Pretty much every day over the past few weeks, I’ve logged on to Facebook to see pregnancy and new baby announcements – it’s like there is a little baby boom going on amongst my friends! The one thing I always look forward to seeing and hearing is what my friends call their babies. Naming a child is one of the most difficult decisions that you have to make, and I love hearing why people have chosen particular names.
It got me thinking about back when we came up with the names that we chose for our boys, and why we chose those names. Being a teacher, I’ve taught a lot of children and been put off a LOT of names. I was absolutely in love with a boys name for years and ended up teaching a child with that name. He was an absolute nightmare, and now whenever I hear that name I shudder. Imagine if I had met that child after choosing that name?!
Our eldest is Harrison James. I had always liked the name Harry, but both Graham and I wanted names that could be shortened properly. After lots of discussions and writing lists, we came up with Harrison. James is my brother’s middle name, and it’s a name that goes with almost anything. I still have no idea what the name actually means – that’s not massively important to us. It sounds nice, and it looks nice written down with his surname. He occasionally gets called Harry now by some family members, but he generally prefers to be called Harrison. Had he been a girl, he would have been Darcy Rose!
When we found out I was pregnant for the second time, both Graham and I assumed it was going to be a girl, and decided on the name Jessica Rose (I had gone off Darcy by this point!). When we had the 20-week scan and found out that we were having a little boy, we had to go right back to the drawing board and think of a name. I still have absolutely no idea why or where his name came from – one of just said it, and it stuck. He is Alexander Thomas. He rarely gets called his first name, preferring to be just Alex.
Third time around, we knew that we would want Charlotte Rose for a little girl, a name which I still absolutely adore. Choosing a boys name was relatively easy as well – Benjamin was a name I had suggested both times previously, but Graham hadn’t been sure. This time, we settled on it. We decided on Benjamin Rhys in the end. Rhys was a name we had talked about as a first name, but the others had longer names that could be shortened, and we wanted Ben to have the same.
I read quite recently that something like a quarter of parents regret their children’s name after a bit, but I can honestly say I still love their names. I think they’re great names that suit them as kids but will grow with them into adulthood. Because we chose names that could be shortened, they can use whichever name they prefer.
Vouchercloud has done some research into some of the most popular names of recent times and have found some interesting trends. They’ve also made some predictions as to the next wave of baby names, and how popular culture influences choices. You can see the full infographic by clicking here.
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