I’m an astute person (or so I like to believe…) so I’ve noticed that we are at the business end of this pregnancy. Third trimester is here, weeks begin with ‘thirty’ now – yikes! As well as thoughts turning to birth plans, late term scans, sorting through all the teeny white jumpsuits and swaddle blankets…the ever looming Name Game hovers over us also.
Again, second pregnancy is proving to be as uneventful and rushed as ever – when we were pregnant with Eleanor I think we were talking about names the night I did a pregnancy test! Now, we’ve loosely had discussions or thrown about passing comments, but it just doesn’t seem to be forefront of importancy! Of course, it is, but somehow you realise with a second (or third or fourth…) child, the name of that child is just one of the big consideration to be made. I also think it’s helped that we haven’t really deviated from our name discussions we had the first time around. We’re very lucky in that we like similar names, we’re not poles apart on that front. I’m not sure how I would deal with things if my husband liked uber-modern left of centre names and I took the traditional route – what a predicament!
Our boys name has not budged from what we would have named Eleanor had she been of the blue variety. Super convenient…until we start going through the list of ‘ones we like but didn’t quite make the cut’…
“Oh that’s nice!”
“I’ve always liked…”
“What about…?”
So, our ‘definite’ boy contender is vying for top spot currently with a few others, depending on what day of the week you ask, what mood Matt’s in or whether the wind is blowing from the east or west. Sigh…
This time around I am definitely more inclined to be more adventurous, go out on a limb more, not be so safe. Matt has always suggested names in the top 20 (Sophie, Olivia, Charlie, Amelia, William…) All lovely, agreed, but I’m very hesitant to have a child named something very popular, common or like several others in the playground. I also think the plethora of Ava’s and Jack’s completely has taken away from the loveliness of those names, pity. So no Sophie Steendam’s here. My bestie has a Claire, my sister a Violet and our dog is Tessa – all names that would probably be high on our girls lists (although the dog and my bestie’s daughter having them probably wouldn’t stop me if I really deadset wanted that name!)
The prospect of naming another girl has us a bit stumped – mainly because it all comes back to Eleanor. We find ourselves comparing everything to Eleanor, which we love (obviously!) Also a lot of secondary names we tossed around for girls when pregnant with Eleanor, were similar to Eleanor – Elsie, Elsa, Elizabeth, Ellen, Elle, Alice. She was actually always going to be Alice, and Eleanor came later in the piece…but now I can’t imagine having an Alice and Eleanor, too much El/Al going on.
I strangely have an aversion to girls names ending in ie/y too – Rosie, Daisy, Lucy, Sadie, Maggie… All lovely but I just can’t get around the ‘little girl’ factor rather than a 34 year old CEO? I’d definitely prefer Rose over Rosie, Margaret over Maggie, Evelyn over Evie. This was a consideration for us when naming Eleanor, we did like Ellie, but so far she doesn’t really get called that – although if she does that’s fine by me, I wanted a name I didn’t mind the abbreviation of, I don’t want to be that mother spouting: “Her name is ELEANOR!” Any nickname that she gets I wanted to be ok with, and so far she gets a bit of Ellie, Nelly, Nora…
My ‘adventurous’ streak with this pregnancy name game has me down very old fashioned paths. I’ve always loved old world, traditional names (as has Matt) but I think this time around I’m wanting to go a step further. Pity conservative husband is sticking to the traditional traditional road and has so far nixed any notions of Esme, Esther, Maeve, Peggy, Joan or Betty. Hmph. Beatrice and Margaret too! I thought I was on a winner there with those.
The thing with naming a person is the pressure – it’s a pretty big deal. I personally love my name, and if it weren’t my own I think Emma would be in the mix for a child of ours. I’m certainly glad it will be in our family tree for future generations to use if they wish. So, currently we have ‘front runners’, a No.1 girls and No.1 boys name for sure…but we also have lovely No.2’s and No.3’s…oh dear…
Anyone got a coin to flip?
Grace says
I recently watched a movie with an irish female character named Eilis (pronouced eye-lish) and totally fell in love with the phonetics…..cannot for the life of me remember the movie now (thats terrible!) but that name has come to me at the most random times ever since and have the deep down feeling it will continue to, until babies pop up/out (a while off fpr me yet…) Love and have been thinking about a ~butchered version~ such as Ellis… works for boy or girl too.
Hannah says
We had our first in January, a little girl called Eden Dae.. We also loved Daphne, Peggy and Audrey.
All the best finding ‘the one’.. Looking forward to the announcement!!
Alanah Hooi says
We struggled with names the third time around, our first two boys were easy (Otto and Hugo) and we eventually settled on a girls name (Miriam) and a boys name (Arlo). It took me a long time to convince hubby to go with Arlo, he didn’t want them all to have the same length name ending in ‘O’. Luckily it was a moot point and we welcomed Miriam into the world 8 weeks ago.
