I liked that book too, as well as "The Baby Name Wizard: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby" by Laura Wattenberg, which I think you might go for since it has some similar sorts of lists. It also gives you alternate names you might like if you like one in particular. We chose Josephine (Josie) and Jasper from family names (a lot of Josephs one Josephine; one Jasper, who turns out to have been a real angry cur). They fit nicely together, have the 'old but not too popular' vibe, and each really fits the kid's personality.

I used the same book! :^)

We wrote our name candidates in the inside back cover. One that I liked and DH vetoed was "Jackson", and that was on the list for son #1 and became son #2's name. We still have the book with our handwritten names and younger son just turned 7.

Good luck picking!

that was truly my favorite name book when I was pregnant. I found out my naming style was "regal" or something- every boy name we picked was on the English royalty list... Have fun picking a name!

Awww. Look at your little one all comfy like that! Congratulations on your BOY :) Names were tough for us. We have 3 boys, and with all of them we went back and forth on names pretty much until month 8 or so!

He looks like he's blowing bubbles :)
Names are fun and terrifying: So much pressure!! We tried to choose funky, short, cross-cultural names, but always had a few back ups. You may choose Viper for a name, and a Gentle ends up being born;)

Hi, I just found your blog recently and loved the grocery bag tutorial. Congratulations on your pending arrival! Boys are so much fun. My Dad passed away two years before my son was born. So, when we found out we were having a boy, we knew we would name him Johnnie. I love all those vintage type names too but they are becoming so popular. I recently met someone with a Walter and another person with a Wally (so cute). Good luck with choosing your little one's name.

Caitlin had her name before we knew she was a girl. I loved knowing both of mine were girls before they popped out. We were discussing Leil in the delivery room. A compromise name. A character in Greg's unpublished first novel. Special to us but an odd one that she struggles to embrace. She's had numerous phases where she's requested we call her by a different name.

A breakthrough last month. We were in the grocery store and I was calling her. A beautiful young woman came up to me and said 'What's your daughter's name?'. I said Leil. She asked how it was spelled. She said that was her name and she'd never met anyone with it. Leil had come back at that point. They both shook hands smiling at one another. Both of them thought it was pretty cool to meet someone else with their name.

Go with your gut and don't let your husband override with anything too weird :)

Ohh congratulations. Names... Jack was always going to be Jack (if he wasn't Alice of course), I just liked it a whole lot. He's 12, it wasn't so common back then. Alice was a compromise, because I love my Mum's name, Ella, but Daddy didn't. Edward wasn't thought of until I was in labour and we were going through the alphabet to pass the time. I called him Harry for a few days, but I'm glad we went with Edward. (Eddie, Teddy, Ned...the boy has many sides...). Alice again declined to join us. He he he, it's fun remembering. Have a lovely happy pregnancy. Some of the best times of my life (so far) were being pregnant.

Yep - took ages - we wanted something different but not out there ended up with Vanessa first time round and Rachel (although not that unusual is not common at her age).

We couldn't decide on a boy's name though - just as well we had girls.

Have fun deciding.

Finn? as in Ethan Hawke's character in the Great Expectations film he did with Gweneth. I love that name.

When we had our daughter, we had one main choice, Grace, which is my middle name and both of our grandmothers' name, so it was a pretty obvious way to go, and we had it as a choice from as soon as we dared start thinking about names. But it has become hugely, frighteningly, popular in the past few years, so we chickened out, because we thought it would be a bit cheesy. Then again, I have a pretty popular name for my age group - Sarah - and it never really bothered me. I think that's because it's a classic and has not really dated. I would have liked to have called her something weird and wonderful, but I'm not sure we could have pulled it off. We have friends with a daughter called Echo, but they are arty enough to make it work.

My children are both named after family members. My daughter is named after two of her great grandmothers (one paternal on my side and maternal on my husband's side) and is called a diminuative of her name that makes me smile.

My son is a Third and called a different name than his father or grandfather. His name also makes me smile.

I am a big fan of family names, but not everyone is.

Congratulations and feel well!

Oh: I had a couple of pairs of maternity pants that I wish I kept in my closet to wear now--they were that comfy and fairly stylish. The boychild is almost two, though, and post-partum ego dictated getting rid of the pregnant pants asap!

That was my favorite baby name book! Our kids are 7, 5, and 3 now, so we were before the Madison edition too.

We just kicked around names that appealed to us until we hit on something we both liked. Funny, though, our middle child, if she had been a boy, would have been Theodore (Ted), but by the time #3 came along 2 years later we didn't like it as much anymore and she would have been Henry. As it turned out we got Charlotte and Hattie instead. Lucky!

