oh tash, the name. yes. this is one of the central points of pain for me surrounding the death of my daughter, one i return to again and again. i gave birth to the still body of my daughter at 36 weeks, my first child, my only child. i like surprises, too, and didn't know for sure what gender my baby was, until we found out she was dead while i was in the advanced stages of labour. i never imagined "it's a girl" would be the three most heartbreaking words i'd ever heard.

my husband was always convinced she was a girl, declaring it with a giddy, gleeful kind of officiality. and for whatever reason, from the very beginning of my pregnancy, practially the only names i could come up with that i liked, that i could actually imagine belonging to a child of mine were girls' names.and soon, it was only one name. a name i practiced cautiously, secretly, over and over in my head, playing with nicknames, hearing a future me saying it lovingly, sternly, quietly, joyfully, all the time imagining a daughter it described - maybe silly, maybe stubborn, at times adorable and at others infurating. someone real. i didn't want to share the name with anyone until she came - only my husband and i knew it. it was my talisman, a rabbit's foot dispelling demons on my way to finally becoming a mother.but now i wonder if it's actually a monkey's paw.

our decision to name my daughter that name was inevitable, a falling forward into a matter already decided - it's who she was, from the start. it's the name i fell in love with, the duaghter i fell in love with before i ever knew her. but having to announce her name out loud to form-filling strangers in a dark hospital room, me numb from sobs after giving birth to her lifeless body, broke me. i gave away that name and all the hopes for motherhood that went with it. she was my first child, my only child and by taking that name, the only name i could wrap my head around, i feel like she took everything.

and now, i want the impossible, a do-over. i know i can never have my daughter back, i know the murky, terrifying prospect of another child can never replace the person she would have become. and even if that name wasn't legally documented on its official certificate, it might be too, well weird, to use again. but it's like my best and brightest hopes for motherhood died with my daughter.and somehow, it's all in the name.

thanks so much, tash, for sharing this subject.

We named her Katherine Emma, the Katherine for my mother and the Emma because we liked it. She was always Katie. It is comforting now in a way that we can speak of her by name; confirming that she was indeed real and here and ours, if only for such a heartbreakingly short time.

I had a name picked out for my baby that I miscarried. I lost him (I always thought it was a boy even though I lost him too soon to know) but I still had a name picked out for him. Matthew. I never got to use that name or put it on a death certificate or anything but it will always be tied to the baby that didn't make it. I later had twin boys and I named them Nathaniel and Sebastian because I could not give either one of them that name. I'm pregnant again now, just found out two days ago and I will come up with names with my husband again this time, but Matthew will not be one of them. My husband knows this, and he understands because he feels the same way as I do. No matter how much we love that name, it was his and it will always be important even if we never got to know him...

I had a name picked out for a girl that originally would have gone to a baby I miscarried a year ago if the baby had been a girl. Then again when I was pregnant this year with the baby I lost to T-18 that name would have been hers if she had lived. But I never gave her any name officially/legally. Then in the weeks following losing her another name, Caroline, came to me over and over and over again in so many different ways. I had this overwhelming feeling that that was her name (even though it was not a name I would have picked for her in life), so in my heart she is Caroline.

We had picked out a name for a girl before we even decided we wanted kids- a combination of our mothers' names. Once we were pregnant we picked out a name for a boy- a combination of our grandfathers' names. We had an amnio, but didn't want to know the sex. The pregnancy was from IVF and we felt everything was so planned, we wanted to be surprised. Everyone told me they thought I was having a boy. So while I was being induced we asked the midwife if it was a boy or girl. She called the birth center and as my husband and I sat on the bed she repeated "XX". She had died at 38 weeks and we wanted to name her before she was born, but I didn't want to use the names we had picked. Initially her first name was my mom's and her middle name my husband's mom's (who went by her middle name). So we ended up naming her after her grandmothers, but changing it around. We used my husband's mom's first name and her middle name is my mom's. (spelled slightly differently so it was a combination of my mom and my great grandmother's name). It was very strange at the time, especially because neither of us ever liked the name until that moment, when it felt perfect. And now we think the name is beautiful. And she is still named after her grandmas. But I find it is helpful to me that we didn't use our original name. I had imagined an entire life with a child with the original names we picked. And I need to let my daughter be who she was and not imagine what she would be like, if. So having a name we picked out after she died at 38 weeks feels perfect. Because this is her story and there is no changing it. I never imagined a live baby with this name, it is all hers.

