Monday, December 01, 2014

let's talk baby names (for the third child)

Goodness, I love a good chat about baby names. I never, ever tire of it! There's so many beautiful (and questionable) names out there, I'm genuinely interested in why people choose the names that they do. Since the moment I discovered I was pregnant with this little one I've been thinking about its name. But, truth be told, right now I feel a little blasé about it all; we have a growing list of names that inspire but nothing is really singing out to us.  

Naming the third child is hard. There's much to consider; the name must sit well alongside Che and Poet and we would like something original (but not completely bizarre). The more children you have, the more children you know, hence so many of the names that once had potential are now associated with the kids' friends.

We also have a deep desire to meet this baby first, to look into its eyes and get to know him or her before we give a name. If I could pick this baby's personality traits right now, I'd say its calm and shy, creative and mysterious (going on mother's instinct), hence its name must suit.

Is naming the second, third, fourth child harder than naming the first? Surely I'm not the only one experiencing the name dilemma! And how long did you take to name your child? - we took a week to name Che while Poet was named within minutes of her birth.


53 COMMENTS

  1. So true! Girl no. 3 took 2 weeks. There are so many beautiful names, but you know so many other children! With two fairly unusual names we felt we couldn't have a massively popular name, but got there in the end!

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    1. Do you mind me asking what names you chose for your girls? x

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  2. Third baby is much harder than first, when second comes along you can always use the other name you really liked or screw yourself over life us leaving us with only a handful of names to pick for the third.

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  3. We chose not to find out the sex our of first (and so far only) little bundle. For a boy, we knew what the first name would be. Same as his father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather and great-great grandfather. Five generations have carried the same first name. Alternate generations have used their second name as their everyday name so that was the one we got to choose. Something classic, strong, not too popular. Blake. It was the only one we both agreed on immediately.

    Had he been a girl, well that was trickier. In labour, watching the sunset, sipping a mug of hot tea, we discussed and debated, pausing to breath. Finally we settled on Kayleigh. Echos of my sister's name, sounded right to our ears. In the end, Kayleigh was not to be, but her name lives on in a good friend's daughter, born months after our son.

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  4. I think it's definitely harder for subsequent children. Though in general I don't find naming difficult. My husband and I don't agree on everything but we are on the exact same wavelength when it comes to names. I think it's harder because like you said the first time around you can choose any name, but after that, siblings names need to flow with the first. We named our first daughter Astrud Violet. (My husband is a German language teacher and a jazz musician. I like the name Astrid, he was draw to it's Scandinavian roots, then we realized one of our shared favourite jazz/bossa singers is Astrud Gilberto, so we chose to spell it that way. Violet was chosen because it makes her initial AVR which are also my husbands. If she had been a boy his names would have been Miles Elliot (similar jazz influences and MER are my initials). Once it came to naming our 2nd daughter we needed to stick with the European flavour. We named her Freya Iris. (Freya we just liked, no other reason. Iris kept the botanical middle name trend and is also my grandmothers name.) We have already named our 3rd (yet to be conceived) child. Johanna Pearl or Hugo Knox (Knox is my maiden name, and the surname ends with my father, so I think he would be touched we would give it to a son).

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    1. I love your choices and the reasons behind them!

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  5. We have an ever growing list of possible baby-names. When our first turned out to be a boy, I was glad since we had no girl names, although his name probably would be fine for a girl as well: Epke. We are lucky to have another dialect or language available; we are Dutch, but with Frisian roots (Dutch, but different) so we can use a lot of the really uncommon Frisian names. Doubt they' ll be useful/pronouncable to you though, but perhaps you can look into your ancestors origins, or perhaps something of a community or location you're interested in, to broaden your window of names?

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  6. We found Harriet's name far more difficult to decide on than Audrey's... Luke really wanted her name to be Winter if she was a girl and while Winter Rampling sounded magical I didn't feel it complimented Audrey.. He had his heart set on Arlo or Louis for a boy. I really wanted Luisa or Marlowe for a girl and Hugo for a boy but Luke didn't any of my choices... Then one very chilly Winters morning our little girl was welcomed into our arms (in the most amazing way) and Luke looked at me and said 'it's a girl and she is a Harriet' (a name he had always loved) and as soon as I saw her I knew he was right... I can't wait to hear what you guys come up with for this beautiful babe... Xxx

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    1. Elle, I have an Arlo, and if names are anything to go by they are frightfully stubborn, very quirky and rotten sleepers!
      Harriet is such a gorgeous name - funnily enough it was on our girl list - seriously who cannot love a girl named Harriet? Brilliant.

