Tips To Choose The Best Name For Your Baby

How do you choose a baby’s name? The answer must be; with care. Here are some guidelines.

If family is important to you, you may want to choose a family name, especially if there is a strong tradition to follow. For example, in Cyprus, as in many countries, it is traditional for the first son to be called after the father’s father, the second to be called after the mother’s father. Names pass down the family, but it can be difficult when someone refers to the name, to know just who they are talking about.

Where family and origin is important, but there is no strict tradition, you might like to choose the name of a much loved relative, but this can cause problems for the ‘other’ side of the family who may feel excluded. In this case it might be wise to discuss the choice of name, but not mention why it was chosen.

Another way to bring family names into a baby’s name is to use a surname as the Christian name. Names like Scott, Stewart, Leslie, Montgomery and countless others began as surnames. Where this is the mothers name before marriage it can make the choice of baby’s name quite easy, though for one reason or another there seem to be more of these names for boys than there are for girls.

Names go in and out of fashion, so should you look at popular baby’s names for inspiration? Probably not, unless you want your new son or daughter to join a line of others with the same name. It’s ok to be Olivia 1 in class, but it’s not so good to be Olivia 2 or Olivia 3.

Flowers have often been used as inspiration for girls’ names, but in this day and age it seems inevitable that any Daisy, Flora or Rose would automatically be a tomboy. If you want your daughter to have even a small chance of being feminine, avoid a name which is also a label, it’s far more likely to force the issue in the opposite direction.

Regal names, such as Mary, Elizabeth and Margaret, were popular throughout the first half of the twentieth century, but by the year 2000 they had moved far down the list, while shortened, familiar forms, which once would have been nicknames, are actually used. Hence, why many Margarets became Meg, Megan, Daisy or Greta. The same is true for boys. Where John was once the most popular boy’s name, and Jack an affectionate nickname, Jack has now become the number one boys name in its own right.

Before choosing a name for your child, be sure to check its meaning and in more than one place. I can guarantee that someone will look up your child’s name for them, so try to make sure that you and the child know what that meaning is and that there are no unpleasant surprises.

Lastly, consider giving you child an alternative. It’s a lot easier, later in life, to choose using your middle name than to change your name completely. If you do want to give your child a name that is filled with family tradition or something else which has meaning for you, consider adding a middle name which has no such burden so that later in life your child can make this, most personal of choices, for him or herself.

Suggested Reading:Guides for planning financially for a new baby