Does The Middle Name Really Matter?

[wiveswithknives.livejournal.com]

I posted here once before with a list of possible names my husband and I liked. We've both settled on Micah for the first name. For years my husband has been talking about naming our potential child Zao. I thought he was joking, we both listen to a band named Zao. His insistence over the years has proved its not a joke. I decided to look up the meaning of the word and found out its used in Greek translations of the bible and means "alive". I like that. I don't like the way the word sounds. I could live with it if it was pronounced like "day-o" with a z... it's not. It's pronounced like z-ahhh-o. Micah Zao Clark just doesn't flow.

My question is... does it really matter? Even if his middle name was something normal like Andrew I wouldn't call him by his first + middle name anyway. Thinking about it, no one outside of my immediate family knows my middle name and I suspect it's that way for a lot of people. It just doesn't come up often. Would it be terrible if he had an ugly name with a nice meaning? Has anyone else here used a middle name that didn't flow with the first or last name just because it had a special meaning to them?

Popularity of a name,...

[mamasammy.livejournal.com]

l've been thinking alot lately about the popularity of names and how much it affects the way we name our children. Especially in this community I have noticed what a big deal popularity is and what a massive turn off it can be even with a name that you loved before its rise to the top (or close to the top). I know for me personally, in naming my daughter, I think I must've considered every name in every book,... The first thing I'd check was the name's popularity and the closer it was to number one, the more it turned me away from the name.

Anyway, I was looking over the SSA Popular Baby Names List for 2009 and I was really amazed at the numbers I saw. For example, the name Isabella, while it was the most popular female name in the United States in 2009--only 22,067 babies were named Isabella last year. Which turns out to be 1.1023%, doesn't seem so popular when you look at it that way. A measly 1.1%? As for boys, the number one male name in 2009 was Jacob,...  20,858 boys were given the name Jacob. Which means--.9952%. Not even 1%!

I won't bore you with all the numbers, because you can go to the SSA website and see for yourself, but its just food for thought I guess. Even now that I know this information, I still feel the same way about names. When I have another baby, I'll still like a less popular name over a more popular name, only based on its rank in the SSA. I love the name Owen and I think it sounds good with my last name and all, but if I have a son, I won't use that name because its too popular in my opinion. Silly, but true.

If you have children--how much did you let the popularity of a name affect your decision to name your baby?
If you don't have children--how important is the popularity of a name you would like to use for future children?

Thoughts?

Dream Name and Three Others

[how-obscure.livejournal.com]

I had a dream the other night that two friends were planning to name a future boy Charles Xavier, which I thought sounded great while dreaming and still sounded perfect when I woke up...until I realized why the combo sounded so right together--it's the name of Professor X from X-men!

There are a few names that have grown on me lately. I'm not in love with them and I doubt I would use them, but what do you think of Stanley, Louis/Lewis, and Hugo? Also, which spelling of Louis/Lewis do you prefer?

33 days until my due date, and STILL looking for a boys' name...

[sarahness.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to my name list. It's basically a list of names that I don't *hate*.

http://www.babynames.com/namelist/9662413
Please vote!

Tell me your favorites, your least favorites, tell me the ones you think are freaking ridiculous and the ones that don't go with the last name (pronounced van skoy - rhymes with boy).

And for crying out loud, if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears. Haha.

Middle name may or may not be James, at this point. We can't agree on crap.

And our older daughter's name is Amelia Marilyn.

( Here's the list in text, for those of you who don't want to click the link. )