Naming a Baby: Family Factor

This post is part of the series "Naming a Baby"

Family Fit
This is probably more of a tool than a deciding factor. The website nymbler.com provides an easy way to narrow down to names you may find appealing based on other names used or favored. We enter the names of our other children, and the name we choose has always been on the first page. Again, this is probably more because the nymbler tool is useful rather than any other reason.

Family Name
We do not always use a family name. Three of our five children have names that can be found in our families. This is important to us, but not a final deciding factor for various reasons. At one point I wanted to name a child after myself so we would have Richard Scott Hutchinson II, but I was torn on this, and ended up giving Richard and Scott as middle names to our first two sons instead. Since I have no more names to give, our third son will not have any part of my name in his name. We also have not chosen any other name from our families. We did toss around some family names quite seriously, but couldn't seem to land on one, and I believe this shows the weight we give to this when choosing a name. It is a part of our discussion, but it has not proven to be utterly crucial to us in the process.

Family Opinion

Names are funny because a name can be loved by one person and hated by another. A name can be most beloved by someone only to fall out of favor because of a new acquaintance. One thing I believe to be true about names, though, is that a selected name will eventually become favorable and a delight once the child bearing the name is born. While we do not specifically mention to our families that their opinions count, this is one thing we consider in selecting a name. We have tossed several names due to a family member sharing their negative feelings toward the name. We have not made it our practice to bring them intimately into the naming process, but we do listen with open ears as they have shared names they dislike. Once we narrow our list of names to the top 10, though, we pretty much focus on meaning as the other factors have already been used as filters. If it comes to light that a name in our top 10 is disliked by a family member, that opinion will not hold as much sway as if this information had been uncovered earlier in the process.

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