It was hard for us to come up with a name for our daughter. My family is very diverse. We wanted a name that sounded the same in English, French and German. We settled on Frida Helen. Helen is my mother's name. Most of our family members weren't too excited about the name Frida but I just felt that it was/is the right name for her. The German side of the family thought it was too old fashion while the American side could only think about Frida Kahlo. The French side already knows we are weird so they didn't say too much. Anyway good luck ...I, for one, have spent most of my life being called Nena although my name is Beatriz. ;)

oh happy baby! if you look close you can see him giggling. ok, well maybe not quite, but believe you me, he's giggling with excitement. congrats lady and good luck with the name.

We (well, mostly me) used the same book for inspiration. We made a giant list of names that we both added to (probably 100 for each sex) and then once every week or two, I would get it out and read them off. We would get to veto for any reason at all, and those that didn't get a veto stayed on till the next round. We did this for a while until the list was down to around 6 that we both liked a lot.

We knew the middle name once we knew it was a girl (after both our grandmothers) so then we paired up the first names with the middle and last, read them out loud a lot, got it down to 3 names.

Then we started talking through nicknames, and potential teasing, etc. but in the end just knew when we had the right name.

Penelope Jean fits her perfectly, even 4 years later.

Good luck!

(Oh, and as for kids liking common names, be careful. I had at least 5 Jennifers in every class growing up and it was horrible. Probably like the Emmas of today are goign to feel...)

You'll get over the excitement of maternity pants. Once my belly got so big, the elastic part wouldn't stay up anyway. Sweat pants. Regular old sweat pants are where it's at!

Good luck with the name thing. My partner and I can't seem to figure that out at all.

Oh, and nice blog!

I have been a recent lurker, but just had to comment on this. As a teacher and a new mom it's terrible trying to find names! Certain names conjured up images of less-than-lovely students... my husband is also a teacher, so you can just imagine the nights in bed calling out names and every name I hated, he loved, and vice versa... Anyway, we did not find out the sex of our baby - our boy's name was Grant Benjamin - and after each of our dad's first initials (G for Glenn and B for Bruce), but we have a darling daughter named Molly Katherine - Molly is my great grandmother's name and Katherine just because it sounded nice. Later, I realized that my name is in her middle name and that's really nice too.... Enjoy the ride! -- PS - I loved my maternity pants too! Especially my ones from Target - they had a low band, not the big panel so sometimes after I had her I could wear them out in public and not feel like I was wearing maternity pants still! :)

YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY! Congradulations! I've had my names Pace and Lisette, picked out forever, and I'm not even having kids! =)

whoa... congratulations!

I'm just a lurker. I agonized over my baby names. I did want unusual names for my kids, as I always wanted an unusual name for myself. We came up with Colt for our first boy, and Tucker for our second.
There are numerous Coltons out there, but I've only run across two other Colts, one older and one much younger than my Colt. I've still only run into one other Tucker, and heard the name Tucker shouted out once in a public place.
Names are soooo permanent, but sooooo fun to pick out! You could try and see your child first and then pick a name!

Congrats! We chose middle names before we knew the sex (too late for you, sorry). He chose the boy middle name and I chose the girl middle name and both were family names. First name, I had my favorite from about month 7 on but it took until we were on the way to the hospital to 100% convince the hubby that we shouldn't name her Sarah. Her name is Paige Irene which I do like but I broke my own rule of no noun or verb names. I really don't like noun and verb names and page is both a noun AND a verb (even if a different spelling) so in all honesty it sort of bugs me when I ask Paige to turn the page of the book or when someone is being paged at the doctor's office. Sorry to go on and on but it's not often you can admit slight namers regret ;) BTW, I love the name Tucker for a boy (mentioned above)

XERXES!

He was a ruler and conquerer.

I really wanted to name my son that but my husband wouldn't let me.....

Congrats on the boy!

We had Lauren's middle name picked out before she got here. Grace. Her first name was a bit difficult. We wanted to use my grandmother's name, Rose, but it didn't seem to go well together. Our other favorites were Lauren and Emma. Thankfully we went with Lauren. Our boy names were more difficult as all of the men in my husbands family has the initals of JBT, yikes. So we really like Jackson and Jayden for the first and were going to use his middle Blake for the boy. But alas, Lauren Grace arrived instead of a boy. Maybe next time we'll get to use the boy names. Good luck. It's a tough decision.