Amanda says
It is a very tricky thing, this name business. Ours are Molly Grace, Poppy Scarlett and Monty Jack Quinn. There is a story behind each name and I love them now just as much as I did when we named them. My son recently took part in a surfing comp, the competitors were Monty, Ted, Max, Fred and Jerry!!!
Emma says
Love your names! My sister has a Scarlett Grace, and her Violet was nearly Molly (their dog’s name and they were going to re-name the dog Polly!) I know three little Monty’s who are all delightful little gents, I think it’s definitely the name.
Rachel says
Like so many others here I love names, especially the old ones. I love name so much I use to collect them as a teenager, I had lists and list of them and their meanings, origin etc. writing down in many notebooks! I easily named my twins Rose and Alice from very early in the pregnancy but my son Thomas was only chosen under the pressure of indecision and labour! It was going to be Alice name had she been a boy but I still feel funny about it for my son as its meaning is ‘twin’ and he is not one like his sisters! Despite being such a popular name so far I’ve only ran into one other Thomas and popularity was a concern for me about the name. Thomas’s girl name alternative ended up being my chickens names, Eleanor, Edith, Mabel and Maude.
Emma says
Rose, Alice and Thomas are all lovely names. You are quite the name aficionado!
Emma says
I love Eleanor’s name. We have a Meg (straight Meg not Megan etc) and I love it. We get so many lovely comments about it. If #3 had been a girl we would have called her Thea (although Annie, Mary and Greta were all hot contenders!) I could name a hundred girls….boys not so much, I struggle big time with them. Good luck with the coming weeks
Emma says
Boys I find very black and white – it’s either yes or no. Girls names are trickier as there are just so many lovely ones. I do love Meg, and Thea is my nan’s name!
Amna says
Coming from an Arab background, our “potentials” list always sounds default unusual in Australia!
For a girl, our shortlist is Tala or Layal, and for a boy, the shortlist is Tariq or Noori.
Alison says
I enjoyed finding names and did lots of reading of name blogs! 4 girls did take a bit of naming!!
This website generates names from inspirations: http://www.nymbler.com/
And this one too: http://www.babynamewizard.com/baby-name/girl/eleanor
Here is a great Australian name blog: https://waltzingmorethanmatilda.com/2013/10/27/never-out-of-season-different-varieties-of-classic-name/
A feature about royal names: (Eleanor was a french princess who married Henry II)
https://waltzingmorethanmatilda.com/2015/02/15/historical-naming-patterns-in-the-house-of-windsor-part-1-brothers-for-prince-george/
https://waltzingmorethanmatilda.com/2015/02/22/historical-naming-patterns-in-the-house-of-windsor-part-2-sisters-for-prince-george/
And another feature on Eleanor and some sibling suggestions: http://www.britishbabynames.com/blog/2015/04/eleanor.html
A coin toss can be helpful! Toss the coin, keep the coin covered and before you find out the result you may find you are hoping for one option more than another!
Emma says
Such a good idea! I’m sure that would sort the wheat from the chaff pretty quickly!
Maureen says
My little granddaughters are Phoebe and Audrey. They are such beautiful names and not too popular. Our grandsons are Charlie and
Dominic.
Emma says
All lovely names – Audrey was bandied around for Eleanor at one point.
Gwylfa Moore says
I love hearing other peoples name choices and reasoning. Our girls are Josie Kate and Lola
Charlotte Ann, both names have family connections. little Lola was unnamed for 10 days (not something I ever thought would happen to me but we couldn’t quite agree.) I have a very unique name and spelling so wanted something uncommon but traditional for our girls. Nola, Mabel and Nora were my other favorites, we knew she was a girl. I look forward to hearing of the arrival of your new addition and choice of name.
Emma says
Lovely names of your girls. We have a Lola in my mums group, and a niece Charlotte. I’ve always liked Kate, and Josephine/Josie always a contender as its my grandmothers name but she was known by Joy, why Eleanor is Eleanor Joy.
Elisha says
I love all your names. I have Mae booked in for my next girl! Goodness knows for a boy. You might inspire me. For the record I love my kids names- all a bit old/traditional – Hugh, Edith (Edie) and Oliver…
Emma says
Edith has been bandied about for a girl too. And I always liked Hugh/Hugo. My friend recently had an Oliver, another lovely classic.
Stephanie says
Ohhhh, so excited for when the little one arrives. I too didn’t want nicknames for those same reasons. I have two boys and a girl. Alexander Russell, Nicholas Rodney and (you know) Eleanor Johanna (2 today). They get Alex, Nick and Ellie. It was so hard choosing a name after Alex. Alexander is for my Mum’s uncle and great uncle and Russell is for Mike’s dad. Nicholas was hard to choose but went with Alexander. Rodney is for a family friend is a second dad to both of us for separate reasons. Eleanor, Mike chose from an xbox game and Johanna for Mike’s brother Jonathan who passed away five years ago now. I love how they all go together. They are also all Greek spelling like mine but are also all kings and queens of England. I love their meanings too.
