What's in a Name?

Personally, I think choosing a name for your little bundle of joy is one of the most exciting parts of becoming a parent. The name you choose for your child becomes such a huge part of their personality, and it's crazy to think each of our names is chosen by our parents. Its truly one of the things you don't have any control over whether you love it or hate it.
My husband and I had agreed on our girl's name much earlier than a name for a little boy. Don't get me wrong, we disagreed on a number of names before we came to our decisions but it's like a wedding dress, you just know when it's the right one. So how did we get to Laurel?

I wanted my daughter's name to have some significance and to stand out, but without being too obscure. It's a lot of reponsibility to choose what another person is going to be called for life, you want to make sure you're not setting them up for mockery or limiting their potential success. I was named Jennifer because at the time everyone on my dad's side of the family had the initials J.C. He wanted to carry on that family tradition, and that has always made me feel like my run-of-the-mill name has some special meaning. I was able to have a name that wasn't "weird", since Jennifer was easily one of the most popular girl's names of the mid-80's, but still had meaning behind it. We chose Laurel because it represents a phonetic combination of our mothers' names, Lori and Carol. We went with a traditional spelling, instead of combining how we spell each of our mom's names, so Laurel wouldn't have to be correcting people for the rest of her life. Some other positives of Laurel are that it's not a super common name (I only know one Laurel) and it's also a beautiful flower! Her middle name is a tribute to my husband's late grandfather, whom we were both close with.

Actually one of my reasons for choosing Laurel as a name for our girl was the possibility of calling her "L" as a nickname. I often refer to my husband by his first initial, and when I had been creating my list of possible girl's names I liked "Elle". However, knowing my husband's taste, I was pretty sure he wouldn't agree to that name. So I knew if we used a name that started with an L I would reap the benefit of a slightly sneaky by-product. What's really funny now that she's here is that my husband calls her "L" much more than I do, and I have ended up with all sorts of other nicknames for her! And, just the other week my hubby made a comment about how much he likes being able to call her "L" :)
How did you come up with names for your little ones? Do remember the other contenders, or the names you had for a baby of the opposite gender? (We were debating on Finn, or Seamus for a boy) Do you think your child fits their name? I'm always interested in how people come to land on their children's names!