RQ: If Luke had been a girl. . .

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If I had an Etsy Gift Card

reader question: If Luke has been a girl, what would you have named her?

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When I was pregnant with David, Justin and I had settled on the names David or Emily before  we even knew he was a boy. So, upon finding out he was a boy at the 19 week ultrasound, we pretty much just started referring to him as David from that point on. Before he was born we had an actual conversation declaring that that was his name, but it was a really relaxed thing for both of us.

With Luke, we didn’t find out he was a boy until the day he was born! So, when we talked about names it was a lot harder because we really needed to consider a name that we both loved for each sex.

I still liked the name Emily from my pregnancy with David, but I found myself wanting something new for this baby. I really pulled for the name Madelyn, but Justin couldn’t get over the fact that I grew up with a cat by the same name. Justin liked the name Brooklyn but I couldn’t see that fitting into our family. Nothing against the name, of course, it was just a little too “cool” for our traditional/classic name tendencies.

So I thought of the name Ali, which would have been short for Allison. And after a few weeks of talking about it Justin was into the name.

So on delivery day, we were either going to have a Luke or an Ali! In fact, we had a runner-up for a boys name too which was Benjamin (but call him Ben).

If we have any more kids, I’m curious to see if I still lean towards Emily or Ali or Ben.

If you have kids, did you struggle with boys names or girls names more? I feel like girls names are much harder than boys names!

 

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Maggie says · 06.17.15

We came up with all new options each baby (we have 4). The “leftover” name just didn’t seem right anymore. Allison was on our girls list though, so classic and pretty. The last 3 have been boys though, so I didn’t get to use it.

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Jaime says · 06.17.15

I have 4 girls and 1 boy. As soon as I found out I was pregnant with each of them, we had a girls name picked and it stuck. The boy was number 5 and we had never had a boys name that we liked. We finally agreed on one but we still have a girls named lined up in case we have another one. We have an Ally and I have to say I love that name!

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Kate says · 06.17.15

I like the spelling of your Ally!

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Mary Catherine says · 06.17.15

I don’t have children yet, but I have a good naming story. When my mother was pregnant for the first time, she just assumed she was having a girl. She says she never even considered the possibility of having a boy. And they chose the name Mary Catherine. She ended up having an emergency c-section with general anesthesia and when she woke up in recovery, my dad told her she had a boy and she responded “what in the hell are we going to do with it?” My brother didn’t have a name for 3 days! Four and a half years later, I came along and I was named Mary Catherine.

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Kate says · 06.17.15

that’s funny!

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Amy says · 06.17.15

When I was pregnant with our first son we had decided to name him Bernard Charles after his great-grandfathers. He died shortly after birth and after much consideration we decided to name him Michael David; Michael because we like it and David is my husband’s name. With our next pregnancy we knew the baby was a girl so there was no question her name was going to be Annastasia; a name I had loved since my teens. We then decided on the middle name Kimberly; after her Godmother. Finally our youngest son was a bit more difficult to name. I really wanted to use Bernard after my grandfather but I also wanted to continue with using a Godparents name along with his brother’s name. We kicked around Bernard Stephen Michael Charles, but that would just be cruel to a child and we ARE NOT royalty. So we settled on Stephen Michael; Stephen after his Papa/Godfather and Michael for his brother. I did end up using the name Bernard for my furry baby; a mini dachshund (the same breed my grandpa had when I was growing up).

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Melissa says · 06.17.15

I agree, girl names are harder! I went through a list of more than 5000 girl names, and picked out 54 for my husband to choose from, and he didn’t like any of them. So, we went with a Russian boy’s name (Ilya) for our girl! LOL I’m about to find out the gender of my 4th baby next week and we are going to reuse the boy name from last time and have narrowed it down to 5 girl names….which is a complete miracle.
I love your boys names especially because they are Biblical names!

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Amanda says · 06.17.15

I love the name you chose…Ilya.
One of my daughter’s has a Finnish name…Aili (pronounced Eye-lee) those two names go together so well 😉

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Gabriella says · 06.24.15

Ylja of Ilja are both girl names in the Netherlands! 🙂

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Leah S says · 06.17.15

Hi Kate!

I have a little girl who is 13 months old. My husband and I could only agree on one name for a girl, Emily. My husband’s name is Scott so I supposed you could say we all have traditional names. I never really thought about sticking with traditional/non-traditional names to fit what our family already has. I love the name Broderick, Brody, for a boy. I wonder if that would be considered too “cool” for us. :)- Before we knew we were having a little girl I had a much harder time with boy names. We both wanted and thought we were having a boy so we didn’t spend much time on the little lady names. Of course we wouldn’t trade Emily for anything. I’m curious to see what the name game will be like once we are expecting again though. I think it’ll be more difficult either way knowing now how little personalities develop and seeing how Emily fits hers!

Xoxo,

Leah

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Amber says · 06.17.15

My first was a girl and I truly believe God told me what to name her so we did. The second was a boy and it seemed like once we figured out the first and middle name it just clicked and felt right. The third was a girl and I changed my name so many times. The night before she was born, we had 5 first names and 2 middle names. During delivery, at 8 cm, we still didn’t have a name so I told my husband to just pick. He was feeling a lot of pressure which the nurse noticed and asked the names on our list. The first one he read, she commented how she (who had been delivering babies for 42 years) didn’t have many named that so that is what we chose it it fits her perfect. Our fourth is a boy, as we were discussing names, the two oldest loved one of them, started referring to the baby as that name the rest of the pregnancy that it just stuck. At the time of delivery, it seemed so weird to name him something else. We did have back up names for all the kids if they would have been born something else. And we didn’t love any of those at the next pregnancy. Our back up names would have been Max, Leah, Eli, and Lilly.

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Cynthia says · 06.17.15

After our first baby, we always found out the sex during pregnancy. Our first was a girl and I honestly can’t even remember the boy name we had picked out. I always knew she was going to be a girl anyway. So obviously, we didn’t reuse the boy name when we had our two boys after that. For as long as I can remember we’ve loved Lorelai for a girl, but now we’re leaning towards Esther or Claire…

I actually find boy names sooo hard for us… They were easy to settle on, but hard to find. We do like cool sounding names though, we have an Isla (girl, said eye-la), Jenson (boy) and Lincoln (boy).

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Amanda says · 06.18.15

We have a Lorelai and it’s nice to have a unique name in our little town. It’s entertaining to hear people trying to pronounce her name when we travel though! I love your kids names! We don’t have boys, but I really love your boy names!

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Aline says · 06.17.15

I think girl names are much harder!! I had a boy, now we’re expecting a girl and choosing her name was waaaay harder. I have no idea why 🙂

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Stephanie says · 06.17.15

My parents took the easy way out. I was supposed to be a boy, Stephen. When i was miraculously a girl at birth, I just became Stephanie.

Creative, right?

http://aneducationindomestication.com

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Kate says · 06.17.15

hahaha, keeping it simple!

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evelyn says · 06.17.15

We have 2 boys but a whole list of girl names we love. We are hoping we can use at least one of them!

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Andrea says · 06.17.15

im a loooong time lurker, but I love your blog! I loved following your pregnancy with Luke, as I was due a week after you. I had a little girl, and we named her Allison! I’m not a fan of names with nicknames, but I loved Allie and Allison, so we went with Allison because I was a fan of the nickname too. Anyway. We have a Lauren Elizabeth, Joel Alexander and Allison Kate.

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Kate says · 06.17.15

My sister is Lauren Elizabeth!

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Ali says · 06.17.15

I’m Ali, short for Allison!!! I love that choice (I’m only slightly biased). When my husband and I were picking out names, boy names were easier for us as well. We both work in education, so we’ve been around hundreds of kids each year for the last 10 years of our lives. Girl names were much tougher for us to figure out. We ended up with a girl and a boy. We had the boy name picked out when I was pregnant with our daughter, who is our firstborn. We ended up keeping our boy’s name for my second pregnancy, and we got our boy. Our son is named after his great-grandpa. our daughter is Kendall and our son is Eldon.

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Chelsey says · 06.17.15

When I was pregnant with our second child we could not come up with another boy’s name we both liked. When we found out we were having a girl I was so relieved!

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Heidi says · 06.17.15

We didn’t find out the sex of either of our babies. On the way to the hospital to have our first baby, we picked either Megan or Andrew. Turned out we had a girl and named her Megan Olivia. On the way to have a our second baby, 3 years ago, we decided on Bridget or Ezra. This baby was a boy, Ezra Matthew. We really didn’t have back up choices. I knew I really wanted Megan and my husband liked it too. Secretly, I wanted Ezra from the beginning and the first time around the hubby wasn’t loving it, but on the way to the
hospital he decided he like it!

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Whitney says · 06.17.15

I always love these type of stories. I asked my parents once what my name would’ve been if I had been a boy, but they couldn’t remember! I’m definitely going to keep a list of our top names, so my one-day kids will know what their almost names were. 🙂

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Jaclyn says · 06.18.15

I am the youngest of 6 with a very analytical father. When I was born my siblings were 17, 16, 15, 12, and 3. Obviously, my older 4 siblings had name opinions too. My parents came up with a short list of 3 boy names and 3 girl names as well as a scoring system. I still have the paper with their choices and votes. It is tucked in the baby name book that has been passed around our family and I treasure it dearly!

P.S.- On another note, my husband and I find girls names much more difficult to decide on as well.

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Kacie M. says · 06.17.15

We’re in the beginning phase of TTC, but I have had names in the back of my mind forever. For me, boy names are harder to come up with than girls – although a lot of the girls names I’m not sure my husband will like. We both have unisex names, so I thought it would be fun to name our kids with unisex names. I’ll admit that I hated my name growing up, especially when there was a boy Casey in the same class, but like that it’s different now that I’m older. Whenever the time comes, we do plan on finding out the sex… so we’ll have some time to narrow down a name to what we both can decide on.

When I was born, my mom wanted to name me Kayla but my dad didn’t like it. 3 years later when my sister was born, she got that name!

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Anna says · 06.17.15

I don’t have any children, but I do hope and pray God brings us a baby soon! So naturally I’ve considered name choices (i.e. overthought it waaay too much already for someone not expecting) and I feel compelled to comment because Luke is probably my favorite name for a little boy 🙂 and Madelyn or Madeline is on the top of my list for a girl. Other favorites are Noah, Elisabeth, Natalie, and Matthew. Anyway, I love your blog and I love watching your lovely family grow! xo

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Kaitlin says · 06.17.15

We have 2 girls and both times it took forever to name them but we had a boys name right off the bat! My husband named our first….Jessie Lynn. Had she been a boy her name would have been Liam Michael. I ended up picking the name for our second….Sydney Grace. Had she been a boy she would have been Case Michael. We had our boy names within like a week of knowing we were pregnant but it took until past 20 weeks to have our girl names!

