Unique Child names

[E B]

Even though I lean toward more old-fashioned names for my family, I love hearing unique names in my child's Gymboree classes and there are a few I'd consider for future children if my husband were on board. Now, U-neek SPELLINGS- a different story. Naming your child Sharlytte doesn't set her apart from the other Charlottes, it just makes more work for her. "That's Charlotte with an S and a Y in place of the C and the O. Understand?"

There are two unique names I've come across online since Henry was born that I had to roll my eyes at, however: Random (girl) and D'Artagnan. Yes, we know you, the parents, are nerdy and proud, but don't punish your children because of it.

 

[Kismet]

Growing up, one of my brother's friends was called Thor. The family was Norwegian so maybe the name was more commonplace in Norway but it kind of stuck out in Vermont.

 

[Amethyste]

Growing up, one of my brother's friends was called Thor. The family was Norwegian so maybe the name was more commonplace in Norway but it kind of stuck out in Vermont.

OMG *** THOR *** IS FRIGGIN' AWESOME!!!

Unless the child is thin - short - and plays the violin...

 

[geckodani]

HOT, I have to say, I love Hawaiian names. I used to live there, and one of my close friends is Hawaiian and her middle name was Nalani. I was so jealous - I wanted a Hawaiian name! I also used to help out a kindergarten teacher when I was in 5th grade or so and one of my favorite students in the classes was named Noelani. Still jealous.

.

Oh BEG! I am so jealous!! I long to go to Hawaii just so my name can be normal for once! I have always wondered if they sell mugs and pens with hawaiian names on them just like they sell these things with normal names here.

Nalani and Noelani are beautiful! I have recently met a little girl with the name Kalani, i am assuming after the surfer Kalani Robb coz her dad is a surfer.

They do! They do! I actually have a keychain with my supposed Hawaiian name on it. Apparently Danielle = Kaniele.

 

[jaysonsmom]

I met a Pastor once, and his name was Gordon. Totally normal....he named his kids Jeremiah, Nehemiah, Jedediah.

I also have a cousin by marriage who named her 3 kids after the teenage mutant Ninja turtles: Michaelangelo, Leonardo and Chanel.

 

[MissMina]

Chanel is a cool name but
The other TMNT are Raphael and Donatello

I went to school with Mace Twyla Carmella Yvona (Pronounced Y (not E) V long OWN ah)
Lola Mimi Franzetta and Victory

My sons class included Marco Reid Murray Lina Sim Paloma and Khalfani

My niece is Lela
Her daughters are Lilah and Scarlett

 

[Bleed Burnt Orange]

A friend of mine has a student whose first name is leagally...Mr. M-R. Pronounced mister. No joke!

 

[Bunny007]

I know! If I have a daughter, her name will be Marley, I think that's so unique! I just LOVE that name.

Same here! I wouldn't mind being associated with Bob Marley anyway, if that were the case.

 

[jaysonsmom]

Chanel is a cool name but
The other TMNT are Raphael and Donatello

I went to school with Mace Twyla Carmella Yvona (Pronounced Y (not E) V long OWN ah)
Lola Mimi Franzetta and Victory

My sons class included Marco Reid Murray Lina Sim Paloma and Khalfani

My niece is Lela
Her daughters are Lilah and Scarlett

My bad...you can tell that it's not the genre of movie that I'd watch, but I heard someone ask her if she was thinking of the TMNT when she named her kids. I guess Leonardo and Michaelangelo were named after the artists?

 

[AGBF]

DH wanted to change that just a bit to honor our President. He seriously wanted to name our son Barack Uzi

I have a nephew (by marriage) named, "Uzi". It's not an uncommon name in Israel...or at least it wasn't in the past. (It means, "courage" for those who don't speak Hebrew.) I don't know if the machine gun had been named the Uzi yet when my nephew was born, but Israelis don't seem to connect the two things (the gun and the name).

Deb/AGBF

 

[Porridge]

I guess Leonardo and Michaelangelo were named after the artists?

Yup...as are Raphael and Donatello. I'm something of a TMNT aficionado or at least I was in my younger days.

