Baldo, after his grandfathers. Patrick would be ok, if there weren't already four Patrick's (an uncle, a cousin, another uncle and a great-grandfather). Edward would be ok too (we did end up using Edward for our youngest son's middle name). But giving Howard or Baldo? While I understand their family names - they're very old fashioned, and I could imagine our children giving us grief about it when they got old enough to recognize it.

I wanted to name my daughter Maura Kathryn or Delia Rose. They're family names also, and they're also old fashioned. I think older girls names are more forgivable than older boys names. (I like Merry Melody,  )

We went with Cameron Alexander (Cameron after Ferris Bueller's best friend, because we were watching the movie when we found out we were pregnant, and Alexander after the song by Rush [Alexander the Great]), Sonya Alexandria (Sonya after Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat [hubby is a video game junkie, but I liked it because it wasn't a popular name], and Alexandria so that she could have the feminine form of her brother's middle name - thinking we were only going to have two children), and finally Derrek Edward (Derrek because my husband liked it, and Edward after his grandfather - the poor kid had been almost a week old before he was given a name, because I was on my death bed from blood clots and too out of it to argue with him. It was also the weekend the Patriots were in the superbowl and I was just glad he didn't name him Brady [which is what all the nurses wanted us to name him - ICK!]).


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## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

had I been a girlchick instead of a boychick, I would have been Katrina Frederica ... which is, unfortunately for her, my sister's name.

If I had had a kiddo, for the longest time I wanted to name my boy Anton Friedrich Schneider - so I guess I'm just as guilty as my parents.


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## Tam (Jan 7, 2010)

Wehn we were first married my husband really wanted to name a daughter Anastasia after his great grand-mother. Fortunately (or not - it isn't a HORRIBLE name after all!) by the time we had a daughter we both agreed on the name Kerry Amanda instead. She has thanked us for not saddling her with a complicated name. We didn't have any strange names in mind for a boy, so our son is Andrew Joseph.

I know of a little girl named something like Cailifflionn (I can't even remember how to spell it) but pronouced Kee-lyn. I feel really sorry for her...

There's a really hilarious web page of Bad Baby Names that has given me many a chuckle. It can be a bit mean-spirited sometimes, but it's also extremely funny.

http://www.notwithoutmyhandbag.com/babynames/


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## julieannfelicity (Jun 28, 2010)

Tam said:


> I know of a little girl named something like Cailifflionn (I can't even remember how to spell it) but pronouced Kee-lyn. I feel really sorry for her...


Caoilainn  and yes, it's pronounced Kee-lyn. It means slender and fair. And yes - it was on my list once upon a time. Gotta love those traditional Irish names.


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## Tam (Jan 7, 2010)

julieannfelicity said:


> Caoilainn  and yes, it's pronounced Kee-lyn. It means slender and fair. And yes - it was on my list once upon a time. Gotta love those traditional Irish names.


I knew there was a stray F in the name somewhere so I just checked - this one is spelled *Caoilfhionn*. I actually like your spelling better because it gives a better clue to how to say it. With the other spelling it is just incomprehensible.


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## ◄ Jess ► (Apr 21, 2010)

Tam said:


> Wehn we were first married my husband really wanted to name a daughter Anastasia after his great grand-mother. Fortunately (or not - it isn't a HORRIBLE name after all!) by the time we had a daughter we both agreed on the name Kerry Amanda instead. She has thanked us for not saddling her with a complicated name. We didn't have any strange names in mind for a boy, so our son is Andrew Joseph.


I love the name Anastasia!

I met a kid the other day named Merlin. AWESOME name. I also met a kid once named Serendipity because she was a bit of a surprise.


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## Reyn (Feb 10, 2009)

Well my ex wanted to name our twin boys after Bill Elliott and since I am/was a Dale Earnhardt fan that didn't fly.  So we ended up with Daniel Hunter and Marcus Tyler since ex's name was Danny Marcus.  Each go by middle names.  

As for my two little boys I wanted one to be Jackson Riley but DH hated it.  So we ended up with Landon Sawyer. At one point we had considered naming him Casen but DH arrested a lady that had just had a new baby (possesion of meth) and that was her baby's name.  I couldn't get past the negative emotions that created for me so we scrapped that one.  For the other child, we only had one option and never really considered another name his is John Lawson.  *All four go by their middle names and each has a family name as their first name except Sawyer and Sawyer was my grandmother's brother's nickname (He was killed in an car accident before I was born)*  

Since we had no girls, I had tons of them that I never got to use with my favorite being Brynlie Skye.


