Names. Round Five.

Well, here we are again.  Round five in the pick the perfect name game.  I would like to say it gets easier every time but it absolutely does not.  It just gets harder.  Every child's name choice weighs on me for the nine months leading up to the birth and continuing through the next 90 years of life afterward.  (Btw, this post will be interspersed with pictures from Halloween because I feel like it.)

Glittering up my sparkling daughter.

I've posted before about my naming standards, many of which I have broken for one reason or another but still are a pretty good guide for me while I name babies.  I often forget when I name a kid where I will be when I get to name another one, how my name choices will effect my future name choices.
You can see why I sweat it so much.  I love names.  I love thinking about how names were chosen and why.  I love to hear how people put them together.  I have found that I gravitate toward people who have named their children well, but maybe that has more to do with education levels, socioeconomics and common culture.

Jude wanted to be Cousin It.  I made this epic creation out of a tiki umbrella and a tomato cage.  

So I've compiled some advice based on my experiences in naming.  I've made some mistakes with some of my name choices, but overall I am proud of my naming.  I wish I had thought of a few of these things before I named my first baby (although I would have named her Miranda, nonetheless).  I might have saved her middle name for another kid because it's such a beautiful name.
I have one friend who has as many kids as I do and shares a lot of the same naming expectations.  She was marveling that this was our ninth time through the name reel together.  I also include some of the reasoning developed with my sisters in our consultations while naming 18 children.  We aren't perfect namers but we have experience and the perspective of how our naming efforts have paid off as credentials.
Naming is a big deal.  Take it seriously.

Some information for neophyte namers.

1.  The first name is a biggie.  So are all the others, but the first name sets the trend from which you can't significantly deviate.  I recommend picking a name that has some out there nicknames.  I wanted to call my firstborn Mimi but that isn't weighty enough.  Mimi is a nickname for Miriam but I wanted a Shakespeare name so named her Miranda instead.

Mimi and her buddy Lorelai in a rad astronaut costume

2.  If you're picking a genre make sure that there are a lot of other names that work with that genre.  Shakespeare has lots of names I like but not all of the characters are worth being a namesake.  I can't name a kid MacBeth.  But there are plenty in that group that I still like: Juliet, Ariel, Cassio, Orlando, Helena.  Some of the characters I absolutely love have kinda hard names: Desdemona, Mercutio, Thaisa, Hermia, Hero, Portia, Cordelia etc.  Then some names are great names and horrible characters: Tybalt, Regan, Lucretia, Cressida, Iago.

Church Trunk or Treat

3.  Expand your genre.  If you name your kid Arrow (love that name) that gives you a pretty big genre of naturey word names: Posey, Birdie, Phoenix could all be siblings.  But from Arrow you could also expand your genre to all word names and siblings could be Honor, Sunshine, Bay, Kismet.  I like that category.  But I've boxed myself out of it to some degree.  Similar with Bible names.  You name one kid Daniel he can't have a sibling named Adonai.  But he doesn't only have to have siblings Peter, Paul and Mary.  You can do other Bible associations: Eden, Lydia, Abigail, Amos, Asa, Canaan.  It might be a severe departure from Daniel but at least they'd make sense as a group.

Halloween = Treats.  BL 13 months

4. Play it safe and take a risk.  You're naming this kid at least two names so you have some wiggle room to play around.  If like me you're not brave enough to name your kid Ophelia but really love the name throw it in as a middle name.  Betty Lou's middle name is Ophelia.  If she feels like Betty or LouLou don't suit her as an adult she has a weighty name in the middle she can use.  Don't waste this opportunity with a filler name: Lee, May, Belle, Ann, Rose, James.  I've discovered that I love my risk names even better than my relatively safe names.

Silas wanted to be the Blob.  This is what we came up with.  Also mistaken for a fart cloud.

5.  Don't blow all the good names at once.  I could easily have used Mimi's middle name Giselle for a first name.  I would like Willa to be an option but I've already used William.  You generally know from the beginning of your very first pregnancy what names you could maybe use and what names are just too far out there for your kid's first name.  Willa was an option, so was Willow, now neither are usable for me.

Halloween parade, M 3rd grade.

6.  Plan ahead with starting letters by picking the name you like the very most from that letter.  Even if names are totally different naming siblings with the same first letter always sounds singsongy and repetitive, unless you're planning to call them by a nickname that doesn't start with that letter (Elizabeth called Beth could have sister Eleanor).  I won't use Bianca, Bowie, Jonah nor Milo even though I love those names.

Unicorn faction.  Baby 5 six months in utero.  At Hush's office trick or treat.

7.  Also plan ahead with overall name sounds.  Silas can't have a brother named Miles.  Jude can't have a brother named Hugh.

8.  I am on the fence about family names.  They are safe except for when the family member you named your kid after disappeared when said kid was three days old.  It was of no import to me to be named after an aunt I hardly knew.  But my sister was named after another aunt who had no daughters and lavished Ellie with fancy things.  All of my kids have family names that connect them to the other generations so I definitely use inherited names but I don't think it's absolutely necessary.  It's a tradition in my family.

Dear Halloween party hosts, please don't serve my kids messy food that will ruin their costumes the first time they wear them.

9.  Do your homework.  No baby is born into a vacuum and there is so much information out there about trends.  You have a golden opportunity when you name a baby to start them on the path toward their identity.  I can't imagine what a different person I'd be had my mom named me from the top ten names the year I was born.  Can you see me as a #1 Jennifer? #2 Jessica or #3 Amanda?  The top five girl names of 2014 were Sophia, Emma, Olivia, Ava and Isabella.  Boys names in 2014 were Jackson, Aiden, Liam, Lucas and Noah.  Chances are I'm offending a significant number of you but you had fair warning as most of these names have also been in the top 10 for the last five years.  On the other hand, some people don't mind having popular names.  Maybe they were one of three Jennys in their class in elementary school and enjoyed the instant name gang and want to pass that on to their kids.  I can dig that, as long as you're aware of what you're doing.

Now if you can believe it there are still some wonderful names available for baby number 5.  My favorite naming resources are www.babynamewizard.com  Please check to see how the name you're considering is rising or falling in popularity.  Nymbler also helps you avoid uber popular names. www.nymbler.com.  www.ohbabynames.com is also a great site that tells you all the associations/famous people with the name.

BUT WHAT IF I SCREW IT UP???