As little girls grow up they dream about being an adult and doing adult things. They dream about staying up late and watching whatever television show they want and grocery shopping for whatever food they want to eat. They dream about accomplishing big things and changing the world. And, at least in my case, they dream about having a family. I planned out my wedding a number of times as I grew up (at one point in my life, I envisioned a white dress with black platform sneakers underneath). And, in preparation for my life after marrying Prince Charming, I had a list of baby names all ready to go.
Adulthood is never as fun as it appeared to be as a child. Surprisingly, despite having it all planned out at 13, I still found myself stressing over wedding plans. And unfortunately, choosing a baby name is a little more daunting when there is an actual life that will be defined by that name. Needing to come up with a name in collaboration with someone else makes the task infinitely more difficult.
I expected to have a hard time coming up with names for this baby. When I was pregnant with Cameron, I came to the realization that my husband is the absolute worst person to name a child with. Don’t get me wrong, he is an amazing husband and an excellent father. But a baby namer? He is the worst. Before naming a baby with him, I envisioned that we would get a positive pregnancy test and would start discussing names right away. In my imagination, we would pour over baby name books and dream about our lives as parents to Charlotte or Jonah or Taylor until eventually we would decide on the perfect name, the one that we knew would fit our baby, our family.
My first pregnancy was nothing like that. I started to talk with Dan about baby names early on in the pregnancy and we would get no where. I would ask for name suggestions, and my husband would helpfully offer whatever noun was sitting at the tip of his tongue – usually whatever object he was currently looking at or activity he was engaging in. “Lamp”. “Couch”. “Zelda”.
Really helpful, dear.
To make matters worse, he disliked nearly every suggestion I brought to him. Sometimes he gave me a reason, but many times all I got was a simple “No”. In fact, even Cameron was turned down a few times. I found myself frustrated for most of the pregnancy about baby names. Naming a baby was not at all as fun or romantic as I had imagined it to be.
At least this time around, I approached naming a child with my husband differently. I came to it with very little expectations, and decided not to let his antics get to me. So what if my husband suggested names like Rory and Aurora (which become tongue-twisters against our last name) or threaten to name our child “Bubba” after a golf game? Who cares that my husband’s list of suggested names include “Mouldy”, “Kameron with a K”, “Camron” and “Harry Potter”? So what if he rejected every single name idea I brought to him (apparently Nicholas reminds him of St. Nicholas and that is just simply unacceptable)? Who cares that I am now less than a week away from my due date and we still have not a single name option for a boy?
Sigh.
Bestowing a name on someone is a huge responsibility. Even though I loved the name Cameron before my baby was born, I still second-guessed myself weeks after his birth. Did we choose the right name for him? Did the name fit into our family? Was this boy really a Cameron? (The answer is YES! I now think the name is perfect). Needless to say, even when you love a name, it is hard to know if you are choosing the right one.
And right now, I am pretty sure I’d agree to any name if my husband liked it.
I refused to stress about naming early on in my pregnancy. When people asked if we had names picked out I would smoothly answer that naming for us was a slow process and our baby would eventually have a name. But now we are weeks if not days away from bringing a new little life into this world and I am concerned that he* will henceforth be known as Nameless.
Stay tuned to find out what our baby will be named, because I promise that just naming our new child will be an adventure unto itself. It already has been.
*We have a girl’s name picked out, which is why I am not as concerned if this baby is a girl. My husband suggested a name for a girl and I decided to embrace it! And I absolutely refuse to spill the girl baby name that we have picked out because the last thing I need is criticism that will bring us back to square one. In this family, any baby name idea we have is fragile!
Do you have an easy time choosing names with your spouse? How early on in your pregnancy do you have names chosen? Do you go into the delivery room with one name or a list of name options?
We didn’t have a boys name picked out. I was adamant about having names before our 18 wk U/S. I wanted a name for this baby once we found out the gender. Our girl’s name had been picked out for years. We were set on it. We were also supposedly set on a boys name until it came time to make the final decision & I bowed out. We went through books, websites & lists of boys names. My husband is picky. Much pickier than I am. We went to our U/S much to my dismay without a solid boy’s name. Luckily, we didn’t need one in the end.
