The first three are what I hope to name my children. I have no idea why but when I think of girls' names I always have to think of a middle name to follow it.
Emberly Hayden
Ellodie Carlisle
Emory Kensington
Rylie Addison

For girls I've also always liked

Emmelie
Baylor
Yale
Scarlett
Ember
Leigh
Lily
Piper
Lilian-Elmherst
Willow

For Boys:

Addison
Caleb
Alexander
Blake
Xander
Aiden
Emmett
Talan
Ryder

Boys: Liam, Aidan, Eamon, Connor, Sean, Gabriel, Ciaran (pronounced Kieran)

Girls: Siobhan, Catherine (Cate for short), Mairead, Brigid, Dierdre, Colleen, Sinead

Yup we are gonna have some Irish named kids LOL!

DH and I have already definitely decided if we have a boy, the first boy will be named Liam Olin (Olin is his granddad's middle name. He was in the 101st airborne and was dropped on D-Day)
The first girl will be Siobhan Ruth (Ruth was my grandma's first name)

bump

I'm an obstetrician so I get to see name trends as they unfold, so to speak. One of my favorite things (but kind of mean) is when new parents are clearly smug about their "original, unusual" name choice, only to find out that new babies with that name are a dime a dozen.

Once a dad told me, "We're going to name her 'xyz', bet you don't hear THAT one often." And I got to truthfully respond, "Oh, she's not even the first 'xyz' I've delivered TODAY."

I think it's appropriate to be in love with and proud of the name you choose for your child, but don't act like you're a genius for coming up with it. I guarantee it's been done.

A friend at worked emailed this out today:
http://deadspin.com/5924827/american...ing-even-worse

I will say that all of my potential baby names (ex. Ava, Isabella, Ethan, Alexander) probably won't be used because they're really popular now.

The names I pick for my children will have to be easy to pronounce in both English and Dutch since my significant other and most of my family are Dutch. My name isn't and I hate having to spell it out, or people giving me nicknames because they can't pronounce it.

I've always loved Dixie for a girl but unfortunately Porta-potties are called Dixies in the Netherlands so that's not going to happen.

Girls names I love:
Alex
Sienna
Sophie
Claire
Scarlett
Lauren

Boys names I love:
Alexander
Bastian
Cooper
Archer
Beau

My DH and I are looking to start working on our family soon. We have picked out 1 boy name and 1 girl name: Patrick and Samantha.

I really don't care about picking a name whether it's popular or not. If I like it, I like it! This is no offense to anyone, but I really can't stand really "out there" names. I love names that are pretty, simple, and isn't hard to pronounce.

I don't think that you should go out of your way to be really weird, but I understand avoiding the most popular name of the day, too. It's just a pain to be one of six Suzies in your grade school class or whatever. As someone mentioned, in my day, everyone was named Jennifer.

I am a high school teacher and had 5 Ashleys in one class of only 22 students, with 4 different spellings (Ashley, Ashleigh, Ashlee, Ashlie). Thank goodness their last names all started with a different letter. I just referred to them by their last name or last initial.

^This explains why I feel this way. I don't want to choose some obscure ~special snowflake~ name or anything like that. I have a name that is unique, but still "normal" and I want my kids to have that too.

Yes, and I also think you should give your kid the most obvious spelling, when there is one. You kid is not unique because you replaced an i with a y or the like.

Yes and Yes. Kayden, Madysyn and the like really just annoy me. It all sounds the same at graduation :)

Co-signed by an Amy from the '70s. There were five Amy's in my pledge class alone, let alone ladies who were in pledge classes above mine. I had no problem by going by my very unique last name. :p