I don't really know where my first name came from. My mum was initially dead set on the forenames John Thomas, without knowing the implications of said forenames (John Thomas is/was, I think not massively circulated, slang for penis). My father was not happy at all and I'm assuming nobody had any better suggestions because the names got swapped in order, and the middle name swapped out for a different middle name. None of the names seem to have any link to any logical family member at all.
I know my father's middle name - James - was directly after his maternal great-grandfather, James Albert Gurney.
I have interesting stories on my mother's side. My grandmother named her eldest child Georgina almost entirely on a whim, without considering that her father-in-law Robert had a brother George, which led to some misunderstandings about the child being named after the uncle-in-law rather than the father-in-law and hurt feelings as to why.
My grandfather wanted his mother's first name to be the middle name but my grandmother didn't think it flowed well and suggested "something like Louise" without any thought. Grandfather disappeared, came back, said he had sent out cards, my grandmother said "but we haven't decided on a middle name yet" and he said "I thought you said Louise" and at that point it was too late for her to do anything about it.
Meanwhile my mother - Barbara Anne - was named almost entirely after my grandmother's favourite song (spelt slightly differently) after a lack of any input from my grandfather. Very interestingly, though there were no immediate relatives with these names, when you dig into my grandmother's family history the names George and Barbara both seem to crop up VERY often if you go back far enough.
