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My husband and I couldn't agree on a name, and finally we came across the name Tau (meaning "Lion" in two Southern African languages). And we knew that was the one ... had to be; it was the only one we both loved and agreed on, and we're from South Africa so it had meaning for us. We felt is was short and bland (for lack of a better word) enough that it wouldn't carry a whole lot of baggage or meaning here in Southern California.

My DH and I have been struggling to come up with a name for our baby boy due in early December. We are of Indian (from Asia) origin and would like an Indian name that isn't too hard for people in Toronto to say. To add to the confusion, every time we mention a possible name to people, someone goes and jinxes it by saying negative things about it. It is tough to try and please everyone, but ultimately it's going be your kid that is stuck with this name! What pressure! LOL!

We names our daughter Lara. Unique enough that there won't be seven of them in her grade, but normal enough not to provoke double-takes. She will face the Lara/Laura issue, but I've been dealing with being called Ann (I'm Anna) all my life and it hasn't really traumatized me.

Choosing a baby name is SO hard. We were lucky with Travis because we both decided on it before we were even expecting. It's the only boy name I like. Now with our next child I am not sure what we'll do... husband cannot fall in love with any of my wacky girl names, and I can't find another boy name that I like nearly as much as Travis.

While we don’t remember the exact conversation where the name was brought up as a possibility, I seem to recall we were trying to think of something that wasn’t typically girly (not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not our style). I think I jokingly said, “What about ‘Scout’?”, alluding to the young tomboy who is the main character in “To Kill A Mockingbird”. Scout was a bit too masculine (and I knew that when I made the joke), however, referring to the book made our train of thought jump to the female author, Harper Lee. So now come January when she's born, we'll have a little girl named Harper. Meaning she'll never be able to find customized keychains or novelty license plates for her bike when she's a kid, but hopefully she'll like it's uniqueness as she grows older.

Merlene is definitely a rare name. It was used once last year in Quebec, Canada. Suprisingly, it was also relatively popular from the 1920s through the 1940s in the US. Visit the Baby Name Map for details.

My husband and I restricted ourselves to family names. I didn't want to just pick a name, I really wanted there to be a family connection to the name. There are some doozeys in my family lineage and in my husband's. Ultimately we decided to name our son after my dad, Max. Arthur, his middle name, was for his great grandpa who we both loved and who passed away last year. I like that its just one syllable and that he will have that lasting connection to his grandpa & great grandpa through their shared names.

I've had to spell my name for everyone I've ever met all my life, and pronounce it, too. It's never bothered me at all. It's even resulted in being known across a big college campus by just one name...take that, Cher!

Naming your child is just about the only thing in your life you have 100% control over. It really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, because they can't do anything about it. That empowerment is especially attractive when you don't have alot of other things you can control...like when you're poor, or living in a foreign culture, or raising a baby. ;)

So here's to unique names!

(My only caveat is that my son has had extremely difficult names to learn in his Kindergarten and 1st grade classes. He goes about half a semester calling everyone "that girl" or "that boy." But, truly, it's his problem, no one else in the class seems so stumped.)

New grandson has Jacob in the middle, friend's granddaughter is Harper Lee. Haven't had the chance to ask if is author related.

When I was pregnant with our daughter, everyone would ask what names we were considering, so to throw them off the scent (I didn't want them saying negative things about names we liked), I gave them the most outrageous name I could come up with: Tallulah.

My husband, who is French, and I simply couldn't agree on a name. He would come up with names like Florence, which while lovely in French, have different connotations in English (he hadn't heard of the Brady Bunch).

When we went for the 20 week ultrasound (or is it the 24 week?), that did it for me. We got to see her face clearly, for the first time, and in that instant, I knew she was Tallulah. That was it for me, all indecision melted away. It took a full 30 days after her birth, and all our friends and his sister to convince him yes, she is Tallulah. Now of course, no other name fits her. And it works in French (my husband's biggest concern); her French nickname, given to her by her first "boyfriend", Tristan, is Tallulu or Tallooloo.

