Are you and your partner in sync about names?

We’re so not in sync it is painful. He likes Emily; I like Callisto. We compromised by using family names, and it has worked out nicely.

The only real problem is that we have lots and lots of fabulous choices for girls, and nearly nothing for boys. Plus, two of the obvious masculine names have been claimed by siblings. So if we ever had a second son, it is entirely possible he’d be nameless.

We’re not in sync at all. It was a long process naming our son. All of the men in my husband’s family, and my family as well, have very traditional names that can be shorten to a one syllable nickname, Mike, Dan, Jim, Rob, Steve, Mark and many more. My husband shot me down on every name that did not meet this criteria. I suggested names like Carrick, Riordan, and Donovan. His suggestion was Clifford, after his grandfather, and I just couldn’t do it, (the big red dog). Our opinions were equally important. When a friend suggested Vincent, we knew that was the name. It was just finding that one perfect name.

We are so not in sync. Names that I absolutly love like Evelyn, Lydia, and Sterling he absolutly hates. I am not even entirly sure what names he does like. It is painful to decide on names. For our son we compromised on Micah, and as soon as I got him to commit to it, I was done. He would think about it and say that maybe we should find something better and I would be like “Nope, already calling him Micah.” We are currently trying for our second and the great name debate has already begun and I already feel burned out cause I know what I love and still he can only say what he hates.

We are almost never initially in sync. For example, if I suggest Henrietta his immediate response is “Never. Never in a million years.” But once I plant the seed and let it ruminate, if I bring it up again a few months later he’ll usually have mellowed to the point where he doesn’t hate it and might actually like it, even. The thing about my husband, though, is that he has pretty much never told me a name that he likes first. He’ll agree or disagree with mine, but when I ask what he likes he usually lists back something I’ve suggested before. So I honestly have no idea what his taste in names is. It’s weird. But maybe that’s what makes him so pliable…

If I just ask him what names he likes, we aren’t in sync. Like Alyssa, the nice thing is that when we’ve had to pick a name he doesn’t have many names that he loves. However, he’s very flexible. Both times I’ve made a list of names I love and we narrow it down based on what he does and does not like. I just don’t have a list of names that I kinda like, its always names I love, so it works out well for me every time!

My husband and I are completely in sync when it comes to boys names. Girls names, however…..forget about it. I am from Italy originally, and therefore tend towards feminissima names like Viviana, Marina, Sofia, and Talia. His top choices for girls names include Michelle, Jean, Nicole, Shannon, and Sloane. Aside from Sloane, it feels like he is trying to name a child born in 1983!

I have had a similar experience to Alyssa. I suggest a name and DH hates it, and then later turns around and suggests it himself, then claims it’s his idea!! In general, we have very similar taste towards the traditional, but I prefer names out of the top 25 and his faves are ALL in the top 25!
We are currently 38 weeks pregnant and have settled on two names for each gender to take to the Hospital with us. The problem is, in each case, he likes one name more (the more popular one) and I prefer the other one more. Actually, if i had my way I wouldn’t pick any of them, but a completely different name in each gender that he rejected, because even my pick of the two final names is a compromise!

My husband and I have named two children and now we’re expecting our third. We do have a hard time agreeing on a name – so much so, that we have waited until after the baby is born both times and I’m sure we won’t settle on a name until after birth this time either.

We both do like more traditional / classic names, but some of the names I like, my husband thinks are “too old lady” or “ugly”. He classed Sylvia as ‘too old lady’ in 2005. My current favourite for a girl, Nameberry calls “lovely” but my husband calls “ugly”.

I have several boy and girl names that I would use on a baby and I like to read about names. My husband isn’t as interested, however. For this third baby, he has one boy name and one girl name that he likes – and he isn’t really interested in looking for other alternatives. I did end up having the ‘final say’ with our daughter’s name (1st baby) and then he picked from my top two names for our son (2nd baby). So I guess it would be fair to pick his top choice this 3rd time around! Fortunately the two names he likes, do fit the style of our first two children’s names – so I can’t really complain. (Sibling names matching in style matters more to me than it does to him.)

The only name that we both ever really loved is ‘Lily’ in 2005, but we didn’t end up choosing it, as I wanted something less-popular for a girl’s name. I also liked ‘Maisie’ in 2005, but he objected to it because it rhymes with ‘crazy’.

Not even close on boy names. The hard part is that he rarely had anything to suggest when we were talking names. I thought we had made headway when I brought up Avery and he loved it. Then I realized he loved it for a girl, and I love it for a boy. It’s off the table. I like Sam for a boy, he thinks it sounds girly, but hates Samantha and Samara. His only suggestion was Billy, which isn’t happening. We ended up with a James, and I still don’t love his name. I have him loosely agreeing to Dexter if we ever have a second boy, but he waffles. Since we’re not expecting, I figure I have time. I’d really like a Rhys or a Charlie. We’ll see.

Girls were relatively easy. I love so many girl names, I just kept throwing ones at him until he said yes. If we ever have a girl, we’ll have Daphne or Caroline.

Wow. I could probably write a whole novel about this. But I only have a few minutes, so something short will have to suffice.

Basically, this is a typical name discussion:
“Do you like this?” “No.”
“Do you like that?” “Meh.”
“Why don’t you tell me a name you do like?” “I don’t know.”
“Well, do you like classic or vintage names?” “I don’t even know what that means!”