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Liz F. says · 06.17.15

We also opted ‘to be surprised’–I would have been equally happy and blessed to have had a boy but the relief when she was in fact a girl was palpable as we were deep on girl names but during my labor had continued to squabble about boy names. Julia Elisabeth is our daughter’s name (we also liked Katherine, Emily and Bridget). We had chosen (after months of disagreement) the name James Edward for a boy but our relief at having a name was shortlived because literally 2 days after we decided James would be the name, that horrible ISIS beheading of the journalist, James Foley, occurred and our last name is Foley. My husband wanted to keep the name but I just didn’t want those horrible images in my head while holding my newborn so I was pulling for Timothy. Boy names were just tougher for us–my husband and i have never argued more than in the boy naming process!

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Shannon says · 06.17.15

Today is my due date (yay!) and we have not found out the sex of our baby. We easily chose a boy name but struggled with a girl name. Then last week my husband changed the boy name! It’s just too hard to tell before seeing our baby what we will end up deciding on. It is fun to imagine though 🙂

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Kate says · 06.17.15

it’s so fun to find out on delivery day!

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Kristen B. says · 06.17.15

I have 7 kids. And each time it is hard to come up with a name you love. My first is Kimberly. I realized I like names that are common but not overly used. I dont want my kid in school to be Jacob B. cause there are 3 other jacobs in the class. I have 5 girls and 2 boys and I think it was a difficult decision for each one. This name they take on forever. i would always think of them sitting in an office with their name plaque on the door. How would it sound. I ended up with Kimberly,Stefanee,Rochelle,Clarissa,Nathan,Nichole,Brody.

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Paula says · 06.17.15

My husband and I couldn’t really agree or decide on a name for our daughter. We went to dinner one night and had a twenty minute wait for a table. We agreed that no matter what, before we sat down we would have her name chosen. I said the name Erin and we both just nodded. It was the first one we both liked, so we just agreed quickly that was it. Her middle name is Valley after my father. I can’t imagine ever choosing anything else now. It fits her perfectly.

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Missy says · 06.17.15

Naming our children was very difficult for us, as both my husband and I are teachers and taught Sunday school as well. With exposure to so many children, we had name after name to consider, but it is amazing the thoughts you can have when you hear certain names if they belonged to children you taught. We had the most trouble coming up with boy names, so it was good we had one boy and two girls.

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Ashley says · 06.17.15

Hi!! When I was pregnant with our daughter we thought she was going to be our only child and so we chose a name that had a lot of meaning for both of us. We went with Emma Lei. I had a friend who’s Grandma was named Emily and she was an extremely important person in my life so I wanted to include that somewhere. My husband’s biological father’s last name was Lee and he wanted that in there too, so we ended up with Emma Lei and both loved it. When we found out that we were blessed with another pregnancy, we decided that since Emma was my idea and Lei was my husband’s we would switch and I would choose the middle and he would choose the first name. When we found out it was a boy, I knew immediately his middle name would be Charles after my dad. My husband took a long time, but finally decided on Jaden. We love both their names and think it fits them both!

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Katy says · 06.17.15

When I was born I was adopted, and my mother (who adopted me) named me Kathryn Anne. Kathryn being her middle name and Anne being my birth mothers middle name. So I would always have a piece of each of them with me! I love my name because of it’s meaning. My mom told me it was the only name that seemed “right”.

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Suzann says · 06.25.15

I think that’s sweet.

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Abby Leija says · 06.17.15

Loved this post! I’m currently pregnant with our second baby. I just entered the second trimester, so we will not find out the gender until closer to 20 weeks. Our first is a boy, he is 6 months younger than David. My husband wanted him to have his first name, so I choose his middle name, which he goes by. There are many “A” names in my family, so the only one then I really liked was Aiden. If this one is a boy, we will name him Christopher (after my husband’s best friend) Alexander and call him Alex. I like “E” names for the girls since that is what my husband’s name starts with. I think the girl names are so much easier! I have a long list, many of them are my husband’s grandmother’s names. For a girl we decided on Eva before we even wanted kids yet.

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Michelle says · 06.17.15

Emilie and Madeline were my only choices for girl names! Emilie was a last minute choice for my now 20 month old; I loved Madeline but it just didn’t feel right for her. My son’s name is Aiden (he’s 9, so I like to think I was unaware of the trend before I picked it haha!) and our other boy name on the list is Dylan. I love your little boys’ names, and I like Benjamin too 🙂

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Nicole says · 06.17.15

I have two boys. My oldest is Benjamin (we call him Ben) and my youngest is Lucas (like you, we call him Luke). We always steered towards classic names for both and found out what they were before we started picking out names. I tried to come up with girl names just in case, but could never come up with any that I liked.

Thanks for sharing your story!

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Skyler Larsen says · 06.17.15

My husband and I have lists of girl names that go on for ages, but boy names are so hard for us. When we were expecting our first child, a boy, we came up with a small list of names we liked. Four of my husband’s cousins were expecting little boys right before ours was due. One by one, our list of names was eliminated! None of us had talked about names with each other; that was just how it worked out. So, we went back to the drawing board, and we came up with Hunter Maben, which is my husband’s grandma’s maiden name and my husband’s name, and I can’t imagine him as anything else. Our second child is a girl (six weeks younger than David), and her name is McCall Rose. My husband spent some time serving for our church in McCall, Idaho, and thought it was so beautiful, and we both had heard it used as a girl’s name and loved it. Her middle name was my great-grandmother’s name.

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Alli says · 06.17.15

I would definitely vote for the name Allison! 😉 My mom really liked the name Glynnis, but I’m thankful my dad stepped in with some more suggestions!

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Caroline (Virginia Sweet) says · 06.17.15

Thank goodness this bun in my oven is a girl…my husband and I knew from day one if it was a girl, her name would be Lucie after my great aunt…but we were so not on the same page for a boy……..It was meant to be!

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Jessica says · 06.17.15

We have a list of boys names and knew by the second trimester what we were going to name our son. On the other hand, we struggled to come up with a single girl’s name. We ended up naming our son Elijah, but other top boys names on our list were Isaac, Greyson, Donovan, and Declan. The single girl’s name we agreed on was Charlotte. 🙂

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Mallory says · 06.17.15

I’m married, but we don’t have kids yet so I loved reading this for future ideas. I love the names of both your kids! If I had been a boy, my parents would have named me Jacob because it’s a family name. Since I was a girl, and my mom claims there were no good female (family) names left for me, she got Mallory from the show Family Ties. I’m glad she went with that. 🙂

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Jenna says · 06.17.15

If my daughter had been a boy, her name would have been Smith Walter (my mother-in-law’s maiden name and my husband’s middle name). Instead, she’s a Sydney Leigh (Leigh being my mother-in-law’s middle name). So now that we have a child named after my MIL, I don’t think we’ll choose Smith for a boy in the future. I really like River Dean (Dean being my grandmother’s middle name; River being my husband’s great-grandfather’s name – although his name was technically Rivers with an ‘s’ but I like the no ‘s’ version better). For a girl? Absolutely no clue. My BFF named her daughter Allison, but they don’t really shorten it to Ali – I love the shortened version. 🙂

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Melissa says · 06.17.15

We have two boys, too. Their names were like a BAM moment and we just knew. Easy-peasy. Girl names? We could never fully agree! So it’s a good thing we have boys!

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carly says · 06.17.15

We also waited to find out the gender until delivery day! We knew we wanted an “E” name and we were 100% on our boys name but so indecisive on our girls name! We were convinced our baby was a girl and even thought our Dr. slipped up and told us accidentally. We were so stressed and making ourselves crazy on the perfect girl “E” name. When the baby came out, it was a boy!! We stressed for nothing since we had our boy name from day 1. I totally agree girls names are harder, I think it’s because there are so many more options oddly!

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Suzann says · 06.25.15

I always liked the name Carly!

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Neisa says · 06.17.15

I love the name David! I had Mada picked out for a girl from my first pregnancy, when I miscarried. I felt like that name was meant for my miscarried baby, so we changed it to Kennedy with my second pregnancy. Once my hubby and I knew that we were having a boy, we settled on a name right away. We called him that from then on, Benjamin. It’s a good name! lol. 😉 I love the name David by the way.

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Alison says · 06.17.15

I’m in favor of the name Alison! 😛

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Lori says · 06.17.15

Yes it was hard to pick names!! Back when we had our kids, they didn’t do gender ultrasounds (well they didn’t do ultrasounds at all!). So it was always a surprise at birth. (Which I like). First time I was due on Christmas Eve, so it was going to be John Christopher or Erin Noelle. It was a boy, he was 3 weeks late so ended up being John Victor. Second time the names were Kevin Robert or Amy Janette. We got a Kevin!

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Jessica says · 06.17.15

I have two children, an older boy and younger girl. With our son we chose to not find out boy/girl until the day he was born and if he had been a girl he would have been Emily . Then when we were expecting our daughter we knew she was a girl and had a hard time picking a name! We eventually found a name we love, but we had multiple boy names we liked at the time and girl names were much harder for us! We wound up with Ryan Bradley and Alyssa Noelle and I love both names

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Denise Z says · 06.17.15

My daughter is Aly–30 years later, I still love her name!

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Caitlyn says · 06.17.15

I have three boys, all with M names. When I was pregnant with my first, there was never any doubt I was having a boy. When I had my ultrasound and it was confirmed, he was Mason Connor from then on. With my second, I thought I was having a girl for sure but we couldnt agree on any name for our “girl”. We had thrown around a few boys names, and when we actually found out we were having a boy, I campaigned hard for Maddox. Hubby wasnt having it my whole pregnancy, and then when he was born we were 2 days later picking out his name. I was so stressed, I told my husband to just pick something! Wouldnt you know after countless arguments, he picked Maddox Cameron. I was a bit skeemish that their initials wold be the same, but I went on with it. We werent planning to have anymore, and then surprise! Baby 3 was a boys as well, and it was a pain coming up with a name at that point, because we felt compelled to choose another M C name. Maverick is his name, and I love their names, but everyone gets them mixed up! If I could go back I think I’d have a Mason, Aidan, and Benjamin. I love all of my boys’ names, but in the same family, its very difficult and confusing!! If we ever have another, we dont have a boy name picked, but the girl name will be Mila Collette or Mila Charlotte, and call her by her middle name.

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Sara says · 06.17.15

I have three boys and a girl and always thought boy names were so hard! We have Henry, charlie (Charles) and Jack (john) so when I found out my last was a girl I thought it would be a breeze, but all the names Id loved had been used by close friends or family and so it went way back to a name Id loved since childhood and went with Stella June. Not even joking, the month before she was born a famous person had a baby girl; Stella June. I still love the name and we went with it, but it’s just funny how names go. She was going to be Emily until just a couple months before she was born, such a pretty name!

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Beth Anne says · 06.17.15

Boys names are the hardest for us, which fascinates me that they’re easier for you since we have such similar taste!

