I saw Australia’s first baby name consultant - here’s how it went

"After seeing her viral baby name lists on Instagram, I couldn’t resist booking one of her personalised packages."

When my partner and I started discussing names for our future little one, we realised how daunting and overwhelming the process could be. 

I’ve written countless articles about people naming their children ridiculous things, setting them up for a lifetime of ridicule, and the pressure to 'get it right' slowly started to build up.

That's when I stumbled across Michelle Casey, a professional baby name consultant with a massive following on Instagram. 

Posting under the handle @growlittlewildflower, also the name of her business, Michelle built a following by sharing her creative and unique baby name lists, which saw her amass millions of views. 

Now with 179k followers, it's clear that she's at the top of her game.

Intrigued, I contacted her to arrange a baby name consultation so that I could find out firsthand exactly how the process worked (and of course, get some name inspo too!)

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Image: Grow Little Wild Flower/Supplied

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About Michelle and her business

Michelle has over four years of experience as a professional baby name consultant and is based in Brisbane, Australia. 

She says she uses an “intuitive approach” alongside “family history, astrology, and tapping into the signs your baby may have already sent you.” 

In terms of choosing a baby naming service, there are a variety of packages to suit different needs and budgets, such as:

• Cozy Question: $77 - Ask your naming question and get a reply from Michelle within three days
• MINI - 10 Names: $97 - Receive a personalised list of 10 names and their meanings based on your questionnaire
• MAXI - 20 Names: $147 - A carefully created list of 20 names + ranking, nicknames, and meanings
• A Week of Naming Support: $150
• Designer Name Package: $4,999 - Perfect for high-profile public figures and mamas who crave distinction. This service offers a bespoke naming experience like no other. Includes questionnaire, Zoom calls, shortlist of names, ongoing naming support, unlimited revisions, and name discussions for up to nine months.

Listen to El talk about what happened when she asked for baby name help on Mum Club podcast. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

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The process of using a baby name expert

We chose the ‘MINI’ list package which included:

• A questionnaire sent to us immediately after ordering
• A personalised Name List customised to our specific preferences by Michelle
• Researched and intuitively chosen names specific to our style and the answers within the questionnaire

First, my partner and I went through the questionnaire together, filling out details about our naming preferences, family history, and the kind of vibe we wanted our baby’s name to have. 

We said we wanted the style to be “super unusual and brave, nature-inspired, vintage, timeless and gender neutral.”

Michelle also wanted to understand what we were like as a couple, so we listed our interests as “camping, nature, hiking, cooking, reading, adventures, and travel.”

We also shared our cultural backgrounds and some names we have gravitated to in order to give her an idea of what kinds of ones we liked.

For girl's names, we said Billie, Elky, Aurora, and Bea and in terms of boys, we like Ezra, Zephyr, Aurelius, Everest, and Cypress. 

There was also a section about names that were off-limits, so we made sure to include any of our exes and people we weren’t fond of in high school! 

We adored the names!

The results

After submitting our questionnaire, we waited patiently for Michelle’s list and couldn’t have squealed louder when it landed in our inbox a couple of weeks later. Well, I did, anyway. Why do women get so excited about these sorts of things?! 

Note: Michelle suggests you book approximately two weeks prior to when you really need to chat names due to the 14-day waiting period.

We opened up the beautiful PDF she had created for us and went through the names she suggested, with a glass of wine in hand and some candles lit. It was such a cosy at-home date night.

Here were her suggestions:

Girls:

• • Ever - Eternity; strong as a boar
  • Essie - Star
  • Taya - Divine; goddess; valley field; young
  • Lou - Famous warrior
  • Evanthe - Fair flower; blooming
  • Saylor - Dancer; boat person
  • Ocea - Ocean (pronounced Oh-Sha)
  • Eleni - Torch; the bright one
  • Gigi - Earth worker
  • Luna - Moon
  • Elvie - Leader of the elves
  • Sloane - Warrior

Michelle’s insights: "I really love so many of these for you! Evanthe, Essie, and Gigi have the Greek connection and a unique edge without being wildly popular. Sweet yet strong! I felt drawn to a lot of the subtle nature-inspired names like Essie, Ocea, Luna, and some really strong names like Lou, Sloane, and Ever! Of your shortlist, I really loved Elky, Billie, and Bea! Aurora really stood out to me also."

Boys:

• Teal - Blue green colour
• Apollo - Destroyer
• Emmett - Universal truth
• Atticus - From Attica
• Leander - Lion of a man
• Vincent - Conquering
• Atlas - Enduring
• Otto - Wealth
• Ares - God of war
• Zale - Sea strength
• Phoenix - Deep red (mythological bird)
• Silas - Forest; woods

Michelle’s insights: "These names are as strong as they come!! They give me leader, main character energy, and who doesn’t love that for their boy!! I was picturing a cool little legend - so felt drawn to a legendary name. From your list, I loved Ezra, Zephyr and Everest.”

My review

Honestly, I didn’t expect to enjoy the process as much as I did. From the moment we started filling out the questionnaire, it felt like we were on this exciting little adventure, diving deep into what sorts of names we loved and envisioned for our baby.

When we received the list, we were so excited to see what Michelle had come up with, and she didn’t disappoint! The names she suggested were beautiful and really hit all of our criteria. Nailed the brief, basically!

Somehow, her suggestions felt unique and surprising while also being exactly what we were hoping for. We particularly liked Gigi, Elvie, and Sloane for a girl and Ares, Otto, and Apollo for a boy. 

Plus, the little insights she shared about each name were such a nice touch.

One of the best parts was how this process brought my partner and I closer together. We spent hours discussing and imagining our future child with these names, and it was such a fun bonding experience. 

We laughed, we debated, and we fell in love with the idea of our little one having a name with such a unique story behind it.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the baby naming process, maybe you just need to hand over the reins to a professional. I promise you’ll still feel a part of the process the whole time.

Originally published as I saw Australia’s first baby name consultant - here’s how it went