Naming your children

[htyabclub]

“Cognomen” is what I found as the Roman origin of last names passed down from father to son. My last name is of course my father’'s yet I also take my father’s middle name as my first. What was your reason for naming your children? Being engaged myself, this conversation is not too far away, although Biblical names have always intrigued my fiance and I.

 

[MichaelHowling]

We were going back and forth between 2 names…one of them being Nathaniel.

When my wife became pregnant, they were worried that my wife was having an ectopic pregnancy. We came to a priest friend we have (who I am truly convinced he’s a walking saint) …and he said a prayer for over my wife and told us he was having his brother priests back in Africa to pray for us. Her blood work got worse and worse and the doctor said she was going to have a miscarriage and to get ready. They were even calling the house a couple of times asking if she was bleeding or having any bad pains!

She went in for another ultra sound…and we heard a strong heartbeat and him!!! It was 3pm!

We called our priest friend minutes after to thank him for our prayers…He said " you didn’t go for your test at 3pm did u ? " … I said “yea” …He said that was exactly the time he started praying specifically for us in his chapel!

I looked up the name Nathaniel…it means “gift from God” …and it became his name.

He’s a good healthy , easy baby. HE LOVES going to mass. He watches the priest intently throughout mass ever since we started taking him right after birth. When he was baptized just before lent, (our priest let us do it in front of the whole parish …"he’s known as the parish baby…it was sooo special ) . When the priest poured the water over his head I SWEAR TO YOU…HE ACTUALLY FELL ASLEEP!

One of his first words was “god” . We have a picture of the divine mercy in our hallway and he runs to it all the time (and every morning as he comes out of his room) …points to the pictue and says " God " . …we didn’t teach him that!

Now, everywhere he sees a crucifix, mainger scene etc etc…he yells and points and says God.

When he opened his first christmass present…(a book) …he ran it to the hall, sat by the divine mercy picture and pretended to read!

He’ll wave at the picture , insist we let him hold it, he’ll kiss it…he even goes into little giggles with it and waves at it like he’s playing.

on the mother of God feast on the first, i took him up to the mary statue. He said “mary” !! I couldint believe it! I asked him in excitement who is that ? and he said it again! (after that …he started fouling it up a bit…but now he acknowledges her in pictures, in the church, in books.

He’s something special!

 

[greenchelle]

Oh that’s a lovely story MichaelHowling!

No children for me yet I’m afraid, but I cant wait to see how this thread turns out.

 

[Carina20]

He’s a good healthy , easy baby. HE LOVES going to mass. He watches the priest intently throughout mass ever since we started taking him right after birth. When he was baptized just before lent, (our priest let us do it in front of the whole parish …"he’s known as the parish baby…it was sooo special ) . When the priest poured the water over his head I SWEAR TO YOU…HE ACTUALLY FELL ASLEEP!

One of his first words was “god” . We have a picture of the divine mercy in our hallway and he runs to it all the time (and every morning as he comes out of his room) …points to the pictue and says " God " . …we didn’t teach him that!

Now, everywhere he sees a crucifix, mainger scene etc etc…he yells and points and says God.
When he opened his first christmass present…(a book) …he ran it to the hall, sat by the divine mercy picture and pretended to read!

He’ll wave at the picture , insist we let him hold it, he’ll kiss it…he even goes into little giggles with it and waves at it like he’s playing.

on the mother of God feast on the first, i took him up to the mary statue. He said “mary” !! I couldint believe it! I asked him in excitement who is that ? and he said it again! (after that …he started fouling it up a bit…but now he acknowledges her in pictures, in the church, in books.

He’s something special!

Maybe you have a future priest or religious on your hands!
What a lovely story.

 

[silicasandra]

“Cognomen” is what I found as the Roman origin of last names passed down from father to son. My last name is of course my father’'s yet I also take my father’s middle name as my first. What was your reason for naming your children? Being engaged myself, this conversation is not too far away, although Biblical names have always intrigued my fiance and I.