We're having the name conversations at the moment, I've just had my 14 weeks scan so plenty of time to think about it.
I've only ever met one other person with my name, and I've loved being almost unique (totally unique when put with my surname.) I really want the babys name to be as unique, but it's a hard finding unique but not off the wall names, especially as the blokey hates most of my ideas. I tend to prefer old-fashioned names, my favourites are Matilda and Seth, but blokey it not being talked around to them. Scarlett is top of the list for a girl so far, but we've no idea for a boy.
We've got a couple of name books we're using, but we're also thinking who our heroes are, and as we're both bookworms we're raiding the bookshelves for unusual ideas.
Good luck!

You are pregnant? Wow! Congrats! Did you announce this before and this is the first time I'm seeing it. Well, it's pretty cool. Names. . . I like the idea of finding one with personal significance and maybe it'll keep you from going with the ones that you find out later to be popular (but seemed obscure when you chose them).

Congratulations!

I've always liked the name, Henry.

Congrats! Boy names are tough; we picked out a girl name as soon as we got pregnant but it took right up until my due date to pick out a boy name. You can't pick something too weird but you don't want anything too common. We went with Ronan, nice and Irish and hard to make fun of.

I had an easy time settling on a boy's name (the first name, at least) but had a terrible time trying to select one for a girl. Good thing I had a boy! We named him Joseph, which I thought was about as basic as they come but not overly common right now. You would not believe the weird looks we got. "Hm. Is it a family name??" Well, yes, but...I just didn't think it was that odd. There's no winning. :) Can't wait to hear what you select, though!

I was 100% certain I was having a girl, and thought long and hard about girls names, but paid no attention to boys. So when I did NOT have a girl, I chose the only boy name that I remembered liking - Hunter. It turned out to be a winner, though.

Congratulations on your boy! I loved that name book too.

I think our names were picked from a list of names that we both liked...we each had our own lists and eventually there was the list of things we both liked and then someone (DH for the girls name and me for the boys name) put two of the list names together to get Amelia Elizabeth and Samuel Theodore (Theodore was DH's very favorite, but I can't stand the idea of Theo Ngo (No)). We ended up with Amelia Elizabeth, and coincedentally she's named (sort of) for my paternal grandmother - same middle name and was a pilot and member of the 99s.

Wow! Congrats! I had no idea you were pregnant! But then I haven't seen you in forever either...

-Lisa/corntastico

Thomas was Thomas long before he was conceived (it was the same with the girls, too). We wanted a classic, simple name which wouldn't cause problems with jokers and name-twisters and which, when shortened, we liked as well. I have no idea why we liked Thomas/Tom so much - probably because there wasn't one in the family.

We did call Thomas & Alice 'Billy & Brenda' before we knew their sexes - but moved swiftly on when we did! Billy & Brenda Brocket still has a pretty good sound to it, though.

Congratulations!

Well, we picked out the name Henry but then as we went along it just didn't feel right and we couldn't agree on anything until Ethan and there you are! If we have another boy we are screwed. I was very firm that I would have to see him in person before I would know for sure if he was an Ethan. My criteria for a name was:
1. How will it sound on his wedding day
2. How will it sound on the school roll call (do they even do that anymore?)
3. How would it sound bellowed out at the top of my lungs (with extreme sternness)
Try it, it might help. Also, no matter how unique a name you select, you will hear it everywhere after he is born even if you have never heard anyone named that before.
Congratulations on your baby boy!

Isn't it great to get that first real-deal ultrasound? I walked around town with a grin on my face (I NEVER do that). It's so magical and secret and wonderful. Names are tough. I recommend having a pretend name to tell everyone, so that you aren't influenced by others -- we used Gomez with our first (we really liked it) and it caused quite a stir (just a bit of racism?) in the families. Anyway, congratulations! Yippee! I can't wait to see what you make for your little guy.

Isn't it great to get that first real-deal ultrasound? I walked around town with a grin on my face (I NEVER do that). It's so magical and secret and wonderful. Names are tough. I recommend having a pretend name to tell everyone, so that you aren't influenced by others -- we used Gomez with our first (we really liked it) and it caused quite a stir (just a bit of racism?) in the families. Anyway, congratulations! Yippee! I can't wait to see what you make for your little guy.

ANY NAME WILL BE GREAT!!! YEAH, MY FIRST GRANDCHILD.

LOVE, MOM

Henry Joseph aka Hank.

Congratulations! So nice to get that little peek, isn't it? Well, my husband and I had been going through at least 10 books throughout the whole pregnancy. Near the end, we each made our own private list of our top 10 favorite names, then we did the big reveal. Only one matched up, so it was a done deal. (Lola, btw.)