We did not know we were having a son until after he was born, and since I was only at 30 weeks, were no where close to a short list, much less agreeing on name (boy or girl).

He died an hour later. At the time I had no opinion on what his name should be, I was feeling so lost, and so deferred to the name my husband really liked (but in all previous discussions I had axed). I thought at the time, "at least it wont be on the list for any future children." The night he died, the hospital staff put that name on all their forms.

It wasn't until the next morning that I felt he had been given the wrong name, and knew finally what his real name was, but by then it was too late. I still call him by his other name in my head, and it feels so much more soothing to me than his given name, which my husband loves and which gives him comfort. I suppose it doesn't much matter, both names are now off the table.

My husband and I grappled back and forth with William's name the entire time I was pregnant. Even before we knew he was a boy. Then the difficulties surrounding my pregnancy began and they were numerous, that I simply could not settle down on names. Too much focus on survival. The entire time, my husband wanted William after his grandfather, and I simply did not like it. It sounded too big, and too...old.

Once we had him (emergency - c) and lost him (before I woke up) I couldn't think. I was so numb. I asked my husband, who was gently asking about the name for the forms and certificates "Please name him. Don't use William if you don't want, because you deserve to take home a son named William, but but you name him what you need to. He's your boy"

My husband called his brothers to ask permission to use both of their grandfathers names, with the assurance that if one of them was uncomfortable with it, he would not. Or if one of them felt they were ok, but might still want to use the name later, that they were free to.

They said ok, and my husband pronounced his only biological son "William Hurschel" after both of his strong well respected grandfathers.

He was such a little boy, at 27 weeks, that somehow it seemed appropriate to me that he had such a big strong name. Something to delcare him loudly as having been here. And now I see his name on insurance documents and old bills and...it is the right name.

Someone above said something about the feeling of having "used up" the name. I felt a little like that. But it was his name, the one his daddy gave him. The one he wanted him to have the whole time.

We have always chosen a name before the baby is born (alive or not).

Samuel was chosen about a month after we found out he was a boy. Steve and I just liked the name (paired with a middle name that is my father's first name). It is still the perfect name for him.

Alex was "the" name immediately upon finding out he was a boy...paired with Steve's dad's name as a middle name. The only think I am sad about is that Steve's father's name was given to Alex. Steve lost his dad years ago and this was a way to honor him. Instead, because Alex died too, it's just a crappy reminder of loss and sadness.

After Alex, we vowed that any subsequent child would be named as soon as possible. We agreed that we were both glad we had at least given Alex a name (when we couldn't give him anything else). But then we only had four days between finding out Travis was a boy and hearing that he was no longer alive and we hadn't yet settled on a name. That still breaks my heart a little bit when I think of it. When he died, we picked one from our short list. I chose it because I realized his initials would be TLC...and that just seemed somehow appropriate at the time.

Myles was a family decision made on a sunny winter afternoon following a brainstorming session that had us laughing and rolling our eyes at one another's suggestions. No significance other than that memory and the hope we all felt on that afternoon.

Our first live child was named Aaron because I liked the name. My husband liked Ian but I didn't. His middle name is Ben after my father, who has the same middle name.

When I got pregnant the second time, we started dutifully making a list right away. It never occurred to me that I would lose a baby. When we started having problems, I never thought much about the name. We didn't settle on a name until we found out our baby was a girl. That was after she was already dead and we got the results that she was a girl with a chromosome #10 deletion. I named her Adrien Lee. Adrien because it was my favorite girls name, and Lee after my late mother-in-law (her middle name).

When I got pregnant a third time, we didn't make a list. I lost the baby early this time and when we found out she was a girl with Trisomy 2, we named her Alexandra Carol. Alexandra because we liked it, and Carol after my mother (her first name) and because it was right before Christmas when we lost her.