Hilarious to me that our Benjamin was almost Lucas – it took us 48 hours after he was born to name him because we felt both fit him & our family! I told Doug the other day that I would be interested to see if our next boy would be Lucas.

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Kate says · 06.17.15

good solid names! great minds. . .

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Amanda says · 06.17.15

When I got pregnant with my first we didn’t even consider boy names. I was determined to have a girl and we had the name Kylee picked long before getting pregnant (I think before we were even married?), but then we had a boy and came up with Kaydan. A mix between my very very best friend and his. KAYla and jorDAN. Then a short 9 months later we were pregnant again. Kylee still on the table but we were having another boy. We struggled coming up with another boy name until I was about 8 months pregnant. I finally decided on Rylan. I want to say I saw “RylanD” on a pin from a nursery option and loved it but wanted it kind of different like Kaydan’s spelling was, so I dropped the D. (my boys are 17 months apart. Just turned 2 and 8 months) NOW, if we have another baby, in a couple YEARS, we have no thoughts on a boys name, but Kylee is not as appealing to me. I am loving the name Penelope, Penny for short. And funny you say the thing about your cat and choice of baby name because my cat’s name is Penny aka Penelope. But that doesn’t bother us haha (I named her when I was in high school.) I love that you and your husband are picking old classic names! And your boys are adorable! 🙂

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Ashley says · 06.17.15

My first child was a boy. I have always loved the name Alex, and that was going to be his name. I told everybody (most of the cards had Alex written in them at the baby shower), but when he was born he just had a wise old man look to him and Alex just didn’t suit his personality. We ended up calling him Christopher Adam Jesse (Adam after my husband and Jesse after my dad). Everyone was so surprised at the change, but agreed that it suited him better. My second child was a girl and her name was supposed to be Lorelei Bailey, but my grandmother had passed away a few months before she was born and so we decided to name her after my grandma instead. Rachel Lynn Bailey (Rachel was my grandmothers name, Lynn was my husbands pick and Bailey was just there because we had given my son two middle names, haha). In the end their names suited them better than what I had originally picked out. I realized that until you meet this tiny human, you won’t know really what to call them because they have their own personality and facial expressions that just go with certain names!

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Robyn B says · 06.17.15

I am a fan of traditional names (our son is Benjamin.) Before we found out he was a boy, I struggled with girl names, for some reason…they all sounded “trendy” to me. I never did land on one I was in love with by the time we found out we were having a boy. What is so funny is, I have friends with girls, and some of them have “trendy” names and I love them, they fit the child so well.

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Tracy says · 06.17.15

Boys names were harder for us. We found out the gender with both of our girls. For our first we were torn between Caelyn (we later decided on spelling as there are a million options) and Ryleigh and then when I was in the shower after we’d decided those were our top 2 I slipped (just a tiny one) and was talking to babe and found myself calling her Caelyn so when I told hubs we agreed – that was her name.

For our second we wanted something “different” but not strange or weird (atleast to us) and I was reading lists of baby names and read the name Nia (Knee-a) and mis-pronounced it as Niya (NY-YAH) and then the more I thought about it the more I loved and it when I told hubs he liked that it was simple but not weird. We have had sooo many people tell us about how much they like the name and its simplicity yet it’s uncommon.

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Emily says · 06.17.15

We couldn’t figure out a name for our daughter. I am more traditional and he is not. I was scrolling through Instagram and my childhood best friend popped up so I suggested her name, Samantha. Now we have a little Samantha!

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Laura says · 06.17.15

I have had my girl names picked out forever but boy names are so hard! My husband and I spent sooo much time going over names and we barely picked out my son’s name so if we have another boy some day we get to start all over again!

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Anita Robinson says · 06.17.15

All of my parents’ 5 grandchildren (my nephews/niece) had Bible names, so I decided to continue the tradition. I wanted to name my oldest Jonathan, but “Jonathan Robinson” is a mouthful! So I decided on Andrew Miles Robinson (Miles is my maiden name). For my next one (another boy) I got a little more adventurous with the first name: Noah Daniel Robinson (Daniel is my Daddy’s name) but Noah is a very popular name now. If I ever had a 3rd boy, I liked the name Levi, but….I’m done having children (Lord Willing!). I think girls names are definitely harder to pick, ESPECIALLY if you are going with Bible names. There are already so many Hannahs and Rebekahs and Rachels out there. And let’s face it, some of the female Bible names are not very pretty!

Come to think of it, both of your boys have Bible names!

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Jen says · 06.17.15

So funny! Apparently, we have similar taste in names. I have one boy named Luke. He was almost named Ben until I realized I’d be signing our Christmas cards “Bud, Jen, and Ben.” No! 😉 If Luke had been a girl his name would have been Ellie, short for Elyse. Couldn’t name him Ali because that’s what I named my cat as a teenager. 🙂 No joke!

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Jen says · 06.17.15

P.S. On a sad note, before Luke, we miscarried in the second trimester and had a boy. My husband wanted to name him David, but I just couldn’t bear thinking about it long enough to make the decision official. To this day I still think of him as David.

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Kim says · 06.17.15

I don’t have children and not by choice. I am blessed with amazing nephews and a niece. I just had to tell this funny, cute story. My full name is Kimberley Elizabeth. I was 5 or 6, in CCE classes when my teacher wrote my full name. I raised my hand and explained she put an extra e in there. She said that is how your name is spelled. Long and short, when my mom came to pick me up I was sitting in the hall, mad and crying. My mom then explained I did have an extra e. She and my dad never thought about because everyone called me Kim or Kimmie. Hello…think ya’ll could have told me prior to having to go talk to the priest and sent to the hall! I had to write 100 times before my next class, I shall not argue with (insert names I cannot recall, but will come to right before I go to sleep). My dad told me that after that for a very long time I would correct people by telling them, my name is Kimberley with a extra e. Even to this day when my full name is needed, I have to spell it and tell them thank my parents : )

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Amanda says · 06.17.15

My best friend’s name is Brittney. Except, if I remember the story correct, when her mom filled out the birth certificate she left out the e by accident and so her name is actually spelled Brittny. Her mom didn’t notice until they got the birth certificate and never changed it haha! So she has to spell it for people all the time!

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Colleen says · 06.17.15

I loved reading all the comments on this post. Names are so much fun.

Boys names were much much harder for my husband and me and of course we have two boys.  My two year old was going to be William or Bennett and I really wanted an Irish middle name. We decided on William Finn (goes by Will) and he is named after both of his grandpas. When I found out I was pregnant with another boy, Bennett just didn’t seem right. I pushed for Samuel and my husband wanted something different. He liked Harrison. In the end, I was convinced if we went with Harrison, someone would call him Harry (which I definitely don’t like) and we’d have William and Harry. We found out that my husband’s great grandfather’s name was Samuel and liked that both of our boys names would have family connections. Again, I wanted a middle name with Irish ties so we have Samuel Beckett (goes be Sam).  Girls names we liked were Ella Scarlett and Lily Eloise.

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Krystal says · 06.17.15

Hey sweet lady,

Girl names are so much harder! We are expecting number two, a boy, this time around. Before we found out with either of our boys, we’ve been able to agree on boy names so much easier than girl names. Why is this???

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SJ says · 06.17.15

Both of my daughters’ names came very natural. We had them picked out early on, and it’s so strange, but I had a feeling both times that they would be girls. While pregnant with my first I had a dream that I was having a girl and when I first learned that I was pregnant with my second child, I just felt that I’d be raising sisters.

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Sydni says · 06.17.15

Me and my husband only want to have two kids one day, but we talk about names every now and then and I keep a running list….and I have sooooo many that I like!! I’ll probably try to convince sisters & brothers-in law to name their babies our leftover names 😛

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Katie Ball says · 06.17.15

With both of our girls, we had boy names set in stone pretty early on and then changed our minds on the girl names within a few weeks/days of our anatomy scan! For boys, we had picked Mitchell and Cameron. I can’t remember the first name we liked for our daughter, but we ended up naming her Maleah. For this second baby, we tossed around the name Anna Brooke for WEEKS – even telling Maleah the name! But a week or so before our anatomy scan, I finally broke the news to my husband that I just didn’t LOVE Anna Brooke…. so we started tossing around more ideas and came up with Macey. I didn’t really plan to have two “M” named girls, but the closer we get to Macey being born (12 weeks!), the more I LOVE it!!!

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Bonnie says · 06.17.15

I didn’t know either time what I was having (two boys), and we didn’t have a girl’s name either time. Eek! Our boys (now adults) are named Brent and Craig, and I’m still happy with those names. My parents had a boy’s name (both grandfathers) and finally got to use it on #3. There is a young family in our church whose two kids are Luke and Ally. And my nephew, who turns 12 in August, is Landon; beautiful name, but there are a gazillion of them. (It wasn’t clear when he was born Landon was about to be a “hot” name.)

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Robin Rita says · 06.17.15

Those are great girls names!! My first daughter is Emily and my second is Madelyn!

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Kelly says · 06.17.15

Oh my goodness I just got embarrassingly excited because I have an Emily myself 🙂 she’s 6 months younger than David. We knew we were having a girl, so the discussion of boys names was brief, but I was going to let him have a Daniel (his name, and his dad’s) if it was a boy but said his middle name would need to be Sean after my dad. For girls another name considered was Peyton and I love Charlotte but just felt for us it was a little too old fashioned as a first so it’s her middle name! Baby number 2 is a long, long way down the road, but I think I’ll be starting fresh with names because besides the name was decided on, I wasn’t in love with anything else.

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Chantall says · 06.17.15

I’m 22 weeks pregnant with our first child, a girl. We haven’t decided on a name, but I do keep a list with names I like. My husband likes some of them, but doesn’t have list of ‘likes’ himself. Boys names are even more difficult for us both. Since she’s a girl, we won’t need a boys name. But you never know…

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Kristi says · 06.17.15

I love all of those names!
I’ve had names for my future children picked out since I was about ten. They’ve changed over the years, and since I got married they’ve changed again because of my last name (My husband and I both love the name Jenny, but our last name is Craig, so it can never happen). I’m sure they will change again by the time we have kids too.

Kristi | Be Loverly

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Sue says · 06.17.15

Girl names are hard! Even though we knew we were having a girl, we just couldn’t definitively land on a name until after she got here. Poor child was nameless for a day and a half until we finally settled on Lillian Mary (Lily).

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Sabrina says · 06.17.15

We were settled quickly on our first sons name (Max) and had picked Sophie if he were a girl. By the second baby we fought a lot about boys names but had several girl names that would have worked. We settled on Marshall which is what my husband really wanted, I gave in. But it suits him.

