Our Favourite Baby Names

So as you may or may not know, the baby names list for 2016 came out this year and everyone in the parenting blogger world seems to have had their say on it. So here is mine. My sons are Noah and Patrick, both quite strong and traditional names I feel? We found out the gender with both boys so we never really got to think about girls names, although I've definitely had some ideas and luckily nobody I know has ever used some of our favourites. I'll quickly say where the names Noah and Patrick came from for us. Noah was easy, I'd loved it ever since watching the Notebook when I was around 14, it just seemed such a strong name and it couldn't be shortened to something I hate, which was common with so many other names we loved. I'd been set on it from day 1, but it took John a little bit of time to come around, alas I won and here he is now nearly 3. Patrick was a bit trickier, it was a name I'd never considered for Noah, but now I'd worked in Childcare for over 3 years, it was nearing impossible to think of a name I could associate with a child. That was key to me, have quite an ordinary name but wanting it to be strong and uncommon. We first thought of Paddy and Patrick followed suit, he's always known as P and I love that too.

So now onto the other names we loved & why our boys weren't named these;
Percy - Such a cute and adorable name, old fashioned but I could imagine a baby called Percy. However pretty much every other single person hated it and my Dad said I'd be just feeding him to bullies naming him such a name. Alas, I couldn't wage a name war against everyone, so Percy was out.
Ralph - Another classic, strong, bold name. But all I could think about was the little sap from the Simpsons. Enough said.
William - This was our first favourite, and actually Patrick was a William in my head for a good 8 weeks. Until one of my friends text me at 11pm one night and said NO Emily, he'd be 'Will Young'. And that was it, it put me straight off. Regrettably I now really love the name again, and almost wish I'd called Patrick Wilfred, as Wilf is adorable. But nevermind, we'll save that for the next (haha)
Ned: Last but not least, a name that would have gone so well with Noah, but god damn you Simpsons and Ned flanders.

Girls names were a lot easier, there were so many traditional names we loved, Lily, Sophia, Alice, but we always knew someone called it and we'd want our little one to be a bit more unique. So these were some  of my favourites for little ladys:
Martha: Coincidentally ended up being the name of my midwife who delivered P, but I'm pretty confident this would have been our little girls name, had we had one. It's elegant but sweet.
Nancy: It does slightly remind me of the character from Oliver! But, it went so well with Noah, It would and still is one of my favourite girl names.
Penelope: Another sweet and cutesy girls name, apart from the Kardashian, I don't know any other, but we got our own little P in Patrick.
Betsy: One I really didn't think of till after I'd had both of my boys, but the more and more I hear it the more I love it. It's classic again, but could definitely be made modern and a name that I think will come back around.

What is your favourite boys or girls names and did they feature on the most popular list?