Getting Stuck on Name Pairings? I’m a mama of many and I LOVE baby names!
Picking out names is hard enough between finding something cool, unique, and meaningful, but not too weird. By the time you get to the middle name – your brain feels muddled and the names blur together. So I have a fresh take for you … and I LOVE names!
The Girl That Started it All …
We had only been married for a few weeks when we sat down to watch a kid’s animated movie … we fell in love over Disney movies – what else would you expect from newlyweds?! 😅
We were cuddled up on a winter morning when all of the sudden one of the supporting characters announced her name as Talia. We both looked at each other and we KNEW … when we have a little girl, THIS is her name. We looked up the meaning right then … “Dew of God” … “Morning Dew” … “Joyous Muse of Laughter” … we were hooked line and sinker!
Beautiful name, stunning meaning – it couldn’t get better! It didn’t take me much time to pair her name up with a middle name, Talia Rose. Not only did it create this beautiful image in my head of a rose with morning dew on it, but she was named after my great-grandmother; an extraordinary matriarch who had 12 children. I had never met her, and yet I knew her so well in my heart.
Four kids in six years … so far …
After we had our daughter, we followed her up with three more children in just six years. I love having children, and babies, and staying insanely busy!
When we got pregnant with baby #2 (we never find out the gender with our children😅), we were trying to decide on names again. We didn’t like the boy name we had originally chosen the first time around, so we wanted to find something new. As could be expected from any husband, he suggested we follow a theme … maybe outdoor names? We looked through a list of outdoorsy/hunting names and stumbled on Fletcher.
I remembered a couple I had met years before whose last name was Fletcher and she always called her husband “Fletch” it was endearing and cute, and we loved it! I have a habit of choosing middle names that belong to important people in my life, so I paired it with Ward in honor of my great-grandfather – and thus began the story of Fletcher Ward.
I was two weeks post-partum, up in the middle of the night with Fletcher, watching a BBC show (Larkrise to Candleford), when I met the character Fisher Bloom. I told my husband the next morning that if we had another boy, we should name him Fisher Paul. It fit our “style”, was unique, but was not unheard of, and Paul was in honor of my maternal grandmother, a stalwart figure in my heart, a real-life cowboy.
When we got pregnant for a fourth time, we already had a baby girl name picked out from the previous two pregnancies, but it was time to narrow down another boy’s name. The children and I had been reading Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and her last name struck me.
We had settled on Wilder Phillip, in honor of my husband’s grandfather … but on the way to the hospital to deliver our fourth child (and third boy), I knew the middle name just wasn’t right, it didn’t flow the way I liked … so in the early morning, on a dark car ride, I changed the plans and we settled on Wilder Jett. Jett was the last name of my beloved youth pastor who tragically died in a motorcycle accident leaving his wife and five young children behind.
Let’s make this easy!
Picking out names and middle names has come so easily to us. I’ve always known what I liked, been able to pair it easily with a middle name, and I have been settled. Who knows where it started … it could be due to the fact I have a bit of a unique name myself – Laurel.
I’ve actually been naming babies forever. I remember being a child myself and announcing what I would name my children at Thanksgiving. Cohen if it was a boy, and Skylar if it was a girl. Everyone actually poked fun at the names … and I knew then and there that I wouldn’t tell a single soul the names I had chosen after that – and I have stuck with that!
I know it doesn’t come as quickly to most. I have watched friends agonize over names, middle names, and pairings, finding the correct name and changing their minds for months leading up to birth.
I may not be able to solve ALL of your problems, but let’s find names that pair well with your chosen first name based on categories that are meaningful to you.
Let’s name that baby – even if you are a busy mom!