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Beth says · 06.17.15

I used to work at my local CPS office & I can GUARANTEE you that names are not only important, but the spelling of the name is equally important. (See above for poor Kimberley’s traumatic priest experience!)
Please please PLEASE do not “bless” your child with a special name that he or she will have to go through life spelling out/explaining. You want your child’s name to be unique (not one of 17 Aden-Jayden-Kaydens in his class), yet not SO unique that he will end up in prison.
Don’t believe me? Check your local jail roster & look at the the names there. That should give you a clue.
My personal favorites from my time at the CPS office: Xanthyny (now residing in our local jail house BTW) & Patchrick (pronounced “Patrick”, yet spelled with extra letters because his mom “thought it was cute”).
SIGH….

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Amanda says · 06.17.15

That is so true, and I think I even read a study that proves that?! And funny what you said about the Aiden-Jayden- Kayden because my son’s name is Kayden, spelled KaydAn. And at the time we didn’t know it was or was becoming such a popular name until after we had him and announced his name (isn’t that how it always happens though?!). As I explained above (way above) in the comments, we named him by taking two of our very best friend’s names and combining them to give him something special. KAYla + jorDAN = Kaydan. 🙂

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Michele says · 06.18.15

My brother & his ex-wife named their daughter Allohana LedaLinette. First name pronounce A-Lawn-a. I have no idea why or how they came up with the spelling of her first name. Her middle name is the combination of the 2 grandma’s names. People are constantly pronouncing her name wrong or spelling it wrong and it drives my ex-SIL crazy but I don’t know what else she expected. Lol.

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Sandra says · 06.17.15

When our son was born (24 years ago!) we picked out all family names- Spencer Reid McMartin plus our last name, to honour my Scottish heritage. The delivery nurse said it sounded like a law firm! When we were picking girl names for our second, 20 years ago, we decided on Emily. So elegant. When she arrived, on her own timetable, and we took one look at the red hair and already green eyes, we knew she was NOT going to be an Emily. So to honour the Irish family, she became Fiona Claire (this was before Princess Fiona of Shrek). She could not have been anything other than a Fiona! She loves her name!

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Evelina says · 06.17.15

I am all about baby names. I love hearing what people choose and why. For us it has been harder to come up with a girl name we both agree on than a boy name. I love your choices! Ben is so cute 🙂

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Annika says · 06.17.15

With my first child we didn’t know if it was a boy or girl. For a boy we chose Timothy and for a girl I liked Bethany…because I wanted the nickname “Beth”…but my husband liked Elisabeth better…and I could still call her Beth. We had a girl 2 days after Christmas and named her Elisabeth Noelle…and to this day, I’ve never called her Beth : )

Our 2nd child we knew was a girl and throughout the pregnancy I thought I would name her Katherine Grace. A few hours before she was born, we inexplicably decided to go with another name we had first thought of…Rachel Lorraine.

Our 3rd child, a boy, was much harder to decide. We prayed about what to name him and on the way to the hospital my husband said “I know what we are supposed to name him” and I was praising the Lord because it was the same name I had in my heart too…Aaron Michael.

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Annie says · 06.17.15

With our first pregnancy I was certain we were having a boy from day one. We talked about boys and girls names just in case and settled on the name Clara for a girl but could not agree on a boy’s name. I wanted Carter Matthew and my husband wanted Erik Matthew. All I could think of was Eric Matthews from Boy Meets World! My husband is 14 years older than me so he didn’t understand. I didn’t mind the name Erik but I had a strong feeling that the name would not fit the baby I was carrying. We found out at our 20 week appt that we were having a boy and Carter Matthew won out for the name. Our little guy is now 21 months old and I couldn’t imagine him being anything else than Carter.
We are now pregnant with baby #2, due in December. We will find out again at the 20 week ultrasound if it’s a boy or girl. I have no gut feeling this time! This time we agree on a boy’s name but not a girl’s name!! If it’s a boy, we will name him Mac Robert. Mac after one of our favorite pastor’s and Robert after my grandfather. My husband still likes the name Clara but I’m not crazy about it anymore. I like the name Quinn. Funny how feelings about names changes from pregnancy to pregnancy 🙂

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Shanna Leigh says · 06.17.15

Girl names are way more difficult! I think the majority of boy names are classic, or at least feel like they could be. Girl names are either too old lady or too little girl 99% of the time.

We ended up choosing a very uncommon girl name (Aven, a type of wildflower) but it is easy to pronounce and spell. I am already terrified of having to choose another girl name if we were to end up with a second daughter one day!

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Stephanie says · 06.17.15

My husband and I don’t have kids yet, but we have several possible girls names picked out. Unfortunately, even after being together for almost twelve years we have NEVER been able to agree on a boys name. Not one!

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Kate says · 06.17.15

wow! funny that that’s easier for us!

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Christy says · 06.17.15

When I was pregnant with our only child. We didn’t know the sex of our baby until he was born. Names for boys are harder than girls because we have so many boys on our families. We choose Jonathan for our son and for girls I love Audrey or Emma.

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Brittany Banister says · 06.17.15

With our first child, we were settled on Porter for a boy or Eleanor (Ellie) for a girl… We got a Porter! When we found out we were pregnant with our second, we opted for totally different names: Jasper for a boy or Claire for a girl… We got a Claire! It just didn’t feel right to name her what we would have named Porter if he had been a girl.

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Debbie m says · 06.17.15

We did know what we were having for both our children, but it was easy to name ours. We stuck with family names. We have a Henry Alan and a Rosalie Sophia. All family names!

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Debbie m says · 06.17.15

*** sorry didn’t

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Danielle Eason says · 06.17.15

We had a really hard time with boy names! We didn’t find out what we were having with either pregnancies. Our first one we liked Tia for a girl and Perry for a boy (my maiden name). We had Perry! Our second time we thought Tenley for a girl and Drew for a boy. We had Drew! I’m hoping maybe my boys with give me granddaughters in the future and name them Tia and Tenley! 🙂

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Holly says · 06.17.15

I have a Ben and EmilyEmily love both names!!

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Kari Anne says · 06.17.15

W only have one, a baby girl but it took us awhile to decide! I loved the name Emma, I have for a long time but I didn’t want to use that since it’s so popular right now. We went back and forth but nothing that I loved more. Until one day I really feel like God put her name in my head Emmalyn 🙂 both my husband and I are very happy with it. It’s unique but not weird. I think it’s just a beautiful sounding name (I may be bias).

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Kari says · 06.17.15

When I was pregnant with our first daughter, hubby & I couldn’t not agree on any girls names as I wanted something uncommon. Finally we picked out our favorite first names and middle names and put them in 2 separate bowls. We drew out a first name until we got the same name twice in a row and same with the middle. The names we drew were Jenna & Renee. I still wasn’t ready to say “this is her name” until we saw an interactive Winnie the Pooh commercial on TV. The blonde curly-headed girl (exactly how I imagined my daughter to look as I was a blonde very curly-headed toddler) said “Hi Pooh!” and he said “Hi Jenna!” At that very moment I knew it would be Jenna Renee. As far as uncommon? Not so much. 16 years later, we know of many Jenna’s and her bff is also named Jenna.

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Jacqui Chan says · 06.17.15

We decided to wait to find out what we were having, and my husband being a spread sheet kind of guy came up with the “Traffic Light System”. Red for names one or both of us didn’t like, Yellow for names we were not sure about and Green for names we both liked. The plan was to go into hospital with 3 girl & 3 boys names. When our son arrived 4 weeks early we had no boys names in the “Green” column and yet we had 5 in the girls (we found girls names way easier). It took 3 days to go through the boys “Yellow” column and cull names until we were down to 2. I told my husband he could choose. That night he had a dream about two friends who both had the same name that was on our list. So the next day our son who had been nameless for 3 days was named Adam.

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Lindsay says · 06.17.15

I have a 3 year old named Emily! When I found out she was a girl, Emily was it. So classic, original and fit perfectly with our oldest daughter, Olivia!

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Ashley Brown says · 06.17.15

I have a 17 month old boy named Porter Lane. Porter, because we liked it, and Lane, because it’s my dad’s middle name.

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Heather says · 06.18.15

I thought boy names were much harder because there were so many girls names I didn’t want because of associations to people we knew or had known. I had always wanted to name a girl after my great aunt Grace. I heard the name Delaney years ago and fell in love with it, so a girl would be that combo. Boys names were harder, I liked many but my husband did not. Being our names (Heather and Matthew) are so popular we wanted something not as common as our names but still Rady to day and spell and somewhat traditional. My husband suggested Landon and we went with it because it was the first one we agreed on. The next year it ended up being the 11th most popular name of the year, so so much for being unique. The middle name however was picked out of desperation because we were told we would have to file the birth certificate paperwork ourselves if we didn’t choose by the time we left the hospital. After a difficult delivery in a different state from where we live I couldn’t stand the thought of one more thing. I had wanted something traditional for the middle name in case when he grew up he didn’t like being unique (ha!) And could go by his middle name. After 2 hours of heavy discussion we settled on Scott and were able to go home. I still second guess that decision though 8 years later.

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Shae says · 06.18.15

We have 4 precious boys and completed our family with a baby girl born last Oct. She was the hardest one to name! I found out she was a girl at 12 weeks (Panorama test). We had plenty of time to settle on a name, but no name seemed right. She wasn’t officially named until the last day we were in the hospital- and I had a C-section. Allison has always been my favorite girl name, and I wanted to use it so bad. My husband had a favorite girls name too, which I liked, but not enough to use. I felt it was only fair to not use our top favorite name and come up with a mutual one we liked. So we have Max, Kurt, Henry, Paul, and Lillie.

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Megan says · 06.18.15

We had a tough time! My husband is Italian and wanted an Italian name for either a boy or girl. We settled on his great grandfather’s name for a boy… Donato to honor him. I struggled with it because it was so not a traditional name I grew up with so we went with James as a middle name after my great grandfather. We didn’t have boy, we had a girl! Italian names for girls are so pretty, but can be quite complicated. I was drawn to Luciana and kept coming back to it. I really liked Gianna too. My husband wanted Margherite as a middle name, but we agreed Mae would be better. We call her by Lucy or Lucy Mae for short. The meaning of her name is so fitting for her and I love the way it sounds. I hope she’ll appreciate it one day!

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Brittany says · 06.18.15

We TOTALLY struggled with girl names. We couldn’t agree on anything it seemed, but our boy names were pretty much agreed on the minute we started talking about having kids. The irony is that so far we have had to struggle to name 3 girls… we are expecting a boy in a few weeks and I will say how much less stressful it has been because we aren’t trying to convince one another to like a name we don’t like… if that makes sense *pregnancy brain has eaten my ability to be grammatically correct… We finally have settled on one of our aforementioned boy names but have the other ones in the wings in case we see him and we don’t feel like we chose right.

