One of the most important decisions you have to make during pregnancy is to find a perfect name for your newborn baby. My husband and I are expecting our first baby in December and we spent hours talking about names and discussing all the options. Although we live in Canada, we were searching for a name that fit both English and Portuguese (since we are from Brazil and our whole family live there) and that didn’t give us many options. We had a list with baby names in our fridge and every day we look at it and day by day we were scratching one or two names from the list. After we found out baby’s gender (it’s a boy!) our job got a little bit easier and we finally decide to name our baby LUCAS!

Here are the top 20 Canada’s most popular baby names in 2017:

Baby Boy

1. Noah
2. Liam
3. Jackson
4. Lucas
5. Logan
6. Benjamin
7. Jacob
8. William
9. Oliver
10. James
11. Lincoln
12. Jack
13. Ethan
14. Carter
15. Aiden
16. Grayson
17. Mason
18. Owen
19. Leo
20. Nathan

Baby Girl

1. Olivia
2. Emma
3. Charlotte
4. Sophia
5. Aria
6. Ava
7. Chloe
8. Zoey
9. Abigail
10. Amelia
11. Emily
12. Isabella
13. Mila
14. Maya
15. Lily
16. Riley
17. Madison
18. Mia
19. Nora
20. Ella

Working with newborn babies, I see different names every day, from all different parts of the globe with different and special meaning.

This lovely family named her little girl Isabella, meaning “devoted to God”. Isabella was 7 days old at her newborn session in Vancouver BC. She was so sweet for me during her newborn photos and I was even able to capture a cute smile. Her big brother couldn’t be more proud and he did an fantastic job posing for me during the family shots. At the end of the session baby Isabella was wide awake and I got amazing expressions and different poses. Those natural sweet moments are wonderful to capture and they create cute memories of baby’s first big milestone. Enjoy some of my favourite images from Isabella’s gallery.

Baby Marcus came to my photo studio in Richmond when he was 6 days old and I love capturing all his little features. We used shades of blue, grey and cream for the setups and I love how it turned out. He slept for the whole session and I got amazing photographs that his family will cherish for years to come. Baby Marcus also came back for his 7-month-old milestone session and his first birthday shots and you can see how much he has grown up at the end of this post.

If you like my style and what you see on my portfolio, you will love your photos! Contact me and book your newborn session today!

For newborn sessions, I always get a mix of prop shots and sleeping poses on blankets to capture different angles and features of your little one. The tiny fingers, the tiny toes, the sweet little smiles they give us are just to die for. They grow up incredibly fast and believe me, it’s nothing you want to forget. That’s why it’s so important to get these sessions in while they’re still little because they won’t be for long.

Another amazing thing about starting photography sessions when they’re newborns is that we can continue them for all of their milestones or birthdays, and being able to look back and see just how much they’ve changed and grown since they were newborns is such a blessing for a parent to be able to do. Look how baby Marcus and big sister Emma grown up in just a few months.

Cake Smash sessions are the best way to celebrate baby’s first year! I had so much fun creating this Twinkle Twinkle Little Star theme for baby Marcus’ birthday.

Asking referrals for a local newborn photographer is something I see mothers groups post about very often and I am honoured when past clients and admiring local mothers mention Amanda Dams Photography. Being a local newborn photographer in Vancouver BC has many perks including the opportunity to photography babies of every ethnicity. It’s so beautiful that photography allows us to freeze moments and memories that these families share with each other so they can look back on it. In these newborn sessions, I love to swaddle the babes and pose them all wrapped up and cozy. I have so many garments, wraps, blankets, headbands, and other accessories to use during these sessions. I love to explore my creativity and create custom and unique setups for each family and baby.