Great question, great advice =)

I am forever hearing people describing their style as "unique but not weird" (my own personal style when naming my first daughter). But that's the vaguest thing in the world!! What is weird to me won't be weird to another mom, and visa versa. I advise them to get more specific requirements that they are looking for in a name, and go from there!

We wanted the same thing, and we wanted to honor family members. So we just started throwing things around. For the girl we combined several family names. We both have Ann in our families, and we both like my sister's middle name. So we put them together and have decided on Annelise. It's an old name (German), pretty, not weird, but not popular either. So start finding names that you like and see how they could be combined.

I too used the description of strong when naming my boys 20+ yrs ago. I followed the path of using family names that would look good on a high school letterman's jacket (important to me at the time). I thought of real, classic men names. With my daughter we were more adventurous. With my husband Jonathon's (who went by his middle name Troy) aversion to names that could be shortened without the owners permission (he hated people assuming they could call him Jon), his only requirement was that her name was one syllable. I wanted something unique, but her middle name to be trendy, so she'd have a choice later in life too- like her dad (my name was unfortunately not one that would benefit from change). Teale Kaitlyn likes her name now @ 21 yrs old. She gets comments on it's beauty. But people will always have their own perception of a name. Many see it as hippyish, like 'Blue' or 'sunshine'. I've never thought of it that way as we are far from hippies. Either way, that's the bottom line. It's something we parents get to give to our children forever & no matter your love of it, others, including your child, may have a different experience of the name than what you felt of it's beauty, strength, uniqueness, at the time.

My exact criteria! I know what you mean by strong.....a mans name, nothing cutesy or faddish. By unique I personally feel that this means to avoid the top 100. (some exceptions).
Suggestions might include.

Leo
Hugo
Oscar
Max
Felix
Edward
Will
Jack

Nymbler is also a good place to look for name inspiration. Enter in up to 6 names that you like, and it will spit back lists of names that are similar. It was really helpful for me to weed out a lot of names I definitely didn't like and make a list of the ones I could deal with.

Have you tried nymbler.com? You can put in names that you like, and it comes up with suggestions that are similar. It's how I found my daughter's name (Adair) which I thought fit that same bill--strong, unique, but not at all weird.

Good luck! And have fun :)

It actually drives me crazy when people say that they are looking for a "unique" baby name. "Unique" means one of a kind. What these people are looking for is an "unusual" baby name. People have named their kids every crazy name under the sun, so to be truly "unique" would involve some kind of insanity.

The first place I'd look is in my family history. We have a lot of great boy names there, surnames and given names both. The girl names aren't all as nice, (lots of girls named Dorcas and Prudence, seems like a dozen different forms of Margaret, the omnipresent Mary, but a few Isabels, and that name has already been used two or three times with the current generation in my family)

Anyway, my inclination would be to TAKE BACK THE MAC with what few Scottish and Irish 'son of' names have not already been hijacked by people naming little girls. My favorite is MacKinnon, which means 'son of the fair born', and just... feels really nice on the tongue. And... personally, I like the fact that there are several different options for nicknames.

Also, speaking of 'son of' names, if I were married to a man named Gary, I would not be able to resist naming a son Garrison, which is also my great grandfather's name. I know a Jayson whose father is Jay and a Madison who is a son of Matt, but none of the Andersons, Jacksons,,Johnsons, or Jeffersons I know of are sons of Andrew, Jack, John or Jeffery. I think that's an underused option.

BTW, agree on the use of the word "unique". It does mean, or is supposed to mean, the only one. It would be nice though if at least the entirety of our names could be ours and ours alone. I HATE the fact that there are 12 women with my same first and last names in the phone book of the city where I live.

Speaking of the phonebook... there is another good place to look if you don't find anything good in your family history. I'd just research the meaning of the name before sticking it on a kid. Wouldn't want to leave my child with a name that means "stinking hair", "deformed head", "clumsy", "blind", "bald", or anything like that, though all those definitions do go with names that are or have been quite trendy.

Pamela S, reading your comment about Gary/Garrison made me think of singer Amy Grant. She and first husband Gary Chapman named their son (and first child) Matthew Garrison Chapman, and the Garrison was indeed because he was "Gary's son"! Matt Chapman is in his 20's now, and considering the popularity of Matt/Matthew of his generation, no doubt he was in school with plenty of other people who shared his first name! I like to think his middle name was somewhat original, though!

I actually would NOT describe my taste as unique. My children's names will very likely be in the top 400, without any extraneous "y"s or hippie words. I'm younger than the typical helicopter mom: I'm perfectly fine with my son not thinking he's so special that there have never been other William Browns in the world!

Seriously peeps the captcha involves omega and pi. Fml

charly - you are a woman after my own heart!
I am afraid I am one of those who tends to think "unique" = "yoo-neek" = weird!!