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  7. I think a name can be a powerful thing. My mother had the name Phoebe in her head for her first few pregnancies that sadly resulted in some miscarriages and a stillbirth. Once she changed her mind to a new name whilst pregnant, I was born healthy. My name Lucinda means giver of light and is a roman mythological goddess of childbirth. Im afraid to say I wasn't so deep in naming my boys, I just liked the sound of their names (And being a teacher I had to ensure the name didn't have any connotations associated with past students!) but I had two choices for each in case once they arrived they didn't suit or "look like" our first choice.

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  8. Coralie was so much harder to name than Josephine. I loved it from the moment I saw it, but Ben wasn't so sure. As soon as she was born Ben called her Coralie though, it just suited her. And I love how it sounds along side Josephine. And of course Coralie is named after my Dad for her middle name too - the fact both our girls have my dad's name in their names is very special for me. Goodness knows how we'll choose a name when we have a third...we had one boys option that I still love but if we had another girl, who knows what we'd call it! Can't wait to hear what you name this little one. Your choices so far are beautiful xx

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  9. I agree that the second (or third) baby is much harder to name.
    We haven't really talked much about baby names this time around.
    It took us three days to name C and I imagine it will take us equally as long to name this one…so I don't really feel much pressure to have a list…I think the right name will come to us once we meet the baby.
    That being said, as soon as I was pregnant this time I had a sort of premonition that it would be a girl and her name would be Lydia…so we will see!

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  10. I love naming our babies, but yes when it came to our third it was harder, we did find out the sex and heard one name and well it stuck! We considered lots of others, but when he arrived he just couldn't be anything else. Our number three arrived in April, and we haven't looked back, Mayer , which means bringer of the light, is our Prince! Good luck!

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  11. I found boys names so much harder than girls. Our daughters name was decided on very early on. Our son though, it took two weeks after he was born to decide (we went for Lucien in the end). I love the name Lark for a girl, maybe we'll get to use it someday!

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    1. Ooh, Lark is very pretty. It was on my list of girls names along with Wren. Both of which are weird for me because I have a fear of birds.

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    2. Lark is my little girl's middle name. She's only a month old, but I feel like I call her that more than her actual name. I love it. :)

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  12. I found it rather simple to name our third baby. Perhaps because we did already named our two first, I mean, I felt like less pressure from me... (is that understandable?). As for the others, this name came only in the last days of pregnancy, with other "main names". And we really choose it when we saw her, and some hours after she was born. Lili was our choice, just simple simple....

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  13. I think the hardest part is agreeing on a name! So many names we both liked and the other didn't. We chose to opt out of names that are long and easy to misspell - nothing worse than having your name always spellt wrong or having to write long names on every form for your whole life!

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  14. We didn't find out the sex of our baby but i was certain from day 1 that i was growing a little girl. We had a shortlist of girls names-Olivia, Caitlin, Evie & Poppy. 2 weeks before bub was born we saw the name Mia on a display in a baby boutique & we both loved it & added it to the list. When she arrived & i saw that she was a girl hubby said i could choose her name. I stared at her perfect face & knew she wasn't Olivia or Caitlin. After 5 hours of getting to know her i knew she was a Mia. 4 days later i decided to use Caitlin for her middle name as that had been our favourite for years. If we'd had a boy he'd still be nameless today as we couldn't agree on a boys name.

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  15. Che, Poet, and Lotte
    Che, Poet, and Finch

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    1. Oh! I like those sibling sets!

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    2. Oh I love Finch. I just read To Kill a Mocking Bird for the second time, it's a great name!

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  16. Baby Number One: I wanted George for a boy (after my grandfather who passed just months before I was born) but my hubby thought it was too formal for us. Then he suggested Roman, which I loved instantly and so our first born is Roman George. We liked Abi for a girl.

    Baby Number Two: I wanted a "Leo" component in the name as my middle name is Leone. My top pick was Napoleon, but hubby thought it was only suitable for a puppy :(. We settled on Leonardo Paul (Paul is my father in Law). We still liked Abi for a girl and Ivy made it onto our list too.