We like unusual names. Both my husband and I have unusual names and like them. Our “rule” is no names in the top 100 based on the Social Security database. Actually, neither our 21-month-old’s name nor the frontrunners for baby #2 (due in May) are in the top 1000 most popular names for the past 13 years. But they’re not so weird that people have never heard of them. All our names are from our ethnic background, though we’ve also consulted lists of saints’ names (and we’re nerdy enough that we might do Tolkien -inspired names as well. )

Middle names are family names. DS was named for someone in DH’s family, so baby #2 gets a middle name from our side.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

I used to have a pretty hefty list of don’ts for baby names. The main ones were no trendy names and no purposefully misspelled names. We also tend to avoid naming our kids after family members thanks to some really nasty experiences with people who felt we owed it to them to name our kids after them. We try to include at least one saint’s name; this is actually more important to me now than when we were younger. We also go for names that have some sort of significance for us. We prefer older, more traditional names and like the fact that none of our kids’ names are ranked in the top 100. At least one isn’t even in the top 1000, and if we’re ever blessed with another daughter, the name we have picked doesn’t even show up in the rankings.

 

[EasterJoy]

I used to have a pretty hefty list of don’ts for baby names. The main ones were no trendy names and no purposefully misspelled names. We also tend to avoid naming our kids after family members thanks to some really nasty experiences with people who felt we owed it to them to name our kids after them. We try to include at least one saint’s name; this is actually more important to me now than when we were younger. We also go for names that have some sort of significance for us. We prefer older, more traditional names and like the fact that none of our kids’ names are ranked in the top 100. At least one isn’t even in the top 1000, and if we’re ever blessed with another daughter, the name we have picked doesn’t even show up in the rankings.

Kids like having the names of well-known saints. One of our kids has a name shared by over a half dozen major saints. We chose two main patrons for him, though.

 

[Aggies08]

We prefer good, solid, “usual” names for our demographic, as well as being easy to spell (a traditional spelling), and something the majority of people will know how to pronounce.

I also like them to be a saint (not too hard), just for the fun of it as the child gets older.

We had a few floating around each time, and chose the name once the baby was born. I’m always afraid baby won’t like like a “william,” for example.

 

[CruceSignati]

on the mother of God feast on the first, i took him up to the mary statue. He said “mary” !! I couldint believe it! I asked him in excitement who is that ? and he said it again! (after that …he started fouling it up a bit…but now he acknowledges her in pictures, in the church, in books.

He’s something special!

Funny you should mention that. When I showed my 2 and a 1/2 yr old sister a statue of Our Lady, I asked her “, Do you know who this is?”
She replied “, Mama.”
Small miracles, indeed.

 

[Blenderx]

For our kids, the names had to be shared with a saint. We also prefer names that are traditional, but not trendy. Within the top 1000 names according to the SSA’s list. I prefer to stay out of the top 10, but we liked our firstborn’s name so much that it didn’t matter to us that it was a top 10 name for at least the past decade. I like them all to have different starting and ending letters for their first names. Middles are for the grandparents. First boy gets Dad’s Dad’s first name as their middle and second gets Mom’s Dad’s. If we’d had a girl, it would’ve been Mom’s Mom’s as the middle first, then Dad’s Mom’s. That is the tradition in my family and I wanted to keep it going. For our 3rd boy, we chose to honor St. Joseph with his middle, and for our 4th, we picked another family name, after my Great-Uncle.

 

[cmscms]

My big concern would be, with all these traditional boys names becoming girl’s names, (like Jordan and Ricki) for example, I would give my son a name and in 5 years time it would be a girl’s name and he would be an adult where 5 years difference is no big deal and he would be walking around with a girl’s name.

So… if it is a boy’s name, I would choose one that already has a similar girl’s version eg Daniel, Daniella in order to avoid that

 

[Bruised_Reed]

We like unusual names. Both my husband and I have unusual names and like them. Our “rule” is no names in the top 100 based on the Social Security database. (…).

That is a very good rule. I would make exceptions names in honor of family or friends.