I liked not knowing the sex of the baby, but part of me wishes I knew so that it would make this decision so much easier. It would cut our naming requirements in half! :)
I will say, I enjoyed not having one solid name decided for Cameron. Cameron wasn’t my first choice, but my first choice didn’t fit when Cameron was born. Both Dan and I saw the baby and thought “Cameron”, so we were happy we went into the birth with a few names in hand. This time around I’ve decided to just write down ten (although I’ve decided I don’t like one, so it will be nine) names that I like and then I will hand the list to Dan once the baby is born. He has already said no to all of them, but he has pretty much said no to every name by this point. :)
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
The day we got the positive pregnancy test we came up with Jonathan Scott and Elle Sophia. Second time round I was set on either Charlie Dean or Audrey Jane, ended up with Jace Foster :) Third time round we have a few girls names we love and a whole bunch of boys names that I am sure will work themselves out if needed. Good luck for the birth and coming up with a name if you need to :) Much Love
Oh my gosh, Jane! Baby number three?! We are SO thrilled for you! I was so excited when I saw this comment! Will you be finding out if you are having a boy or girl? And of course, the big question is – are you going to stick with the J theme?
I hope you are feeling well! :D
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
Thanks, Laura :) We did find out the sex with the boys, I imagine we will again although every now and then I think maybe I could wait…. I don’t think we will go with a J! Don’t want little babe to feel left out, but they may appreciate the fact that their mail won’t get opened by mistake! Hahaha It isn’t a big consideration anyway. Hope your naming dilemma is easing :)
Name selection was my favourite part of pregnancy. We actually selected our names both times prior to even getting pregnant. Years before we even decided we did want to be parents, one day we were listening to a radio program and the name Luke came up. We both mentioned in passing we really liked that name. It just kind of stuck in the back of our heads so when we did decide to think about getting pregnant it was pulled out of our back pockets and stuck under the heading “boy”. We didn’t even discuss another boy name. A girl would be Zoe we decided early on. Just prior to the 20 week ultrasound we decided in a matter of days about a second name (that was actually harder for us). As soon as we knew the sex, the name was given and publicized.
When we decided we wanted a second child we had our names picked out before even beginning to try. A boy would be Kyle and a girl would be Kate (the second name we had picked the first time). Again, the task was trying to find a middle name we both liked…it was far harder than a first name. Right up until the morning of the 20 week ultrasound we were debating…it ended up being the ones I preferred…Ethan for a boy, Eliza (after my great grandmother) for a girl’s middle name.
I have no idea why the selection was so easy for us and I can’t imagine if it had been difficult. Naming the kids was the single most important thing for me during pregnancy and they were both officially named as soon as we knew their sex. I can’t imagine how stressed out I would be with an impending birth and no names but that’s just me and I realize it isn’t as important to others. In fact, I know a couple who had two boys already and then had twin boys. Those boys were nameless for two months (TWO!!!) before their parents could come to an agreement on their names.
I have no doubt in my mind that one will come to you at the perfect moment…or maybe you won’t need one ;-)
Great naming stories! This is SO foreign to me, on a number of levels. I know so many people who have names “picked out” before their pregnancies but then when they actually become pregnant, those names just don’t seem right any more. And I must admit, I have always had a hard time understanding how people can name a baby before even seeing them. I guess I feel like this because my top choice for Cameron just didn’t fit him when he was born. On the other hand, I know quite a few people who announce the name long before the baby is born. So, I know it definitely works for some! :)
I really hope this baby has a name before s/he is two months old! :D
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
We had both boys names picked out WELL in advance. We loved Eli before I ever got pregnant for him. Theo came up while I was pregnant for Eli but since we already loved Eli we decided to save it. We always knew what his name would be. Eli’s middle name was a bit tricky at first – we had early on decided on Bailey, after Cory’s step-father. Then when I was about 5 months pregnant his step-father left his mom. Scratch that name. We ended up with Allen, which is Cory’s middle name.
Theo’s middle name is Ian, after my dad. That was easy too.
We must have been meant to have boys because we could never quite decide on a girls name. Our girls name was always Miriam, which I still LOVE and would love to use someday but Cory’s never been 100% on it.
Now that we’ve used both Eli and Theo though, we no longer have a name that we’re just dying to use. It’s sort of a weird feeling, even though I’m not even pregnant! I’m sure we’ll come up with something, it’s one of my favourite parts of the whole process – and even though we might have a hard time agreeing we have fun talking about it.
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I really like your naming style. In fact, I have brought up both of those names in our naming discussions – although, along with every other name, they have gotten a “no” from the hubby. Who knows, our child could still have one of those names.
And Miriam has also been a favourite of mine!
I am sure that you guys will have a fun time coming up with something when pregnancy number 3 comes around! Naming can be super fun… or so I imagine! :)
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
I loved picking baby names! Maybe that’s why we had 5. :) There were a few, particularly girls names, that my husband and I disagreed on- like Ailish and Aubrey. Thankfully we only needed to pick a girls name once. Enjoy the rest of your pregnancy!
