Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Naming Your Baby

I always enjoy talking about baby names.  I love hearing the stories of how people chose their kid's names so let's talk about Olive Kate today.  Kevin and I did not have a hard time choosing Olive's name.  We didn't really have a long list of family names to pick from or work around and could tell pretty quickly if we liked a name.  We agreed pretty quickly and announced her name shortly after we found out we were having a girl.  When did you or your friends announce the baby's name??

We both basically agreed on our list of favorites - except he loved Gwyneth and I did not and then I loved Caroline and he did not.  No big deal, we had plenty more options.  We loved so many vintage girl names and didn't want anything too popular.  We liked plenty of the popular names, but didn't want Olive to be in a class where there were several girls with the same name.  Drew Barrymore had a daughter named Olive and Marie Osmond's real first name is Olive.  Other than that, neither of us knew an Olive in real life.

After teaching for so many years, I'd gotten a little tired of some names and had bad memories of other names.  Our list of girl names was longer than boys.  If Olive had been a boy, our favorite boy name at the time was Fletcher.  It seemed like there were so many more girl names that we both liked than boys.  We loved the nickname options with Olive - Liv, Livy and liked how it sounded with Kate.  I don't think you can go wrong with a classic middle name.


What we learned after going through the naming process:
Choose a name you love even if you don't get rave reviews.  Make sure you and your husband are thrilled with it because it's YOUR baby.  Don't listen to nay sayers and try hard not to get your feelings hurt (warning: this is easier said than done).  Be CONFIDENT and ENJOY making this big decision with your spouse!!


Linking up with Momfessionals 

11 comments:

  1. I love Olive's name so much! It's the perfect name for her. I've never known any Olives either - and Liv is adorable!

    My husband's family tends to be vocal with their opinions, haha, so we received a LOT of input on our kids names! When we named Havah (rhymes with Guava or Java) we loved the meaning -"life" - is Hebrew for Eve. Her full name is Havalah (Ha-va-lah - still with the guava sound in there). She LOVES her name which is a total blessing since it's unusual. It's mispronounced constantly - but she kindly corrects people." Havalah" is in the Bible, which is the land surrounding the Garden of Eden, and means "land of gold". (And yes, it's from Fiddler on the Roof ;-)

    When we named Henry all our family members said it sounded like a 1950s farm boy! But Jon and I firmly loved the name Henry, with it's gentle strong sound. He's definitely a "Henry."

    Both kids have family middle names, Havalah is "Ruth", my mom's middle name, and Henry is "Read", which is both Jon's middle name and Henry's grandfather and great grandfather. We didn't mean to give the kids the EXACT same initials, but somehow that happened!

    Sorry to write a book! Yikes! Must be time to blog! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think Olive suits her well. I don't think my oldest sister revealed any of her names, except for Kellen, but he's the baby. Her others are Braeden & Reece. My other sister found out her first was a girl, but didn't reveal the name until she was born. But we all knew that it was going to be Peyton. She's loved that name forever. She didn't find out the gender of her next, and they weren't giving out names of either girl or boy. My other sister found out and told us his name. Jeffrey Michael is named after both of his grandpas.

    I have lots of boys names I would love to use, when and if that time comes up. My favorites right now are: Mason, Lincoln, Creighton, and Emerson. A few girl names I like: Madison, Gracen, Mila, Elliot, and Tae. But we'll see if I change my mind haha ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I would have had a girl, her name would have been Elliot Reid. I love the name Elliot for a girl.

      Delete
  3. Awwww sweet Olive! I just love it. And it totally fits. Loved reading this :-)
    -Erin (No Bohns About It)

    ReplyDelete
  4. My great-grandma's name was Daisy Olive so our daughter is Daisy. We didn't go for the Olive though - although I love it! We stole my mothers middle name instead - Renee.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Olive's baby pictures are so adorable! Well, she's still adorable now too :) I loved reading this! I think the name Olive Kate fits her perfectly - it's such a classy and beautiful name. :)

    I keep reading all of these people who announced the name ahead of time...wow, that is so brave! We changed some part of all 3 of our kids' names either on the way or at the hospital. Haha Granted, 2 out of 3 of their adoptions/finding out the gender all happened within one day, so I guess that leaves us with only being able to name them at the hospital...!

    And I agree - name your child what you want and forget the naysayers!!! :)

    Jess
    Sweet Little Ones

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm definitely a person who looks at the initials and the monograms when someone tells me about their baby's name. And I'm not exaggerating when I say I have names for ten kids picked out (five of each). I have yet to tell my husband about any of these names, haha.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love the name Olive!! I'm not crazy about how names that end with "A" pair with our last name, but I love the name "Olivia" so Olive is an awesome alternative. Jim didn't go for it this round, but maybe if there is a next time :)

    And we like to have our baby name picked before the anatomy scan if possible! We announced Mabel's name at the same time we shared that she was a girl.

    ReplyDelete
  8. My sister is going to have a baby so we are obsessed with baby names around here again. When I told some people Jack Henry's name I did get some negative feedback. It was old fashioned (it's why I liked it) and too formal. I loved it and so that is what mattered. Although it can come off a little old fashioned and formal, Jack is anything but those things. We play around with it by calling him Jack Jack. I have texted my sister the Liv suggestion. I'm really liking that. She needs a name that is not uber popular but not so different that great grandparents and grandparents don't think they have lost their mind. We are common small town folks so we need a name that fits. We keep thinking of girl names although she doesn't know the gender yet. You know how much I love these posts!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I like Olive Kate!!!! Everyone asks if I named Kane after Cain in the Bible. I say yes, his middle name is Abel (His middle initial actually is A, so it's believable).haha The name Kane actually came from a romance novel by Jude Deveraux. I'd had it picked out for forever. Chauncey picked Kane's middle name. At first it was going to be Alistair, but then he decided he liked Alexander better. We announced the first name as soon as we found out it was a boy.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love these stories! And now I'm thinking Olivia Kate would have been great haha - we have a lot of catherines .. so maybe Cate? Olivia wasn't named until 24 hours after birth. We could not agree on names. I loved Rowan and Dan loved Peyton - we had Olivia and Ella and a couple others. I always said I loved the name Olivia but always imagined someone with dark hair. I just knew this baby girl was going to come out a red head and I could be like "ROWAN!" (little red head). Also, I figured, no red hair, and I'd be like "I went through all of that can't we choose Rowan." My first thought when this black haired baby came out was ... "damn ... Olivia." About 5 minutes later, Dan goes 'she looks like an Olivia.' Sold. The middle name took much longer.

    ReplyDelete

I LOVE hearing from you!! Thanks for taking the time to leave sweet comments; I enjoy reading every one of them.