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Lindsey Rarey says · 06.18.15

We ended up naming our second daughter Brooklynn after going entire pregnancy without a name. Our finalists interestingly enough were Madely, Evelyn, and Brooklynn. After having one girl, I just could NOT imagine another girl so a name was impossible ! My husband got to pick and went with Brooklynn, we spelled it Brooklyn, the nurse wrote it on the board and asked one ‘n’ or two? We love changing up spelling and thought about it, asked her to add the extra ‘n’ and loved spelling! HOWEVER, it took me MONTHS to love her name , I kept wanting to change it. Now that she’s two, it just fits her exactly . We also didn’t realize we now have Alyvia (Olivia with an A) and Brooklynn so we need a C name for the next one since we apparently have our kids in alphabetical order !

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Rachel says · 06.18.15

Names are hard! We had a girls name picked out when I was pregnant with baby #1….but we ended up having 4 boys 🙂 our first son is Jackson, and when we found out baby #2 was going to be a boy, my husband (a high school history teacher) thought it would be fun to go with a presidents theme. So we have our presidents: Jackson, Carter, Harrison and Lincoln. Funny thing is that our girls name we would have used is Madison, so it would have totally fit into the theme 🙂

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Chelsea says · 06.18.15

We have 4 and never found out the sex of any of them! Was the best 4 surprises of my life!! Boy names are SO much harder for us! I have a whole list of girl names but none for boys. We ended up with Riley Ann, Trevor Nicholas, Ireland Kate & Maverick Ryan!! We’re done now but I dream of having twin girls and naming them Emery Lane and Navy Rae. We’ll see if I can convince the hubby 😉

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Beth Hardy says · 06.18.15

Try being a teacher…I was almost looking at numbers had it been a boy…my husband got irritated because I nixed most of the names he suggested. Thankfully it was a girl. Friend gave me great advice…open the back door and yell the whole name. That helped eliminate “Emma Meredith”! 😉

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Jayma Hollister says · 06.18.15

I was stuck with a terribly “unique” & mis-spelled name. It’s legally Jama; saidç Jay-ma. So I spell it Jayma in every non legal document. And from a huge blended ( and seriously confusing ) family I am the ONLY one with a weird name…the other siblings being Jeniffer, Jason, John, Mark & Shanon.
So when we went to name our kids I said weird is OUT. l like both classic names and some trendy names though. Our first 2 we named after close friends, Erik Nicholas (now 7, and Emily Grace(3), and when we were pregnant with our 3rd people were adimate that it be another E name. It was a total coincidence that the first 2 ended up that way and I didn’t want to limit my choices ( or sound like the next duggar family ) so we ignored thoes requests and with that decided to NOT announce the name until his delivery day. We spent what seemed like an eternity going back & forth with names.
The 7 yr old wanted to name him Asher but kept calling him Ashy so that got tossed out. The 3 (the 2 yr old) wanted to namehjim….Fat Baby. I LOVE Greyson or Graysen. Hubby wasn’t a fan. He suggested Jax. A few of my friends picked Jaxon…but im not a fan of michael jackson and thats what it remknded me of so my conditon was that it remain JUST Jax. So Jax Tanner was chosen and finally revealed Sept 12th 2014 (almost a sept 11th baby). If he were a girl he was going to be a Kinslie (kinsley) Nachole.

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Natalie says · 06.18.15

i love Ben, I have a Ben, but his full name is Bennett. My boys are Bennett and Wesley (Ben and Wes for short). I really loved Violet and Ali if we ever head a girl, but I was blessed with two silly boys :). I totally agree with you on Brooklyn, I don’t think it fits in with your traditional/classic family at all.

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Emily says · 06.18.15

we found out our first was going to be a boy at my 16 week ultrasound- we also found out I was really 20 weeks along- surprise! His name was easy- family tradition on my hubby’s side is that the first son is named after the dad and middle after mom’s dad- so he’s Paul Thomas after my husband (and his dad and grandpa) and my dad. We call him LP (little Paul) as it gets confusing with so many Paul’s around. Our second is a girl. I’ve always wanted an Esther Marie after my grandmothers but dh thought it was too old fashioned. second choice was Audrey after Aubrey Hepburn- until we found out my husbands brother and his girlfriend were having a baby girl due 2 months before us and naming her Aubrie. Too similar for cousins so close in age with the same last name. We narrowed it down to Eliza or Cora. Once she was born we debated for a while between the two but ultimately she’s an Eliza. Eliza Rose- both family names! She’d have been Benjamin if she’d been a boy and I’d had my way though!

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Katreona Gill says · 06.18.15

For our first we decided on names pretty fast. It was easy. We had a girl and we named her Audrey Faith. Had she been a boy, he would have been Ian Walker. As time went on after she was born I didn’t like the boy name. It didn’t flow right. I began to love the name Colton Riley. Well, it took us four years to conceive our second. We decided on Benson Riley for a boy, but couldn’t come up with a second girl name. I was going through names and came across Adelei (add-uh-lei) and really liked it. I looked up the meanings for Audrey and Adelei and one was noble kind and the other was noble strength. It just felt like fate at that point. For her middle name we kept with the theme and chose Grace

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Teena says · 06.18.15

Love your names Kate! I also love the classic names, it probably comes from having a unique spelling of my own name. I always vowed that my kids would have normal spellings of more classic names, that is how I ended up with my Luke (Lucas) and Ben (Benjamin). We liked Chloe for a girl before we found out what our Luke was, and we liked Elizabeth for a girl (calling her Libby) before we found out Ben was a boy. I still love both of their names and have no regrets, their names fit their personalities perfectly!

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Allison says · 06.18.15

My name is Allison and I’m 43. I personally love my name. I was never called Alli and I’m happy because at my Age I’m usually the only one in the company and I can’t imagine being called Alli in a meeting. I feel it’s just a pretty and classic name. We went with Aubrey for my daughter, again trying to keep it a bit classic. But if you do go with Allison keep the spelling simple and like the original (first thing I ask another Allison is how it’s spelled) and call her Allison. There are millions of Ally’s Ali’s Alli’s out there. Then in school she’ll be Ali A. Or Ali B. Your boys are adorable and I love both their names.

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Michele says · 06.18.15

Our first was a boyand I was pulling hard for a Peyton, after Peyton Manning, of course! My husband said no way, so we settled on Brendan John, John is his middle name. I just couldn’t pull the trigger on that name when it came down to it and we named him Clayton John, C.J. for short. With my daughter, I wanted an Erica Jean, Jean being my best friend’s middle name. My husband didn’t like the name Erica, so he picked Alexa instead. Everyone gets her name wrong (family included) because there are so many variations of her name and it drives me crazy! If I had known, I would have tried harder to convince him on Erica.
We tried for years to have a 3rd baby but it never happened. But in my heart I still have names picked out. Erica Lucile and Tobias Jackson.

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Amber says · 06.18.15

Ali and Ben are sweet names. I have a little girl and two little boys. We have Ally, Noah, and Ben!

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Claire says · 06.18.15

We have 1 boy and 1 girl, Scotty and Sarah. We couldn’t agree on a boy name until about two weeks before I was due. There was a Scotty listed on the 7th Heaven credits and it just clicked with me. My husband came to love it too. Ironically, we are huge Star Trek fans, so everyone assumes we named it after Scotty as in “beam me up, Scotty!” I pretty much knew I wanted to name our girl Sarah, but my husband wasn’t thrilled because he thought she’d be going her whole life telling people about the “h” on the end. I thought the “h” made it a little classier. He pretty much figured I wasn’t going to change my mind, though, so we went with Sarah and Anne as a middle name, after Anne of Green Gables, a favorite of ours.

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Melanie A. says · 06.18.15

I just had my first at the end of MarcH… we didnt find out what the sex was but I was CONVINCED we were having a boy! We nailed down our boy name right away and threw a couple girls names around just in case but I was never really sold on any of the girl names my husband and I could agree on! Much to our surprise we had a little girl and named her Hazel Kathryn. Hazel was the one name we both mentioned right when I found out I was pregnant but never really talked about it again! It’s so weird how once you see your baby one name seems to just fit! Our boy name was Baker and we both still love it and hope to use it one day!

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Sarah says · 06.18.15

My husband and I couldn’t decide on a girl name. My great aunt passed away when I was 6 months pregnant. We decided to name our daughter after her. I have Kathleen Joellen (pronounced Joe Ellen). We couldn’t come up with a good middle name so we pushed together my MIL’s middle name, Jo, and my mom’s middle name, Ellen, together. If she was a boy she would have been Sam Eugene. My FIL’s initials are SAM, my dad’s middle name is Eugene. If we ever have another kid we have Violet Afton (dh’s great grandma’s name and the city dh’s aunt lives in) and Vincent Glenn (I love the name Vincent, Glenn was dh’s grandpa’s middle name) picked out.

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AmieS says · 06.18.15

I just had a boy 7 weeks ago. Before we found out he was a boy we had easily come up with a girl name – Abigail Marie. The boy name was much harder to settle on. Finally Grayson was chosen – in the hospital!!

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Natalie says · 06.18.15

We named our Girl Tabea, a form of Tabitha. If she were a Boy we had named him Max. And so we did when our second child was born, Maximilian Pär, Pär is a swedisch form of Peter.

Im not into cool names either =)

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Emily says · 06.18.15

My name is Emily and my husband is David… So, I have to say I like the names you chose!! We just had our first baby and didn’t find out the sex ahead of time either which I thought was so fun! We also had two names picked out. Edwin (named for my husband’s grandfather) if it was a boy and Vivian for a girl. We have a sweet 15 week old Edwin!

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Kerrie says · 06.18.15

We struggle with the naming process something major. We chose to be surprised with our son and the poor kid didn’t have a name for the first 12 hours of his life. We had two names picked out for each gender because we couldn’t settle on one and when he arrived we hated both of them. We named him Cameron “Cam” and the name suits him well. I’m now 18 weeks pregnant with our second and my husband really wants to be surprised again but it is stressing me out a little bit because we are struggling with name choices again. We are pretty much settled on Ruby if it is a girl but can’t figure out a middle name. And we have nothing for little boy except that his middle name will be William after my dad and both my grandfathers. I don’t know why this is so hard for us. I’m so jealous of my friends that settle before they even know the gender and don’t have to think and stew over it all 40 weeks.

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Heather says · 06.18.15

I don’t have kids yet but I seriously have plenty of names picked out for when I do! ha
Boys- Reed,Luke,Chase,Jase,Jack and Garret.
Girls- Brynn, Bree,Blaire,Ally and Emily.

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Stacy says · 06.18.15

Our first born is just Ally. We love short simple names. Our second daughter is Hope.
I’m a teacher so I always want to choose names I’ve never had before. My girls names fit them perfectly! Now we have twins on the way!! Let the name searching begin!

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Carrie says · 06.18.15

With our first, the boys names were between Josiah and Benjamnin (Ben), and a girl was Faith Noelle! We went with Josiah! The next one we just kept the names Ben and Faith, an she turned out to be a “Faithie”! We always found girl names harder to like than boy names, and we ended up having two more girls, Rachel and Abigail (Abbey). Finally, number five came along and we were between the names Ben and Jeremiah for a boy and Hannah for a girl. He was a big, and no other name fit but Benjamin! Our girl choices have changed consistently, but favorite boy names have just stuck!