A person is what they make of themselves. Why does their name of obtuse spelling or dubious origin (adjectives as nouns anyone??)have to pave the way for them? I don't want people speculating about whether my son's parents were hippies when they hear his name - rather I would like them to hear it, shake his hand and get on with getting to know him.

There are plenty of "regular" names out there - nice, strong, masculine names. I would go with the likes of "anonymous"' list above.

A lot of those are top 100! However, especially with boys, once you get out of the top 10, you'll never meet another. My suggestion is to go with something popular in the parent's generation. Our newborn Robby (Robert) is the ONLY baby we ever run into with the name. But certainly everyone knows it!

Mine was that I wanted a name that was unusual, but phonetic, and it had to be a "real name", not something recently made up. (Strange, since I'm perfectly ok with made up names for girls, just not for boys.)

I ended up with a name I loved, but sadly it turns out to not be phonetic at all, and even though it is decidedly male in tradition, apparently it sounds female to most people. :-( Ah well...

It fits my son and he's happy with it, so we're all good!

That sounds like our criteria for our son's name, and we ended up naming him Louis. It's not common, but not weird, easy for little kids to spell, and manages to be both upper crust and blue collar at the same time. Plus all his friends like to call him Louie, which is pretty cute.

I love Pamela S's "TAKE BACK THE MAC" comment :) We named our son Samuel Macmillan, both family names. Sam is nice and "strong" to use the questioner's requirement, and Macmillan is a little quirky, so he could go by either. We really struggled with a boy's name, wanting something obviously male and not too frilly, and so we didn't have an official choice until Sammy was 2 hours old!

How about:
Matteo (Teo)
Oliver (Ollie)
Sebastian (Seb)
Theodore (Theo)

These are my favorite boys names.

Simon.
My criteria are for a name to be easy to pronounce, easy to spell, familiar enough but not too common. And not too common to me means I don't know any other CHILDREN at this time with this name...for example, Mary is uncommon when you look at it this way!! Don't steal it, ahhahaha!
Simon is perfect for you, in my opinion. The playground factor seems ok, too-no rhymes and the nursery rhymes with Simon in them aren't bad. Check out any problems with initials and you are in business! ;)

Simon.
My criteria are for a name to be easy to pronounce, easy to spell, familiar enough but not too common. And not too common to me means I don't know any other CHILDREN at this time with this name...for example, Mary is uncommon when you look at it this way!! Don't steal it, ahhahaha!
Simon is perfect for you, in my opinion. The playground factor seems ok, too-no rhymes and the nursery rhymes with Simon in them aren't bad. Check out any problems with initials and you are in business! ;)

We had an exchange student a few years ago from Mexico. He was Luis (Loo-weiss'). We called him Louie and EVERYONE loved him! We still keep in-touch via Facebook!

Personally, I only like Sebastian, perhaps because it isn't heard here much. Some of your others sound too black or to old world.~~~Just saying.

We wanted the same for our son. We ended up naming him Kai. He's 2 and a half now and we are very happy with it.

"Too black"? The horror.

Alec !!!! My son's name.....classic, strong, more original than Alex, but not "out there"...our son is an Alexander shortend to Alec, but Alec is a perfctly solid name in its own right!

Notemily - you said it for me too, my exact response!

"Too black"??? What on earth does that mean? That comment is wrong in so many ways I'm not even going to list them all.

My #1 for a boy right now is Theodore, nn Theo, Teddy, or even Dory. I love it. Strong history, good meaning, and only ranked #263 last year. Solidly uncommon, though it's a name everyone's heard. (And it goes well with my daughter Sylvia.) Others on my boy list include Malcolm, Desmond, and Calvin.

Maverick

We had similar requirements for our son & daughter. Wanted to be unusual enough to not be one of 4 in their class at school, but easy to pronounce & spell. Our last name starts with an m, so we avoided names ending in n or m so it wouldn't run together, even though I love Samuel/Sam. Our last name also ends in a vowel, so we avoided names ending in the same vowel sound as they all sounded too sing-song-y to me. Unintentionally, we ended up with 2 names starting with vowels, and I feel like we need to continue that if/when we have a third.

OK - don't want to burst any bubbles but most of the names suggested are far from 'uncommon/unusual/unique'. Have any of you been in a playground lately? William Jack Oliver were the top 3 names in my state last year. My son's school also has a number (yep more than one) of boys named Oscar, Max, Felix. Thanks to Twilight I expect a few Edwards quite soon. I would suggest that you forget about what was popular when you went to school and do some research on what is big now.

FWIW - my opinion on 'strong' is a traditional man's name with an obvious shortening to fall back on. I want them to be able to order a Pizza without having to explain their name twice and then spell it!

