Small Talk Six: The Name Game

This week's topic is about names for your kids. Share the names you considered with your kids. Since I have three kids, and the names in consideration were different each time, I'll share what we considered for all of them. Instead of just listing six names, I'll write six paragraphs (which, according to this week's post, is just fine) – two for each child. (This one doesn't count!)

Abigail

We considered LOTS of names for our sweet Abigail. The other girl names we considered included Natalie, Isabella (Bella for short), Frances (which is her middle name), Lily, Ilena (or Elena), and Elizabeth (which is Natalie's middle name).

The boy names we considered for Abigail included Andrew (the only one we could agree on), Hayden, Zachary, Alexander, Anthony, and Ryan.

Grant

We knew he was a boy pretty early on – before I was 15 weeks pregnant. So, we didn't really discuss girl names for him from that point on. In fact, I don't remember any girl names we had even briefly considered prior to that point.

We had a tough time with boy names. Our top one was taken a year earlier by my brother-in-law for his son, so Andrew was out. Alexander was our second favorite when Abby was cookin', but also was used by family. Instead, we considered Nathaniel, Anthony James (AJ for short), Ryan, Nicholas (almost named him this, but decided not to because I knew our next girl would be Natalie – I didn't want Natalie and Nicky), Benjamin, and Ethan.

Natalie

My husband was pretty set on girl names this time around. Despite my best efforts, he wasn't really open to any names other than Natalie for her. But, a few I liked included Lyla, Allison (thought Abby and Ally was cute), Lucy, Penelope (Penny), Kate, and Gwen (probably short for something, which I cannot remember at the moment, but not Gwyneth).

We hardly discussed boy names, because we just do NOT have similar tastes when it comes to boy names (probably why God gave us two girls LOL). We discussed it a little early on, but because of ongoing disagreements in that area decided to wait until we knew what gender we were having. Once we knew we didn't need a boy name, we stopped talking about it. But, we did consider some, including Ryan, Nathaniel, Benjamin, Harrison, Anthony, and Edward.

Show Us Your Life: Your Kids' (or Future Kids') Names

How could I resist another opportunity to talk about my little loves? This is hosted at Kelly's Korner. The objective is to share how you came up with your kids' names (I think).

Abigail Frances

We chose Abigail as our first daughter's name years before we were even ready to discuss having kids. We just knew that if we had a girl, THIS was her name. Frances is my mom's middle name. Family tradition on my mom's side (before I was born) was to name your daughter after your mother. Well, my mom partially kept that – she gave me her mom's middle name, but chose the first name. So, we followed her leave, and lucked out that Abigail and Frances go very nicely together! ;-)

Grant Daniel

We had the HARDEST time agreeing on a boy's name. Before Abby was born, Andrew was our boy name, but DH's brother used it a year before our son was born. That name was out. We tossed around a LOT of names. When I was ending the first trimester, I threw some names out at Abby while in the car one day. All of them received a giggle followed by "no." When I said Grant, she said, "Grant. Yes, Grant." She called him that pretty much from that moment on – even though we didn't officially decide to name him Grant until after he was born. He is named after his father in that his middle name, Daniel, is my husband's first name.

Natalie Elizabeth
Natalie was the #2 girl's name on our list when Abby was born. I wanted to explore other options, but my husband really liked the name Natalie. I eventually caved. To be honest, I still really liked it – just wanted to make sure it was THE NAME. Elizabeth is after my grandmother – it's the name I would've been given if my mom had followed tradition. My grandmother passed away when I was in the third grade, and every day I miss her. This was my way of keeping her with us. Plus, I think Natalie and Elizabeth go well together, too.