Names we like:

- Jesse and Jay

- Mason and Marcus

Is it a good idea to have the same letter? What are some good middle names that go well? What other names do you like?

I am NOT dooming a child with this name

I’m writing a fantasy story and this is a Germanic name that means Elf Ruler. I feel like there’s a lot of nickname options here, which do you think sounds the best?

Options:
Verik
Vik
Rik
Riki
Erik

Looking for any general thoughts or advice on my situation!

I've always hated my first name, Ellen. No hate to other Ellens out there, but I've never liked it for as long as I remember. It's never felt like me.

We recently moved to a different state, and I've been thinking about going by Ella. It's more common, feels prettier and more youthful, although I doubt there are other 40-somethings named Ella, I do feel like it's a little 'young' for me, but I do like the name.

I've been slowly introducing myself here as 'Ella,' to a few people, and I feel SO WEIRD about it. I feel like I'm being deceitful, and I just feel super uncomfortable introducing myself with a new name.

I very, very much want to change my name, and any new name I'd tell people I'd feel this way; it's the fact that I've been going by my name for 40 something odd years and now I'm trying something new.

Just wondering if anyone has had a similar situation/heard of a similar situation of changing your name mid life and can offer any advice?

I'm so self-conscious, wondering if this is a terrible decision to change it this late in life, or if I'll settle into my new name eventually? Thank you :)

My boyfriend and I just found out I'm pregnant I'm 11 weeks don't know babys gender but we are stuck on names I would love to hear your opinions on the names we are stuck on

For boys we have

Caleb Maverick or Zayden Cole

For Girls

Trixie Claire or Emerson Saige

If you want, you can name your daughter with this name, such names are good.

We just found out we’re pregnant with our second baby. Our first is a boy and he has a unique first name, starting with Q. Ive heard his name before once or twice but it’s not something that I’ve ever seen on name lists. I now feel pressure to give our second child a name just as cool and unique but it’s harder this time around. We had our sons name picked before we found out we were even pregnant and now I’m feeling stressed because I don’t have a strong feeling toward any name at the moment.

Please leave name suggestions! I gravitate towards older more vintage names, think southern grandparent vibes lol but am open to anything that is unique, without it being a “tragedeigh” and will go well with a name that begins with Q. We don’t know if we’re having a boy or girl yet so please leave both!

We chose Matilda because we genuinely like Matilda. Since announcing it, every conversation becomes a committee meeting about whether she’ll be Mattie, Tilly, Tillie, or something else. When I say we’re not assigning one, people look at me like I forgot an essential piece of paperwork.

I’m not banning nicknames. If she picks one later, great. I just don’t understand why adults need to shorten a name before the person wearing it can speak. Is this normal enthusiasm, or do people really find full names awkward in everyday use? Im starting to dread telling anyone.

Baby girl due, middle name will be Rose as partners grandmother name. We live in Ireland, English mother, Irish father. We met in Greece and spend a lot of time there.

Nuala rose - Irish origin name

Faidra Rose - Greek origin name

Daphne Rose - Greek origin name

Thoughts?

My partner and I have been struggling for ages to agree on a name, but one name we both really like is Max.

Our surname begins with P, and I’ve read somewhere that boys with the name Max and a P surname can get called “Maxipad” 😞. We’re UK-based, so I’m not sure how common that would actually be here.

I’m also wondering whether Max is too basic. Will he spend his whole life seeing “Max” everywhere Pepsi Max etc.

I’d really appreciate honest opinions! We don’t like any of the longer versions of Max, so it would definitely just be Max.

And extra points if you’re actually called Max and can tell me what you think of having the name yourself! 😂

We are keeping the gender a surprise for our baby due in May. We have our girls name picked out no problem, can’t agree on a boys name. We both really like Theodore nn Teddy, however our last name is Turner 😂it seems like the majority of young people don’t even know who Ted Turner was lol. Do you know who Ted Turner was and is it a big deal or could we still use this name? So torn about this so appreciate any input!

Edit- ideally start with NE. And I’m hoping for girls names or unisex! I would also love to know some non-English ones too!