    Baby Number Three: we decided very early on that we loved Titus for a boy. And even went as far to tell our family of our decision. At some stage in the pregnancy we saw an interview on TV with a man named Caspean and we both loved it so added it to our maybe one day 4th baby ideas. At just past 38 weeks, I had a name crisis. I was so unsure about our decision, so I txt hubby at work and said I wanted to reopen the name list. He was fine with that but was worried something was up. Early the next morning, I went into labour and birthed our baby boy in our lounge room. The first thing I said to my hubby was "he doesn't have a name!" A few days later we decided upon Caspian Marc.

    Now Baby Number Four is still cooking: as soon as I got a positive test, and showed my hubby he said "we will call her Evangeline" - so if this baby is a girl after 3 boys she will be called Evangeline Ingrid. If it's a boy.... Who knows? We like Orion but we seriously haven't discussed boys names yet!

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  17. our first was named in within the day our second took the full three months your allowed. i tried new names on for 3 or 4 days at a time and in the end we went to decision by ranked list. i was taken aback by how rude some family and friends were about some of our options and the time it took us. i still have my two favourites in reserve though extremely unlikely to be required ludo and obeline

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  18. I found names really easy for us. I was lucky hubby was pretty easy to please! We have our little man Tucky (long story on that name!); Banjo, our little girl, we were using the name whether boy or girl; and then our sweet, strong wee Isis. We used family names for the middle names.

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  19. I'm a third kid and I was nameless for a couple of weeks, then one day my father announced my name as Astred. And that was it. Which I am thankful for as Voyager was sending back a amazing images of Jupiter's moons and I was almost called Io (after one of the moons), yeah hippy parents. Astred (with an E) is Greek and means star.
    Both my siblings have old 'hippy' names too

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  20. Our first two were very easy - before we started dating, when I was trying to put my husband off, I told him that I'd already decided on the names of my kids - Caleb and Amaya. (We were swimming in the sea off one of the islands in the Solomon Islands at the time.) He said 'strange, that's what my kids are going to be called.'. And so it was. Our third was a little more difficult, but in the end we decided on Lily after the lilies he got me for my first mother's day when I was pregnant (and sick) with our first.

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  21. Our first is William, quite a formal name and not often shortened (yet). Our second - who knows but it definitely needs to fit with William. My husband announced that if it's a girl she will be Olive Adelaide, which I love. My grandmother was Olive, and there is some family connection to Adelaide. So we'll see! It is tricky.

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  22. For me it got easier the more kids we had. We pretty much still worked off the lists we made with our first child, and having other names to 'go with' shortened the list. For our last baby we used the 'boy name' we had for his three older sisters, but still had to see him to really feel it. He's 11 weeks old now, and while I don't know that his actual name 'sits' with him yet, there isn't some other name lurking that I wish we had used! Eventually I think they all grow into the name you choose. Best of luck!

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  23. I loooved naming my children, so much so I gave them three names each! For my first pregnancy, sounds silly, but I just knew it was a boy as soon as I found out I was pregnant. We were quite certain we were going to name him Odin but waited until he was born before we decided. I felt it was a beautiful, strong and uncommon name but was worried it was a little out there so gave him a common middle name, Elliot, in case he didn't like it; his second middle name is my last name. 2 years on and it doesn't sound so different anymore, obviously, and I have heard of a few more now. Still love it!

    With my second pregnancy, I was struggling to think of a boys name I liked as much as Odin, but had two girls names I loved and couldn't decide which order to put them in if it were a girl, Aurora Echo or Echo Aurora; I discovered I was having twins and then discovered they were girls so I have an Aurora AND Echo. As with my son, I gave Echo a common and lovely middle name, Rose, in case she doesn't like her unusual name, but I hope she loves it as much as I do. Aurora's middle name is Lilith so I have a Lili and a Rose. Their father is Czech so he gave them a traditional Czech name each as their second middle name.

    I tried not to read up on the names too much before I gave them to my children as I didn't want to be persuaded by information that wouldn't matter once they were named. I also didn't tell anyone what names I was thinking of, so I didn't get any negative feedback or have someone 'steal' them (I've heard horror stories lol).

