Decisions, Decisions
By Glinda
As you may have been able to tell from my poll question yesterday, I’m having trouble with names.
Again.
We found out at about 18 weeks that the Munchkin was a boy. I got a nice long list of about ten names together and sat down with my husband. Wherein he promptly vetoed every single one and then we had a fight because he wanted to name our son after him. And yes, I suppose I could have phrased my objection to that a bit more subtly, instead of “I really don’t like your name, why would I want to give it to my son?” What can I say, pregnant women aren’t especially known for their tact.
More and more research was done, more and more names rejected. I think we were down to the last few weeks before we were able to compromise on a name, and it was a compromise on both sides. As many stated in the comments for the poll, we were looking for a name that wasn’t really popular, but one that was not completely uncommon. A harder balance than it seems.
We have been told that we are having a girl, and then the panic set it. My god, there are so many girl names! We had a hard enough time with a boy name, imagine what we’re going to go through with girl ones!
There are about a bazillion or so relatives and friends who have girls, and to me that means you have to avoid those names. And mind you, I am still harboring bitterness that my sister in law knowingly stole my favorite girl name in the world. Just because she had a girl first doesn’t make it right!
But the husband and I are already beginning the vicious cycle of me coming up with names and him rejecting them again. Mind you, he never comes up with any of his own, he just doesn’t like any of mine.
Because both our families are so thrilled that we are having a girl, we are considering starting a bidding war for naming rights. Ten grand for a middle name, thirty for a first name. That way we can have none of the stress of naming and get some money out of it too.
And if our daughter complains about being named Griselda, I’ll just hand her a wad of cash for some shopping therapy.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Our son was named “John” before he was born. Had stuff monogrammed and everything……fast forward 7 months later and I looked over from my bed to my husband sitting in a chair, lovingly cooing at our newborn son. Then he looked at me and said, “please name this baby after me”. Well, I couldn’t resist that, so now his name is the same as his dad’s. I pitched out all the monogrammed baby things.
June 10th, 2009 at 9:25 am
The main argument that I would use against naming the baby after the husband is that you know damn well they’re going to be referred to as “Junior” for the entirety of their lives. I know men in their 70′s, whose fathers are long dead, who are STILL called Junior.
And Glinda, if the husband won’t come up with any of his own, do what I’ve been doing: hand him a book of baby names and a pen, and tell him to put his initials next to the ones he likes. Give him a deadline of a month or so before your due date, and warn him that if he doesn’t pick any names out, that you’re picking the name, and he won’t have anything to say about it. You might not like any of the ones he’s picked, but then again, you might be surprised.
And yes, I hate it when there are a bazillion relatives. I would have loved to have put “Grace” on our list of girl names, but The Stonecutter’s cousin has a little girl named Grace. If they had a different last name, and/or lived in a different town, I would have done it anyway, but they don’t, so it would just be too confusing. Damn them.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:34 am
I’m sorry, I must have missed the formal announcement that you’re pregnant?
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!
And a GIRL!!!
June 10th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Yes, I missed the anouncement too (been too busy with my own baby girl.)
Congratulations!
Girls names can be difficult. Personally, I’d cut out all the names on the top 25 of the Social Security list. (Maybe even top 50.) And then you need to do research on what names are popular in your area, because they may not be on the top 25, and on what are “up and coming names.” A friend of mine fell in love with the “unusual” name Chloe four years ago. Now his daughter is one of five Chloes in her nursery school. You can also think of what kind of name you want: an unusual name (a truly unusual name); an old-fashioned name; a unisex name; a strong, traditional name; a family name, etc.
As far as naming your son after his father, in the Jewish tradition, babies are never named after living relatives, so that’s an out if you dislike your husband’s name. And when you do name a baby after someone, you only need use the first initial, which is how my baby daughter got the middle name of Jane and is named in honor of my MiL Joan, and of my aunt Jean. (Yes, I realize they’re same name, different traditions.)
June 10th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
@PaperPusher and Pencils- What, you mean you didn’t have your news alerts set to go off when the phrase “Glinda is pregnant” came up?
I kid, I kid. Thanks for the well-wishes! I’m due in November, and I have to say the reality of the whole thing hasn’t quite hit me yet.
We came up with a great name for the Munchkin, and wound up giving him my father’s (who had two daughters) name for his middle. Fitting, I think, because they are best buddies.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
My son’s name came out of a semi-obscure fantasy novel series. He has a relatively normal nickname that we use all the time. We also call him “goomba,” though that’s not on his birth certificate.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
@ayla, OK, I’m a big sci-fi and fantasy reader, so I’m dying over here. All right, you don’t have to give me the name of the series, but how about the author?
June 10th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Howard Phillips Lovecraft? That could be difficult at roll-call.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:51 am
We went with Audrey, because we wanted to honor my husband’s sister and his godmother. And Katharine for the other Hepburn
We’re working on number 2, and have a boy name picked out from the last go-round (Husband’s dad’s middle name husband’s middle name), but I’m stuck as stuck for a girl.
I like Ada Grace (two famous women computer scientists) but think Ada and Audrey are a little too close together. There’s already an army of the same name on my side of the family — one aunt, one grandmother and my sister all share the same name, and my sister’s middle name is after the other grandmother. I’ve been trying to find out what my maternal grandmother’s middle name was since it might be workable.
In short — naming girls is hard!
June 13th, 2009 at 2:38 am
My only philosophy on naming kids is, besides avoiding obvious target names like Fanny & Dorcas, and watching out for initial combinations like FAT and PIG, has two parts:
1. If the last name is very unusual, think twice about a killer-unusual first name. Galadriel Gunsch is going to have a much harder time of it than Emily Gunsch.
2. If the last name is common (as is ours), try not to use names in the top 100 or so. We were scrupulous about this rule until our youngest, to whom we absentmindedly gave a very popular name. She went to school with a girl with the same name (variant spelling) a year ahead of her all through middle school & high school. They had the same pediatrician, the same pharmacy…the mix-ups were endless.
Bonus rule for the prescient: try to avoid future household names. My niece, aged 27, was given what turned out to be the same first-and-last name as a well-known racy television character. She was delighted to take her husband’s name when they married.