When I got pregnant a fourth time with my second living son, we didn't start talking names until around 15 weeks, when I found out he was a boy. We cautiously named him Kameron Christopher. We wanted him to have the same initials as my father-in-law who goes by K.C. We liked the name Kameron so we just switched the C to a K, and Christopher is my FIL's middle name.

It only occurred to me with Alex that we'd use a name we could "lose". We stared to feel after she died that we'd never have another healthy baby again, so we just continued to use the names we liked best. We figured it was the only thing we could ever "give" them.

I was told by my grandmother that back when they were young in the 1920's, if a child died, the subsequent child would bear the same name as the dead child. My great uncle Wilson was named after his older brother Wilson who died as a baby. I don't think people do this anymore.

We choose our son's name the day we found out that a> he was a boy and b> he would be born with a heart defect. We wanted a strong name, and the name Charles means "strong man". We never really referred to him as Charles though, he was always our Charlie. My husband gave him his middle name, Christopher, which is the same as his middle name. We loved Charlie's name because his initials are the same for both him and my husband. His name will always be special to us. I can think of no other name to call him. :)

We didn't know we were having a boy till we held his still form in our arms.

My husband held him....and asked me if it was ok to name him Scott...it came purely from him, and from his grief..it was just there....

His just Scott Sauriol.

The boy that wasn't.

I picked Callum's name long before he was ever conceived. Upon learning of my pregnancy, we, too, came up with the obligatory list of names. Callum's name, unsurprisingly, made the shortlist. Dh was unsure of the name though as he had a client with a son of the same name. At my 18 week u/s when we learned our baby was a boy, I was determined to convince dh to go along with the name I wanted. He didn't. For a very long time, he was unconvinced. Until about a week before we learned Callum had died, I said to him, "C'mon, hon. I need to know what to call this baby." And he agreed to name the baby boy growing in my belly what I had wanted all along.

Dh says that he can't even face that client of his, the one with the son of the same name.

I picked Noah's name soon after I found out he and his brother were boys. It is strange, but Noah was named and his twin didn't get his name until birth. I just couldn't make up my mind. I was sure about Noah though. My twins never changed positions throughout my pregnancy so I knew that Baby B was quiet and calm. He didn't kick much, just fluttered around every now and then. We immediately named Baby B, Noah, because it means peaceful. Little did we know that that peacefullness was our first sign that something was very wrong. Noah wasn't expected to survive long after being born. His middle name is Michael, a family name. I am not religious, but soon learned Michael was an archangel, the good angel of death. Strange how their names fit, even before we know where their short lives will take them.

Devin was named long before he was born. We had a name picked out, boy and girl, and on the day of our level II ultrasound he was named. Devin. Everyone knew it. It's who he was. So when he died there was no choice in the matter... he had already been named, and there was not a thought that we should change it, simply because he had died.

But afterwards I got angry... I mourned that loss too. Like others, this was the only boy name I really loved. The only one I could imagine using. I could never use it again, and that angers me so much. But at the same time, had we not used it for Devin I would have felt like we cheated him out of who he was.

It still hurts. When we have another boy we already have a name picked out. But I don't love it as much. I don't know if I ever will. And that makes me so very sad.

He was the bun.

He was to be David George, or Eleanor-May Genevieve.

David because we liked the name, and George, for his father.

Eleanor because we liked the name, May for his grandmother's and Genevieve for my best friend.

When he was dying we chose other names. I couldn't bear to name a deadbaby for my best friend.

I chose Rachel Joy for a girl, Mr. Spit chose Gabriel Anton for a boy.

And he's not a David, he's simply Gabe now.

Ah, one of my biggest regrets. I didn't name her what I was going to name a girl if I had one. We had decided to "save" our favorite names for living children. Obviously, I was still in shock. So afer learning the baby had passed, we decided on Edward for a boy (after my father, and not the first choice) and Hannah for a girl, the name my husband had wanted most all along. It was decided while I was on the operating table. At that point of being strapped down and cut wide open, I was indifferent so told my husband to just pick when they announced the gender. I didn't even see the point of a middle name. And I wish now that I had given her one, only because I intend to give middle names to any other children I might have and she deserves the same respect. And now I love the name Hannah and can't imagine referring to her as anything else. Conversely, I can't imagine using my original favorite girl's name should I ever have another girl, because it just seems, well, tainted. I feel like the list should be abandoned and reassembled from scratch.

