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Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Wow, based on the comments on my Baby Name Drama post, I see a lot of people have had issues with this baby name thing!
The common thread in your sage advice is “do NOT tell anyone the name until the baby is born.”
That sounds like it would work. I imagine it is hard to look in the swollen, red face of an adorable newborn and say, “Geez, your name really sucks.” Before the baby is born and officially named, people (namely, family members) spout their opinions willy-nilly because they hope there is still time to change your mind. Oh yes, I can see the appeal of springing a baby name on everyone after it’s born when it’s too late for them to do anything about it. It’s almost diabolical! Hee.
The trouble with this genius plan is I’m terrible at keeping secrets. I was announcing my pregnancy to immediate family members before the pee stick was dry, and I’m already plotting ways to tell everyone if it’s a boy or girl (I was hoping we’d find out before the 19th, when there are two family Christmas parties. Alas, we’re finding out on the 21st … at least we’re going to try to.)
So how - when people ask me point blank “Do you have any names picked out?” - do I just lie? Remember how bad I am at keeping secrets? I’m even worse at lying.
Besides which, I SO love talking about baby names, and D is SO tired of hearing about it. The only people really interested in this topic are the same people who would love to influence my choice.
The only solution I can think of is to discuss names without committing to one publicly. But then that is like an open invitation for people to toss out their “unique” ideas, and I find it difficult to keep the bewilderment off my face, because they must not know me at all if they really think I’m going to use one of the three most popular names in America.
SIGH. We didn’t consult anyone when we named our pets, and we named them all so easily. I started calling Stanley Stanley before we’d even decided he was ours.
I know kids are different than pets - though I do insist on comparing them, to every parent’s annoyance - but I still wish we could approach naming this baby with the same spontaneity we brought to the pet-naming process. I love all our animals’ names, and they all suit them to a T, even if it only took us a few minutes to come up with them.
So how do I distill the naming process down to that essence? Let’s see - I need a name that rolls off my tongue, has a potential nickname or two (at least for home use), and that makes me a little happy every time I say it, because I’m going to be saying it millions of times. And I need a name that captures “us,” our family vibe, the same way Alistair, Henry, Millie and Stanley do.
Most of all, I need to shut out all the voices - not just the family ones but the ones in my head that say things like, “But isn’t that name too popular? There’s a celebrity baby with that name.” or “I distantly know some girl from high school who named her kid that.” or “Will this boy name turn into a girl name in five years?” or “Does this girl name sound good with this boy name, in case we have another child in the future?”
I’m overthinking it, big time, and that needs to stop … at least for a while.
Meanwhile, to deal with the family, I could just come up with decoy names. Really crazy ones, so they’ll all just be relieved when the baby is named something semi-normal instead. Hee. That would be fun.
You think they’d buy Mackel?
I think Mackel is a winner.
I think you just say “We have some ideas but nothing set in stone, we want to see what name fits the baby when he/she is born.” That is the route my sister took with her baby and if people pressed for the idea names she would say “We’re going to let that be a surprise! Won’t that be fun!?”
If you remember, we didn’t tell family what we were naming Arlo…I wanted some feedback (mostly just good friends that would tell me if a name was stupid but not try to talk me into something they liked) but didn’t want the hassle of family (mostly his!) telling me I needed to use his middle name or whatever.
I suggest you either use friends to run names by and don’t tell family or I really love the decoy name idea. Personally, I love Wolfgang, Thor and Hurlbert (actual names from my baby name book).
Well, you could be like my sister with her second son. She had a name all picked out, told everyone what it was going to be, then when he was born, she changed it! When asked why his name wasn’t what she had said it was going to be, she just said when she saw his face, he didn’t look like a ___, so she had to change it. Her third son ended up with part of the name that had been intended for her second son! I guess he looked like a ___!
Lie!
Tell them you haven’t decided on a name. End of story. You don’t have to explain yourself.
And you should find the people you can talk to about baby names and leave the rest out. I found online pregnancy boards the best place to throw out baby names. They aren’t related to you and won’t push a name on you. :D
When expecting our third baby, we had both boy and girl names chosen. Baby boy was born, but the name we had picked out just did not work for him. I called him Charles for three days; tried Charlie, Chuck…nope, not for this baby. He ended up being a Henry, and it suits him perfectly! Did you know you have ten days after birth to register the name? Lots of time to decide!!!
We considered Charles because D’s grandfather and my grandmother were both named Charlie, but we realized it just didn’t feel right to us either.
I would just flat out tell people you have some ideas but you have agreed to not tell anyone. You can talk about the subject in very general terms. If anyone presses too hard tell them your decoy names. Ours were Guido and Carmine.
I’m not very good at keeping secrets either. But I managed keeping the name of our first born a secret. With the second kid, we told everyone we would tell them the name but they had to keep their comments and opinions to their self… People respected our request becuase they knew we meant it.
i never allowed input from people…it was my baby! haha. :-) plus, i’ve had the names picked out for YEARS–mary margaret for a girl and lawson for a boy–so it made it easier too.
okay…it’s the 21st. did y’all find out what you’re having today!?