Name Obsession

This is meant to be read and responded to if you are obsessed with names and naming people, pets, vehicles, or whatever:)

I think I first became interested in names at age 8 when my mom was pregnant with my youngest brother. She had a small baby name book and I pored over those names just soaking them in like a sponge. At college, I bought my own baby name book and would spend my boring hours at my work-study job (which involved sitting at a desk and checking in male visitors to the girl's dorm and/or paging girls when their visitors arrived) studying names like a textbook. I am sure many friends probably thought I had found out I was pregnant ( lol ) although I wasn't of course. When I married, it was 3 1/2 years before my first child arrived but my poor dh spent all that time listening to lists of names I liked. Over the years, I have purchased at least 10 baby name books. Being in my mid-40's now I get some pretty weird glances in the bookshop while browsing the baby name books section. I do have a 4 1/2 year old of my own however. The other day I found a new baby name book at our local library which has 100,000 names. Of course I checked it out (and received a weird look from the male librarian there as well). If you are obsessed with names, their meanings, origins, etc. or are an avid collector of names, please resond and tell us your story. I look forwards to reading the bios of other name enthusiasts.

Lol, I'm 12. I've been obsessed with name for about 6 months now. I play a virtual baby game, and I love to pick out their names! I use this site often, it's so helpful!!

Ovibiously, I don't have children. I do have 8 virtual babies :) Ranging from 31 months, to 3 days old!
I want to buy baby name books, but I don't want people thinking I'm pregnant at TWELVE! So that won't happen for a while.

I LOVEEEE Names!! :D

what is the name of the virtual baby game you are speaking of?

I've always been fascinated by names! From the time I was young and babysitting, I always paid attention to the names of the kids I took care of. When I was in college I had many "someday" children and I carefully selected names for all of them. When I finally got pregnant with my son, I spent months finding the perfect name. Now my son is one, and we're not planning on trying for another child for at least another year, but I'm still spending hours thinking about names for a hypothetical son or daughter. My husband tolerates this with a mixture of amusement and exasperation.

Ditto, Toby's Mommy, ditto. I too have a one-year-old and we're not trying for another for a while but my poor husband puts up with monthly (weekly?) discussions of my running baby name list. "What if we if have a girl next and then a boy after that- what should his middle name be?" He used to humor me by telling me he liked my name choices but lately he's been shooting them all down so it hasn't been as fun. But I guess that's okay since I'm not even pregnant :)

When my mom was pregnant with my third sister I remember one - being disappointed that she was a girl and two - what horrible names my mother was thinking of naming the new baby. I was probably about 13 when I started writing names down in miscellaneous note books. Some how I got a hold of a baby name book. My favorites back then included Mercedes and Cesar. They are so not on my list today.

When I was pregnant with my first (now 11) I never thought we'd find a name we loved yet agreed upon. I went to high school with a girl named Kira who was pretty, spunky and very short. I always loved and envied her name. I knew our daughter didn't have chance to be taller than 5' 3" and this name that I loved was just perfect. Today my Kira is petite, spunky and a smarty pants. When I was pregnant with daughter number #2 (almost 5) we had a name picked out months in advance, wrote it on the back of ultrasound pictures and in baby books. About three weeks before she was born something inside me (maybe her) was telling me the name we chose was all wrong. Samantha Ray became Mia Taylor. Mia wasn't even our idea. Unknowingly two of my sister had been suggesting Mia my whole pregnancy. At first I though Mia was much too short of a name and sounded like a nn. Mia is definitely nothing but a Mia. The origin of Mia's name keeps me from ever entirely crossing a name of the list.

I look in the beginning of magazines where the editor, writers, artists ect. names are listed, will inquire about interesting names on name tags, ask mothers of cute little babies what names they've chose, watch the credits with hopes to find "THE" name and so and so on. My husbands hates when I ask him to check out a persons name tag for me (he has better eyesight), he feels it makes him look like he's oogling over other women when he's with me. I'm not pregnant right now, were trying this month. Last year when we did decide to try for a third my naming obsession exploded. I have countless names lists in various notebooks in a multitude of locations in the house. I have lists saved on the computer and have visited a ton of baby name websites. Sometimes I wonder if this obsession is leading me further away from finding the perfect name then it is to leading me to the "ONE" or in my case the third ;)

My saving grace is knowing I'm not alone in this obsession. Maybe we're all just romantics, perfectionists or just severely indecisive. I'll take the romantic label since I like to write poetry and nothing is more poetic than a beautiful name.

