I decided on my firstborn daughter's name about 7 years before she came along...and weirdly enough, it still felt right. She was Maya in my dreams and Maya in my belly and when she finally came out, she was just Maya. It fit.

However, I am full of ambivalence about our (still hypothetical) 2nd child's name. I waver constantly. I can see how this might happen to a parent. I still have namers remorse about changing my married name. I wish I had made my maiden name my middle name. Someday maybe I will even get around to doing it. :-)

The only namers remorse case that comes to mind is Meg Ryan:

In January 2006, Meg adopted a Chinese baby girl named Daisy True.
"I already had to change her name. I thought she was Charlotte and she’s just not... she’s a Daisy." --Meg Ryan on her adopted daughter’s name.

remind me of some feelings I've had.  We named our daughter after both our Moms.  My Mom's name was Marguerite (she died in 1997) and my DH's Mom's name is Ruth.  We put those two together for our daughter and while I love those names, I know that having Marguerite as a first name can be tricky.  People mispronounce and misspell it and it is lengthy to write.  

My dd goes by the nickname Meg which can be confusing with security issues regarding names matching exactly when traveling these days. In school it can also be a pain. Often people assume her name is Megan.  And while it seems easy to correct a person who has called you by an incorrect name, it can be kind of awkward.

Some of her IDs have her nickname and some have her "formal" name.  If there weren't security issues, I would tend to use her nickname for any flight bookings, but I never do now since her driver's license reflects her formal name.

So, while I do love her given names, I know they cause some inconvenience and sometimes I catch myself thinking it would have been easier to name her something different.  sigh.

With my ds I have no regrets.  I've always loved his name - even before he was born.  I've only known one other man with the same name as his, but I notice it has become more common.  His name is Mason.  When he was going through his younger years, I'm not sure he was tremendously fond of his name, but I think he really enjoys it now as it is a strong name and uncommon.

I'd given my second daughter a different first name. I let DH come up with a short list of names he liked, and then he and I chose her name from that compilation. I gave him more say because I had pretty much dictated the choice of our first daughter's name.

It's not that I dislike my second DD's name -- it's just that there are so many beautiful girl's names out there, and I wish I had chosen one that I was truly in love with (like my first daughter's name). However, her name seems to suit her and it has some cute nickname possibilities, so it's hers for good now.

last summer, and re-named her daughter (her only child). The girl now has a hyphenated last name. Before the divorce, she went by just her father's last name. Now her mom's maiden name is between her original first and last names. The mom kept her maiden name, and I guess she wanted her daughter to be identifiably hers. I can understand why she did this, but I have to think it must be incredibly awkward for the girl, who's already dealing with so much change ... not just her parents splitting up, but now a new name as well.

My first name has a million nicknames and it has been such a PITA my whole life.  I've been called every version of it at different points of my life and now I insist on using the full version of it with anyone new I meet.  But I still have people calling me all sorts of names depending on when in my life I met them.

I vowed that my children would have simple names that wouldn't be easily nicknamed and I think we succeeded on that.

We had one boy name and one girl name in our minds for a long time before we got married, and now we've used them up.  If we had a third, I would be in trouble trying to come with another one!

I'm still happy with the names we chose for our children.  

While I've never known any parent to legally change their children's names, I do know that a couple of generations ago, it was very common to name a child one thing yet call him/her something totally different.  Sometimes the names they were called would be a shortened version of a middle name, and sometimes, it would be just totally random.  I suppose those were parents who decided, for whatever reason, that they didn't care for the name they had chosen for their child at birth.

I did know one young man who would be in his 30s now who changed his name legally upon becoming an adult...his given name was "Hunter"...I can imagine that his father, my literature teacher in junior high school, named him after Hunter Thompson.  Now, this wasn't a name that was used 35 years ago in the moderately conservative town that I grew up in...and he did, I imagine, encounter a lot of stares and "huhs" growing up, so upon turning 18, he legally changed his name to "John"...the most commonplace male name used in the English speaking world.

One of my best friends changed her second son's name about a week after he was born. She decided she didn't love the name she gave him and her DH just loved another name, so she called the hospital, and it turned out the lady who files the SS paperwork had been out all week and had not sent it in.  It was a sign.

