How do you name a girl?

http://www.babynamewizard.com/

I'm so glad I found this website again! I stumbled upon it several months ago and wanted to remember it, but for some reason I never bookmarked it. The tool I like on this website is the one that tracks the popularity of names for each year. I wanted to remember this website so I could have this tool and make sure my kids don't have five other kids in their class with the same name.

We were looking at names the other day, and the comment we kept making was that there were a lot of names that would be fine, but nothing was jumping out as the name.

If you're interested, these are my criteria for names for my children:

It must be a name that people recognize. Explanation: I love my name. It's a beautiful name and I think it suits me. But it does usually present a challenge to people who are trying to learn my name. It was always fun growing up to watch the teacher's face as they called the roll on the first day of class. Interestingly, the good teachers didn't tend to have a problem with my name--for the others, I would watch them squirm for a second and then raise my hand and say, "It's Marcelaine." "Wait, say that again?" "Mar-suh-layne." "Mar-suh-leen?" "No, Mar-suh-layne." "Oh, okay. Marcelaina." "No, Marcelaine." "Do you ever go by Marci?" Sigh. "Yes, that's fine." I think I always kind of resented that some people were so quick to resort to a nickname rather than being willing to put a little effort into learning how to say my name. By tenth grade I really wanted to be called Marcelaine, but I had been in the same school since kindergarten and everyone had been calling me Marci my entire life, so that was hard to overcome, and I just always assumed that Marcelaine was too hard for people. Interestingly, when I went to college I just told people my name was Marcelaine and I didn't have a nickname, and I never met someone who couldn't learn my name. Even my nieces and nephews who could barely talk learned to say my name. Now I usually forget to respond if someone calls me Marci (although I don't hate anyone who calls me that--after all, most people called me Marci until I was 18). Anyway, the point is, unique names are fun and pretty. But they also have their challenges, and that's why I think I prefer names that people recognize. (And then all of our kids will probably give their own children unique names because they're traumatized by having such boring names.)

This probably will sound like it contradicts the previous requirement, but the name can't be common. This isn't so much of an issue with me for boy names, but for girl names it's pretty important to me. I don't like the trendy names and I don't like the names that are very obviously a Utah name. I also don't want to name Baby Girl something like Ashley or Sarah because she'll be Ashley T. her entire life (well, until she gets married) to distinguish her from all the other Ashleys. Which is why I like the link above--because I can make sure any name we choose isn't too trendy right now. I'm not sure how to explain how you can have a name that people recognize but that isn't common, but there are lots of names that fit that criteria for me. There are a lot of older names that work, for example.

It must be spelled the conventional way. I know what it's like to have to make sure people spell your name the right way. Marcelaine is, of course, kind of hard to spell, but even Marci is not as common as Marcie or Marcy. I have seen Olivia spelled Aliviyah, and I must say, I feel really sorry for Aliviyah because everyone she ever meets is going to want to spell her name Olivia, and she's going to have to deal with all the lovely frustrations that go along with that.

Names like Bertha, Hildegarde, Helga, etc. are not an option. If the name makes me think of helmets with horns, I refuse to inflict that name on my child.

I do like names that have a story or that are part of our family history. I keep feeling like there needs to be a reason why we choose a name.

Just to clarify, Baby Girl's name will probably be a secret until she is born. With Kevin we had two names that we liked, and I always felt like people were judging the names if I told them what they were, and I didn't want to be too biased towards one or the other because we weren't sure which one was right for him. I figure that if she's already got the name and the birth certificate is ordered, it's too late for people to make a judgment on it.