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Matilda
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| Posted: April 09 2008 at 9:32pm | IP Logged
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Maddie wrote:
The other night as he was walking her to sleep I overheard him whisper to her, "Daddy named you, precious girl."
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I agree...that is so sweet!
We found out the s*x with #1 and only ever had one name picked out but we called him "Oscar" in utero. Just a nickname, but he has been awfully grouchy lately. We also found out the s*x of #2 and only had one name picked out but called her "Baby" as a nickame. With #3 we wanted to be "surprised" so no sonograms at all! My mommy intuition convinced me that this was a boy though! I just knew that baby was a boy!!! SURPRISE...she was a girl! Funny part is, we never really had settled on a boys name, no solid girl's name either so we scrambled at the last minute and named her for my grandmother. I had a lot of postpartum guilt that I thought she was a boy for 9 months. She was called "pumpkin" in utero and for the first few months of her life.
By the time #4 came along, I was done with surprises! We found out he was a boy and came up with the name Blaise although we called him "Peanut". I reserved the right to change my mind if he was born with red hair. Husband has red headed sisters. No way was I going to name a red headed child "Blaise"! He was born with a tiny little tuft of light brown hair.
For me, I like to get to know the baby before birth and that includes determining gender, but I always reserve the right to change whatever name we have decided on depending on getting to see that sweet little face!
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Charlotte (Matilda)
Mom to four (11 , 10 , 9 & 5 ) an even split for now
with bookend boys and a double girl sandwich
Waltzing Matilda
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KackyK
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| Posted: April 09 2008 at 9:55pm | IP Logged
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I am pregnant now at 24 weeks, and with each child, except ds child #3, we found out the gender. My dh loves to know the gender because he likes to use the proper pronoun! We have always come up with a name too, and with dc #3 we had a boy and a girl name ready.
Here's the weird part...that I don't think anyone mentioned...but our names have a pattern. And really and truly it was unintentional! It wasn't until we were pregnant with our fifth did we notice that the first four names of our dc had a pattern, and it's a hard pattern, it's a challenge!
It goes like this...the first letters of each child's name alternate between c to a to c to a and so forth. Each child's first name has only 6 letters and 2 syllables and each child's middle name is a family name that has 7 letters and 2 syllables. Crazy right??? So when we discovered this, dh said we can't break it now!
I had a miscarriage between #5 and #6, that baby would have been an 'a', so we didn't use 'a' for #6, she is a 'c'. Then we had three miscarriages before this baby due in July, so we skipped an 'a', a 'c' and another 'a' and we are back to 'c'. My 'a' children are feeling left behind as there will be 7 dc in our family and only two will have 'a' names. But we wanted it that way to honor and remember our babies gone to heaven.
Okay...so now you think we are neurotic...really we aren't. We just got ourselves stuck..sort of  And now dh and I think if we had any name open in the world to us to choose...it would never happen!
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KackyK
Mom to 8 - 3 dd, 5ds & 4 babes in heaven
Beginning With the Assumption
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LisaR
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| Posted: April 09 2008 at 10:05pm | IP Logged
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KackyK wrote:
Okay...so now you think we are neurotic...really we aren't. We just got ourselves stuck..sort of And now dh and I think if we had any name open in the world to us to choose...it would never happen! |
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I know a mom who "Had" to name all of her girls starting with the letters Re because her first two girls were Renee and Rebecca (unintentional at that point) now they have Regina, Reanna, and Relissa as well!!
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Lisa
dh Tim '92
Joseph 17
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Isaac Vincent 9/21/10! and...
many little saints in heaven!
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JenniferS
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We did not know the gender for sure with our oldest, but I was just sure she was a girl, so we called her Cassandra Grace for almost nine months. Then when she was born we just knew she was a Sally Ann. That really dumbfounded everyone in the waiting room.
Our second(our first son) was named the boy name(Samuel) dh had as a back-up for dd in case I was wrong about her gender.
The rest of our seven kiddos were named after their birth, even the three of which we did find out the gender. We just needed to see the baby first. For our five boys, they would have been Grace Catherine(we thought) had any of them been a girl. When we finally had another girl, Grace Catherine wasn't even on the list of possibilities anymore. In fact Kateri Therese(our dd's name) wasn't on the list either. 
Jen
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KackyK
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| Posted: April 09 2008 at 10:09pm | IP Logged
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I did want to share a funny story of dear friend who didn't name one her ds's until 3 months AFTER he was born!!!! She said she was literally chased by the birth certificate lady out of the hospital and my friend just totally ignored her.
When they went for dr visits they just said "baby boy" and the last name. She said they would try out different names for a week at a time until they settled on one!!!
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KackyK
Mom to 8 - 3 dd, 5ds & 4 babes in heaven
Beginning With the Assumption
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PDyer
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| Posted: April 09 2008 at 10:21pm | IP Logged
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LisaR wrote:
| I know a mom who "Had" to name all of her girls starting with the letters Re because her first two girls were Renee and Rebecca (unintentional at that point) now they have Regina, Reanna, and Relissa as well!! |
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My sister's children all have five letter first names and their middle names are the names of past English monarchs.