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kristen rushing says · 06.18.15

My husband and I have a 14 mo th old and we had the hardest time agreeing on a name. I wanted a cooler name like Theo, Hudson, or Greyson. However, my husband works with kids so he knew however many kids named all the trendy names. Finally about a week before my son was induced we decide it would either be Elliot James or Jameson Andrew. Both with James foe my step dad who passed away 3 years ago. The day before we decided on Elliot James but went into the hospital still trying to decide on how to spell it. It’s so funny because our son is such a Elliot. Name fits him perfectly. I can’t believe we almost named him Jameson! Your two boys are adorable!

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Gillian says · 06.18.15

I have two boys Luke (18mths) and Ben (4mths) my girl name for each pregnancy was Emily sounds like we have similar tastes in names!

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Kyley says · 06.18.15

I was ecstatic when I found out we were having a girl. I started making a list of all these different names: Laken, Ainslee, Bella but my husband liked more traditional names and suggested Becca Lynn. Finally we compromised, I’m not sure how I convinced my husband, but we named our daughter Junah Blue. Family members thought it was a little weird at first but many of them call her by her first and middle name, Junah Blue, Junah B, Junahbug, she goes by them all. Plus, I’ve never heard of any other Junah’s! Oh, and a bonus, she has big blue eyes, so it goes with her name. 🙂

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Chelsea says · 06.18.15

I have a 7 month old Allison! I thought I wouldn’t call her Alli because I’m not a big fan of nick names. I have a son named Andrew and that’s what he goes by, but as my little Allison gets her personality she is turning into an Alli! It’s funny how their personalities can make that happen!

Funny story about names “fitting” in the family. When I was pregnant with Allison before we knew she was a girl we were tossing around boy names and my husband(who is Hispanic) like the name Joaquin. Nothing against that name at all but I didn’t think it fit us; Nick, Chelsea, Andrew and Joaquin…my husband agreed lol!

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Kristi says · 06.18.15

About the time that I was just starting to show with my second baby my 4 year old son (Colby) referred to the “baby girl” as we were on the way out of the house one morning. When I asked him who he was talking about he casually answered “the one in your belly”. He then preceded to tell me that he didn’t like any of the names that Daddy and I liked. He wanted the baby girl to be named Olivia. We knew that we were using Grace for a middle name, so that from point on if the new baby was a girl, she would be Olivia Grace. When she was born and my husband brought our son to the hospital he entered the room and we introduced him to his little sister, Olivia Grace, he looked at me and said (in sweet 4 year old grammar ) “I told you that is what she was”. They are almost 12 and almost 8 now and they both still talk about how Colby named her!!

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Katie says · 06.18.15

Our (almost) 20 month old is Madelyn Charlotte, and we call her Mady. I thought my husband gave me a tough time with girl’s names until I found out we were pregnant with a boy this time around. I am 7 months pregnant and we have FIIINALLY decided on Elijah (or Eli).
Love reading about you and your family, Kate. My little sister and I relate to you so much! Xo

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Sarah says · 06.18.15

I have five boys, five! Do my husband and I agree easily on boy names? Nope. (Girl names, of course!!) Last time it was twins and it was just like “great! Now we have to come up with four names! (Including the middle.” We just started with the first naming him after a family member who had a unique name: Kingdon. Then Ara (older brothers name), Truman Andrew after my brother. We started running out of male relatives to name them! Totally ran out of steam and the twins are Samuel and Nicolas. Ha!
Also one summer my girlfriends and I thought it’d be so funny to call ourselves by our “boy names” (what we would’ve been named had we been a boy.) so they called me Kevin for like 8 weeks.

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Madison Layton says · 06.18.15

I love the names! It’s funny that you were debating between Luke and Allison because I have a cousin named Luke Allison (Allison being his last name.) My favorite boy names are Caleb, Jacob, and Benjamin. My favorite girl name is Layton (my last name), although that could be a boy name also.

I agree that boy names are easier. I think “popular” boy names rarely change and seem to be very classic, whereas girl names are kind of all over the place!

I love your names and I love your little family!

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Angie says · 06.18.15

We have 4 kids and I too love classic names. My oldest is Nick (Nicholas), my daughter is ally (Allison) and twin boys Ben (Benjamin) and Jack. I love the name Luke but my sister had a Luke right before my twins were born. Ally and Ben are both sweet names I hope you get to use them both some day! 🙂

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Kristen says · 06.18.15

Girl names are definitely harder. And my husband and I have three of them! I just knew our first child was a girl, so I had her name (Ellie Katherine) picked out at 10 weeks. Our second and third girls were harder to name since my husband and I have different styles when it comes to naming, but once we picked them we were in love (Piper Josephine and Grace Victoria). We’ve only ever had one boy name picked out, so we never discuss boy names anymore; we just roll it over with each pregnancy haha.

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Laurie says · 06.18.15

I love your traditional names!! For us, we had easily decided on Riley Marie for a girl. Marie is a family name and I just loved the name Riley for a girl. Surprisingly my husband did too!! When it came to a boys name we had a list. A list that we could not narrow down to one name. THen we found out we were having a boy. So after some additional debate, I agreed to a Jr….Joseph Paul Jr. Even my mother-in-law had the comment of “well that’s original” in a sarcastic tone! I was giving in but my husband has no siblings so I figured it was the best way to honor his family and name. Then came delivery day via C-section. Once it was over the nurse asked what his name would be. I looked up at my husband and blurted out Nicholas Joseph. And thankfully he agreed! It is the perfect name for my little man who lives up to his shortened name of Nick. I could never picture him as a Joe or Joey….one is enough lol!!

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brandy says · 06.18.15

Our 2 year old is named Madelyn ♡ I loved it from the second I knew I was pregnant..I just never could shake that name and my husband liked it as well. ..we did toy around with the name Makenna but went back to Madelyn .My husband picked her middle name..Hope. We had a harder time with boy names..we liked Jensyn..Bo..Jacob..Noah..we never could make up our minds

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Taylor says · 06.18.15

When I was pregnant with our young one, we immediately had a boy name, William Hollis, and we were going to call him Hollos (it’s strangely a family name on both sides of our family). When we found out we were having a girl, we just could NOT come up with a name! I wanted a more modern, different name and my husband wanted a more traditional name. In the long run, we decided on Elizabeth Anne! And I must say, that it fits our little 5 month old girl, perfectly!

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Jennifer says · 06.18.15

My favorite girls name had always been Marie. When I was pregnant I was convinced we were having a boy, and when we discussed girls names I said I felt like it just wasn’t a Marie. So we ended up going with Vienna Marie. Vienna because my father in law was from a town out side of Vienna, and we had traveled there two summers prior and loved it! She definitely is a Vienna! Vie for short 🙂

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Jessica says · 06.18.15

When I was pregnant with my oldest, now 2, I just knew from the beginning she would be a girl. On the day of the ultrasound we found out she was indeed a girl. My husband and I agreed on her name right after the ultrasound. She is Ava Grace and I feel like it fits perfectly. We didn’t even have any boy names picked out for her, because I just knew she would be a girl. When I got pregnant the second time, I had a feeling it would be a boy. We decided on a name pretty easily, Lucas Ryan. Ryan is my husband’s name and I have always liked Lucas. Our Luke is 9 months old now. We struggled with girl names. I liked Stella but my husband said no! Haha. Good thing he ended up being a boy!

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Amy says · 06.18.15

My daughter is 28 years old and my husband picked her name, Madison, from the movie Splash before she was born. We did not know if it was a boy or girl and was thankful she turned out to be a girl because we didn’t have a boys name picked out that we liked. We didn’t imagine that her name would catch on like wildfire and become the most popular girls name several years down the road. Now, there are Madisons all over, but hardly any her age. 5 years later the same thing happened. We had a boys name but not a girls and it turned out to be a boy, which we named Rowdy. Unbelievably, his name has not caught on like wildfire. LOL!

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Tabitha says · 06.18.15

This is too funny! I have 2 girls, Emily and Allison, Emmy and Alli for short!

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Kara says · 06.18.15

My son just turned one. He’s Abram Kenneth. My husband’s family had a tradition of naming boys with KEG initials, but after 4 generations and all the good names gone, we decided giving our son his great-grandfather’s name as a middle name was still a good way to honor his family without naming him something we didn’t like for the sake of keeping up a tradition. As for Abram, I just wanted a name that wasn’t too common but also not unheard of. The alternative was Joshua. We’re fans of names with meaning and liked those two names from the Bible. As for a girl, she was going to be named Lucy Pearl, Pearl after her great-grandmother and Lucy because it’s adorable lol.

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Christy says · 06.18.15

That is so funny, with our first, I was set on Holly, but had a boy and he is my Shane! When I got pregnant the second time, it didn’t feel right to name the baby Holly, because that was Shane’s “girl” name, so we decided on Alli. Not short for anything, because I am a Christina, that goes by Christy, and I hated that people would accidentally call me Christina when they didn’t know. But, instead of an Alli we got a handsome little Joey! I haven’t heard of many others who also loved the name Alli!

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Abby says · 06.18.15

My husband and I have a 21 month old daughter. When I was pregnant with her, husband didn’t want to discuss names until we knew the gender but I wanted to talk about names from day one of finding out we were pregnant 🙂 My husband wants to name a boy after our fathers and grandfathers, which I am fine with. For our daughter, I knew what her middle name would be from day 1 – Marie. One of my best friends from high school passed away two years before my daughter was born and I wanted to honor her by using her middle name as my daughter’s middle name. For her first name we could not agree on a name for the longest time. I wanted an Aria (I have been playing violin since I was 4 and loved the musical tie in with that name), but my husband wasn’t sold on it. Soon after we found out we were having a girl we agreed on Sophia. Then I started looking at naming boards and so many said that if you named your daughter Sophia to make sure it sounded good with your last initial, as there are so many right now. After discussing that, husband finally came around and got on board with Aria. Now I couldn’t imagine our spunky 21 month old being named anything else! We have two boys names picked out and a girl name for the next baby, so I guess we will wait and see what we are having when the time comes.

Love your boys names! My sister would have been Luke (Lucas) if she was a boy. I would have been Phillip (so thankful I’m a girl!) and my younger sister would have been Benjamin or Zachary (I think).