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## ak rain (Nov 15, 2008)

I like the name Isabell but we did not use it. my daughter found this out and in school they had to come up with a pen name so she called herself Isabell Fox. 
sylvia


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

ak rain said:


> I like the name Isabell but we did not use it. my daughter found this out and in school they had to come up with a pen name so she called herself Isabell Fox.
> sylvia


I love the name Isabelle. I'm also fond of Olivia. Those are probably the tamest names on my list. LOL


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

I wanted to name our first daughter Marina... Hubs put his foot down because he's a Marine. So then she was going to be Megan Storm.. Then I discovered that Megan was far too popular.  So I came up with the name Rayna... Well, I couldn't name her Rayna Storm (she would have hated me when she got older) So she's Rayna Nicole.

Daughter number 2, we knew that Storm would be her middle name, and came up with 2 dozen different names as a first name.. And we finally settled on Ashlyn Storm

Daughter #3 was easy, I knew the middle name would be Celine, so had to come up with a first name... once I read that Taryn meant Thunder... I knew it was the right name. Rayna, Storm, Thunder.. yep it was meant to be

Their names are also all 11 letters long and have the AYN in it

For the boy, I was going with Jaxson Quinn.. I was totally set on it... Until I realized if he had a "B" name then all their initials would be BRATs.. So Jaxson became Brayden and I had to let hubs pick out the middle name.. which is Joseph.. I still wanted Quinn, but I got to pick Brayden..

So they are Rayna Nicole, Ashlyn Storm, Taryn Celine, Brayden Joseph


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## kindlequeen (Sep 3, 2010)

Tam, I can't tell you how many hours I wasted on that darn site today.... Thank you for so many great laughs!!!!!

I'm lucky I didn't have kid in high school, she would have been Cordelia.  I'd like to think my taste is better today... but we wont know until I actually have them!

So many gorgeous names on here.... what a great gift to all your kids!


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## caseyf6 (Mar 28, 2010)

I was almost Marcia.  I'm an 80s kid; the cruelest years in school were spent when we watched a lot of Brady Bunch.  Thank God I got my Grandpa's nickname (Casey) instead.  Casey Jr and Casey at the Bat were small prices to pay.

My older dd was going to be Lia, and my little one was going to be Margaret Lynn/Maggie.  Lia was turned down flat by my husband, lol, and I had a battleax nurse when pg whose name was Margaret.  Fantastic nurse, but mean/antisocial and ugly.  NOT what my precious baby was going to be!!


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

We considered naming our son Timothy Burton Wolf (Tim Bur Wolf) but we decided not to be cruel.


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I am glad I have a "normal" name (though my middle name is a bit unusual -- a family name, but not cutesy or weird). I really wonder if parents who give their children "cute" names (or whatever adjective applies) think about what it will be like in 20, 30 or 60 years. A name that is cute for a 2-year-old can be just plain silly for a 50-year-old. Maybe that's why a lot of rich men go by their middle names: it's often a "normal" family name instead of the pretentious or cute first name they were stuck with. 

And no, NogDog is not my name.


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## Steven L. Hawk (Jul 10, 2010)

My parents were going to name me Thomas, but then my mom realized Thomas would get shortened to Tommy.  

Tommy Hawk.

Yep, I dodged that bullet while still in the womb.


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## meggjensen (Feb 17, 2011)

My brother was 6 when I was born and he wanted our parents to name me either Temperature or Bean.  

My husband was nearly named Jack Daniel - lol

I had a HUGE list of names when I was pregnant with my daughter. My husband hated all of them, so one day, in a fit fueled by pregnancy hormones, I threw the baby name book at him and told him to choose a name. He opened the book and said, "Hmmm....how about Tessa?" I said, "Sold." ...and then we were done.


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## tsilver (Aug 9, 2010)

> I really wonder if parents who give their children "cute" names (or whatever adjective applies) think about what it will be like in 20, 30 or 60 years. A name that is cute for a 2-year-old can be just plain silly for a 50-year-old.


I know a nurse whose name is Bunny and she is in her late forties. She seems to be proud of it but I think it's ridiculous for an adult to keep a name like that. If it were me, I would have had it changed.


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## swolf (Jun 21, 2010)

Grandma Bambi.


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## julieannfelicity (Jun 28, 2010)

Swolf got me thinking, LOL. When my SIL was preggo with my niece, my BIL threatened to name their daughter Hepa. Um ... our last name is Titus.


