First of all, we want to thank all of you who took the time to reply to our survey and for your thoughtful responses.  We were gratified by the results in many ways, not least  in demonstrating the widespread reach of nameberry—we heard not only from such primarily English-speaking countries as Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania, but also from readers from as far afield as  Mexico, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Norway, Israel, Bulgaria, United Arab Emirates, and Korea.

One thing that was especially gratifying to us was the number of people who answered the question “What else would you like to see on nameberry?” with phrases like ”Nothing–just keep doing what you’re doing” and “It’s perfect as it is” and “Nameberry is by far the best baby-name site out there!”  Thanks!

Also heartwarming to us was the fact that the greatest percentage of  people checked the option ‘It’s more original and more wide-ranging than any other site” and that the feature rated number one was the blogs.  But  to those who asked for more of them–as in seven days a week–all we can say is ay-yi-yi!–we’re pedaling as fast as we can as it is!

As for the rest of the suggestions for the site, we’re parsing them carefully with an eye to their feasibility, especially those on the  tech side.  As might be expected, there were a few contradictory requests –more authors’ opinions  vs more strictly objective information, more attention to celebrity babies vs. less, etc.  We’ve already begun to add more ethnic names–with pronunciations–to the data base, as per several requests, and taken note of the fact that some felt  boys’ names weren’t getting their fair share of attention.  For the rest, we’ll continue to sift and sort and accommodate as much as we can.  You had tons of good ideas.

A couple of requests we’re afraid we can’t fulfill, however–those from the people who requested “free beer” and “virtual chocolate.”  Welll…maybe we can manage the virtual chocolate.

Guest blogger Elizabeth Lindsay, aka nameberry’s very own Olivekit, was wracked with indecision over what to name her third baby girl — a dilemma followed closely by all her friends on nameberry’s message boards.  The final name choice surprised everyone, even Olivekit herself.

Baby Ooh La La (what my two-and-a-half-year-old calls her little sister), entered the world on July 23^rd, after a quick and almost painless delivery (love the epidural).  My beautiful baby girl debuted with an ear piercing scream that made the doctor laugh and say that Baby Ooh La La was the loudest baby that she had ever delivered.  She gets that from my husband.

After cleaning her up and weighing her, they handed her back to me.  We looked her over and studied her features, she looked a lot like her big sisters Olive and Kit, but with more hair.  She was perfect.

We oohed and awed over her, took a lot of pictures, and then one of the delivery nurses asked, “What’s her name?”

Crap. What followed were endless conversations about what she would not be named.

Me:  How about Phoebe, nickname Bea?

Hubby: Don’t like Phoebe.

Me:  Why not?

Hubby:  It sounds like a mean girl’s name.

Me:  What?!

(After pushing, I found out that he asked out a Phoebe once on a date in Junior High and she said no. Emphatically. Phoebe was out.)

We tried (trust me) to come up with a name. I read every book, made lists, got opinions from the wonderful ladies of Nameberry, and my loving but opinionated husband found fault with every name I came up with.  Plus, having two daughters named Olive and Kit, the pressure was on to find a name that went perfectly with theirs. Not an easy task.

I envy people who can just pick a name for their baby and that’s that.  When I was pregnant with Olive, we had a couple over for dinner and the topic of baby names came up.  Even though they weren’t expecting yet, after ruling out a couple of names, they agreed on William for a boy.    A five minute conversation and sure enough, years later, they welcomed baby William Archer.  It was never that easy for us.

Olive was going to be Courtney or Kendall until I had a dream that I was calling her by a different name and she looked at me and said, “My name is Olive, Mommy.”  I woke up and told my husband, who loved the name.  I didn’t.  I wasn’t going to name my daughter Olive.  The only Olive I had ever heard of was Olive Oyl and I don’t even like olives.   But my husband started calling her Olive toward the end of my pregnancy and when she born, Courtney Olive she became.

At my ultrasound for my second pregnancy, the baby had her back turned to us so the gender was going to be a delivery surprise.  Since I didn’t want to call him or her “it” for the next five months, we nicknamed the baby Kit because that worked for a girl or a boy. I was positive that I was having a boy.  The pregnancy was so much different than with Ollie’s and sadly, I didn’t dream up for a name for this baby, but we had a few names picked out for him.

“It’s a girl!”, the doctor proudly announced. My husband looked at me confused for a second, before we laughed and welcomed our second baby girl into our lives.  But what on Earth were we going to name her? (more…)

Yesterday, as I was writing about the favorite names on nameberry, it seemed as if all was in perfect harmony and solidarity, complete sweetness and sunshine on the site, and that nameberry.com was as tranquil a place as Mayberry R.F.D.

Not totally true.

Turns out that some visitors are as passionately opposed to some of the popular names on the site as others are passionately in favor of them.  And so a kind of rebel thread was set up called Secret Name Heresies, where people could voice–make that vent–their negative feelings.  And vent is what they/you have been doing, often in EMPHATIC CAPITAL letters.  Not surprisingly, since our opinions are formed from our individual experiences, there were some who disliked a particular name because of, say, an unshakable association with an obnoxious high school classmate, or with a Disney character they will forever attach to its name.  Or in some cases a simple dislike of its image or sound.

Here, from the varied responses, are a few choice, disgruntled, examples–some of which we found hilarious:

GIRLS

ARABELLA   –  Sounds like some made-up Disney princess who lives in Arabia.

ASTRID  –  I liked this before The Office.

BRONWYN  –  I knew a very odd Bronwyn in high school.  I only ever think of her.

CECILIA  –  I have a slight lisp–Ce-ce-lia sounds AWFUL when I say it.