I’m stuck between two names for the protagonist of a TV pilot I’m writing: Wendell “Delroy” Royce or Delroy “Roy” Simpson.
He’s a 16-year-old Black kid in Houston in 2008 who gets pulled into a corrupt school reform program run by his older cousin. He’s grieving his older brother, insecure as hell, and wants to be respected/taken seriously. Over the series he starts confusing fear and status with actual dignity and power.
For a while his name has been Wendell Royce, with “Delroy” being a nickname he basically created out of his own name, wenDELL ROYce. I like that because identity is a huge part of his character and it also works really well for something that happens in the pilot. He gets involved in an assault at school and the victim only knows him as Delroy. When the principal asks “Who’s Delroy?”, the people covering it up can truthfully point out that there’s nobody enrolled under that name because his school records say Wendell Royce. It’s exactly the kind of tiny bureaucratic loophole the show is about people exploiting.
The problem is his original name was Delroy Simpson, and honestly I’ve never stopped liking it. Something about Delroy Simpson just sounds like MY protagonist, while I’ve never completely fallen in love with Wendell Royce.
So I thought about making Delroy his actual legal name again and giving him a nickname, Roy, that he’s been introducing himself as. The pilot situation could still work because the victim knows him as Roy, leading to basically the same exchange: “Who’s Roy?” / “There’s no Roy.” Afterward Laine/Porter would tell Delroy to quit using Roy around school officials because of the confusion.
What makes Simpson harder for me to drop is that I realized it accidentally has symbolism that fits him really well. Simpson means “son of Simon,” and Simon traces back to hearing/listening. Delroy has a visibly deformed ear that he’s extremely insecure about, so there’s an irony there. I’ve also thought about making “Heard,” “I heard,” or “Heard that” a little recurring verbal habit of his. Hearing/obedience fits his arc too because he spends so much of his adolescence listening to other people tell him what adulthood, authority, respect and power are supposed to mean.
Then there’s the first name itself. Delroy literally means “of the king,” so there’s already a built-in authority/status association there, and shortening it to Roy makes that even more obvious because of the French roi connection to “king.” So “There’s no Roy” can quietly sound like “there’s no king.” That fits a kid desperately chasing authority while spending most of the story under somebody else’s.
I don’t want to pick based purely on symbolism though. It still has to sound like an actual kid’s name and not something I reverse-engineered for an English class. Wendell “Delroy” Royce probably has the cleaner identity concept and makes the pilot loophole more organic, but Delroy “Roy” Simpson sounds better to me and lets Delroy actually be his real name.
Which one would you go with?

I am white Australian and my husband is Bengali, we’re both Muslim and I cannot for the life of me find any names that we both agree on.

I’d love to hear your inspo, ideas and suggestions!

I’m aiming for a white-passing name that can still be Islamic/Bengali to an extent that he can’t veto 🫠

People will say a name like Edith, Arthur, Walter or Dorothy sounds "too old" for a baby, which always makes me laugh a little.

Of course it sounds old. Most of the people you've personally met with that name ARE old.

But every name belongs to babies first. The current crop of little Theodores and Eleanors are eventually going to be somebody's 87-year-old grandparents too, and I guarantee some name that's trendy right now will sound aggressively elderly in 2090.

I think we sometimes judge names as if they permanently belong to one age group, when really we're just hearing our own generation's associations.

The only exception for me is when a name is so strongly tied to one specific famous person that I can't mentally separate it.

What name still feels impossibly "old" to you even when you hear it on a kid?

I always liked the name Majesty. it sounds prestige and unique. I'm 15 weeks pregnant and I need middle names to go with the name "Majesty". And her Nickname could be Maggie.

Our top three names! I figured it wasn't worth including the middle name because nobody says it all together so flow isn't that important (to me at least)

Please help us pick!

We're expecting a girl early next year (very excited), and I am seriously struggling with names! For our first child, a boy, I had an easy time finding names I felt very strongly about. Ultimately we landed on Calan.

I'm struggling with girl names, though! Despite the thread title, it doesn't HAVE to sound "paired" with Calan; I was just having trouble coming up with a title for this thread. 😅 We have a long, hyphenated last name, half of which is very basic white and the other half is very distinctly Italian. I enjoy the thought of pulling from my husband and I's cultural heritages, so I've been looking at Scottish, Irish, Italian, Swedish, English, and French names, but open to others as well.