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## kindlequeen (Sep 3, 2010)

When my mother was pregnant with my youngest brother, my Grandfather kept telling her to name him Sterling.... not a bad name but their last name is Sylvia.  Sterling Sylvia wasn't going to fly with my mother.

A different grandfather wanted to name me Nimrod - his argument was it's in the bible so it has to be a good name.  Luckily, I was born a girl.  I think the other option was Oscar after his barber.


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## patrisha w. (Oct 28, 2008)

My last baby was going to be Meghan Roberta Jane but he came into the world as a Jake Fletcher! When he was in school, there wasn't a Jake or Jacob in the whole school. {He was born in 1977.} Now, of course, every second boy is named that. Fletcher was my maiden name. We wanted to call him after his English grandfather whose first name was Cyril, but he told lots of stories about how he hated it when he was growing up so we didn't go that route!

I was named Patricia Margaret. After I was born my mother didn't want to choose a name so she left it to my Auntie Babs {who was really a Margaret.  } So, the Patricia was for St Patrick {they were Irish Catholics} and the Margaret was for her.


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

patrisha #150 said:


> My last baby was going to be Meghan Roberta Jane but he came into the world as a Jake Fletcher!


Ooh, I like the name Jake Fletcher. It sounds so historical.


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## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

so, my maiden name is Hurt (yes, seriously it was). I always knew that naming a child was serious and had to involve what the whole name sounded like, including the last name. My dad once had to go to the hosptial to get stitches and this is how it went:

Nurse: name
Dad: Ben Hurt
N: Sir, I need your name
D: Ben Hurt
N: Sir I know you've been hurt, but I need your name so you can be admitted
D: My name is Benjamin David Hurt
N: 

My brothers had a lot of fun w/ this. They wanted to name their kids things like Ivan Ben Hurt, Richard Hurt (and call him


Spoiler



Dick


), etc. Of course, they got married to women who were relatively sensible. I do have a nephew whose middle name is Gator, like alligator and that's what they call him.


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## Aaron Pogue (Feb 18, 2011)

I've known since I was seven what I'd end up naming my first son, but we had a daughter first and that wasn't so easy.

I had a name I really liked (Elizabeth Dei), but I liked it _so_ much that I'd used it in a novel, and given it to a character my wife didn't end up liking too much, so that got vetoed. We settled on Annabelle Grace, though, and it fits her perfectly.


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## valleycat1 (Mar 15, 2011)

We had picked out "Veronica" when expecting, but fortunately realized before the big day that her initials would have been _VD_.


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## Karen (Feb 12, 2009)

My husband & his brothers wanted to name our son Bocephus after Hank Williams Jr., thankfully we settled on Douglas James.


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## AnnetteL (Jul 14, 2010)

If my third had been a boy, we considered Joshua Robert. But my husband said he's call the baby JR. Not on my watch. Good thing it was a girl.


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## Aaron Pogue (Feb 18, 2011)

Karen said:


> My husband & his brothers wanted to name our son Bocephus after Hank Williams Jr., thankfully we settled on Douglas James.


Wow. _That_ would have been unfortunate. Douglas James sounds quite respectable.


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## spotsmom (Jan 20, 2011)

My mother wanted to name me after her sister, Nancy.  My dad (who hated her sister) said she could name me with Nancy as a middle name if "Preg" was my first name.

Fortunately, they came up with something else.


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## coffeetx (Feb 12, 2011)

My first child (girl) was going to be named Hannah.  We referred to her as Hannah for the first 8 months I was pregnant with her.  Then one day this new show came on television called "Savannah".  It got promptly cancelled but the name stuck with us.  I also like long southern names.  So we went with Savannah and I've always loved her name.  She is especially glad that I didn't name her Hannah now that "Hannah Montana" is so big.  Admittedly though, I still love the name Hannah.

My second daughter was named Annabelle.  That was her dad's choice.  He adored the name and since I didn't let him name our first daughter that it was automatic that the next one would be Annabelle.  He did go through another phase where he wanted to name her Remington.  Thankfully I stood my ground b/c all I could think of was Remington Steele.

Our last daughter is Charlotte.  We also considered naming her Anne Marie.  I still love that name too but alas I have no more daughters to name.

My last and only boy was going to be Sawyer.  Another one that Dad wanted.  Not to mention one of my favorite characters on Lost.  However as soon as he was born, Dad could not pass up the chance to stick him with his name, Jr.