I know a couple of other people who also aren't crazy about the names they gave their kids.  But I don't think they would consider changing them after months or years.  

I like both our boys' names.  For the second one, I came up with a list, DH crossed off what he didn't like, then we picked one when we were at the hospital.  Actually, he picked it because my wild hormones were making me crazy trying to decide.  But I knew that since it had been on my list, I would like whichever he chose.

I think there is a certain suitability to names though and I'm always slightly weirded out when people name the baby before meeting them.   We had a short list and walked around the room calling the baby the name to see which one stuck.  After we had more than one child I practised saying them together to see if I'd feel stupid calling them all in for dinner.  

I do find it odd how all of the names that were on the short list for my daughter are the names of girls in her class.   We didn't know anyone named those names at the time but apparently everyone who was having a girl in 1998 was thinking the same things.  

My DH felt very strongly that our kids have his parents first names as middle names.  When my DD was born, I felt strongly about her first name (Leah), so I compromised on the middle name (Jeanne, from my MIL).  When my DS was born, eight years later, it made sense to use my DH's father's name (he died 30 years ago) as his middle name.

I'm not wild about these middle names.  I don't particularly like my MIL, and I think my DD doesn't like sharing her name.  DS's middle name is an unusual name, and I have no emotional connection to it, since I never knew my FIL.

Ah well...I love their first names... both are slightly unusual, but easy to say, spell, and remember.

about names...my cousin married a man who is the "third".  His father and grandfather have the same name and so when she had a baby boy the name was already chosen for him.   I find this kind of odd.   I can see a middle name as a tribute but a first name to me ought to be for that individual and not just part of some giant generational chain.  

Am I just weird and disrespectful of tradition?  Discuss.  

We had a couple of names and combinations worked out, for both boys and girls, but left the final say until Jessica was actually born. Her middle name, Louise, is from a cousin of mine who lives in Paris and was so kind and like an auntie when we lived in Europe. We also had Sarah Irene picked out - Irene is my middle name and my dad's mother's name. I love the name Irene, and would love to name a daughter that as a first name, but said in an Australian accent, it's absolutely atrocious.

FWIW, Jessica and Sarah were DH's choices. Personally, I preferred Sarah, but Jessica is definitely a Jessica.

I wanted to call my second child Devon.  Dave didn't like it so we went with something else.  Same story for children 3 and 4, so I gave up on the name.  By the time I had my boy-girl twins, I deferred to Dave (mostly) for names.  He chose Ryan and Devon.  And she's such a Devon!  Maybe he knew something I didn't.

for a while with DD #1, who was born in '93.  Shortly after, we started hearing her name everywhere.  It was apparently very overused in some sets,but because we were the first of our friends to have a baby, we weren't terribly tuned in.  We panicked for a while, but there has been very little duplication in her school career.  It suits her, I think.  With DD#2, I wish we had spelled hers another way - her name starts with a G, and I cringe when someone uses the soft instead of hard sound.  Hers is fairly unique, anyway - there's never been another in her class.

For my younger son I wanted Nicolas, but DH didn't think it worked with his last name.  Too bad, because this kid is definitely a Nicky.  My older son's name doesn't suit him at all - as it turns out, the name his birthmom chose was a much better fit and I now use it as a nickname.

My older son's middle name is my grandfather's name, Deane, and after he was born and named both my mother and husband have expressed regret that we didn't drop the "e" at the end of his name.

I like having it match my grandfather, but it's true you don't need the E and he will have to spell it for people if they are ever writing it down.  But how often do you really have to tell people your middle name anyway?

I do know some people who have been oddly indecisive about names, though.  My grandparents disagreed on my aunt's name and eached called her by their preferance into her adulthood.  

One mother I know got very into numerology when her daughter was in her late teens and tried to get the daughter to change her name or the spelling of it.   Daughter didn't go for it.

I met a mom when our babies were newborns, and they changed the name when the kid was several months old (and after I stopped seeing them regularly, so I still think of the kid by his old name).