My husband's older brother's kids all have seven letter first names.
My kid have the same first letter of their first names but we didn't plan it that way.
My son chose my daughter's middle name.  He is still pleased about that.
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Patty
Mom of ds (7/96) and dd (9/01) and two angels (8/95 and 6/08)
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teachingmom
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| Posted: April 09 2008 at 11:03pm | IP Logged
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We have chosen most of the children's names very early in the pregancy. With my youngest, we took a bit longer to come up with a girl's name we all agreed upon. (We had already used up 11 of our favorites, with older sisters' first and middle names and a miscarried baby's single name.) But we never got near the due date without a definite set of girl's and boy's names.
Since we never wanted to know in advance the sex of the baby, we went through each of the pregnancies referring to the baby as "he or she" and simply "the baby." I didn't mind a bit and loved the surprise of finding out just who each baby was at birth.
I guess I never felt strongly about names needing to fit a baby. We just chose the sets of names ahead of time and felt totally at peace about using the appropriate ones (the girl's ones in each of our cases!) when each child was born.
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~Irene (Mom to 6 girls, ages 7-19)
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 09 2008 at 11:16pm | IP Logged
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Oh we don't use a "name" before baby is born..
Baby is just well... "baby" and I don't use pronouns 
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 09 2008 at 11:49pm | IP Logged
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We also never found out "what" any of ours were and have loved being surprised. We had names picked out, boy and girl, each time, and never changed our minds. All our children have family names, and we tried to pick old/obscure/long-unused ones -- both of us are named for parents, and in my family, all the cousins on my mother's side are named for their fathers and mothers, and it gets tiring always being "Little Somebody," in your forties.
So my first daughter is named for my father's mother's mother, because my grandmother always told me that I looked like her mother (who died of appendicitis in 1907, when my grandmother was 9). Her middle name we just picked because it sounded good with her first name. My kids have pseudonyms on my blogs, but I don't mind divulging them here . . . my oldest is Ada Katharine. She says she really likes the fact that she's never met another kid named Ada.
First son's first name, Joel, we just liked; his middle name, Matthews, is my mother's maiden name.
Second son's name came straight off a family gravestone: Benjamin Brooks. The original Benjamin Brooks was the patriarch of my mother's family, having moved to West TN from East NC in about 1838 to homestead. The current Benjamin Brooks has turned out to be quite the adventurer as well.
Second daughter, Rachel, is named for my husband's great-grandmother, who raised 11 children in a sharecropper's shack in Mississippi. This daughter got two middle names, Emily Holmes, for an ancestor of mine who walked all the way from NC (again) to West TN (again); her husband built their house, then realized he was on the wrong side of the state line, when he really wanted to be in Mississippi, so he tore the house down and rebuilt it 500 yards to the south, and she didn't shoot him. Holmes was my maiden name, and my mother was hinting strongly that we needed to name a child for my father, whose first name was Elmore. I adored my dad, but there are limits to what I'm willing to saddle an innocent child with.
We weren't Catholic when we had our children, so saints' names did not figure into their names, sadly. I'd love to have another run at it -- I love thinking up names! It's a bit sad to think of all the unused ones in my head hanging there like unworn clothes at the back of the closet. But oh, well. We've never regretted a name we gave a child -- good, classic names are amazingly stretchy and versatile.
But, to answer the original question (!), we never called a child by name in utero.
Sally
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Fe2h2o
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We haven't found out what we're having (and don't intend to this time, either) and we _aim_ to have a short list for each before they're born... Hasn't worked so much, so it took us 5 days to name ds, and 10 to name dd (shouldn't take as long this time though, as we definitely have both a male and female short list now—although, I'm less certain about some of our boy names now:-( )
We do take some time before we tell people about the pregnancy (we wait until the first trimester is over to tell anyone other than family), and we come up with a baby name. The first time it was kind of by accident, but seeing as we then continued to use it as a nom-de-blog (and anywhere searchable online, like here), we've done the same for number two and three. It makes it easy to talk to/about them in utero, and it gives us something to call them when they are first born, before we've named them properly.
I still occasionally sing to 'Puggle' and he sometimes refers to 'Bilby', but I'm definitely one who can't name a child until I've seen them. I was a school teacher, and I had a couple of students who had the _wrong_ name:-)
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stacykay
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Oh, I didn't make this very clear- we had both names picked out (boy and girl) for each, but never found out gender beforehand. The girl name was the same for each one except the last, but of course, neither Catherine Alexis nor Margaret Louise were used.
God Bless,
Stacy in MI (mom to 6dss)
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Fuzzy
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I used to think that I would never find out what I was having, and have the surprise. Well, with sonogram #1, I couldn't wait at all, and we have found out with every one. I like to be prepared, to have the correct gender pronoun, and I think it helps with my kids as well this time, to bond better. Especially when my DD was very opinionated and passionate about it "being a baby sister with a red ribbon in her hair"  Perhaps we read the Tomie DePaula book too many times.