    Your children's names are beautiful, I look forward to reading what you have chosen for your next little one :-)

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  24. For my first three ( all boys) we had names picked out before they were born. We met them & they were called what we had decided. With our fourth ( a girl), we had a list, a very, very long list. We thought we had a name chosen but I was put off what by what the husband & boys said they would shorten it to, so it was scrapped.Then she was born I still had no idea what we should call her. She did not suit any of the names I loved, so I kept looking at her & looking at her. Eventually the name came, & it was from the list ,just not one of the first favourites :)

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  25. We named our daughters after our passion to travel: the first one has a Rapa nui's name and the second one a Japanese name. Thinking of you, what I know about you through your blog... I feel like you will have a daughter... I would think about a flower name... A flower can definitely be shy, calm, creative and mysterious!

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    1. This makes me think of the name Orchid. That would be lovely

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  26. For me, naming my daughter, who I am currently 33 weeks pregnant with, is easy. I always knew if I were to have a daughter I would name her Vespertine. I've decided on the middle name Moon, because it's sweet to me. Why Vespertine? Saying vespers (evening prayers) from the Liturgy of the Hours has always been so important to me, as well as the fact that this baby always seems to be so active in the evening!

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    1. My son was named after his birth. I've always loved the name Elìas (pronounced el-ee-us) and it just fit as we held him there in the hospital. With my daughter as well I plan on giving her a second middle name of whoever's Saint day is on the day of her birth. :)

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  27. We've never known what we wee having until they arrived so we went to the hospital with one girls name and still undecided between two boys, and she turned out to fit her name perfectly. For the next two we still had our boys names, now in use for Pip, but we had to go through the baby book for another girl's name. Of course now I've got a girls name going spare - only time will tell if I get to use it!

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  28. Oh the baby name discussion, I've been awaiting this... :)
    We're still not telling people our name if Eleanor was a boy, or the 2nd (and 3rd...4th..) girl choices as they are still on the table to use for subsequent babies, even though everyone tells us we will change our minds by then!
    Brainstorming names whilst pregnant we headed to the family tree, and found quite a few Ellen's on both my maternal and paternal side - I liked it, but my husband suggested Eleanor as a variation, which I was not convinced on until about 2 weeks before she was born, she was very much going to be another name! Well, I thought she was a boy anyway! Now, I just can't imagine her being that other name. We wanted either a name which wouldn't get a nickname, or the nickname had to be something we were just as happy to name her - we tossed around the idea of Ellie/Ella/Nella/Nora and are happy if she gets any of those, so far though she hasn't, although sometimes I'll call her my Ella Nella Nora. Her middle name is Joy - my grandmother's name and we loved all the lovely connotations the word brings. She is our little honey joy! Other names which we threw around but didn't make the end 'definite contender' list: Hugo, Patrick, Oliver, Oscar, Xavier, Ted, Ned, Fergus, Louis, Martha, Juliet, Claire, Lucy, Olivia, Bridget, Ginny.
    Good luck! I'm sure whatever this little one's name is will be perfectly fitting for both him/her and your family. Our little nephew a few months younger than Eleanor went four weeks without a name, is now a happy little Otis Finlay.

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    1. My sister's name is Eleonor (note the "o" instead of "a") after my great grand mother. I love the name so much I was tempted to use it for my daughter but it felt too weird with my sister alive and well! :) I've called her "Nor" or Nor-Nor since I was little.

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  29. My first child, a boy was named by my mother in law ,just Don't go there.....moving right along, my daughter is named Mischa, pronounced Misha, a Russian form of Mick, I had chosen it for a boy or girl, and her second name is after my Mum,so she had the choice to use that,but from age 3, when we had a talk about it, she wanted her name.

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  30. we always had a couple of favourites chosen for all of our babies, but didn't really make the decision until they were born, and we'd look at them and wait for them to help us decide. All of our children have family names, sir names, maiden names or middles names of grandparents and great relatives.

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  31. We've got 2 names picked out for our first baby, its hard finding one that 2 people agree on let alone getting it to work with other childrens names I'm sure. I've had a lot of friends have babies in the last couple of months and they've been: Molly, Marley, Hunter, Etienne, Allegra, Tilly, Lachlan and Fleur! Hubby and I thought about philosophers and people that inspired us to come up with our names. Poet is one of my most favourite names I've ever heard :)

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  32. I think it does get harder as you go along, because you want to have them all sound right in a 'set'. But I also think that if you love a name, you should use it. Our fourth child's name (Gryffen) was a bit of a curveball for our family, but we just loved it so much that we wanted to use it. So we have Elliot, Rosie, Tristan and Gryffen. Each child has the name of one of their grandparents as a middle name, which we love. Now, pregnant with our fifth baby, and it's name has been picked out from even before I knew I was pregnant!