Then I roar at him and we don’t talk about it for a few days.
Lather, rinse, and repeat.

My husband and I do not have the same style. We really have to compromise.
Also he really wants to name his first son after his late father. His name was Francis. This is not my favorite, but I am thinking if we have a son his first name will be Francis and I will choose the middle name. He’ll just go by his middle name. My husband will still probably call him Frank, though.

I guess it’s not too surprising that most of the people responding here have different styles from their partners. I am fortunate that my husband is fairly interested in names and our style matches: vintagey names with an unexpected freshness is how I would describe it. I often come up with new names but my husband comes up with his own ideas too. One day, about two years ago, we came up with the same exact girl’s first/middle set on the same day! Usually the reason my husband doesn’t like a name is because of a negative association and I respect that. Fortunately there are so many names to choose from that we can find quite a few we both like A LOT. It helps to consider names over time too, some fade and others grow in both of our hearts.

I guess I’m lucky that my husband and I agree on names, especially since my style is word/nature names that aren’t listed in the top 500! (Or even 1000!)

If it’s not a name he grew up knowing someone with, it’s “not a real name.”
Sorry, parents of Adeline or Dashiell. You apparently did not choose “real names” for your children.
Oh, and Adelaide, not only is your name fake, but your siblings must be Gatorade and Powerade!
“Old lady” names he seems to hesitate on though. He gives me a hmm rather than a no right away. Those may be my best bet…
As for boys, I have no clue.

My husband and I don’t have exactly the same style when it comes to names, but our styles are complementary. Fortunately he finds it interesting to discuss names and is willing to put his own suggestions out there in addition to commenting on mine.

When we were discussing a name for our daughter at first I felt I had to choose a very short name. (Combination of my mother feeling strongly that one-syllable names are better, plus the fact that we have a very long last name.) My husband helped me see that we could name her whatever we wanted, as long as we both loved the name. (He loves long and classically feminine names for girls).

We ended up choosing a first name that he had originally vetoed but I had loved, and he came around to love it as much as I did. The middle name was the opposite–he loved it first and I’d said “no way!” but then it grew on me and now I like it almost better than her first name.

My husband and I had it pretty easy naming our kids. With our first, I approached him and said, “I really, really love the name Sebastian. If this baby is a boy, can we name him Sebastian? You can pick any middle name you want (I still got the power of veto if I hated it)!” And he said, “OK, I like Sebastian.” and that was that!

With our second, as soon as I found out I was pregnant, I immediately fell in love with the name Oliver. He wasn’t completely sold on it, so we made a list and took it to the hospital. Oliver was always on our list of names, no matter how many other names came and went. So when we were literally driving home after his birth (birth center, not hospital where you are required to name before you leave), I asked him what he thought his name should be and he said, “Oliver.” Even though I would have been OK with settling for one of our other names on the list, I was thrilled that he ended up agreeing with his name in the end!

With girls names, we also have similar taste, however, we both really like most of the popular, feminine, names, but I veto them because of their popularity.

When naming our daughter, we had many conversations like this:
Me: What about Arabella?
Hubby: Anna’s better.
Me: Andrew then.
Hubby: It’s OK, but Paul is better.

Our daughter was eventually named Ruby Amira.

Excellent post! I really like your writing style : D

I made a promise to myself that I won’t marry anyone who has a different naming style to me, or at least a naming style too different to mine (Feminine but strong as well as pretty and vintage. For boys anything old with a cool feel to it).

We are totally in sync. He has an Italian last name and I’ve said my entire dating life that if my children have an Italian last name I would like them to have irish/celtic/gaelic first names for my ancestry. He came into the relationship with a male named picked out that fits my requirements; he likes the names I like for a girl. His middle name is his mom’s maiden name and we are going to us that for a middle name if we have a son, and my maiden name for a daughter.

Our name conversations are similar to many of those above – my husband has no ideas of his own but does not like any 99% my ideas! When we do stumble upon one of my suggestions that he thinks is okay, he wants to stop discussing names completely. When, days or weeks later, I say, “What about ____?” He says, “I thought we already decided on x?” Hopeless!
I think I will just keep spending my evenings on Nameberry and compiling my lists of wonderful names and maybe get him to agree to a name in hospital when he is completely in awe of my ability to bring our child into the world and cannot say no to anything that I ask of him! : )

My husband and I have always had a very relaxed approach to baby naming. I come up with names and he says if he likes it, hates it or of it gets sent to balance on the fence. The fence sitters get brought up a few days later and then he makes his final decision. Our overall style is unique but not weird.

Me and my boyfriend are totally in sync <3 We seem to have agreed on most all of our choices!! <3 I think he only veto'd one name that I loved from our list, Henry. And I am not in love with Veronica which he really likes. But I am willing to compromise with it as a middle name. Otherwise, the two of us have a fair sized list of names we both love!

With boys we’re not quite in sync but it’s an easy compromise (Isaiah/Zachary = Isaac) and we both tend to love the compromise more.
Girls’ names he’s suggested Starr, Snow, Sky, and Lilith. I like Delilah and Caroline. Although we’re tentatively agreed on Siofra.

My husband likes yooneek spellings! The horror!