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Pamela says · 06.18.15

We struggled with girl names, too! We didn’t have a girl name until a few days before I delivered and we ended up with a beautiful baby girl named Katelyn (Kate for short). Our oldest is a boy and we had his name picked from very early on. He was always Benjamin! I like your name choices 🙂

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Brooke says · 06.18.15

We had two names picked out before we found out what we were having. Charlie if it was a boy (after my grandpa) and Macyn (we knew we’d eventually nickname her Macy) if it was a girl. I thought for sure I was having a boy. They told us girl at our 20-week ultrasound and felt that the name we had picked out didn’t feel right. After rounds and rounds of naming battles – I thought we had settled on Avery until my husband called me out of the blue and said “let’s name her Vivian – after Pretty Woman” (he wanted to name our daughter after a hooker.) and my hormonal self lost it. I bawled all the way home thinking our baby would likely just be called Girl. Eventually we found and fell in love with a name – Sawyer Madelyn.

I think we have our names picked out if/when we have another child. We’re going through a battle of infertility so it seems like a brain tease to even talk about names. But we still like Charlie or Hayes for a boy and Winter/Winnie or Lincoln for a girl.

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Christiana says · 06.18.15

I’ve loved names since I was a little girl. When we found out we were pregnant the first time, I presented my husband with a list of 70 girls names. (He had requested/required that our first born son be a “the Third” after he and his father, so a boy was named automatically.) He was overwhelmed and made me shorten it. 🙂 Ultimately our first born was named Caroline Abigail. Shortly after she was born I came up with another girl’s name which we decided to use if we had another girl. It was Alexa (after my mother) “Lexi” Jill (using the initials of my sisters in law J, L, L). Our 2nd child was a boy, so our son is Charles the Third and we call him Trey.
Our 3rd child was a girl and the middle name got updated to Julliette (still using the J L L).
There is little chance we will have another child, but I’m in love with the name Alison Avonlea (my husband loves the name Alison but hates the Avonlea) and I also really like Sabrina. For a boy, I lean toward Logan or Theodore. But again, little chance (and certainly no plans for one!)

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Katie says · 06.18.15

We didn’t find out what we were having either, but we had a boy and girl name picked for years (even before we got married). Both the names began with L, so we just called “it” Baby L. We also didn’t tell anyone our picks for names, just the first letter.
We had a boy, who is also a Luke.
Still no one knows the name of out L girl. I do hope to use it 1 day. 🙂
It was fun not to find out, we will probably do it again if there’s another.

(long time follower over here, love your blog and seeing the boys)

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Tina says · 06.18.15

After years of doing fertility treatments and IVFs, I always had a girls name ready just in case. So we finally decided to stop all treatments and we gave up hope. About 5 years after stopping treatment, I woke up sick one day and it took me about 3 weeks to even decide that I could be pregnant. We were 8 weeks the day we found out and also got to hear the heartbeat the same day. We were shocked, happy and just plain in disbelief. By this time, we were in our late 30s. We struggled with names but in the back of my mind, I had already picked my girls name years before. The boys names were much more difficult, but I had already told my family before finding out what we were having that it was a girl and I had named her already. Sure enough a few months later, we found out we were having a girl. I had loved her name since the day I heard it for the first time. I still love it and its meaning. We named her Eliahna (Eli-aww-na) Angel. Angel for her father’s mother, who was Angela that had passed away. Eliahna means “My God Answered”. And sure enough he did, in his own time. She is one and 1/2 and full of life.

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Ashley says · 06.18.15

Mt husband and I have had the names Jackson and Silas picked out for boys since we were engaged! 5 years and 2 daughters later, maybe we’ll get to use one of those names one day! We had a lot harder of a time picking out girl names. Our daughters are Sophie Love and Scarlett Grace.

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Diana says · 06.18.15

For us, the girl name was easy when I was pregnant with our daughter. For our honeymoon, we went to the mountains and stayed at our friends cabin. The name of his cabin had Laurel in the name and the driveway had a bunch of mountain laurels on either side of it. 6 years later when we were pregnant with our daughter, we knew Laurel was the perfect name. Before we knew we were having a girl, we spent hours trying to come up with a boy name. We looked at every website we could find. We finally determined we would pass my husbands name down if we were having a boy because we never found anything that we liked. If/when we have another child, I guess we will start that process all over again.

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Tami S says · 06.18.15

When I was pregnant, my husband and I had no idea what we were going to name our child. We didn’t find out the sex of the baby until he was born! We looked through a baby name book and we each made a list of names. There were NO names we could agree on. My husband has always liked the name Hannah for a girl, but choosing a middle name was impossible. Then one day we were talking about boy names and we both at almost the same time said “What about Travis”? My husband had a brother named Travis who passed away when he was a baby. So, we asked his parents if they were okay with it, and they were. It is a prefect name, and I couldn’t imagine our Travis Daniel being named anything else!

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Somer says · 06.18.15

For our first pregnancy, we picked a boy’s name and a girl’s name–Carter or Avery. We had a boy, so for each subsequent pregnancy Avery was still our girl’s name. We have three boys now, and I have to say, it was harder each time to come up with another boy name we both could agree on. For our second, we couldn’t decide between Liam and Ben (we chose Liam), and for our third it was between Blake, Everett (which I LOVE, but hubby couldn’t get into), and Grayson. We chose Blake.

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Emily says · 06.18.15

my name is Emily, and I have two younger brothers- David and Ben. Good name combination!

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Heather says · 06.18.15

Random question-
Where did you find Luke’s outfit? It’s so cute!!

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Crista says · 06.18.15

We had the hardest time naming our son. Our daughter, who is 3, is Reese Alexandra and the name fits her perfectly! For our little boy, who is five months, we loved the name Grey but just couldn’t settle on an appropriate middle name and didn’t like Greyson. In the end, we decided on Benjamin “Grey” after my husband. I like that both our children’s names are a mix of classy and cool!

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Meghan says · 06.18.15

We were so convinced we were having a boy that we didn’t even pick out girl names. At our ultrasound we went to confirm that we were indeed having a Wyatt Thomas. Turns out that little boy was actually a little girl! My husband came up with Penelope Ann on the fly while we were waiting for my OB to come back in.

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Jannike says · 06.18.15

I’m Swedish and I find boy’s names are the hardest. Luckily we have 2 girls! Favourite girl’s name was Emelie but when our first daughter arrived, she was a Felicia! Is it an “aunt’s name” in the US or “ok” for a little girl? Our second girl is called Leah. We actually thought she would be a boy and my husband came up withe name Leo, after his Austrian grandfather. Instead it was a girl and then it was “Leah”. In Swedish the word “Le” means “smile” and we liked the association. David and Luke are cute names. Lots of Davids over here but no Lukes I would say, unless you have English or American parents 🙂

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Maegan says · 06.18.15

When I was pregnant with my first child the ultra sound technician told us we were having a boy. I had a girl name that my husband and I had agreed upon (my grandma’s name–she and my grandpa raised me) but a boy name was hard. Finally, we settled upon an old Testament name and told nobody (you can not like a name but once it’s attached to a baby, it’s hard to say I don’t like baby Sam). At 27 weeks, we were informed by my perinatologist that we were, in fact, having a girl. It was easy for me to make the switch, but my husband had a harder time. In a way, we felt like we lost a child even though that child never existed. That being written, I would never exchange my daughter for anything. Emmeline Grace is the joy of our life! She’s five now and we’re still hoping for another. We’ve agreed on other girl names but are still stuck on a boy name. I guess the opposite of your situation is true for our family. 🙂

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Faye says · 06.18.15

When my husband and I started thinking about baby names I was working as a teacher and my basic qualifications for a name were: correct pronunciation when read for the first time and gender of the child would be obvious just by looking at the name. I also didn’t want a name that had been the name of any students that I found difficult to deal with. So we settled on Elsa for a girl and Callum for a boy. Our Elsa was born before the movie came out and I can usually tell if someone has seen the movie based on their reaction to her name. Haha! When we found out we were having a boy for our second child we were fairly sure he would be Callum, but it wasn’t 100% decided until he was born. We definitely found boys names harder than girls!

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Jennifer M. says · 06.18.15

My husband is Greek so boy names are no brainer. You name the first born son after the paternal grandfather. Middle names were a bit harder so we went with my father’s first name, Panos Richard. Girls, skies the limit! When we were blessed with our first child we went with Panos Richard or Ruby Anne, after my grandmothers. We had a boy. Then our second pregnancy came along and, oops! TWINS!!! With twins we had more ultrasounds than with our first so we got a good look at them. One looked like our son and the other didn’t look like anyone, poor child. We decided to keep the Ruby Anne if the one was a girl and then went from there. My husband’s mother had passed the year before and she made me swear that I would never name a child after her, but this is were things got fuzzy. She told me that when she was born her parents wanted to name her Alexandra. However, when she was baptized (my husband is a bit older than I, so back in the day, they could get away with this) her godfather named her after HIS mother, which was NOT Alexandra. So we thought it would be nice to either name a child Alexandra or Alexander. Our other name was Louis or Louise. All family names. We were blessed with twin girls and Alexandra Leigh was our girl name, who looks and acts just like her YaYa (my mother in law) and Leigh for my mom. Ruby Anne looks like her brother and acts just like him too, both of whom look like me. If we decided to do this one more time (not bloody likely) our final child would have the Louis/Louise name with Seremetis (MIL’s maiden name) or Nicole (my husband, Nicholas)

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Emily says · 06.18.15

My name is Emily and my maiden name is Allison. You have good taste in names :). We named our little girl Ellison this year, putting my two names together. I thought it was so unique and different, but apparently this is a new up and coming name.

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Erin says · 06.18.15

This is one of the first times I’ve read through all of the comments because I am loving all of the classic names! I was three weeks late and my dad was on business trip when he met a woman at his conference with my name, Erin. He called my mom up, suggested the name and she loved it. We now joke about my being name after a woman he met on a business trip.

Our first is Dean, our second is William and baby three is on the way! I have read a few in the comments I am going to suggest to my husband this evening. Thanks for the great post Kate!

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Mary Beth says · 06.18.15

As soon as we found out we were having a daughter we knew her name would be Emily Kate. Traditional but still adorable.

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Ashley says · 06.18.15

My 1 year olds name is Emily! My grandmas name was Emma Ruth but she didn’t like the name Emma and went by Ruth her whole life (which fit her a lot better). So we liked Emily and decided to do Emily Ruth. I love the name.
I’m pregnant again with another girl and we’re having a really hard time this time because we debated and thought so much about the first one. I like the name Nora though. Different but still feminine and old fashioned.

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Petra says · 06.18.15

My mother told me that when she was pregnant with me, she wanted a boy, but my father hoped for a girl, so they agreed that they each pick the name for their preferred gender without the others consent. Then during her pregnancy, when my mom was asked about babynames, she told people about her choice (Krisztian), and one neighbour was due like 2 weeks before her and “stole” that name for his son. My mom was angry, and picked a new boy name, Balazs.
But they had a girl, so I was named Petra, which was the only name my father ever wanted. Thankfully my mom loved it too. I was born in 1983 and my name was pretty rare then (still not overused I think) and I do like it very much, it really suits me.

