Ideas for Choosing a Name for Your Baby

Have you found a suitable name for your new baby yet? If not, you may need a bit of inspiration for some ideas to use in your search with our baby name meaning and suggestion generator. There are a number of popular methods that people often use (or have employed in the past) to select names, which you may wish to consider.

One very prevalent method is to use personality traits which you hope that your baby my have. For example Dalia is an Arabic girl's name meaning "gentle", whereas Alwyn is an English boy's name meaning "wise friend". Similarly, physical appearances are a popular choice, with Gwri being a nice Celtic name for a boy with golden hair, and Kerye being a girl's name meaning "dark eyes".

Another idea is to use a derivative of the day or time of year on which your baby was born. For example Pascale is a French name for a female child born at Easter, and Kwami is an African name for a boy born on Saturday. A girl born during the summer could suitably be called the Japanese name Natsuko using this method of selection. How about the name of a favourite location in the world? Paris or Florence come to mind as girls' names, or Tyler (a city in Texas for a boy), but you can really choose almost anything. Some parents choose the place they first fell in love, others may chose where they married, or it can simply be a place you like. In modern times, the location where a baby was conceived is becoming quite a common choice, inspired all the more perhaps by the story of David and Victoria Beckham's supposely having named their son, Brooklyn this way. Victoria Beckham has since denied this, however, having stated that they decided on the name whilst in Marbella and that it was simply a coincidence that they were in New York when they had found out Victoria was pregnant. Some people think that a name basd on where the baby was conceived is a bit tacky however, so you may want to think twice about using this method of selecting a name.

Choosing a name for your baby based upon a profession or occupation is another interesting idea. Madntyre for example is a Scottish boy's name meaning "son of the carpenter", whereas Eurycleia is the name of the nurse of Odysseus in Greek mythology.

Special objects have often been inspiration for a child's name also. Good instances of this are Brandan which is a Celtic boy's name meaning "sword", or the girl's name Gemma which originates from France and meand "jewel".

Are you a nature lover? Maybe a naturaly inspired name would be a great choice for your child? The Hebrew girl's name Tamar fulfils this type of selection in two ways. Not only does it mean Palm tre, but it's also the name of a river in England, dividing the counties of Devon and Cornwall. Similarly, in the natural vein of things, Aidan is a Celtic name that means "Fire", one of the four natural elements of tradition.

Whatever name you choose for your baby, remember that he or she will carry the gift of that name through their life. Make it a good choice and they'll appreciate it forever.