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I’m so glad that some people enjoy the naming process. I totally thought I would too, but it gets so stressful! Right now I’m just looking forward to having a baby so that we will be forced to name him/her! My husband keeps promising that the baby will have a name, so I’m counting on that.
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
I feel like this is going to be me and Adam in a few months! We can’t seem to agree on any names. We thought we were going to find out the gender, so we’d been putting off the whole name debate, but now I don’t know if we’ll find out the gender or not, which makes it even more complicated. It’s so funny to me that when I was imagining what I would name my children growing up, I totally forgot that you have to get someone else to agree with you first!!
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I always laughed at my sister because she had a list of like 3 girls names and 3 boys names that she INSISTED she would name her children. This list was around before she met her husband, while they dated, and when they got married. She even forbid me to use any of the names when Cameron was born. I kept telling her that she would have to AGREE on these names with her husband, but she insisted that her children would have these names.
In the end, surprisingly, her baby does not have a name that was on that list! :)
Good luck to you and Adam in your discussions. I hope it is more fun than stressful for you guys, but even if it is as stressful as it is for Dan and I, be assured that your baby will have a name… eventually! :) That’s what I’m holding on to now!
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
We only end up having to pick names once. We came to a girl name relatively quickly when Meghan was pregnant the first time but picking Simeon’s name was stupid hard. We had two very different approaches, Meghan wanted something new, fun and exciting. I wanted something people would pronounce and not immediately associate with something else. My original picks were Grayson or Haydon (both rejected for being too common) Meghan was wanted Ryker (Will) Jagger (Mick), Levi (Jeans) and Ximeon (Pronounced Simeon).
I agreed to Ximeon on the condition we spelled it with a ‘S’. We actually had an argument about that for a bit. I was quite insistent that X and S are not pronounced the same, and that if our son was named Ximeon people would forever expect an Asian child when working with the name alone. Meghan felt I was being too boring and difficult.
Might I suggest Christopher, it is a good strong and smart name. Plus as a saint he should travel well. Just saying ;-)
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No offence to Meghan but I am glad you stuck to your guns about the Ximeon. To me, X sounds like a “Z” not an “S” (such as Xander, or Xylophone). I do like Simeon though. It is unique but not new and trendy. I like the biblical reference from it too.
As for your name suggestion, I do like the name Christopher, but I had a long-term relationship with a guy with that name, so it really isn’t appropriate.
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
Exactly! And I was joking about Christopher, but two of my favorite girls names are off limits because I dated gals with those names
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My husband doesn’t like to pick out names until we know the gender which is totally different in your situation since you don’t know. It took us forever to pick a boy name out this 2nd go around!
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My husband might be the same – but because we don’t find out the gender, it means that my husband doesn’t seem to like picking out names until the baby is born! (All this hair loss is not pregnancy related but from the stress of baby naming I am sure!)
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
Oh the joys of bringing people into the world with a partner! My husband is completely uninterested in any conversations that have anything to do with names. (Although, rather than “No,” he’ll say “It’s alright” to almost anything. There is a LONG list of “alright” names). James would prefer to meet and see the baby before we decide what to call it – which sends my Type-A personality into a bit of a tailspin. My name suggestion of the day for you is Malakai – Kai for short? Good luck with your decision!
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I think Dan is the same. He also expects a name to stand out to him immediately as “The One”. So if I suggest something and it doesn’t sound perfect right off the bat, it is a “no”. Which, of course, is frustrating to me because he isn’t even thinking about it. I have decided to just come up with a list of 10 names that I like and hand it to him when the baby is born if the baby is a boy. He can pick out what he likes from that list (of which he has already said no to all of them, haha!)
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
We actually have names picked out already. We had a little girls name picked out when I was pregnant with Noah that we still want to use and have 2 boy name options that we like. I like one and Josh likes the other. Now…whether or not that will change when we find out what this baby is? That’s still to be determined. Because I think we’ve known these names and talked about them so much in the last 4 years that I will be likely to search out something new. :) I know you guys will come up with something perfect!
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I’m such a hypocrite! I don’t share my names but when I hear that other people have their names picked out, I desperately want to know! Will you be sharing when you find out the gender?
PS – I don’t actually not share with everyone on principle. I just realized last time that sharing very publicly, especially before names are solidly chosen, leaves you open to criticism. That frustrated me so much last time! Plus, when you have a husband like mine, you want to avoid ANY negative association with a name that he likes. So because we don’t have anything really solid, I don’t really have much to share! :)
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
We had boy #1’s name picked out way before we even knew he was a boy, and no girl names, because I was so sure it was a boy! We loved it from the moment we saw it in a baby book which I had randomly picked up at the book store and was just flicking through it.
