I was named after my great great aunt -- Christina. Somehow, it ended up anagrammed and my mom named me "Christian." She said she wanted something different. I've always loved my name -- I like having a unique name (in context anyway). People have always reacted to it positively. I still get mail with 'Mr. Christian' on it and people will still call me "Kristen" or "Christine." I had a shop teacher in middle school who was never quite sure and he would always start my name, "Chr---" and then just end up calling me by my last name!!

My mom named me after a soap star named Christina. I named my daughter, Angela Eve, after the daughter that my mom had before me and she passed away after 9 days. I wanted to name her Bella Eve, but my parents didn't like it. I wasn't swaying on the Eve. My son's name is Alec Thomas. We weren't really going for the "A" theme, but it worked out that it was the only name we agreed on. My husband has a son from his previous marriage and his name is Andrew. The Thomas, in Alec Thomas, came from my husbands father who had a foreign name and everyone called him Tom.

My parents and two brothers moved here to Australia (from Hungary) a few years before I was born. I am a first generation Australian, and my folks wanted a name that could be said in Hungarian as well as in English. '

If I was a boy, I would've been Andrew, then they thought of Christina and Natalie. Then they settled on Diana.

Everyone asks me if it's because of Princess Diana, but I don't think that had anything to do with it! I like my name because it's feminine but not trashy, classic but not old-fashioned like Gertrude or Dorothy or something! Not that those aren't lovely names, but they would SO not suit me!!

My only beef with the name is that people keep calling me Dianne and that's a completely different name, it is in fact derived from Diana, so get it right people!

Here in Australia there is a huge trend toward awkwardly spelt names. No offence intended but I find it really annoying! Vowels get swapped around, unnecessary "y"s are inserted and "ah" is used instead of "er" or "or".

These are all very interesting stories. My sons name is Powell and he will sometimes asks me why his name isn't on those engraved license plate thingys and I tell him that no one has his name, that he more than likely will never find it because he is the only one with that name. I tell him that he's one of a kind and he's perfectly fine with that. He's happy knowing that he's the only one with that name.

christian--an ex of mine had a friend whose girlfriends name is christian. I always thought they were saying her name wrong but later found out that that's her real name. I think that that's so neat.

cbuggin-what a wonderful idea to give yoru daughter your mothers daughters name who passed so shortly in life. That's is so sad that she only made it for 9 days. It just breaks my heart when I hear stuff like that with baby's. I'm so sorry.

Well, for a day and a half I was named Maggie May. Yes, after the Rod Stewart song. I don't know if you've ever really listened to the lyrics of this song, but it's about the first girl Rod Stewart slept with. Not the nicest thing to name your first baby after! My parents thought I was a boy for my mom's whole pregnancy. My dad has one brother, who had two sons when I was born. His dad had four brothers. His dad had thirteen brothers! There was no question...until I popped out, without a girls' name picked out! So my dad chose Maggie May. Then, the day after I was born he went down to the dining area of the hospital to get lunch at the same time the nurse came in with the birth certificate and my mom signed it Kara Jean. Thanks, Mom! My parents had volunteered at a suicide hotline and one of their friends from there was named Kara, and Jean is my mom's middle name.

Our son is Connor Thomas. Both my husband and I really liked Connor, and Thomas is a family name. (My husband, a junior, and his dad both go by Thomas, which is their middle name. Connor is the fifth generation to have Thomas as a middle name.)

Our first daughter is Kadyn May. We were at a wedding right after we got married and the flower girl was named Kadyn, spelled that way. We loved it and decided immediately it would be our daughter's name. I never knew it is actually a boys' name until I was pregnant with her, and by that time I loved it so much nothing could change my mind about it. May was my dad's mom's name. My grandmother was a strong, independent woman with a great zest for life. I'd be tickled pink if Kadyn took after her!

Our second daughter is Avery Claire. Her name was VERY hard to choose. She actually wasn't named until about three days after she was born. She was almost Anna Elise. I really wanted to name her Ainsley, but Tom said that sounded like an old man's last name. My dad's dad's mom was Ava Clara, so that's where we got Avery Claire. If she had been a boy, she would've been Tage Kristian or Cole Kristian. My mom's dad's dad's dad was named Kristian, spelled that way (he was Norweigan).

Kara

I'm named after an aunt on my mom's side. People always think I was named after the Beach Boys song but in reality both my parents were such geeks neither of them had ever heard of the song. My aunt was one of the smartest most remarkable women I've even known--really far ahead of her time--so I've always been proud to have been named after her.