My husband and I unexpectedly, instantaneously agreed on a girl name for our lost child during the happy, early days of the first trimester. It was the name of a character from a 1930s movie we both loved, and it reminded me of the joyous early days of my marriage, when I heard the name. It was just a winner all around.

Since there was no death certificate for my child, I suppose I could have used that name again for Little A when she came along. But the idea was impossible. You don't get a do-over on anything related to a lost baby. Not for the names or anything else.

Naming our next girl was very difficult. We had a huge list of potential options that grew at the same rate as my belly, but we just didn't have the same enthusiasm for picking one that time. I guess it as part of the fear of what would come next.

Perhaps prophetically, I insisted that my husband and I sit down and come up with a "short list" a couple of days after our 19-week ultrasound, after we knew it was a boy. We had gotten some indication at the ultrasound that there might be problems, but we had no idea just how bad it would be--or how soon we would need to use one of the names.

There was one name-Zachary-that stood out for me in our short list. The evening after we found out he would never live, and just hours after deciding we would induce labor the following week, we decided upon that name--my husband said he felt it was appropriate.

But yes, there have been times I felt like I was "wasting" the name. It was so clearly my first choice, the "best" name. In a couple of months, I hope to give birth to another boy. It was challenging for me to accept that Zachary was already taken.

But I will say this--the name "Zach" rolls off my tongue just as easily as the names of my live nieces and nephew.

this is quite a sad subject for me. we only began discussing names when I reached the second trimester, and he was gone by the third... we had narrowed it down to a first name (pending inspection, as julia said), with a few middle names. but we never told anyone. when he died in utero at 21 wks my hub believed his soul had not yet been born and he didn't feel right formally naming him. so while we nearly agreed on a name, we never actually named him, and we have never spoken it aloud again, to anyone. he has been known as baby boy ever since.

Jordan Faraday was named months before she was born. I liked Jordan for a girl, not a boy. It sounds like a good strong girl's name and I kind of nicked it off of the tv show "Crossing Jordan". Faraday is a name from a series of novels written by Sara Douglas. She was a character that was very beautiful and very innocent. She was strong but delicate. It is so ironic that this describes Jordan to a perfect t. Sometimes I think I jinxed her with that name, especially since this character dies at the end of the first book. But she is reborn stronger and better in the subsequent books...

I would love to use the Faraday name again, but I don't want subsequent children to live in her shadow either. I wonder if we can do it? I know my husband wants to as well.

Thanks Tash.

Long before we ever actually started ttc, we dreamed of having a little girl named Katie. It was a name we both liked, & it just stuck. She was real to us long before I ever tossed out my b/c pills. For a formal name, dh wanted "Caitlin" but I knew she'd be one of 20 Caitlins in the schoolyard. I thought Katherine was a little formal for a little girl, so I suggested Kathleen. It's a family name on my maternal grandfather's side, & I thought he'd get a kick out of that. Katie is also the name of my paternal grandmother, who died when I was 14. Her second name is Maria, after dh's mother, who died before I ever got to know her. I told dh we could name her Maria (I knew FIL would love it), but he said no, she was Katie. She was actually going to be Kathleen Maria Amanda -- Amanda being my great-grandmother's name -- but at the last minute, we decided to "save" Amanda for a possible future daughter.

Even after we knew she was gone, we knew she was Katie. No two ways about it.

we named them while i was on bed rest, their lives so fragile while we were determined to remain optimistic and hopeful. henry theodore was named for my husband's father who died when he was five years old and eliot levi just because we loved the combination. we spent hours and days working out there names and knew from their kicks which was which ... they were identical baby boys and even as they were being born, we knew which was which, eliot to leave after 12 hours and henry after 19 days ... henry and eliot ... i love their names and still love to whisper them into the night air.

i'm glad we gave them names, names we loved as we loved them.

We loved Charlotte early on, paired with Molly as a middle name, for my husband's grandmother. She's a wonderful grandmother with no namesake, despite a huge family with loads of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We wanted to give her that gift.

