Name Game

I love names. I have for a long time. There is so much in a name. The pronunciation, the popularity or unfamiliarity,  the history, the meaning, the reason for its choosing, and language of origin. For me, choosing a name for a child is serious business.

When I was pregnant The Hubster and I would talk about names every night. Every single night no fail we would have a similar discussion with me taking it seriously and The Hubster not. Often our conversations would be as follows:

Me: What about Taylor?

The Hubster: Nah. Not Taylor. I had a student with that name that I didn’t like.

Me: Ok, what about Piper.

The Hubster: Nope. I knew a girl named Piper who walked her cat. What about cat?

Me: No. Try again

The Hubster: What about train, car, tangerine, clementine, pen, pencil?

Me: No, no, no, no, no and no!!!

This conversation would continue like this for months and months and months. Until finally, through a thousand searches based on the letters we needed to use (after deceased family members), meaning, and the uncommon factor we narrowed it down to two names. Phew. And that was hard!

Right after Princess Peach was born The Hubster turned to me and said “So is that her name?”. I said “yes” and he went to announce it to our family. I’m sure they said a few “WTF’s”. My grandmother still can’t remember her name but we know it’s the perfect name for her.

The 2011 Social Security Administration list was published a few weeks ago and Princess Peaches name is in the 500’s. I’m happy it’s there! One of my naming criteria was that it couldn’t be in the top 100 although some of my favourite names are! Her middle name is in the top 20 and I’m ok with that!

Here are 5 favourite names from each list (boys and girls) and their ranking (and for one reason or another I won’t be using them so don’t think it’s a hint for any future offspring!) :

Boys:

7. Ethan

34. Landon

304. Finn

745. Lennon

827. Keenan

Girls:

322. Maddison

492. Dylan

865: Princess (haha. never a name choice for us just funny for it to be in the ranking!)

956: Liv

970: Juniper

You can find the list here! http://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/popularnames.cgi

What do you think of the list? What names do you like, or dislike?

xoxo