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Megan says · 06.18.15

We have a much easier time agreeing on girl names than boy names…so I guess it is a good thing we have two daughters and no sons (yet). Our first was easy – Ailey Grace. We found and agreed on her name shortly after finding out we were having a girl. Our second took a little longer…we loved Kenna Joy but with a sister named Kendra and a niece named Mackenzie, it was too close for comfort. Then we picked Thea, but I didn’t want Joy with it because of the likelihood of her being called TJ. I campaigned for Thea Love, but my husband was not a fan. We agreed on Thea Rose.

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Jenn says · 06.18.15

My 9 year old was to be named Kayleigh or if she was a boy she was to be named after her father and be a III (Trey is what I had planned on calling him, had she been a he) but when she was born she didn’t look like a Kayleigh, so I named her Lyric. Which fits perfect. My middle and youngest daughter were ether going to be Nevin or Jackson but ended up being baby girls so they’re Zoey and Addison instead :o) obviously, I have no need to pick out boy names, hehe.

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Maranda says · 06.18.15

When I was much younger I asked my Mom what my name would’ve been if I had been a boy. Her answer was Ryan Clark, so from that point on I knew I wanted to name my future son Ryan. To me I really didn’t care what my future husband thought of it because I was sold on the name! Fast forward several years to me meeting my now husband…we were talking baby names (before engagement even!) and I told him I loved Ryan Clark. Come to find out, his middle name is Ryan and he loved it. Our first baby many years later was a girl. We struggled with a name we could both agree on. My parents didn’t name me after anyone and I really wanted to give my children a name that was attached to a family member. Paige was the only first girls name we could agree on and we put Allison with it after my sister. 4 1/2 years later we found out we were pregnant again, this time with a boy and we got to use Ryan Clark. As crazy as it sounds our hospital made us come up with a girls name on the spot just in case he came out a girl. We couldn’t agree on a girls name for Ryan so once we knew it was a boy, we stopped discussing it of course. Talk about blindsided when they literally forced me to name “her” before delivery! My husband had stepped out of the room during this time so I gave them my vote for a girls name instead of his. If Ryan had come out a girl, he would have been Blaire Elaine.

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Christie says · 06.18.15

We like classic names as well. We have an Alexander, a Victoria and just had our Benjamin 6 weeks ago!

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Farrah says · 06.18.15

Where is that adorable hedgehog outfit from? I think my soon to be born baby boy needs one:).

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Amy Broughton says · 06.18.15

I love your little Luke Bryan’s name! (Fan of country music here ha!). I think boy names are harder. I feel there are less options, or I guess I struggle with wanting uniqueness but preferring traditional when it comes to boys. Lucky for me I have two girls: Ellery and Paige. I love their names. We call them E and P most of the time . If we have a boy it will be a nice challenge to come up with a name. I’m considering Chase for another girl.

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Anna says · 06.18.15

I don’t have children and I’m single but I love thinking about baby names for the future. I too find girl names much harder to decide on and I only am considering my likes/ dislikes not that of my future husband’s or our surname! I prefer very traditional boys names and have a few picked out that I decided upon in my teens. For girls I quite like more modern/ unique names like Madison (which I fell in love with when I first say the movie Splash as a teenager). But I don’t think I would end up using a more modern name for a girl as I always think it is important to remember the name is for life not just for a little child. I’m also a teacher so that makes it harder because you start to associate names with students!

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s. lee says · 06.18.15

How funny! We have both an Ally (Allyson) and a Ben. We also have an Ethan and a Meg (Meghan) – in case you’re looking for suggestions for baby #3 and 4. 🙂

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Shannon says · 06.19.15

I thought girl names were easy. Madeline Marie and Ava Rose are my girls. We didn’t find out what gender my second daughter was ahead of time, so we needed to have a boy’s name picked out as well. My husband and I couldn’t decide on anything! Good thing she was a girl, or else she’d be a boy named Ava. 😉

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Mandy says · 06.19.15

Kate – at the risk of sounding creepy, I just had to leave you a comment on this post. I’ve enjoyed following your blog for a while since I felt like I could really relate to you – I was pregnant with my first born while you were pregnant with David, I live in the Raleigh area too, we have similar taste in clothes/decor, I love your hair posts… Well, with my first born, I did not know the gender either. He ended up being a little boy, but my girl name was Allison Harper, but we would call her Allie Your post just put a huge smile on my face. God Bless to you and your beautiful family.

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Ashley B. says · 06.20.15

My husband and I were pretty much set on our names from the beginning of our pregnancy. We are huge hockey fans! And if we were to have a boy it would have been Henrik (we would call him Hank) after my favorite goalie Henrik Lundqvist. I am still obsessed with that name and was pretty sure I was having a boy for the first 18 weeks!

Our girl name we debated for a moment or so early on in my pregnancy. I like classic older names my husband not so much. Seriously some of the names he came up with! One evening we were watching one of our favorite shows, Rules of Engagement, and thats when it hit both of us…. Audrey! It was literally the only girl name we could agree on and I just love it! Our beautiful baby girl was born this past April and after her arrival we discussed what we would do the next time around. Well it will still be Henrik if a boy and our girl name will be Avery. Its another situation of the only name we can agree on!

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Kristen says · 06.21.15

I have an Ally… Short for Allyson. She is almost 12 and I think it’s the best name ever! I also have an Annie Lou! Which I also love the 2 name thing but there is something so classic about Allyson. You have a beautiful family!

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Chloe says · 06.22.15

I’m finally catching up on your blog since delivering our second son. He is two weeks old already! I had originally wanted our baby’s gender to be a surprise and wait until the delivery room…but my husband really, really, really wanted to find out. So, we had a gender reveal party and found out with a beautiful cake. (What pregnant girl can say no to that?) I “knew” we were having a girl because my pregnancy was so different. I cut into it and saw blue!! So pretty much from that point on, our baby was Connor William. An hour before I felt the need to push, I looked at my husband and told him I wasn’t sure if Connor was the right name. Our son is Theodore Burton. I had to look at him to be sure, but he was a furry little Greek looking kid (my mom is from Greece, not that anyone would know from looking at me with my blonde hair and blue eyes).

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Sadie says · 06.22.15

Hey girlie! I was wondering if you could post on your current diaper bag situation with two kids? I know you have posted about Better Life Bags before! Do you still use and love it? Thanks so much! Love your blog!

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Aleassa says · 06.22.15

Boy names are much harder for me. Probably because I had a girl first and then 3 boys in a row. I felt like I ran out of boy names that I liked, and it seemed like all of the ones I liked we’re being stolen by the girls side. But I have a mile long list of girl nMes that I love. I have a Lily, Jackson, Max, and Tanner. If Max had been a girl he would have been Ava Juliette. If Tanner had been a girl, he would have been Emilia Faith, nickname Emi. I still love the name Emilia. Now we’re headed to work full time in an orphanage in Honduras, and I just found out there is a little girl about Tanner’s age named “Emilson”. I plan on calling her Emi. 😉 God works in amazing ways!

I love your boys’ names. Classic and handsome.

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Emily says · 06.23.15

My husband and I is lots of name discussions. We each liked different ones and weren’t willing to budge on the ones we disliked. We eventually came together though. The funniest part of your post for me is my husbands name is David. Mine is Emily and sons name is Luke. 🙂

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Stacy says · 06.23.15

We have three children, 2 boys and 1 girl. We didn’t find out the gender for the first two babies so had to have a boy and a girl name for each. I found girl names to be so much harder to pick out too! We also never used the back up name for the next baby. Funny how that happens.

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Jen says · 06.24.15

With my first we had a much easier time with boys names and thankfully had our son Emmet. This time around I couldn’t think of any boys names that seemed right. Thankfully we had a girl Aleda June, but we call her Ally June. My southern smiley girl 🙂

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Jennifer says · 06.26.15

My husband and I could not agree on a girl’s name with both liked without problems. He tended to like biblical names which I’m not to fond of for the most part. We both liked Rebecca, but that is my cousin’s name. I tend to like the more popular names which he does not.

We both ended up liking: Allison! We call her Ali sometimes, but she prefers Allison. She takes after me I suppose, I prefer to be called Jennifer and really don’t like Jen or Jenny.

If she had been a boy she would have been Jacob.

When my son was born we called him Brian and had Amy picked out for a girl.

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Aurora says · 06.30.15

I love hearing about the names that float away.
With my first pregnancy we were set on Percival nicknamed Percy for a boy and Agatha nicknamed Aggie for a girl. At our 18 week scan we were told girl and ran with Aggie. I was totally feeling it and refered to my bump as Aggie.
41 weeks 5 days into my pregnancy we were blessed with a bouncing baby boy…what? And he didn’t look like a Percy at all… We sat with him on the bed and said names out loud until one finally fit. He became Felix and Aggie and Percy were boxed up collecting dust.
A little over a year later we were expecting again and thought we would pull out our trusty favorites Percy and Aggie but I felt like Aggie was forever attached to the little girl I thought I carried for over half my pregnancy.
Our new runner ups became Percival (Percy) and Imogen. Again we were told a little girl but this time I refused to call the baby anything more than Sprog for fear of jinxing myself.
We did have a lovely girl and named her Imogen.
Percy is still my go to name for a boy but it’s starting to feel like it’s tied to the two previous babies so I don’t know if we will use it if we have another son.

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Claudia says · 07.07.15

I’m not pregnant (not even married yet, and I want that first) but I already have a boys name. When I mention babies to my boyfriend (of 5,5 years) I even name the baby by the name instead of just referring to ‘a baby’.
Like, in our househunt I am telling my boyfriend how *name* is going to like the garden.. It’s hard keeping the name a secret!
Now to hope we will have a boy!! If not I’m gonna cry! (Yes, like a baby that is 😛 )

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Jenn says · 07.09.15

Hi – my daughter is expecting her first baby (maybe only baby) so this post caught my attention. However, instead of a comment about choosing a name for baby, I’d like to know where to find that cute onesie. My grandbaby is going to be a boy. Thanks 🙂

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Becca says · 07.17.15

I know I’m way behind on this post but I just thought I’d comment anyway 🙂 We didn’t know the sex of either of our children until they were born, so we wanted a girl and boy name picked. With our first (now 4) it was super easy to come up with a boy name…Colton Robert (Robert after my dad). We tossed around a few other names and had a backup name of Jackson Robert just incase. Girl names however ha! We couldn’t decide or agree on anything! Mallory, Madison, Madalyn and no middle name. It’s a good thing he was a boy!! Our second baby just turned 1 this week. We could not come up with a boy name but I had a girl name picked out from the time I found out I was pregnant! Our son was watching the Cleveland Indians game and said “if the baby is a boy I want to name him Brantley” so I was kind of set on that. It was the first name I heard I liked. Well july came we now have our beautiful little Brynlee Rose (Rose is after my great-grandmother –kind of a long story with it). But we love it! So for short we have Colt and Bryn 🙂

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