First of all, I would like to start by saying picking the name of a human is probably one of the hardest things you will ever have to do when it comes to raising a child and deciding on having a family. You have to remember that this kid is STUCK essentially with this name until they are able to have the funds to rename themselves to something they would like. Which you hope doesn’t happen or it probably would feel like a huge slap in the face.

Since my boyfriend is French Canadian and I am English Canadian we had wanted one non-negotiable rule, That was whether we had a boy or a girl the name be bilingual. We wanted it to be a name that spelled in English and in French it was the exact same. How you pronounce it would be different, sure, but the spelling would basically be the same. So for example, David can be said both English and French, Just add an accent, But spelling is the same. Pierre would be another name but we both were not fans and Ill come to a reason why in a bit!

When naming a kid I have a very strict rule, well, many strict rules when you think about it! My boyfriend also follows this however I don’t think he does so quite as much as I do. One of the major rules I try to follow is that if I EVER knew someone by that name in my life I did not want to name my son that name. I will obviously follow that for another child however that is a big no-no. It is almost like the name is now tainted for me. If I knew someone names Shane in Elementary who did something completely dumb in school I do not want to name my kid that. All I will think of is that dumb thing that Shane did back in school whenever I see my own kid! And this goes with basically anyone I ever remembered, From crushes I liked, To ex’s, to kids in my school, or I played sports with. I really don’t care the reasoning I just know that I will never name my kid someone I knew or heard of growing up.

Another would be spelling, so many people out in the world try to spell their child’s name different. They take a popular name or something that people know and they change the spelling of it. Most time my stupidity cannot understand how to even pronounce the new name even though it looks completely different and said the exact same. We knew picking our child’s name that we did not want to mess with the spelling and then see how that goes for the rest of their lives. We wanted something simple. Easy to spell also. Something like Khai-Leigh, but pronounced Kylie, Or something like Airecka, but pronounced like Erica. We did not want our child to have to tell someone how to pronounce their name the entire time they are alive because it is spelled so wonky that the person trying to read it won’t get it.

Popular names are for sure off of the list. I know you know what I mean by popular names. That would be the names you had in your class growing up that they had to be referred to by their last initial. They were the Ashley’s, Melissa’s, and Sarah’s, the Ryan’s, Adam’s, and Matthew’s. We did not want our child to have a name that just about everyone on the planet had. Okay maybe that is an exaggeration but you know what I mean. Remember Son’s of Anarchy and when that came out on TV. How many people had children and named them Jaxon. I bet you I can name 3 at least right now. Whether it be from the show or not. Still. Since we wanted to have a name that was bilingual this would mean the Pierre, Olivier, Andre, and Sophie, and many more that we already knew people whit those names also. We wanted an original name not one that everyone could say “Oh Yeah, I know someone named that also”.

How we decided our son’s name was quite interesting. One night we were watching Netflix. Since I am big into subtitles now after being a changed woman, We were watching a french documentary on the mass shooting in France. I feel like it was called 13, Because it happened on the 13th of November but honestly I could be wrong. However they had people on their talking and discussing the events that took place. One of the survivors name’s was Vincent. We kind of looked at one another and had said together, What do you think about Vincent? And then in complete disbelief we couldn’t believe that we had actually agreed on a name that we both liked since we were having challenges finding a boy’s name that we both enjoyed. It was such a pleasant surprise that we had both found a name we liked and completely unexpected especially after browsing lists and lists with names we both didn’t agree on.

As for middle name (s), we chose one that was related to my father. Maybe with another boy we would choose one closer to my boyfriend’s family or a girl would probably share the same middle name as me. We don’t want them to have a lot of middle names, just one will do. However there are many reasons why people chose middle names as well. For us, It was more or less just family related.

As you can see that there is more to it than just choosing a name you like when deciding to have children. Not only that, But considering my bf and I would like to expand our family a 2nd and 3rd time in the near future I am sure we will be in the same boat again with names. Sometimes a name you will both like will show up where you least expect it! I would assume that we might revisit some of the names we previously liked but who knows, maybe we wont like them anymore! Or many Vincent will be old enough to help us decide too. Time will tell really. All I know is that regardless of how many kids we have, these are pretty strong rules that we both will probably follow.

If you have children, How did you decide on their name?
Comment below, I would love to hear your stories too!