Well, I'm a Lelah. You can't usually guess the pronunciation by the spelling, and that has been such an annoyance in my life! The spelling, as I later learned, is a middle English version of the Arabic Laila/Leila (probably picked up during the Crusades). It is common in India too. Sometimes you see is as Leyla or Layla (of which I get *those* song comments...). The Mid. Eng. spelling reflects the great vowel shift that happened after Old English. But of course, who now remembers that???

So I am voting for a name that teachers can pronounce and that when new people meet your son, they don't have the same song to sing (over and over...). LOL. Funny that if I was a boy, I was going to be Garth. My brother is a respectable Travis. And for a 30-yr old it's not common. Maybe now it is.

A great resource is the Social Security website http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/
You can type in a name and check its popularity ranking over the years. You can look at the most popular names of any year since 1879. You can check rankings by state. It is just fascinating.
My husband kind of talked me into naming our daughter Marjorie, after his late, beloved grandmother. I prefered Julia or Naomi, just because I thought they were prettier. But now I can't imagine my daughter being anything but Marjorie, and she LOVES being named after someone in the family. She always asks for stories about Grandma Marjorie and feels a real bond even though they never met. So I would suggest looking at family names first.

As you can imagine, I have a few opinions about names. As someone who goes by my middle name I try to discourage everyone I know from naming their child (i.e. James Henry Smith) with the intention of using the middle name as the name they will be called (Henry). In this day of databases, it's a royal pain and virtually impossible to get a plane ticket, insurance card, or any piece of paper with your middle name on it. It's a constant source of confusion.

Having a name that no one else has makes you memorable, but it is a drag to have to introduce yourself at every social function spelling your name and waiting for The Look (because there's always The Look). Having an unusual name can be distracting to some people. They want to make jokes or unwelcome comments about it and it gets tiresome. Some people tell me they love my name but the jokesters are more numerous than you'd imagine. Having said that, my unusual name does reflect a certain independence and willingness to be different.

On the other hand, my first name, Lucy, is also my mother's first name and by the time I was 10 and receiving phone calls it was problematic to be constantly asking the caller which Lucy they wanted to speak with. I also felt that being named after a parent felt like a little bit of a burden to be like them or share their identity in some way. My husband is named after his father and never thought about it but it was a factor in my decision to use Weeks, instead of Lucy. Although every piece of paper in my wallet says Lucy W. Ringle.

So when we were choosing names for our daughter, my husband Bill (very common name) and I (Weeks) decided on a name that would be unusual but not one you'd have to spell every time you introduce yourself. We settled on Sophie, not knowing that Sophia would, a year later, be a hot new name and that everyone would try to call her Sophia.

We still love the name Sophie and its meaning of "wisdom." It fulfills our criteria of sounding fine with the last name, sounding good equally at school and when being screamed across a soccer field, will not sound childish when she's a grown-up, is not shared by anyone else in the household, is simple to pronounce in other languages (a consideration given our family's strong ties to China, Japan and France) and not being distracting.

Good luck with your name choosing, Kim. And I, for one will never make jokes about your little Elmo, Jagger or Rocky.

how can a mother resist answering this?
i couldn't!
all 4 of my kidlet's names are a compromise. i wanted family names and hubby wanted to do something 'different'. he has been collecting Xmen and Wolverine comic books since he was 7 (thousands... really, it's insane) soooo, each child has the name of a character. no, not their stage name like "Wolverine", but their person name - Logan. then, to satisfy me, they all have vintage-y family middle names like Louis and Manuel and Frances for my dtr. it worked out great for us. so we have a wolverine, psyloche, professor X and sabertooth...and no one even knows it!

We had a name in advance of the baby - Oscar, after our beloved pussy cat who had been killed a couple of years earlier. Once we knew the baby was a boy going to be a boy (18 week scan) it was Oscar from that moment on. Names are a funny old thing, every man and their dog has an opinion on them. MIL didn't like Oscar at all and some people can't cope with him being named after a cat, but mostly people have been positive (or polite, lol). Good luck with deciding for your precious babe!

Congratulations! I just had a 17 week ultrasound and found out we're having a girl- finally! We have 4 boys- Jackson, Mason, Nicholas and Noah. The names I love that my husband vetoed are Seth and Evan. I like Neal too. My nephew's named Elliot which I think is really unique and different but not weird. I'll be interested to see what you pick.
I love your log cabin projects too. They're really cool,
E