I don't really like unusual spellings of names, chiefly because I always feel rather sorry for the poor soul who must constantly inform others how to spell it! I enjoy unique names, within reason, but I generally do prefer the classics.

I went to school with a Sylvester! Thought it was really cool.

Also I went to college with a Finnish girl called Heini (pronounced high-knee)!

 

[bee*]

I'm not a fan of unique names-I much prefer classic names. For a boy, I adore Cian (pronounced Key-an). I also love the name Sebastian. For a girl I love Charlotte.

 

[MustangGal]

DH and I have EXTREMELY americana names. I mean as common as you can get and both of our names plus our last name all begin with S (oh yeah my maiden name also began with S and sounded very similar to my now married name). Anyhow so becasue i had such a common name i really REALLY wanted our DS to have a unique name. My top names were
Byron
Jasper (Twilight killed that option off quickly)
Tristan (loved this one)
We ended up going with Rowan Chanan (very irish first name with a very israelie middle name)..most people give us the look when we tell them his name

Anyhow I would like to remind everyone that most names have all been made up at some point. In the 1800's and early 1900's Meredith, Ashley and Tiffany were all boys names. Then became unisex and now are pretty much exclusively girls's names. Wendy was a name completely made up and then became extremely popular. I bet if you name your kid "sofa" or "wipeboard" it might be unique now but in 20 years it will be the norm.

hahaha, I enrolled a "Soffa" at work a few months ago! And it wasn't ethnic either, her parents had common American names.

My maiden name is a very common word spelled different. I was always correcting the spelling, so I don't like the idea of using a traditional name and just switching up a few letters. Come on, it's a traditional name, just spell it right!

So when we were picking baby names we wanted something common enough that people would know how to pronounce and spell it, but not common enought that the kid would have 3 others in his/her classes (DH and I both have names that were in the top 10 the year we were born). Our girl name was Shelby, but we had a boy and named him Kyle. It even came with a Y in it already, since that seems to be the popular letter to add these days

 

[zoebartlett]

I'm not a fan of unique names-I much prefer classic names. For a boy, I adore Cian (pronounced Key-an). I also love the name Sebastian. For a girl I love Charlotte.

One similar sounding name to Cian that I LOVE is Ciaran (or Kieran). Irish names are my favorites.

I have always loved the name Michaela/Micaela, but it's so hard to love now because of the hundreds of different ways to spell it. I think I wrote the traditional ways to spell the name, but I've also seen it spelled McKayla, MacKayla, and various other ways. My name is fairly common but I've seen some pretty unique ways of spelling it.

My sister loves more unique names than I do. Asher is one name that she LOVES.

 

[SB621]

DH and I have EXTREMELY americana names. I mean as common as you can get and both of our names plus our last name all begin with S (oh yeah my maiden name also began with S and sounded very similar to my now married name). Anyhow so becasue i had such a common name i really REALLY wanted our DS to have a unique name. My top names were
Byron
Jasper (Twilight killed that option off quickly)
Tristan (loved this one)
We ended up going with Rowan Chanan (very irish first name with a very israelie middle name)..most people give us the look when we tell them his name

Anyhow I would like to remind everyone that most names have all been made up at some point. In the 1800's and early 1900's Meredith, Ashley and Tiffany were all boys names. Then became unisex and now are pretty much exclusively girls's names. Wendy was a name completely made up and then became extremely popular. I bet if you name your kid "sofa" or "wipeboard" it might be unique now but in 20 years it will be the norm.

I have a BOY rowan too And a year or two after I had him brooke shields had a girl and named her rowan and that's a name that seems now to be going to the girls ::sigh::

I just don't understand why Acacia isn't more popular. People name their kids all sorts of weird things and it's just a tree name like Willow. And I think it's just beautiful. It was more popular a couple hundred years ago I guess... and it's more popular in Europe than here.

I know- when we can home from the hospital and annouced his name somone in our sqaurdron (we are military) said "oh that is my DAUGHTER"S name." We have met another Rowan and she was also a girl. So you are right - i think it is leaning towards a girl's name now and irish names instead of being unique are becoming much more popular unfortunately.

