How do you choose names?

Hello everybody!
I wonder how majority of people on this forum choose names for their babies? Are you looking for a rare name or not? Do you check Social Security rating and want your baby's name be in 100 most popular names or how? Are you naming after somebody you know? or any other reasons?

I am also foreign to the USA, but live in America. I have a couple questions to you as native citizens of this country. Why people give babies middle names? Do you call you children by their first name or middle or both? What is your reaction if someone does not have a middle name? It is not used in my country, that is why I am asking about it. Personally, I do not have a middle name. And I probably will not give middle names to my babies, if you will say it is OK to live without middle name. My children will live in the USA and I do not want other children in school laugh at them or something like that.

 

Hi Aqua and welcome to the board!

I'm American but live in Mexico. Here it's about 50/50 on middle names, my dh doesn't have one. But I like them and here's why I insisted my children have them. The full name, first middle and last is used on the most formal occasions. For example let's say a boy is named Adam John Smith. Informally he's called Adam. Semi-formally he's Adam Smith. On the most formal occasions, like a high school graduation and on formal documents, he'd be Adam John Smith. His mother might call him Adam John when se wants to be grave, like if she's angry or having a conversation about a very serious matter she's not happy about. Also in a christian wedding ceremony the priest or minister usually uses Adam John.
It's not necessary and if you don't to give your children one, that's fine.

I like it because it also allowed us to express more when choosing a name. We chose names of people we wanted to honor and middle names with a special meaning for us. In our case we are a trilingual family. The main language among us is Spanish. I'm a native English speaker and DH also speaks Mixteco, so our first names are primarily Spanish (though Bianca is Italian) in sound. One middle name is English and the other Mixteco.
It's also a chance to use a name you might not choose for a first name, since it's not often used.

 

ours was a compromise...jason really wanted abbey for a girl, and i thought it was silly because it's a HUGE beatles tribute when taken in with our last name, and i REALLY wanted jack, which is a family name, and jason really didn't like the name..he wanted his dad's name, david, which i don't really like, or maxwell...so i looked at him and i said "if you give me jack, i'll give you abbey" and that was that..when we were pg with izzy, we knew that if he were to be a boy (we were expecting a girl honestly) he would be named issac..it's a family name for jason, and we just both really liked the way it sounded...jason wanted to call him ike, and i told him that ike is too "old" for a tiny boy and we'll call him izzy until he gets older...i don't think we'll ever transition over to ike...izzy is definately izzy...

as far as middle names...i think it used to be a way for kids to have the names of both their mother and their father's family in their name...everyone i know has a middle name...my nephew has 2...now we use it as another way of honoring other family members...we use names of family, either still alive or not, to "connect" the child to all parts of the family...

 

I choose the girls first names on Rarity. They could not be in the top 500 at the time. We like Jazz music so we had Jazzlyn picked out for a girl before we knew it was twins. Jesslyn was hard as we wanted something similar. Names we thought about were Gracelyn, Jocelyn and Jamilyn. Their middle names are my mom's middle name and my sister's middle name.

Middle names help if you have a common last name like Smith or Jones so they aren't confused with other ppl with the same name. I only call the girls by their middle names when they are in trouble but usually don't even call them by their full first name. I do know a few ppl with out middle names but not very many. It would be possible for them to be teased because they didn't have a middle name but kids can be teased for their names period

 

Thank you, ladies!
I really do not want to give middle names to my children. Neither my husband does. Our last name is rare, especially in the US. So, I do not think they will have someone in school with the same last name.

 

Neither of my parents have middle names (mom was born in the UK & dad was born in the US) I don't think it ever was a big deal for them - though both my brother & I have middle names.

I think a lot of people do a middle name to honor their family or a specific family member. If both you and your husband don't want to do middle names then you shouldn't!! :good:

My DH & I chose our girls 1st names after much debate & back & forth on what we liked. It was really hard to come up with 1st & middle names for 2 girls and agree on them!!

Both our girls middle names are after family members.

Good luck with choosing your names!