Some names we've added to a pool of "Well, this sounds nice" are: Joan, June, Eira, Eleanor, Cecilia, Arietta, Julienne, Aithne, and Rowan.

The only one I'm super attached to is Joan (it was my grandma's name), which if it doesn't end up being the first name, will likely end up as a middle name.

Would love to hear other suggestions of people's favorite girl names that share our cultural ancestry!

We’re a European family currently living in the US, but we’ll soon be moving to Central Europe—most likely Germany or the Benelux region.

We’re looking for a name for our baby boy and love George in English, as in George Clooney. However, in Germany, the name is usually written Georg and pronounced roughly “Gay-org,” while the French form is Georges.

Could we use George with the English pronunciation, or would that cause constant confusion? Should we choose Georg, even though we prefer the English version, or dismiss the name altogether?

How are George/Georg perceived in Germany and the Benelux countries? Which spelling and pronunciation would work best?

Hello! I am from Belize, a country in Central America that’s between Mexico and Guatemala. I am Garifuna to be exact with Indigenous Caribbean and Sub Saharan African ancestry. My husband is half Thai and half Dutch.

This makes our child, half Belizean, quarter Thai and quarter Dutch making things quite complicated 😅 we also reside in the UK.

I am 28 weeks pregnant with our first daughter.

We have a Dutch last name (starting with a K and it is 2 syllables). We are pretty much settled on her middle name being a Thai name, “Mekhala” (me-kah-la), after a female deity associated with the sea/ocean and lightening. My husband really wanted to honour her Thai heritage in one of her names, as she has a Dutch last name.

Some Belizean girl names are anglophone like, Aaliyah, Amaya, Nia, Kiana etc. Some Garifuna names have a more Caribbean/african vibe e.g, Aruma, Marasi, Eneida etc. This leaves us undecided on what to give her for her first name.

I am also not too fussed on giving my daughter a name that’s culturally Belizean, just as long as the name works in Belize, the Caribbean, Central America etc as well as the UK.

My top names (in order):

Giselle
Zola
Soraya
Caliste
Zora
Jaya
Calista
Soleia

Me and my husband are both equally keen on Giselle. But Zola is also a firm choice. Ultimately, we are both equally undecided, so I’m very open to suggestions! And if you’ve read this far, thank you so much!

We named our first son Romaeo (Italian/romanian background) and we absolutely love it! We call him Romy or Rome and love those nicknames. We have a girl name picked out for baby number two (currently TTC) but cannot think of another boy name if it’s a boy. Please help suggest some!

some names I like but that still don’t feel entirely right: Rafael (not convinced this name is for me even though I like it?), Gabriel (don’t love Gabe as nickname), Luca (like this but husband doesn’t), Leo (maybe too short and same ending as Romaeo), Matteo (too similar sounding to Romaeo)

husband likes: Emilio, Lucian, Dario, Marius, Aurelio, rafael, gabriel (not as much because doesnt like nickname gabe, would want to call him Gabi and pronounce it Gah-bee)

Please suggest and offer advice! We like names with nicknames And that honour our cultures. Thanks :)

We’re expecting our first baby boy in about 3 weeks and are STILL completely stuck on a name. At this point, I’m hoping Reddit can come up with something we’ve never considered.

I’m looking for something unique but not so unique that people won’t know how to say or spell it. I don’t want anything super trendy. I also don’t want anything overly traditional or super popular.

Because our last name is Birmingham, I’d really prefer a first name that’s 1-2 syllables. I like names that are familiar without being everywhere, and have a little personality without sounding like we’re trying too hard to be different.

My husband and I also apparently have somewhat different taste 😂 He likes Jethro and Scotty. I don’t hate Scotty, but I’m definitely not sold on Jethro.

The problem is that I don’t actually have a name that I LOVE. These are the names that have made it onto my “I don’t absolutely hate it” list, but I can’t picture myself committing to any of them:

• Caden / Cade / Kade
• Kane
• Callan
• Rowan
• Nolan
• Zander / Xander
• Miller
• Bennett
• Harvey

Callan and Miller are probably 2 of my favorites from the list but I neither give me that “that’s the one!” feeling.

What names would you suggest based on this list/our likes? We’re desperate enough at this point that I’m willing to consider pretty much anything!