And she may not be able to buy a keytag with her name on it (although I am coming across more and more Tallulahs!), but she has a Blossom Dearie song about her, which goes like this: "Just do like Tallulah, and give him the oohlala".

Of course, naming her younger brother proved to be a bigger challenge, for how the heck do you find the right boys' name to go with Tallulah? Something special in its own right, but not too weird? Now that was a tough one...

Names are hard. We chose two uncommon names, Auden (Michael) and Arlo (Benjamin). People either love them or hate them. With my oldest, Auden, people hated it at first. Now he's four and super cute and has sort of made into a cool name (now we just get compliments). Our youngest is Arlo. Usually the first thing that people do when I say his name is reply with "Oh, is it a family name?" (with a sympathetic tone), as though I had to name him that. That's okay though, we like it, and I know he'll make it cool too. Regardless of what you name your child, people will always have comments for you.

dcmom, we love the name Arlo, too, but in our case were planning to use it if we had a girl. (I know it's a boy's name, but hey, so is Avery, and that's not stopping people.) Anyway, great name. I love it.

Our firstborn ended up being a boy, so we named him Sam (as in Samuel). Middle name: Atticus. What is it with our generation and the To Kill a Mockingbird references? And yet no one seems to be using the name Jem (short for Jeremy), and he was a GREAT character.

This time around (we're expecting in March), we're looking at names that sound good alongside Sam. So we've ditched Arlo in lieu of Max (short for Maxime) if it's a girl and Will (short for William) if it's a boy. I've thought about Jem, but it sounds too much like Sam. My husband and I both like very short first names. They're easy for people to remember and spell, and I think they send a message that the nameholder is straightforward and honest. Of course, it's up to the nameholder to actually live up to that. :)

hey, we are going with Harper for a girl as well! I think this name is coming up on the popularity side, like stella and sophie. maybe we will reconsider. hmmm.
i think no one goes with Jem because of the cartoon that was so popular when we were kids...JEM TRULY OUTRAGEOUS TRULY TRULY TRULY OUTRAGEOUS!

I just gave birth 8 weeks ago. My husband and I had pretty much settled on Avery.

When we discovered that our little girl had red hair I couldn't bring myself to name her Avery. We ended up naming her after both of our mothers, Carol & Linda = Carolyn. There are many Caroline's but not many Carolyn's and even though it's a more traditional name than a girl named Rikki (me) would usually go for, it makes me happy to know her name isn't on any top ten lists.

I love unique names! Mostly because I have one hahaha.. the first part of my name is my grandmothers name on my father´s side, and the second part of my name is my grandmothers name on my mother´s side. The funny thing is that it´s not like a first name and a middle name.. it´s just two names stuck together. I love it because it´s always starts up some kind of conversation. But it´s easy enough to just call me by my first half so people don´t get confused, it´s versatil.

I have only met two people with my name, one being Mexico’s Ambassador to Haiti (when I met her she was the Consul of Mexico in Salt Lake City) and another passerby in an airport that had a name tag. I really like my name, I feel really bonded with my family (both sides being so different), and I love the fact that I´m the only one who has it!!

I love Liam for a boy, but I also like Santiago (in spanish) so.. we´ll just see when the time comes... finding a name that sounds good in two languages can be very hard

We almost named him Atticus, as a first name! I really love the name, and Gregory Peck as Atticus is one of my all-time heroes. Athens was his first trip (well, in utero), so it seemed fitting...

Eventually, we settled on Viggo (easy to pronounce and spell, works in many languages) Patrik (for my husband's grandfather, but without the "c" in deference to my Czech background). We needed something strong to off-set a single-syllable bland, rather soft, last name.

We had been throwing around a few names in the months before our little girl was born four months ago. The only girl names that we both agreed on were Georgia or Alex (we chose to not find out the sex). After we had her, we knew she was Georgia (Rae). Some people react negatively, or don't say anything at all (awkward!) but the name has special meaning for us as George was my husband's grandfather's name and Rae is a family name for me. Most people love the name though and now that her personality is starting to show, it fits her perfectly.

