I know. I really wish I had just kept my last name and not bothered with the hyphen.

If you and your husband have the same last name, what is the point in hyphenating it?

I think she meant that he changed his name, too: hisname-hername.

I like short or classic names for boys:
Guy
William
Alexander (Lex for short ... he'll either have to be a lawyer or the arch-nemesis of a superhero!)
Lon
Maxwell

For girls, I've always liked:
Claire
Georgia
Caroline
Ella
Katherine (Kay)
Millie

Yes, her name is Dixie. She was born about '72 - '73. She's a couple of years younger than I am.

I'd like to think that I could name a daughter after my mother. You gave me hope!

I like the classic names, too. Many of our male family names are pretty ordinary, but I have a lot more freedom with female names. I also love using last names as first names.

I kept my middle and last names...and added my husband's to the end of it, so I now have 2 middle names and didn't lose who I was for the first 25 years of my life.
:)

I kept my name when I got married, and haven't regretted it for a day. It is so much easier- didn't have to change anything. And it doesn't make me any less married!

Oh, and no it doesn't confuse my kids. They learned (or will learn) that this is daddy's last name and this is mommy's. To them it's no big deal.

Since you are in the South (I assume) I would think that people would get it. ;) So go for it!!!

I know a Dixie Lee who is 25 years old. :)

Craaaaazy that you bumped this! I was reading it and about to bump it.

Someone mentioned how common double names are in some places. (Mary ___ or ___ Grace) They're really common in Norway. (Kjersti Margrethe, Anne Theresa, Else Lill, Aase-Berit...) My mom's name is Mary Jane which I LOVE but it has a different connotation sometimes...I also couldn't ever name a kid after one of my parents since they're divorced and have new spouses.

On that note, isn't it fun to plan ahead? Or just day dream, maybe? I'm not planning on popping any babies out for a whiiiile, but it's fun to think about it! Should I post my "Shayla"? :p

Logan Daniel/James
Alyssa Jane (except it can't be Jane cause that's my mom's middle name)

I'm Slovenian, so we have a lot of crazy names in our family. But, there are several I think are really pretty. My favorites are Maruška (pronounced Mar-ush-ka) and Isabella.

My daughter's last name is hyphenated, because her father and I weren't married when she was born. When she lived with me, she went by lilnikki mommy'slastname. When she lived with her dad, she went by lilnikki daddy'slastname. She goes by his last name now.

I know this is an old quote, but I had to respond cause, well, my name is Georgia.

I used to hate it cause when I was little people used to be like "Oh hey, Atlanta!" or "Hey Florida!" among other things...

Now I've grown to like it because of how unique it is.

But one thing is still hate is when I meet someone, usually men, and they think they're REALLY clever because they start singing Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind" to me. You are not creative and you are not getting my number.

Should I ever have children (ha!), I hope I give them decent but not overly common names.

This is coming from a girl named EMILY of all things who has two siblings with names that are NOT common in North America, at least. I joke that my parents got the baby name book after I came along.

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

When we were naming our children my husband always put the words..Supreme Court Justice..........in front of the name. If the name sounded silly...it was out.

I had a sorority sister with the first name of Honi...yeah...I won't say her real last name but it had something to do with a baking ingredient. Honi became an attorney...(she was named pre Feminist)...and imagine the judge saying...Honi, do you want to cross?

Ugh, don't even get me started. I have 3 friends who are all due within 2 months of each other.. All naming their daughters Bella.

Stupid Twilight.

Among my friends and family members who have had kids in the last 5 years, I know 3 Madisons, 2 Kailens, 2 Aidens, 2 Landons, and 1 Addison.

Seems that every name lately ends in -en, -on, or -yn.

Honi Flour?
Honi Sugar?
Honi Butter?
Honi Nuts?
Honi Baking Soda?

Now I'm intrigued...

I think this is bizarre. I was the only one I knew with my first name until we moved to the Midwest. I had a friend in HS with the same name then I pledged AXO and there were like 6 in the house. Now I'm in the Southwest and again I'm the only person with my name? BTW, i was born on the east coast.

If I was to have a baby right now (probably would kill myself:)) for a boy Griffin has been a favorite for a very long time. Girls names are a little harder for me but I'm digging Caroline right now.

BTW, both my kids have names that can go either way gender wise and they are names of cities. My mother HATED the name of my son but now says she couldn't imagine him with any other name. I wanted to name my dd Lillian after a favorite Aunt and GMa but my husband isn't fond of it. It is her middle name. I wouldn't have picked her first name either. If it had been my choice and my choice alone she would be Reagan Lillian:)

Family names are OUT, as there are more than enough on my tree named Andrew, James, Daniel, Eric and Elizabeth. :rolleyes:

I usually pick first and middle names together:

GIRLS
Eva Jean
Campbell Chandler

BOYS
Mark Rodney
Farnsworth Wilcox


On a side-note: When bid days come around soon for SEC schools, check the GC links to campus newspaper lists of women's first-and-middle names. Last year, some were a hoot!

My sons name is pretty old fashioned and begins with an A. Kudos to who guesses it.

Abraham?

This kid will never be able to work in a car wash.

Nope, not at all. I think that uncommon names have always been popular among certain people, usually at either ends of society. I read some article which mentioned that variations of the "Orangejello/Lemonjello" urban legend have been bouncing around for ages--usually as a way to make fun of poor/immigrant/minority people; in that same article, the author mentioned that wealthier people tended to pick names that made reference to literature or their travels. Also, celebrities have been naming their kids "crazy" names for years; maybe it's the rise of celebrity culture that has caused this trend to explode?

My parents are in their 60s and they don't have names that were common in the 40s/50s; their siblings all have relatively uncommon but respectable* names. I know that my mother did not want us to be one of many people in our class/generation with the same name. I think it worked out a little bit better for me than for my sister, though--I blame the late 60s/early 70s for that.

*i.e., potentially unemployable