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## maryannaevans (Apr 10, 2010)

My youngest is named Amanda.  Her father has the very Welsh middle name of Lynn, so we thought it would be sweet to use it as a girl's middle name...until we said it out loud.  Amanda Lynn.  A mandolin.  We're musicians and he actually plays a little mandolin, so that would have been hysterical.  Her middle name is Suzanne instead, after my sister.  I used the name Amanda-Lynne for an eccentric character in my second book, RELICS.

I'm named after both my grandmothers--Mary Alice and Anna Bell.  Just think.  If my parents hadn't had such good taste, I could have been Alice Bell.  Eek.


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## Dawn McCullough White (Feb 24, 2010)

If my son had been a daughter he would've been Zia Camille.  I like that name, though it might make a better name for a character.  My name was nearly Chandra.

Dawn


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## ZsuZsu (Dec 27, 2009)

I don't have kids of my own, so I will reply about my own name (and my fur-babies)-
If I was a boy, I was supposed to be Dewayne (no idea why!)
If I was a girl, I was supposed to be MelodyAnn

I turned out to be a girl, but my mother (thankfully because I am just NOT a MelodyAnn!) had second thoughts and named me Laurie Ann (Laurie after her favorite character in "Little Women"!)
My sister was "definitely" a boy (LOL), so she was going to be Stephen- she came out with "different plumbing" than expected and became Stephanie.

The oldest girl in each generation (on my mother's side) always gets Ann as a middle name (I am the oldest in my generation), so that's how I got my middle name.
When I adopted my baby kitty Annabelle, I knew she needed to have "Ann" in her name, so I took the "Belle" part from my grandmother Isabelle, and combined it with the "Ann" since she is the first girl kitty in my family.
My boy kitty got the name Jeter (For Derek Jeter!) after my husband lost a bet during interleague play a few years ago- if the Cubs won, he was going to name him "Smith" (no idea why), but since the Yankees won, I named him Jeter!

When my aunt was pregnant with her first child, her husband was INSISTENT that if it was a boy, they were naming him Santino, because he wanted to call the child Sonny.... my aunt fought tool and nail because their last name is Arduino- and Santino Arduino just doesn't sound right!  Luckily, the baby was a girl and they named her Aimee (can't remember her middle name!)

Wonder if I would have grown into a different person if I HAD been named MelodyAnn.....


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## Annalog (Dec 28, 2008)

DH and I liked the name Elizabeth when we were choosing a name for our baby. We decided to name our daughter Patricia instead because our last name is Taylor. We choose Ann as her middle name so that her initials would be PAT. Little did we know that kids at school would tease her by calling her Patti Elizabeth Taylor! Our oldest granddaughter is named Elizabeth.


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## par2323 (Nov 22, 2010)

With the last name of Rockwell, we obviously couldn't name any child Norman.  I really wanted to name my daughter Miranda because I thought Miranda Rockwell was very lyrical.  However, then I got to thinking and realized that kids would probably torment her some time in her life by calling her Randy Rockwell, so we settled on Cecilia.  

Patricia


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## BTackitt (Dec 15, 2008)

Thankfully my mother did NOT follow family tradition and give me the middle name of Cornelia.

I wanted to name my daughter Corinne Elise.. DH thought Elise was too old-fashioned, so she became Amanda Corinne.


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## Guest (Mar 23, 2011)

I named my illegitimate son Edmund after the character in _King Lear_.


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## EGranfors (Mar 18, 2011)

When the kids were on the way, my last name was Portnoy.  I really wanted to name my daughter Portia, but the PP initials would have been hard to live with in elementary school.

Named my son exactly what I dreamed of. . .Aaron Hal (after Shakespeare's Prince Hal and my grandfather Harold)

When my grand daughter was coming along, I hoped the kids would name her for her deceased great grandmother Joyce.  I even suggested Rejoice.  NIX NADA!


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## sebat (Nov 16, 2008)

My mother wanted to name me Zoie, but my father threatened to divorce her if she did.  My father wanted to name me Assunta after my Italian great-grandmother and Mom said, no way.  They settled on the name my great-grandmother started going by when she came to America, which was Susie.  They named me Susan.  My grandparents were the only ones that ever called me Susie and my dad shortened it to Suz instead.


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## Thumper (Feb 26, 2009)

If the boy had been a girl, he would have been Krystal Michelle. In hindsight, I'm glad we had a boy, because with a name like that she probably would have used little hearts to dot the letter "i." I was definitely never cut out to raise a girly-girl...

My uncle was going to be named Valentine (he was born on Feb 14th.) The nurse absolutely refused to put that on his birth certificate...so he became Jimmie Valentine. I think he appreciated that


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