Our first son's name fits him perfectly and I'm thrilled with the choice.  My husband only liked two names for the second kid, and I really disliked one, so we went with the second.  Honestly, I'm still not totally crazy about the name, and I don't think it fits him.  I guess it fits his personality well enough, but before he was born I assumed he would have dark hair (since everyone in our family does), yet somehow he ended up blonde and blue-eyed, and I think that's part of the reason the name doesn't seem to fit.

Okay, I like it now, that I am 55, but I was named for my mother(who is still alive) and my brother was named for my dad. My brother(a ---III) kept the tradition, naming one son ---IV,and the one daughter with the wife's name. I had to live with a nickname all my life, so did my brother.(Imagine a CEO named "Rip",okay?)and in the family, I am called "Sis" but as an adult I use the full name(Katherine). I just feel like there was too much done to make the kids be just like the parents, which never happened.
My son had a Chinese name when we adopted him, and we liked it and kept it. I know one girl adopted and given a nice name, but as a toddler she insisted on being called by the Chinese name, and her parents agreed(it was her middle name). It fits her so well, I have to think hard to recall the English name!

My grandmother has a very unusual name and always hated it.  But her mother and my grandfather both loved it, so when she was still out from giving birth, my grandfather named my mom the same thing as my grandmother.  Sure enough, my mom always hated it.  She was adamant that I would not share the burden.  Everyone thinks it is totally cool, but it is really more cool for an adult than a kid.  I would have been very self-conscious.

My one year old is named Nathaniel. We weren't sure about it, and we have wavered. But now it fits. It means "God's gift". And that describes him perfectly.

Melbourne's broadsheet daily The Age just put out the article of the top 10 most popular names for boys and girls in Victoria in 2007. Number one name Boy - Jack; girl - Olivia. There are some really pretty names on the list...

despite the spur-of-the-moment naming.  DH looked up names on the internet and put two together, just in time for CPS to steal the kid.

I've only known one person to change the name of her baby months after its birth-- many years ago, a friend of our family's changed the name of her newborn from Marie to Diana when the child was several months old. It was only this year I realized that this coincided exactly with Princess Diana's wedding-- the mom was probably swept up in the excitment.

I love my DS's name.  Can't imagine him as anything else.

For our currently gestating baby (due July 1st-ish) we have two boys names we can't decide between (Frank and Gus)  and can't seem to agree on a girl's name at all.  Everything I like, my partner doesn't.  Including "Lucy", my long standing girl name choice; it's also his sister's girl pick and she has told me she would have been furious if I had used it.

But since I am adamant that this baby HAS to be a girl (haha! No one yell at me, I just want a girl, but know I will be happy with whatever I am blessed with), we better pick a girl's name soon.  Something not too common, that sounds sort of "old fashioned".  Any suggestions? (No S names)

We laugh about last names and the confusion we will cause in school.  I am keeping my maiden name forever, DS has his father's name, which is different than my fiance's name (and he will be the one who is seen as DS's father in school settings, since his biological dad can't be bothered).  The baby will have the same name as my fiance.  We're thinking of getting one of those address signs for the house that says "House of Smith, Jones, Carter", just to see if they can make it fit!

we ended up changing the spelling of our baby's name. originally we named him sasha. but because it's a name that is used for boys and girls, we realized that when people saw it written down, they thought he was a girl. so we changed it to "sascha" to try to make it look more masculine.

i love both of the names we picked for our kids. i felt silly that we hadn't figured out the spelling we wanted from the beginning, but it wasn't hard to change it.

I love my son's name, Zachary. He was born in 1991, and at the time, I only knew one other Zachary ... and apparently, so did the millions of other mothers who chose that name. I still love it, though. He is such a Zach.

I also love my baby daughter's name, Mia (not to be confused with Maya -- I hadn't even thought about people getting confused with that until we named her). For a short time, I was stuck on wanting the name "Ava," but my husband didn't like it. We both agreed early on in my pregnancy that we loved Mia, and it definitely fits her. I love the meaning, too -- "mine."

I'm happy with their middle names, too, but I didn't pick them. I let Dad choose both times.