 

[artdecogirl]

I love traditional names or family names, My mother, myself and my eldest daughter all have the same middle name and I hope she continues with it if she has a daughter and my husbands middle name has been used for 4 generations now so we knew the middle name before deciding the first. My first name is Lea . So everyone always spells it Leah and I have to correct them although it is pronounced the same way, I was the only one in my school growing up but now there were quite a few.

 

[LGK]

Man I wish I could remember some of the odd ones I've seen over the years working with a ginormous mailing list. My mind is a blank though.

In HS one of my good friend's older brothers wanted to date me REALLY bad. His favorite suggestion was that we should get married, because then I'd be Holly Berry. Yikes! Neither the guy or the name appealed in the slightest.

My mom wanted to name me Rainier if I was a boy. I'm kinda glad I wasn't one!

Oh and some of my best friends are named Sage, Sunshine, Harmony and me (Holly). Noooo, we weren't kids of hippies! Good lord.

I do think I'm pretty much the only black haired Holly I've ever run into. Most Hollys are redheads or blondes it seems like.

If I ever have kids, they'll definitely get nice easy to spell names. My maiden name was as easy as my first name, but my married name is mispronounced AND misspelled by everyone constantly, even my family... it even took my mom like 5 years to stop mispronouncing it! And a bunch of my co-workers whom I've worked with for 11 years still mispronounce it too. I would never purposely afflict that annoyance on a kid, especially if they'll be stuck with my married last name anyway.

Oh and this is a nickname story that always cracks me up. My FIL, when he was a teenager, babysat a pair of twins. They, at some early age, had been given the infamous Birds and Bees talk (this probably would have been in the early '60s or late '50s maybe). They decided to rename themselves Penis and Vagina. That's all they would answer to, and they called each other Penis and Vagina for years. And of course eventually it stuck, and other people would call them that. So ridiculous!

 

[slg47]

I guess I don't get the 'unique' names. I have one and people are always confusing me for a boy (my name is Spencer). I'm totally fine with my name but some of the names are just confusing-especially the ones with wacky spellings.

My favorite are the athlete names though-I think D'Artagnan could totally work for a football player! Sort of like D'Brickashaw...

It's also interesting how other cultures have adopted certain American names, but not others.

 

[Lislis89]

Excellent! Some of these names are amazing! I also forgot to add, that I have another favourite boys name too!

Harper although I used it on my puppy dog! I have met so many amazing people with this name! Boys and Girls! And my favourite singer is Ben Harper.... all ties in

 

[AGBF]

Growing up, one of my brother's friends was called Thor. The family was Norwegian so maybe the name was more commonplace in Norway but it kind of stuck out in Vermont.

That's right! Now Minnesota would have been fine!

Deb/AGBF

 

[AGBF]

OMG *** THOR *** IS FRIGGIN' AWESOME!!!

Unless the child is thin - short - and plays the violin...

Don't you just hate those violinists!!!???

Deb

 

[bee*]

I'm not a fan of unique names-I much prefer classic names. For a boy, I adore Cian (pronounced Key-an). I also love the name Sebastian. For a girl I love Charlotte.

One similar sounding name to Cian that I LOVE is Ciaran (or Kieran). Irish names are my favorites.

I like Ciaran as well. I also adore the name Cillian. I like some Irish names but there are a lot that I really don't like. I also don't know any Rowans at all over here, apart from one lad whose surname is Rowan.

 

[Porridge]

I've never met a Rowan either! The only one I've ever heard of is the English actor, Rowan Atkinson. In fact, the letter W doesn't exist in the Irish alphabet. But it probably evolved from a different spelling.

I love Cillian too. I share your sentiments on Irish names bee*! Mine isn't Irish, but it's a very common name. There were a good few of us in my class in school, and I've never had to spell it. I like it

 

[Cehrabehra]

I've never met a Rowan either! The only one I've ever heard of is the English actor, Rowan Atkinson. In fact, the letter W doesn't exist in the Irish alphabet. But it probably evolved from a different spelling.