My husband and I chose a name that was so meaningful to us, but quite uncommon. We named our son Halcyon. As an adjective meaning calm, peaceful, tranquil, and as a noun, a mythical bird who calmed the wind and the waves to nest at sea. After two days of labor, our baby bird stayed perfectly content without any problems, and was born alert and calm. When he starts school, we figured we could take "Cy" from the middle and use that as his nickname.

Doppelganger... Arlo for a girl's name is very cool.

I met a little boy on the playground the other day named Liam. His mom said that his real name is William and they call him Liam for short, which I thought was a great idea.

being italian but of irish origins (mum's irish) i wanted our son to have an irish name, but easy enough to write and pronounce for italians to understand first time around.
plus, having both my brother and i particular names (candida & orson), i wanted my son's name to be unique.
we went through hundreds of names, and only a week before giving birth finally came up with the name kilian. (saw it on a film poster with actor cillian murphy)
my mother and brother gave me the thumbs up when they realised that it's also a contraction of my deceised grand father (my best mate) and father's names (kevin Iliano)
certainly not going to bump into anyone in his class with the same name!

Wow, so many TKAMB names!
When we came up with our daughter's name, Margot, we just that "this is it" feeling. Though we didn't officially name her until we got to look at her--we wanted to reserve the right to change our minds if it didn't seem to suit her, and we told only a very few people that the name was a strong contender while she was in utero.
But people will screw up your kid's name no matter what. I can't tell you how many people have called her Mar-GOT, pronouncing the T. The nurse at the pediatrician's office does it *every* time.

does anyone else find it strange that people give their opinions on your child's name. I mean, I could see saying that you love it, but why tell someone that you don't like it?

it seems that Liam/William and Harper are popular! I know one of each under the age of 2.

We like the name Seamus for a boy, when the time comes. Of course, nothing is set in stone.

We know *several* Arlos, Harpers and Talullahs! I think they are quickly rising in popularity in coastal cities. Not so unique here, but maybe in other parts of the U.S.

We used family names, on the grounds that we wouldn't get any grief about them. Also we like our family. However, I did like the suggestion someone made of trolling the San Francisco street atlas, which is filled with names that are relatively uncommon yet won't be misspelled: Webster, Hayes, Irving, Judah, Mason, Octavia, Minna. There are some obvious bad choices too (all of the numbers, place names like California and Sacramento), but nonetheless it's an embarrassment of riches.

Hamro, I'd almost forgotten about Jem. She and her cohorts were our generation's Bratz!

See, dcmom -- now I'm reconsidering Arlo again. Damn, I'm so suggestible right now. :)

MamaChilanga, I know an Arlo (male variety) and a Tallulah, but no Harpers. Though the latter could be because, up here in Canada, Harper is the last name of our Conservative prime minister, and I don't reckon the kinds of folks who love To Kill a Mockingbird are raging fans of the Conservative party.

I love the trend of unusual children's names...almost everyone in my kids' classes have unique names, and I think they are all better off for it. I know when I call the pediatrician, they can put a face to the child, unlike the Jacobs and Emilys.

Our children are named:

Linus Cooper (after Linus Pauling the scientist dh's middle name)
Lidia Grace (after a dear aunt...spelled the easter european way to go with our polish last name)
Link Henry (after Link Wray the amazing guitarist)
Lene Ann (pronounced Laynuh after Lene Lovich, quirky new wave vocalist--of course everyone wants to call her Lenny or Lean)

Yes, I do feel a bit foolish for going with all "L" names....but the first two children were named independently and then when number three was born (I had gone to the hospital with a list of names including Dexter, Owen, Oscar...not one "L" on the list) I looked at his face and the name Link just came to me (Link Wray had just died). Then when baby four was born, we just felt like we had to just go with it....how could we name her Stella, Orla, Marley or Saffron...she would have just stood right out in our crowd.

At school, we know Liam, Kaya, Genley, Getsamani, Xanthe, Coco, Vivienne, Gaia, Ian, Ivan, Leo, Blaise, Malcom, Milo, Owen, Darla, Elise, Kaden, Lulan, Deja, Trillium, Corley, Lark, Phoebe, Wyatt, Gussie, Remy, Aisling, Ursa.....