One of the things that I looked forward to the most with having kids was choosing a name. I love name websites, and I love the responsibility of choosing a name for a person that will (hopefully) stay with them for a lifetime. I started a running list after Mr. Cereal and I got married and we would talk about names and add them or take old ones away that had lost their appeal over time. We gave each other the final veto power, which meant a lot of really great names I loved never even made the running list.
Once we were pregnant with LeLe, the name discussions became much more real and we spent a lot of our evenings having serious and sometimes heated discussions about what we were going to name the baby. By the time we got to the 20 week anatomy ultrasound, we were down to one boy name and one girl name. Interestingly, we used our girl name with LeLe and when we found out Little Bug was a boy, we actually use our original boy name.
We used a few rules to help us decide the names and this was a helpful element because if we liked a name but it didn’t work into one of the rules, we could make an easy case for cutting it off the list.
1) The Veto Power. As I said above, either one of us had automatic veto power over any name chosen by the other person. This one was critical and also the hardest rule because one of us would come forward with a name that we loved, only to have it cut immediately. There were some tears from me on a few of the names that I was really attached to. Mr. Cereal had one name that he kept bringing up and I hated it. At first I tried to see if I could like it, but I just hated it so much that eventually I got rid of it.
2) How Does It Sound When Yelled? Bear with me on this one… Mr. Cereal and I both played sports competitively in high school. We have both encountered some teammates with names that were literally impossible to yell on the field or court and we both decided early on that the names we chose needed to be able to be yelled easily. We will encourage our kids to play sports so being able to yell their name was kind of an important factor for us.
3) Not Too Popular, But Not Made Up. We definitely didn’t want to give names that were in the top 10, partially because we didn’t really care for any of these names, but also because we both have names that were top ten names growing up so there were numerous kids with the same names as us. I especially wanted to avoid this. On the other end of this, we wanted to make sure that the names we chose were respectable and were easily identifiable as names.
4) Will The Name Stand The Test of Time? This one was extremely important for us. Would the name we choose be a good name for a teenager, a young adult, an elderly person? Basically, would the name still sound as strong/classic as it does today. Sometimes I wonder how certain names sound being spoken in the nursing home. This helped us choose names that would be cute for a baby and little kid, and then can grow into a great adult name.
5) Does It Go With A Sib-Set? This was less of an issue when we were choosing LeLe’s name, but when Little Bug came along, we wanted to make sure that his name went well with LeLe’s. This was harder than I thought it would be, especially because Mr. Cereal didn’t want Little Bug’s name to rhyme with LeLe’s.
6) Does It Match The Last Name? This one was easier because our last name is not common, but easily pronounceable. My maiden name would have been really difficult to work with, so I lucked out when I married Mr. Cereal and got a great new last name. The only real issue we ran into was alliteration. Mr. Cereal and I both have “M” names and our last name starts with “M” so he was pretty adamant that our kids not have “M” names. I was fine with this because there weren’t really any “M” names I liked anyway.
7) Will I Still Like It In 10 Years? Honestly, this was the biggest one for me. I loved the name Jack for most of my 20’s and I was convinced that I would name my child that when I actually had kids. But when the time came to actually choose names, Jack didn’t even make my initial list. I just didn’t like it anymore. I know that I cannot predict the future, but I do know that I will absolutely still love the names I chose for my kids 10, 20, even 50 years down the road.
What were/are you name rules? Did you have to give up any names you loved because your partner wasn’t on board?
squash / 13208 posts
ha! I am sitting here yelling my kids names – yep, sound good
GOLD / wonderful coconut / 33402 posts
We did the yell you are in trouble test. First and middle had to sound right when they are in trouble!
pomelo / 5084 posts
I like number 3! One of the biggest pros of the name we picked was that it was not too overly popular nor invented! Haha. And – people can spell it.
apricot / 259 posts
I wanted it not to be in the S.S. Top 100 and it had to have a cute nickname while my husband was adamant about it being a name derived from Latin that is pronounced the same in English & Spanish since none of our family members speak English.
pear / 1521 posts
Ha, my husband and I are the exact same as #6! M&M M. Also fully agreed that there will be no babies starting with M in our family!
My husband initially shot down the name we gave our daughter but I kind of wore him down eventually
I sort of felt that since #1 I was doing the gestating and #2 she was getting my husband’s last name that I had a little bit more of a say than he did. He gave me an ornament for Christmas 2 months before she was born with her name on it as his way of letting me know we could name her my choice 
Best gift ever (besides her!)!
cherry / 176 posts
We’re trying to pick names that don’t have nicknames we hate. Even if we think we can chose a nickname, our kids might pick something different (e.g., If we can’t live with Penny or Nelly, we’re not going to choose Penelope).
wonderful clementine / 24134 posts
I agree with Veto power, however, there were some names that I asked my husband if we could just keep on the list and see if we found anything else better or if the name grew on him. I think often his gut reaction was NO and I would feel crushed. But by allowing me to put it on the list and just know that he was giving it a chance motivated me.
guest
We followed most of these when choosing names as well. We chose a name outside the top 1000 names but is a last name so not unheard of. We ruled out any names ending in -a, or -ah due to our last name starting with -A. That ruled out so many girls names! And we had a girl! There was one name I still hold close to my heart and I think my husband likes it still as well (secret it’s Fern). Maybe we’ll have another?