I love Cillian too. I share your sentiments on Irish names bee*! Mine isn't Irish, but it's a very common name. There were a good few of us in my class in school, and I've never had to spell it. I like it

It is probably welsh! A friend of mine in the states always bragged about how she'd named her daughter the AUTHENTIC version of Erin and I even heard her ask a woman named Erin if she had the Irish or American version to which the woman said Irish and my friend said oh you spell it E-R-Y-N? And she said no so my friend "corrected" her and told her that wasn't the irish version haha So then I move off to Ireland and I attempt to find something to send back to my friend's daughter with the "authentic" version and lo and behold - not only has no one heard of eryn, there's no Y in gaelic either! But one drive through wales and all of those dang Y and W's hanging loose... The baby name books can be wrong - supposedly Rowan means red haired and is Irish. I only chose it because my son's face looked only like it would work with two names and the #1 name was Brian but after an Acacia and a Beacher it was just too ordinary lol (I still think he looks like a Brian!)

 

[Porridge]

I've never met a Rowan either! The only one I've ever heard of is the English actor, Rowan Atkinson. In fact, the letter W doesn't exist in the Irish alphabet. But it probably evolved from a different spelling.

I love Cillian too. I share your sentiments on Irish names bee*! Mine isn't Irish, but it's a very common name. There were a good few of us in my class in school, and I've never had to spell it. I like it

It is probably welsh! A friend of mine in the states always bragged about how she'd named her daughter the AUTHENTIC version of Erin and I even heard her ask a woman named Erin if she had the Irish or American version to which the woman said Irish and my friend said oh you spell it E-R-Y-N? And she said no so my friend "corrected" her and told her that wasn't the irish version haha So then I move off to Ireland and I attempt to find something to send back to my friend's daughter with the "authentic" version and lo and behold - not only has no one heard of eryn, there's no Y in gaelic either! But one drive through wales and all of those dang Y and W's hanging loose... The baby name books can be wrong - supposedly Rowan means red haired and is Irish. I only chose it because my son's face looked only like it would work with two names and the #1 name was Brian but after an Acacia and a Beacher it was just too ordinary lol (I still think he looks like a Brian!)

You're probably right Cehra! Rua is red so they sound similar enough for it to be plausible. That's gas...Eryn...never seen it written like that before! Welsh is hands down the maddest language I've ever come across.

Acacia is a gorgeous name. I adore honey and always have Acacia honey in my pantry. I never heard it used as a name before, it's really lovely.

 

[hawaiianorangetree]

HOT, I have to say, I love Hawaiian names. I used to live there, and one of my close friends is Hawaiian and her middle name was Nalani. I was so jealous - I wanted a Hawaiian name! I also used to help out a kindergarten teacher when I was in 5th grade or so and one of my favorite students in the classes was named Noelani. Still jealous.

.

Oh BEG! I am so jealous!! I long to go to Hawaii just so my name can be normal for once! I have always wondered if they sell mugs and pens with hawaiian names on them just like they sell these things with normal names here.

Nalani and Noelani are beautiful! I have recently met a little girl with the name Kalani, i am assuming after the surfer Kalani Robb coz her dad is a surfer.

They do! They do! I actually have a keychain with my supposed Hawaiian name on it. Apparently Danielle = Kaniele.

Ok, that's it!! My next international holiday is going to be to Hawaii just so I can buy a mug with my name on it!

 

[dragonfly411]

A friend of mine is naming her new puppy Killian and I have fallen in love with it, has anyone heard this used as a baby name?

 

[AGBF]

A friend of mine is naming her new puppy Killian and I have fallen in love with it, has anyone heard this used as a baby name?

Our next door neighbors at our last home were Irish. Their daughter was named Sadhbh (pronounced Sive) and their son was Killian.

Deb/AGBF

 

[dragonfly411]

I love it!

 

[orbaya]

It drives me batty when parents take a nice name and butcher it by trying to be different with the spelling! The kid will be pronouncing and spelling the name forever.

We have a common last name so we wanted to choose a name that wasn't overly common, but not outlandish either. We named our son Evan, which was 40th on the government list last year I believe. I've never known any other Evan, but recently met a 4 year old with that name.