I got lucky. Because my mom got to name me, my dad got to name my sister. Unfortunately for my sister, he had four brothers and his sister was named Rosey Daisy. Some of the possible choices for my sister were Jo Andy, Billie Joe, and Rosey Daisy. My mom must have stepped in though, because the name my sister ended up with isn't quite that bad--but still not as good as my name.

My mom was also one of the most remarkable women I have ever) known and also far ahead of her time. So if I ever have a kid, which, alas is probably unlikely, I would really like to give it my mother's maiden name as a first name (whether it is a boy or a girl).

My mother named me after her best friend Tammara Lynn who passed away from cancer when she was 16. I was honored with the name 3 years later

My father named me Heida, not Heidi. I don't quite know his reasoning however.

The only real name story I have is my daughter, Leah. My dad died when I was 10, and he was Leo, so we named her in memory of him. DH really wanted a girl and we figured before she was even born she would be a daddy's girl, just like I was. And I like the name!

You could imagine my frustration (putting it nicely) when my mother-in-law insisted on calling her by her middle name for weeks. We even got a card from DH's aunt saying she couldn't wait to meet baby Grace. Gee, wonder who told her that was her name?

I was named after my father, (obviously with the female spelling of the name though). My youngest was named after myself (my middle name) and her great grandmother (her first name), her middle name is the female spelling of my husbands first name. My oldest girl was just a random name I picked one day (hard to spell though) and my middle was picked because his dad like the name, and we chose his middle name since it was our best friends first name.

I was named after Latoya Jackson. My mom was in love with the Jackson family back then. So she decided to name my brother and I Jermaine and Latoya...just like the Jackson.

I don't really like my first name so I mostly go by a short form of my middle name Deon (Deondra). That was the name of a character on some soap opera my mom used to watch.

No kids yet but I was thinking of the name Tannis if I have a girl.

I love hearing about how people got their names/named their kids. My mother named me after her grandparents, my great-grandparents Patricia (for Patrick) and Kathleen. It helped that my dad's mother was also named Kathleen. My sister got named Marjorie Ruth for two aunts, one on each side. My sister named her daughter Judith and told us the whole time she was pregnant that she would not be called Judy. That last one day after she was born. My sister always blames the nurses in the hospital for starting to call her Judy.

My name is Emma - I was named Emma because.. well, my parents liked the name. Middle name is Jane - also because they liked it, and it went well with Emma.

DD is Gaby/Gabrielle - she is named that because me & my ex couldn't agree on a name, so I started speeling off names from TV/movies - I mentioned Angelina (Jolie) & he said "ooo possibly" - then I said Gaby (Desperate Housewives lol) & bingo - we had a name. Her middle names are Jayda-Lee - Jayda is in memory of my first angel (Jayden) & Lee is my ex's surname. She has my surname, so I figured I should have his name in there somewhere.

My sweety's name is Kai - i'm not 100% sure, but it is.... something (Polish?) for King.....

I know how this is!!! I HATED my name when I was a kid. Everyone had pretty glitter pencils with their names on them, and name plates on their bikes...and then there was me. For Christmas I'd get a box of regular pencils. haha and sometimes my grandma would write my name on them in permanent marker. She was thoughtful like that.

My name is Shari, I love it now. I think it fits me well. Now I order my own stuff with my name all over it. haha I think I have like three name necklaces (maybe I'm making up for my childhood?) ...My parents said that they named me after a girl they knew. They liked the way she spelled her name. ...you wouldn't believe how many different ways people pronounce my name though! It looks simple, but I get all sorts of weird variations.

My mom wanted to name me after her (Janet Lynn) but then at the last minute decided I should have some autonomy, and instead opted to keep the initials but change it to Jaime Lynn. And so I now share a name with Britney Spears' younger sister. The only thing that every aggravated me was the spelling (Jaime instead of Jamie), and for a while in elementary school I started spelling it Jamie just because that's how everyone around me would mistakenly spell it when referring to me. That didn't keep for long, and now I'm perfectly happy with the spelling.

When I moved to Canada for a while it actually worked out well because I just told everyone that it was spelled like j'aime in French!

As for children, I don't have any yet. We're seriously talking about names off and on as we plan on starting the process within a year or so... DH is from Brazil and so we're going to give our kids Portuguese middle names. It's actually far more difficult to decide on Portuguese names because they all sound so pretty! William is the front-runner for boys (it has a long history on my dad's side), and both Caroline and Eleanor are front-runners for girls... Who knows what will end up being final, though!