Baby Names Hot Topic - Influence of Family & Friends

[Maribeth]

How much do family and friends influence your choice of baby names? Do you pick something else if you know your mom hates the name? Do you thumb your nose at her? If your sister uses a name that you love, do you select it too or find something else? Share your sphere of influence with us!

We'll archive this for the Baby Names Cubby.

[Stacie]

Our family doesn't influence us one bit. We always ask for suggestions but our families don't have any specific desires or requests so it's pretty much just our decision. DH and I have decided that names of cousins or their children are off limits though. We see and spend time with extended family several times a year and it would just be awkward to have two people with the same name. And our grandparents would have to remember two grand/great-grand children with the same name. One thing that makes naming baby easy is that we don't tell anyone our name choices before the baby is born. Part of the reason is because we're not 100% sure of the name until we see the baby anyway. But it's nice not to have people who wrinkle their nose or make hurtful comments about the name of our child. By the time the baby is here our families can't help but love the baby, goofy name or not.

[Eliza's mom]

Well, I loved the name Emily but DH and I agreed it was too popular of a name. So I found Eliza in a baby book. DH thought it was perfect because his late grandfathers' name, his cousin's name, and DH's middle name is Eli.

Her middle name is Mae and that was my late grandmother's name which was an absolute necessity to name my daughter after her. My Mom-mom was my rock and my best friend.

[Eliza's mom]

oh i dont think i answered the above question right! Well, my MIL hated the name Eliza but we didnt care! Now she likes it!

[Gayesy]

We didn't even consider relatives' opinions about baby names! LOL! The only thing I did bear in mind was that I wouldn't have called my child the same name as any of their cousins. Luckily none of those names were ones we really liked that much anyway. I think my ex-in-laws were a bit miffed that we didn't give Thomas a middle name that had often been used in that family, but as my ex himself didn't have that as his middle name, they couldn't really complain that much.

[justrose]

We didn't consider opinions, but both of our children have family names. My next baby will also have a family name. I have the names all picked out and no one will change my mind, LOL.

[Tami C]

We didn't tell anyone what we were naming Jeffrey until after he was born. Didn't want anyone chiming in their two cents! We chose his name because we didn't know any other Jeffrey's. I wanted his middle name to be Allen, but his father had lobbied for Timothy Andrew, so we used my first name and his middle name choice.

We named our first dd together after my Aunt Pat, and everyone knew our plans. I actually knew from the day she died that if I ever had a daughter, her name would be Patricia Lynn (my middle name). I didn't even have a husband then! Lucky for him, he loved the name, and it suits her perfectly. When she was born and my husband went out and told the families we had a girl and her name, my mother was thrilled. Aunt Pat was her only sister, so to have a granddaughter carry on her name was wonderful.

When our last baby came along, we asked everyone for suggestions. We agonized over names. We decided a boy would carry names for dh's grandfather-figure and for my dad. But in order to not cause a rift on either side, his first name was to be a family-neutral name. For a girl, we made lists upon lists, read every baby-name book we could find, and eventually settled on a name we both loved, knew nobody named that, and was easy enough for everyone to say. It also had to sound good when hollered across a playground at the end of the list of all of our kids names! Her middle name was always going to be my sister's middle name, as we tend to keep middle names in the family. Thus, Abigail Marie was born.

The only person in our family to give us any grief or undue pressure about a name was my bil. When we were pg for Abby, he insisted that if we had a son, we had to name him after dh's father. Dh's father's first name is also bil's middle name. Since bil will never have children, he insisted we keep the name going thru our son. There was no way on this earth I was going to saddle my son with that name! Ever! I'd sooner name my boy Sue!

Ands life ain't easy for a boy named Sue.

[Juju]

I'm not a fan of keeping the baby's name a big secret until the birth-- seems melodramatic to me. I never knew the sex of my kids while pregnant, and I welcomed the opinions of others when discussing baby names. It didn't bother me that I might get a negative reaction to a name; if my mom didn't like it, or a few others didn't really care for it, that wouldn't deter me. But my thoughts were, if the reaction to a name is universally negative for whatever reason, then perhaps it isn't a good name to give to a child even if I personally like it.

That being said, though, other people's opinions can potentially bring you very valuable perspective. I love the name Benjamin-- but that name coupled with our last name does something really unfortunate. It never would have occurred to me or Dave, so thank God my brother pointed it out to us BEFORE we gave that name to a child. When pregnant with Addie J, I had a name in mind that I really liked, but every time I said it to someone, they associated the name with a particular icky celebrity. I wouldn't have wanted to saddle my kid with that association, especially since this celeb isn't going to fade into obscurity. So, we always wanted to hear people's associations and opinions ahead of time. It didn't necessarily mean we agreed with them or listened to them-- but it doesn't hurt to listen!

[missing]

We didn't share the names we'd picked out for our babies before their births, after my mom chimed in her 2 cents on our girls name pick for our first baby (very negatively - she was determined that "everyone" would call Ainsley an anus) - we had a boy, so in the end it didn't matter.

Beyond that, we went through our family names when picking out first names - we didn't want to reuse a family name as a first name (ie - have them share first names with a cousin).

Middle names are family names though. DS1's middle name is DH's middle name and FIL's first name. DD's middle name is my middle name. DS2's middle name is my maternal grandfather's first name

[Amonika]

We didn't care. We didn't have a riot when we chose our names but we did have some push back in regards to Addison being a boys name. We went with what we liked.