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  33. We had plenty of girl names to choose from but found it difficult to choose boy names. I always "knew" we were having a girl, and that she was strong and determined. (I still feel certain she was the baby I miscarried 9 months before I fell pregnant with her - again). We named her Scarlett, both for the character and the old French meaning for red (hubby is French). We weren't going to give her a middle name, and then ended up following the French tradition of giving two, one for my great aunt and one for hubby's great grand mother. So she is Scarlett Lena Juliette.

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  34. I almost feel like my daughter, now four months, chose her name. As soon as we started talking names my husband and I knew Cedar Faith was our girl name. Our first baby, who I miscarried early on, was given the name Joy, for the joy he or she brought to us for those few precious weeks.

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  35. My 25 year old brother is called Che. There are five of us, my elder sister is Cleo, me- Chelsea, my younger sister is called Zoe, then comes Che and our little brother Ash. We always had very odd names growing up (I have never actually met another Chelsea) but somehow our names all work together.
    I have two little girls Primrose and Coco. Primrose's middle name is Star and Coco's is Violette. My sister also has three little girls names Clover, Willow and Luna.
    Good luck Jodi x

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  36. I thought I would call my daughter Lucia, but we decided on Antonia Elinor Celeste. I wrote about it here: http://norlight.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/names/

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  37. We don't start talking names until we find out the baby's sex, which we always do/did (four is enough for us!) :). Our first son is John Ronan and we call him by his middle name as I knew we would, so he's Ronan. Ronan just sounded perfect. Masculine, clever, unique without being overbearing or too "out there". I love it. Our daughter was Isla the moment I found out I was pregnant. I knew it was her. She's Isla Audrey. For our second son, I originally wanted Wolf, but my husband was not having it. So we quickly threw that out for him. Then we decided on Stellan and we both liked it right away. He's Stellan Michael. Fourth child, another boy, and I got my Wolf. He's Wolf William (aka, Wolfie). Have fun naming!

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  38. With the traits you've intuited, if #3 is a girl, how about Secret?

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  39. We picked names before each child was born. With the first, we found out the sex, and had known we would use the name Murphy if we had a boy. For our second child, we didn't find out the sex, so it was much harder. We never did decide on a girl's name. I think if we would have had a girl, she would have been unnamed for quite a while. My top choice was Anna, my husband's was Iris. We also liked Sienna. Middle name would have been Lynn after my late mother in law. But we had a boy and his name had been chosen for months - Hollis. It's a name I had only heard of once, never met anyone with it. We love it so much! Also never met another Murphy. Both boys have one of their fathers' names as a middle name, Christopher and Jake. Naming a baby is serious business and something I dreamed of my whole life. Such an honor!

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  40. My little girls are named Laycee (meaning cheerful) and Carys (meaning 'loved one'). My son is Randall, meaning 'shield wolf'. I too had to see them before choosing a name.

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  41. My three girls are named Katie Lynn, after my paternal grandmother, Katherine. (I just shortened it since we have a very long last name), Julie Anne, after my paternal uncle, Julius, and my third daughter is Erin Nicole. Katie and Julie are grown and married and Erin is still in high school. Erin was my surprise baby at age 40 and Kate and Julie are 12 and 10 years older than her. I used my father's family names since he spoke often of how kind they were. Their names fit the bill. Katie is a high school teacher and Julie is a registered nurse. I wanted a more traditional "German" name for Erin, but I could not ever come up with one. My mother suggested Erin. It fits her perfectly. She is a joy and such a blessing for our family. She loves to travel and paid for a trip to Germany last summer which was not a cheap trip coming from the US. Blessings to you on this baby and hope he or she gets a very special name. I love the names Che and Poet. Very beautiful.

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  42. My daughter's name is Luna.
    Luna would sound very romantic alongside Che and Poet :)

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  43. Toby my eldest was given the job of choosing his younger brothers middle name. He chose Thomas. A few months later and elderly man asked Toby what his brothers name was. Toby replied Jordan Thomas The Tank Engine! To this day he is referred to with the full title.

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