Choosing baby names for your little ones is one of the first decisions you’ll make for your children – and it’s a big one! They will live with the names you choose now for the rest of their lives. It will be the first word they learn to spell, and the first way that they will begin to shape their own identities… so it’s worth putting a bit of time and effort into finding the right one!
Here at Seraphine our maternity dresses are our babies and each one has it’s own special name – meet Jolene, Tessa and Blossom for example – so we understand a little of what you go through.
Girl Names
Choosing baby girl names can seem daunting at first, but can also be a lot of fun – there are just so many options! Will you be thinking about nature names like Willow, Lily or Ruby? What about literary names inspired by your favourite fictional heroines – who wouldn’t be proud to be named after the incurably curious Alice, of Wonderland fame or after Jane Austen’s devilishly witty leading lady Lizzy Bennet?
Boy Names
When choosing boy names you’ll tend to be on more stable territory, but there are still plenty of options to consider. Will you go for one of the strong traditional baby names like James, Thomas or William, or will you be thinking about more unique boy names – maybe a cultural name that reflects his heritage, or something more unusual…
Unusual Baby Names
When it comes to unusual baby names, celebrity parents have it down to a fine art. Some of our favourite celebrity mums are fantastic sources of inspiration: Thandie Newton named her son Booker Jombe, Kate Winslet named hers Bear Blaze, Gwen Stefani’s youngest is called Apollo Bowie Flynn and we love Beyonce’s choice for Blue Ivy & can’t wait to see what she names her twins!
If you are keen for your little ones to have unusual baby names – something that sets them apart from the rest of their class, make sure to run a quick check to see where your pick ranks on the latest baby name popularity polls. It wouldn’t do to find yourself inadvertently in the middle of a name fad!
And of course it’s a good idea to be careful with checking out name meanings too. Tom Cruise & Katy Holmes may well have been thinking of the Persian word for “red rose” when they named their daughter Suri, but they perhaps didn’t realise that it also means “pig” in Punjabi, “pointy nose” in Indian and “pickpocket” in Japanese!
Checking Your Baby Names
Once you have a clear idea of the names you’re leaning towards, make sure to say them out loud and write them down with your surname, and check all the ways they could be abbreviated and initialed. For example Lydia Sarah Davis is a lovely sounding name, but LSD are perhaps not the initials you’d want for your little girl!
And as a final check, it’s worth running the full name through Google – just to make sure you’re not accidentally giving your little one the same name as a notorious criminal – you can’t be too careful!
In the end, whichever name you choose will soon start to feel right – and you wouldn’t be able to imagine your little one called anything else.
Happy naming mamas!