When I was pregnant with my son I spent along time trying to figure out a strong, uncommon, but normal sounding name that had roots in my family. He is now 3 1/2 and I believe I actually accomplished it. His name is Zander Ramsay. Ramsay is my grandma,s maidan name and Zander comes from a great grandpa,s Alexander. I only know of 2 other Zander,s and they are both older. I get compliments on the name all the time. I still love it!

I named my son Neil. It's familiar, but not at all common. Easy to say, easy to spell, and not unisex. Also, it's intelligent and professional-sounding; lots of doctors, writers/journlists, and musicians share the name.

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We have a boy on the way and I'm leaning toward the 1 syllable names. It's hard to say what a strong name is to some may be generic to others. Get a good baby book.
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Too black? Like Theodore Roosevelt or Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss)? Like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Oliver Platt, Oliver Stone? Matteo -the most Spanish name in the world?
Could give a lick for your racial ideology, it's your awareness of the world and your ideas about yourself that make me giggle.

And oh yes, was that Shirley, like Shirley Chisolm, the first black Congresswoman? See link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm
LOL this is fantastic. Just saying.
Rock on with your bad self Miss Shirley.

34 years ago I wanted to give my son a name that I particularly liked, but wanted to spell it a bit differently. My reasoning was because I felt it would be easier for him to learn to spell it. His name is Kristoffer Michael. Many people thought, incorrectly, that I chose to spell it that way because of Kris Kristofferson. But my main reason was because it is spelledx exactly like it sounds, and is a bit different fro mthe more common Christopher. he has never had a problem with his name, even though he often has to spell it correctly for people.

We have 6 kids so we when this route 6 times. All the kids have middle names that are family names and a couple have first names that are also family names. We ended up with an Alexander who now goes by Xander because there are many Alexs out there. A Benjamin that goes by Ben, Jamin or Tank (his friends). Casondra was the only truly unique name we came up with but no one can pronounce or spell it. They always put an extra S and an A (Cassandra). Sara was named by Casondra. Thomas and then Ashton wich is apparently a very popular girls name in other areas of the country but quite a popular boys name here. I've met 4 so far. Ashton was the last name of my great grandmother. Somehow my husband wanted that one when I refused to add another John to the list of 8 in his family.

We named our son Dax. We love it, everyone else loves it.

i've loved that name for years!! but there's a family with that as their last name... and it just doesn't sound the same to me now, maybe i'll get over it

It's hard to go wrong with Biblical names. We went with Daniel (back in 1997), but other choices we considered that were a little less common were Samuel & Caleb.

aww my son's name is Aleksander, we call him Alek, i researched tons and Aleksander was one way to spell it in Polland & other countries, i like it too and always get compliments. I like strong names, andthis is what is strong to me, it's just hard to find them, or if i do, there's friends with the same name

My 12 year old son is named Samson. I don't think it's ever made it on a top baby name list but it's a nice strong name. It is also biblical & unique. Since he was young, my son has been correcting anyone who calls anything but his full name. He says theres lots of Sam's and Sammy's but only one Samson!

The perfect boy name for us: Scott

It's easy to say and spell. Strong. Not very common right now.

well my oldest son his name is Felix after his father I did not want this name for him but my In-laws made me name him till this day I want to change it because he would still have his fathers last name!

My son who is 21yrs old now was named for his grandfathers: Ross William. He would disown me if I told you his nicknames, so I won't.

My name is Gena ... looks simple enough, right? Pronounced like gin-ah, not gee-nah. I've had to either spell or pronounce my name for people all my life! My rule is that I'll correct people three times. After that I just figure they don't really care what my name is.

Due to this I would never name a child a "unique" name. There are a ba-zillion names out there ... give your baby a break and choose one of those.

Who is this Shirley who says that names sound "too black" in 2011? Is she the ghost of George Wallace?

The best advice I can give prospective parents is: THINK LIKE A 5TH GRADE BOY WHEN NAMING YOUR CHILD!

Make sure it doesn't rhyme with anything nasty or that the initials don't combine to make an embarassing acronym (LSD, DUD, or DIK). Be sure you sing that song, The Name Game...which is why nobody will name their child Chuck (Banana-fana-fo-etc).

And think about addressing letters (or Valentines in school): it's hard enough getting the spelling correct with classic names like Christine/Kristine or Catherine/Katherine/Kathryn but when you deliberately misspell a commonly known name with Krysteen, Crystine, or Luc, it just means a life of having to spell your name wherever you go. NOT GOOD in school or business.

Lastly, if your name is something like Bronwyn, Parnell, or Obadiah, god help you. Every businessman in the world will think your mother read too many romance novels when she was pregnant and your child will have a very hard time getting professionals to take him/her seriously. Thee doesn't liveth in the Renaissance any more. See how silly that sounds?