Sarah is a freelance writer and one of Australia's best known parenting bloggers.In her everyday ...
Childbirth
Childbirth Blog
Sarah
5
Jan
Best baby names of 2010
Charlotte, Noah, Ethan and Lily are just some of the popular names that made the Huggies list of the most popular baby names for 2010. It certainly made for interesting reading and I was amazed to see that two of my three my offspring had popular names! While popularity wasn’t the reason we chose the names I do wonder and it got me thinking about criteria for choosing baby names.
The name choices we had for our children weren’t based on if they were popular or not. We based it around two things really, the meaning of the name and their middle names having a connection with other family members. I was always very proud of the fact that my name meant “princess,” as that was clearly the closest I was ever going to get to royalty! One of my brother’s however tried to hide the meaning of his name if it ever came up in conversation. When pressed he would say it meant “The Rock. “ In actual fact, it meant “Small One.”
I also had a bit of a thing about not playing round with the traditional spelling of the name as well. Firstly, our surname is complicated enough and I know my kids have a lifetime of having to spell it aloud to everyone, and secondly because having been a teacher for years I have seen so many variations on popular names that it doesn’t appeal to me at all. I know this makes me a bit old fashioned. But I’m ok with that.
In contrast, a relative of mine has been given the feminized version of her dad’s name while her sister was given an inversion of their mother’s name. By that, I mean her name is Henrietta and her dad is called Henry and her sister is Bella-Ann, with her mum’s name being Annabella.
So what are your criteria for choosing names? Are you preparing a shortlist? Do you use lists like this one? Do you base it on popularity? Or have you had your names picked out for years?
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6 Member comments Post a reply
Choosing a baby name? Do you look at popular names or have family traditions that shape your choice?
Read the full blog post: Best baby names of 2010
Posted 06 January 2011 - 04:45 AM
I tend to like the unique names not so much common. I dont really look at the best baby names. I think you can have unique names without going strange. My daughter i called Hermione and my son Ashton.
I look at names that i could see calling my kids forever.
Posted 06 January 2011 - 05:18 AM
Yeah thats what i do too... i think about the name and how it will sound in 10 years time lol... also how it would sound used in different tones lol (just something silly between me n DP) lol..
I also like unique but not too odd.. even though my DD has the most unique name..Telequah
Posted 06 January 2011 - 05:45 AM
i like the different names aswell, i tend to get put off the popular names simply cause they are popular.
Posted 11 January 2011 - 01:17 PM
i have always liked the unusal names but always make sure that they arent sooo different that my kids are going to be hassled at school for it, i tend to stay away from plain,older, common names as i dont want them to be one of 2-5 in the class with the same name also because myself and my husband have old fashioned names which i think are boring. my 10 year old is nikita cian and my soon to be born will be aaliyah nevaeh paige
Posted 11 January 2011 - 08:06 PM
To make choosing a name a bit easier, I printed out a list of boys names off the internet. I gave a copy to my partner and I had a copy. I said that when he had a minute to go through and mark the names he liked. I also did the same on my list not showing each other what we had chosen. Several days later we sat down and went through the names that we had selected and the rules were we had to only say positive comments but were able to say if we didnt like the others choice but in a nice way only. Even though we didnt choose any name the same we did make a short list of four names and we just thought about them over the following months. Finally it came down to two names and after our beautiful boy arrived we choose Mason as his name.
Posted 26 January 2011 - 07:03 PM
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