It makes me sad, in a million ways, that her namesake is buried alongside her husband instead of learning to sit and babble and eat solids. When she dies, she'll be buried there too.

I'm glad we chose Charlotte; there was no other choice really. I don't know if we'll ever find another name we love as much for a future child.

We chose Adam for a boy, minutes before I went into surgery. We'll never use it now.

My husband and I both love surprises, and we never had any disagreement about both of our desire not to find out what the baby was when he/she was born. We came up with a boy name very quickly, but had some difficulty with a girl name. My husband's heritage is Scottish, and so I began to look on Scottish baby name websites. I found one I loved, and shared it with him (feeling rather pessimistic, because our tastes differ significantly), and to my shock, he loved it, too. It is a soft name - one not easily shouted, one that suggests affection with every syllable. We couldn't decide on a middle name, so chose three and decided we would choose one on the day. When my bulging membranes and infection were discovered, we decided to forgo the surprise, and we found out we were having a baby girl. We decided immediately upon the middle name Grace because we knew we would need lots of it to walk the road we were about to walk. It is a name that fit her tiny body like a glove. I can't imagine ever naming another child that - even if I had decided to "save" the name. Every time I visit the cemetery I am so thankful we gave her that name. It is on her headstone, and it is her. Nothing else would have done. I am pregnant again, and if we have a boy we will be using the same boy name we had chosen before. I don't have a hugely emotional connection to it. If she had lived this name would have been used for her baby brother, so it feels appropriate now. A girl name was more difficult. I wanted something I loved as well as my first daughter's name. Something that felt the same on my lips and on my heart, and that was difficult to come by. We have a name now (if this baby is a girl) that would have sounded so sweet in a sequence that will never be.

We really didn't have any girls names floating around because DH was convinced the baby was a boy, which he was. His first and middle names are our fathers' middle names. I don't feel like we wasted the names; that's who he was and any possible subsequent children will have names that are uniquely theirs, just like his is. I miss him, but I love having him listed in our family tree and I love being able to refer to him by the name that was specially his.

We initially thought we wouldn't name the girls when we lost them - they were the Beans in conversation until that day.

However, we soon decided that they needed to be honoured with names. It just didn't feel right to leave them nameless.

We decided on Avery and Sophie, there really was no discussion. Avery Mikyla was our favourite girl name right from the start, and I had strongly felt that one of the babies was Avery.

Sophie was a name we both loved but didn't think we would actually use - it's so "cute" and we didn't know how it would grow on a daughter. After seeing our girls after their birth, it fit. Her middle name became Joy - Sophie Joy. I would never normally use a middle name like that, but again, it fit ... for almost 20 weeks those girls were everything to us.

this struck a cord with me. i had a girl name right from the start, it was the boy name we couldn't decide on. when our daughter, maia, was born at 33 weeks with trisomy 13 we were caught by complete surprise. my husband and i had a moment of wanting to "keep" the name, save it for a baby that was going to make it, because it was the perfect name, but a very kind nurse and our hearts convinced us otherwise. from the minute she was born she was maia, to use another name, one we just picked from thin air at such a difficult time, would have been a betrayal. i later learned that maia is one of the stars in the seven sisters constellation, which makes it all the more perfect.

i have since gone on to have two more children. we had a son after maia, and we disregarded all of the boy names we were considering with our first pregnancy, they seemed sacred and much too painful. most recently i had a daughter and we named her ada, i didn't realize at the time that ada was so close verbally to maia, but my husband and i sometimes catch ourselves calling her maia. it alarmed us at first, that our minds would play this trick, but i have come to find comfort in it, a reminder of our first girl who will live on, in many ways, through the birth of our second.

Isabel. I took it out of consideration for our subsequent children. It is still the name I love best, and I miss the opportunity to use the nicknames I love and never being able to whisper it to a sleeping baby. But it is the only thing I have to hold her place in my heart and I felt when choosing names later that it would somehow deny her existence. I don't know why that should be, it doesn't change anything, but maybe I just want to keep it hers.

