Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Choosing a Name (from 100,001 to one...)



Is there any more difficult decision to make about a baby than its name?


I'm not sure there is, and I'm really not sure why it's so much harder this time than it was with our first child. We had 3 names chosen (first and middle) and we went with the one we like the most...




This time around, I could almost write my own baby name book with all the choices I've "narrowed down" from the dozen name books I've gone through so far (not joking).





Some strategies used to choose a name:


-Go with a family name: grandparent, favourite aunt, deceased relative of importance
(now my grandmother was Gertrude... is that a good baby name?)


-Choose names that sound similar/have the same ethnicity
(Irish names: Briana, Fiona, Ciara, Colin, Teagan, Quinn)

-Choose a name starting with the same letter as that of your first child
(Conroy, Chandler, Carl, Cora, Camila, Camryn)

-Look for a name with a nice meaning: son of... strong warrior, blessed by God... and so on

(Isabella means "Consecrated to God", but there will be about 6 of them in her class because of Twilight)


-Flip open the book and point to the first name on whatever page you flip to...

(Nazahah? Vandani? Ladislas? Kirabi? this doesn't seem to be working very well)





None of these strategies have helped us much. I'm sure my list is a few hundred names long (and still growing), and there's still nothing that we LOVE or that jumps out to us. I'm not worried yet, but with only 6 weeks to go (I'm 34 weeks along now!) the "deadline" is fast approaching.



I'd love to say that asking for help from family has been useful, but the feedback I've gotten from my mom consists of name suggestions that I've deliberately removed, or the comment "Why on EARTH would you name your child THAT?"


Any suggestions? Name ideas might be nice, but ideas on how to cut down my list would be even nicer.



Right now we're just calling the baby "fetus" because we don't know if it's a boy or girl, but I'm not sure that name would stick very well after he or she is born.



Any tips or tricks would be great, thanks!



~A

4 comments:

  1. According to the Baby Name Wizard, a book I love, your son's suggested sibling names are, (according to the name you chose the first time) are: Sisters--Morgan, Kaitlyn, Maura, Chloe or Paige. Brothers: Logan, Cameron, Riley, Gavin, Trevor.

    The Baby Name Wizard has a fun site as well to help with baby naming.

    Have fun! I kind of wish I had another baby to name! I still wish we could have a Silas or a Stella!

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  2. One of the guidelines we always used was to imagine "hollering the name out the back door" several times! Because, eventually, you know that's going to happen.... That's where the middle name becomes very important, too. -- Aunt Nettie.

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  3. I think a "D" name would be good...you have a good start with A-B-C...hahahaha

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  4. Thanks for the help. We tried the yelling out the back door test with our first. I find the most effective names are ones with varied numbers of syllables between the first, middle and last. (2,3,1 for our first)
    We thought a bit about going for a "D" name to keep up the ABC theme, but we'll still be ABC, it will just mean Angela Ben and Connor. We don't want to have too much of a corny factor (and we don't love any "D" names)

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