With #2, we also had a boy name picked out very early (also before we knew it was a boy) but this time, we’ve had so much time to sit with the name, pick it apart and compare it to our firstborn’s, that we have now decided to change it! We have a frontrunner alternative but we’re not 100% decided yet. I’m sure we’ll figure it out soon enough, just as you will :)
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It might be a good idea to go into the delivery room with both names that you like. That way you can look at your baby and see which fits better! That’s what we did with Cameron, and I was thankful that both my husband and I agreed that our baby was definitely a Cameron.
On the other hand, my sister went in with 3 names, and when the baby was born she preferred one name, and her husband preferred a different one. So they went with the one that neither of them preferred! :)
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
We had the hardest time too and I felt like every name I liked was vetoed (althought I’m sure DH will tell you he felt the same way too). We finally picked the name that had been my #1 choice all along and it truly suits her. But we didn’t decide until less than a month before she was born. And we didn’t tell either until she arrived b/c I just didn’t want to hear any naysaying.
Rach (DonutsMama) recently posted..Life’s Lessons: The MIA Edition
That is the HARDEST part about naming – especially when you have a husband who is as sensitive to finding the perfect name! We went over to a friend’s house one night when I was pregnant with Cameron and were discussing names with them. They started criticizing my top name choice. “Oh! Don’t name him that!”. It annoyed me, but really made Dan reconsider, which was super frustrating considering how hard it is for us to come up with names in general. Sure there are plenty of names I don’t like, but it so isn’t appropriate to criticize naming choices of someone else!
I have a friend who just had a baby and she is in LOVE with her baby’s name, but her family continues to make fun of it. I don’t know what makes people think this is an okay thing to do.
Laura recently posted..Pregnancy Plateau
Oh the name game.
1st answer, Usually mid 2nd-3rd trimester I start contemplating names.
#2 I don’t normally disucss it with my husband right away but we reach some sort of agreement eventually as we have a name when we go to the hospital (thus far)- or I just decide – Of course if he had a real objection to something I wouldn’t use it, but if he just didn’t care for a name then that’s not a major reason to scrap it, espeically when he doesn’t have any helpful suggestions to offer. When we were naming our first son he was a little more helpful than ‘couch’ ‘lamp’ (actually in the beginning he was against any name that meant something else (eg: any pretty flower name) as well as any name that could be for a boy OR a girl) but he had very little to offer and also very little interest in my suggestions… In the end I picked the name and he was allowed to name the next child-unless it was a girl. It wasn’t, so he named our 2nd. Then, since he named our middle son it was my turn again and honestly, we barely discussed it. These things always work themselves out with time…
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Wow! What an interesting approach. It sounds like your husband is a lot like mine when it comes to baby names. My husband would TOTALLY have not gone with Cameron if he remembered that it could also be a girl’s name. And had we started watching Modern Family before Cam was born, Dan would have said “we can’t name him after a TV character!” Always a battle! :)
But I just don’t know if I could use the same system you guys do to name children. I think I would require a lot more control over the situation. But I also know that in my desire for control I also want to make sure my husband loves the name too. My heart of hearts really still holds firm to the dream that we can come up with something together…
That being said, I have a list of 12 names I am going into the hospital with. Dan hasn’t seen the list. He can choose from one of those names. I have fully encouraged him to come up with a list too, but I am pretty sure he won’t.
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Haha… I had quite a bit of control actually. And our system, just sort of evolved. We looked through a name book when we were pregnant with the first…
I feel open to kids and would gladly welcome 4 or 5 (or a FEW more) in my lifetime, so I’m not really intent on getting a name in there, and actually I’ve now gotten all but one of the boy names I really like in, so I’m not too picky about future boys and was quite content to let him name our middle son (although he did take a first name I’d wanted to use and use it as the middle name). I had the power to veto, but since I’d made the decision for our first I let it go.
Our last child’s name he had expressed dislike towards, but since ‘it was my turn’ (so I claim/insisted) I sort of vetoed his power of veto. Like I said, I still pretty much had control.. Actually, writing this made me feel a bit guilty abot how I’d handled it… so I brought it up over dinner tonight and he’s basically fine with it (I thought so but it was good to hear it from him). He didn’t seem to mind that I’d made that decision etc… and the name didn’t bother him all that much anyway…
Can’t wait to see what you come up with :)
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