He was Benjamin Theodore, fraternal twin to James Christian. The names all came from our grandfathers and great grandfathers. Ben left us before midterm in the pregnancy. No one wanted to know about my lost little one; I was "lucky" to have one left. Or maybe it didn't really happen, they said. It felt like I held my breath until Jim was born, all okay. And I was shocked when my brother in law named his first son Benjamin - even though we never spoke of our Ben.
I still think of Benjy, his unique spirit, and wonder who he would have been.Jim turns 38 this month.

J and I each had a list of potential girl and boy names. We both agreed on the top boy name, but couldn't agree on the top girl name. At 20wks we were told that we were having a girl. We chose to name our "little girl" Adia Rayne. J selected the name Adia and at first I was unsure about it, but after I realized that the name meant "a gift" it seemed perfectly fitting for the baby that we'd been trying for for 2.5 years. We decided to name our baby Adia Rayne and shared her name with all our friends and family.

When our baby was born at 26wks we were shocked to discover that she was not a she, but rather a he. It was a no-brainer we would name our little guy, Myles, which was our agreed upon boy name. We chose this name after our favorite jazz musician Miles Davis and later learned that it meant "soldier", which we thought was fitting given the battles our little guy would face. Although we had agreed upon the name Myles, we hadn't considered middle names. We decided to give him the middle name that both J and I share: Lee. So, our little guy was named Myles Lee.

J and I have discussed using the name Adia for a future daughter, but just recently J told me that he didn't want to use it as it was too closely tied to Myles. I can see his point, but feel that if we are fortunate enough to get pregnant with one of the embryos that was conceived and frozen with Myles it's seems fitting to give the baby a name that is linked to Myles. We've also discussed giving a future boy Myles as a middle name to honor our little guy, but a part of me feels that this is his name and his name only.

Beautiful stories, ladies. Thanks so much for sharing them.

Great topic (one I might discuss on my own site eventually) and an important one.

Jackson's name was chosen long before we knew he was a dead baby. As I do NOT enjoy surprises (especially with babies and even more especially after the loss), I tried to find out and it wasn't until after 28 weeks gestation that I was even able to find out. The name was perfect. Jackson (a name we had actually considered for our first child) William (my father's name). When Jack was stillborn, I was also so sad that I didn't get to have a child with that name.

With our middle child, the first living child we had after Jackson, I used William again as a first name this time. It was to honor not only my father (again) but Jackson as well. We call him Liam though, just to set him apart. Make it his "own".

Got long so I put it on my quasi-blog. www.myspace.com/renlady

Of the thousands of moments I spent in the hospital, only a few really stand out in my memory. One of them was when the nurse turned to me and asked, "Do you want to name him? I can always just put Baby Boy." I remember everything about that moment, that I slouched in a chair, that my then-husband sat next to me. The angle of her neck as she turned, the antiseptic smell, and the crack of my voice as I said, "Henry."

We used what would have been his middle name. I tell myself it's not because we are saving the other name, but because William fits so well. I know I will never use the other name as a first name though. If we use it, it will be a middle name to honor the person it came from and our firstborn.

She came to me in a vision or dream in week 12 of my pregnancy. She was comforting me because I had been upset - anxious about a possible miscarriage. I couldn't see her per se, but I could feel her presence, even her embrace. She was an old and wise soul and I remember feeling intimidated by her, wondering if we would be good parents to this already knowledgeable and strong person. Her name was Sarah. Not a name that had been on my (long, very long) list for a first child.

When we found out around week 20 about her heart defect, my husband, in a light-hearted moment, suggested we call her "Cora," short for "Corazon" (heart, in Spanish). It stuck. We let her go in week 23 and delivered her stillborn. She is Sarah Corazon, to us only, as we had no formal forms to fill out for her. I will probably get it tattooed on me somewhere. Cheesy I know. It fits what I know of her perfectly.

We didn't have names picked out. They weren't supposed to be born just yet.

While waiting the 10 long days before they were born, my husband and mom went through hundreds and hundreds of names, applying some type of numerology fun that my mom does, trying to land on a lucky number.

They came up with a list of 5 names that resulted in a lucky number.

Ultimately, after I had a chance to see them, we settled on Cerina (peaceful) and Nadia (full of hope), because that is just what they were, and what they needed.