I am a very slow decision maker, and I know that I need the time to decide on a name. I think I would go crazy if I had to have one of each planned! We have had names picked out, but it takes us a while after the sono to agree and for me to decide. It's just so permanant that I can't see waiting to "see" the baby. We are still working through names for this little boy, due early August!
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JenniferS
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| Posted: April 10 2008 at 7:31am | IP Logged
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Fuzzy,
My sister is the same way. For the times that we didn't know the gender, it drove her nuts because she had to know the gender of her own for the same reasons you mentioned.
Jen
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KackyK
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| Posted: April 10 2008 at 7:35am | IP Logged
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LIke Fuzzy...my dh always has said that knowing the pronoun helps to bond...in his mind he said it's like "they are here now!"
Oh and forgot to say too...we usually keep the name a secret. We didn't for the first two. But then we went secret for the next two. Then on the fifth we decided to tell and I got an odd comment about it from sil, so I decided we would never tell beforehand again. I think people don't say their criticisms as much once baby is here! And some of our names have not been the usuals...so I know there are comments behind my back probably, but once baby is here, people don't say it to me!
This time around with baby, it's even more fun to keep the secret because everyone knows "the pattern" so they keep guessing...it's pretty funny what they are coming up with!
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KackyK
Mom to 8 - 3 dd, 5ds & 4 babes in heaven
Beginning With the Assumption
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insegnante
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Fuzzy wrote:
| I am a very slow decision maker, and I know that I need the time to decide on a name. I think I would go crazy if I had to have one of each planned! We have had names picked out, but it takes us a while after the sono to agree and for me to decide. It's just so permanant that I can't see waiting to "see" the baby. We are still working through names for this little boy, due early August! |
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I almost wish I needed to wait for my husband to "agree," as it would help me narrow down more. It's hard to imagine him objecting to a name I would ever suggest. My list of possible names has long been pretty narrow though, so whittling it down to two or three possibilities for both when we didn't find out with #2 wasn't a problem.
My memory is fuzzy this pregnancy, but at the time #1 was born, I think the two most likely choices were 1) the name we ended up choosing for him and 2) the name his brother received 2 years later. I can't remember whether it was about six hours after his birth or about 30 hours later that we decided (I remember only the time of day and not which day.) The final step was asking my mother which one he looked more like to her. With our second son, I only recall the name he now has being a strong possibility, yet it somehow took us longer to decide! Maybe over two days. We did use a different middle name from the one I'd expected to go with his first name, though.
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Theresa
mommy to three boys, 3/02, 8/04, and 9/10, and a girl, 8/08
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folklaur
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| Posted: April 10 2008 at 10:51am | IP Logged
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A friend of ours in our homeschool group named theirs all "C" names...she said that wasn't the plan to start, but the first few just happened to have "c" names, and so then they stuck with it for the next ones:
Caitlin
Corey
Cameron
Cara
Camilla
Colleen
Cathleen
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Erin
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| Posted: April 10 2008 at 4:47pm | IP Logged
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I don't have scans so I never know the sex.
We used to have a list of about three names for each gender and decide when the baby is born. Although these days we are lucky to find one name we agree on.
insengnante wrote:
| and in both cases, I had a very good idea beforehand what we would name our sons ("I" because my husband is very agreeable to my ideas here, I guess he sees it as more my thing) |
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I would never have it that easy!
I told dh I'm on strike this time, he can come up with the name choices and 'I' get to do the rejecting. He always gets his way in the end anyway. We are doing alright with a girl's name but no boys choices. Every now and then I ask how he is going in finding names, his answer? "We've got five more months don't worry, we'll talk about it in labour" grr.
Oh well he does have good taste in names.
BTW Jen, how do you pronounce Kateri?
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Erin
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Christine
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We choose a name for a girl and a boy before the baby is born. My husband has decided what this little one's first name will be if he is a boy. He is still trying to decide what he wants the middle name to be. I am trying to decide between two names for a girl and have not thought of a middle name, but I still have 6 months to decide. Of course my husband has six months to nix the name I choose.
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Christine
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teachingmom
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| Posted: April 10 2008 at 10:17pm | IP Logged
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stacykay wrote:
Oh, I didn't make this very clear- we had both names picked out (boy and girl) for each, but never found out gender beforehand. The girl name was the same for each one except the last, but of course, neither Catherine Alexis nor Margaret Louise were used.
God Bless,
Stacy in MI (mom to 6dss) |
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And we had the same boy name prepared for each of our last 5 pregnancies. I'm starting to think that maybe God does not intend for us to have a Patrick Joseph!
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~Irene (Mom to 6 girls, ages 7-19)
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teachingmom
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| Posted: April 10 2008 at 10:19pm | IP Logged
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SallyT wrote:
| This daughter got two middle names, Emily Holmes, for an ancestor of mine who walked all the way from NC (again) to West TN (again); her husband built their house, then realized he was on the wrong side of the state line, when he really wanted to be in Mississippi, so he tore the house down and rebuilt it 500 yards to the south, and she didn't shoot him. |
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Thanks for sharing your fascinating family history, Sally!
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~Irene (Mom to 6 girls, ages 7-19)
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Topic: naming babies before birth
