lol at first I wanted the name Parker Lane for a boy or Parker Rayne for a girl.... DH said absolutely not.... I asked why... He replied "So all the kids can go around saying "Hey they Parkd er in the lane" or "they Parkd er in the rain".... So yea.... I didn't like it anymore.....

Sara is generally pronounced here as Sah-rah, and Sarah is more like Sar (rhyming with pair) ah.

People with strong belfast accents can also pronounce it Sur-ah, which drives me nuts too!! maybe I'm too picky!!

I definitely agree about people being able to spell and pronounce the name. I saw a girl in second tri who is naming her LO Ryan, but spelt something like Ryien

We have chosen Max as a name for a boy, but it took a while of asking people if they thought it sounded ok with our surname (Jay), as we were worried it would be too short and terse sounding- Max Jay. But everyone I asked said it was fine, so we decided to go for it as we both really like the name Max, but we are giving the full name Maxwell so they have the option of using a longer name if they wish.

My name is Sarah too! It drives me crazy when people leave off the "h"

I saw the post you're talking about with the Ryien spelling, Ryien Jaala or something like that... there were some pretty bizzare spellings of names going on in that thread!

We want names that aren't super common, but we want actual names... not something that's been made up! That's just dooming the kid to bullying forever.

DH and I really liked Isobelle for a girls name, but we've both gone off it, partly because it's *sooo* common right now. We have a few new girls names we like that are less common... but if our print out results from anatomy scan attempt #1 are correct, we won't need them this time! We should know for sure next Thursday what's going on in that department after U/S #2!

I don't know if I count since I live in the US but am from another country

But I say Ih-ma-jin. And I love that name and wanted it to be the baby's middle name but it was vetoed by DH

And I am with you OD'ing on the Tums. I snort when I read the dosage... two measly tablets will do nothing for what I am dealing with here I always take at least four and have def taken six a few times when I feel like I might die because a hole may burn through my body to the outside world. You need six for that.

My name Candy was unusual when I was at school and I got bullied a lot for it but now I see its becoming increasingly fashionable to call your kid weird names. The majority of names I hear I absoljtely love but at xmas time and party time writing out the invites and cards can be difficult and I dont want to offend any parent by spelling names wrong. Especially names that sound common but are spelt in a weird way. It ahould always be your own choice though on what you like. We chose the name Benson because its unique but still easy to spell and he can shorten it to Ben.

My initial combo is CSA haha I rarely use my initials though so its not important to me.

Candy did you just call your own name weird?! I have known of quite a few Candy's in my time, but it's definitely a lesser used name, which is nice.

Readytomum (Sarah is an excellent name ) We have chosen Isabelle for a girl. We are so lucky because you are right, it IS becoming very popular in certain places, especially in England, but for some reason in Northern Ireland hardly anyone uses it so we get the best of both worlds - a "normal" name, which everyone has heard of, but isn't that popular here. And yeah, there were some very special names and spellings in that thread. It worries me, like Candy said, that when writing these kids names out in future people will ALWAYS get it wrong! Also, I can't wait to find out if scan #1 and the crappy info you got from it was right, and you are team blue!!

Maybesoon...is your scan today? If so, GOOD LUCK! And I can't wait to find out what team you are!

doggylover: I can't wait to find out if scan #1 was right too!! I've always had a bit of a hunch it was a boy, and I have to admit that I have a slight preference for wanting a boy first, so I'll be pretty excited if we are confirmed team blue! But really, as long as LO is healthy we'll be happy!!

maybesoon: good luck today!! Hope LO co-operates and you find out which team you're on!

AFM, today is my last day of teaching!

After this I just have to go back one more time to administer their final exam, and oh boy, I can't wait to be done with this semester. It's been a great learning experience, but I need some down time stat! Also, today is 21 weeks! V-day is getting closer and closer.

doggylover -- Thanks for the pronunciation explanation! Maybe I've just pronounced Sara wrong forever. I think here it's mainly used as another one of those "unique American" spellings of Sarah.

ReadytoMum -- Hubby really loves the name Isobel and I like it, too, but I can't get past Isabella/Isabelle/Isabel being so popular. Woohoo for your last day!

kirstabelle -- To be honest, I would have expected you to pronounce Imogen correctly because of the person you are. That sounds offensive, probably, but I don't mean it in a bad way! I just mean we seem to be a bit like-minded in some ways that would lead me to think you'd know how to pronounce and like the name. I know that still doesn't make sense. And I agree with the dose of 6 Tums. That's the number I got to yesterday before they even made a dent in the pain. I swear my stomach was eating itself.

Initials -- I seem to have to consider not only initials, but monogrammed initials as well! When we were thinking we'd use Eleanor Olivia, I was irritated because her monogrammed initials would have been EMO. Could definitely be worse, and if she's anything like me, she'll never have her initials monogrammed on anything anyway so it wouldn't matter.

lol doggylover my name is a bit weird! My mum is a huuuuuuuge Madonna fan and in an interview she said that she would call her daughter Candy, but that never happened, but it's why my mum called me Candy. She does have a song called Candy and Candy perfume girl though.

Readytomum - Isabelle is a gorgeous name And hope you had a lovely last day

My little man just got sent home from school poorly. Now I'm on my way to get Connie xx