I remember after their grim diagnosis, after we settled on our decision, I mentioned to my friend that these beautiful names would be wasted since they were going to die. I cursed myself for thinking that (still do), and a slim window of "saving" them for the "next" one even crossed my mind. My friend replied, "But that's their names."

When I hear or see people with their names, in life: on the news, in the paper, it makes me sad. If we have more children, girls, they will have their sisters' names as middle names.

Thanks for writing about this.

Our naming story is complicated. We had no name decided on for our child for sure when we were rushed to the hospital but we had been kicking around three, we already knew he was a boy. When we thought there was a good chance we were going to lose him, we knew we had to choose the name that honored my grandmother, Isaac, because I felt like I needed her to watch over us. We had already decided on the middle name, Asher, it was a family name of DH's but when we thought he might be lost it just seemed to be the wrong name...it means happiness, blessings...I just couldn't use it in such a sad situation. And I did feel it belonged to a different child somehow...not that I was saving it but that it just wasn't this babies. We actually went and bought a baby name book from the hospital gift shop and chose a name from that which honored a different person in DH's family. The name means "gift" which just seemed more "right" I've never regreted for a moment giving him the name that connected him so strongly to my grandmother and also my paternal great great grandfather. It just was his name and when we saw him we knew it was the right one. I hadn't been sure about giving him a name that was so popular, but strangely unlike most people I take a lot of comfort in meeting other little Isaac's who would have been his age...I think about how my son would have met them and had something in common.

When we were thinking of what to name our next child, we at first chose one of the other names we had been thinking of for Isaac, we even called the baby in my tummy that for several weeks. But it just started to seem wrong...not at all right for this child and it didn't go well with Asher. I brought up the idea of using Isaac's middle name as the first for this child but my husband was too uncomfortable with that, it hadn't been a year even since we lost Isaac. He wasn't comfortable connecting the two children by name at all...didn't want our second child to live in the shadow of our lost first child.

After a few weeks I suddenly came upon what I thought was the perfect name, in hebrew it started with the same letter as Isaac but a different one in English, it was familiar but not often used and had a wonderful meaning that fit with Asher so well. At first my husband wasn't sure, it was an unusual name and he was more inclined to more common names. But it grew on him and by the time he was born he was that name. He got his brother's initial, and also the name that means happiness that is still connected to our first pregnancy as well as his.

I'm pregnant again and its a boy again, and this time we've discussed using Isaac's middle name as a way to connect this child to his brother, and it feels more right this many years later. We aren't sure though and will think of other names as well so that if we feel its wrong we'll have other choices.

We never ever could use Isaac again, and actually none of the names on that short list ever got used again...not because they are too connected to Isaac but just because its turned out that each child needed their own name search not just their own name. I would be touched though if one of my brothers or in time my own children named one of their children after Isaac. Naming my second son after my first but in a not very direct way let me include having him also be named after my grandmother indirectly so his name has been perfect for him and he's ended up with a name that is very connected to those we love, hopefully the right name will be clear for this little one too.

Thanks for the opportunity to share this. His name is one of the very few things I have left of him and its comforting to share it with those I know will understand. It was beautiful reading everyone else's naming stories.

We used nicknames while the babies were in the womb. I agree with the concept of not wanting to "waste" a name. My first was "Sigfried", because of a family joke about Sigfried and Roy. We called him "Siggy" in the womb, though we didn't know if it was a boy or girl. When he was born at 21 weeks, I decided to call him Sigfried on the death certificate. It was the only name he knew, and we didn't think it was fair to change it on him at the last minute. So Sigfried it was.

Our twins were jokingly called "Moe and Curly", and after their deaths I settled on the names they'd given me in a dream: Miranda and Carl. Miranda never got a death certificate, being stillborn, but Carl's is recorded as I dreamed.

We have kept our favorite name choices so separate from the pregnancies that we won't have any trouble using them for a living child. We didn't learn the sexes in advance and called my stomach by the nicknames, so those favorite names were never "tainted" by being associated with our babies. In a way, I'm grateful we chose to use the nickname route. It saves those precious names for the children who will hopefully, eventually, bring us joy after all this tragedy.