How do you pick a name if you can’t agree to a name

PeanutMama

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 4:49 am

Curious.

I was thinking of girl names a while ago and I want to name my future daughters
-Elana
-Perel
-Michal
-Rina
-Adina
-Deena
-Penina

Hubby doesn’t like any of the names :/
He says no one names their kids these names but I don’t want my kid to be another Sara.

Unrelated:
I once heard a story where a couple wanted to name their son after their own grandfathers, and the husband accidentally gave the baby his grandfathers name, so the wife was understandably upset because she wanted the baby to have her grandfathers name.

Ora in town

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 4:51 am

You brainstorm till you find a name that suits both...
Or you give two names...
Or you give one name and call the child by the other (one of my friends did this...)

amother

Burgundy

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 6:15 am

By us we both had to like the name, but the person whose "turn" it was had the final say.

With our first, my husband was on his way to name her and then refused the Aliyah because he was worried it was too uncommon. I was pretty upset, but at the end of the day, we were naming after his relative and he had to be comfortable (we could not use her exact name because it's similar to mine)

By kid #2, we agreed on the first name, but my husband wanted to add a second name that I didn't like. It was my relative, so we didn't.

B"h by the third baby, we both liked the name and it was easy Smile

Fourth baby was the most complicated because it was "my turn" but I had no male relatives to name after. My husband had a relative but because he shared a one of his names with baby #3, we were told to use a similar name that I really just don't like. I tried to call him that name, but I just couldn't do it, and it wasn't my husband's relative's actual name. We ended up naming after a tzadik, and I feel slightly bad for my husband but I love my baby's name!

amother

Cerise

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 6:23 am

DH and I have a terribly hard time picking names since we like different kinds of names. We each make a shortlist with feedback from the other (veto if you can't stand it/there's a problem with it) and then we combine the lists into 1 shared list, go through it together, and narrow it down. It's definitely a process, and sometimes I wish we could just pick and be done easily like a friend of mine, but I do like the names we've chosen.

amother

cornflower

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 6:37 am

If these are imaginary future daughters, my advice is to wait until you're actually pregnant with a girl. Sometimes taste in names changes over time, or a relative or tzaddik dies and you want to give a name after them.
There's no reason to stress about it so far ahead.

amother

Khaki

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 8:55 am

amother [ Jade ] wrote:

Your husband is wrong. He’s obviously not aware that many of the names you listed are used in the frum community.

She lives in a chassidish community so some of these names are uncommon.

I know some chassidish perels though. He said no to that?

amother

Jade

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 9:39 am

amother [ Khaki ] wrote:

She lives in a chassidish community so some of these names are uncommon.

I know some chassidish perels though. He said no to that?

I know.. but Perel, Penina, Dina are acceptable in the chassidish community.
Not Elena obviously...

essie14

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 9:43 am

I suggested name A, DH nixed it
DH suggested name b, I nixed it
Then we searched baby name sites together and came up with a few options we both liked and talked it out until we came to a mutual agreement. Second name is for my grandmother and DH had no objection.

amother

Olive

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 9:44 am

We take turns naming after relatives on either of our side. We don't davka like one name or another, we just give it because that's the name of the closest dead relative.

LovesHashem

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 10:48 am

It’s hard. I so badly don’t want another Sara (Sorry all Sara’s!!!!) but DH is like “Wow Sara is such a nice simple name!”

I’m like no. I don’t let.

You just got to go through lists and lists and find SOME to agree on.

keym

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 12:01 pm

I'm similar. I didn't want typical Sara, Rivka, Rachel, Leah.
My husband does.
We ended up compromising on "mainstream biblical names" that are a little less common- meaning probably not 5 in the class.
Some names on our shortlist ended up being
Hadassah, Elisheva, Avigail, Yocheved,

Boys names were Yonasan, Yochanan, Eliezer, Binyomin, Yeshaya, Yehoshua

Mostly 3-4 syllable names.

PeanutMama

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 12:12 pm

Yeah I was thinking of mixing names lol

For a boy I’m having a hard time with Avigdor (so hard for me to say but...)
So far for any future girls we agreed on
Avigail
Malka
Mirel (idk what kind of name it is but I like the sound of it lol)
Hadassah
Batya

I know it’s far ahead on the future but I like to think about a daughter lol

Last edited by PeanutMama on Tue, Jun 16 2020, 12:14 pm; edited 1 time in total

paperflowers

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 12:13 pm

Arg I typed a whole post and then it got deleted. I’m going to skip retyping the advice part and go right to the story.

When I was pregnant with my daughter it became apparent that my husband and I have different taste in names. He nixed so many names I liked because of being too Israeli or sounding like boys names. As in, anything that started with a “sh” and ended in “a” sounded like Shua. It was ridiculous. And he felt like he couldn’t relate to Israeli names, which I get, but most of the names I was suggesting were normal names in our community. Then, he came home one day and told me he met one of our neighbors who was named Menucha and he thought that was a very cool name. I realized then the problem was not that with the names, but that he didn’t know enough women to be familiar with many names. I told him he needed to hang out with more girls so I could name our baby something I liked. He’s a good man and didn’t listen to me.

Last edited by paperflowers on Tue, Jun 16 2020, 12:18 pm; edited 1 time in total

PeanutMama

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 12:14 pm

keym wrote:

Love the boy names

Einikel

Tue, Jun 16 2020, 12:15 pm

Hashem_n_Farfel wrote:

Avigail isn’t common by chassidim. The rest are.