Emma says
All beautiful family sentiments behind your names. I’ve always quite liked Nicholas. I agree a second of same gender could be tricky!
Jo @ CountryLifeExperiment says
I’m a fan of the traditional name too, though I tried to avoid top 20 names – Hannah ended up being 13th most popular the year she was born. Another thing I got wrong was giving my daughter a less well known name: Meghann is a traditional Welsh name (rhymes with Peg-enn) but she gets called Megan all the time. We call her Meg.
Emma says
I love your children’s names – classic but not too popular. Meg is a firm favourite here too.
Sami says
I’m putting my hand up for having 2 boys with names in the ‘top 20’ – Jack Walter & William Oscar. Both names seemingly appear to be in those lists however I’m yet to come across anyone else i know with little boys bearing the same names. We always wanted strong names – these out there alternative names weren’t our thing. Some of the girls names we had chosen were Paige, Eadie or Evelyn and would have loved to include either Annie or Jean in there somewhere too.. I can only imagine the names you have floating in your mind and ill bet its going to be beaaaaaautiful, just like Eleanor x
Emma says
Beautiful, strong boys names. Does William get Will? Matt suggested Paige, and I’ve tossed Evelyn around a fair bit too…
Sally says
Oh, I’ve been waiting for this post! Love, love, love talking names! Esther, Maeve, and Beatrice are gorgeous – boo Matt! ? Can’t wait to hear what you pick – I’m sure it will be just perfect ☺️
Emma says
I know, he’s got no idea! :p
Rosie says
I cannot WAIT to hear the name announcement of your little one….actually, just the birth announcement in general, but the name especially! I love the name game, I could have happily named another 5 of them (the actual pregnancies and raising them I could have done without!). We had the same issue with Al/El names…my sister is Alice, Dave’s sister is Eloise, and our niece is Alissa Eloise (yikes!). We loved Alma, but not with all those Al/El already! I’m a Rosie (not Rose or Rosemary or a Rosanna…just Rosie), and I have to admit, I love my name, but it’s very ‘lovely’ (when matched with my surname especially, but my middle name as well!).
Emma says
I could name a hundred babies too! Oh dear…! That’s a whole lot of Al/El going on! From memory I think your sister has lovely named girls?
Sophie says
It’s a pity there will be no Sophie Steendam… I quite like that name ? We were discussing our own names recently and mine would have to be the most popular in our family (as I know three other Sophie’s!) whereas my sisters Odette and Bonnie and brother Hugh have never had any close association with someone of the same name. However, we do know an alarmingly large amount of dogs named Bonnie!!
Emma says
Odette is a lovely pretty classic! I don’t know any Bonnie’s other than dogs – ha! And Hugh/Hugo has been thrown about a bit, as it was with Eleanor’s pregnancy.
Anne@GritandGiggles says
I know my Mum had a variety of names picked but when we were born she just knew that was the one (she knew our sex though). We have an Anne Louise (Annie), Carolyn Elizabeth (Caro), Laura Grace, Gemma Irene (Gem) and Stuart John (Stu). Mum was always determined that my brother was Stuart, not Stu or Stu-ie or anything else. Time won that one over. All the names have family connections in some way or another. My sister had hers picked and ready to go, knowing and having announced what sex the bubs were. She has an Eleanor Grace and Amelia Francis. Also these have connections to family through the middle name. Name picking is hard … we talk about it for the future but like different names, ugh. I’m sure you’ll settle it and if nothing else this could have given you ideas lol.
Emma says
We have a niece Laura Grace 🙂 Oh goodness, good luck with the future baby naming if you like different things – eeep!
Anne@gritandgiggles says
I know, should make for fun times one day.
Sarah says
Not sure about Oz but here in NZ, my 10 year old has come across one other child with the same name in her whole life! We love our Iris – traditional, classic and not dime a dozen. We also love our youngest ‘s name – Tessa, although so not enamored of the fact that a family 2 doors up from our place had twins born the same day. Our Tessa and their Tessa share a birthday, identical birth weights, almost identical adresses and became Tessa C. and Tessa H. at kindy and still are at school! Being a Sarah, I wanted my kids to have names they didn’t have to share – had never come across another Tessa until we’d chosen the name.
Emma says
When we named Tessa our dog it was on the ‘love the name but probably not enough to name a child’ list. Now faced with naming another girl possibly it’s a contender! I love Sarah too, other than the popularity, although that’s probably waned, but popular names are popular for a reason!