CHARLOTTE  –  Whenever I see Charlotte, I just see cHARLOTte,

DAISY –  I love this name but for a pet.

DELILAH  — I’m not a Delilah fan.  If I’m not reminded of the Biblical story, I’m reminded of that annoying radio host, Delilah.

EVELYN  –  It’s still 100% nursing home to me.

FREYA  –  I HATE Freya!  I only think of frayed fabric.

GUINEVERE  –  Waaay too regal.

JUNE  –  I’m not a fan of June, but love Jane.

OLIVE  –  Olive?  As in black olives, green olives and extra virgin olive oil?  No thank you.
– I just don’t understand why you would name your daughter after a small green appetizer.

OPHELIA  –  I’m not an Ophelia fan, not only because of the “I’ll feel ya” teasing but because I have a habit of putting the prefixes of “hem” and “ped” before it.

POPPY –  I’m all for nature names but this is way too close to “puppy,” not to mention the association with opiates.
– The words “seed muffin” follow this in my head.
– This is what we call my Dad instead of Grandpa, so no.

SADIE  –  Reminds me of S & M.

VIOLA  –  Means rape in Spanish.

WILLOW  –  This would be a massive problem if she was chubby.
– I HATE Willow! It’s a 100% Palin to me, and just…ick.

BOYS

DUNCAN  –  Donuts.
             — Sounds like it should be the name of a thick, chubby boy.

ELIJAH  –  The only Elijah I have ever known was a girl, so it sounds really girly to me

EZRA  –  It looks like a typo.

FELIX  –  This is a cat’s name only.

GUS  –  Just ugly and not right for a little boy–reminds me of Augustus Gloop.
          — The big, fat mouse from Cinderella to me–Gus-Gus

JASPER  –  Seems like a girl’s name to me.
— 101 Dalmatians, anyone?

KILLIAN  –  Not a fan of Killian or any other name beginning with a synonym of murder

OSCAR  –Oscar is still 100% grouch to me.

OTIS  –  Too hickish for someone who lives in rural Nebraska and gets labeled a hick for that alone.

SEBASTIAN  –  Crab from Disney movie.

THEO  –  I hate Theo!  I love Theodore but won’t use it because I hate Theo!

Journalist Laura Dunphy, today’s guest blogger, enlightens us on what might not be so bad about your Mom hating your baby’s name.

My mother hates my daughter’s name.

And – don’t tell her this, please – I think it’s made me a better person.

My husband and I always thought that if we had a girl we’d call her Sophie Madeline. But when I was expecting our daughter, we decided we’d rather balance the growing popularity of Sophie with a more distinctive French name in the middle: Mireille.

When we officially announced the arrival of Sophie Mireille, my poshest friends raved. “What a lovely, very French-sounding name!” my globetrotting European pal Beatriz enthused. “Mireille is a fantastic, seriously underused name,” said Ann, an editor at a major entertainment magazine. My former boss Michelle, a retail executive who is always fabulously attired and never hands out an insincere compliment, gushed endlessly about how much she loved it. Oh, the delight!

Leave it to my mother to put an end to my glee. As we sat chatting around the dinner table one night, she mentioned that a family friend’s daughter, Zoe, was being called Zozo. I scrunched my face and asked, “Zozo? What kind of a nickname is that? It’s not even shorter than the original name.” To which my mother replied, “I don’t think you should be saying anything about anyone’s name.”

Stunned, I asked for an explanation, only to be informed that Mireille was not a real name. I believe my mother’s exact words were, “It’s horrible. We hate it.” My father nodded in solemn agreement. Apparently at some point over the course of the previous decade, I’d mentioned the name Sophie Madeline, and my parents had gotten attached to their vision of a fantasy granddaughter. As in, one with a name they had heard of before. (more…)

Lookydaddy.com’s Brian Sargent, today’s guest blogger, is the stay-at-home dad of now-four-year-old twin girls and a third-grader.  Those are his daughters, below.

My wife and I knew it would be tough to name twin girls, so we assigned ourselves jobs. My wife’s job was to suggest possible names for consideration. My job was to say I didn’t like them.

Not to be immodest, but I did my job well.

“Rebecca.”

“No.”

“Jocelyn.”

“No.”

“Hester.”

“You’re not even trying, anymore, are you?”

I did my job so well that toward the end of my wife’s pregnancy, I began to fear for my life.  With each passing week, in an attempt to sleep comfortably, my wife had stacked foam pads, sleeping bags, pillows, and even an air mattress on her side of our marital bed, and as the twins’ due date approached, I knew that all she would have to do was roll over in the middle of the night to literally crush the baby-name objections right out of me.

I kid, of course. My wife could have never rolled over without my help.

Finally, exasperated with the selfless way in which I saved my children from names that belonged to my ex-students or had too many Ys, this is what my wife did: She wrote down a list of her ten favorite names, posted it on the refrigerator, and informed me none of the names could be removed from the list unless they were replaced with better ones.

So there they stood: Ten names. Who knows where they came from? Some I recognized as my wife’s coworkers. Some may have been from TV shows. And some were there simply to make me wonder why I had ever thought my wife and I had enough in common to successfully raise a child together. And, unless I could come up with better, two of them would become my twin girls.

I never came up with better. The two girls currently pulling on my arms as I type, giving my spellchecker a run for its money, bear names that came from that list of ten. And you know what? It’s fine. In fact, it’s more than fine. When I look back on it, I’m not sure why I was such a jerk about the whole name-choosing process in the first place. My girls, my beautiful, wonderful Lila and Victoria, are beautiful and wonderful no matter what we call them. And besides, they turned out to be identical, so it’s not like we use their names anyway.  Beats us who is who.

But, happily, neither of them are is Hester.