I have a similar story to yours! I started being obsessed with names when my mom was picking out names for my little brother and gave me her little book once he was born. I was 8 at the time. By the time I was 12, I was on the internet posting on baby name message boards, coming up with name lists, etc. I am now 21 and married but we are not looking to have kids in the near future. But I do have about 5 name books and would order more, but it really irritates my husband. He's like "Aren't all of the names the same in those books? Why do you want another one?!" And to some point I agree and haven't purchased any more. I was a bit disappointed in the Ava and Aiden book--it had too much of a celebrity/celebrity naming theme and not much else. Anyway, one day when I do have a little one to name i will be well informed and hopefully ready!

The first instance I can remember clearly of my name obsession goes back to when I was about four or five. I was looking in a mirror, and was thinking that I liked the names Emily and Lisa so much better than my boring name, Amy (although I'm now super glad that my name isn't Emily or Lisa, and I love my name).

Another memory that I have of my early name obsession goes back to about fourth grade. I was at Build-a-Bear, and had made a bunny. I'd made animals there in the past, and had never had a problem naming them before (and thus, was the proud owner of Kelsey [girl] the bear, Sammy [boy] the tiger, and Jordan [boy] the penguin). However, this time, the name I'd picked out (Abby) just didn't seem to match my bunny's "personality." So I flipped through the book of names in the store, looking for an inspiration. I came up with Zoe, and after an internal battle, I decided that that's what she was to be named.
My sister, however, had no problem deciding the names of her Build-a-Bears: Princess, Fluffy, Cutie-Pie, and the ever original Mr. Bear.

I didn't really identify my obsession with names, though, until about three years ago (I'm 17 now), when I was playing Sims. My favorite part of the game was having a baby so that I could name it. It came to the point that I was making lists for future Sims-babies to be named. That's when I realized that it wasn't about the virtual family so much as it was about the names.

Amos (or Amy) - I'm absolutely with you when it comes to Sims. I think that was the most important reason I liked that game so much. I planned every baby name about three months in advance (three real, not Sims months) and at some time my Sim village was seriously overpopulated because of alle the babies they had (of course almost all of them got middle names, too).

But that's not the time my name obsession started. I really cannot say when that was. It seems like forever. I remember on holiday when I was a child: My sister and me made up a game in which we pretended we had a little zoo of animals following us and that was the first time I wrote down a list with names (given to the imaginary animals).
I also remember that I discovered an old baby-name book that my aunt and uncle had used before handing it to my parents. I think it was becasue of a homework that I looked up the meaning of my name, that of my family and so on and soon became addicted. I got lists of names back from the time when I was about approximately 13 (I'm 21 now) and I read every baby name book available in our local library.

Recently, I told my mother that when I will actually going to be pregnant (not in the near future) I would probably panic to find THE perfect name in only nine month. For some reason she didn't seem to get the seriousness of that problem ;)

I started writing short stories in 6th grade, about 4 years ago, and found names so fascinating. I had two main characters named Mylie and Kayla (I'm embarrassed to have ever like those names). Well, actually, it may have started before then... At Girl Scout camp in like 4th grade we had to come up with nicknames for ourselves, and I went by Tillie.
Anyway, last summer is when my obsession became full blown. I started writing a novel and I needed names, I heard of the name Annabel in a book I had read so I looked it up (on Linda and Pam's former sight on The Cradle, nonetheless), and found a version of it that I liked: Annalee. I looked up the meaning of my name, my parents' names, my brother's name, etc. I was hooked. I think my family hates me because I'm always saying: "Do you like the name Audra?" or "What do you think about the combo Christopher Ethan?"
While they patiently listen and answer, I know they're hoping this name obsession is just a weird phase I'm going through. It isn't :)

Oh, forgot to add this: When I was little I used to name all of my stuffed animals. And they weren't names like Bark-Bark or Kitty Cat, I named them real names. I still have a puppy I named Charlie, when I was 4. The first ever Build-A-Bear I made I named Carmel after my grandfather (whom I never knew, but my mom told me his nickname was Carmel). My second Build-A-Bear was named Max. This was all before I was 6. I also named my dog Zoe because I thought she looked like Zoe from Sesame Street.
So, no, this name obsession definitely isn't a phase. Lol